Hot Dance Ticket: Urban Bush Women

Your hot ticket for concert dance this weekend is at Playhouse Square where Dance Cleveland and Cuyahoga Community College jointly present Urban Bush Women and Compagnie Jant-Bi in their new, evening-length work, “Scales of Memory” (“Les Ecailles de la Memoire”). The result of a 4-year collaborative process, “Scales” has been booked solid for its American tour since its premiere in January 2008, including sold out performances at the Kennedy Center and a prestigious spot in the BAM Next Wave Festival next November.

No one familiar with either company should be surprised by the success or the scope of “Scales.” Cleveland dance audiences may remember UBW’s last concert in Cleveland in 2003, “Shadow’s Child,” a critically acclaimed collaboration with National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique. Jant-Bi’s 2004 concert in Cleveland presented “Fagalla,” a reflection on the Rwandan genocide. Both UBW and Jant-Bi have excellent track records with big subjects and international collaborations.

We’ve been following the development of “Scales” ever since a Dance Cleveland reception one Thursday afternoon back in January of 2006 that shined a light on “Scales” in more ways than one. First, Dance Cleveland was justifiably proud to have won what was then only the 2nd Joyce Award ever given to a Cleveland arts organization; then too, they deserve credit for recognizing the auspiciousness of the collaboration already in progress between UBW’s artistic director, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and Jant-Bi’s artistic director, Germaine Acogny. (Later in the process, Dance Cleveland helped UBW leverage the Joyce Award into other awards and grants that fully funded “Scales.”) Our New Year’s resolution to learn more about arts funding might not have lured us out on a Thursday afternoon but the reception also offered us the opportunity to network with other dance people; including UBW’s associate artistic director, Nora Chipaumire.

Chipaumire proved to be an excellent presenter. Standing behind the lectern she described UBW’s trip to Senegal and the work with the dancers of Jant-Bi at their school, Ecoles des Sables. Then she stepped from behind the lectern to demonstrating a dance currently very fashionable in Senegal, the Sabar. Like those short popular dance routines we’ve all seen, the Sabar establishes a rhythm in the first few bars, there’s a kick and a turn embellished by rhythmic claps and stamps, a movement that traveled to the side keeping the rhythm with the hips and adding an embellishment with one hand. What struck us was how American this African artifact looked.

Duh! Cleveland’s emissaries and ambassadors in the ongoing cultural commerce between Africa and America were sitting on either side of us at that reception. Choreographer Diane McIntyre, honored at the reception as a mentor to Zollar, had, if memory serves, traveled to Ghana to teach modern dance in the 70’s. Edna Duffy, who we usually think of as a modern dance teacher and choreographer, had played an important role in bringing notable teachers of West African dance to Cleveland; it was through Duffy that we took master classes from Chuck Davis. Slowly the light shined brighter in our brains; there’s a transatlantic synthesis going on between 2 art forms that were possibly not so distinct in the first place.

Former Cleveland dancer Paloma McGregor has been a member of UBW throughout the development of “Scales.” When we contacted her by phone she spoke first of the making of “Scales.” “First the seven men of Jant-Bi came to the US and we spent two weeks in and around Tallahassee, Florida visiting locations significant in African-American history. We visited a place called The Hanging Tree (where African-Americans were lynched); we visited plantations in Tallahassee and Jacksonville, and the Black Archives of Florida A&M, a historically black college where, incidentally, I went to undergraduate school.”

“When we (the seven women of UBW) went to Senegal we visited, among other places, Goree Island, the point of no return for Africans being taken to slavery in the New World. Our common experience going to these places provided jumping off places, starting points for improvisations, some of which eventually became recognizable sections in the piece.”

This is the Paloma we know from her choreography, very passionate in her exploration of African-American identity. When she spoke of the thematic organization of the piece, we saw how meaningful “Scales” was to her. “Early in the process we identified 3 resonant themes, resistance, memory, and love. What’s really beautiful is how the unity about the piece comes from the unity we’ve found as an ensemble – by staring in the face of history we can move forward together. This is the most amazing work I’ve ever been in and performing it in Cleveland where my dance life began again really means a lot to me.”

McGregor’s not the only one enthusiastic about “Scales.” Here’s a quote from a review recently published in the Times Argus, a Vermont daily.

‘My guest for the evening talked about her fascination with “the idea of embodied memory … not just the memories that a person carries in her body from her own life, but (those) from her ancestral past. The piece was just that — the physical memories of lifetimes on (and between) two different continents. Each dancer invoked his or her ancestors at the beginning…and then evoked the many experiences of those people throughout. I felt the body-history of thousands pouring forth from the stage. Absolutely incredible.”’

We’re looking forward to seeing this piece in its entirety on Saturday evening but Showtime at High Noon, Friday, 2/29/08 features excerpts of “Scales” and the 12-minute “Chicken Soup,” African-American postmodernist Blondell Cummings’ 1981 portrait of female domesticity set to music by Brian Eno, Meredith Monk and Colin Walcott. No cost.

Urban Bush Women and Compagnie Jant-Bi present The Scales of Memory at Ohio Theatre Saturday, March 1 at 8PM. Tickets: 241-6000.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsaATearthlink.net

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