Urban Bush Women "Hair Party" (9/24/19)

Hair Parties are informal gatherings where small, performative elements of Hair & Other Stories are used to ignite dialogue. Using the deceptively simple topic of HAIR as the organizing principle – how hair color, length, and varying degrees of curl affect our definitions of ‘good hair’ and ‘bad hair’ both within and outside of the African American community – Hair Parties encourage participants to re-examine closely-held beliefs about themselves, society, class, race, gender, age and individual beauty. Political, fun and sometimes raucous, Hair Parties combine conversation, guided movement explorations and performance highlights from UBW’s dance/theater piece Hair & Other Stories.

Founded in 1984 by choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women has toured five continents and performed at such venues as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center and The Kennedy Center. The group brings the untold and under-told histories and stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance from a female-centered perspective and as members of the African Diaspora community in order to create a more equitable balance of power in the dance world and beyond.