The Dance Program was honored to have members of the Urban Bush Women dance company participate in a two-week residency from January 26 to February 8. Founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Paloma McGregor and Bennalldra Williams conducted two masterclasses for Duke Dance majors and minors in the Ark. They also invited students from Durham's Hillside High School to two Dance for Every Body workshops. Jawole was a guest artist in the dance composition class, Beyond Technique: Art of Performance, taught by Barbara Dickinson and Tyler Walters. She also participated in the "Dancing the African Diaspora: Theories of Black Performance conference, attending two panels, "African Diaspora Dance: Recentering Africanist Aesthetics" and "The Future of Black Dance" with Mark Anthony Neal. She was also a guest on "The State of Things" radio program with Prof. Thomas F. DeFrantz, which can be heard at this link. http://wunc.org/post/duke-conference-dances-across-african-diaspora.
This residency was coordinated by Duke Performances and funded, in part, with a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council; a Visiting Artist Grant from the Council for the Arts, Office of the Provost, Duke University; a grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation; and support from the Dance Program at Duke University.
Dance Program
