Haint Blu

PLEASE NOTE: Haint Blu is an immersive site-specific work that will be performed both in and outdoors and includes long periods of standing with moments of walking.

Haint Blu, is an ensemble dance-theater work seeped in memory and magic. Known as the color that Southern families paint their front porches to ward off bad spirits, Haint Blu uses performance as a center and source of healing, taking us through movement into stillness and rest: remembering, reclaiming, releasing, and restoring. It is an embodied look into familial lines and the movements, histories and stories of our elders and ancestors. It reflects on what has been lost across generations and what can be recovered. Haint Blu takes us to the magical place where spirits share their legacies, journey onward, and leave the thick residue of their knowing behind.

“You summon ghosts, you don’t know where they’ll take you. Happily, the spirits brought to haunting life by Urban Bush Women’s “Haint Blu,” an extraordinary dance-theater event took us from benign gathering to harrowing memory to explosive emotion to culminate in a luminous, otherworldly sense of power, affirmation, and redemption.” — Reprinted from the

“Haint Blu, is [Urban Bush Women's] most in-depth and community-connected project together. Founded by the visionary Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in New York in 1984, UBW is now led by co-artistic directors Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis. Performers on an incandescent plane of their own, Judson and Speis are charged with guiding a company whose mission extends far beyond performance to profound work in community building, fostering artists, and activism. Judging by Haint Blu, UBW is in excellent hands.” — Reprinted from the

Haint Blu

Conception, Creation, Direction, & Choreography by Chanon Judson & Mame Diarra Speis, UBW Co-Artistic Directors

in collaboration with the company: Courtney J. Cook, Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Symara Johnson, Bianca Leticia Medina, and Mikaila Ware

JoVia Armstrong & Lucianna Padmore, Musician/Percussion

Jaimé Yawa Dzandu, Community Coordinator

Lori Gassie, Costume Design Coordinator

Nicholas Hussong, Production Designer, Assistant Director

Grace Galu Kalambay, Composer, Musician/Vocals & Guitar

Luisa Buitrago & James Lanius III, Production Managers

Nina Angela Mercer, Writer

Pia Monique Murray, Associate Producer/CCI 2.0 Producing Fellow

Jolie Saltiel, Tour & Company Manager

Everett Saunders, Sound Designer, Composer

Jonathan D. Secor, Project Producer

Shirazette Tinnin, Composer

Talvin Wilks, Dramaturg

Nia Witherspoon, Performer

Tuce Yasak, Lighting Designer

Arianne Zager, Costume Designer

All Haint Blu performances are proudly sponsored by .

Urban Bush Women 40th-anniversary leadership funding provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Additional funding provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Haint Blu was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. Haint Blu is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, YARD INC, Live Arts Miami, Williams College, and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org

Additional Residency and Development support: LMCC's Residency Program, Arts & Culture on Governors Island, Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, and Lumberyard's Technical Rehearsal Program.

Host or Publisher Urban Bush Women