University of Minnesota Dance Performance

Walking With Pearl...Southern Diaries - Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Dark Swan - Nora Chipaumire

The University of Minnesota Dance Program students will perform Walking with Pearl...Southern Diaries, choreographed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and re-staged by Keisha Turner and Laurie Taylor and Dark Swan, choreographed and re-staged by Nora Chipaumire.

Walking with Pearl...Southern Diaries by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar is a 2006 Bessie Award-winning piece that is one of the two tribute pieces Zollar created to celebrate the African American dance pioneer and activist Pearl Primus. It powerfully combines African music and riveting choreography that blends African and modern dance and ballet while adding a spiritual dimension. Laurie Taylor and Keisha Turner, two current members of the Urban Bush Women Touring Company will be re-staging this historical work. The re-staging of this work is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.

Dark Swan by Nora Chipaumire is an interpretation of Michel Fokine's Dying Swan ballet created for Ana Pavlova and Dambudzo Marechera's heroines in House of Hunger. This piece is Chipaumire's singular comment on womanhood/priesthood.

Barker Center for Dance, Studio 100
500 21st Avenue South
Minneapolis MN  55455

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"Continuously Rich: Black Women in Cultural Production" has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius and the University of Minnesota Dance Program Cowles Land Grant Chair Visiting Artist and Scholar Fund.