Urban Bush Women: Twenty Years of African American Dance Theater, Community Engagement, and Working It Out

3. The Word: Black Magic Realism

70 3 The Word Black Magic Realism T hough some contemporary dance-theater choreographers are using dramatic tension in their work, few fully explore storytelling and narrative. In the late twentieth century, the vogue was for abstract conceptual art in which dance pieces are more about lines, patterns, form, shape, theme, and variation than narrative. Even very “dramatic” choreographers like Pina Bausch preferred to riff on a concept rather than tell a story from beginning to end in a linear or even circular form. Zollar has said, “It’s a tenet of postmodern dance that using stories is passé. It hasn’t stopped me, though I’ve never felt comfortable going against the trend.”1 When I asked her about her use of narrative and storytelling, she replied, “I don’t know. It’s not something I try to do. It’s just something that I do. And now I’m just more conscious of the fact that I like to tell stories. And I think it’s something that, particularly in the ’70s and ’80s, was very much not postmodern.”2 African and African American forms of storytelling tend to embrace both the linear and the circular and blur (or indeed simply refuse to accept) boundaries between theater, dance, storytelling, and ritual. Black performing artists have often created work on their own terms and many see Eurocentric structures as limiting. Interesting theater often comes out of African American dance.3 Although this kind of artistic work often proves economically difficult, there remains a continuous exploration of these crossovers. This way of working appears throughout the history of African American theatrical events. Zollar is committed to linear and circular forms of storytelling that embrace theater, dance, singing, and ritual. She is committed to using narrative and narration in traditional ways to communicate a message. Some of Urban Bush Women’s works, therefore, have much in common with classical story ballet as well as black storytelling techniques. Many of her pieces are adaptations of literary texts and adhere to the basic principles of storytelling—including plot, themes, characters, and dramatic narrative structure. In this respect, one can read these dances like one does written texts. One of the devices central to Zollar’s compositions is the use of supernatural events to more clearly develop characters. Second, the dancers/characters often speak to each other as well as the audience and sometimes act as the narrators of their own stories. Third, the journeys of the pieces are often ritualistic and involve the conjuring of gods and ancestors to obtain healing. These journeys toward self-discovery and healing are directly in line with the overall goals of the company; the dances themselves not only tell the story of people who have achieved healing, but they also have the potential to be the vehicle that brings about similar responses in some audience members. The simple act of talking to the audience is a direct attempt to bring them into the story, setting up the dance as a potential sacred space in which a ritual transformation may take place. Though the emphasis is on movement, the personalities of the performers are individualized with dramatic arcs. In the rehearsal process, storyboards are used to map out the arc of the experience and particular attention is paid to dramatic organization. Dancers go through acting and movement exercises to bring out characters. The dances use suggestive sets, props, and costume pieces (though the performers usually remain barefoot). 3. The Word 71 Deborah Thomas, Maia Claire Garrison, Carl Hancock Rux, Trinket Monsod, Valerie Winborne, Treva Offutt, Kwame Ross, Beverley Prentice, Gacirah Diagne, Christine King, and Christalyn Wright in Bones and Ash: A Gilda Story. Photo by Cylla Von Tiedemann. Urban Bush Women draws from the long tradition of storytelling in the African Diaspora. All three of the pieces analyzed here are literary in scope, and interrogating them transgresses the line separating literary criticism and performance analysis. Though most black literary theory focuses on oral and written traditions (sometimes privileging oral), corporal forms of communication are also vital to African American cultural tradition. Dance is a way of writing with and on the body. Movement becomes text with physical vocabulary , metaphors, and motifs. In this chapter, I investigate Urban Bush Women’s use of storytelling, theater, archetype, myth, and the supernatural by analyzing Praise House, Bones and Ash: A Gilda Story, and Shadow’s Child.4 Based in...