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Place Matters at UCSD
Ioana Patringenaru | February 20, 2007
Zandi De Jesus, a theater major at UCSD, went to New York last summer to study with Urban Bush Women, a Brooklyn-based dance group. Quite simply, it changed her life, she said.
The all-female ensemble weaves dance and social activism into performances. It will be coming to UCSD in February to work with members of the campus community and to perform. Many hope the project will have a similarly life-changing impact here. Dubbed “Place Matters,” it is UCSD’s most comprehensive inter-disciplinary art initiative to date, said Martin Wollesen, artistic director of Art Power! at UCSD.
“It’s a direct reflection of the creative, dynamic environment that UCSD offers,” Wollesen said.
Urban Bush Women will perform Feb. 24 at Mandeville Auditorium. The group combines dance, live music, a cappella vocalizations and storytelling and turns these ingredients into a catalyst for social change and spiritual renewal. Performances are rooted in the female experience and African American culture and aim for a mix of compassion, humor, muscle and grace.
Meanwhile, Artistic Director Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and her dancers will spend a whole week working with about 100 UCSD students and their professors and help them craft their own performances, which will take place on campus Feb. 20, 21, and 27. Responding to a survey that probed students’ opinion about undergraduate life, they will try to find ways to build a stronger sense of community on the UCSD campus.
Students have been preparing for the event by taking classes, also titled “Place Matters,” during the fall and winter quarters. They researched campus history, going back to the time when Native Americans lived on the land. Students, including De Jesus, also talked about culture, race, gender, and class. They discussed poetry, dance, and music. Then Urban Bush Women came to town for a few days. “That was an epiphany,” said Gabriele Wienhausen, provost of Sixth College, who teaches one of the Place Matters classes. “The connection that was made and the empowerment were unbelievable.”
This quarter, students and their professors are using their research to express themselves through art. They will try to convey their findings and tell their audience how they interpret community, Wienhausen said. Thurgood Marhsall, Roosevelt, and Sixth colleges will put on site-specific performances. Then they all will come together for one big performance on Feb. 27. De Jesus said she has no doubt the project will have an impact.
“There’s such power in art, in theatre, in dance, in music,” she said. “Everyone can access that, everyone can relate to that.”
Who: Urban Bush Women
When: 8 p.m. Saturday Feb. 24
Where: Mandeville Auditorium
For information/tickets: www.artpower.ucsd.edu or (858) 534-TIXS |
