Urban Bush Women, the pioneering all-female dance company founded four decades ago, brought its anniversary program This Is Risk to Nashville on Saturday night at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's James K. Polk Theater. The show brought the company's work to Nashville, blending movement, music, and storytelling to explore Black womanhood, African diaspora heritage, and collective memory.
Choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar founded Urban Bush Women in New York City in 1984 as the first major all-female African American dance company, building a repertory centered on African diaspora traditions, folklore, and social activism, according to Wikipedia. Zollar trained under a student of Katherine Dunham and studied with Dianne McIntyre before launching the company that would go on to shape four decades of concert dance. The Nashville performance was presented as part of Urban Bush Women's This Is Risk tour, which Nashville Lifestyles reports celebrates four decades of the company's artistry and innovation.
The Saturday program was also presented at the Nashville Lifestyles-noted Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts as part of the same tour, which features works by founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar alongside contemplations on legacy by longtime collaborator Vincent E. Thomas. The repertory drew on some of the company's most significant pieces, several of which carry decades of history and social weight.
Reviving Shelter and the Rarely Seen Batty Moves
Among the anchor works on the program was Shelter, originally choreographed by Zollar in 1988. The piece remains one of Urban Bush Women's most acclaimed works of social commentary.
Also featured was Batty Moves, choreographed in 1995 to honor 19th-century South African woman Sarah Baartman, who was historically exploited in European sideshows during the early 1800s. The piece celebrates diverse Black female body shapes and forms, and per BAM, the Nashville engagement marked the work's first full performance on this tour since 2002 — a two-decade gap that made Saturday's staging a notable event for longtime followers of the company. Nashville Lifestyles likewise described the piece as making its first full performance since that year.
The program rounded out with I Live in Music.
National Honors and a Global Footprint
The company's standing has only grown in recent years. In 2021, the Ford Foundation designated Urban Bush Women one of “America's Cultural Treasures,” an initiative that provides major support to Black and minority arts institutions, according to the company's own account on Urban Bush Women's website. Zollar was later named a MacArthur Fellow in 2021 and received the 2024 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.
Beyond the stage, the organization says it reaches upwards of 25,000 people annually through international touring across five continents and community outreach programs, including its Summer Leadership Institute. The company was also selected in 2010 for a U.S. Department of State cultural diplomacy tour in South America, underscoring a reach that extends well past traditional theater audiences.
Inside Nashville's Polk Theater
Saturday's performance was staged inside TPAC's James K. Polk Theater, a proscenium space seating 1,075 people, according to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. The venue offers wheelchair-accessible seating at the back of the orchestra level, while the Grand Tier is reachable only by stairs. TPAC presented the show as part of its Discovery Series, a curated multi-performance package that also includes acts such as Cécile McLorin Salvant, Parsons Dance, and Pilobolus.
TPAC itself carries its own civic history. The performing arts center opened in September 1980 through a public-private partnership initiated by Nashville philanthropist Martha Rivers Ingram, and today draws roughly 500,000 patrons across 500 annual events, as Hoodline previously reported.
Getting to and from the theater on performance nights has drawn its own municipal attention. The Nashville Department of Transportation ran a dedicated four-week rideshare pickup and drop-off pilot program outside TPAC on Deaderick Street in early 2025 to manage event-night traffic and curbside congestion, converting metered parking spaces into designated loading zones for the trial period.
