Thursday, February 19, 2015

Urban Bush Women


Last night Travalon and I went to see Urban Bush Women, a dance troupe from New York City that advertises its emphasis on African roots. Travalon was not super excited, but he was willing to give it a chance, at least until intermission. The dance troupe itself consisted of mostly black ladies, but there were two white ones, and one black man. The first half was jazzy, and the costumes were sparkly, and we both enjoyed it. When intermission arrived, I asked Travalon if he would like to stay or go, and he said he would be willing to stay. Then, of course, it got avant garde in the second half, and among the strange things the dancers did were put their hands down the front of their pants and give the audience the finger. I would just consider it tasteless, but there were a number of school-age kids in the audience, so then it really bothered me. Shouldn’t they have noted somewhere that it was an adult-themed show? There was a meet-and-greet afterwards, but we didn’t stay for that. I have to say, I was expecting a bit more African influence and a little less weirdness, but the dancers were really good, and a couple of them were phenomenal singers too. Why waste all that talent on silly provocative nonsense?

Famous Hat

1 comment:

Travalon said...

I didn't hate the show, but I can't say it was anything great or worth seeing again. I definitely thought the vintage jazz/blues music in the first half of it was pretty good. The second half was quite weird, especially the gestures by the dancers, some of them were definitely inappropriate for younger audience members.