Misty Blood-Colored Memories

It’s one thing to visit a museum of African-American history and lament the loss of the brothers and sisters who were felled along the passage of time. It’s quite another to actually step foot on a plantation where the soil ran red with the blood of slaves, to stand beneath a lynching tree, and to suddenly grasp the weight of the “strange fruit” Billie Holiday sang about. That’s what the artistic directors of the female dance troupe the Urban Bush Women and the male dancers of Compagnie Jant-Bi experienced before they choreographed their collaborative masterwork. Les écailles de la mémoire (The Scales of Memory) captures the essence of ancestral pain and expresses history through graceful movement.

The performance will be part of Miami Dade College’s esteemed Cultura del Lobo performance series, and before the dancers take the stage, they will impart knowledge to MDC students with a variety of presentations and lectures. Dance lovers can skip the academic stuff and jump straight to the entertainment tonight at 8 at the Joseph Caleb Auditorium.
Sat., March 15, 2008