Works & Process presents Houston Grand Opera and Urban Bush Women: Intelligence by Jake Heggie, Gene Scheer, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar on Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 7:30 pm at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the Works & Process Fall 2023 Season. For tickets and more information, please visit https://www.worksandprocess.org/.

Dance and Opera
Houston Grand Opera and Urban Bush Women
Intelligence by Jake Heggie, Gene Scheer, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Wed, Sept 6, 7:30 pm

Ahead of the opera’s October 20 world premiere in Houston, co-conceiver, director, and choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar discusses the creative process behind Intelligence. A Houston Grand Opera commission, Intelligence takes place during the Civil War in Richmond, Virginia, where Mary Jane Bowser, born into slavery, has been sent to infiltrate the Confederate White House by Elizabeth Van Lew, matriarch of a prominent Confederate family. Learn the little-known true story of these women, whose secret pro-Union spy ring helped win the war. Seven dancers from Urban Bush Women perform highlights.

Urban Bush Women (UBW) burst onto the dance scene in 1984, with bold, demanding, and exciting works that brought under-told stories to life through the art and vision of its award-winning Founder, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. The Company weaves contemporary dance, music, and text with the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora under the artistic direction of Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis.

Off the concert stage, UBW has developed an extensive community engagement program, BOLD (Builders, Organizers, and Leaders through Dance). UBW’s largest community engagement project is its Summer Leadership Institute (SLI). This 10-day intensive training program connects dance professionals with community-based artists/activists in a learning experience to leverage the arts as a vehicle for civic engagement. UBW launched the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative (CCI) in January 2016 and the Choreographic Center Initiative Producing Program (CCI 2.0) in 2022. The CCI and CCI 2.0 fellowships support the development of women choreographers and producers of color and other underheard voices. www.urbanbushwomen.org

Works & Process at the Guggenheim
1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128
Tickets: $55, $45, $35, Choose-What-You-Pay and/or Free

Championing creative process from studio to stage, Works & Process amplifies support for performing artists and their artistic process, and simultaneously provides the public with behind-the-scenes access to new works, fostering greater understanding and appreciation. For an organization without walls like Works & Process, collaborations and partnerships are key to success, and we are proud that the fall 2023 season will be our largest fall ever. In a philosophy akin to farm to table, Works & Process LaunchPAD offers artists fully-funded creative residencies with 13 partners in 8 counties in New York and Massachusetts. This fall, Works & Process will also present programming at the Guggenheim Museum and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, in partnership with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, and seven Works & Process commissions created in Works & Process bubble and LaunchPAD residencies will tour to six states and the District of Columbia.

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Works & Process Lead Donors
Lead funding provided by APAP ArtsForward, Booth Ferris Foundation, Stuart H. Coleman and Meryl Rosofsky, Adam Flatto, Ford Foundation, Christian Humann Foundation, Leon Levy Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Stephen Kroll Reidy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and The Evelyn Sharp Foundation.

Additional support provided by Jody and John Arnhold, Lucy and Philip Dobrin, First Republic Bank, Bart Friedman and Wendy Stein, Agnes Gund, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky, Randall Sharp, and Denise Littlefield Sobel.

Works & Process is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

About Works & Process
A non-profit without walls, Works & Process champions performing artists and their creative process from studio to stage. We platform artists from the world’s largest organizations and amplify underrecognized performing arts cultures. We provide rare, longitudinal, and fully-funded creative residencies, and commissioning support. We present at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Each summer Works & Process curates and presents free dance programs with City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage and NYC Parks.

Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” provides artists multi-week residencies with 24/7 studio availability, on-site housing, health insurance enrollment access, industry-leading fees, and transportation to residency partners spanning 8 counties in New York and Massachusetts.

“Praise and gratitude also must go to Works & Process . . . directing attention and resources to dance communities often neglected by the institutions of concert dance.”
—The New York Times

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