Artistic collaborations usually thrive on differences, but those threads can spin apart when the differences become too pronounced.
Fortunately, Brooklyn-based modern dance company Urban Bush Women and Senegal’s Compagnie Jant-Bi complement each other almost perfectly.
The former is all-female and the latter is all-male. One is African- American and the other is African. Both present marginalized perspectives and traditional dances in exhilarating new ways.
When the companies visit the University of Denver’s Newman Center on Saturday to present “Les ecailles de la memoire” (“The Scales of Memory”), they will exhibit a chemistry and vitality that has garnered rave reviews across the country.
“We were able to research and learn about one another’s cultures in a real way,” said Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Urban Bush Women. “We learned how we celebrate, we met each others’ communities and we learned about our shared histories — and also what was different.”
The seven-member Urban Bush Women company traveled to Senegal to witness club life and village ceremonies, celebrations and former slave dungeons. The seven men in Compagnie Jant-Bi also visited plantations, churches and slavery historical sites in the American South.
Both troupes used those experiences to develop “Scales,” which debuted in January and continues to tour North America through November.
The 90-minute show combines traditional dance techniques with both companies’ kinetic styles, drawing on the dancers’ personal histories and the African Diaspora for narrative and thematic cues.
“I hope it inspires some questions about acknowledging the past while looking bravely toward the future,” said Maria Bauman, who has danced with Urban Bush Women since 2002. “That sort of continuum of time is a major part of the piece. Do we ignore the past and look toward the future? Do we dwell in it without acknowledging the present?”
Those questions likely have always been on the minds of Urban Bush Women’s Zollar and Compagnie Jant-Bi founder Germaine Acogny. They first met in 2004, although both had been crafting internationally respected dance pieces decades before that. Eventually a two-year process began to create a new work.
“In some ways, everyone is a teacher in the process of creating,” Zollar said. “They’re bringing forth what’s inside them. We come with our individual truths and stories, but collaboration uncovers our greater truth together.”
“The Scales of Memory” spans the distance between America and Africa by invoking themes of memory, resistance and love, but without losing sight of visceral concerns like race and gender.
It’s a creative triumph for Zollar’s 24-year-old company, which has no shortage of awards.
“I didn’t really have any lofty goals for it except to create what’s in my heart and reflect stories that I felt like had not been told,” Zollar said.
Judging by the overwhelmingly rave responses around the country, Zollar — and her collaborators — succeeded.
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
“The Scales of Memory.”
Modern dance. Gates Concert Hall, University of Denver, with Urban Bush Women and Compagnie Jant-Bi. Saturday. 7:30 p.m. $25-$49. 303-357-2787 or .
