Blood, Muscle, Bone

“Certainly Jawole Willa Jo Zollar … and Liz Lerman … have faith in artists and in communal creativity. Their combined histories of progressive, community-minded dancemaking and dance-sharing serve as a living textbook for how to use art’s tools to make a difference in people’s lives.”

– Dance Enthusiast

Blood, Muscle, Bone was a performance and residency project conceived of and developed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Liz Lerman, and Urban Bush Women. Informed by an intense research process involving diverse communities, and multidisciplinary in its processes as well as its outcomes, the project examined how wealth and poverty impact the body while asking new questions about how these conditions are defined and imagined.

The enduring question of why economic inequality continues with such persistence was an underlying engine of the piece. Seeking to move beyond “compassion fatigue,” the work animated the seemingly intractable crisis of poverty. Public offerings of Blood, Muscle, Bone included stage performances, prayer breakfasts, workshops, teacher trainings, panels, and cabarets.

Inspiration

What does it take for the imagination to change? How are imagination and experience linked? How do wealth and poverty affect the body? How is the allostatic load distributed across race? How are communities systemically resistant (immune) to wealth or poverty?

Blood, Muscle, Bone, Choreography by Liz Lerman and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar or Urban Bush Women

More about the work

After years of thinking in common, Liz Lerman and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar began working together in the spring of 2011. Blood, Muscle, Bone went through a development arc of several years of residencies where creative research, community engagement, and rehearsal hours accumulated for public sharing and performance.

Project collaborators

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar & Urban Bush Women, Co-Creators

Funding note

The project included supported residencies at Baltimore’s Center Stage, Florida State University in Tallahassee, the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan, and Wesleyan University; each culminated in performance events, discussions, and workshops. It also provided the subject matter for Urban Bush Women’s 2012 Summer Leadership Institute in New Orleans.