Urban Bush Women
presents
Hair & Other Stories
Friday and Saturday, December 1–2, 2023, 8pm
Sunday, December 3, 2023, 3pm
Zellerbach Playhouse
Run time for this performance is approximately 2 hours 30 minutes including one 15-minute intermission.
From the Executive and Artistic Director
Happy Holidays from Cal Performances! Like you, we enjoy celebrating this special time with those nearest and dearest to us. So it’s particularly pleasing to welcome you to a December performance this year. As 2023 draws to a close, we’ll enjoy visits from the formidable Brooklyn-based performance ensemble Urban Bush Women (Dec 1–3), the boundlessly inventive jazz prodigy Matthew Whitaker (Dec 8), perennial Cal Performances favorites The Tallis Scholars in a special Christmas-themed concert (Dec 13), and the Bay Area’s beloved San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus closing out our fall season with its festive and celebratory Holiday Spectacular (Dec 17). Whatever event(s) you’ve chosen to attend, thank you for spending part of this busy time with us at UC Berkeley.
When we return next year, we’ll continue with a season packed with more than 80 carefully curated events designed to appeal to the eclectic interests and adventurous sensibilities of Bay Area audiences. In total, this year’s schedule features nearly 30 companies, ensembles, and solo artists new to our program, offering a wide range of opportunities to discover unfamiliar performers and artworks. There’s plenty to enjoy, including six world premieres, six Cal Performances co-commissions, nearly one dozen local and regional premieres, and the West Coast premieres of Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s Bark of Millions and Nathalie Joachim’s Ki moun ou ye (Who are you?).
Cal Performances continues to invest in ongoing relationships with established and acclaimed artistic partners, with upcoming presentations including a landmark collaboration between Germany’s Pina Bausch Foundation, Senegal’s École des Sables, and the UK’s Sadler’s Wells theater in the first-ever Bay Area performances of Bausch’s pioneering The Rite of Spring (1975), as well as the renewal of a multi-season residency by The Joffrey Ballet, which this year will present its first full-length narrative ballet, Anna Karenina, at Zellerbach Hall. And I’m especially pleased that in March, the renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida will join us as Artist in Residence for two special concerts as well as additional opportunities for the campus and wider Bay Area community to engage with her singular artistry.
A focus of the season will be our multi-dimensional Illuminations programming, which once again will connect the work of world-class artists to the intellectual life and scholarship at UC Berkeley via performances and public programs investigating a pressing theme—this season, “Individual & Community.” Concepts of “individual” and “community” have been at the forefront of public discourse in recent years, with new questions emerging as to how we can best nurture a sense of community and how the groups we associate with impact our own sense of self. Given our fast-evolving social landscape, how can we retain and celebrate the traits that make each of us unique, while still thriving in a world that demands cooperation and collaboration? With the performing arts serving as our guide and compass, our 2023–24 “Individual & Community” programming will explore the tensions that come into play when balancing the interests of the individual with those of the group.
Please make sure to check out our website for complete information. We’re thrilled to share all the details with you, and to welcome you once again to Cal Performances!
Again, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
Happy Holidays from Cal Performances! Like you, we enjoy celebrating this special time with those nearest and dearest to us. So it’s particularly pleasing to welcome you to a December performance this year. As 2023 draws to a close, we’ll enjoy visits from the formidable Brooklyn-based performance ensemble Urban Bush Women (Dec 1–3), the boundlessly inventive jazz prodigy Matthew Whitaker (Dec 8), perennial Cal Performances favorites The Tallis Scholars in a special Christmas-themed concert (Dec 13), and the Bay Area’s beloved San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus closing out our fall season with its festive and celebratory Holiday Spectacular (Dec 17). Whatever event(s) you’ve chosen to attend, thank you for spending part of this busy time with us at UC Berkeley.
When we return next year, we’ll continue with a season packed with more than 80 carefully curated events designed to appeal to the eclectic interests and adventurous sensibilities of Bay Area audiences. In total, this year’s schedule features nearly 30 companies, ensembles, and solo artists new to our program, offering a wide range of opportunities to discover unfamiliar performers and artworks. There’s plenty to enjoy, including six world premieres, six Cal Performances co-commissions, nearly one dozen local and regional premieres, and the West Coast premieres of Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s Bark of Millions and Nathalie Joachim’s Ki moun ou ye (Who are you?).
Cal Performances continues to invest in ongoing relationships with established and acclaimed artistic partners, with upcoming presentations including a landmark collaboration between Germany’s Pina Bausch Foundation, Senegal’s École des Sables, and the UK’s Sadler’s Wells theater in the first-ever Bay Area performances of Bausch’s pioneering The Rite of Spring (1975), as well as the renewal of a multi-season residency by The Joffrey Ballet, which this year will present its first full-length narrative ballet, Anna Karenina, at Zellerbach Hall. And I’m especially pleased that in March, the renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida will join us as Artist in Residence for two special concerts as well as additional opportunities for the campus and wider Bay Area community to engage with her singular artistry.
A focus of the season will be our multi-dimensional Illuminations programming, which once again will connect the work of world-class artists to the intellectual life and scholarship at UC Berkeley via performances and public programs investigating a pressing theme—this season, “Individual & Community.” Concepts of “individual” and “community” have been at the forefront of public discourse in recent years, with new questions emerging as to how we can best nurture a sense of community and how the groups we associate with impact our own sense of self. Given our fast-evolving social landscape, how can we retain and celebrate the traits that make each of us unique, while still thriving in a world that demands cooperation and collaboration? With the performing arts serving as our guide and compass, our 2023–24 “Individual & Community” programming will explore the tensions that come into play when balancing the interests of the individual with those of the group.
Please make sure to check out our website for complete information. We’re thrilled to share all the details with you, and to welcome you once again to Cal Performances!
Again, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
About the Performance
Crafted from personal narratives from our communities, kitchens, and living rooms, social media, and YouTube, Hair & Other Stories is a two-hour experience that blends dance-theater and conversations that challenge existing American values and celebrate our choices around “who we be” and “how we do!” Choreographed by Co-Artistic Directors Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis in collaboration with the company, Hair & Other Stories explores disquieting perceptions of beauty, identity, and race, and what constitutes the freedom to rise to our Extra-ordinary Selves in extraordinary times.
This is the urgent dialogue of the 21st century.
Don’t come here for no show: we’re goin’ on a journey!
About Cal Performances
Live Audio Description
For blind and visually impaired audience members, live audio descriptions are available for the Dec 1 performance of Urban Bush Women, Hair & Other Stories. For more information or to reserve a headset for this performance, please contact the Ticket Office.
