Chanon Judson
Chanon Judson (co-artistic director) has been working with the acclaimed Urban Bush Women since 2001, as performer and now Co-Artistic Director. She is a director’s fellow with New Perspective Theatre Women’s Work Lab, Chicago Director’s Lab, and APAP’s Leadership Fellowship Program. Choreographic credits include Times Up! (commissioned by Flea Theatre), The Hang (Taylor Mac, Here Arts), Cannabis: A Viper Vaudeville (Collaborator/Performer; Baba Israel/Grace Galu/ Talvin Wilks), Orlando (Barnard College), Chronicle X (Nia Witherspoon), Prometheus Bound (Tank Theatre), The Invention of Tragedy (Flea Theatre), and Nurturing the Nurturer, her original performance-ritual/gathering for mothers. Chanon has worked with Mickie Davidson, Talvin Wilks, Kwame Ross, Barak adé Soleil, Sita Frederick, Sandra Burton, and Allyne Gartrell. Performance credits include A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, God’s Trombone (Craig Harris), Cotton Club Parade, Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Concert, and the Tony Award-winning musical Fela!
Chanon is an avid arts educator and has served as a faculty member with AileyCamp (Site Director), Alvin Ailey Arts in Education, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts. She is the founder of Cumbe Center for Diasporic Arts’ Dance Drum and Imagination Camp for Children and co-founder of Family Arts (FAM), where she and her husband offer spaces for families to learn, explore, and create. Chanon is a newly appointed visiting associate professor at the University at Buffalo where she is investigating jazz embodiment, education, and organizing aesthetics as well as leading a charge to redesign the jazz curriculum to better reflect the rich contributions of the African Diaspora.