VENUE
Tryon Festival Theatre
500 South Goodwin Ave. Urbana, IL 61801

Multi-Bessie Award-winner LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum features a powerhouse collective of 18 dance and music explorers, including a DJ/turntablist. With music direction by Grammy award-winning Christopher McBride, an offering to the continuum (a performance) showcases mind-bending musicality, spectacular athleticism, and boundless joy. Each of the performers confidently share between expansive personal expressions and the riveting choreography that reaches back nearly 100 years to make visible the connections between the past and today’s Black dance expressions including jazz, Lindy hop, hip-hop, house, and other social dance forms. According to The New York Times, “Each dancer brings something special to the mix of holding and honoring so many sources at once.” The spirit of LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum passes from each artists, like an electrical pulse, emanating into the audience, unapologetically inviting them into its joy-filled and transformative space—an experience unlike any other.

The Jazz Continuum was commissioned by Works & Process and developed in a Works & Process bubble residency at Catskill Mountain Foundation (2021) made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Photo: Titus Ogilvie-Laing