Judy Dworin Performance Project celebrates 30th anniversary

For 30 years, the Judy Dworin Performance Project has been dancing for social justice, dancing for women’s issues, dancing for the incarcerated and the oppressed and the overlooked and underserved. The company will be celebrating that longevity with a special one-night retrospective performance titled “She Speaks Her Peace” on Dec. 9 at Hartford Stage.

It’s funny to think of art that is so topical and of-themoment having such a long history. It’s a big deal when any regional dance company turns 30, but especially remarkable for one that has built its reputation not with mainstream classics but with political, psychological, dramatic works about such fraught topics as immigration, slavery, domestic abuse and civil rights.

“It’s always been my vision to go into the dark areas,” says the company’s founder and choreographer Judy Dworin. “But we go in filled with light, filled with hope. Creating art is a hopeful act. Our mantra has been ‘Be bold and brave’.”

The Dworin company has survived and thrived by creating modern dance events that are memorable not just for the skill of their dancers and choreographer but because they add in striking set designs, dance environments that range from a bathtub to a reading room at Hartford Public Library, props like umbrellas and masks, a wry sense of humor and a strong social conscience.

Last month the company wrapped up the latest of many programs with incarcerated women in Connecticut prisons. The I AM program (it stands for Imagination, Arts & Me) ran from January through November at the York Correctional Institute. It engaged more than two dozen women aged 18 to 25 to “discover and express themselves through movement, spoken word and the visual arts,” culminating in a live performance at the prison.

“She Speaks Her Peace” will be performed by a core group of eight dancers plus five guest artists. One of the many pieces derived from the dance company’s prison work, titled “Dark Skin Night Fall,” will have its public premiere at the Dec. 9 event. That premiere will take place among 17 excerpts from the company’s past work.

Some former members of the company are returning for this special performance. Not all are dancers. Among the main participants is singer and songwriter Leslie Bird, who has been the music director for numerous