Commissioned by the Urban Bush Women Company Jewelle Gomez created “BONES & ASH: A GILDA STORY” in collaboration with the Company, choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, assistant director Steve Kent, set and slide designer Doug Smith, and singer/composer Toshi Reagon. Based on THE GILDA STORIES, it was created over a two and a half year period the production toured 13 U.S. cities in the 1995-96 season.
Reviews
“BONES AND ASH offers a contribution to a new American mythology—black, lesbian, full of untapped power. And Urban Bush Women have taken up Gomez’s challenge of reshaping mythology to learn the things we need to learn.”
—The Boston Globe, 1995
“The Urban Bush Women conquered Yerba Buena Gardens this weekend with “BONES AND ASH: A GILDA STORY” Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s ambitious spectacle is part play, part dance part science fiction and totally gripping. It is about pattycake and other children’s games, jazz dancing and African fertility rituals, the Civil War and the next millennium, repressed memories of rape and murder, pagan baptism, skinny dipping in the Mississippi River, blood sucking friends, runaway slaves, hip hop and the empowerment of women.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle, 1995
“Bones and Ash” is a parable of great beauty and power, expertly staged and rising fully to its grand ambitions.”
—The New York Times