Sharon Bridgforth

• Name — Sharon Bridgforth • Born — 15 May 1958 • Birthplace — Chicago, Illinois, U.S. • Occupation — Writer/theatre artist • Subject — Jazz, blues, African-American and black diaspora history, gender and sexuality, theatrical jazz aesthetic • Notable Works — the bull-jean stories, love conjure/blues • Awards — Lambda Literary Award, Alpert/Hedgebrook Residency Prize • Website — http: sharonbridgforth.com/content/

Bridgforth was born in Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to South Central Los Angeles when she was 3 years old. She discovered the diversity of the city during her long bus commutes to school.

From 1993 to 1998, Bridgforth worked as the founder, writer, and artistic director of the root wy'mn theatre company. root wy'mn's touring roster included: the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, The Theater Offensive in Boston, La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, California, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. From 2002 to 2009, she served as the anchor artist for the Austin Project, produced by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones and the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, University of Texas at Austin. Her work, "Finding Voice Facilitation Method" was published in Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project edited by Osun Joni L. Jones, Lisa L. Moore, and herself. In 2008, Bridgforth received a National Performance Network Creation Fund award, for delta dandi, co-commissioned by Women & Their Work, in partnership with the National Performance Network. Freedom Train Productions in New York presented a reading of the work in 2008. A workshop production of the work was produced in 2009 at the Long Center in Austin, Texas. At Northwestern University, as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation artist-in-residence in the performance studies department, Bridgforth presented a workshop production of delta dandi during the 2009 Solo/Black/Woman performance series. Since 2009, Bridgforth has been resident playwright at New Dramatists, New York. Her work blood pudding, was presented in the 2010 New York Summerstage festival. She was the 2010–2012 Visiting Multicultural Faculty member at the Theatre School at DePaul University and is the curator of the Theatrical Jazz Institute at Links Hall, produced by the school, Links Hall and herself. In 2022, Bridgforth was featured in the book 50 Key Figures in Queer US Theatre, with a profile written by theatre scholar T. Chester.

Published by RedBone Press, the bull-jean stories give cultural documentation and social commentary on African-American herstory and survival. Set in the rural South of the 1920s through the 1940s, the bull-jean stories uses traditional storytelling and nontraditional verse to chronicle the course of love returning in the lifetimes of one woman-loving-woman named bull-dog-jean.

Both a performance and a novel, Love Conjure/Blues places the fiction-form inside a traditional Black American voice, inviting dramatic interpretation and movement within a highly literary text: It is filled with folktales, poetry, haints, prophecy, song, and oral history. Love Conjure/Blues was also published by RedBone Press.

Exists as a show, oracle deck, performance/novel, performance, sung children's book, and artistic mentorship towards homeownership. The performance celebrates the different embodiments of gender through the journey of three characters alongside Yoburba deities Oya, Osun, and Yemaya. The show premiered at the Pillsbury House + Theater in Minneapolis, MN, on May 30, 2018, and ran through June 17, 2018. The performance was written by Sharon Bridgforth, directed by Ebony Noelle Golden, with dramaturgy by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and vocal composition by Mankwe Ndosi. In addition to a performance, "dat Black Mermaid Man Lady" is an oracle deck. The deck consists of characters from the performance/novel and features artwork by Yasmin Hernandez. The oracle deck is a working deck that Bridgforth used for a series of weekly readings. Partnering with Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and City of Lakes Community Land Trust, Bridgforth worked with five to seven emerging artist of color to create new works and more toward homeownership.

She has a daughter, Sonja Perryman, from a past marriage. A lesbian, her partner is Omi Osun Joni L. Jones. Jones also has a daughter, Leigh Gaymon-Jones, from a past marriage.

• amniotic/flow, with daughter, with Sonja Perryman (2003) available digitally • the bull-jean stories, available digitally

• delta dandi • The love conjure/blues text installation • con flama • blood pudding • dyke/warrior-Prayers • no mo blues • lovve/rituals & rage