Coming to OZ
Radical Inclusion on Stage: Inside shackled feet DANCE!’s Synergy
As Nashville’s interdisciplinary arts landscape continues to evolve, few companies embody its spirit of community-rooted innovation as powerfully as shackled feet DANCE!. Led by Nashville natives Shabaz Ujima and Thea Jones, the collective has become known for its radically inclusive practice—one that fuses movement, music, storytelling, and civic engagement into deeply human performance experiences. Their upcoming large-scale work Synergy, premiering at OZ Arts Nashville, brings together an expansive intergenerational ensemble and an original score and visual environment by acclaimed musician and photographer Rod McGaha.
Synergy explores the connective tissue between dance, improvisation, the visual. Through this fusion, the artists seek not only to honor the cultural legacy of improvisatory Black art forms, but also to foreground community representation as a vital part of contemporary performance. Ujima, Jones, and McGaha seem to approach the work as an invitation—to participate, to witness one another, and to reimagine how shared creativity can shape a more inclusive and resonant artistic future.
In advance of the premiere, The Music City Review had the opportunity to ask Ujima, McGaha, and Jones about community, collaboration, and the expansive creative process behind Synergy. Below are their responses:
MCR: shackled feet DANCE! is known for fostering a “radically inclusive” ensemble. What does it mean for your company to prioritize community representation, and what value does this bring to the art form itself?
SHABAZ UJIMA: As stated in our mission statement, shackled feet DANCE! is an interdisciplinary, intergenerational, ALL inclusive dance/movement collective that serves as an opportunity to Connect, Collaborate, and Celebrate the triumphs and troubles of the HUMAN experience from a Black and UNIVERSAL perspective.
We want the community to see themselves and their stories on stage. When we have diverse voices in the creative process, we explore and grow in unimaginable ways. There is also space for us to celebrate our differences while embracing what connects us.
MCR: As leaders of shackled feet DANCE!, you both (Shabaz and Thea) are celebrated community icons in Nashville. How does your deep connection to the city and your previous community-focused work inform the spirit and power of a large-scale premiere like this at OZ Arts?
THEA JONES: Shabaz and I are both Nashville natives. We know the heart of this city, especially the old and almost forgotten. It’s extremely important to both of us to work from the inside out, from purpose to the people, and from soul to seeing the heart of the human, and to do effectively, one must reach out and invite in.
We have had some incredible opportunities to strengthen our ties to the community creatively through unique collaborations. Some of these include: leading activations with Dr. Shamel Bell’s Street Dance Activism in the Andrew Jackson Projects, co- choreographing Little Amal- The Walk in Centennial Park, performing with Dave Ragland and Inversions Vocal Ensemble, performing with and contributing to Friends Life Community creative programming, consulting and supporting arts programming at many schools around the city, guiding movement series at 50 Forward, creating movement art with international artists Michelle Eistrup and Jeanette Ehlers for multidisciplinary gallery exhibitions at Fisk University through the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice (EADJ), performing for and activating audiences at the The World Africulture Fest, The World Peace Festival, Kwanzaa Nashville, Deep Tropics, Fisk Art Museum, WO Smith Gallery and MLK Gala.
This community work wholly informs the spirit of this large-scale premiere at OZ because we’ve met each and every participant, individually, through the work that we have done communally. Now, we get the privilege of creating a unified sound with all these interesting perspectives and that is undeniably POWERFUL.
MCR: You are collaborating with Rod McGaha on the original score and projected artwork. How did the multi-disciplinary creative process—merging dance, live music, and visual art—influence or shape the way you and Thea Jones built the choreography?
SHABAZ UJIMA: It was our goal to show the intersection of all arts and how they can influence each other. When you look at Rod McGaha’s photography, it doesn’t just sit on the canvas. It moves, it sings, it dances!
We want to show how there is movement and song in all that we do. We also want to remind audiences that we have been moving and improvising since the beginning of time.
MCR: The piece is inspired by “Black Classical Music”—Miles Davis’s term for jazz. Why was using this terminology and the improvisational spirit of the genre essential to the core message and movement of Synergy?
ROD MCGAHA: I use Miles Davis’s term Black Classical Music because it honors this music as a deep, expressive tradition rooted in Black creativity and community. Synergy has choreography, but its heartbeat is improvisation. There are moments when a solo dancer and I respond to each other the way musicians do, and other times when I improvise on trumpet to what the different groups are creating in real time. It’s a blend of the known and the unknown. In those exchanges, where the dancer’s story and my trumpet voice shape the moment together, we tap into the true spirit of Black Classical Music: listening, trusting, and creating something soulful, honest, immediate, and unrepeatable.
MCR: What do you hope audience members—particularly those who may be new to “Black Classical Music” or improvisational dance—take away as the central emotional feeling or lasting impact of the Synergy experience?
SHABAZ UJIMA: We hope that audiences leave feeling empowered by seeing themselves on stage and understanding that we ALL move, improvise, and create.
No matter the space or place our intention is the same. You are not a spectator, you are a participate, and you are welcome just the way you are. We encourage all to join us, see a neighbor, and joyfully engage in a collective moment of gratitude.
We are NOT DANCERS DANCING, WE ARE MOVING PEOPLE. It is our desire that people leave wanting to connect and grow by fostering new connections from diverse points of view.
MCR: As Synergy prepares to take the stage at OZ Arts Nashville, audiences will have the rare chance to experience a performance shaped directly by the city’s heartbeat—its people, its stories, and its creative resilience. The work stands not only as a testament to improvisation and interdisciplinary artistry, but as a celebration of communal connection in motion. Nashville is poised to witness shackled feet DANCE! at its most ambitious, expansive, and deeply human.
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