The Urban Bush Women are renowned dancers. They’re also active advocates for social change. Most prominently, however, they are storytellers. The all-female dance group has been telling the stories of women of color through the art of dance since 1984. The New York-based contemporary ensemble made its way to Stewart Theatre Friday night to perform “Hair and Other Stories,” and was welcomed by a thunderous applause as students, faculty and community members settled into the darkness for a performance that brought social injustice to light — through dance.

Friday’s show was unapologetic in exposing the systemic racism that boils beneath our nation’s current reality. By highlighting the extreme lengths that African-American women are expected to go to in pursuit of hair resembling whiteness, the Urban Bush Women showed just how deeply white superiority is embedded in the brains of African-American women of all ages. Working to alter the predisposed idea that black hair needs to be “tamed,” as it’s not beautiful in its natural state, is representative of the work the company is doing at large — altering predisposed ideas. Ultimately Urban Bush Women are telling their own stories and, on Friday evening, all of Stewart Theatre was listening.

Chanon Judson, associate artistic director and dance member of Urban Bush Women, has been dancing for as long as she can remember. She explained the company’s empowering mission.

“The work of the company has always been to tell stories from what we say is ‘the lion’s perspective instead of the hunter’s,” Judson said. “Because of the racial context of our country, because of social and political [issues] and for a number of reasons, that becomes a political standpoint. The makers and the tellers of the stories are seeking to be political, because they’re seeking to tell their truth. Because [of] the nature of our country, that truth is met with resistance and opposition.”

The award-winning dance group originally performed at NC State back in 1993. This year, the group returned to campus with a bang, hosting multiple events in honor of Black History Month in correspondence with the Women’s Center and the African American Cultural Center.

This is all in an effort to directly combat racial, social and economic injustice by putting on educational events and workshops across the nation. Additionally, the group regularly participates in research. For Urban Bush Women, research comes in many forms — think museum visits, reading books on current social movements and policies and attending talks put on by key advocates in the community. Research can also come in the form of personal reflection on one’s experience, and sharing that experience with others. Judson elaborated on the inspiration behind “Hair and Other Stories.”

“We wanted to create work that people would be able to see themselves reflected, impacted, convicted and inspired [in],” Judson said. “We wanted to create an account that was saturated enough to really be able to feel a personal impact.”

Samantha Speis, also an associate artistic director and dance member of Urban Bush Women, was first drawn to the company after watching them perform. For Speis, watching the dancers embrace their individual identities proved particularly powerful.

“I was really drawn to being in a community with people who looked like me, and what I mean by look like me is women of color, black women, who all had their own distinct, physical voices,” Speis said.

Speis’ daughter, a charming toddler who sported a fashionable shiny-gold jacket, was a hit at Friday’s performance. Dancing along with the rest of the group, she acted as a reminder that women are truly expected to do it all: maintain a career, a family and their own personal well-being.

Urban Bush Women portrayed women’s strength, particularly that of women of color, in a way that was fierce, bold and honest. Whether it was from the phrase “I am a strong black woman” booming through the speakers or from the dancers’ physical movements that seeped physical, emotional and personal empowerment, the idea of women’s strength was consistent throughout the performance.

At heart, Urban Bush Women is made up of fierce women who are unapologetic in their fight against oppression. They are women who are working tirelessly to bring up other women.

“This is Urban Bush Women, and this is a women-centered company and women have babies,” Judson said. “That’s part of life. In order to sustain a healthy company, you have to sustain healthy women within it.”

A related project, the “Politics of Black Hair,” will be exhibited in the African American Cultural Center for the rest of February. The exhibit will share the hair-related experiences of African-American women right here on campus.