Program:SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar ADF Commission | Live Music Running Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes, no intermission Tickets: $35–$54
Following the July 17 performance, Dr. James Frazier will present the 2024 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement to Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.
Video by Jeremy Jacob/A Doll’s House Pictures for the Fisher Center at Bard
Building upon a repertoire of bold, life-affirming dance works, Urban Bush Women celebrates its 40th anniversary with a new dance-driven jazz club spectacular that tells the story of two people making their way in Kansas City—from the Great Migration to the present.
Urban Bush Women founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar grew up performing in floor shows in Black neighborhoods in a segregated Kansas City in the mid-20th century—an era when Black businesses were booming, and there was great hope of upward mobility post-WWII.
Performed with a live band to an original jazz score by Craig Harris, this North Carolina premiere and ADF co-commission tells the powerful journey of the Zollar family and what happens when dreams encounter the harsh realities of American life in the 1940s & 50s.
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who created, choreographed, and directed SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar, says, “It is my story. It is my family’s story. It is a personal and collective story of a family and a people, moving from the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration.”
