Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Choreographer and Artistic Director, Urban Bush Women

Born and raised in Kansas City, MO, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar was steeped from childhood in the sacred and secular aspects of popular African-American culture. She trained with Joseph Stevenson, a student of the legendary Katherine Dunham; received a B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City; and earned her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University, where she subsequently taught. In 1980, she moved to New York City to study dance with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion. She founded the Urban Bush Women ensemble in 1984.

The work of UBW synthesizes the spiritual influences of Zollar's upbringing with the technical demands of her formal modern dance training and her interest in cross-disciplinary theatrical forms. Zollar has created 19 works for UBW, including the company repertory works Self-Portrait, Transitions, Batty Moves, Shelter, Bitter Tongue, Girlfriends, and I Don't Know But I Been Told, If You Keep on Dancin' You'll Never Grow Old. Her collaborations with artists from other disciplines include BONES AND ASH: A Gilda Story (1995), with a script adapted by Jewelle Gomez from her book The Gilda Stories and a score by composer-lyricist Toshi Reagon; Praise House (1989), exploring the power of visionary experiences, with co-choreographer Pat Hati-Smith, composer Carl Riley, writer Angelyn DeBord, and visual artist Leni Schwendinger; Song of Lawino (1988), with director Valeria Vasilevski and composer Edwina Lee Tyler and based on the poem by exiled Ugandan writer Okot p'Bitek; and Heat, a two-part work created with composer Craig Harris and Schwendinger.

Zollar and UBW received a 1992 New York Dance and Performance Award (known as a BESSIE) for their collective work on the dances River Songs (1984) and Praise House (1990), among others. In 1994, UBW was the first company to receive the Capezio Award, a $10,000 prize for outstanding achievement in dance. Selected commissions for Zollar have come from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Arizona, Phildanco, Florida State University and Florida A & M, the University of Maryland, and the University of Florida.

In addition, Zollar is in demand as a teacher and speaker. She delivered the keynote address to the 1980 Dance Critics Association meeting and has been a panelist for the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Arts International. In 1993-94, she was a Worlds of Thought Resident Scholar at Mankato State University in Mankato, MN, and in 1995-96, she was Regents Lecturer in the Departments of Dance and World Arts and Culture at UCLA. She was a visiting artist at Ohio State University in October 1986. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the American Festival Project and Africa Exchange. In January 1997, she became a tenured professor in the dance department at Florida State University, where she teaches and directs the UBW Summer Dance Institute: A New Dancer for a New Society. Both the University of Missouri at Kansas City (1993) and Florida State University (1997) named Zollar alumna of the year.