After 40 Years of Dance, What Happens to a Dream Fulfilled?

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who founded Urban Bush Women four decades ago, says goodbye to it with a final work.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the founder of Urban Bush Women. Her final piece for the company, “Scat! … The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” is about her parents. Credit...Donavon Smallwood for The New York Times

By Brian Seibert
June 17, 2024

Sometime in the early 1980s, the choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar had a life-changing dream. Her dead parents, Dot and Al, appeared in it along with other ancestors. They all ate at a table in the middle of the ocean, and her father sang of his failure, cautioning against chasing after outside approval, repeating the phrase “Success is not the test.” A wave crashed over them, and Zollar knew what she had to do.

She created Urban Bush Women, a performance ensemble that tells stories based in the African diaspora from a female perspective. The group is now celebrating its 40th anniversary.