Jawole Willa Jo Zollar: LifeDance IV The Emperor…The Old Woman Persists
Photo by Michael Bishop.
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Floor 3, Theater
Friday, January 17 at 4 pm, 7 pm
Saturday, January 18 at 1 pm, 4 pm
Sunday, January 19 at 1 pm, 4 pm
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Presented as part of Edges of Ailey, LifeDance IV The Emperor…The Old Woman Persists is a new work in development that experiments with the form and structure of monologues, characters, scenes, and imaginings from the past forty years of Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s work with Urban Bush Women. It is directed by Niegel Smith and performed by Zollar and Tendayi Kuumba.
This work is the latest in Zollar’s series of the LifeDances. The LifeDances are inspired by the major arcana of the Tarot. It is created in the persona of SetteFreeye and in honor of Mr. Ailey’s desire to be in gratitude and free of institutional restrictions and judgements of his life’s work.
*This work contains adult themes and adult language and is not suitable for children
Choreographer, Performer: SetteFreeye aka Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Written by: Niegel Smith and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Director: Niegel Smith
Performer, Vocalist, Composer: Tendayi Kuumba
(Ft. ÜFlyMothership track: Uh-Huh [Let that Shit Go]; Co-created with Greg Purnell)
Scenic and Props Designer: Raphael Mishler
Lighting Designer: Benjamin Stanton
Costume Designer: Trebien Pollard
Assistant to the Costume Designer: Morgan Snow
Movement Coach: Bennalldra Williams
Stage Manager: Jason Kaiser
Rehearsal Stage Manager: Sarah Samonte
Creative Producer and Project Manager: Cheri L. Stokes
Assistant to Choreographer: Veronica Jiao
Special Thanks: Michael Lonergan, Oscar Peña and Park Avenue Armory; Erica Laird and The Flea
This work was previously titled Solo Voyages.
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar earned her BA in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and MFA in dance from Florida State University. In 1984 Zollar founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. She serves as director of UBW’s Summer Leadership Institute and is the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.
Zollar has received fellowships from United States Artists (2008), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2009), and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2021). She received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and honorary degrees from Columbia College Chicago, Tufts University, Rutgers University, and Muhlenberg College. Zollar has received numerous awards, including the Dance Magazine Award (2015), the Dance/USA Honor Award (2016), the Bessie Lifetime Achievement in Dance Award (2017), the DanceTeacher Award of Distinction (2021), the APAP Honors Award of Merit (2021), and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2021). In 2020, the Ford Foundation named Urban Bush Women one of America’s Cultural Treasures. Zollar is the 2024 recipient of the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in choreography.
Solo Voyages was commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of Edges of Ailey.
