Urban Bush Women
With a series of interviews with the creative team and documentation of rehearsals and premiere performances, A Doll’s House Pictures proudly partner with Urban Bush Women and Fisher Center at Bard to bring SCAT!... The Complex Lives of Al to the public via social media and email campaigns.
Urban Bush Women
Urban Bush Women is a groundbreaking Black women-led theatrical dance company and social activism ensemble, founded in 1984 by visionary choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar as an engine and an amplifier for the unheard stories of Black Women+. Today, under the artistic leadership of Chanon Judson and Mame Diarra Speis, UBW combines revolutionary performance, deep-healing community engagement, and ancestral knowledge from the African diaspora into a cultural force that is urgent, forward-looking, and essential.
For the last four decades, UBW has defied expectations and easy categorization with its bold, narrative storytelling. The very bodies of the seven founding members of UBW – Black women of various shapes and sizes – challenged and changed the landscape of who could be seen on stage as a dancer. The subject matter of the work placed the stories of such women, historically overlooked and undervalued in America, front and center stage. Similarly, UBW remains committed to ensuring that underserved audiences, especially people of color who face systemic barriers to accessing conventional performance, are engaged, invited, and made welcome wherever the company tours.
UBW embraces the power of radical storytelling to activate social change. Whether creating genre-defying work for the stage, guiding the development of Black Women+ choreographers and producers, organizing for justice through art-making, or inspiring leaders across generations, UBW is an innovator, operating at the vanguard.
SCAT!... The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar
Set in a fictional jazz club, SCAT!... The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar, is a dance-driven musical that tells the love story of two people making their way during the Great Migration. Through song, dance, storytelling, and an original jazz score performed by a live band, SCAT explores what happens when dreams encounter the realities of American life in the ‘40s and ‘50s.
Conceived & Directed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Original Music Composed by Craig Harris
Co-Choreographed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar & Vincent Thomas in collaboration with the company
Dramaturgy by Talvin Wilks
