Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Founder and Artistic Director
Urban Bush Women, Inc.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Founding Artistic Director) was born and raised in Kansas City, MO.  She trained with Joseph Stevenson, a student of the legendary Katherine Dunham, and received a B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and an M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University.  In 1980, she moved to New York City to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion.  She founded Urban Bush Women in 1984.  In addition to twenty-nine works for UBW, Jawole has created works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Arizona, Philadanco, University of Maryland, University of Florida, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) and others.  Her many positions as a teacher and speaker include Worlds of Thought Resident Scholar at Mankato State University (1993-94), Regents Lecturer in the Departments of Dance and World Arts and Culture at UCLA (1995-96), Visiting Artist at Ohio State University (1996), and the Abramowitz Memorial Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998).  She was named Alumna of the Year by University of Missouri (1993) and Florida State University (1997), and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Columbia College, Chicago (2002).  She also received the Martin Luther King Distinguished Service Award from Florida State University, where she holds the Nancy Smith Fichter professorship in the Dance Department.  Zollar was recognized with a 2006 New York Dance & Performance Award (A BESSIE) for her choreography of “Walking With Pearl . . . Southern Diaries,” and, most recently, was named a United States Artists Wynn Fellow.

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