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Dream Come True

Talk about Gesamtkunstwerk! Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s “Scat!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” is just that—a total work of art: operatic in scale, replete with stellar musicians and singers, and the glorious dancers of Urban Bush Women, the troupe that Zollar founded in 1984, is also storytelling at its best. Seen over the weekend in its West Coast premiere at the Mark Taper Forum—the first ever dance presentation at that venue—the 90-minute intermission-less opus is breathtaking in scope and serves as Zollar’s swan song for the women-centered troupe dedicated to telling stories of the African diaspora through traditional and modern Africanist dance forms.

Performance

Urban Bush Women: “Scat!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” Choreography by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Vincent Thomas

Place

Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, California, November 22-24, 2024

Words

Victoria Looseleaf

Urban Bush Women in “Scat!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Photograph by Maria Baranova

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And what a story it is! Zollar, who conceived, wrote, directed and co-choreographed the dance portion with Vincent Thomas, “Scat!…” has mined her family’s history, one that also proves to be both powerful and compassionate. Set in a fictional Kansas City jazz club, the piece is divided into chapters (projections by Brittany Bland, beginning with “Hey Ya’ll Listen Here,” the scat singing of Brianna Thomas and Charenee Wade setting the ebullient tone for the evening; the eight pumped-up dancers offering one-legged turns and getting, well, jazzy. 

That the work grew out of a dream Zollar had four decades ago, one that prompted her to found UBW, gives even more meaning to an evening bursting with theatrical highs. While not a literal biography, the dream featured her dead parents, Dot and Al, as well as other ancestors, feasting at a table in the middle of the ocean, as Zollar vividly recounts in Chapter 2, “The Summoning.” This plunging into Zollar’s psyche is nothing short of extraordinary, her physical countenance at 73 a marvel.

As “Scat!…” is also, at its heart, a tale of migration, Chapter 3, “Prayer for Traveling Mercies,” features the dancers in unison, their arms upraised, fingers splayed, somewhat reminiscent of the opening pose of Alvin Ailey’s masterpiece, “Revelations.” But Zollar’s choreography, high-octane, semi-improvisational (though she would be loath to use the ‘i word), and physically demanding, is uniquely her own, and with the trio—bassist and music director Jordyn Davis, drummer Gary Jones and keyboardist T.W. Sample—getting down with Craig Harris’ deliriously original score, this is boogie-woogie on meth.

Urban Bush Women in “Scat!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Photograph by Maria Baranova

When the cast, their unisons as synched as a marching band, sidle, sway and skittle backwards to the rhythms of Chapter 4, “Moving North,” one is swept away with the emotions such journeys obviously engender. That these dancers —company members Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Keola Jones, Symara Sarai and Mikaila Ware—then bring out metal folding chairs and maneuver around and on top of the props that serve as elements of both reconstruction and deconstruction, making for a symbolic train, and one that decidedly harbors precious cargo.

There’s also an urgent running-in-place motif, followed by scat talking—a kind of coffee klatch symposium—with a neo-spiritual, earthy moaning filling the space. Then voilà, we’re in Kansas City (Chapter 5), where Al and Dot meet, the dancers’ feet occasionally slapping the floor Kathak-like. Here is King’s boarding house, its occupants gathered around a table in what might be a “Last Supper” milieu, where Al is throwing dice and the phrase, “every day is a holiday; every night is a holinight,” recurs.

Toss in a few bourrées and pirouettes, and the joint, so to speak, is jumping. Turns out Dot had been married twice before, but here, in KC, she opens a restaurant, where the pork chops and barbeque are fine, and with some “cheap ass wine” also on the menu, Al and Dot become an item, the vocal croonings of Tyreek McDole and Milton Suggs underscoring the problems to come.

Enter Zollar again, and with Chapter 6, “What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander,” comes the realization that “this shit is fucked up.” The storyteller, belligerent as the truth becomes more evident, acknowledges that “Love’ll make you scream…make you feel so good.”

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (center) with Urban Bush Women in“Scat!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar.” Photograph by Maria Baranova

If only! Seriously, Chapter 7’s “Missus Wrong,” is like a terpsichorean palate cleanser: a “dancing soothsayer,” all sexy and hot, confesses to being Al’s mistress, until, that is, he meets “Missus Right.” This foreshadows what will happen to Al, who tries “selling houses to Blacks in white neighborhoods,” before losing everything in Chapter 8, “The Descent.”

Here the physicality erupts into a faux fight, with the ubiquitous chairs serving as a repository for mind-bendingly high kicks that would make a Rockette turn green with envy. Then, a bit of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” coursed through the theater, as associate artistic director Courtney J. Cook, lets out a primal scream that brought this reviewer to tears, the crushing realization becoming all too clear that life is hard, unfair and seemingly unknowable. “Helllll-p,” she bellowed from a deep, dark place within her body, that could also be our collective bodies. 

This is what inevitably happens when dreams slam into the realities of American life in the ’40s and ’50s. Thankfully, relief came—in the form of a disco ball—with dance once again saving the day, and the return of Zollar as Al, in the final chapter, “Dream.” Arms shaking violently as if possessed, with Jones’ drumming accentuating the body quakes, she dishes about Al wearing Old Spice and Dot digging her Evening of Paris perfume. 

“I am a dreamer from a long line of dreamers,” confessed Zollar, whose folks told her that “Success is not the test.” But, as we all know, it often times is, with Zollar admitting, “I gotta do this thing. Dream, dream, dream,” her dancers running in place, again offering one-legged stances, moving in a circle—of life, love and loss—as the rear projection featured a blue, blue ocean. 

But some dreams do come true, and Urban Bush Women, also featuring Tendayi Kuumba and Stephanie Battle—with the cast all decked out in sparkly, many-layered garb by “costume visionary” co-artistic director Chanon Judson —created a reverie not soon to be forgotten. And, as the world continues to swirl in chaos, it’s comforting to know that the dream Zollar once had, can speak to so many.

Victoria Looseleaf


Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCET’s Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleaf’s novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggy’s Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through X, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.

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