November 8, 2000

Rare Sneak Peak of New Work by Urban Bush Women Founder at MASS MoCA

(North Adams, MA)MASS MoCA will offer a work-in-progress showing a new work by the founder and head of Urban Bush Women, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar on Saturday, December 16th at 7 pm. Dancer/choreographer Zollar's new piece is entitled Hair Stories. This theatrical work examines women's feelings about their hair and features Zollar and Tania Issac.

Zollar was steeped from childhood in both the sacred and secular aspects of popular African-American culture. She received a BA in dance from the University of Missouri and earned an MFA in dance from Florida State University where she now teaches. Both Universities have subsequently named her Alumna of the year - the University of Missouri in 1993 and Florida State in 1997. Zollar is currently a tenured professor with the Florida State University Dance Department where she teaches and directs the Urban Bush Women, the Dance Company she founded in 1984. According to Essence Magazine the Urban Bush Women have "perfected a multidisciplinary art form that 'creates poetry without words' and conveys Black expression." The Village Voice says they "forge their art from the material of their everyday lives and the lives of their ancestors, from the religious rituals and street games of generations of African-Americans."

Zollar has studied with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion in New York and has been commissioned to set work for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Arizona, and Philadanco just to name a few. She was also commissioned to create the movement for the play House Arrest, written by Anna Devere Smith and produced by the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. In 1993-94, she was Worlds of Thought Resident Scholar at Mankato State University and in 1995-96, a Regents Lecturer in the Departments of Dance and World Arts and Culture at UCLA. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards of the American Festival Project and Africa Exchange.

Urban Bush Women (UBW) is a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. UBW's work explores the transformation of struggle and suffering into the bittersweet joy of survival. Zollar and UBW together received a 1992 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award. UBW became the first dance company to receive the Capezio Award, a $10,000 prize for outstanding achievement in dance. In 1998, UBW was one of the first recipients of a Doris Duke Award for New Work, administered by the American Dance Festival.

Hair Stories contains some nudity and is not appropriate for children.

The Urban Bush Women performance of Hair Stories is part of MASS MoCA's Mass Manufacturing series which will bring performing artists to MASS MoCA for residencies which culminate in work-in-progress showings.

Partial funding for the UBW residency comes from the Bari Lipp Initiative for Dance. The work-in-progress showing is produced in association with Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.

Tickets to Hair Stories showing are $5 and are available by calling the MASS MoCA Box Office at 413.662.2111. Tickets may also be purchased in person from 11-5 Wednesday through Monday at MASS MoCA at 87 Marshall St. in North Adams, Mass.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located on Marshall Street in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org