After a week of pressured deadlines and Friday night traffic, a trip downtown to the Music Center seemed a challenge. It turned out to be just that in the best sense! It was a night of “firsts.” The first time any dance company performed at the Mark Taper Forum, a wonderful unique theatre space, so perfect for dance. The first time the Music Center audiences were introduced to the trailblazing Brooklyn-based dance company, Urban Bush Women (UBW), distinguishing themselves from what Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center has done before. And the first time to see SCAT!…The Complex lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar the founder, inventor, artist, and director/co-choreographer of the production. All of these firsts created expectations that turned into an electric evening of dance, music and story understood on such a human visceral level.
Urban Bush Women in “SCAT!” – Photo by Maria Baranova.
UBW, founded in 1984, is a Black-woman-led organization that has championed the core values of black women in the arts. This night presented the premiere of Zollar’s final work after 40 years developing the company. Her piece is called SCAT!…The Complex lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar. Zollar says, in her own words:
“SCAT! is a post vaudeville revue of jazz improvisation to make memory felt in the present while calling upon the past and imagining a future.
Urban Bush Women in “SCAT!” – Photo by Maria Baranova.
As she explains, it is a poetic performance orature in the style of African American Toasts… (a couplet form of rhyming, boasting and toasting epic heroes and heroines). She credits Chinua Achebe for combining the concept of African storytelling with literature. It is her ritual remembrance of her family’s journey from the Great Migration to the complex lives of Al & Dot Zollar in Kansas City. Zollar contends it’s part truth, part memory, part rumor, part myth… with the journey beginning again.
This powerful piece is a love story on so many levels taking place in a fictional jazz club that follows Zollar’s parents, from the South to the Midwest and Kansas City.
Urban Bush Women in “SCAT!” – Photo by Maria Baranova.
The story is so smartly structured with the assistance of dramaturg, Talvin Wilkes, and put in the form of Chapters 1 thru 9, from “Hey Ya’ll Listen Here,” and “Moving North,” to… “Kansas City, “ “The Descent” and finally “Dream.” The Chapters unfurled like a Flag Americana of Black history, with the joy, pain, courage and family it took to survive.
In the first minutes of the piece, “Hey Ya’ll Listen Here,” the multi-racial, mostly white audience, was overcome by the love, inclusiveness and talent that Zollar and the company exuded. The dance, co-choreographed by Zollar and Vincent Thomas, was reminiscent of the infectious Afro Jazz vernacular of the Lindy Hop, Cake walk, and Tacky Annie, with a taste of Ailey, McKayle and Dunham to name a few. The dancers/actors, musicians/vocalists so committed to the characters, so engaging, allowed and encouraged feelings of joy, sorrow, anger and warmth. The scatting on all levels of the music and dance brought back memories that left an opening to tell the stories. Stories that made one feel again, and a reminder of the desire for a better life.
Urban Bush Women in “SCAT!” – Photo by Maria Baranova.
The production was accompanied by original cool Jazz rhythms and songs composed by trombonist, Craig Harris and brought to life by Musicians: Jordyn Davis, Music Director, Gary Jones, Drums; Tyreek McDale’s Vocals, T.W. Sample on Keyboard, Milton Suggs, Vocals, Brianna Thomas, Vocals, and Charenée Wade, that brought us back to the great music and bands, vocalists and scaters of the 20th Century; Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and so many more that made their mark on our souls.
Urban Bush Women in “SCAT!” – Photo by Maria Baranova.
In this tour de force, SCAT was definitely spoken here, a language so universal as to make us laugh and cry because all we could do was feel. One of the threads that wove this penetrating tale together was the brilliant performances of the multi-talented Story Women; Courtney J. Cook, Associate Director, Tendayi Kuumba, Performer and Dance Captain, Stephanie Battle, and dancers; Kentoria Earle, Roobi Gaskins, Keola Jones, Symara Sarai, Mikaila Ware who came at the characters from the inside out, on every level, telling this very human story.
One of the most stunningly powerful moments was the recognition that something was “dead inside … pushing, fighting shadows… reaching out on [my] knees…Dancin faster and faster.” Then came the growl of agony from such depths it pulled all the anguish and pain from the deep history inside, and with recognition, seemed to raise the hair on our collective necks. How is it this powerful moan that evolved into a scream of rage told of the frustration, the cruelty and pain like nothing else?
Urban Bush Women in “SCAT!” – Photo by Maria Baranova.
SCAT had such a phenomenal ensemble cohesion led by Zollar’s honesty, it kept building bridges to Al and Dot’s lives and their extended family and friends, with the constant reminder of Al’s dream of a Just world. Such a gift this was to our City of Angels. If only the run had been longer so we could tell all our friends to hurry to the Mark Taper to experience such important work, especially in our changing world. Thank you Urban Bush Women and Glorya Kaufman and staff for creating art we will not soon forget as long as there’s breath in our bodies.
To learn more about Urban Bush Women, please visit their website.
To learn more about the Mark Taper Forum, please visit their website.
Written by Joanne DiVito for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Urban Bush Women in “SCAT!” – Photo by Maria Baranova.
