Urban Bush Women at The Music Center's Mark Taper Forum

Celebrating its 40th anniversary, Urban Bush Women (UBW) builds upon a repertoire of bold, life-affirming dance works with SCAT!... The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar. This new dance-driven jazz club spectacular was conceived, directed and choreographed by UBW founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who grew up performing in floor shows in Black neighborhoods in a segregated Kansas City in the mid-20th century after World War II—an era when Black businesses were booming, and there was great hope of upward mobility. SCAT! tells the story of two people making their way from the Great Migration to Kansas City to the present. Performed with a live band on stage, and set to an original jazz score by Craig Harris, this West Coast premiere tells the powerful journey of what happens when aspirations encounter the harsh realities of American life in the 1940s and 1950s.