2016 Improv Traditions & Innovations: From Ring Shout To Blues To Jazz Program Director
See current Faculty List of rotating Program
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar founded Urban Bush Women (UBW), a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. She has developed a unique approach to enable artists to strengthen effective involvement in cultural organizing and civic engagement, which evolved into UBW’s acclaimed Summer Leadership Institute. She currently holds the position of the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University. She is recipient of a 2008 United States Artists Wynn fellowship, a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship, the 2013 Arthur L. Johnson Memorial award by Sphinx Music, the 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and the 2014 Meadows Prize from Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts. Urban Bush Woman has performed at the Festival six times, and Zollar is a former guest artist for the School’s Contemporary Program.