After 40 Years of Dance, What Happens to a Dream Fulfilled?

Sometime in the early 1980s, the choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar had a life-changing dream. Her dead parents, Dot and Al, appeared in it along with other ancestors. They all ate at a table in the middle of the ocean, and her father sang of his failure, cautioning against chasing after outside approval, repeating the phrase “Success is not the test.” A wave crashed over them, and Zollar knew what she had to do.

She created Urban Bush Women, a performance ensemble that tells stories based in the African diaspora from a female perspective. The group is now celebrating its 40th anniversary.

External markers of success may not be the test, but Zollar, 73, has gathered plenty, especially in the last few years. In 2021, she was named a MacArthur fellow, joining a club associated with genius.

“I’ve worked without concern about awards,” Zollar said recently at the company’s Brooklyn headquarters. “But when these things came, I found it affirming. It’s recognition that this work has been happening. And it has allowed me to think expansively about my own future.”

That future will include new artistic endeavors, perhaps along the lines of “Intelligence,” the Jake Heggie opera she directed and choreographed for Houston Grand Opera last year. But she is stepping away from the institution she founded.