02 Jan Re-Staging Shelter

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Urban Bush Women created “Shelter” in 1988 in response to the plight of the homeless in NYC. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a new version of “Shelter “was created and then reconstructed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and company members for Virginia Commonwealth University dance majors. The dancers were challenged to look at issues of displacement and what Zollar calls: “An Actor’s Process through a Dancer’s Body.” In a 1990 review in The New York Times, Jennifer Dunning wrote: “Zollar’s ‘Shelter’  is so filled with compassion and anger that it becomes a powerful incantation against the evils of obliviousness and neglect.”