The Lula Washington Dance Theatre (LWDT) is a 10-member modern dance company that was founded in 1980 with a $65 loan and a dream. Based in the inner city of South Los Angeles, California, this company has risen to become one of the most acclaimed African-American contemporary modern dance companies in the West.

Lula has taken her modern dance company to perform at Lincoln Center Out of Doors; the Joyce Theatre; the New Jersey Performing Arts Center; Jacob’s Pillow; the Ordway; the Pioneer Center in Nevada; the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; and the Island Center in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, among other places.

Lula Washington is the main choreographer and the artistic “voice” of the company. She augments her choreography with dances by pioneer artists like Donald McKayle, Katherine Dunham, Donald Byrd, Louis Johnson, and Rudy Perez. The company also does works by talented young choreographers, including Tamica Washington-Miller, Associate Director and Christopher Huggins (formerly of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater). LWDT is known for theatrical, energetic socially conscious works that explore aspects of African-American history and culture.

Choreography is set to a range of music from experimental to blues, including: Taj Mahal, Vivaldi, Bach, Chopin, John Coltrane, Bob Marley, and Duke Ellington. Some works, like Lula’s "Mahal Dances," are full of humor and fun, while others, like "Check This Out!" and "What About Watts?," tap into the political and emotional undercurrent of the black community. Lula Washington Dance Theatre’s repertory unveils honesty, integrity, and directness of unparalleled power.

The company is composed of young, athletic dancers, many of whom were groomed in Lula’s inner city dance studio where she works with children starting as young as three years old in a program called: "I Do Dance, Not Drugs!". While Lula encourages her dancers to be excellent performers, she also instills in them to be strong teachers that are well oriented with children and adults of the community. Lula’s dance company owns its dance studio in South Los Angeles. There, Lula runs a Dance School, her Youth Dance Ensemble, and a Neighborhood Dance Program through which the company reaches out to neighborhood children in local schools.”

In January of 2005, the Lula Washington Dance Theatre hosted the 17th Annual Conference of the International Association of Blacks in Dance.