The Nino Files: How DEI Changes the Room (originally posted June 10, 2024)

Group selfie. The “fun” shot vs. the serious one.

Marjani smiles and gathers the 28 dancers into a circle to start the day.  She invites our accompanist, Brian, and Linda and Michael who run the dance department at The Met to join.  We share our names, preferred pronouns and whatever made us grateful this morning.

She offers ways that she would like us to engage the process of creating the movement material for El Nino, starting with that it is a process.  She has done her homework, but wants to use a series of gestures as the entry point into the exploration of what this work could be on our bodies.  Be you, be dope.  We were hired not only for the amount of discipline in our bodies, but also for our ability to make choices that might inform the work.

Life happens.  Some of us have kids (Marjani’s is eight) or older parents or extraordinary circumstances to deal with. 

“I just ask that you please handle these moments out of the room,” she says to us, “so that we can be truly present in it for this process.”  

Down the line, when we are on stage with a chorus and principals trying to tech the show, there will be space for dissonance.  She asks that we lean into our internal community – much easier at this point with no enemies – to cover this space with our ensemblehood.

Be dope.

Be present.

Be an ensemble.

The room agrees, instantly enrolled.

Beyond the collective gratitude we feel knowing we will share office with persons of color, we understand that she means to consider us.  We have worked for enough choreographers to appreciate her gift.

This is also not a complete surprise. 

Marjani teaches us a few movements.  Anointed Eye. Sacred Cup. King of Kings.  One of the thick wooden bracelets on her left arm toasts the other, creates a rhythm.

“You’re clacking,” Winston says.  He is her associate choreographer.

“Oh no, is that distracting you?”

The few of us who speak on it think she looks too good with the rust sleeveless romper and rooted, deliberate jewelry pieces that I am sure are meaningful.

Winston concedes.

The day moves gorgeously.  Even as I sat on the NY board of SAG-AFTRA for years, chair its Dancers committee and sit on several artist advocacy boards, I am as deflated as everyone else when the AGMA breaks occur – always on the cusp of a great artistic find we arrived to together.

Marjani working with Quaba and Moe, at one point support for Joseph..

During the break, I notice that people are in good spirits. Open. Disappointed about the intrusion.  It is clear that Marjani has successful enrolled us in the safety of the space. 

Most of us come from concert dance. We trained in ballet, Horton, Graham, Limon, and/or a few other techniques.  So we understand that Marjani and two of the dancers in the room are alums of Urban Bush Women, a company whose artistic culture is founded on the prevalence of the Africanist aesthetic in movement.   We get that Marjani is an exponent of this tradition.  

We are relieved.

****

To get lots of things done at once in dance rehearsals, we often divide the studio space.  A group of us are in the downstage left quadrant of the studio figuring out how to throw Joy Marie cheerleader high in the space.

We work out placing Jeremy and David as launchers so that Joy Marie can climb into their hands and jump/be thrown from them.

“Maybe someone can help with the mount,” Winston suggests.

I volunteer.

I assist Joy Marie for the mount and then clear immediately for the launch. 

Instead of going into the air, Joy Marie ended up on the floor. 

Laughing, we chalk this up to a fluke. 

We try again and Joy Marie flies in the air.

“Okay, okay, how much force were you giving on a scale of 1 to 10?” Winston asks Jerimy.

“Maybe a 4.”

Winston turns to David. “And you?”

“About the same.”

This is scary news, only because these two are built like Marvel heroes and have corresponding heft.

Opening Night. Where Lileana and J’Nai were involved, all shots were “fun” ones.

“Let’s take that up to a 7 or 8,” Winston says. “Y’all okay in the back?”

There is chatter back there as the ensemble is busy ensembling, working out placement.

“You ready?” I ask Joy Marie.

There is a nod and Joy Marie is in place.

In the second launch, Joy Marie flies like Simone Biles.  It is miraculous. Their pelvis and hips fold over the chest on the catch. 

We triage a bit.

“She probably has to think of going straight up and not back,” I say to Winston.  “I mean if any of us set straight up for a standing back tuck it will still move back a little. This is a lot of force.”

Winston agrees.

“Yeah, Joy Marie you can do less of trying to get to them. You just have to go up.”

We try again. Joy Marie flies again.  She sports the exhilaration of someone whose random Tik Tok went viral.

We do this a few more times, checking in each time.  Winston and I troubleshoot.

“I think even if she folds, it won’t be until the end,” I say.  “She can stay long the whole time because her torso is well-put together in the air.”

With Christopher Nolan movie stealth, Dymon appears through the dissolve of dancers dispersing for the break.

“Joy Marie’s pronouns are they/them,” she says.

She exits as expertly as she appeared.

Realizing I have likely mis-gendered all three of the dancers in the room who identified themselves as non-binary at some point or another, I go to Joy Marie right away.

“Listen, I absolutely intend to get these pronouns right and I am not in resistance,” I tell them.  “It will continue to take me a while to get it right because I’m old enough that the mechanics are ingrained.”

“I wish you could have a conversation with my parents.”

We laugh about this.

I explain that people over the age of 40 were taught pronouns in such a way that they were non-negotiable.  White supremacy dictates amplified this, our baby boomer parents determined to make sure that we spoke “the King’s English” extraordinarily so that we would have a future.  Using “they” in any other context than to indicate more than one was anathema; slashes were available for when we are unsure who he/she is coming later with his/her contribution.

We agree that we have much to talk about later, not the least of which is our on-going plan with Nia to learn John Adams’ complicated patterns for a few choice El Nino selections.  So that off stage we can lip sync for our lives.

****

The three Iconic Mary’s are busy shaping their phrases, several of us gather for On the Day of the Great Slaughter choreography to come together on timing, and others are reviewing Shake the Heavens.  Marjani interrupts.

“Hey everyone continue to work, but I just wanted to be transparent in sharing that right now I’m a little anxious because we’re going to share this in the bigger room with the rest of the team shortly.  So if you feel something odd with my energy please don’t take it on.   You all are working beautifully.”

I could feel the cascade of tacet Ase’s in the room. 

I have been dancing for over 30 years and I can’t remember a choreographer ever announcing their vulnerability specifically to protect the artists in the space.

Bennalldra and Courtney watching a section.

I am hers forever.

I will buy more tiger balm and triage my body to do whatever she is working on.

I am not alone.

****

Lileana leans into the mic.

“Let’s give it up for these countertenors everyone!” 

She is committed to all of the actions that come with those words. Her thick blonde braids unleash full 90’s vibes when they fly to the side.

The room goes with her, applauds as if this is Wild ‘n Out, the dancers her acolytes.

She has earned herself these moments.  She begins every rehearsal with a gathered circle and leads us in a demi sun salutation—deep breathing as a group with a stretch that ends with our hands pressed against each other at heart center.  

Lileana leaves none of her charisma behind ever.  Debbie Allen radiant, she has occasionally shown up in the boat scene with us, learned a step or two that we were doing, and served a dramatic rendition of Ne Me Quitte Pas a capella on our way into a break.  

None of this is part of the job description.  But it is so necessary for a room working on a piece that includes the slaughter of migrant children. We need this relief.

And Lileana is as authentic as they come.

When the chorus joins for the second portion of rehearsal, she invites them to breathe with her and embrace the warmth she creates in the space.

It is an odd moment to witness, only because the predominance of Anglo singers pops like the orange of caution cones in a space with four black principals and 28 dancers of color in the room.

There were rumblings about the displacement of the choristers for the recent spate of operas – Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Champion and Malcolm X - that grabbed black and brown vocalists from outside.  I understand Met choristers put their foot down when the plan was similar for El Nino, but the trade off is John Adams musical challenges that require too much concentration for emotions to get involved.

But the singers join Lileana’s room nevertheless, surrender to the energy.

Also, the countertenors are tremendous.

We run through Shake the Heavens, one of the moments where puppeteers, choristers and dancers are all on stage.   It is a large party of folk to shake heaven, but the singers are intrepid enough to shake it themselves. 

“Let’s give it up for this chorus, people!”

Some smile, some appear bemused, others look appreciative but exhausted.   I see one sitting behind the set piece that is the mountains later.  She shakes her head.

“We’re not kids,” she says.  “We’re professionals. We do this for a living.  And this is the Met Opera.”

I hear it as a trigger right away.  That she is a black, classically trained singer means she has worked against racism and the more insidious angry black woman strike whose usage is too esoteric to prove, no matter how felt.  And the fact that nobody is interested in her promises that she’s not evil is an adversity few on the planet know about.  Given this fight for human regard, it makes sense that she is too exhausted to make the exception when there is a Puerto Rican woman who has never been in the room to hear her (and her colleagues’) virtuosity.

Also, these singers are employees.  I do not know a workplace—no matter how amazing—where people in it don’t gripe about some aspect of their work in it.

I smile at her, nod with understanding.

“You all do sound glorious,” I say.   She also may take for granted what a privilege it is to hear this level of art up close and personal, and that because black and brown dancers are (historically) so seldom invited we appreciate it even more.  It dawns on me that the real patron offering for that highest tier level of gift is the opportunity to sit in one of these rehearsals and hear the chorus with no orchestral competition.

The next time they sing, I sit on the floor behind the chorister.  As she promised per her work description, she sounds sublime.

****

We are rehearsing Memoriam de Tlatelolco, the aria following the slaughter of the children.   

“Since this is such a difficult scene and would love for the room to really hold space for it,” Lileana says. “I know how hard it is to perform it and I know how hard it is to be inside of it.”

Everyone seems to drop into the gravity of this, joins the dancers who are on the floor proxying for the kids.  We feel the post-catharsis as a weighted blanket.  Julia, the soprano playing Mary of the land, makes her way from upstage, considers her path.

“Is it okay for me to touch them?” she asks.

“Yes,” Lileana says.  Then, “All of the dancers on the floor playing children, raise your hands.”

We do.

“Now raise your hand if you’re okay with being touched.”

We all do.

Rachel being thrown in the air stage left in Shake the Heavens.

Julia makes her way down and picks up my head and torso.  Since this will be a child, I help a little. 

“Nadie,” she says, marking the lyric.  “No one.  Nadie.  Is it okay for me to put him down,” she says. “I don’t want it to feel dismissive.”

“It won’t read that way.”  Lileana is clear with us that the kids are not really here.  “The audience will consider how they’ve dismissed what’s actually going on in the world.”

Julia moves forward, puts me down with care and works her way through. 

“And dancers know that soon we’ll have an espresso movement to free up your bodies since you’ve been on the cold floor all this time.”

I am as impressed at the way the entire front of the room supports Marjani taking care of us. We are accustomed to choreographers who remember nothing about their dance career except the hazing part—their predecessors knew no other ways past mediocrity.   Since non-dance folks in the front of the room know less, they often stand down.  

It helps that Michael and Linda, the two Met dance directors in the front of the room, align with Marjani.

Julia pushes through the mechanics of the scene. As promised, Marjani gives us the espresso movement break.

We start from the top.  When Julia gets to me, she sings

Nadie. Al dia siguiente, nadie.

No one. The next day, no none.

Somehow she pulls my chest open so that some of the D-flat can pour into it as she cradles me.  I experience a resonance in my body that helps me know she has more ideas on what this moment can be.  She gets the immeasurable loss that migration means for those brave enough to leave a place and start anew.   And she gets how to communicate that pain.

Newly made ancestors, we rise from our slain positions and give Mary support. 

We circle her, as she considers whether it is appropriate to turn around herself and take in the spiritual help since it is clear that the world kept moving on despite the murder of these children.

The scene ends with a tableau, our hands on Mary, our gaze forward to embrace her future and challenge the audience.

It is quiet and deep enough that there is no escape from this conviction. 

We are all invited to check ourselves.

*****

Is it a thirty minute break and we have just finished running In the Day of the Great Slaughter.  It is the one moment in the opera that gives the off-stage principals an opportunity to see dance occupy and hold down the space of the stage in such a complete way.   The choristers have already confessed how happy they are about the distraction we create for them in dance moments—they see them all. 

But seeing it is not enough. 

Julia and J’Nai, want to learn steps.   Dymon and Shaq, two of our dancers, start teaching them a few movement tropes, steps we repeat in succession and with slight variation, a choreographic nod to Adams’ musical values in the piece.  

Movement is a huge celebratory value for folks in brown and black diasporas.  So none of us of us in the room with membership to one surprised.  In seconds, Lileana and most of the dancers in the room are in the space dancing these steps with a level of joy that has nothing to do with the context.

This is a break after all.

But we assume that the last thing J’Nai wants to do during hers is the jumping step that charges downstage with all the rage of parents who have lost children.  

We are wrong!

“Come thru J’Nai!” cheers Babou, whose dark skin is so pretty rows of cosmetics products can only apologize for their limitations.

J’Nai has invested in the step completely, dress be damned, boots engaged.

Our cheer trickles around the room like confetti.

****

The kids have entered the room, their faces bright and casual amidst the anxious efforts to make sure they are sorted.  They understand this is play. 

Lileana takes the time to introduce the The Young People’s Chorus of NYC in a huge circle, lifting puppeteers and the intimacy coordinator that will engage them a lot for this process.  The kids are professional, game, ready.

As difficult as it is to watch them get slain by the puppeteers (who have already had a separate rehearsal to deal with this narrative), the kids are marvelous at following directions. 

This takes less time than we imagined, and the room moves on to the memorial scene.

“If you would like to me start marking and not singing full out, let me know,” Julia says.

 “Also, what’s the safe word?” Christina, one of our stage managers, asks.

“Banana!” the kids shout.

“Bananas are welcome at all times!”  Julia says to the kids

The kids sail through this portion of the section and it is Marjani’s turn to help the transform from slain children to ancestral spirits.

“We’re picking our bodies up off of the floor like a crepe or a pancake,” she says. “We want to do this so that the middle of the pancake comes up first. Let the head be one of the last things.”

The kids do it better than we did.  The years of technical training and discipline are not there to get in the way of the human part of the task, a thing dancers sometimes have to work at.  

During the teaching of the choreographer, Jasmine, a stellar artist and empath, has gone to her knees so that the kids can better see the gestures on her body.

Before their scheduled rehearsal time is over, the kids have learned their business in the scene.  The adults are suddenly relieved that we are on our gig.

Or we’re checking to make sure we are.

****

When Lileana has finished moving migrants around the stage on the journey, a feat in a rather two-dimensional set space, and both baby Jesus have conjured the miracle of water, the children are left on their own.  They stand up and begin singing.  We did not see it coming.

Senora de los vientos

Garza de la llanura

Among the dancers in the room are a rock-climbing teacher, an ex-gymnast, a doola, a novel cover designer, an author.  We’ve got native America, Haiti, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and black America represented.   And as diverse a room as it is, all of us maintain our ensemblehood as we watch and listen to these kids.

Cuando te meces

Canta tu cintura

Our hearts climb onto our eyelids and audition lashes to slide down.

We are sure that this will be the audience as well.

-          Jamal Story

Errors

In tennis, they’re called forced errors. These are mistakes that come out of the opponent’s solid playing, for instance when the shot was so strategic in placement that there is no way to return it without making an error.

It’s also a way to describe the paradox facing black grassroots organizations who strive to “succeed” in a capitalistic, white supremacist society:  growth of any financial kind cannot happen without utilizing structures that leave no room for ancestors.   “Yay, now we have money so we can...”  turns into “Well, we have to implement  this mandate to prevent employees from…”

Dallas Black Dance Theatre in The Parts They Left Out, as Eurydice follows Orpheus out of hell.

Like tax advantages, checks and balances favor the business vs the individual.  None of it help us to Umoja or Ujima, and capitalism teaches us the dangers of prioritizing principle over bureaucracy.

Black Americans have experienced white capitalistic conformity for years individually.  Straighten your hair to make it neater for that suit Black woman, because corporate doesn’t do kinky hair.  Be sure to show teeth when you smile Black man, because that body looks threatening.    Speak the King’s English only, because no one in business will respect less (unless you’re a wealthy white male).  Respectability politics played out on our physical selves when Black people try to climb—these are clear.

It’s harder to see in grass roots non-profit organizations mid-climb because the compulsion to protect the growing business means all kinds of traps.  The twice-as-good-half-as-far paradigm is on max, especially since donor support is oxygen:

Do not color outside of the lines.

 Suffer zero scandals.

 Be flawless on record.

 Be sure all of your employees are flawless on record.

 Appear and behave better than the stereotypes we have painted about your people behind circumstances America created for you even though you built it.

That last one is the juggernaut.  Because none of capitalistic corporate America is concerned about whether the basis of “better” is wrapped around forced errors from serves like redlining, or drugs injected into communities with Black folks and no infrastructure.  Having nothing to lose in a survival imperative forces errors.  And white supremacy offers the same lack of second chances for Black organizations that it offers Black individuals.

So they beef it up, these Black companies.  And once they reach the milestones that capitalism sets—almost always dollar-based benchmarks—it becomes time to adopt policies to help employees not rock the boat.  There are protocols, hierarchies in place and systems to keep it all copasetic.  They may also prevent an employee from being able to ask a simple question, or get some information without filling out paperwork that holds harmless the company (or the supervisor).  Management contains no scaffold to share business insight the way it would from someone’s auntie in the village when sausage ingredients are queried about.   Instead the cold, formal non-answer can come as a pin-drop email, sent in hopes that nobody will make a fuss or dent the stemware. 

This is the place where the ancestors disappear, where community is trounced by hierarchy.

Rather than a council of elders it’s a folder of lawyer-penned missives.  Instead of circling up to invite ancestors into the space, it’s updating the company handbook to reinforce accountability. Instead of hiring the dancer with grasp in her body and Wakanda in her back, we go with the less Nigerian-looking one who is “stunning” by Western standards.

Because companies like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Dallas Black Dance Theatre could only thrive if they complied, clear that non-corporate values might disengage donors with purses and presenters with contracts.  At the times they founded legacies, Alvin Ailey, Arthur Mitchell and Ann Williams did not have the luxury afforded Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, who turned down big business funding that might contaminate any deliverables she promised her voters.  These black visionaries had to take whatever they could get and worry about coin conditionals and handshake promises down the line.

There is a deeper dive here about the abuses dancers have suffered physically (and I mean from dance steps alone) in an effort for Black companies to prove their worth, our worth.   It is another blog altogether that includes scars, traumas and hilarious anecdotes.  The thing to know is that right or wrong, it was a response to a supremacist system that forced all the errors.

After all, Serena stopped wearing beads while whupping tail and they still called her coon before GOAT.

The way to move forward is to get in the rooms and have these dialogues.  It is why I go to IABD every year, to fellowship with Black dance artists about where we are now and how to reconcile these world views. And to be clear, Dallas Black Dance Theater is one of the founding members of IABD.  But charity begins at home, and I have faith that they’ll figure it out.

The good news is that grace, not force, is the more Africanist value of the two.

Vernacular Dance

Should dance competitions add a new category - vernacular dance - to strip away judging centered around White aesthetics?

First of all, thank you Black Dance Teachers Association for including me in this discussion and asking my thoughts. It’s such a complicated question, mainly because what we get into right away is this issue of nomenclature - what do we call things. Years ago, I watched “contemporary” become a catch-all phrase to include anything that fall outside of the realm of ballet, hip hop, jazz or any indigenous or culturally specific forms (i.e., hula, West African, etc.). What it did, effectively, is diminish all of the techniques that have been studied, trained in and articulated through regularly performed masterpieces in the canon of repertory dance in America.

Said another way, nobody cares that what the 12-year-old in the convention competition is doing in her solo at the moment is a bad contraction followed by a bad spiral, both of which are specified in Graham technique, can be learned and are not respected.

And if none of the other judges on the panel—nor the choreographer of that solo, nor the teacher rehearsing the dancer in it—is qualified to judge the technical merit of a contraction or spiral, it makes no sense to comment on it as a judge. This neck of the dance woods has decided that bad or otherwise, what the dancer is doing is “contemporary” and thus legit.

Similarly, “vernacular” as a term defines the dialect or way ordinary people speak in a specific area or region. If we use this logic, we have to make a lot of assumptions about what ordinary people we’re talking about. In this case, is it black people in America? Is it hip hop practitioners?

If so, has anybody canvassed this community to find out what they agree are the values of hip hop that should be present in work to call it such? Are they in agreement on this so that we can decide the standards and judge merit based on some kind of template? Obviously this has gone on in ballet in spades, as there are five internationally recognized schools of ballet that we can use as reference points for the values we need to see when this same 12-year-old I’m judging gets on a pointe shoe (and she likely will) an hour after this contemporary solo. (Don’t get me started on the racial disparities here - it’s a whole other blog.)

Because people are not having this conversation on this level with any serious, beyond-the-dollar import about dance inside of most places where kids are judged doing it, I worry that we could potentially be more exclusive than inclusive. Hula, Irish Step and West African dance would all be considered vernacular dance by these standards. Isn’t there then a responsibility to make sure that these forms can be appropriately judged by someone with the information/authority to judge it?

I get that I’m not being completely fair here; the area of dance we’re dealing with, the convention/competition circuit, is built with machinery that doesn’t have space to gatekeep nuances. This is actually my bigger problem: it should. We’re doing kids across the country a disservice if we’re teaching them culturally specific movement while offering no reference points, no research and no deeper investment in the values thereof sourced through accredited gurus. It doesn’t matter that only 10% of them will dance beyond high school. If we put them in little league, they’re gonna learn all about that baseball. We won’t let them travel dribbling a basketball just because they’re kids. Why should there be less integrity in dance?

This is the place to start. It’s less about adding a category, more about managing and respecting the ones we have. Then perhaps it will be easier to clarify what is necessary to prevent black forms - especially hip hop - from being regularly disrespected and poorly appropriated all across the country.

A Piece of War while making Another Little Piece of War

I had a lot of objectives to cover. I had a lot of young ladies to move around the stage, an in-shape physical therapist who could move well and act with purpose as a father figure, a studio owner who wanted her kids to show personality for a change but underscored by at least one piece of music that could make it feel like concert dance, a concept on warring parties that I hadn’t quite gotten enough of with the last ballet I made called A Little Piece of War. So the first thing to do was surrender to Another Little Piece of War, which meant that Beyonce’s “Move” needed to be the soundtrack for the power struggle.

But everyone was having a hard time with this part, story be damned. I realized how far I had dropped into my concert dance roots; the quiet tenets of studio dance training and convention categories could not have been further from my mind.

At any rate, there was a bit of dissent that I should have seen coming, given the degree to which I had taken everyone off book. The video is my response with context for why this (or any) Beyonce track needs to be regarded differently.

My Private Ataraxia

ataraxia: a state of freedom from emotional disturbance or anxiety, especially as a condition of soul-fulfilling attainment.

Me with Jenelle Figgins exploring black love from a time. Photo by our colleague Petra Morgan.

“What happens if you think of opening up and laying back across her?” Thaddeus says.

I push myself up to give Jenelle space to adjust and then collapse across her thigh. It feels incredibly vulnerable, my organs and chakras opened up, my neck exposed to more than her. The safety of the space makes it delicious.

“Yes, like that. And can you kind of pull yourself up Jamal, to sitting?”

I do and though less exposed, I’m even more at peace.

This safety is about not just the physical space, a chunk of third floor of an old building near the downtown Montgomery fountain. It is also about the artistic safety co-directors Tanya and Thaddeus are trying to create as they reconsider daily what dance company life and process can be. They have curated every aspect of this, down to the collective energy of the four people in the room dancing with them.

The safety is necessary. Disenchanted with the erasure of black people from entire plantation tours - “They were talking about the drapes and the stairs and not the people who built the house and worked in it,” Tanya recalled - the couple created an interactive, multimedia production that centers black presence, joy, anguish and strength in different rooms of an antebellum mansion (or other site) so that audience members can experience the “monument” while contemplating it as a black space.

Since it is one.

There is a dinner and talkback involved to air all this out after seeing the work, whose title Migratuse Ataraxia describes the habitual pattern of moving over there (migrating) to a space of calmness, peace of mind, emotional tranquility.

The Mellon Foundation Monuments Project Grant, which put Wideman Davis Dance operations squarely in Montgomery this second of three six-week phases, means cozying up with all that juju from painful Civil Right Movement midwifery and hundreds of years of slaves disembarking only five blocks from the studio.

Thaddeus Davis sculpting a supported promenade with Michael McManus and Petra Morgan

On a break, I pull out a journal Tanya gave me, a document that will be part of the aggregate archive for this project. I jot down a few ideas on the throwback Marvin Gaye tracks that Thaddeus is auditioning. I watch the other two dancers negotiate Tanya’s exploration of recognized social dance structures and how they can be amplified (and ignored) to fetch even more swag possibilities for Michael and Petra, both former students and alums of the University of South Carolina Columbia where Thaddeus and Tanya teach. A few integrated steps come from the local line dance we learned off Tik Tok and got verified later at a skating rink one night. These two youngest of us are fun to watch.

Shortly after, I am on my knees negotiating Jenelle’s body from upright to down a level. She helps, years of acute, proficient discipline in her body and several ballet company contracts in her past. I have worked with her, her twin and their older sister, all champions. So I rejoice in the familiarity assisting this current stunt.

“Did I sell it?” I ask.

“Wait, maybe I can help sell it too, hold on,” Jenelle says.

“That’s the next picture?” Thaddeus asks.

He is referencing one of the 50 mostly candid Jim Peppler mid and late century photographs of black people in Montgomery and neighboring communities like Newtown. Nik, co-author of the grant and our director of research and communication, gave us each ten shots to enliven; now Thaddeus had us working the ones with two folks in them.

“The two ladies.”

“Yeah, I think there’s something else that can happen better there.”

I am open to anybody’s suggestion. Having danced with Thaddeus and Tanya in New York companies around Y2K, I am familiar with the unhealthiest conventions of concert dance that they are willing to undo or revise in an effort to get to better work.

I am here for it.

Tanya Wideman tweaking this moment for Jenelle and me.

They get that artists are professionals and need to be properly considered: Every morning I open my eyes to 11-ft ceilings of an apartment in a renovated, early 20th-century Kress department store building preserved enough that I can see which entrance was for coloreds. From my wrap-around boardwalk balcony, I could throw flowers at the bronze Rosa Parks on the corner. My friends/bosses may be unfinished in their pursuit of what model companies should employ, but their refusal to forsake their dancer identities even as artistic directors makes these married folk difficult to resist.

Their only mistake was perhaps extending me such a long community engagement leash. I have permission to talk to anyone who will listen about why I’m here and suffer my fully QT Gayle Kinging. A few just don’t know any better, buying my question marks about their city and offering me business cards (poor things). A lawyer has already been emailed. The shift one team at the Waffle House (I guarantee whatever you think I should have had instead isn’t here) don’t realize they will be coming to see legs and hips go for it at a library.

And I haven't even started with this Italian restaurant.

“Do you all need to do it again?” Thad asks.

I look at Jenelle, defer.

It’s whatever works for them. I am so full, I only have surrender.

Jim Peppler Southern Courier Photograph Collection

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Wideman Davis Dance will have a FREE showing In Montgomery

December 10

6:00 p.m. Reception / 6:30 Showing

Juliette Hampton Morgan Memorial Library

245 High Street

2nd Floor

Leonora Files: Phillip Miner

The Leonora Files sprung from a realization that I was writing so many obituaries for beautiful people like her, who deserved all the flowers. It was the fourth death of a young artist in a short period, and a clarion motivation for me to honor folks while they are here.

Taken by our beloved Ingrid when swung by after church.

“Jon’s church is honoring him for All Saints Day and so I’ll be going to that service in the morning,” Dad tells me on the drive home to Jacksonville.  “Now, of course you’re welcome and I would love to have you there, but it’s totally up to you.”

A trap.  I know this means I had to go.  Outs granted by parents, especially baby boomers, should never be trusted. (Feel free with Amens in the comments if you know.)  Nevermind that Jon’s passing in March made Dad a widower after 35 years of partnership, and that my entire reason for visiting was to check in.  

To be clear, I did not dread putting on the suit as much as dealing with the slow, Episcopal, 9:30-ness of it all.  Jon liked to sit right in the front row house right where he could get a view of the keyboardists hands regardless of which instrument they played.  This means that I have to rely on Dad for cues to stand and sit, since they are not indicated in the 18-page program.

After the second bell choir selection, which gave Gregorian realness, I long for a heavyset, black raspy soprano with grits in her tone, or a towel-wielding preacher with collard greens in his as he sweats out sermon. Please Lord, deliver me a church fan with a local mortuary advertisement on one side.  I will even suffer the inconvenience of promises that my same-gender-loving behavior long ago Zelle’ed me to hell if it meant I could have black church bells and whistles.

Instead of the bell choir.  A heathen needs so much more to survive a church service before 11. 

After the unison reading of scripture, while I aim to persevere, Dad’s chest rises and falls a bit more than before.  I rush an arm around his back.  But then I worry that save the other two black folks there, the congregants might think I was some young dude hanging over Jon’s widower, counting breaths to the end and plotting beneficiary shifts.  Not that I care, but since this is Dad’s neck of the woods, I needed to defer.

I revise my comforting.  Then I pray to whatever saint is etched in the stained glass over there that Dad does not need me similarly until after we get out of there.

But when Dad needs the bathroom, I am on my own with the program, looking around for help. I almost miss an entire standing cue because I don’t catch that the two other people in my pew are only seated for lack of other options.

These Zelles I earn fair and square.  

I remembered that at the funeral of my dear friend Lettrice’s mother days ago, a sagacious aunt advised that whenever our loved ones go down, the best thing to do is be where they are in vibration so that they know where they need to come back to.  This has become my default every time I’ve seen Lettrice or Dad since.  Although he’s doing very well for sure, I plan to share my concerns about what these folks must think.  Always ahead, he beats me to it when he returns to the pew.

I chuckle hearty in it.

 And Dad’s inclination to rescue in grief has had few intermissions.

He made a few meals.

He gave me several insights.

He drove into Gainesville and managed to hold his breath long enough to see me come down safely from those silks.

He worked the room at the post-show reception hosted by the college that hired the company I danced for last Friday.

He cast pearls before the black president of that college as well as the director of the dance program there in separate brief conversations, enough that they each sought his email address from me after.

He advised me on consulting rates.

He advised before breakfast at the hotel that if he was “otherwise occupied when you come down, don’t come over here cock-blocking.”

He challenged me to resist unforced errors endemic to practices in financial services, arguing me down to the bureaucratic nuances.

He shared other nuances about him and my mother and their college friends (all “village” for me), down to the other campuses that black students came from to party with them.  Dad is an elephant. (The shot below will give some sense of that debauchery.)

He took me with him on trips to the local DNC office to grab candidate signs and plant them around various voting sites, educating me on the specifics of the Duval County electorate and the  disproportionate numbers (he knows them) of black voter turnout vis-à-vis registration in the state.  Again, elephant.

And this was all within the five days I was with him in Florida.

He has lost none of his understanding about how to live fully and presently.

“Now we could go to the Waffle House, they always got good breakfast,” he says after we run by a voting site to see Ingrid, also Jacksonville family, as she passes out petitions.  “Oh no, they’re closed.”

“A relief.”

“What, are you too good for Waffle House?”

“Dad, they don’t always clean the booths there and I only packed one good suit. The other one is at home so if I can’t afford to mess this one up.”

He laughs.  “I know that’s right.”

A shot from college days, when he and Mom were a hot item.

Coffee

It is important to know that my cousin’s housekeeper makes mysteriously the best cup of regular coffee I’ve ever had.  It deserves it’s own blog.  Because Nespresso thanked me with a machine or two (also blog-worthy on its own), I am sorted in NY. But Inez gives them a run for their money.  

Anyway, she is off on Saturdays and I neglect to make myself a cup before going to pick up Mia.

I am parked in front of her friend’s house at 10:30.    Uncharacteristically, MIA conforms to her acronym. She answers none of my phone calls, texts, nothing. Around then, a man pulls up in the driveway making me glad I didn’t presume to park in it.  He notices my (cousin’s) car and does not see me in it waving through the tinted windows. He cannot feel my longing for the coffee he has in that to-go cup.  I feel better about all my irrational concerns – terrorists had not taken over the house, she was not somewhere else stranded, there was no earthquake oddly affecting only this zip code.   

Still by 10:45 I am anxious. 

The man I waved to opens the door and smiled with whom I assume is his wife.  Warm greetings all around.

“Hi, I’m here to get Mia,” I say.

Me with Mia last summer, just before she shed the "baby off her face. Note the coffee.

A fat mercurial dog interrupts the conversation, making himself known.  Before I get too smitten the man snatches the mic back.

“Hi! Let me take you around and show you,” he says.

If he is Armenian (I wasn’t far off by the way), this kind of moment makes sense.  Perhaps he and his wife had been mid conversation about something, and he caught my vibe quickly enough to deem me outside perspective.  The hospitality of people from this part of the world is consistently the bulk of my experience with them.   I follow without hesitation.

“Where you are parked is a bottleneck,” he says, indicating the small island between the single land and the side of the car.  “You want to move up a bit more in the future.”

Now here is why coffee is critical:  had I finished a cup, I might have processed that he did not know I’d picked Mia up here before and might have to do it again.

We wade between two large protective palm plants to get to his side gate.  With the intimacy of an indigenous storyteller, he begins.

“There was a break-in at the house next to me.  They used this pathway and my backyard.”

My channel surf is over.  

He shows the cameras that caught the violation.  He wants to heighten the existing gate, plate it with alternating wood slats that obscure view and an inlayed section atop what exists already.  Basking in this kind of random fold-in that is refreshingly un-American (and exemplary of what should be standard humanity), I provide my amens of support.

“I’m thinking it should be stained instead of painted.”

“Well yes, that works well with the existing façade.”

His invitation for me to verify that 72-inches made sense based on the math makes clear what coffee might have hours ago had I made a cup, however inferior.  Now it is time to point it out.

“So I’m not that kind of contractor,” I say.

“You’ll be doing the work yourself?”

“You don’t want that. I’m just here to pick up Mia.”

He turns away and looks down to give up. 

“Why did you let me go on so long?” he implores.

“Because I was thoroughly intrigued and didn’t know you didn’t hear me earlier when I mentioned it. Wait, did I mention it at the door? Oh no, now I’m not sure.”

We bend over laughing.  His wife sees the whole thing and stares at us when we cackle back into the house.  Unsure which of us is most ridiculous, we apologize buckets and introduce ourselves to each other.  (To be fair, he has not yet finished his Starbucks beverage.)

His wife promises that the girls are still asleep.

“Would you like a cup of coffee in the meantime?” she says.

“Please.  God!”

It takes Mia long enough that I get to tour the beautiful home and better experience the realization of all that aspiration in his and his wife’s soul. There is art everywhere.  Yes, stained black on the gate indeed because it makes better sense with the Rothensteins and Warhols in the monochromatic sitting room in the back.  Yes, alternating panels because they are warm like the stunning hard clay sculpture (probably a game) surely dug up from an ancient Middle Eastern site.  Of course, a specific inset to complete the additional foot of height to reflect the Asgardian vertical space inside the house.

I can only articulate all of this in retrospect because by now, an hour later, I have had a cup of coffee (Mia came down before the one offered there could be made).

I’m now invested.  I will follow his parking advice and be back with or without Mia.  To see how far my accidentally solicited help went.

And to get that cup of coffee.  Because they understand.  

They believe in it too.

Old-Fashioned? Don't You Believe It

She says she’s old-fashioned. I disagree.

The traditional values may be there, with the country vibe of her Kansas City roots and the steadfastness of the Baby Boom. But my cousin Rosalyn Story, a violinist with the Fort Worth Symphony and Dallas Opera, a novelist and my inspiration to become a dancer, is hardly old-fashioned.

At Rosalyn’s home, my pants courtesy of our cousin Vicky Mara Story.

She disappears into her driver’s seat when she’s in it, so severe is that full Shaft-ish lean. She attacks tennis balls as if she’s seeded at Wimbledon. The elegant, wide fedoras she wears usually coordinate with long cardigans flowing down to her violin case for ultimate swag.

She may bristle at an F bomb (except on Netflix), and she scorns horror. But since there’s no graphic violence in hypnosis, she’s not above it as a submission tactic. After starting with compliments on your backpack or scarf upon meeting you, Rosalyn will extract your deepest work traumas only minutes later, so stealthy an investigator is she.

Even her version of “old-fashioned” concern is dipped in swag. When a tornado got really bad at 7-ish one Tuesday evening, Rosalyn called me from her sofa asking if the upcoming Dallas Opera production of Pearl Fishers was rehearsing that night…

For the rest of this story, please visit The Dallas Morning News Op Ed.

En Vain Pour Eviter

Delivered by mezzo soprano legend Jessye Norman, it is the moment where Carmen realizes her ending is near but will struggle to live fully anyway. Kind of the like a lot of artists at various stages of this pandemic. En Vain Pour Eviter. #Bizet

A Solo Revisited

Years ago, I performed a version of this solo as a structured improv directed by the inimitable Francesca Harper, whom I had the pleasure of dancing with on several occasions over the years on and off Broadway. It was originally a part of her show “Obamania,” and it brought together her (and my) support for his re-election with her honor for her father, who was a veteran. It morphed over that first year depending on the performance spaces, some of which were very very small.

When I performed it at the International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference and Festival in Los Angeles in 2011, the solo cured so-to-speak, becoming more set as the movement punctuating Obamas words could hardly be separated from them thereafter. So I danced the solo sparingly.

When I agreed to dance it this time, ten years from that fateful IABD occasion (also on youtube), I forgot to look at it first. Unsure what made me think this was a good idea at forty-something, I rehearsed it in the run-throughs for the Luminario Gala where I was being honored for my contribution to the company. I was inspired by Daniel Ulbricht - yes Daniel, this is your fault - because I had watched him over the years step on to the Dance Against Cancer Gala stage in a full suit, say words with partner-in-crime Erin Fogarty, dash backstage, throw that svelte body into a costume and then dazzle everybody with pyrotechnical absurdity.

All before coming back in a suit later to say more words.

He made it look so easy. And since I was only going to be dancing for two minutes, I could handle this, right?

I had a mild cocktail, a full dinner and half a dessert thirty minutes before hopping back stage. I had thirteen minutes to do a scarce warm-up. And I remember laughing at myself as I tried to squeeze my abs over the dinner, cursing Daniel with every tendu. How dare he camouflage the difficulty of this choice with smiles and upright post-performance walking in a dress shoe!

The blessing is that I am still alive and that I landed on my feet every time I jumped from them. Thank God.

Thank you Luminario, Francesca and David Sukonick for shooting it. Okay fine, Daniel too.

Thanksgiving

for breath this morning

and all while I dreamt

for the dreams I don’t remember

for use of all ten toes and both heels

for compliant muscles

for the goodness in the worry of my loved ones

for God’s patience with me on lessons I should have learned

for ancestors

for peeps whose church began at home first thing

with prayer lists I am on

for color

for Beloved, Biles

and Thunberg’s miles

and Arbery conviction files

for days the sun finds the skin on my face

for the sun

for my face

for unknowns I know -

the accident I did not get in when my gut took me another route

the accident I did not have when my stomach turned and flipped about

the mugger I did not meet walking to the subway

the injury I did not sustain from slipping at the bodega

the tow that did not happen to my rental (and should have)

the overdose I was never tempted to have

the career addictions I dodged

the tour that worked me in LA so that I could miss buildings falling in NY

for the career

for the beautiful people in it

for every artist whose art was close enough to bathe in

for family

that my mother lives (to ache my head)

that my dad the Miner mines the things I've said

for Aunt Travis remembering all eight decades

and giving us shards of love from each one

for Storys far and wide

for -

friends for fun, for shoulder, tea and kettle

and enemies - they evidence my mettle

for dancers twirling fibrous thighs around to share sacred rites

and children hurling joyous vibes into the air in tongues I cannot bite

because -

with COVID surge

and racist urge

where fog and Youngkinism merge

Honduras in a civil war

while cons like Ye and Tucker soar

while savings dive

with gas at five

bad brothering

and othering

both Parties never partying -

the juju of the dancing and the children is sacred

for hope

since crippled ice still sleeps under the earth

and Reddit stockers stoke the market girth

that consciousness of terms is lit with fists

this give of thanks is just a partial list

for humility that every day is Thanksgiving

and every smile an Amen

I am

Thankful.

Luminario Ballet

Excited to be honored with Renae Williams in this Gala on Sunday 11/21! The dinner is sold out, but there are still $35 tickets available. Click HERE to get yours.

Mom performed a master class on how to handle surgery without grace or ease

Like most Gen Xers, I was raised in the era of Just Say No, of “This is your brain on drugs — any questions?” following an egg cracked in a skillet. Any tiny bit of substance would take us directly to jail, hell or Skid Row. My friends and I complied, saying no, convinced we could never face our parents should we be caught with so much as a joint.

So there is something odd and wonderful about seeing my mother, who abstained every bit as much as she insisted I did, as high as the Space Needle….

CLICK HERE for the rest of this article on the Dallas Morning News page.

Honoring Leonora Stapleton

October 2019, Leeds UK

I think I gave her a paltry three days notice that I would be in Leeds for 36 hours and would love to see her.   Leonora made time to fetch me from the farmer’s market on my day off and take me on a tour of the area before landing us at lunch. Understand that as was the case with everything else she did – superlative dancing only one - Leonora did not half step.  To tell you where the bathroom is means to walk you there herself with joy, all while excusing you for not being able to find it because the original design of the building was counterintuitive, you see. I knew few people this thorough in their kindness.  So a tour of this section of Leeds was a full history lesson.

During our catch-up, which included several laughs about our concert dance traumas, she noticed my hair out and listened to my cornrow maintenance touring dramas.

“I’ll braid it. I can braid it.”

“Wait, you can do that?”

She just laughed.

Of course she could.   I’m not sure why I hesitated.  She could do anything.  In fact, Leonora Stapleton was one of the fiercest creatures I’d ever seen on the stage.  Years before I auditioned for Donald Byrd/the Group, I saw a studio showing at APAP, a huge booking conference where artistic directors auditioned their companies.  Mostly these were in-studio showings with no lights or special effects—just dancing happening a few feet away. 

I watched this sinewy, dark woman with sprinter musculature and a line that will make you give up fly intensely through a duet that I didn’t know was possible for two bodies to achieve.  Between excerpts, while Donald spoke, she would go “backstage,” which in this case was a curtain slid in front of the studio mirror wall, and cough and hack.  

Clips of Leonora in Donald Byrd work

She was a superhero of some sort, I decided.  Sure, dancers push through illness all the time, but not to succeed nevertheless at these steps for five minutes straight. She could probably grind asphalt with her arches.   So, of course she could braid my hair.

But should she?

“Oh I can’t ask you to do that love,” I told her.  “Don’t you live a while away?”

“It’s no problem. I’ll come back later this evening.”

This is the kind of kindness she wielded.

I didn’t resist, probably because I knew she would put all kinds of energy – the discipline of finish, black girl magic, well wishes, laughter, love of art, love—into each braid.   There is an articulation of these things that took place in spades for her on and off the marley, every ounce of it laced with positivity and hope. 

When I finally to auditioned for Donald Byrd, someone advised me to talk to her about what it was like dancing there.   After I got past the fact that this superhero was willing to take my call, I interviewed her about how dancers manage the work. 

“Well, some of us cross train…” 

She said it with all the help of those bathroom directions, followed by details about her regimen that I did not quite hear.

“Cross train?” I asked, stuck.  “In order to make it through, you all train beyond the rehearsals?”   

This was frightening in every way. Where was there energy to train more after doing all of this in rehearsal? Train across what?  But somehow, Leonora made it so cursory, achievable, maybe even a bit practical.

Six months later, when I was having a particularly rough time in the company—Donald had fired and re-hired us newbies all in the same weekend (the fun black dance story we were laughing about in the picture above)—Leonora came in to cover her old track in Jazz Train.   I remember feeling particularly morose one day about my future in dance here in New York.

She caught me in the funk and touched my back.

“You’re going to be fine,” she said.  “It will work out.”

It was such a simple affirmation, but it mattered so much in the moment. Because as Chris, one of her Lion King family members, said to me recently, when she sees you on the street and her eyes light up, she means it.  Every time.  What a blessing.

If there is a heaven, there are few people who will need no negotiation with whatever life recap bouncer is waiting at its door.  Leonora is one of them, and probably has solid luxury real estate on the other side.   But since she loved even those of us with problematic receipts, she will likely be right there to vouch for us.

Beaming.

Bias

Note: This is one of several throwback journals I wrote last year and did not publish.

9/30/20

It’s coolish. Brooklyn is giving day-after-the-rain dazzle.  I am on my e-scooter, linen hooded kaftan skirting atop linen pants such that my fashionista co-workers from Motown the Musical might have sighed with relief.  I approach the intersection near the police station.  It’s always congested because gentrification has “improved” Classon by subtracting a car lane and adding a bike lane that doesn’t really fit.

But this is not the reason for the congestion. Blocking the bike lane is a cop car from which a perpetrator is being escorted out.  Before I can get a good look, I have backed back my scooter to increase the social distance.   The light is still red as the resistant, handcuffed 6’1, 215 dude – probably Latin X, maybe Blatino - is pulled from the car.  When one of the officers applies care in placing the fallen baseball cap back on his head, he relaxes, complies.

It is only at this point that I take a look at the other officers on their way and realize they are all Latin X as well.

I have several thoughts as I scoot across the green light. I process my initial impulse to protect myself because I imagined all the possibilities of threat the perpetrator could levy depending on his mental health, inebriation, or general rage about being brought in on perhaps a marijuana charge that will help him to become another slave to the prison industrial complex.  And I trusted none the scarcely trained, generally underpaid police officers to contain the situation – a skepticism older for me than the black lives matter movement and dating back to Rodney King.  In fact, I looked not once at the actual officers until they rocked benevolence with that baseball cap. 

Seconds later and because God is good, Mora Amina is yelling my name from catty corner at the intersection.  Not only am I happy to see this fellow dancer/thinker/artist/scholar/choreographer/blacklife, she had seen the entire scene and me in it from a different vantage point.  Mask compliance, along with an uncharacteristically thoughtful fit-out, made it impossible for Mora Amina to make me out from afar.  But she saw it all, my retreat, the scrutiny, the energy around that police car. She saw that it was a Yankees cap and had experienced a similar series of thoughts and post-introspection, only in her case it was augmented by a thought experiment she was in the middle of. It involved noting ways she visually identified/categorized random folks she saw. In sort of a bias training way, she was consciously tracking what would be her subconscious mind:

There’s a white woman with a dog, probably a Karen. 

He’s in leggings and it’s cold, a fitness fad junky.  

This negro is walking slow, the joint must be good.

This sort of thing.

Sounded like a great tool for engagement of self-awareness.  In an effort to better calibrate my subconscious programming and how it is jarred by the renewed 2020 lens of (always high) stakes in situations like this one on the corner, I decided to give this exercise a try.

A Must Read!!

I am next in a Dollar Store standing in line, gracefully acquiescing to every judgment I make about the place. Cheap Family Dollar that feels skeletal in structure, building be damned, feeling trapped in the 70’s or 80’s with employees wearing outfits just dusty enough to reflect the amount of actual dust in the staff-only areas of the store.

“Let me find this $5 coupon and call you back,” says the woman in front of me on the phone with no basket and few items.

“Did you put the onion ring on the burger this time?” shouts one clerk behind a register to the clerk facing her from the other side of the check-out aisle.

Why we gotta be so hood?

A Hasidic Jew walks in, shirt revealing all dirt stains since there was no jacket.  Hat, but no jacket. 

Wow, he’d come in here? I’d think he’d never want to be at a store this far from kosher.

Then I realize that the only reason I am there is that this modest store is the only place I can find post-its around here, nevermind the price or gentrification level.

This Hasid might have a similar need.

Then I clock myself for judging the place down to evade-worthy even by Third World standards. The man with curls and a dirty shirt may not have the same kinds of issues with it, might even find it more comfortably conservative…

Wait, isn’t the stereotype that Jewish people are financially conservative?

Realizing that it has taken me too many beats to get to the obvious helipad, I then congratulate myself for having not internalized the bigger insult as a thought default.

I mean I am looking for a trophy.

A woman behind me in line holds her few items and a coupon toward me.

“Do you know if these are on sale?”

She assumes I know. I shop with coupons on a regular basis, or work here, or show up regularly for my sundries.  Of course.   I can’t even get to the door of “irritated” before I see myself, start laughing.  

Let’s not get this twisted. Any failures of me or Mora Amina to check our internal bias on this day or any other do not subjugate, disenfranchise or brutalize entire groups of people. We (POC’s) are not at the top of the power structure on this yard and don’t—can’t—practice supremacy as a way of life.  But in terms of my general understanding and walk through life, the mechanics, nurturing and transmission of bias that Dr. Eberhardt discusses in her book Biased were laid bare for me on this day.  The scene on the corner told me that trauma notwithstanding, I’m alert; the moment in the dollar store told me that I have deprogramming yet to do.

“No,” I say to the woman at the store. “I have no idea, I’m sorry.”

The Jewish man has made it to the line, a few Sharpies and stationery items unavailable at most bodegas in his hands.

Thank you Mora Amina and the Universe. And Dr. Eberhardt.

In fact, let me go pull out that book again…

Juneteenth 2020 - City Hall, NYC

My name is Jamal Story and I am a proud member of the Next Generation Leadership Committee for the International Association of Blacks in Dance.  I stand here on behalf of Tiffany Rea-Fisher, artistic director of Elisa Monte Dance as well as one of the architects of this moment.  As she was unable to be here in form, she is here in spirit and in these words:

“My name is Tiffany Rea-Fisher, daughter of Karen, daughter of Dorothy, daughter of Sarah, daughter of Edmona Little, my great, great, grandmother born on a plantation in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1800s. I share this with you to remind us of the footsteps that came before us in this civil rights legacy. 

As a choreographer, it is my job to tell OUR stories through movement. What I have found in my choreographic journey so far is that our story is not one only of grief, suffering, and pain as it so easily could be, but also one of hope, joy, resilience, and courage. 

I believe artists are the keepers of the culture, but I believe Black People Are That Culture. I invite you all to imagine a world where our Black bodies and well-being are valued and loved the way THIS world loves Black Culture. That reality feels far away when police are still taking Black people from this earth with impunity but I think with THIS movement we have the best chance in our lifetimes to initiate a reckoning. To get us one step closer to this idea becoming a reality in America. And then we'll take the next step and then the next.

I assume that our ancestors' reactions on this very day in 1865, when they learned of their newfound freedom, ranged from jubilation to rage and everything in between; and I assume the emotions of all of you here today mirror that spectrum: ranging from jubilation to rage as well.

Have your feelings!  Feel your feelings! Our feelings are what make us HUMAN and in the end that is what today stands for, the recognition and treatment of Black people as equal Human beings.  The one place I would implore you to avoid is FEAR.  Fear is our enemy.  Fear has perpetuated stereotypes of black people as "other,” fear has dragged us down and held us back.  Fear has replaced chains of slavery with lack of opportunity and school to prison pipelines.  Look around and feel the joy of everyone around you.  Share that joy that is central to the Human Experience.  For with Joy, Hope and Resolve we can make this country and this world a better place for all our people!”

Tiffany is right of course; our entire experience as black people has been a ballet of jubilation and rage.  It is why the magnifying of Juneteenth is our most nourishing choreography.

Ralph Ellison, one of the most formidable literary giants of last century and writer of the novel Juneteenth said, “The history of the American Negro is the most intimate part of American history.” The full-throated embrace of Juneteenth as an annual celebration is an embrace of that intimacy. It underscores the permanence of black contribution to an America for which we are muscle and fascia.  

In fact by 1979, the year June was designated Black Music Month, this country had already bombed us in Tulsa, hosed us down in Birmingham and front-lined us in Vietnam—all after horns of emancipation, and long before "appropriation" became a hashtag.  Juneteenth gives us the moment to celebrate our own music and honor the connection of black artistry from jitterbug to wobble, from a cappella Negro spiritual to Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up.” Hymns were sung while maps to freedom got cornrowed into slave hair, now protests rhythms are chanted until actual freedom gets braided into America's system.

The fight against white supremacy is not just about justice. It is, as Tiffany says, about the full value of black lives.  The march for Juneteenth is about celebrating those lives. 

It is about the harmony in our spirits.

It is about the steel in our push.

It is about the warmth in our ingenuity.

It is about us seeing the sunlight in our freedom and the soil in our joy.

It is about celebration, art, remembrance, dance, music, and honor to our ancestors for beginning to hold the seed of freedom in their fingers.

We will carry this seed with the courage and art in our arms.

Ashe.

Mykal Ashlee

Pre-show at the T-Mobile Center for the Billboard Music Awards, 2017.

“No, no,” Mykal says with mafia seriousness, “this face needs the full thirty minutes right before the show. Can we move up this tendu fifteen minutes?”

“You know Sumayah likes to put her beat on before warm-up,” I say.

“True. It’s fine, we have our needs.” 

As the sentence completes, his lips close firmly on it. The cheekbones scoot further up the rake of his face to find the light.  His eyes squint with certainty that he sees a silvery river in Wakanda.

“Really?” I say. “All that?”

He breaks into a full-out cackle, aware that we are in fact in a narrow hallway of  dressing room space amidst road cases we will use as barres in a second, all while other Cher staff with pre-show activities negotiate our legs and arms as they pass.

Mykal’s are longer than mine and Sumayah’s and he uses them fully in the space, helping to escort us to whatever vistas of art and inspiration we need to prepare these bodies for the show.  Even as I give the barre, he commits his full discipline of years of concert dance training and professional stage experiences to make this hallway a sanctuary.

Every show day. At 7:00 p.m. Consistently.

To be clear, he exaggerates none about his make-up.  At his station is a gorgeous block with an assortment of fine brushes that I am sure professional make-up artists do not have in their kits. The caboodle with his actual make-up is more manicured than any others in the dressing room.

Somewhere between Zamundan rockstar and Met Opera deity, sometimes craving a turn up and other time a sunrise vinyasa, Mykal embraced his range. “I’m a lot,” he said more than once over years at our Vegas residency and on tour. He reminded me during one of our excursions to Bed Bath and Beyond how prosaic I can be, while he deliberated over plates and mugs as if they were rings at Tiffany.

“Don’t you have enough plates at home, diva?” I asked.

“But look at these…”

“But then, how do you plan to get those home?”

“Shipping, of course.” As if I had asked how babies are made.

“You know they have Bed Bath and Beyond in all the states.”

At which point he clutched pearls and midriff with his bone structure alone at the basicness of the suggestion.

Five minutes later we were swapping full reviews of salacious websites.   

Seldom cursory, always sensory, he felt things—in the air, on his nose, through his spirit, around the soul—with depth, often leaving me to look around in the moment, trying to find these sources.   He wanted his loved ones to feel them to, especially if there was light and joy in them.

I never had to guess where he was. He spoke his truth as easily as he excused himself to pee. Lines got drawn quickly, and he practiced no fear in clarifying these boundaries. I watched and enjoyed this (probably more than I should have), but I knew how hard he fought for every ounce of career in his journey.

He was a good listener. One day we sat over tea as I related my struggle with maintaining all this hair that our boss asked for me to keep.  Since he was new to this gig, I gave Mykal some background on how much our legendary boss loved hair, and he was nothing but generous with understanding about the challenges involved with headpieces and bowlers with black hair.  Even very particular Noah, his dog, was sympathetic. Sure, I had tortured Cher one time back in ’14 during a grueling hurry-up-and-wait tech, joking that I was planning to get a weave.  She’d gotten excited until I told her I was just kidding.  No, no, instead I would just find ways to manage this black hair on stage.  

Mykal entertained this, my extended anecdotes, my inflated hardship. He gave conciliatory Amens, clinked my mug, cheerleading the job I had done so far.

Then he showed up to the first rehearsal of the next leg with a full, glorious weave. 

It had the nerve to be versatile, augmenting his oval face and extend lines with circles and swoops at the top. It surely weighed five pounds. A mane.  Our boss came to the stage and saw nothing else.

“My God, it’s beautiful!” she swooned.  

Mykal thanked her.  With a brief, quick port de bras, he snatched the string so that the tresses cascaded from his crown where they sat a second before.  He swung his head far more than necessary to remove it from his way during their conversation about how it was done, who did it, where…

(Side note: he would be very happy about the sentence above.)

The minute they were caught up, Cher’s face, a combination of victory, admonishment and plea, zeroed in on me just long enough for me to catch it.  

“I hate you,” I told Mykal.

“I know!” he said, eyes bright and teeth shining.

We laughed about this for at least two days.

Me: “What picture are we taking?”

Him: “This one.”

Me: Hahahahaha!

That he is in heaven is an understatement—there is a full twirl happening, replete with Kakilambes, Swan Lakes, Errands into the Maze and bootylicious drops. Perhaps all at once.  Probably with Jeremiah.  He may be mid-argument with Peter about the design of his chateau, but he is there no doubt, cheekbones high enough to make God blush.

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How Unearthing Tony Britts' Videos Sounds Alarms

It is the break between second and third periods. I am swinging around the monkey bars, working on a straddle cut regrasp. My legs start at 12 o’clock and circle wide away from each other to meet at 6:30. An eighth grader with more muscle and swag than God normally allows at this stage of puberty leads his posse toward me.

“How you so flexible?” he says.

“Gymnastics,” I say.

“Fag.”

They laugh, satisfied with their higher station even as I hang six feet above them. I carry on. I have only a few more tries at this before the bell rings. And at age 12, with physical abilities that exceed theirs, I am immune to the epithet. 

They are not my first time…

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Newsworthy

I have been to Manhattan only once since I was tested (negative) for COVID-19.

It was to pick up a prescription at a pharmacy across the street from my doctor’s office, which sits a block over from Times Square and only spitting distance from the touristy stretch of 42nd Street.  Armed with a mask and gloves that our roommate had left in a bag with other post apocalyptics, I was impressed that the New Yorkers I encountered respected social distance with adamance.  The few people on our almost empty train car positioned themselves as far away from each other as possible.

But somewhere along the ride it dawned on me that this is typical behavior even with no viral catastrophe.  New Yorkers, who understand we live on top of each other, have learned how to disconnect in transit to conserve energy for the workday.  Seeking social distance is habitual.  With so many folks (mercifully) at home, this was easier.   

In fact, my goal is not to minimize the gravitational pull of this disease or undermine CDC appeals that we stay home. But going out was not dramatic. Even my bank run here in Brooklyn, to get quarters for laundry in my building, meant waiting in a discrete cue drawn in cursive around the lobby by people who did not need to be prodded into responsible COVID-19 civility.

As someone fortunate enough not to need a hospital currently—and I say this with not an ounce of wry hyperbole—I have no idea what is going on in them beyond what is being reported.  I am watching and reading just like everyone else in the country. When loved ones, colleagues, friends and family member began calling to check on me, I assumed it was par for the course. One particular text alerted me that my location specifically is the source of great worry.

This is when I put it together:  without a real snapshot of a lived experience in coronavirus-stricken NYC, folks imagine The Walking Dead, where fat-encased, life-threatening microscopic proteins replace zombies in actively chasing us down streets so overrun with rude, incompliant miscreants that the sensible few of us can’t escape.

I am as aware of news outlets appearing on lists of businesses imperiled by the novel coronavirus as I am journalistic tendencies to sensationalize crises even in the best of circumstances (my communications degree helps).  So there is a measure of sensitivity I have when I shake my head at headlines like the one beneath Cuomo on my screen the other day: “NY GOV: 253 PEOPLE HAVE DIED IN THE STATE SINCE YESTERDAY.”  The ticker scroller further down read that NY has the most confirmed cases of the virus in the world.

There were no qualifiers at all.

For example, the fine print does not account for the fact that testing, which is not available as readily in other states nor broadly practicable without substantial medical manpower (and perhaps government support), is a function of how many cases of the virus are confirmed. Since our medical facilities are overwhelmed and desperate for ventilator and staff support, every bit of news underlining the problem helps. But death toll comparisons between New York and other places made without per capita qualifications become alarming.  And I have yet to see the information put in the context that with 19.4 million inhabitants, we are the fourth largest state in population.

Combine this with images of refrigerated trucks to store the bodies and you get panic.

It’s not just New York of course.   The Washington Post published Fauci’s expectation that the U.S. will lose anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 lives to the novel coronavirus even with mitigating efforts. This will devastate, no doubt.   For perspective, however, there are 330 million people in America; losing half of 1% of the population would mean the deaths of 1,650,000 people, almost seven times what Fauci predicts.  If we get through this viral attack losing less than a seventh of one half a percent, we should be very thankful.

The 1918 Spanish Flu killed 675,000 Americans, which was 2% of this country’s population at the time, for comparison.

And if we take death toll comparisons outside of viral plagues, it may be worth considering that 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over 100 days in Rwanda. In 1994, this was 84% of the Tutsi population.

Qualifiers, context, perspective—all of it helps.  And often, too little of it is present. The composition of the televised news about New York outside of and including these examples is clarifying. No wonder everyone thinks I’m one grocery store trip from pneumonia, hence this blog.  I just want to assuage worry about the New York that is clearly not making it to the news, the New York I currently live in.

A lot of us are fine, I among them.

I promise.  

More than I Can Chew

As I sat in the beautifully upholstered chair sipping complimentary tea, the monitor in front of me showed what the elite dentist’s state-of-the-art, camera-laden prodder thingy was seeing in my mouth.  She was way too pleasant as she made small comments to her associate in dental shorthand that was pretty easy to follow. I translated.

Some surface erosion.

Holes there.

Looseness of these two teeth.

Gum deterioration.  Pocketing.

The cushy office and the tea did not help stave off the promise of oral doom. Nor did the beautiful brown complexion of my dentist, which I had seen to with a thorough canvas of two recommended internet sites (www.findablackdoctor.com was one).  This office was amenable, honoring the discounts provided by my non-insurance—coverage under a provider able to charge a smaller monthly by calling themselves a “share” plan vs insurance—despite that the office was out of network.  And the cleaning was thorough.

So was her evaluation.

“There are three ways people lose teeth,” she explained. “A traumatic bite, gingivitis or gum disease, and tooth decay. You have varying stages of all three.”

I was flabbergasted. I considered myself a wonderful oral self-hygienist, particularly since I had contended with braces as a child. No, I did not floss every day, but I did most days.  Granted, I had not been to see my childhood dentist in Carson, CA in two years. And the discontinuation of Mentadent was devastating (I’m still not over it).  But my teeth cleanings were always shorter than normal and required very little scrape work.

Yet here we were.  And there was more.

“Part of the recession of the gums is most likely the pulling of muscles from your cross bite.”

“I’m aware of this and the bite, as it has never been right,” I said. “I’m not sure if it’s congenital, but when I was getting braces at 12, my orthodontist tried to convince us that my smile would be perfect if I got jaw surgery to put my mandible where it belongs. We didn’t have $10K so it was a no-go. But I manage it well.”

“What do you do,” she asked, her associate leaning in.

“Feldenkrais has been helpful to relax the muscles of the mandible at night so that I don’t hold on to tension.”

“Felden…?”

Because I knew the epic treatment recommendation was coming, I was now excited that I could explain to her an option for mouth maintenance that she knew nothing about. Breaking down the neurokinetic benefit of Feldenkrais techniques demonstrated that I am body aware, learned and thorough; she should underestimate none of it along her path to treatment suggestions.

“So you’ve had some discomfort here and there and you’ve been managing it,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Good.  A traumatic bite can, over time, still lead to tooth decay.  There is a process for this that involves moving the teeth inside of the gums to fix this and promote tooth health.”

“It’s an involved process,” the associate added.  “It’s also very expensive, about the cost of a car.”

My jaw would have to remain traumatized.

“Let’s move on.”

“You have some pocketing here and there and for this we recommend a deep clean,” the venerable dentist said. “For this one, we use anesthesia and get it all done at one time.”

“How much?”

“Up to two grand.”

I nodded, attempting with my thigh to pull my wallet closer to my body, as if this were possible.

“The last thing is the teeth,” she said. “The fillings you have are not designed to last more than three years, and as a result, we see areas of deterioration where particles have seeped in and decayed your teeth. Now, we recommend porcelain because it’s durable and lasts forever and it will prevent us from having to do them again in a few years.  Remember that every time you replace a crown you end up losing a little more tooth.”

“How much?”

“Normally $1,850 but we’ll do them for $1,500 to honor your discount.”

Not too bad.  I started doing math, figuring out how much of this I should spend sooner than later.

“Fifteen altogether?”

“Per tooth.”

I’m sure my teeth started twerking around in my mouth in protest. I did some quick math.  “Between the eight teeth at $1,500 each and the deep clean, I’m still at over $10,000. That’s still the cost of a car.”

“Oh, when I said that, I meant a Mercedes or a BMW.”

Where is my jacket? And the elevator? I mean, seriously, it was looking bleak.  Even a $15,000 price tag for oral health was absurd to fathom, although these women made an incredible case for why I should consider it.

“Would it make sense to get better dental insurance and then try to apply it to these procedures?”

“It won’t matter too much,” the associate said.  “Dental insurance typically has minimum coverage and high deductibles.” 

She told no lies. A bit of Google research revealed that dental insurance is more like AAA than it is a car warranty.   The low maximum has been $1,000 for the last fifty years with no concern for inflation. The benefit helps little if it’s time to do a root canal or three, for example.   And the goal of dental insurance is at most to prevent you from needing the root canal. Add to this a longer life expectancy, which pressures adult teeth to stand up longer than what was necessary 200 years ago, and the prevalence of sugar and now you have a setup for failure, pain and tooth-fairy-free loss.

I thanked them for the Friday effort, paid the $350 it cost (after the discount) and ran from the office.

I permitted myself a moment of self-pity.  For the audience, dance is a visual art. This means what I look like matters__my body, my face, my teeth.  Three solid minutes were spent walking around midtown wallowing in the career-dystopic eventuality that I struggle around New York trying to get a job despite my Dickensian mouth, pauper rotted and porridge ready because I could not find 15 grand…

But nobody has time for all that. By the time I reached the train, I had regrouped and sent my uncle, a retired dentist, an email asking for a second opinion.   The response to my attached x-rays was quick.

“There is nothing wrong with these x-rays! Send me the periochart.”

Only there was no periodontal examination results to send.  After a run-around with the dentist, she sweetly explained that to save her patients the discomfort of prodding below the gum line, she typically conducts the exam and the deep cleaning in the same Novocain-induced session.  This meant that I would not know how many quadrants of my mouth would need help, and nor how big the price tag, until after awaking from the commitment.

I could see my uncle’s rolls his eyes in his email response to this explanation.  My cousin Kim vetoed all of this too, insisting that I bring my ass to her brother-in-law’s office.  

On this next Vegas leg of shows, I stole away to Los Angeles and made a same-day appointment to see Dr. Spears.    Convivial and familiar, he listened to my account of woes and tipped me back to look. 

“I have good news and bad news.”

“Give me the bad news first.”

“I think they were trying to take you for a ride,” he said.  “The good news is that your teeth are fine and there’s nothing I can do for you today.  I’d add a water pick to your regimen, but if you’re using the plastic retainers as you said, you’ll be fine.”

He advocated for the other preventative stuff too:  rinsing with warm salt water once or twice a day is good for the gums, swishing a teaspoon of coconut oil around for twenty minutes once in a while and flossing daily are key.   

Do I think I was being taken for a ride in NY?  Meh.  I think they were probably very reasonable for the demographic they serve, which does not include people in my artist tax bracket. How else could they pay for the camera/prodder thingy?

Am I thrilled about my new Pasadena, CA dentist, Dr. Jason Spears?  Yes.  I need to send the NY dentist a Thank You card.  Because what my cousin and in-law neglected to warn is that Dr. Spears has charming freckles sitting on a face that his underbite hardly disturbs, and glassy maybe-hazel/maybe-green eyes that overrule any objections a patient might have to opening their mouth—no penis or pun intended.

No really, get thine head from the gudder!

(And inbox me if you need your teeth cleaned and can’t find Dr. Spears’ information. 😉)