Latest / Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast / The Role of Race in Dance

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The Role of Race in Dance · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've also wondered what goes on behind the table in a dance competition.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is making the impact of the dance competition podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Each week we'll cover a different topic related to the world of competitive dance from the perspective of the judges behind the table.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: The year 2020 has got many uncle topics of four sides of everyone's mind, including dancers and dance educators.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: The role of race in a competitive dance world has been turned around or outright ignored for too long.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we at impact dancing educators and making the impact are committed to starting a dialogue in hopes that we can be the change we wish to see in our corner of the world.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are joined by Michelle Tolson and Max Bassipoli for a conversation on race and dance.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, it's Courtney Ortiz, and welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact a Dance Competition Podcast.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, and of course, I'm here with my co-host, Leslie Mueller.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, how are you doing?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: We are very excited to talk about a very important topic today: the role of race in dance.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we have two wonderful IDA judges who you may have remembered from season one that we will introduce to you very soon.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: But before we do, we have some exciting announcements to share with all the listeners out there.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one of those is we launched some merch.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: How cool.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, everybody's been asking for merch, and especially all of our IDA judges really have wanted the merch.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we made it happen for them so they can rep IDA all over the place whenever they're traveling and judging for us.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: But not only for our judges, but we also launched merch for all of you listeners.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: All of the supporters of Making the Impact, you can now rock the Making the Impact merch and swag year round.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we have some really cute hoodies, we have some crew necks, we have these adorable little enamel pins that I love so much that you can add to your dance bag or your jacket or your backpack or whatever you want.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So go check it out now on our website.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's our IDA merch.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's what it's called.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's at Impact Dance Adjudicators.com slash our IDA merch.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you've heard us talk about all of our fabulous sponsors this season, but we can't make this podcast possible without the help of them.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we are so grateful for each and every sponsor that we have on the podcast.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, our first sponsor that we'd like to chat about today is Dance Costumes by Erzua.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So many dancers might struggle with finding dancewear that fits their body.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have super long legs.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, but I'm very jealous.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can't find the perfect option in your skin tone.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't have to pay more for custom dance wear because of your body shape.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Dance Costumes by Urzua is here to change that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're launching a new line of dancewear that offers a variation of sizes and skin tones to flatter every dancer body.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: They also offer custom dance costumes for the competitive stage to make sure you stand out from the rest.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Head on over to DanceCostumesByarzua.com to learn more about their costumes and dancewear and use the code IDA15 at checkout to receive 15% off of your order.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yay, we love you, Dance Costumes by Erzua.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely check them out if you're still hunting for that perfect costume.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm excited to introduce a new sponsor to the podcast who I personally have their socks.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I love them.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they are called Apollo Performance.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't tried Apollo Shocks, they are socks that are designed and made for dancers.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love my socks so much.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: They give me so much support while I'm dancing, and I really can't believe how much better my body felt after wearing them.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd love for you all to check them out.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have so many different styles and they're all fantastic.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: They are the only dance footwear accepted by the American Podiatric Medical Association, and they are running holiday sales right now that you won't want to miss.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: So head on over to ApolloPerformance.com to view all of their styles and order a pair for your dancer today.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right, it's time to dive into this discussion.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And like I mentioned earlier, we have two returning IDA judges to the podcast joining us today.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to have them introduce themselves.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: But let's first start with a judge that you may remember from season one, episode 14: The Importance of Tap Class and Why You Should Be Taking It.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to welcome back Michelle Tolson to the pod.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was a pretty incredible podcast, and I can't wait for part two.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know though we'll be a part two.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: There has to be.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: It seems so long ago.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: Pandemic, coronavirus, election shutdown.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just so happy to be doing something normal today with you all.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: My fellow dancers.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me back.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Very excited.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Not going to talk about myself because you guys can Google me.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she's popular, well, I will let you all know though.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh New Hampshire native, and I uh am of mixed race.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: My mother's from Spain, and my father was black.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I would be technically called mulatto, but I like to say Milano, like the cookies, especially the mint Milano, because it's like a little chocolate, a little white.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of me.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm very excited to be on this podcast, this episode, because it does, it was interesting growing up where I grew up, and it's been interesting moving forward in the dance world.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I appreciate you having me back on.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're very excited to hear all about your experiences and thank you for joining us on this important discussion.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And next up is a judge that you may remember from one of our hottest episodes, um, one of our most listened to episodes of season one, which was season one, episode 24, What makes a successful musical theater entry?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to welcome back Max Vassipoli to the podcast.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_05: Hi, how is everyone?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_05: Good, I hope.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Please, if you feel like sharing again.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_05: This is where I slate, this is where I brag.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, talk a little bit about yourself.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just remind everybody, you know, if they didn't get to listen to that awesome episode, which they should go back and do.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you know.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_06: Of course.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_06: Hello.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_06: My name is Max Vassipoli.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_06: I'm an arts advocate, educator, and adjudicator based here in Philadelphia.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_06: I hold both my master's in education and BFA in musical theater from the University of the Arts.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_06: Currently, I serve as an academic advisor for high school programs at the University of Pennsylvania, or UPenn.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_06: Prior to my work in higher education, I performed and taught with Opera Philadelphia for several years, including teaching for their hip opera program in partnership with Art Sanctuary.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_06: Art Sanctuary is a Philly-based arts organization dedicated to bringing Philadelphians together through the unique community-building power of black art.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_06: After attending their teaching artist training in 2014, I decided to pursue my master's degree.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_06: And in 2017, I was the first man of color to graduate from my program in educational program design with a focus on educational technology.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_06: The oh thank you.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_06: The 2021 competition season will be my eighth as an adjudicator, having judged extensively throughout the US and Canada.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all right, Max.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, a little bit about me.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm from New Hampshire.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: I have a cat.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: Not as well.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Radio City Rocket for our hot second, six years, second black Miss New Hampshire.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_05: We love to have it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad I didn't talk about myself.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, Max, you're incredible.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_06: No, thank you.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_06: I would love to hear that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_06: And being the first, I'm sure we'll get into more of this, but being the first of any, you know, the first, I hope we'll come to to see soon, but it's exciting to be with another first holder, I suppose.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yay.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, guys, for being here and sharing your time with us today.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we are just so grateful.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Courtney and I have both collectively known both of you for quite a while.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just happy to be with good company today.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yay.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I'm really excited to have you both.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for those lovely introductions.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that Michelle, you uh shared with us your ethnicity, your background.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I, if we would like to just kind of like initiate and start the conversation with that and just describing who we are, I'll I'll start with me.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: My last name is Ortiz.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that is definitely coming from my Hispanic side.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my dad is half Italian, half Mexican.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I am actually uh a quarter Hispanic and I do identify as a Latinx uh typically.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I um and my mom is white.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that is kind of like my background.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a ambiguous mutt, if you will, but that's a little bit about my ethnicity and race.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Max, can you tell us a little bit about yours?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_06: Uh sure.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_06: I am adopted from Colombia.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_06: I'm an indigenous Latinx person.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, cool.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I have just recently, this is Leslie speaking, recently found out my grandfather does a lot of genealogy and can trace my family all the way back to England in 1635.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm quite white if I have to be honest.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some German on my my uh other side of the family.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So so I'm so happy to have such a wide range of backgrounds here today.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this will be good, y'all.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's just jump right in.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now that we kind of like got that going, we all know a little bit about a little bit of our backgrounds and we kind of touched on this a little bit in even in some of your introductions, but I'd love to just kind of start like back from the beginning.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: What was your personal if you have any personal experiences of what it was like growing up a dancer of color in your dance space, in your hometown where you grew up training?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Anything that you'd like to share initially from you know the start of your your dance journey.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in New Hampshire, Manchester, New Hampshire.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: I started dancing around eight or nine, and New Hampshire was very light.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: My father moved up there from Alabama because there were more job opportunities for a man of color.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: My mother came over from Spain with her first husband and they met each other and they got together, and there we are.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: So my brother and I are both mixed children, and my mom and dad wanted us to be successful in life but didn't quite know how to get us there, so they put us in the arts.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: My dance teachers were all pretty white.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's New Hampshire.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny though, when I was thinking about this, I was exposed to the gay community before the any other community in the dance world.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I took class at Allegro Academy of Dance, and the owner was Joel Conrad, a gay man that I did not know was gay at eight, who cares?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: And my teacher there, Terry Morris, used to have viewing parties at her house, and I remember putting in her VHS, and she introduced me to Electric Boogaloo and and all those dance movies that were coming out in the 80s and 90s, and which was really cool for me to see there were some options.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then I started traveling to Lawrence, Massachusetts to dance with a man, Joe Dufalt, another gay man.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Did not know he was gay, I should have known because he didn't take any tap dance to Liberace.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um But my my tap training was was substantial.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't believe I had a teacher of color until I started traveling into Boston as a teenager to Jeanette Neal.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: My dad would take my brother and I into Boston and I danced at uh with Julia Boyton, who was my tap teacher, but I danced with Adrian Hawkins, who still teaches at Jeanette Neal.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And there was my first experience of a strong, incredible presence in the dance field.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then another one when I finally moved to the New York Tri-State area was Sheila Barker.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to take Frank Hatchett's class.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had some wonderful mentors growing up that exposed me to the world of dance.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty light in New Hampshire, but you know, once we traveled outside of New Hampshire, I started getting exposed.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh I I had I just had great teachers that just knew dance was important to me and knew to be exposed.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_06: It's super interesting.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_06: We were talking just really briefly before we started, and we have a very similar background as far as where we grew up.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_06: I am adopted and I also grew up in a predominantly white area of the Northeast.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_06: There were less than 10 students of color in my entire high school.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_06: At the first dance studio, a smaller, more like ballet-focused studio that I went to, there were no other male dancers and almost no dancers of color.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_06: Uh my second studio, which is a larger competition studio, had way more male dancers and a few other dancers of color.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, neither had instructors or staff of color.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_06: I think this environment, like Michelle was saying, really taught me well, especially coming later to dance, but there was no real representation or diversity in the earliest parts of my dance education.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_06: But I think that's part of why I started teaching to really be the educator I needed as a younger student.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Max, it's so interesting you should say that because I forget because it's so much a part of my life.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: My little brother and I um were the only kids of color from first through eighth grade.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then in our dance studio, when he started tap dancing, we were the only brown children.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Now that you say that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it was what it was, and it pushed us to be for go forward.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And Max, I kind of agree with you.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think I I've always loved teaching, but I'd love teaching to be for someone to be able to say, There's somebody that looks like me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Missy Copeland just put out an article that says something very similar that she, you know, had been taken out of a few roles, and it took other mem people of color, dancers of color, to really build her back up and say, This is this is your your dream, this is your destiny, you have to go and do this.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_06: And and the and how it just really showed me how representation is so important, especially as you're growing up, and to not see other people that look like you is it's it's daunting, it's really tough.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_06: And uh we'll talk about it later, but I I said that it would have been much easier to quit than to stick it out at some points.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Max, when do you remember who your first teacher of color was?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your dance a tier your first dance teacher of color?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't have any dance teachers of color until college.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't know, and I didn't have any school teachers of color until high school.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_06: I had very few peers of color in the studio, but at the time I remember seeing myself in dancers like Angel Carrea and Jose Manuel Carreño.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_06: Once I got to college, though, I remember taking Wayne David's open class here at UARTs.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: He's so wonderful.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_06: He's incredible, right?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_06: And he just cultivates such a great environment, and it was so opposite to what I had seen in my training that I was like hook I was hooked after that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_06: And I went to every dance concert, every senior concert.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that was when I really first saw myself represented on stage for the first time.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I had no teachers of color ever in school, but I was exposed to the Jazz Dance World Congress.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And when I went out to Chicago, everybody was represented.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was African dance and Latin dance and all these teachers.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, there's a whole world I know nothing about because of where I was.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time, because I'm old compared to you guys, there wasn't much going on.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it was so eye-opening and so exciting to know that the professional world, or I thought at the time, would embrace me.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, and I I'm sure we're gonna get there on that discussion for sure.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's so inspiring to hear your guys' stories of your childhood, and I'd like to share a little bit of mine as well.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in a very small town in Maryland, a rural town.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we uh my high school was very small, and we if you can imagine, we had bring your tractor to school day at my high school.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is a real thing.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: People drove their tractors to school and the news came and it was a whole thing.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you can kind of get an idea of what kind of world and environment I grew up surrounded by.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the great thing about dance was the fact that it wasn't like that small town at my dance studio.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was predominantly white.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: All of my teachers were white, but uh we had a nice uh mix of people of color in different ethnicities that attended my studio.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really it felt like home for me because I didn't have that at school.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in a weird way, even though I'm only, you know, a quarter Hispanic.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was immediately kind of looked at as being a a a person of color and one of the few at my high school, which I never really realized that that affected me until I look back as an adult now and I'm like, oh wow, like people would just just call me like literally, and I don't know if this is that appropriate, but people would be like calling me Mexican, like straight up to my face.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just like, really?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, come, you know, and I didn't know how to really take it then, and I just thought they were joking, but now I'm just like, wow, that is not okay to to do.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, like as a child, it was kind of interesting, but for me, I was uh surrounded by um so many different ethnicities in my dance studio, and I really felt like that even though I didn't have teachers of color, I felt like that there were dancers that were embodying the different styles and just kind of I looked up to a lot of them in in my years there.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I felt like it really helped kind of create me and as a mover and a dancer in so many different ways that just my my white teachers couldn't really provide for me and show me that groove and show me that style.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really grateful for the environment at my dance studio, and it was definitely kind of an escape for me that I didn't realize until growing up and looking back at it that like wow, I'm I'm glad that I I had that outlet to go to.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I really thank dance for that.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I I you know, looking back, I don't know if I ever had a teacher of color either.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I maybe a guest teacher here and there, but um maybe at a convention, but besides that in my hometown, it it it didn't really exist.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: I intend to be that that first teacher of color for teeth for schools when I guessed.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm okay with that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad they're exposed to it.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Which is I just I just think we're missing the boat on on excellent teachers.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So going into more of our like since we all are now adults and are teachers ourselves, what's missing?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: What can we do?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because like we've all said, I mean, I was in the same boat.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have I had plenty of school teachers of color.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I lived in a very racially diverse area of a suburb of Atlanta.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in the dance world, I didn't experience a teacher of color until high uh college as well.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And even then I was at a school in the middle of Oklahoma.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I had one teacher of color.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, as we move forward in our teaching journeys, you know, you two, I'm interested to hear being a teacher of color.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you at studios that embrace that?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the only one?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel teaching students as a teacher of color?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are you teaching other dancers of color?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are you teaching mostly white students?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's sort of your your deal with that?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, this is an interesting question.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_06: And I think it really dives into the type of work that you go towards as uh any educator or any artist, right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_06: And I think, you know, uh being a younger person and kind of going through kind of what we've all talked about, feeling lonely, feeling not really having someone or many people to look up to that looked like us, I think once I took some autonomy over my own dance education, I was really drawn to kind of redirecting and really focusing on creators, educators, performers of color.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_06: And I think this again like defined the type of work I wanted to create and the type of opportunities I went after.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_06: To answer your question, Leslie, I think um I have a list, to be honest with you, of like uh of of some of the inclusive practices the answer owners can can kind of bring themselves.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_06: I don't want to say it's only for educators of color or only for white educators.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_06: This is kind of we all have to be around this.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_06: It's not something, it's not enough to be just casually intolerant or tolerant.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_06: We have to be anti-racist.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_06: This has been a huge year for civil rights, and we we we can't look away at this point.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_06: It's global.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and especially our our students are the people who are in the middle of this, truly like saving the world on TikTok right now.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_06: And quite literally.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_06: And so it's very important that we we serve them and we let them know that this is a creative space and that this is a very safe space.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_06: I also think it's vital that teachers spend time themselves researching black and brown history, dance history specifically, in order to share with their students.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, dedicate a month of your time to exploring black dance history with your students.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_06: It's important that they understand historical context of dance, especially if they want to go further and pursue it professionally.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_06: If you've ever taken a drop in class with Sammy Reyes, he educates students on different styles of hip-hop, like whacking, popping, breaking during his warm-up before the combination.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_06: It's so brilliant.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_06: It's like very subversive education, but I think that's that's the type of thing that I'm talking about.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_06: Additionally, it's vital to seek out teachers of color, not just for hip-hop or tap, but for ballet and modern too.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_06: If those teachers have like specialize in a specific style of dance, like African, flamenco, Vogue, anything, ask them for a series of classes in that unique style as well.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_06: This is part of the appropriation versus appreciation conversation.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_06: I think of dance as a language, and it's the best way to practice a new language is with a native speaker.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_06: That leads me second to produsorial and directorial.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_06: Dance has always been reflective of society, so we are bound to see numbers about this year, protesting, masks, and as a creative outlet for students, we want to foster that impulse to create while also being very sensitive about creating something for the stage which is meant for entertainment, right?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_06: So we're asking students to use real life tragedy or trauma to create a piece that can be it can be kind of exploitative and and makes our role as judges really hard.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_06: I think funnel that energy into a choreography, into a choreography unit or an acting exercise, maybe, instead of a competition piece.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_06: Do you want me to keep going?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_06: I have a list, I have a list! And then the th the one of the other things we talked about or we kind of asked about was costuming.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_06: And I want to shout out specifically the International Association of Blacks in Dance for their list of black dancewear companies offering a wide selection of active dancewear in every shade.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_06: So definitely go take a look at them and the work they're doing.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_06: There's a pretty concept comprehensive list, but I'm sure there's more out there.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_06: Which brings me to my last point, which is ask.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_06: If you have a question about how a dancer will do their hair or makeup, which costuming they prefer, their music choice, anything that you feel, you know, runs this type of more identity-based choice making, ask.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_06: Ask and listen.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_06: This is how we invite students to the collaborative process and develop their own aesthetic.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_06: Some students may be way more comfortable talking about their race, ethnicity, or background, and others may not be.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_06: The first step is to ask, and the second step is to listen.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that's true also for situations like this.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_06: I know Courtney and her team very well.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_06: I ordinarily wouldn't open Up like this to strangers about race, identity, growing up.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_06: So even among your teachers, your parents, your staff, your peers, ask first and listen second.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's all we needed for today.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you all next time.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I knew Max would come with it.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was going to come with a dissertation.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: I was ready for it.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, it is.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I have something that Leslie, the one thing I think, Max, that we didn't touch upon because your your dissertation was amazing just now.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you won my Miss America Award.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, honey, you got away.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Leslie, you had said what's missing.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that I don't think that anything's missing.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think that in the black community, uh, not the whole community, dance is a luxury.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you sometimes have to choose what you can do, and you have to decide where you're gonna put your money.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: And moving forward, I'm sure a lot of these people when they go on to college are not thinking about opening studios.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: We have to think about things that will support families.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's one reason, possibly 80s, 90s, I'm not talking so much now, that you we didn't have as many dance studios, uh, black dance studios, black owned dance studios.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: But the other problem I see as a judge, and I'm going on 21 years of judging, I have seen that old lady in me, I have seen some amazing black studios come in and present, and other judges not understanding their presentation or their flavor or their style.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're not rewarded for what they do, which is disheartening.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think the dance competition world is fully diverse enough yet.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons I work for IDA because I know that our staff is diverse.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: I want to work with people of different colors, ethnicities that teach me.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: One of my very good friends, Crystal Frazier, was at UARTs and she had her own all-female hip-hop company and she taught at Hope College, and now she's at Point Park, and she does the same thing.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: She doesn't just teach you the steps, she tells you where it comes from, who the person was that developed it.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: I try to do that with my tap classes.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know the difference even between rhythm and Broadway tap?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And who would you consider a Broadway tapper and who would you consider a rhythm tapper?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know historical female tappers?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know contemporary female tappers?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, they don't even know that.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, how can we think ladies?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_05: Go look up think ladies, right?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the easiest one, right?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many ladies now, but Eleanor Powell, the people they don't know about, they can't even come up with Shirley Temple.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, they don't think of Shirley Temple.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: For goodness sake, right?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Shirley Temple.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: But she was taught by uh Bo Jengles.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: Black man.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right, who's one of the greatest historical tap dancers we have.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if we don't know as teachers, white, black, brown, Asian, yellow, green, I don't care, how can we get this to our students and so that they can understand where their dance form is coming from and connect to it a little bit more?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think some of it might have been economy at one point, but I also think people have decided just to open studios because they think it's easy business and it is not easy business.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: You have to be a psychologist, you have to be a financial analyst, you need to be a manager, you need to be a customer.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I didn't open a studio.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I just teach.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to deal with all that.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: I just want the creativity.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be able to give freely and not have to worry about the other aspects of it.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: But Max, you also made another great point.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Back in the day, you my mom used to dye my tights in tea so that they would match my skin tone.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And even when I was a rock cat, they still back in the day were not matching our skin tone yet.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Only very recently.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: That happened only very, yeah.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I was a rock cat from 97 to 2002 in that six-year window.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: We were starting to go through it.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: We people were asking to see some change, and and our shoes were all that suntan color.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: So my girlfriend Kisa looked pretty darn ashy because she's black.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um she is, and y'all know Kisa, she she's great, and she was our center girl, but she she looked extra.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and Kisa has beautiful, beautiful dark ebony skin.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't like I can't even sure does.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've seen the pictures, so I know it was true, and it just it just boggles my mind to continue to see that on a competition stage where, as Max mentioned, what's the name of the association again?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we can link to it.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_06: It's the International Association of Blacks in Dance.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_06: So and they on their website they have a list of I can read them, I have them here.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'm sure we know some of them.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_06: Um Aurora Type.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Blends is on there, I'm sure.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_06: Blends is on here.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_06: Ballet Cafe Naturals.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_06: Blends Apparel, Blends with a Z.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_06: Fleshtone.net, Mahogany Blues Dance Apparel.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh that's a cute name.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_06: Miss Rose Dance Closet.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_06: And um the last one is a little scandalous.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_06: It's nude bar, but as in bar, like ballet bar.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_06: So nude b-ar-r-r-e.com.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um thanks for clarifying because I'd be a good thing.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you want to be sure if some of these are a little um uh they're very uh sensual, let's say.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but these are specifically black-owned businesses and and that focus on really having a full range of skin tones.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the things that, you know, as a as a as a white person judging on stage, it did always, you know, I think before people were really having this conversation en masse when I first began judging, it just always made me kind of tilt my head a little, like, well, oh, I think those those dancers should have these tights that are m that match their skin, just like that other dancer has tights that match her skin.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then you started looking at the big companies, your blocks, your capizios, your, you know, Gaynor Mendons, your everybody else.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't even have that available 10 years ago.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, thankfully, we do have these black-owned businesses who are focusing on that.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, you know, the summer, I think, is a lot of us in the industry pushed for and noticed and really wanted to create the change.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every big company now is now offering point shoes or starting to offer point shoes in a range of colors, which was 100%.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And character shoes too.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Some character shoes, I see.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's tough though, because I remember like the the reasoning behind the Rock hats back in my day not getting tights that match your skin tone is that it would take away from the uniformity.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: But if from here up you're also not from my from my neck up, if I'm not the same as everybody else.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that was that was the reasoning.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And as a judge now, I do actually talk about tights, but I generally only do it for soloists.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Also, I know, again, financially, it's hard to get multiple pairs of tights, especially if you're a child that's not a suntan color.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: So if it's a soloist, though, I want to see them look their best.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: That also means down to their shoes.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you I don't want to see you and in tights that match your skin tone and then some ashy dance paws or turners.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Everything needs to be streamlined to make you give you that beautiful line.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And tap shoes, I think, are even easier now to do.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there are so many custom tap shoes.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: I not about your own color, but you can do that with anything.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I just think it's really important for for dance teachers and choreographers, I think it's more dance teachers, to understand that giving their dancer their identity on stage is so helpful for a dancer to perform even better.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm just thinking of costume companies in general, and I'm sure we've all experienced this before, but if there's ever any sort of like mesh or skin tone color a part of the costume, it's always going to be light.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Light.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom would cut it out, dye it, and sew it back in for me.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: And the same with the straps on the old, you know, how they had those elastic straps.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: She would take those off, dye them in tee for me so that they match my skin tone.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that's 80s, right?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: And why haven't things have changed?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no kids that are having to do that.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: There exactly, like as the costume companies evolve, and you know, if the if the shoe companies have finally got the hint, hey, maybe we need to have every color, skin tone color.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: For not more money.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And for not a longer ship date.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not an upcharge.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: It needs and like, you know, having worked in that industry briefly, you know, the argument always is, but we're not gonna sell a lot of it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna make a lot of money.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can't have it in stock.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and my argument back to that has always been you have to have it in stock.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is unfair.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's it's inequality at its finest, is saying this color I'm not stocking, even though this color is needed by a group of people.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Generally, just like any other, you know, color of dance shoe.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's you know, it's definitely there's a business perspective to think about when it comes down to that stuff.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm I'm solely of the opinion that it needs to be done.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Period, the end.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be done.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if it can't be done, I'm shopping somewhere else.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Or we're Max, Courtney, Leslie, we're all gonna start, we're gonna make our own costumes from now on and send them out.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's our next business.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: The new, the the next addition to IDA costume company.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and Max, I wanted to say something else in your one of your last statements I thought was so brilliant.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first step is to ask, the second step is to listen.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: But then I would add a third step, and that's to implement.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because you you can listen, but then you have to do something about what you've heard.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there has to be action taken when you've listened and heard, you know, what what your clients need as humans.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't think it even comes down to dancers.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, any business needs to ask, listen, and implement.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Even as somebody as big as the Radio City Rockettes.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: And speaking of that, you know, this year with everything that's happened, we formed our own Rockettes of Color alumni.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: And when you think about what is this, 87 years the Rockettes have been around, in that time, our first one.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, I believe I have our list because I do our social media.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our first, our first person of color was 1985.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's the year I was born.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was 35 years ago.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and she was Asian because that's easier to blend in.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then our first African American woman was 1987.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I started in 1997, so I was the 12th, yeah, 12th person of color.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Michelle, can you remind us how many women are on the line?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: In New York, there are 36 times two.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: So how many is there in Canada math?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: 72?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: 72 plus swing, so let's say 80.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then you had the touring casts back in the day.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then we had the, yeah, and there was that's a half, so that's 16 in multiple cities.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you're telling me you were the 12th person of color, period, out of all of those people.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the amount of years prior.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like those numbers.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you when you say it by itself without the rest of the numbers, it it's baffling, but it's still like, okay, well, I guess that's progress.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: But then you hear those numbers and yeah, our our biggest swing one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: They hired seven people of color in 2000.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's the highest that I have on our list.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like that, like uh through your research and and watching throughout the past a few years and in the more recent years, has has that changed?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Has has the uh percentage of people of color on the line adjusted at all?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I I think yes.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: But but you still only see one for social media.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: You'll still see one or two for the parade.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: We're still not gonna make it if there's six of you, you won't see all six doing something together.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I am happy to see more girls of color and I am happy to see them wearing tights and shoes that match.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that makes me happy for them.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_06: Michelle, are there people who are like stage direction, sorry stage directors, choreographers, you know, whatever, dance captains, any production folks of color in that sense that are creatives of color in your time with the colour.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: When I was not when I was there, no.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_06: That's so that's part of the bigger systemic issue here, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think we've I think we've maybe touched on this in a couple of other episodes, or even just some of us personally as friends talking, that it is very difficult as people from like the top to create change, in my opinion, the change has to come from the bottom, but which also has to come from the top.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a very vicious cycle of where do we fix, where do we start fixing this problem?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because if there's not, you know, if if you don't have somebody to look up to in a professional sense as a child, you don't necessarily know that you can do this job.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if we don't have enough, you know, people of color auditioning for the rockettes, because I I would I would venture to guess that percentage is fairly small as well, then you're not gonna get a great percentage of Rockettes of color because they're just not people there.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I I just I don't know where to where to tackle it.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're so right.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you think about it in Misty Copeland's world, right?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's an even smaller percentage of people of color.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I can't, it she's just so remarkable to me because she embraced who she was, her physique, what she looks like, and she's proud to be a strong, beautiful, masculine not masculine, muscular dancer.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's like Serena and Venus to me.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: They are what they are, they are beast or on the tennis courts and they break barriers.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I feel about Misty Copeland.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the syncopated ladies are doing that.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: They're killing it.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Which, by the way, we just had Maud Arnold on the podcast.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, all of the listeners, if you love syncopated ladies, please go listen to that episode because it was such a lovely discussion with her.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: She's fabulous.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's so so much fun, such a great person.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, it's Courtney, and I have a question for you.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Are you looking for the perfect gift to give you dancer this season?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have a recommendation from my feet.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Get them Apollo docs.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: They are not only an amazing but wear the protect and support your feet, but they are all female-owned, 100% feedback USA, and a company that truly cares about dancers longer and darker.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they are about a company that you can drop.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you that I love my and this month, Apollo is running an exclusive deal on Alternate GitHub.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Take advantage of this tutorial and give the gift of happy feedback to visit ApolloPerformance.com to learn more.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And now let's get back to the show.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to continue to the the discussion of of kind of how where you led us, Michelle, in the professional world of dance and and talk about that for a little bit and and share any personal experiences.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know, Michelle, you've you've talked about your your time with as a Radio City Raquette and that.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any other uh experiences?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Once we've graduated on from the studio, we can discuss college, we can discuss professional career, anything offhand that you know comes to your mind.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: I've been a teacher since I was 16 and I started teaching in my garage.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Little ones that needed solos for their pageantry.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, I've been doing it a long time.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I do remember when I started job hunting and you know, doing the hustle in New York and New Jersey, I was not hired by a studio, not because I wasn't qualified, but because the parents didn't want to teach real family.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's there, it's always gonna be there.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: Just like this year, people are like, racism is so bad this year.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well no, it's been there, it's just been quieter.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been quieter, and it's gotten loud again because certain people have allowed it to get loud again.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I love that our youth are taking charge and are more comfortable in who they are and what they believe in, and that's what's gonna make the change in our dance world as well, is the youth.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: The youths.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, always the youths, we used to be youths.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Always TikToking.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: We used to be youths, those youths doing their TikToks, buying those tickets.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I generally still teach in predominantly white studios, not on purpose.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm um a strong tapper, and it's hard to find strong tappers in in our area, in the New England area down to Jersey.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I tend to be the one and they love it.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: They love that Miss Michelle was a rock hat, they love that Miss Michelle was a Miss New Hampshire, like they're seeing something to look up to, but not realizing it's e even a big deal because of my color.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: I do think it's like just see the accomplishment and and that you're Leslie's taught me.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're such you're such a fun teacher and you're such a good teacher, and you know, you do have all of these like amazing accolades, but like you said, they're they're not seeing that probably the struggles that it took to get there and the you know the challenges that you've had to get where you are.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: They won't recognize it until they're adults, and that's totally fine.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: I taught at Wagner College, and those kids that I'm still in touch with are always so proud of things that I do and comment on on those things and just say, I can't believe you've done all this.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't know.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't need to know when I was your professor.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I and I mean I'm I'm glad you know now, but yeah, I think it's just more important to present myself as a professional and the teacher that I want to be.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be that teacher kids remember.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: And when they find out the cool stuff, that's just like icing on the cake.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Max, how about you?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: What about with your teaching?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_06: Let me think about it.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_06: This is a really loaded question.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_06: I think as far as the professional dance industry, and I'm kind of all over the place.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_06: I think teaching-wise, I've worked a lot in inner city schools and with programs that provide arts education to lower income students, students in the inner city, black and brown students.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_06: So I feel like a lot of the time the student sees me as the opposite, especially like this like brown guy coming in talking about opera.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_06: Like it doesn't always be.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_06: But I think it's a good as it's a good ex access point for students to say, like, wow, you're you're similar to me, you're not that much older than me.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_06: Like, I could really do this, or I could really go do that, or what other types of, you know, especially in theater and dance, like there's so many different roles you can take on stage and bet and and not.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_06: I think students it it can be an in and an out for me.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_06: And I think for the most part it's it's been good.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_06: And I think also I've worked in higher ed, and that's even more closely related because you're I was closer to the students' age, and I think they see me as a mentor and a peer.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and also I think it was very easy for me to tap in to see a lot of the kind of negative points of students going through their degree programs and feeling very, as students of color, not feeling very serviced by the university, feeling like there wasn't enough roles for them, or even curricularly, that there wasn't enough for them to really dig dig into.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_06: And it it really speaks to like the lack of diversity in teaching staffs in general, and also studio owners in general, because like work begats work.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_06: If you're a studio owner of color, you're gonna you're not gonna try to diversify your staff.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_06: You're going to have a diverse staff just based in your community, based in the people that you attract.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_06: So I think it's important to kind of I'm gonna really politely disagree with you, Leslie, and say that I don't think it starts from the bottom down, I think it stops starts from the top up.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_06: And I think like especially studio owners, competition owners, in my research for this podcast, I wanted to highlight black and brown dance competitions, owned competitions, not people of color working or directing a competition weekend.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_06: I mean owning the competition, and I couldn't think of one.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_06: And that's a problem in itself.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_06: That's a problem, right?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_06: That's the problem in itself.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_06: If there are some that I'm unaware of, my apologies and please educate me.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_06: But that speaks to the lack of representation very directly as it affects hiring, marketing, the studio's overall experience at a competition.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_06: The first step is diversifying organizations themselves to more accurately reflect the landscape of the dance world, cultural compensation training for all staff, and a commitment to an anti-racist environment for all employees.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_06: Secondly, I think that pipeline uh scholarships could be a really big game changer for black and brown dancers.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_06: Imagine going to competition and receiving a scholarship to a summer program like Ailey, Philodanco, Complexions, Dance Theater of Harlem, Black Dance, Dallas Black Dance Theater, Ballet Hispanico, Jose Lamon, Jose Mateo.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_06: Imagine the doors that could open for a young dancer of color professionally, creatively, or personally.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_06: I think it would also create meaningful and unique partnerships among organizations, but that's a whole other conversation.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_06: I'm ready to have that whenever you are.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_06: And lastly, I think as adjudicators, it's up to us too.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_06: Uh as our scores and critiques can influence how work is created and what gets competed and what gets rewarded.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_06: It's up to us to really stay diligent as well.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Max, I I agree and disagree with you on that last statement.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I also want to say whenever you decide to run for office, I'm voting.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: Now, my agree and disagree with the reward system is it's dependent on the competition.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: And again, another reason I worked for IDA, because I have worked for competitions where what I see is not what has been rewarded the way it may have been scored or the way the judges may have thought.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: But again, like the black studio I told you about that we judged that were killing it that didn't come out in the top five, but there there was no better hip-hop that day for sure.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean real hip-hop.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like I saw all genres.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: I saw, you know, I saw breaking and whoop and pop and lock, I saw floor work, like stuff we never see because we're seeing commercial jazz used as hip-hop now, but they weren't rewarded because my other judges that day did not understand the complexity of that genre or the excessive.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_06: And maybe that's what I mean more so right, right.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_06: And even like Courtney were saying before, the style even the stylistic choices, right?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_06: And I I it's I think it's great that we have some discourse.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_06: And I think what I mean by being diligent is what if the judges that you worked with had also done some of this work that we're talking about, really gone to the source, really to taken some hip-hop classes, really done some really uncovering of what hip hop dance or what good hip hop dance is, because I've seen great hip-hop dance too, and I think some of it comes from going to clubs here in the city and and from being with my friends and people, other people of color.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_06: Like some of it comes from that as well, that social aspect of dance.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_06: And so I mean that in the best way that it's important.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_06: Us us as judges, we're given, I don't want to say a power, but we're given some influence into what gets awarded because people do pay attention to what gets awarded in the highest this and the overall that.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_06: We may not never see the piece again or think about it beyond that sense, but it is rewarded in a way.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_06: So it's important for us to do our due diligence and really spend time looking at where these styles come from.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_06: Is it folkloric?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_06: Is it part of social dance?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_06: Is it part of something that's TikTok created?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_06: Is it you know There's so many different ways now to get dance information, it's up to us as judges to be very discerning about what we think.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_06: And I agree with you totally.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_06: Like you saw one thing and someone else saw someone something else.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_06: What if they were a little bit more versed in this thing?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_06: Wouldn't that be a more fair judging panel?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so here's the other issue.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: So what do you do when you go to judge a competition?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: And in the other category is flamenco.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've been there.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: I I know my monster Spain, I'm not great at flamenco, but I know what it's supposed to look and sound like.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: But what do you do?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: How do you score that?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that I've been on panels where judges tend to go high or that medium high because they don't know what they're doing, so they don't want to say it's bad, but they don't have anything to say about it.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's not fair to those dancers either.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_06: That's a great point.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_06: And sometimes it is a learning experience for everyone, right?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_06: I've I when I first saw clogging in competition, I was like mind-blown.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_06: And I had to spend some time to really learn what, like exactly what you're saying, what makes this dance style strong or weak, what are we looking for here?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_06: I think as dancers, we can all, and teachers, we can all look at those things and say, like, here's the general foundation of what I'm seeing and what I want to correct.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_06: But you're right.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_06: There's no way that one person is going to be versed enough in every style, especially very specific ones, to ever make the most informed decision.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess I await your handbook with the styles in the cheat seat that we will have at the IDA.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_05: You know what you should ask about is uh Christina Belinski is the cheat cheat queen.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she always says I learned yes, it's talked about on this podcast like every episode.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Max all the time.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: Max, you know where Christina's from, right?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: New Hampshire.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: New Hampshire.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Calling it back.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_06: The Northeast babies, that's what it is.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: No, we dance together.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_06: Really?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_06: I love it.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Small dance world.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_06: That's wild.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_06: The smallest world, truly.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, we are just you just said, you know, we we talk about it all the time.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dance world is really small.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we also have at IDA, we employ dancers who do their research.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: These two people on this podcast right now, they know dance history.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: They've studied it, they've they've taken it upon themselves to look into the history of certain dance styles, you know, which are not taught a lot of times in college programs and are surely not taught, you know, at your run-of-the-mill dance studio most of the time.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I think now we we are kind of a generation of judges who does have a little bit more background on it and who are also socially conscious enough to think, oh, I need to learn about this before I can speak in any way intelligently about this, instead of kind of that blanket, well, don't know what this is, so I'm gonna score it this way.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think there there is always, I believe, with the people that we work with, you know, that desire to learn more and to do it to do it right, to do it service, you know.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_06: I'm just gonna hype up Courtney and her team again because they do that.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_06: I don't this maybe this is a behind-the-scenes things that people aren't supposed to know about, but when they when they they'll ask you specifically, we're looking for people with strong tasks experience, hoofing experience, we're looking for people with acro experience.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_06: And so, I mean, exactly kind of supporting us all, right?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_06: We're we are a group of people who are have these specialties.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_06: We can assess our own knowledge of these styles very well.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_06: And I think I want to say, you know, kudos to Courtney and her team to really making that a platform and saying, no, we we're really looking for people who would consider themselves a tap expert, an acro expert, a clogging expert, whatever it is.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_06: And that makes the world a difference too.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_06: That makes sense.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna piggyback off of Max because I know I recommended to people recently and only because I knew their skills were at a certain level that they could be considered a ballet expert, and my other friend is just such a well-rounded teacher that I thought they would be assets to the company.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: I have a lot of friends to judge, but I I know I think I know what IDA is trying to do, and we're like the premier go-to judges.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm going to recommend people to the company, I need to recommend people that I think are credible and their knowledge is is huge.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks, guys.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: You guys are so sweet.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's just I can't wait for my marks.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you all the marks for all.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_06: But it's because we're in this industry, we don't, I don't see that anywhere else.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_06: I really don't.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_06: You never know who's gonna be on this panel with you, you never know their their background.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_06: Like it sometimes it is sometimes it's works out really great.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_06: And sometimes you've never met this person, and you know, that you just don't know their experience, you barely hear their voice, they're sitting across the you know the way.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_06: But that's also something you're entering into when you enter competition.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_06: You don't you don't know the judges until maybe the week before if they announce it at the competition.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_06: But that's why I always talk about during the weekends, I always say, like, listen to what we're saying, listen to what we're rewarding, listen to the things that were the tips that we're giving during our specials because you can learn a lot about us very quickly.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_06: Even if we went to the same school or we have similar training, we're looking for very different things.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and since we're on the the judging talk for a moment, I I think that what's important for the competition industry to continue to implement change in in their staffing and their casting, so to say, you know, I there have been a handful of times where a competition has come to me and requested a specific type of judge, a a judge that has a knowledge or expertise catering to the fact that they know that this competition is going to have a lot of hip hop and you know, things like that.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that is in important for our industry to continue to do because like you said, I mean, our our goal is our job is hard and our our goal is to be educated and knowledgeable, at least I would say, at least in the basics of everything, like for your example, Michelle, of like flamenco dance or or any cultural dance that we've seen hit the stage.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not an expert in it.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Irish stuff.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, clogging.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have we have to know a little bit of basics that that'll get us by.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And again, if if it feels like it's really worth it for the competition company to be like, okay, we have like 50 flamenco numbers common, but I need a flamenco judge on this panel that also knows a little bit of ballet and a little bit of jazz, and we, you know, we make it happen.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I think that I think that those things in the industry as well is really important and we'll also continue to uh hire people of color and hire different backgrounds, uh, you know, people with different backgrounds from different upbringings, and that's important for our dancers around the country, regardless of where the event is taking place, to experience because sometimes we get stuck in our bubble and we get stuck in that in that state that we grew up in, and we don't get to like we talked about at the very beginning, we didn't even get to see a person of color until we branched out of our state.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: But we as the competition industry can start bringing that to the people and exposing them to uh, you know, new dancers to look to up to, new mentors, new people to Google and Instagram and and you know, inspire.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's another important uh part of our industry that we have to kind of uh continue to move forward with.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh being the only white voice here, I've been very quiet.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is not my story to tell, it is not my experience to tell.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been really listening.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that there are, just because I know this from experience, many studio owners out there, competition owners, uh dance-related businesses who, for whatever reason, uh do not have a diverse staff, do not have a diverse anything.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's on purpose or not, I would venture to say it's probably not on purpose.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: My question is how do people in that position who want to be an ally, who want to do this work, how do they begin?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: And how do they create something in their culture that is diverse without it feeling like or appearing to be tokenism?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is a thing that has happened that we have witnessed globally this past summer.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sure it's happened previously, but a lot of people in the media and businesses and companies in the media latched on to this, okay, well, we have to diversify.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, one, two, three, go.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a knee-jerk reaction to a situation that they felt uncomfortable with.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that does not have a good optic, doesn't have good optics.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there are people out there who want who truly do want to make a change, but do not want to appear as if they are disingenuous.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: How would how help us?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, start the easy way.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: Take your kids to a convention.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's the easy way to start.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's generally one or two people that are different ethnicities at a convention to that your kids can dance with.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then start listening to feedback from your students.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: Which teachers did they like?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: What did they grab?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: What style did they gravitate toward?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you could start there and then they can start introducing new teachers, possibly into their studio in that fashion, instead of seeming like, oh my God, we don't have anybody that's brown, black, yellow, green in our studio.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: We need to get someone.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: Just expose your students first, take them to someplace they've never been.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Try it, even if it's, you know, when this pandemic's over, bring your kids to New York to steps, take them to BDC.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: Try out a new teacher that experience it.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's a first-time experience for a teacher as well.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: A studio owner may never have either.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, do it for your students, but do it for yourself.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_06: I'm taking notes.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_06: Sorry.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_06: I want to try to get into my thoughts here.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I would say first is check your social circle if you have.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_06: We just were talking about how small the dance world is, right?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_06: So you may not have a plethora of you know, pre-screen judges at your fingertips, even though you do with IDA.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_06: But you may not, but like just globally or locally, you may not have that, like you're saying, let's say diverse candidacy amongst who you know who you know.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_06: Part of this like distance learning is that that's gone now.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_06: You can have somebody from anywhere, someone from your friend from tour, someone who this like it can be that.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_06: I have students all the time that people are like, oh, do you know anyone that teaches this or anyone Hamilton-related?
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_06: I'm like, oh, okay, I have a few people, this and that.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_06: So check your social circle, and I think the second, and and I've been asked several times by competitions, who do you know?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_06: Who would you recommend for this that is of color?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_06: Where we are looking to make this a mission to diversify.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_06: And that's my second point is to make it a mission, to say we want to add 20% more faculty of color.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_06: We want to, like you were saying, we want to explore a few other options.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_06: We want to go to other conventions that we haven't been to before that maybe focus in other styles.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_06: Um, so make it a mission, make it a tangible goal for you as well.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and I threw I think third is retention andor training.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_06: Like once you get these teachers of color, educators of color, what makes them stay?
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_06: What's the what's the buy-in for them beyond, and then it doesn't feel like tokenism, right?
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_06: If I feel like I'm building this community, and and just very quickly, I went to this conference like many years ago, and I had the same conversation with someone who was much older than me, and that was kind of the purpose was to have this like mentorship.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_06: And it was specifically for people of color, and I asked a very similar question: how do you, you know, vet people?
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_06: How do you make this not feel like you're really tokenizing people and their and their identities?
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_06: And this older gentleman said, you know, build the community.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_06: The community will build this for you.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_06: If you go and you start with one person and two people and you ask and you really cultivate a community, then you'll never be, then you'll never lack for this like excellence that we're looking for, right?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_06: It builds within itself and and those people follow themselves, and and like we're talking about now, we all have these idiots these like pathways to the same goal.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_06: So I think it's important to to make it a mission, make it retentive, you know, retentive, make it something where people are retaining and staying, and you're really building a community that way.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_06: Because I think that shows your dancers also that you value uh diversification.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: Max, I'm gonna completely agree with you with that, because I'm just thinking the teachers Leslie and I know, the teachers that are in my circle, the teachers that Courtney knows.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think all of our circles are very diverse.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that all of us have been asked for a teacher, and I've been able to do male, female, of color, non-whatever.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what you said makes so much sense.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's the circles that we cultivate that we can give.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_06: And new voices.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_06: That's what you're kind of saying as well, is new people.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_06: You know, maybe I don't have 10 years' experience uh teaching ballet, but I have a really great insight into like house dance or club dance or uh the Baltimore underground scene.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_06: You know what I mean?
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_06: Like these are very but it's a thing, right?
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_06: Like I don't know how to do that.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_06: But um, or even like I worked for a theater that was putting on Dance Nation, which is a whole show about dance um convention or dance competitions, and I got tapped because of my posts on the on the internet and whatever, and I wasn't part of the circle, but I got into it because someone knew my name through someone else through you know what I mean?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_06: Like that's how this works and that's how it happens.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that organicness isn't we'll never feel tokeny if it's organic.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I like tokeny.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_06: Token.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_06: I don't I don't like tokeny.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I don't.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: I agree, Max.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't really talk any about like casting in the professional world, which I think is a huge like race is a big topic in in that as well.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I've personally as a professional dancer experienced a handful of of those situations.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything offhand that you feel is important to share in regards to that?
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone?
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_06: This is a really loaded question about casting and and like it's that's why I was passing on.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_06: There's a lot of different moving parts here.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_06: Organizations like See Our Truths and We See U W A T have explained the educational practices and organizational structures that protect racism in casting and hiring when it comes to theater.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_06: I do think there's a lot of that applies to dance organizations as well.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_06: They offer detailed guidelines of training, hiring methods, ongoing assessment, and oversight committees to create a more inclusive and diverse industry.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_06: There's a few solutions that I think parallel or intersect with the dance world as well.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_06: First, the importance of centering new work from diverse creators, looking beyond canonical work to amplify new voices.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_06: This, in turn, brings in new audiences.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_06: Second is a mesh is a mission for authenticity, hiring artists of color on stage, behind the scenes, directing, and especially if the piece pertains to a shared experience.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_06: This is important and it ultimately affects who auditions and who is cast.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_06: And third, there's a recurring demand for ongoing assessment and committee oversight to ensure that goals are attained.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_06: I think this keeps accountability very transparent, like we're talking about.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know, you know, how many people of color have worked on this in here or there.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_06: Like that's not tracked usually.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_06: But there's a major shift for organizations to diversify, and I think this quantifies their efforts and invites others to track the progress.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_06: As far as my own experience, I will say that um being more racially ambiguous, I have been asked to portray a wide variety of races and ethnicities on stage and in my training.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_06: And as a young performer, how do you say no to a job or to a teacher that asks you to do these things?
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_06: And I think we're trying to cultivate and build an industry where the next generation doesn't have to.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Max, I'm gonna agree with you on that.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not I I've been out of performing for a long time, but I my very, very good friend is light-skinned black male, and he has been asked to play multiple ethnicities because they don't know where to put them.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of just seeing him as the person that he is, they try to plug him into a track.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: And he has five Broadway shows, but it's still not the last thing he did was the most authentic for him.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a show that was black written and black directed.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_02: What show is it?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm curious.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: Thoughts of a colored man.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it was it premiered up in Syracuse, and we're hoping to bring it to Broadway.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: But he's been, like you, has been used in different places as different things that are not necessarily him, but I hear you on that one.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen the struggle from my friends.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: And Leslie knows who I'm talking about.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh I mean that's it's it's a big discussion, and I've personally experienced it as well.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: And like you like you just said, Michelle, like your friend, I mean, no one knows where to put me.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've seen me before, I some people might initially think, oh, she's Hispanic, or oh she's white, or oh she's Italian, and I'm all of those things.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's it's hard with I think that in the industry we don't slap our ethnicity on our resume.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone when you when you enter the professional world, you're very much being judged by what you look like and what you can be uh what can you can portray on stage or in a commercial, especially when it comes I will I go max.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_06: Quick quickly, I wanna I want to talk about how like I just want to say like you're saying what what you pass for, right?
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_06: To the casting director, right?
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_06: To the casting director, the people in charge of making these calls.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_06: So not to I don't want to derail you, but that's one of the ins that we're talking about, right?
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_06: So go ahead.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's exactly it.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you hit the nail on the head, like for whom?
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, who who is the one to decide if I fit in that category?
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I've I was literally talking about this with Leslie last week.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was talking about it with multiple friends in the industry about something last week.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's happened to me in my entire 10 years of performing, and like to give some perspective as to like, well, what shows can we talk about?
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never white enough for hairspray.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's a part that's an example for me.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not white enough for hairspra to be in hairspray, which is a dream show of mine.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to be in hairspray.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: You would be amazing.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: You would be such a cute nicest kid.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like give me a rehive hair and like, you know, whatever.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm also not Hispanic enough sometimes to be a shark in West Side Story, even though I have many times.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, a lot of people, oh, well, you're not you're not Hispanic enough for this, you're not white enough for this, and then I don't really have a place.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: And like in West Side Story's defense, that has been like the prime job in my career.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: And because of my ambiguous look, I was able to swing both sides of the jets and the sharks.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people will look at that as being like a benefit.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, well, you can be moldable, you can you can enter into these different roles.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, yes and no, like yes, I can, but it also hinders me in scenarios like hairspray where I'm not white enough.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's it's it's a really hard uh position for some of us where we aren't just one or the other and we're kind of ambiguous to for casting purposes.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's hard to navigate and understand that, you know.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I walked into this industry at 18 years old trying to understand why I wasn't getting callbacks and why I wasn't booking a job.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it it really comes down to what you look like, how tall you are, and it's not even it doesn't come down to your talent because everyone's talented in their own way.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: When you get to the end, it comes down to who's fitting in the costume.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do you look ethnic enough?
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are you white?
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's very interesting to kind of navigate.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important for parents and dancers to hear that so they're not just kind of like culture shocked when they break in.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_02: So Courtney's, I think that's one of the reasons you've done what you've done.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're a powerhouse in this field right now.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: You are bringing a diverse group of people together.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: I want to say I find Lynn Manuel Miranda to be that type of person in this industry who people are are, you know, were hating on Hamilton.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you're a theater person, we'd love Hamilton.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: But if you don't, well, that's not true to history.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the argument.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, really?
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so I a lot of props.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: I it must have been, you know, in the heights for him as well, of course.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um, for him to write what he writes and see it the way he sees it is uh it's a it's a risk.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: Even now, it's a risk.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I appreciate you, Courtney, for taking risks.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_02: And Lynn Menwild Miranda, if you're listening to our podcast, we appreciate you.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: And Courtney could be in any of your shows.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: And has been.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've been in the heights.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: Leslie could be the king.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_02: Could totally be the king.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guys, that was such a lovely, productive conversation, and I'm so thankful that we got to hear from both of you today.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: And Leslie, thank you for being a great listener and ally to us as well.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: I hate to say it like that, but I know it's a little bit your dance world is a little bit different than what we've had, our experiences is what I mean.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I've worked with you for years now, and I I truly love having you as an ally.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for all the things that we do.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: For all the things that we do.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: And Courtney, I just love you for bringing all this fun stuff together.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: I love you too.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_06: Always, always.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: All the love.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: Max, I just love you.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: Can't wait to vote for you.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put you guys on a panel together.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be great.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we I mean, you guys have been on the pod before, so we normally have uh our guests lead us out with any final thoughts and any uh words that you'd like to share to lead us out of this episode.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just happy that we're having an open conversation and a discussion about what our world, our dance world, and our world moving forward looks like.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we're here to make it a better place through the arts.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for having this great discussion.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_06: Art advocacy has never been more important.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_06: And I think, like I was talking about before, you can't look away at this point.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_06: You can't feign ignorance.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_06: This has been, I've heard this year been called the the 2020 Civil Rights Movement, and I and I'm so proud to be a part of it.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_06: Here in Philadelphia, we had protests every day for months and you know, national news coverage on it around around where I live.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that turned me into such an activist and such a social impact person, like really looking at this and and using education as the tool to really unlock it.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_06: And I want to push kids towards that.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_06: I want to push students towards that.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_06: So even though I was talking a little bit before about not using this this year as like a caveat, I also don't want to shy people away from it.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_06: This is a really important time, and this is one of the biggest global civil rights movements ever.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_06: So you have to we have to take advantage of that as educators.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_06: We know the competition circuit is a very specific audience, so just be mindful of that.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_06: Here in Philadelphia, I want to say Black Lives Matter, I want to say fun black futures, I want to say, you know, be you, be proud.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_06: There's so much out there to do and be the expert that you can be in whatever style you can.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for tuning in and joining us for episode 41.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can find our guests on social media.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: Michelle at Michelle Mat at MS underscore V F.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Podcast so you don't miss out on our upcoming episodes releasing every Thursday throughout the dance season.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: The 2021 competition season is right around the corner.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing you'll definitely need for you to stage is a gorgeous costume.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: Our season sponsored Dance Costumes by Ardua is here to make your custom costume dreams comfortable.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: It can create custom designs for soloists or even an entire group of teams.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: And a very special offer for the month of December, you can receive 20% off your order with our exclusive promo code IDA20.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: This offer ends at the end of 2020.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_01: So head on over to their website or Instagram now at dancecostumesbyordua.com to view all of their designs.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: Season two is in full swing with new topics, amazing interviews, and great advice.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: Coming up in the next few weeks, topics include age appropriateness of competition, the December edition of QA with Courtney, and a nostalgic look at dance competitions past.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: As always, we're so happy you joined us for this week's episode.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep dancing.