Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Debbie Allen Talks Her New Barbie Tribute Doll, DA Dance Academy, 'Fame', Mariah Carey, Kobe + More

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INTERVIEW: Debbie Allen Talks Her New Barbie Tribute Doll, DA Dance Academy, 'Fame', Mariah Carey, Kobe + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Every day a waygo click your ass up the Breakfast Club,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: finish with y'all done morning.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Everybody's DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We are
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: the Breakfast Club. Lonla Roses here as well. And we
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: got a special guest in the building, a legendary guest,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: the legend. Some guests are special, some a legendary and iconic.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: That's right, and we have the iconic, the legendary, Miss
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Debbie Allen.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Welcome morning, thank.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: You, good morning.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: How are you feeling.
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: I feel really good. I'm on New York Time, I'm
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: on New York Air. I'm feeling good to be in
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: New York. I like I missed the city. Every time
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: I come. There's so much happening. Saturday morning, I woke
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: up and there was this big protest outside the whole.
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: I heard all this noise and I looked down and
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: there was like half a million people in Times Square.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: And then I went to new restaurants and saw new shows,
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: saw two new shows.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: I love New York absolutely.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Condolences too on the loss.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Of your mother, as I appreciate that.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I was I was thinking about you when
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: you was coming in. Man, because you know, you've built
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: such a legacy, you know, Broadway, television and film. When
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you think about the word legacy, now, does it mean
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: what you've done.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Or who you've helped? Do it? After you?
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: Oh, well, you know what, I would have to say,
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: who I'm helping, because that's real legacy. You know, I
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: have so many hundreds of kids that I'm educating at
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: the dance school and across around the world with the
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: you know, the internet has allowed us to be international
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: bink of you know, we can have these ig classes. Yeah,
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Legacy I think has to do with the future and
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: what see if you're planning, what path you have lit
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: that helps people find their way.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: When you started dancing into drama, did you know that
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: that was going to be your career? Did you know
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: that was that? Because even to this day, you know,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I have kids, I was telling you that dance, and
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I always think to myself, well, what does dance take
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: them to? But then when I look at your career,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I'm like, there's no, there's so many possibilities. Did you
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: ever think that that was going to be a career.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: I was determined at four years old that that was
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: going to be my career. Because we were watching television
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: and we would watch musicals would come on every Saturday morning,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: and I so wanted to replace that Shirley Temple, honey.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: I wanted that to be me going up and down
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: those steps with Bill Robinson and all those glorious musical films.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: I saw myself in that world. And then it was
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: a challenge to get the training in the segregated South
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: where I grew up. But Mom was always very resourceful
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: and she found ways. And yeah, I think children can
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: see themselves, and this is why you have to make
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: it possible for them by letting them see other things.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: I remember when Mom wouldn't let me go to the
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: circus because she wanted me to go and see this
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: East Indian dance company, and I was kicking and screaming,
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: I want to see those clowns and those lions. But
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: when I saw that dance company, I saw a whole
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: nother language of dance that I didn't know had not seen.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: I was probably eight years old. But this is why
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: we have to expose our children to more, which is
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: why right now we need more and more and more education,
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: more cultural problem programs for children, art programs, and just
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: take them on those field trips to take them to
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: see art exhibits, take them to see dance concerts or
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: music concerts or you know, little plays at the why
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: anything that is outside of the box of the video
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: game shots of it all and television. Mom used to
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: make us think that the television was broke, so we
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: would take our butts out.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: That's what makes it so important to debiela Dance Academy.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Right, congratulations, it is quite a landmark.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Let's let's talk about what that means, because, as I
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: was saying, when I'm out there on the road with
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: my daughters, a lot of times we don't see too
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: many people that look like us. Yeah, and a lot
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: of that is not because we can't dance. It's because
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: we can't afford it. The traveling, the costumes, the privates,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: it's it's a lot. And I didn't realize until I
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: jumped in and my wife bead like, we need another check.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I'm like, another check, but it's so expensive. So talk
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: about the importance of opening that school.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Will The Debbiellan Dance Academy is in cultural Oases that
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: now has a middle school, has programs for boys, elders,
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: cancer patients, but for young people. It is designed to
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: be an open door for whoever it is that has
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: the spirit of the dance and come through that door
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: and find the class and I will get a program
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: for you. I basically said no to competent I've been
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: asked year after year after year, and I don't do
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: them because I want children to compete with themselves. I
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: want them to be in the classroom. I want them
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: to be in the dance studio and see where am I?
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  Speaker 4: Did I do that turn? Can I balance? Can I
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: do the passe? Can I you know, what is it
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: that I'm learning? Can I do that tap? Break? And
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: I think it's great, Like you say, the competition world
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  Speaker 4: is a great experience. It teaches children performance and a
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  Speaker 4: lot of things and does cost a lot of money,
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: and so it would be not possible for so many
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: of us. It's just not possible. So where I'm living,
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: I am raising money every minute of my waking life
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: to give more opportunity to the kids. I mean, right
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: now is very difficult with all the foolishness is going
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: on in Washington, the foolishness is going on with the
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: nonprofit world. I mean, you can't even write a grant
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: now and say you're you know, focused on brown and
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: black children. You can't even say that. You can't say
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: you're dealing with disabled you can't. I mean, there's so
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: many this is ridiculous. So it means that we're going
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: to just become more grassroots the way we were in
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: the fifties hunting, because that's what it was. It was
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: you have to get your community together, and there's a
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: big community of diverse people who want to see the
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: arts prevail and programs prevail because that's the future. What
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: The creativity that it takes to create a vallet like
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: revelations is the same creativity that will cure cancer. It's
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: the same part of your brain that we are developing. Creativity.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: You have to think outside the box to figure these
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: things out and to come to some you know, understanding
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: or level of accomplishments. And to me, creativity is the
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: closest you can be to God is to be creative.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: So the Debbie all and Dans Academy is a real
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: purpose in my life and my husband, Norman Nixon's life,
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: my daughter's life, my son, the whole community. We have
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: a community of parents and people who love us in
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: the nationwide because we have to, you know, throw that
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: tin cup out there everywhere. I mean, if I could
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: say a million people just send me two dollars, it
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: would help us get through a whole year of programming
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: an opportunity. We have a program called we have a
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: program called Sons of Data, and that's for the boys.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: I have more boys in my school than any school
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: I bet in America. I don't make them with the tights.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: They can come to ballet class in their shorts or
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: the sweatpants, but they are there. I mean, I got
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: thirty boys, and there's a program Sons of Data that
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: offers a scholarship for them. If all they have to
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: do is say I want raise the hand, I want
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: to come wow, and then they're there. David Coburn has
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: been very supportive of this program, but it needs to expand.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: I just I just don't have enough hours in the
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: day to do all that I know I could do,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: and I just have to keep working. And I have
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: a great team that is helping me.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Now while we're here. Just tell them how they can donate,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: because people listening right now, and you talk about the school.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: If somebody wants to donate that two dollars, Like you said,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: a million people, how can they donate?
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: If you go on the Debbie Allen Dance Academy dot com,
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: you'll see there's a program called Rhythm of Giving. Or
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: you can just see how to get in touch with
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: Deanan Bartello, or just how to drop through you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: PayPal or what gotcha you might want to do.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting because you've been directing and choreographing
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: for decades. How do you keep your art evolving when
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the culture itself always keeps shifting so fast.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: Well, that's what's exciting, because I'm with these young people
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: all the time, and there's a new language every you know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: a couple of years that you have to you know,
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, the Afro beat right now is everything I was.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: I have been Mariah Carey's creative director many times, and
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: last year when I worked with Jenna Tompkins to do
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: her show, I introduced the style of dance, the Afro Beat,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: into the choreography and it was amazing to do Joy
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: to the world with that style of dance. The dancers
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: were on a respiraated child with the first number, because
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: that afro beat is serious. Yeah, it's fast, but it
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: takes a lot of energy to do it, and they
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: loved it. So that's what's beautiful. The nature of the
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: universe has changed, and anybody that doesn't understand that, well, sorry, what.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: Do you teach or how do you teach the artist
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: you work with, like a Mariah Carey or even like
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: a you've been working with her for some time too,
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: about longevity and as things change, because things will change, like,
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: how do you teach them how to you know relevance
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: and impact?
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: Like what the career you have? Well, I don't think
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: I have to teach Mariah Carey about longevity. I mean,
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: she's been the song bird yeah for so long, and
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: she's got a new album out. She is one of
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: these creative geniuses who writes her music and I've never
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: gone into a production where she didn't have an idea
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: about what she thinks it is. So I don't know
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: if that's I mean you're asking me about.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: I guess it's like the mentorship because even the way
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: that people look at you and how you handle just
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: anything you deal with and throughout your career, there's a
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: lot coming your way because of who you are. Mariah
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: Carey has a lot coming her way every day. I
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: guess I'm asking what the mentorship between you and these
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: women and men that you're working with that are these
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: big stars, What does that look like?
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: It's very personal, It's very personal. I think part of
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: what I bring wherever I'm working is a motherhood, embrace,
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: push knowledge, idea. I mean, I just said a lot
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: of things that I don't know if you got all that.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: But when people work with me, they know that I
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: come with a huge experience in many things, and sometimes
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: it's very intimidating to people. I've had some battles that
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: you would be surprised, and I think it has a
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: lot to do with my expertise and ability. I'm an
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: executive producing director of Gray's Anatomy. We're in season twenty two.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: We know Shonda Rhimes put me there to be an
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: integral part of keeping that show in energetic and moving,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: and I hire all the directors. I hire new directors.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Felicia Shaw just became a director on Gray's and Nat
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: yeah she's a new one. Yeah, we kind of like her.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: But there to work with incredible showrun and make Marinus
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: who you know, I read every outline. I'm part of
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: the casting you know, and I've worked with dps who
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: are brilliant. I produced the movie Amista with Steven Spielberg,
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: which will always be a big, big accomplishment for all
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: of us. It's not just me. For all of us
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: to get that movie made, you'd be hard pressed to
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: do it today the way things are going. But I
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: have such a wealth of experience. That is a big
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: thing that I bring, So I see things very quickly.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: I can make decisions very quickly. You know, I'm here
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: doing auditions for Joe Turner's Coming Gone, and I'm I'm
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: seeing such wonderful new talent that I had not known before.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: But even in that process, I can see immediately this
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: one has the potential. This one is talented, but not
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: right for this part. I mean, it's just experience.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I love people who got intention. You know, you said
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: at four years old you knew you wanted to do dance.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how did that lead to something like fame?
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Well, because I stayed the course and I went and
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: studied and did the work. I've been taking dance class
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: my whole life. I was here at the New York
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: School of Ballet Richard Thomas, John Boy on the walterins
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: his dad and mom had the best ballet school here
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: in New York, the New York School of Ballet. And
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: I was like a little, you know, urchin trucking around
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: the streets and bought my dance card. And in my class,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: I'd look up and Rudolph new Rev would be in
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: the class, or Mikhayel Barishnikov would be in a class,
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: Margot Fontang. These are icons in the world of ballet.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: And then right across town is Alvin Alely wow, Alvin
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: Ale you know you, I don't know. I think my
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: effort has proven successful because I've always done the work.
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: When you come up in the dance world, it's like
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: being an athlete. It's why Kobe Bryant and I were friends.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: He loved dance and we had a very good relationship.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: You train, train, train, train, train. You can't shoot enough,
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: you can't practice enough, you know, jump shots, whatever they're practiced.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: You know those drills that they do to stay in shape.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: You have to do the work. And this is something
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: young people really need right now to understand that you
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: don't get to get there and stay if you haven't
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: done the work. Mister Copeland, Oh my god, mister Copeland,
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: and you know, she's retiring tomorrow night from the American
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: Ballet Theater. Wow. I would be on stage with her.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: She invited me to be on stage with her. But
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: this is not an ending, but a beginning of what
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: else she's gonna do. Yeah, but she trained train train,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: train train. You know, I've had parents come in you
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: you your daughter's and dance, and I've had parents say, well,
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: my daughter, you know, she just miss Allen. She just
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: feels like, you know, she's doing the same thing all
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: the time. I said, because she needs to. She has
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: to learn how to point that foot turning out. I say,
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: damn it.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: You said you and Kobe were friends. How did y'all
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: get tight? How did y'all get so cool?
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Well, Kobe actually grew up in Italy. Fame was one
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: of the biggest shows internationally Italy. I still can't walk
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: down the street, it was that popular. So I came
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: to a Laker game and he was on the court.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: He looked at me and he was like ah, And
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: I was like I'm looking at him, like oh wow.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: And then that admiration was there. And then years later
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: he actually was interested in learning how to tap dance. Well,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: we didn't get to that. But we were going to
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: get to that. And it was Michael Jackson's death that
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: really kind of brought us closer because Michael was somebody
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: that I was very close to. And I was talking
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: about Michael on television as saying he was he practiced practices.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: I said, he was like Kobe Bryant. I said that
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: in an interview, and then Kobe called me, said, Debbie,
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: Michael and I were friends. I'll say what. He and
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Michael had become friends, and so we started talking and
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: he was writing these incredible books, and we were making
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: plans to turn one of his books into the most
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: incredible Broadway show. We were making plans. He had all
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: universe that he was creating with animators and composers, and
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: he brought me in because he respected what I do
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: and what we could do together. And when we were
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: building the Debi Allan Dance Academy, which is now the
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: Rhymes Performing Arts Center, because Shonda Rhymes gifted us the building,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: which was amazing, amazing, but we had to raise a
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: lot of money to build it, and so we took
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: a meeting and Kobe was the first one. He was
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: He put a million dollars towards building the DeBie Allen
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Dance Academy.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: And now we have a wall called the Kobe Bryant
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: Wall of Light that has all the donors and his
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: name at the top of that. And so we had
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: a lot of plans and he loved dance. You know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: it's being an athlete to be a dancer. So Kobe Bryant,
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Wallace Sandenberg, Barry Gordy, Shonda Rhimes, the Ford Foundation, they've
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: been our big angels.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: Outside of the discipline that you just talked about and
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: doing the work, what else did your role as Lydia
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: and Fame teach you that like served you so well
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: for the rest of your career.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: Well, I actually got an opportunity to create these dances,
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: and as a child, I was watching them in the movies.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: I was watching the movie. Now I was able to
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: be in charge of what the camera was doing, and
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: I had all of these ideas from when I was
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: four years old and so on Fame, I worked with
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: one of the old jacks, Bill Spencer. He had been
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: the a camera operator on all those big MGM musicals
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: and he was just say, oh, kid, we can't do this,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: we can't do that. I said why Bill, And then
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: if he couldn't give me an answer, then he would
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: go figure it out. So we became friends. So fame
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: was like going to graduate school. It was like getting
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: a PhD in directing because it was new. Nobody was
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: there to tell us or to tell me how to
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: make this work week to week to week. I had
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: to figure it out. And then one day he took
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: me in the archives of MGM. Because I used to
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: write dance notes so people would understand where we it
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: would say the music, how long it is, what the
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: action was with the choreo, what the camera shot is.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: He took me in the archives of the MGM musicals
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: from back in the day and showed me that's what
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: they did to and nobody taught me. It was just
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: a way to communicate. So fame really set me up
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: to do everything that I'm doing right now all the way.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Now, I've heard you say dance is storytelling with the body. Yeah, damn.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Expound on that a little bit.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, in the dance where you don't have words,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: you're not singing, you're through your physical being expressing what
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: is the story? You're expressing love, you're expressing joy, anger,
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: it's I think the most ancient of all art forms
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: is dance because when you look at ancient civilizations before
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: they could write or could know the language, they were
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: stamping on the ground for rain, for harvest, birth movement,
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: that proclaiming your existence on this earth. That dance, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: it goes back to Mother Africa where we were stamping
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: on that ground. I mean, that's the beginning. That's the beginning.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: That's the one. That's what Jason Samuel Smith, it is
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: the one.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it about the movement of the perfection?
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Is the movement of perfection?
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: What is it?
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: All of that? But it's that spirit. See the spirit
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: in you is what makes you move like that. That
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: is something that's in your blood memory. That's your DNA speaking.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: That's the universe telling you what you already know. It's community,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: it's that call and response. Yeah, it's there. We all
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: have it. We all have it.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Who was the most difficult person to teach how to dance?
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: That was like they just don't.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Have it now, you know, I can't say people you
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: know that would be so.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Let's change it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Who was the hardest to teach because they just were
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: so good and needed to be pushed to the next level.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: Then, Oh, I've had students, some that you might not know.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Are you talking about people that I work with professional, Well,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: let me put it this way. I worked with Sammy
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: Davids Junior. He did a special with me. I've never
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: seen anybody like him. I could show him something one time,
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: and he did it. He was incredible. So it was
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: difficult to do much because he'd be like, okay, kid,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: what else you got? All right, Sammy, I'm done now.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: I think I'm good. It was a challenge for me
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: to work with him.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: You don't get discussed enough. I don't feel like Sammy
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: gets discussed enough.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: You know, there's an effort to do plays and movies
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: about him. I know Lena Waite as one she's working on,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: and I'm excited that she's thinking about making it into
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: a show I did. We were working on a Broadway
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: show called Sammy with the original people that did all
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: his music and everything, and I did a workshop of
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: this years ago. This might have been Oh my god,
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: it had to be almost twenty years ago. And in
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: that workshop everybody came because it was about Sammy. We
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: raised a million dollars that day to do the show,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: and it didn't go forward because the people that were
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: in charge of the script just couldn't understand that we
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: needed to whittle it down. It was you know, when
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: you have a life story that that full. I mean,
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: Josephine Baker was a mini series. Yeah, or either you
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: have to figure out what part of their life are
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: you going to tell? Because I worked with Bob Fosse
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: and Sweet Charita, and he told me and I believed
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: him and I learned that from him. Kid, if anything
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: over three hours is too long, too long, baby, you know.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: But Sammy is someone that he's one of the most
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: legendary and incredible artists to ever step on a stage.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: As a child, you can look at that film of
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: him when he's five exists. He was a deer man
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: who had quite a struggle, quite a struggle in his lifetime.
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: Barbie is honoring you with your own tribute doll. What
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: went through your mind when you first got that call.
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: I'm assuming that you're getting your own Barbie doll.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: I know it was like getting an Oscar. It was like, yeah,
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: because I grew up in Texas and we didn't have
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: any dolls that looked like us at all, and I
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: was big on playing with my dolls, and I knew
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: about the Barbie Tribute collection, and I was so excited
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: when they made Shonda Rhimes a Barbie doll, and I
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: was just loving that and mister Copeland. But then when
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: they called to say they wanted to make me one,
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: I just was so touched because I knew this had
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: more to do with young people than anybody. Although all
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: of my older friends to buying them up, child to
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: buy them up, but the kids. I showed this doll
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: to some of the students in my school. I actually
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: videotaped it. It was so precious. They were so proud
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: of it. They all wanted it. It looks like them,
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: somebody that looks like them, that is dancing, that's you know.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: And so we worked on what she was going to
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: look like and how she was going to dress. And
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: I said, let's dress her like fame, because that's your idea. Amazing,
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: Let's do fame. And I used to wear these pants
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: designer Giovanni Demura. I don't know where he is now,
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: but I had those pants in every color. I went
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: around the world, and I'm just excited about it, and
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: everybody's excited about this. Yeah, it puts me in a
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: one more realm of history that is very humbling. Yeah.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Another image of black excellent. Yeah, You've created a lot
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: of them. So I'll be wondering what's your measure for
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: authentic representation today?
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't know if I ever measure it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: I experience it and it speaks to me or it doesn't.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: I mean that movie centers absolutely ooh, it said so
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: many things. But when Ryan Coogler took that dance floor
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: and went in and out of time, you know, I
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: wanted to go and be that boy's mama, wanted to
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: go over there and just love him. Get over here,
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: come over here. He honored all of us doing that.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: That was breathtaking. So it's coming in different waves. Or
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: when I see the the artwork of the kids that
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: I see, or you know, black excellence is something that's
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: on the rise, and it's just gonna get stronger. Now.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: The challenges we have is gonna make us stronger, not
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: gonna shut us down.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: I agree. I have a strange sense of optimism about
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: all of this. I do, I really do.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: I think you're right that you're here, that you all
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: are here, and you are speaking every day. You have
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: millions of people, millions of people's attention. You have a
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: platform to plow through a lot of bs and you
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: do on a daily basis, And so we are grateful
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: that you're here and you're gonna be here.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I gotta ask you know this week, this week coming
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: up is homecoming week, right. A different world was the
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: reason why I went to HBCU. I got to see it.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I seen what it was. So I have to ask, she.
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: Is not gonna teach you a one two one two
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: to go at the.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Home different world off of what college?
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: What college?
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: This is every about it?
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, So let me say this. A different world existed
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: for a year before I got there, and I was
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: brought in by the creative of the executives to come
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: and see what was wrong and fix it. And I
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: did because I had that HBCU experience, which none of
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: the people there had. I went to Howard University.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Sorry, and Howard University.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry for both of y'all because university is where.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Sorry, but Hampton is great.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: But you know, Howard, we were the school, the first
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: school to take over the a building the school because
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: we were demanding black studies. We pulled up the gate
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: and threw it on the dean's desk. You at Brown
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: let us. I was had my big afrochi and I
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: was all up in there to us later. You know,
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: we didn't think about dying and nothing like that. The
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: parents were sending us orange juice and boiled eggs and
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: begging us to come out. We're gonna come out when
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: we get where we were. Then what how many months
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: later Kent State did that and four kids were killed
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: by the National Guard. What the hell we knew? Say
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: it loud, black and I'm proud was our anthem. We
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: had Mary McKee bo coming, We had Stokely Carmichael named them.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: They all came to Howard. We were in Washington, d C. Wow.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: So coming into a different world, we could no longer
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: do shows about people walking around holding eggs. We had
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: to do shows that were culturally relevant, socially responsible, and
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: stilled a lot of fun. And we did that and
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: so Susan fails Hill. She is one of the most
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: incredible writers on this planet. She was the showrunner with
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: a real book of all when we did La Riats,
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: Mammy Dearess, all those shows that are so memorable, it
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: starts with the writing and Susan and who else was
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: in that writing room. Gina Prince bythewood, Reggie bythewood, Gina
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Prince is getting rid of child y'all getting rid of
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: woman King was one thing, honey, Yes, but she is
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: the director of the Children of Blood and Bone. This book.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you know about it, but actually
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: Kobe Bryant gave me this book before he died. He said, Debbie,
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: you gotta read this. They were all in the writer's room,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: along with Yvette Lee Browser who you know she is
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: other There was so much talent and energy and she
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: h together, we just engaged. And I was always in
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: the principal's office. I say, I was always called into
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: the network. Really, oh god, oh my god, y'all have
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: no idea what I had to go through. And still
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: and still what were their upsets? Why were they calling you? Oh,
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: because you.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Took it from a sitcom to a social movement?
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know, because we did the first show
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: about AIDS, right Whooping Goldberg. We knew whoo people was
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: gonna win that Oscar. She's been my friend forever. I said, Whoopy,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: would you come Debbie? You know I'm there. She came.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: I had her. They didn't care. I said, AIDS is
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: killing our people, your people, everybody. We need to do this.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: And they were going to strike that show down. Bill
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Cosby stood up and said, all right, we might not
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: have advertisers, but you're gonna get to do the show.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: He stood up single handedly and made it happen. So
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: doing shows about date rape or you know, I was
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: just always called into the office. Why did we have
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: to do Why did I said, Chad, we can't just
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: talk about you know, somebody bumping in the corner. We're
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: gonna do some of that too.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: We'll give you the courage to continue to make those
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: changes because a lot of people would conform, right, A
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: lot of people would see the networks complaining and saying
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you're gonna lose sponsors and be like, Okay, I have
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: them dancing with you know what I mean?
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But I had an army at my back. Susan
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: Fails was right there ahead writing I had but cast
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: we you know, I gave them a voice. That was
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: part of what I did because sometimes in Hollywood when
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: I was first starting, the writers were like gods and
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: the actors are like Okay, you just do what I
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: tell you. And that has changed because actors have to
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: have a voice. That's you know, Gary David Goldberg, who
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: did Family Ties, wanted me to take a big seat
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: at that show when I chose a different world. But
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: I had worked with him in Michael J. Fox. And
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: what I loved about Gary David Goldberg after every table reading,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: he opened the floor to the actors with them sitting
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: there with the writers, what did you think? What are
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: your ideas? That's a real collaboration that was not happening
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: and we made it happen. And you know, God bless
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: the whole staff, crew, actors, writers, it was. It's not
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: just me, it was all of us.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: So what's your process for I guess telling hard truths,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you know, without losing I guess the entertainment value of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: it all because I know you're directing the reboot too.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: I think I saw.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been working with the reboot on Netflix and
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: there are some changes there that we're trying to make.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: You see where it goes? Well, what is your question?
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: How do you tell the hard truths? How do you
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: tell hard truths and still keep it entertaining?
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: Basically because that's the way the world is. In the
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: middle of all this, you'll find something to laugh about.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: In the middle of this, you'll see somebody you want
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: to kiss. Yeah, that riot is happening, but ooh baby,
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: look at that boy over there. Who is that? You know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: real life doesn't stop because of it will stop you.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: It makes you think and have to talk and address
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: but it goes on.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Miss Debbie Allen has to leave as well too.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Guys, Yes, okay, you got last I do have a
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: last one, you know what I mean?
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Like Fame showed what art could be, right and a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Different World showed what education could be. How do you
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: think your work has shaped how young people now see
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the intersection between art and intellect and activism.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: You know, there's such a good question. And I appreciate
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: that question because because Netflix just rebooted A Different World
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: the original on and a lot of people are talking
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: to me and asking me. But the mind of young people,
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: the curiosity is what you want. You want them to
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: be curious. And I think when they see these shows,
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: when they see me and I make myself accessible, they
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: feel like they could do something too. That is really
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: that's what it's about. They could do something to do.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: I'm still learning. I'm still at this ripe old age.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: I'm getting ready to direct August Wilson's Joe Turner's Coming
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: Gone on Broadway in the spring, and I am in
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: school because you can't come up there. It's like you
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: can't direct Shakespeare if you don't understand the language the period.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: I am up in the August Wilson school of thought. Deep, deep,
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: deep deep. So by the time we open in April,
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: that show is going to be amazing.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: But oh, I can't wait.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: Who is going to be a child? Ticks to go
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: on sale November fifth. I have to say that out loud.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: Brian Morland, who actually produced Othello Denzel's Othellos, is our producer.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: I'm just saying, I'm still in school. So I'm putting
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: together a whole pack of information about nineteen eleven. What
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: was happening, what was the music? Who's president? What's happening
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: in Europe? You got to know all of these things.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: What was happening not to in Pittsburgh. Where were we
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: with the Great migration? Where are we with emancipation? Where
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: are we legally with civil rights? You got to do
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: the work, and I am still doing the work.
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: Mss Debellen, have you ever taught a proper twerk? I
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: just want to know. I don't know through all your lessons. No,
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: you need help through all your lessons. I just want
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: to know, like, have you ever taught twurkage ever?
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I don't know if I've taught it,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: but my husband is always on me to stop doing it.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: That's all.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, even married so long.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, I want me to do it in public. I
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: could do it in the bedroom, yes, ma'am. Okay.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Let me appreciate you for joining us. If you're out
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: and about, make sure you pick up her Barbie doll.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Also donate to the school and thank you so much.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: And please don't be a stranger. Anytime you in the city,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: pull up on us.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: I'll be coming back here to direct that player. I
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: come and visit.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: You'll think I'm always I will definitely be there.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: It's miss Debbie Allen. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: every day, Breakfast Club.