(students chattering)
- [Instructor] Up, down. Don't be afraid.
(instructor giving inaudible instructions)
- When I go to see people dance,
I'm always intrigued by the person.
I'm like, ooh, I would love to have coffee with them.
That just looks, whatever is in there,
that just looks interesting. Pretty is great.
You know, I go,
(guttural exclamation)
but like, interesting, you're like,
oh, there's something in there.
Because the choices that the person is making
makes you wonder. I'm going to think about that.
So make me interested. Here we go, please.
(upbeat music)
- What would it mean to do a whole program
at the nation's theater that focused on blacks in ballet?
What would happen if we could bring some of
the ballet dancers that dance in
historically white companies into a space
and sort of eradicate the weight of
being black in the white ballet space.
(upbeat music)
- It's all people from around the globe,
different companies, different style,
different personalities.
And it comes together somehow.
- This is historic. This is a momentous occasion.
And it's just one that is filled with rich history.
- I know these are going to be friends and colleagues
that I'll have for like the rest of my career.
And for the rest of my life, honestly.
(upbeat music)
- I don't think that we're going to get
anything like this again.
(chuckles)
And so I think now it's going to be really
interesting to see how people are able to
embody this in their regular work.
(instructor giving indistinguishable directions)
- [Person In Black Mask] Yes!
(instructor snapping along to the music)
Don't shrink.
- To me, when you think about blackness and dance,
there are no other women than Denise Saunders Thompson
and Theresa Ruth Howard who have to
be brought into the project.
- Jane actually gave us a call.
She was like, hey, I have this idea.
- And one thing we knew was that we wanted to dispel myths.
Blacks really have been in ballet
for almost as long as it has existed.
There's a narrative about ballet
and we wanted to kind of flip it on its head.
- It's not something the Kennedy Center does
that often, produce a new dance.
I basically sat down and was like
what pieces that already exist are
going to show up up on our stage?
And Theresa was like, wait a second.
What if we just brought all these people together?
- Because I know that there are a whole bunch
of black ballet dancers who are dancing in companies
that they feel like they're the only one or one of a few.
And the question was,
what if we gave them a radically different experience?
What would happen to them as individuals?
What would happen to them as artists?
What would blossom in them creating a safe space
where your blackness is oddly irrelevant?
Because it's absolutely centered.
(classical piano music)
And so that's what I did, I was like, can we do that?
Can we, can we get dancers from all
across the world to, to come and, and be a part of this?
- Hello.
- Hi.
- We had a very tight production schedule.
And we had two, six day weeks.
So really 12 days in the studio to create this ballet.
- So I asked a lot from them and they gave a lot in return.
- those early days, I remember day one and day two,
it was like, it was intense.
(upbeat music)
- What was amazing to me is that they looked
like a company almost from the start.
- Look good, ladies
(giggling)
That sort of synergy started to create a culture of support,
and they're like, yes.
You know, like they're seeing each other,
they're encouraging each other.
- We would do something take our
lunch break and we'll come back.
And then he'll say, all right,
let's have the men do the arm phrase, but the right side
of the body using the leg and all of the men just blank.
And all of a sudden, it's just like voices from behind us.
All the women saying, it's this.
- Everybody would get up and be like, no, it was like this.
- Okay, cool. It goes like this, thank you so much.
- Helping each other and not leaving
you out there hanging to dry.
- That doesn't normally happen.
- In my regular job, a lot of dancers would see a moment
like that, and be working on the side in a way of like
let me show this choreographer that I know
the movement so that they can put me in.
- And in that moment, that wasn't what that was.
(upbeat music)
We had a whole group of people behind us saying
this is what it is, you know what it is,
you can do it, start fresh.
- It feels very empowering.
The people around you support those mistakes.
Support those finding of what the movement,
what's your next step?
- Day two, just being like, who are these people?
Thank you so much.
I don't know who you are, but I appreciate your words.
Like, so yeah.
- So we've just finished day two.
- Day two.
- Of Reframing the Narrative.
- Reframing.
We've been reframing the choreography, my brain hurts.
- I think by the end of the second day,
they were like, can we talk about feelings?
And I was like, absolutely.
- And like, I didn't think, I didn't have anything in mind
of like what I was going to experience.
- We were able to talk about our
expectations coming into the process, what we've learned.
- Created sort of a healing space for all
of us that have been in predominantly white companies
and what our experiences have been.
- The culture of ballet, it's a very silent art form.
And if you're suffering, nobody cares. Nobody knows.
And that's kind of how it was previously.
- With me, it's always been about an aesthetic
and like the aesthetic that I don't have.
And so to be able to be in a room
full of people that are like,
that doesn't matter because what
you're doing is so beautiful that I'm not
seeing that your feet aren't the pointiest,
or that you're not the most flexible dancer.
- [Person Off Screen] Yes!
- Just being able to like share that
with the people who you are dancing beside and working with,
I think is actually really special.
- So as a dancer, you're always on display
in a way that is just about your physicality.
And no one is asking you to show up as an intellectual.
No one's asking you to use your voice
and speak to what you need.
- You learn how to use your voice, how to speak up,
how to say like, oh, I'm in pain.
Oh, I'm having this problem.
Whereas before, like, you just needed to deal
with it and like mask it or, you know,
you'd be weeded out as the weak one.
- And that's been a big part of this
process that I think is very different.
And I think because of Theresa
allowing us to have that space.
- She's really created that foundation and
that we are all there for each other.
And that there, we don't have any sort
of old habits that can loom, that enter the space.
And also they're just like cool people. Yeah.
- Gratitude is in the room. And respect is in the room.
And they are, they have, I'll tell you this.
Donald Byrd finished a 20 minute work in three days.
- A warm up before the show.
- [Off Camera Speaker] Yes.
(upbeat jazzy music)
- I feel like the first few days it was definitely
an adjustment because I think he came in thinking,
oh gosh, I have two weeks. We gotta get to work.
- Normally a piece is sort of administered to us dancers.
It's already, it's essentially already choreographed
and we just have to learn it and perfect it.
But it's not a collaboration in the same way
that it was with Donald.
- I haven't.
(chuckles)
I haven't been asked to show up
with my brain like this in a long time in a ballet space.
- He would say, I want you to move by your knee only,
after he have all this (inaudible).
And you're like, how am I going to move by my knee only,
if I need to move my arm, I need to like shift my weight
and all these kind of things, he does that.
- [Off Camera Speaker] He's really mixing these classical,
technical, elements with things that are far more abstract.
(upbeat jazzy music)
- He said, I want to see what you,
as an artist, are bringing to the table,
what you as an individual, are bringing to the table.
- Which is like the per, as an artist,
like that's just the most satisfying
and fulfilling thing to experience.
Because when you nail that stuff, it feels really good,
but it also feels so good to just like
feel your body sometimes, you know?
- This is the right costume change.
- The process was just so organic that suddenly kind of
realized how there was not going to be a problem
with us making this 20 minute piece in the time that we had.
- His trust of our professionalism and of our technique.
I think it was just an experience that
I haven't really had before with so much trust
coming from the front of the room.
And I think that also comes with people that look
like me being in the front of the room.
And we don't get that very often where we come from.
- [Instructor Speaking] Think of this presenting an
opportunity as just something that's
like an overwhelming challenge.
- I haven't worked with a choreographer like Donald, ever.
(chuckles)
Somebody that was just like I just want to see you.
- You have to be completely on.
You want to be at least to the
quarter mark over on this side.
- Do you want me up front of them?
- [Donald] That's all right.
- Okay.
- Just before it comes in.
- [Off Camera Speaker] Yeah!
- Often when I work with ballet dancers
they are in white ballet companies
and the atmosphere in the room is very different.
I'm always trying to prove I have a right to be there,
that I have the skills to be there.
That I have something to say about this art form.
There's a kind of this unspoken question like,
so who are you?
And why do you get to tell me what to do?
I mean, that has started to change
but I think in this environment that never happened.
It caused the speed of the work to happen really quickly.
I mean, it's not just me, but I think the dancers they just
kind of gave themself wholeheartedly in the process and
this environment facilitated that happening.
Sometimes how I do things is unorthodox.
I've kind of been able to reframe how I think about the work
I do and that I do not have to apologize for how I do it.
That's just how I do it.
Because one of the things is that white artists
have the freedom to do it however they want to
nobody questions them about how
they go about doing what they do.
I think I'm good at what I do.
You know, I do, I think I'm good at what I do.
And, but often I have to prove that I'm good at what I do.
Here in this environment is just
that I've felt it's always kind of liberated.
I mean, it's still evolving. It's still reframing.
It's at the framers right now, you know.
- [Off Camera Speaker] Thank you.
(group clapping)
- It's overwhelming to me that this is actually
like coming out of my mind and it's actualized.
(upbeat music)
- Dances have been around for a long time.
I think we are doing a stamp up there
and putting in front to like,
solidify how powerful we can be on the stage
and how we can carry a culture and
something has been changed, one way
for so many years, into today's day.
- Just because we have a different color of skin,
we have a little bit more melanin,
doesn't change the work that we do.
- [Off Camera Speaker] If a dancer is good, they're good.
No matter what they look like,
no matter what skin they come in,
or what gender they come in.
- We're efficient, we're creative.
We are loving, we do it through joy.
- We can be supportive of each other,
seeing that each of us has something to bring to the table
that's not all the same because I think
ballet tries to make us all the same.
It can just be about the way that you show up.
- If I show up with a certain amount of principles,
being authentic to those principles,
I think I have the power to be able to change
the space that I'm normally in.
I think that it's given me hope.
- It's good to know that I'm a good dancer.
I just happen to be a black person.
(chuckles)
- But there's, there's still a lot of doubt.
There's still a lot of doubt in what I'm doing, in my steps.
- Because there's someone else who, you know,
has a higher leg or prettier foot,
or whatever it is, these elusive things that make
ballerina's pretty or whatever.
- Well I think the first step is to acknowledge it.
And because it's just so beautiful to be here
and to just truly feel that I am enough.
- I can trust myself and I have to trust myself.
- I am enough and I'm good enough.
And what I'm doing is just as good
or as better as anyone else in the room.
- This has been an absolutely fulfilling moment.
And that's what we wanted to create here
at the Kennedy Center.
And we've been able to do that.
So this is that moment for us.
This is that moment for those dancers.
And this was the intention.
Many of the dancers have said this has
shown me that I am just enough. I'm enough.
- That work ethic, that drive, the idea that we
represent something larger than ourselves,
but without the pressure, but instead with the support,
what can't we do?
- The support is amazing.
When something works, everyone's like, yes.
You know? It's just so good. It's so good. And it's unusual.
- It's beautiful.
I think that we as an artist, we do encourage others.
- There is some type of special synergy, vibe,
feeling, energy whatever you wanna call it, in the room,
in the space that is creating art.
(uplifting music)
- And then as soon as we, the lights came on and
we hit the stage, we were like, this is it.
Here we go.
And it just was so much fun.
- When we're half way through the piece and I'm watching one
of the other dancers killing it out there,
it's just really inspiring because
you're watching them thrive and it makes you want to
also leave a piece of yourself on the stage.
It just means a lot that like, my first time performing
at the Kennedy center, I feel like I can,
I can be my most beautiful self, like as I see myself
and not how someone else thinks I would look best.
(person cheering)
- I mean, we're all so, so different.
And therefore we are Reframing the Narrative.
Yes, we're are all black,
but then we're completely different individuals.
So we're definitely not part of the same box.
So just, let's be done with that.
(laughs)
Yeah.
- And people have to take risks and take chances
and there will be successes and failures along the way,
but that's, that's the beauty of this art form is
that it's always growing and evolving.
Otherwise we'd be watching, you know,
we'd be watching Swan Lake.
Still 300 years on, you know what I mean?
Like, and that would be it.
- When we don't think about ourselves
in a certain way, right?
It starts to, we start to do odd things.
We start to get, take odd shapes
in order to be something that we're not.
And we're actually just enough.
(uplifting music)