john puts the dance
first which for a choreographer is huge
the dance has to be created using
actors to tell stories and chris really
understands that
i've been working with john for about 12
years
and we've really never stopped working
since when we were younger
i was just about dance and then he
educated me on
what looks good through the lens when
your director is your mentor
it becomes an easy process i'll create
something
and then i'll film it and i'll send it
to him but i know at the end of the day
john's gonna find his perspective on it
john had the storyboard
set to the music so that we could see
beforehand
what the numbers were going to look like
the dance in this film is definitely
linked together a lot of the salsa we're
doing is more the street style sauce of
new york
then you have the street dance element
and the light feed the flexing
the popping the breaking doing a film
that is about representation
i also felt it very important to
represent certain dance styles and
street dance is one of those styles that
gets misrepresented a lot
we think of latin we think of sansa but
then we also have to remember like
break dancing started with not only
african americans but also the puerto
ricans and the dominicans that were
there that were also oppressed
the styles come from people that had to
dance there are people living in the
heights who are now
introducing the new style called light
feet into their culture it's very
important
to bring something that's a new culture
that's never been on a film
that's being also brought from in the
heights are you guys getting all this
[Laughter]
yes
assembling this team of choreographers
is one of my proudest moments on this
film
finding somebody eddie torres jr whose
knowledge is insane about the latin
dance culture not just
the movement but where it comes from and
then you have emilio who's the sponge
that can do every style and you have
ebony this woman
is from the concert dance world and then
you have
dana who's this incredibly detailed
human being some of our numbers 100
people
you have to divide and conquer it was
super important for us to make
all of the dance scenes as authentic as
possible
you need people that know where
everything comes from otherwise
someone's going to feel misrepresented
we have an amazing amazing cast of
talented dancers of all different genres
i went to the dance auditions and to be
in the presence of that much
latino excellence i was like
this is what i live for this is such an
honor
we get to have the top salsa dancers in
the world
come represent new york style salsa on
two
salsa on two is a new york style of
salsa that my father
helped structured back in the 50s and
60s our ancestors
weren't born here they came from all
different parts of the caribbean
it's our job to literally represent and
go hard
in canada we had the dominicans and they
had their folkloric dance
the mexicans which had their dance the
colombians which they're known for the
caleno style so carnaval was that one
piece that we had to really represent
each
culture when the spanish conquistadors
went to africa they took all these
slaves
and they allowed them to keep their
music and out of there came
a list of rhythms such as cha-cha-cha
mambo we fuse everything so like even
the satisfying this
song yeah so we mix salsa with song with
cubing in order for us to teach them we
had to show them the timing there's on
one there's on two
salsa on two lives and the rhythm that
the conga plays
so this slap it dictates where to break
forward and back
this is probably one of the most
technically
difficult movies i've ever worked on
this thing we started with it was like
15
numbers at one point the thing that
connects them all it's the heart
of it the necessity to dance all the
choreography
was conceived first in a room before
even we had our 10 weeks of prep me and
john sat down and we talked through
everything
then we went to a dance studio about 10
weeks of working stuff out
it's research and development every
project needs it we had
the first two weeks to come up with the
choreography the rest of the time we
just had to feed it to
the cast and to all of the dancers
that's always the hardest thing
you take what you create from a dance
studio and you have to put it
on the street i respect dancers so much
because they live in pain i need a new
body
i need a new body i worry about you
i want you to take care of yourselves
eat well
and rest and do your you know your stuff
with all the performance training that
i've done throughout the years i had
never
been through such an intense boot camp
we're sweating on each other we're
feeling frustrated
i mean there are really hard numbers a
lot of days we had to count on each
other and be like nah you could do this
for me it was just like melissa you're
going to ruin
this number it was intimidating but it
was beautiful that i got to
live with them for like 10 weeks that we
were rehearsing and
have them like cheer me on and tell me
that i was doing
all right a few moments where i saw
that you wanted to breathe it didn't and
just it's okay i know the music is low
but like literally out loud and it might
manifest
it's ha five six seven that was my our
whole
mentality through this movie was don't
treat the actors like
actors that are gonna have to dance just
kind of treat
them like dancers our choreography team
had us do things that none of us thought
that we could do at the beginning they
were a little afraid of
how much movement was involved
but once they got it they got it chris
was like you had to dance in this movie
and i'm like oh
i don't think musavi kind of dances
she's like this usnavi dances
i'm very proud of them because they all
came in and they're like i'm not a
dancer i'm not a dancer
and then we'd be like here's
choreography we'll change it if you
can't get it
and i think that sparked them to go no
i'm gonna get it when the sun goes down
it is
one of the most technically challenging
numbers because of a huge
moving element john and the choreo team
went through their own process just to
see if this could be even possible
that was the hardest thing trying to
wrap our minds around what would look
like an illusion because you know we're
just in the studio laying flat on our
backs pretending this is a fire escape
standing on tables these are fake fire
escapes
our actors are seeing it live on you
know a tilting
building that is just such a unique
thing to have making movies
we had rehearsed one day and then we had
left it
for the eight weeks of shooting that we
had and then came back to it and had
like
five days of rehearsals we two are the
clumsiest people
ever and they want us on this thing no
harness
[Music]
i genuinely hope that people can see the
richness in our dance this is an
important movie
and everybody knows that it's important
to be authentic in this movie
i want to represent this is the last
thing i get to do you know what
[Music]
[Applause]
peace
you