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Speaker 1: What's Love.

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Speaker 2: Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.

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Speaker 3: Let's go Supremo sup Suprema roll call, Sugreema su Supremo.

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Speaker 1: Role called Suprema.

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Speaker 3: Suprema roll call Suprema.

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Speaker 1: Because I'm roll call. Yeah, it's time to gym. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: nasty girls.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, dance, dance, dance roll.

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Speaker 3: So Supremo role called Supremo Supremo role call.

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Speaker 2: My name is Fante.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I handle my bez.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: My favorite horror movie.

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Speaker 5: Yeah call Suprema Suprema roll my name is Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I love to dance. Yeah, I just need a choreographer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you give me a chance.

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Speaker 6: Supremo roll call, Suprima Supremo roll call.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to say yeah, yeah, whoa, yeah Freema.

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Speaker 6: Some Supremo roll call, Suprema some some Supremo roll call.

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Speaker 7: It's like em yeah, y'all know, I'm hYP Yeah, George

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Speaker 7: is here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we talk all night.

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Speaker 6: Supremo Supremo roll call, Supremo Supremo roll call is Faison.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm here to say yeah, I got some news.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, Supprima Supremo, Suprema Subpremo.

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Speaker 2: Roll You get pissed when someone else's.

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Speaker 3: You.

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Speaker 2: Basically I thought mine was funny.

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Speaker 1: I think you did well every time you guys were

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Speaker 1: expecting me to, uh have.

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Speaker 2: A roll call.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, be prepared for your radio show. Yes, you know, no,

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Speaker 1: I think of different freestyles, freestyle.

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Speaker 9: Freestyle is and freestyle. Yes, this course loves Supreme And

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Speaker 9: we are in person. We aren't live, but we can

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Speaker 9: pretend it's live, but we are in person, uh, in

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Speaker 9: this very tight room. Every episode there's there's a little

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Speaker 9: more nuance added to the scenery.

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Speaker 1: Feels like between two ferns.

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Speaker 2: If anybody knows that, it definitely has between two ferns

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Speaker 2: to it.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 9: So, yeah, we're in New York City right now. There's

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Speaker 9: our logo and I guess a twenty fourteen version of me.

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Speaker 9: I don't look like that in the minute. But uh no,

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Speaker 9: we have teams Supreme unpaid Bill. I forgot what's your

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Speaker 9: new name? Brand new Bill? No, No, you're it was

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Speaker 9: just Bill.

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Speaker 1: You're just a Bill natural Bill.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we should take a poll on our social media.

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Speaker 9: It's a good idea, yeah, because I'll tell you because

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Speaker 9: right now your name is not that exciting on Instagram

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Speaker 9: or I think you want it that way? Do you

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Speaker 9: want civilian Bill Sherman.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure, Sherman. Bill, just thank lying. And you

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Speaker 2: know who screams show vote this guy absolutely because he's

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Speaker 2: just my Bill.

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Speaker 9: Or I thought marvelous. Don't mess with milk, right exactly?

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Speaker 9: All right, sugar, how's it going?

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Speaker 2: It's good, man, it's good.

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Speaker 1: I like this couch arrangement.

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Speaker 2: I was. I'm sure.

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Speaker 7: I was like, is this four?

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Speaker 2: We got time?

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Speaker 7: We got space, you know, like men can sit together

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Speaker 7: like this. This is nice.

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Speaker 2: We all got we can man spreads, we got space.

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Speaker 1: We're good. How's it going, path? I got my brothers

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Speaker 1: and sisters with me.

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Speaker 9: You know, yes, we're family. I got where you're going

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Speaker 9: with that. Tiolo, cool man, Welcome to New York. Yeah, man,

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Speaker 9: how's it going? What's going on now? Like now that

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Speaker 9: the documentary is complete, and you know, you guys are musically, uh,

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Speaker 9: sort of churning them out, or at least I assume

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Speaker 9: that you're turning more out. I hope that you're turning

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Speaker 9: more out, Like.

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Speaker 4: What's what's the plans for the summer, for the summer,

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Speaker 4: so we actually do Mayler watch.

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Speaker 2: The Little Brother Story is out now on YouTube. It

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Speaker 2: out just working.

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Speaker 4: More music is coming on the f E side, I'm producing, arranging,

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Speaker 4: doing stuff, sessame Street.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm working man.

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Speaker 7: You know I followed the example, yes, diversify.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to get out of it. So I

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Speaker 1: ain't going as hard as you going.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 7: It's like a Merre like Stage fifteen cerentification, like he's

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Speaker 7: been there, done that, and now it is back to

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Speaker 7: the hood again.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trapped. I'm coming back home.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Oh, I'm good.

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Speaker 7: I'm trying not to just quote the Wiz all day.

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Speaker 9: I feel like, more than anything, this is the episode

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Speaker 9: that for the last and why can I not commit

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Speaker 9: to how many years we've been acting?

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Speaker 2: Eight eight.

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Speaker 7: Granddaddy Podcast.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, I feel like for the last eight years, this

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Speaker 9: is the episode you've been hoping, wishing, praying and dying for.

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Speaker 9: So I will say that our guest today has helped introduced,

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Speaker 9: what I've like to say, the to the post modern generation,

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Speaker 9: those that needed visuals to sort of navigate them through records,

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Speaker 9: eve the first generation of video watches or whatever, but

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Speaker 9: or even television show performances. Our guest today helped introduce

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Speaker 9: a postmodern generation to a level class through movement and choreography.

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Speaker 1: Sort of in that tradition of his peers.

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Speaker 9: Be it Charlie Atkins, Jeffrey Holder, Harold Nichols, Michael Peters,

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Speaker 9: there's Lester Wilson.

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Speaker 2: It might be forgetting the name or two. Frankie Manning,

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Speaker 2: Debbie Allen.

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Speaker 9: We can't forget Debbie Allen was in Fatima Robinson even modern, Yes.

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Speaker 2: At all that, Yes, exactly in a sense, I'm doing

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Speaker 2: your build up.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, this is some flowers you get, but more than that,

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Speaker 9: like our guest is Emmy Award winning choreographer.

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Speaker 2: Way, Oh, I'm sorry, Tony, but wait for person.

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Speaker 1: Were you nominated?

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Speaker 2: Form nominated? But Josephine Bank Okay.

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Speaker 9: By the way, Lynn and Grace Gracie given their regards

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Speaker 9: to you, Lynn Windfield and Grace.

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Speaker 7: Was like, uncle, that's a good suggestion because they needed Yes.

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Speaker 1: Yes, they're friends of the show and they're they're excited

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Speaker 1: you're doing this as well. They gave their regards.

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Speaker 9: But more than that, our guest today, uh I got

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Speaker 9: excited of course because of his association with The Whiz,

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Speaker 9: which of course is getting a new lease on on

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Speaker 9: Broadway with the Amber Ruffin's production of it, and a

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Speaker 9: friend of the show Wayne Brady as the Whiz, and

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Speaker 9: as Fonte said, yeah, the Whiz was a horror movie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, man, listen, the Wiz is.

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Speaker 1: A horror movie, a metaphysical horror movie.

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Speaker 2: You know. Interesting and even will hold nails rolled back

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Speaker 2: even now the subway scene, yeah, oh my god.

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Speaker 9: But more than that, man, just the idea of theatrics

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Speaker 9: in concerts, especially when it comes to the work of Earth,

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Speaker 9: Wind and Fire. Our guest today helped sort of facilitate

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Speaker 9: a vision that turned that group from just an eleven

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Speaker 9: piece soul review into this modern theatrical presentation. And we've

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Speaker 9: been dying to pick your brain for a long time.

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Speaker 9: And I'm glad you're here. Welcome George Faison two. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 9: So can you tell me about your You grew up

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Speaker 9: in d C. Yeah, your formative years in d C.

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Speaker 1: What was that like?

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Speaker 2: Well, DC at that time was a divide It's city.

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Speaker 2: There was you know, the racism. I think it still is. Oh,

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Speaker 2: it very much is that same thing. But we had

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Speaker 2: a life. We had the Howard Theater where our universe surrounded.

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Speaker 2: And for a lot of cities you have your black theater,

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Speaker 2: the Howard Theaty. We had a lot of R and

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Speaker 2: B starting with Roy Hamilton, and on and on and on,

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Speaker 2: Gladys Knight, Jewel Box Review, Arn Baker and Edda James,

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Speaker 2: you name it. They were. This is not the sophistication

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Speaker 2: that you would see at Motown. We were still growing,

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Speaker 2: but we at least we were out there. We could

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Speaker 2: see the people and they brought us another kind of glamour.

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Speaker 2: And it is the magic of our people that makes

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Speaker 2: us do that, and that propels you through that. So

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Speaker 2: if you are growing up without people knowing who you

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Speaker 2: are are, you get tired of the labels and the

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Speaker 2: stereotypes and you get busy with what can I do

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Speaker 2: about that? And education and letting them know who you

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Speaker 2: are because we love these people, you know, our mama's

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Speaker 2: and daddy's biscuits and so forth. And I grew up.

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Speaker 2: My father was in the awning business, and he put

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Speaker 2: up ladders. I don't know, it's a metaphor for something

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Speaker 2: in a sense, awnings on on the side of the buildings.

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Speaker 2: So so I had I had to learn his business,

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Speaker 2: you know. So I'm you know, I can go up

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Speaker 2: two or three stories on a ladder that you push up. Okay,

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Speaker 2: So I learned that my father taught me that, but

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Speaker 2: it was his business. And thank god I had a father.

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Speaker 2: I had a father as long as I lived in

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Speaker 2: DC until I left his house. So and you know,

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Speaker 2: you have the discipline and all of that, and you

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Speaker 2: go to school and you learn things and so forth.

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Speaker 2: And then we had TV, you know, early TV, probably

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Speaker 2: one of the first families to have the TV on

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Speaker 2: the block. And we saw all of these things and

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Speaker 2: explain to me.

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Speaker 9: So the thing is is that, Okay, So me being

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Speaker 9: born in the seventies and especially like the year I

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Speaker 9: was born, like most people or historians will say, like

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Speaker 9: sixty eight is the Mason Dixon line of pre civil

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Speaker 9: rights and post civil rights period. So I came of

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Speaker 9: age in which if you even had anything close to

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Speaker 9: a passion for the arts, there were institutions.

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Speaker 1: That you could go to, Like there was a school

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Speaker 1: in which you can come teach your kids ballet or

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Speaker 1: tap dance or acting and that sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: For you.

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Speaker 9: Though, if your formative years are in the late fifties

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Speaker 9: and early sixties, as far as like preteen and all

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Speaker 9: that stuff, what was the environment like, Like was art

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Speaker 9: something that we took seriously or survival?

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Speaker 1: Get a job, get money, or pursue your death.

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Speaker 2: Well what I chose. Nobody at that particular time thought

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Speaker 2: that was going to be the way you were going

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Speaker 2: to be a doctor, a teacher or something. You're going

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Speaker 2: to go survival. You have to have a little happiness.

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Speaker 2: You have to have a little joy to survive, to

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Speaker 2: have something that you're going to be reaching for. So

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Speaker 2: you look left or right on your graduation day in

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. What you know are You're never going

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Speaker 2: to see these people again? And what are you going

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Speaker 2: to do that day that you even walk out out

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Speaker 2: of the school or down those streets. You walk down

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Speaker 2: those streets as somebody else like an adult, what are

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Speaker 2: you going to do? You're going to go to college?

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Speaker 2: Can you afford college? What you know? You got to

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Speaker 2: break those barriers too. Well, at fifteen I had started

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Speaker 2: going to Howard University, not going in school, but in

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Speaker 2: their departments that were like developing. There was no dance department,

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Speaker 2: so Mary Rose Allen started the dance department in the gym,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And I would go every

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Speaker 2: day at three o'clock or something and change my clothes

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Speaker 2: and go down there and meet Caroly and Tate, who

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Speaker 2: you don't know about, but she had worked with the

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Speaker 2: choreographer Donnie Michale, who I would later meet when I

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Speaker 2: came to New York. Owen Dodson was the head of

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Speaker 2: the drama department and he brought James Barmin myself blues

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Speaker 2: for mister Charlie at Howard University when he was still

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Speaker 2: working on that I saw in nineteen sixty four. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: they were friends. They were friends. No, but everybody, I mean, ROBERTA.

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Speaker 2: Flack was there, Donnie Athaway, Tony Morrison. It was in

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Speaker 2: that bunch rightssance, you know, so who else was there?

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Speaker 2: I was fifteen fifteen.

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Speaker 7: Why did you not even know to.

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Speaker 2: Go to that particular time when we were trying to

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Speaker 2: get educated that you went on school trips. So we

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Speaker 2: went to Howard University.

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Speaker 7: From Dunbar, not just the fires right because his high

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Speaker 7: school that he went to was close to Howard anyway.

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Speaker 2: Well, Dunbar was the first African American high school in

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Speaker 2: right m Street High and everybody went there. Charles Drew

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Speaker 2: also was who created the plasma, was a graduate of.

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Speaker 9: Of that.

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Speaker 2: But right, all of that.

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Speaker 7: But you were dancing back then, so you were dancing Oh.

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Speaker 2: No, we were know, you were dancing at home. What

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Speaker 2: are you talking about? You had forty fives and all

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Speaker 2: of that. They played pecina cards, drank and they had

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Speaker 2: we had a life, right, Okay, we did have a life.

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Speaker 2: They did everything, you know. And also it was the migration.

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Speaker 2: I saw people that were living in the alleys in garages,

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Speaker 2: you understand what I mean, because they couldn't do They

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Speaker 2: didn't have a house, they didn't have anything. And they

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Speaker 2: took that shelter and moved on all the way across

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Speaker 2: the country, you know, they until they found a place

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Speaker 2: that they were going to settle in. That the Wilkerson

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Speaker 2: book Warmth, Right, So I loved that book so much.

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Speaker 2: I started, you know, like when I came to the

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Speaker 2: last ten pages, I was turning a page because I

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Speaker 2: did not want it to end.

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Speaker 4: Because it's called The Warmth of other Sons. It's about

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Speaker 4: like the great Migration.

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Speaker 2: And how people, you know, they picked up and they

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Speaker 2: and they moved. That's how I guess my father, my mother,

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Speaker 2: their families and so forth got to d c.

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Speaker 7: Carolina, where North Carolina from.

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Speaker 2: You're in North Carolina d all day and then they

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Speaker 2: went on to other other cities. What city in North Carolina?

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Speaker 4: Well Wallace, Wow, yeah, that's going just headed towards Womanton

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Speaker 4: from me, I mean Raleigh.

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Speaker 2: So it's like going back right and there's a face

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Speaker 2: on North Carolina. There's all of that, and that's how

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Speaker 2: pass you know. So it's like you find yourself in

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Speaker 2: an environment when you when you are, when you grow up,

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Speaker 2: What am I going to do? Okay, you see the

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Speaker 2: white on one side of town and you go back

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Speaker 2: to wherever you're going. Everything is full. I mean you're

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Speaker 2: not missing anything. I'm not missing anything. But you see,

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Speaker 2: you're drawn to art, art, draws, art, It doesn't you know,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't claim just one person. I mean it's open.

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Speaker 2: It's universal, you know, and you can you can go

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Speaker 2: and grow through all. And I was just curious, so

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Speaker 2: I would wander to the other side of town. I

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Speaker 2: would read the papers, auditions and so forth. But Howard

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Speaker 2: was mecca. But you know, the musicians we had, you know,

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Speaker 2: everybody was there. So I didn't miss that. But the

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Speaker 2: caveat in our growing up to be whoever we're going

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Speaker 2: to be, we were intersegregated with black people within. Yes,

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Speaker 2: if you didn't pass the paper bag tests. No, this

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Speaker 2: is what Jack and Jills went up the hill, but

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Speaker 2: this was harder. Oh shit, damn. And you didn't get

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Speaker 2: get over until James Brown say it loud, okay.

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Speaker 9: Wows the seed that was planet for dancing?

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Speaker 1: Because I'm certain that, no, I didn't.

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Speaker 2: I didn't start with dancing. What did you start? I

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00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:12,040
Speaker 2: started with music and art and all of that, pictures

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Speaker 2: and things. The stars that I really love were Fred

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Speaker 2: Astaire and Gene Kelly and all of that. Nothing really

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Speaker 2: happened till I saw Norma Miller and Frankie Manning in

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Speaker 2: Hells of Popping, you know, doing that lind crazy Lindy

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Speaker 2: that they were doing, yeah, and so forth. But I

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Speaker 2: didn't do I didn't meet all of them until I

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Speaker 2: came after I had been in New York and we

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Speaker 2: were but Mama Lou Parks and all of that dance history.

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Speaker 2: You know. I was there making up dances, you know,

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Speaker 2: not even thinking trying to turn in the hall was

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Speaker 2: like thirty six inches wide, walked down right, And I

303
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Speaker 2: taught myself how to pirouette in the hall so you

304
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Speaker 2: don't hit the what thank you don't hit the walls?

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Speaker 2: How straight can you be? So that was, you know,

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Speaker 2: and think I was learning like that. And then somebody

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Speaker 2: came up and said, oh, there's gonna be an audition.

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Speaker 2: What is an audition? They say, you have to do

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Speaker 2: this audition, go sing and dance and act, and you

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Speaker 2: get into a play. So I said, okay, I'm going.

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Speaker 2: This guy was a senior and everything, so I trusted

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Speaker 2: that and I went through the whole audition and I

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Speaker 2: hadn't ever been And so I come bouncing out, we

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Speaker 2: got a job. We got a job, you know, like

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Speaker 2: and so we're gonna start rehearsal and so and so

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Speaker 2: I'm telling them all the business. He says, I didn't

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Speaker 2: get it. Oh wow, sorry, but that was the beginning

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Speaker 2: and end of that friendship. You know. So you're gonna

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Speaker 2: you're gonna go alone, folks. You can take as big

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Speaker 2: a crowd as you want. It's just gonna be on you.

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Speaker 1: So what was the audition process like the back then?

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Speaker 1: What was the process?

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Speaker 2: Well, they gave us steps and you had to do them. Boone,

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Speaker 2: you had to go up the scale. If you couldn't sing,

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Speaker 2: you had sang Happy Birthday. And if you and you

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Speaker 2: read a little bit, oh they're not gonna get a

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Speaker 2: speaking part.

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Speaker 1: So so when you go to an audition.

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Speaker 9: Now, when I watch movies or whatever, and you know art,

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Speaker 9: the arts are never accurate when showing it how it

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Speaker 9: really is. But for the dancing part of it, when

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Speaker 9: I see like when they do five six seven, you're

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Speaker 9: going to fuss and nothing and they pick it up instantly.

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Speaker 2: They were moving like that. Well no, no, no, but

335
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Speaker 2: they weren't moving like wait, mine, let's get go back. Okay,

336
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Speaker 2: they were not moving like that. You add the spice.

337
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Speaker 2: A pot of beret is still a pot of beret

338
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Speaker 2: unless you turn it into something. A pair of wet

339
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,680
Speaker 2: is a pair of unless you can turn it into something.

340
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Speaker 2: I was. I didn't have any any training until I

341
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Speaker 2: heard some some guys talking about well gleisada and no,

342
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Speaker 2: but that that's movement and you have to learn that language.

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Speaker 2: I'm just like, I gotta get that. I didn't even

344
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Speaker 2: know what our best but I got that job. I

345
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,240
Speaker 2: had not heard and so forth. So but I would

346
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Speaker 2: do it. I would do it. You look and you

347
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: do your IQ? Is how good are IQ?

348
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Speaker 1: You're a musician that plays my ear?

349
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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 9: Now is it not respected? But like from those that

351
00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,399
Speaker 9: did train at the blah blah blah institute. Are they

352
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Speaker 9: looking down on you?

353
00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:43,199
Speaker 1: Are they?

354
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Speaker 2: Well, you have to conform to all that, because that's

355
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 2: that's what it is. It's just like a musician playing

356
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Speaker 2: notes and and all of that. And I had played

357
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,320
Speaker 2: the french horn and the trumpet in uh, you know,

358
00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:58,600
Speaker 2: while you grow up, and that's what we had in

359
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 2: school to do. So I was trying that sang in

360
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:05,119
Speaker 2: the glee club saying, you know, did all of the

361
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:08,760
Speaker 2: things that I really liked, you know what I mean?

362
00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 2: And do you remember I was hanging awnings with my

363
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:17,480
Speaker 2: father and hanging out the third window, putting them on

364
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 2: the mansions that were out in Silver Spring and Spring

365
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:24,640
Speaker 2: Valley and all of those other neighborhoods, and ducking down

366
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Speaker 2: in the seat if I was riding through through uh

367
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:29,920
Speaker 2: the neighborhood because.

368
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Speaker 1: I didn't know.

369
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't want anybody to see me with

370
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:37,359
Speaker 2: my father with the lattice, you know, up there, and

371
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 2: I was doing but it was work, and it was

372
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:42,120
Speaker 2: his work.

373
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Speaker 1: What does your mother do?

374
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Speaker 2: You mess with us? Okay? Gotcha?

375
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Speaker 7: So and raised us and the middle class family in a.

376
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Speaker 2: Sense, Yes, yes, I think you if you would take

377
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 2: it like that and we had dinner every day together

378
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 2: and free day. So yes, ain't required you just you know,

379
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 2: have it anyway. I got that part.

380
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 7: He was the part the part.

381
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Speaker 2: I became the lead dancer for Kiss Me Kate, Wow.

382
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 2: And guess where we did it. We did it at

383
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 2: Howard University, at the newly built Cramptonia that had not that,

384
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 2: you know, and then the new Magical and you know,

385
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 2: but I don't know in your dreams you have every part.

386
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 2: You know, dreams don't you know, aren't segregated in a sense.

387
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 2: You dance through this, you feel that and so forth.

388
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just real life and then that you

389
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 2: have to deal with and how you interpret that and

390
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,400
Speaker 2: how you take that and uh, how do you survive

391
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:59,719
Speaker 2: that to go on and have a career. I never

392
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 2: have not done anything but work with my father and

393
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 2: been in the theater. Nothing And who can say that

394
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 2: at that time?

395
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Speaker 7: All right, just that his life was the same he

396
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 7: has not all the way through.

397
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 2: I had a you know, I had a theater job,

398
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 2: you know, so I became the first dancer and led this.

399
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:29,439
Speaker 2: I'm like one of two maybe people. No, they had

400
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 2: three black characters. Queenie, Joe and me I was I

401
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 2: was a dancer, and I let the dancers out there.

402
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 2: I didn't know anybody at hours. So I met all

403
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 2: those guys, the Howard players, Doug cut Froat, best players

404
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 2: in the world. They went and majored in bedwid and

405
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 2: oh no, they were wild, wild, wild well, and they

406
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 2: were going to school and so forth. Beget But let

407
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:07,880
Speaker 2: me tell you, getting through that level of discrimination among

408
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 2: your own people was a part of that, you know

409
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 2: what I mean. That was a part of that. Because

410
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 2: so my mother was very light skin and my father

411
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 2: was black, you know what I mean. So it's like

412
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 2: here we are, you know what I mean. So here

413
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 2: we here we are. And they raised us best they could,

414
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 2: you know, as well as they did the best they could,

415
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 2: as well as they did Christmas and Easter, and you

416
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 2: did all of the traditional things. You got clothes, new clothes,

417
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 2: and you went to church and and so forth. And

418
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 2: so I just stepped out there, Howard when you got that,

419
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 2: I was in high school, so it was, you know,

420
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 2: I did all of this before I was in I

421
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 2: was like in the tenth grade when I got that

422
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:04,119
Speaker 2: gate with the atsity, right, I met Jesse Dorman. She

423
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 2: was fifteen, right, But I had never heard a voice

424
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: like that. You know, we went on a trip to this.

425
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 2: It was scary. She opened her mouth and we had

426
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 2: not never heard a sound like that come from anybody, anybody.

427
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 2: And then you know all of the other people, ROBERTA.

428
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 2: Flack on Capitol Hill, you know, singing it, mister Henry's

429
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 2: and doing.

430
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 7: All of that, just tripping as you we still in

431
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 7: high school when all this was happening, and you're still

432
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 7: at Howard.

433
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 2: Right, And I went there, they allowed me to go

434
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 2: there and so forth, and you know, I, you know,

435
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 2: work with Ted Shine. I did Zoo's Story with him,

436
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 2: you know, you know, the plays and things like that.

437
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 9: Was Howard the first institution that let you study your craft.

438
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 9: And like, at what point are you choosing dance and movements?

439
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 2: I think it all kind of meld together that. I mean,

440
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:03,479
Speaker 2: I was kind of looking at dance. I was still fifteen.

441
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 2: I hadn't graduated, so it was like I still had

442
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 2: to go, you know through that point.

443
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 7: That's what we're saying. So like, Howard, did you say

444
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 7: I'm gonna be No?

445
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 2: I was. I know, I wandered at to Howard, but

446
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 2: I'd never been into the Baynas department. I was over

447
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 2: there with Mary Rose Allen in the gym.

448
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 7: But you ended up at serving Howard right, yes, so

449
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 7: what was your major then?

450
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:26,439
Speaker 2: That was drama?

451
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 7: So no dance still so I'm a you are Howard.

452
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 2: No, no dance, but I'm dancing.

453
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 7: But you're dancing but not okay. But when you graduated,

454
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 7: you graduate.

455
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 2: No, and the Lewis Johnson another choreographer from that era.

456
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 2: He's the only black dancer in that Damn Yankees movie.

457
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,239
Speaker 2: If you if you look at Damn Yankees with back

458
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 2: in the days, the movie no you can see, you

459
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 2: can see, you can see, you know. But he was that.

460
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 2: But he grew up in Washington at the Jones and

461
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 2: Haywood School and that was where Cheeta Rivera came out

462
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 2: of Sylvester Campbell, who danced in Europe. He was able

463
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 2: to dance the Prince in Swan Lake and all of

464
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 2: that in Europe, and they trained those kind of dancers.

465
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 2: I did not go to that school. Where would you

466
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 2: say the epicenter of the great were is this? It's

467
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:32,119
Speaker 2: no Kennedy Center, There is no any of that. And

468
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 2: in that I opened Kennedy Center with a couple of pieces.

469
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 2: But that was when I was you know old. I've

470
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 2: done workshops there, done you know, just everywhere, you know,

471
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 2: everywhere that was right. But you could read in the

472
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 2: paper where there were certain auditions you had to go to,

473
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 2: and you had to go to, you know, out of

474
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:55,479
Speaker 2: out of ou sphere. You know. The people that were

475
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 2: going to those houses were maids and cooks and and

476
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 2: so forth. They are working in that neighborhood. But I'm

477
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 2: saying that the whatever institution. I did liturgical dance with

478
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 2: Mary Craig Hill, who was at the Johnson and where

479
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 2: Johnson worshiped, So I started, you know, I'm dance for

480
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 2: all of that. Son's still d c And I worked

481
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 2: at the at My summer jobs were the library, Congress

482
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 2: in I h and all of all of that, right,

483
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 2: And I didn't want to, you know, you don't want

484
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 2: to work. But Louis Johnson came to Howard. He puts

485
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 2: something on. We did one of those, one of the musicals,

486
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 2: and I asked him to call me if there are

487
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 2: any or just diishes, because I wanted to be out

488
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 2: of New York.

489
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: Someone's putting a production on.

490
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 9: Is it just assume that all the students at Howard,

491
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 9: are season enough to do that, like and I'm thinking

492
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 9: of production, heights, pacing, staging.

493
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 2: But Howard and that the finance department was advanced to

494
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 2: that point. They had great teachers and you could get

495
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 2: a real full, well rounded, you know, theater experience going

496
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 2: to Howard because later on they were Debbie and Felicia,

497
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 2: all of them, all of them will have passed through

498
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 2: those doors. And the teachers progressed the stuff, and you know,

499
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 2: they made costumes. They did. The first production I saw

500
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 2: there was Medea in Africa, so it had that African flavor,

501
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 2: but here it was still media, you know, and and

502
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 2: the legend and and all of that, and so you

503
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 2: got a feeling and the kids and the actors were

504
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 2: studied that and and strive for that. The rigor was

505
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 2: really hard, you know how you still got have to

506
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 2: be the best, you know, and if you're a fool

507
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 2: of enough like me. So when I went to New York,

508
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 2: I auditioned, you know, for Arthur Mitchell, and they were

509
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 2: going to go to Africa for the Festival of Two

510
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 2: Worlds in Senegal, and I was like step I made

511
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 2: that audition. I got into that company. But the first

512
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 2: day of rehearsal. I saw Paula Kelly, I saw No,

513
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 2: I'm chilled. I get chills right now. I saw Paula Kelly,

514
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 2: you know, beyond the dances I saw in Alvin's company

515
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 2: down there, who were excellent. I saw Judis Jamison down there,

516
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: Miguel Goadro Takako Asakawa, all of and dancing works by

517
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 2: Talli Beattie and all of That's what really inspired me

518
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 2: to want to go. So I get the job. So

519
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 2: it's like I see the all of these guys. Then

520
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 2: you got Tommy Johnson, the the uh they did a

521
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 2: nightclub act dancing with along with Sandy Macpheerson and uh another.

522
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 7: Day New York is such a beautiful danccene back then,

523
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 7: like that's just.

524
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 2: You know, sexy and all of that. No, she danced,

525
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 2: Paula Kelly danced at MoMA with Gene Kelly and some

526
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 2: other dances, and we would watch so intensely. The choreographers

527
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 2: were on, you know, on TV doing specials with Duke

528
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 2: Ellington and so forth, and they were absolutely the best.

529
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 2: Claude Thompson, Jimi Rogers, who had been you know in

530
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 2: West Side Story and all of that. And you had

531
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 2: to fight to be on the front line. You know,

532
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 2: they give you know you lines, live live, you know,

533
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 2: so sometimes you be hiding because so difficult.

534
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: But that was specific with fighting on the front line.

535
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 2: What do you mean like trying to get to the

536
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 2: front line, trying to be in the first chair, trying

537
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 2: to be first trumpet dance? How does one achieve that

538
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 2: you own all of your stuff? So when I got

539
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 2: into I see all these stallions and thorough breds walk

540
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 2: into the into the room. I'm like, I'm not having

541
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 2: we haven't even started dancing. I'm looking at these human

542
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 2: beings that are poised ready and had danced all of

543
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 2: the stuff of Catherine Dummom, had danced to Tylly Beatty,

544
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 2: had danced Donny McHale and you know the whole you know,

545
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 2: all of that that works. I'm looking at these gods

546
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: and goddesses, you know, like that, so I know which

547
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 2: leg is the best.

548
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 10: So I go to.

549
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 2: Wait.

550
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 9: So you're telling me in your first two decades ten years,

551
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 9: there was not an ally sort of institution or.

552
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 2: No, he was struggling. Everybody didn't love it. We got

553
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 2: thrown out of restaurants and and and denied, uh that

554
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 2: we were a black dance company. I was on the

555
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 2: road when they killed King and we still had the

556
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 2: dance and we did Revelations or any of those those pieces.

557
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 2: It was it.

558
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: But I mean, for as far as training is concerned,

559
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: you know.

560
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 2: On the job training, if you're lucky and I took it,

561
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 2: that's the rigor can you do it? You know, you

562
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 2: know your body is rebelling because you're you're trying to

563
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 2: stand in fifth and fourth and pirouette and you're trying

564
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 2: to do all of that clearly and cleanly because you're

565
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 2: judged by that every time you step.

566
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 7: At these auditions?

567
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 2: Is it like?

568
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 7: So? Is it like Michael Peters there and are you?

569
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:57,800
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for putting me with Michael.

570
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 7: He's younger, he's older, older, he's get out you look,

571
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 7: you're younger than all the other one. So it's weird,

572
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 7: right because you're younger.

573
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 2: I was born right in the middle of all of them.

574
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 7: So like James is eighty, okay, so she's older than you.

575
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 2: All of them are older of them okay, okay, So

576
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 2: they were all older, Debbie Allen, Michael Peters and all

577
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 2: of them came later. She was in her they were babies.

578
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 2: It was in my company. I gave Alicia the job

579
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 2: of being a munchkin and the wiz and she was

580
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 2: two times two time telling the award wedding actress. Okay,

581
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 2: that's when she said she was a bunchkin and she

582
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 2: did it.

583
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:44,320
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, But for you, at any point, are you

584
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 9: looking at the major institutions like are you even looking

585
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 9: at like auditioning for White Valley companies or are they even.

586
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 2: Looking at us? Alvin Ailey was my goal. That was

587
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 2: the hardest dancing you could possibly do. What it was,

588
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 2: that was the top.

589
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 7: Alvin Ellen been doing his things sixty okay, because I'm

590
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 7: trying to put everybody's.

591
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 2: Eighty sixty years now eighty.

592
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 7: But when you get to New York Alvin Aley company,

593
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 7: Alvin Ali is right, this.

594
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,720
Speaker 2: Is the first ten years. That's the first ten years,

595
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 2: and then I left, and then from graduating from high

596
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 2: school to nineteen seventy five, it's ten years. I won

597
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 2: the Tony then wow, going through it like that. But

598
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 2: my first job Broadway show was Don't Bother Me. I

599
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 2: can't cope.

600
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 7: But what is that even about?

601
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 2: I don't don't bother me, I can't cope. That's Vanette

602
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 2: Carol and Mickey Grant, then Bradfast and the Bradford Singers

603
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 2: and and all of that. I hadn't read those reviews

604
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 2: until maybe a couple of years ago. Okay, right now,

605
00:36:58,520 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 2: I'm with you.

606
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: You were in Parly before that.

607
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 2: Oh and I was when I left Aley in seventy

608
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 2: I opened and Little as well.

609
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 1: Okay, so how did you get that audition in well, Louis.

610
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 2: You know, like this frustration of trying to be a

611
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 2: leader and guide people and so forth, you know, kind

612
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,840
Speaker 2: of came to a head when we were working with

613
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 2: Hugh Maseequila with and Maseequila Langage with Alvin Ailey. That

614
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 2: was a piece that Alvin did. It's the piece I

615
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:40,440
Speaker 2: left on. I left in sixty nine and seventy. Uh.

616
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 2: I opened with Pearly but that was my last season

617
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 2: and I danced like Stephen beego role. But I had

618
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 2: read about all of this. You know, news is going around.

619
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 2: Where are you getting your inspiration from the people? You

620
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 2: know what I mean? So it's you know when they say,

621
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 2: oh I'm gonna remake the wisdom and remake it, don't

622
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 2: fuck around with it, remake it. You know what I mean,

623
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 2: don't play every You are different people. You are living

624
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 2: in this century, in this decade. This is your time.

625
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 2: And then you know, and that was what you know.

626
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 2: I'm sitting up here, I wondry how old is everybody

627
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 2: in this room? We can do that fifty three, I'm

628
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 2: forty three. Minute, I'm forty five.

629
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: Meet for a six for six minus twenty I am

630
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: seventy eight.

631
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:47,320
Speaker 7: Okay, wow, okay.

632
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 2: So it's like all of that. So I've lived this

633
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 2: life in real time, So all of the changes. I

634
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 2: saw all of them get shot and murdered because I

635
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 2: live right there in DC, you know, and they would

636
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:03,320
Speaker 2: that was in a row d C was something is

637
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 2: Margaret Mitchell. And I'm saying, this is the background I'm

638
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 2: growing up in that trying to go to Howard. You know,

639
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 2: they're they're drafting people for the Vietnam War. The people,

640
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 2: you know, it was a time. It was a time.

641
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 9: Who were your contemporaries around this time? Like who else

642
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 9: I was young I didn't know, but not you, Like

643
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 9: who else of newt was in your circle? As far

644
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 9: as like legendary dancers that we might have heard of,

645
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 9: That was.

646
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,879
Speaker 2: Who you were hanging with the new children, the last

647
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 2: new children, you know, Eleo Palmari. But Eleo was a choreographer,

648
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 2: a great choreographer too. When all those people in I was,

649
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 2: I was trailing the Aley company. See I was born

650
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 2: in between. There was nothing behind me, you know what

651
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 2: I mean, There was nothing behind me, so I had

652
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 2: to keep moving forward. So that's how you know, And

653
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 2: then I would be leading people they weren't going, Where

654
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 2: were they going? Scooped up Debbie Allen's and all of them,

655
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 2: Michael Peters and all He was my roommate with Ailey.

656
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 9: Before nineteen seventy five comes and your thirtieth comes, What

657
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 9: was your end game, your your dream or your destination

658
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 9: that you wanted to.

659
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 2: I was, you know, I started as a dancer and

660
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 2: then I started dance, you know, dancing between shows at Pearlely,

661
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 2: you know, working out a few things. I had gone

662
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 2: to Africa and uh to all of those countries with

663
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 2: Aley doing sixty seven. Was in Israel six days after

664
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 2: the Sixth Day War, all of that, what's happening, and

665
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 2: we were teaching people.

666
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:48,839
Speaker 7: Think you didn't look at it like that, you didn't

667
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:50,959
Speaker 7: look at like you know, in twenty years, I'm gonna

668
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 7: be I want.

669
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 2: To do this. That was no, but that was like

670
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: ten years after that, and then I left Ailey. And

671
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 2: how many years did you do Aley three? And how

672
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 2: that started in sixty seven sixty three?

673
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 9: Would you say that's probably the most difficult, rigorous training

674
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 9: that you've done.

675
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 2: No, it was before that because I didn't you know,

676
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 2: when I first went, I didn't tell you that the

677
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 2: Arthur Metrial Company was back disbanded because we didn't go.

678
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:24,800
Speaker 2: And since Alvin was I meant to meet Alvin, he

679
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,759
Speaker 2: was already in Europe, so the State Department decided to

680
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 2: send him to Senegal because it was easier for them.

681
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 2: And also then I was left on the street. I

682
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: couldn't and didn't want to go back. You can't go

683
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 2: back home, not to DC, not to not to face

684
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 2: those people, and not the how it plays. Oh no,

685
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 2: it day and night of ridicule. I had already appeared

686
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 2: in the Jet magazine with Lauren VI and the Apple

687
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 2: and all of the papers. How can My mother was saying, oh,

688
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 2: the Star is boring. So I had all of that,

689
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 2: so I couldn't go back to d C. So you know,

690
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,800
Speaker 2: you buckled down, and that's where the rigor really happened

691
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 2: with all of those choreographers that were at the wide

692
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:24,399
Speaker 2: That's Thelma Hill, Charles Moore, Jimmy Truett, Pepsi Bethel, all

693
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 2: of them.

694
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the impact that going to Africa

695
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: for the first time had on you.

696
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:34,760
Speaker 2: I found out how small I was, how infantastically small

697
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 2: we are and nothing. And because I was nothing, I

698
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 2: had to do something about that. We flew over the

699
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 2: Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro a couple of times. You know, in

700
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 2: the plane you could look down look in the crater,

701
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:54,800
Speaker 2: you know, Victoria Falls. I'm talking about going all the

702
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 2: way to Madagascar. So I didn't even know that I

703
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 2: had been there until I saw Walt Disney and the

704
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 2: Lema that's where it was, Madagascar, you know what I mean.

705
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 2: And there they were, you know, crawling around and we

706
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 2: did that. And then they had like a stina like

707
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 2: this long and I mean twelve inches long, I mean

708
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 2: big as a lobster. I was right, Oh, delicious and food.

709
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,879
Speaker 2: And then you know on the banks in Tanzania, that's

710
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 2: a star salam on the banks, they had a a campfire.

711
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 2: They've built a huge campfire and the natives were dancing. Okay,

712
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 2: so I'm oh, I can dance with them. But you know,

713
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 2: there's a rhythm I discovered, you know, how it's circular.

714
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 2: You don't know how long it is, but you begin

715
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 2: to recognize when you jump into it, how the cycle

716
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:03,360
Speaker 2: ultimately comes back around, and how you recognize that what

717
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 2: is that? What is that? You know, poly rhythm? It

718
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 2: has to do with understanding that the rhythm.

719
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:14,279
Speaker 10: And so did you bring that all of that into

720
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 10: your dance once you were finished.

721
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 2: With that trip? Well, my first ballet is in the

722
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 2: in the Smithsonian, the Gazelle, because I had seen them, Yeah,

723
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 2: I had seen them, you know, in in the camp.

724
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 2: What is that the on the reserve, on the reserve,

725
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 2: you know, going down a hill and they and they

726
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 2: moved in like almost a chain kind of thing. And

727
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:42,840
Speaker 2: that's where I got the movement for the for the

728
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 2: gazelle and so forth. And so that became the prelude

729
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 2: to a ballet that I later did called Slaves. It

730
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 2: was h the hunters become the hunted, and so the

731
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 2: so the mass I were out hunting and they captured

732
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 2: gazelle and we took it back to the village and

733
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 2: so forth. And then you hear shots in the in

734
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 2: the distance, I DESI.

735
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:11,479
Speaker 7: Are the ones that do the leak to right right straight?

736
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 2: Yeah?

737
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 7: Yeah, So did you use any.

738
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 2: No, No, I had taken.

739
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 9: Having dealt with choreographers in the post nineties, you know,

740
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 9: oftentimes they'll come to the site where musicians are and

741
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 9: they'll record it. Now, you know, people just take out

742
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 9: their phones and record whatever. But how are you able

743
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:48,839
Speaker 9: to thoroughly absorb the pieces that you have to choreograph

744
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:55,279
Speaker 9: if there isn't a walk man or an iPhone or

745
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 9: some sort of device that tells you what the music is.

746
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:00,439
Speaker 9: Because I know people that just listen to music and see,

747
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:01,640
Speaker 9: all right, where does it take me?

748
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 2: Take them? Where were you see? I worked with Yousef

749
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 2: Latif and all of that.

750
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:09,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, but th band's not set up in your living

751
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:10,799
Speaker 1: room playing live.

752
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 2: But we used to have radio, and that was w

753
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 2: b LS and and w l i B and all

754
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:21,800
Speaker 2: those jazz stations that played all of these artists that

755
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 2: didn't get any kind of stations and all of that.

756
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 2: That music was epic enough for me to set the

757
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 2: drama to it.

758
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 7: You know.

759
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 2: But because but we have to take the lead from

760
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 2: what you're playing it. You know the music is kind

761
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 2: of first as far as that and what you not

762
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:47,640
Speaker 2: what you were thinking of. But what universally is that

763
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 2: you give it a name, you give it, you give

764
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 2: you know you've done something. You're composer. You know you

765
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 2: start with the.

766
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 1: Were there cassettes out back then? Like how are you?

767
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 2: No?

768
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:00,800
Speaker 9: It doesn't listen back and forth, rewind, listen to that

769
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 9: part when this change comes in.

770
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 2: Some in some uh, in some instances, you could buy

771
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:10,040
Speaker 2: we had colony, We had all of those things where

772
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 2: you would you were working with vinyls. See I'm from that.

773
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 2: I can get that music. All of those artists were

774
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 2: on those labels, and most of the artists I worked

775
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 2: with had that music. They weren't an earth Wind and fire.

776
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:27,320
Speaker 2: We're not gonna put fantasy on that. And in the

777
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 2: show what No. But that's that's choreographable. That is music.

778
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 2: You can not everything. Can you put a dance? So

779
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 2: this is not TikTok, you know what I mean?

780
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:44,320
Speaker 1: It's not that.

781
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 9: I just want to know generally, when someone asks you

782
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 9: to put a piece together for them, what's your creative

783
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 9: process in figuring out what it.

784
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: Is that you want them to do.

785
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 2: It's what they said, I did as Simon, and that's

786
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 2: all romantic. They had mics with chords and stuff like that,

787
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 2: so I had to grab the cord. I had to

788
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 2: wrap them up in those loving embraces and unwrap them too,

789
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 2: so you didn't notice that.

790
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 1: No, No, I'm not very theatrical.

791
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 2: No, but I'm saying no and falling in their arms

792
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 2: and they are groaning and doing all that that stuff.

793
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 9: Yeah, before, But what I'm saying is, before you get

794
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 9: to that place, I'm certain that you have to sit

795
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 9: with the music and absorb it.

796
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:36,440
Speaker 2: Remember I studied the French horn and the trumpet. I

797
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 2: could count. I could read music too, So it's not

798
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 2: they come they don't even know what you're talking about.

799
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 2: They danced right through the bridge or they don't even

800
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:50,240
Speaker 2: recognize the bridge as some sort of release or anything

801
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:52,960
Speaker 2: like that. And then you're coming up to another chords

802
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 2: and then they'll start their routine over again. But that's

803
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 2: another level of where what you're trying to express you know,

804
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 2: and and and you learned it in that shorthand when

805
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:07,279
Speaker 2: you do those little rock and roll records, you know

806
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 2: like you got you know, you got the intro, you

807
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 2: got the verse first second chorus bridge, you know, verse,

808
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:20,719
Speaker 2: bridge and out. That's a form, that is technique.

809
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 10: How did all this experience and knowledge funnel into what

810
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 10: you did with the Wiz.

811
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 2: Well, I had everything. I went to different lands. That's

812
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 2: a that's a great question. I went to write thank you. No,

813
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 2: you had munch You had Munchkin lands. They had to

814
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 2: be you had dancing crows. I thought the Glady's Night

815
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 2: and the Pips. Right ah okay, now everybody breathe. I

816
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:55,800
Speaker 2: had to hook it onto something. Jesus, you know you

817
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,280
Speaker 2: understand what I mean. And that's why it lives today.

818
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 9: At the time, when Charlie Smalls is approaching you about

819
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 9: his redoing of the Wizard of Oz, are you thinking

820
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 9: like you're crazy, this will never.

821
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 2: Fly or no? But I imagine myself in everything that

822
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 2: I saw that you grew up with. Anybody grew up

823
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:22,319
Speaker 2: the Filipinos, Chinese, that any anybody.

824
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 7: So this is what you saw, what you saw the

825
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:24,879
Speaker 7: Wizard of Oz.

826
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 2: Yes, we loved you. Julie Gland was ours. Yeah, I

827
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 2: don't know that. It was like yeah, right, and all

828
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:39,880
Speaker 2: those other scary monsters were out there scary you know

829
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 2: what I mean? It was right isn't that America DoD

830
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:47,400
Speaker 2: I own that.

831
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 7: You remember those first creative moments of the Whiz like that, like, no, no, no.

832
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 2: We were going through it together and I changed it

833
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 2: every night until it got right.

834
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: Wait what they brought me?

835
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:03,440
Speaker 2: They tried to bring the dances? They got mad. They

836
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 2: had a meeting with me. What you don't look good

837
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 2: or you don't sound good? You fucked up that goddamn

838
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 2: that solo that you was supposed to and you acting

839
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 2: like you're being the boss of the conductor. You would

840
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 2: call him on that. That wasn't right. Let's go back.

841
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 7: So who's in the room? Can you set the scene?

842
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 7: Because I mean, I know.

843
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,320
Speaker 2: Nobody's in the room, Me and the dances. This is

844
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: in air. Where does the music come? It's in the air?

845
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 2: Come on?

846
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 7: Did you have to also tell Charlie that when it

847
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 7: came to some of the songs or.

848
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 2: It did that, it didn't work. Yes. Yes, that's why

849
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:39,320
Speaker 2: I'm still collecting royalties.

850
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:41,440
Speaker 7: Right because you actually added to one of the songs.

851
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 2: On the Whiz. Right. No, he said what he thought

852
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 2: was gonna pass for Emerald City. I said, no, I

853
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:51,399
Speaker 2: can't do this. Sounds like a dirge we're coming into

854
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 2: sparkling Emerald City, so I had to be And then

855
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 2: a pop of fans and the ladies in Chaffan and

856
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:04,840
Speaker 2: moving like and moving like that. Come on, we're in

857
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 2: Emerald City. Storytelling, storytelling, that's why they can't get by it.

858
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:11,919
Speaker 7: And George were you you were involved in the play

859
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:15,840
Speaker 7: and the movie, Diana Ross, Okay, so then can you

860
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 7: tell people because people don't realize too that, like there

861
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:21,000
Speaker 7: was differences between the stage and the movie.

862
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 2: They had no tornado.

863
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 7: She was that was the woman, that's the the tattoo.

864
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: This is what I have.

865
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 7: This is the tornado that.

866
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:31,800
Speaker 1: I was like, that's a tornado.

867
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 2: That's a tornado. Let me tell you how that came about.

868
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 2: We wasn't really satisfied with where he was going and

869
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:46,360
Speaker 2: I needed something that would really do the terror of

870
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 2: the tornado. So you know, we started out the Doom Doom.

871
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:55,360
Speaker 2: We were through a lot of tapes, you know, you

872
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 2: know Harold Wheeler, Yeah, how a Wheeler was? I went

873
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 2: to was at Howard with and he was the uh,

874
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 2: he was the orchestrator, right, and they didn't know I

875
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 2: had this younger guy that Timothy Graff and read who

876
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 2: actually did the dance arrangements. They said, well we have

877
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:21,320
Speaker 2: I said, I want this guy. So I was taking

878
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:24,280
Speaker 2: on all of that because they had all it all played.

879
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 2: Charlie Coleman was going to be the conductor and uh

880
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 2: her Wheeler was going to be They said, oh no,

881
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 2: I got my man here. I didn't know that you

882
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 2: couldn't do that or I was I was cross sea

883
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 2: boundary sorry, and he is an unknown. And we got

884
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 2: in there and we did the tornado, you know, like

885
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,399
Speaker 2: I come in I don't even remember from the side

886
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:52,840
Speaker 2: after the girls with the umbrellas and the I stirred

887
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:54,799
Speaker 2: it up with the guides, you know what I mean.

888
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 2: Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, and he floated

889
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:05,040
Speaker 2: some the eerie kind of music over that, and then

890
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:06,640
Speaker 2: there we were in a storm.

891
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 7: So wait, do you feel like because most of us

892
00:54:08,719 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 7: most people have not seen the production that you put

893
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 7: together in that way, right, the Stephanie Mills original production,

894
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 7: So most people have seen the movie with so do

895
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:20,240
Speaker 7: you feel like the choreography.

896
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 2: But that was Mondanye, That's not magic.

897
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 7: So you're saying, so it had even influenced.

898
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 2: We're gonna Roll down Linoleum, all night, yellownolium. What were

899
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 2: we gonna do? No, we had the guides. Those guys

900
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 2: became the yellow brick rop so I could dance all

901
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 2: over the stage and they had to follow it. And

902
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:43,280
Speaker 2: the audience said, and we had those big afro yellow

903
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 2: afros and the tails that were you know, So.

904
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 7: How did y'all do the scene in the play, like,

905
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 7: for instance, it was so large in the movie when

906
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 7: they did they went to Emerald City. And of course

907
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:57,200
Speaker 7: the whole red gold, green, gold, gold and red that

908
00:54:57,360 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 7: was a part of the play as well. No, no, no,

909
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 7: That's what I'm trying to figure out because I saw

910
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:03,799
Speaker 7: it at the very young girl, I was so little.

911
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 1: So well, you saw the eighty revival version.

912
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 7: I saw the Stephanie Mills, right, she.

913
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 2: Came back in eighty one eighty two.

914
00:55:11,560 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's when I probably saw it, right.

915
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:14,879
Speaker 1: So I saw the seventy seven.

916
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 7: No, I forget, So I'm trying.

917
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 2: To remember that's what you were in Emerald City.

918
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:27,320
Speaker 10: Wait, she has a whiz tattoo on her shoulders silver.

919
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, my wins tattoo is because Charlie wrote these songs.

920
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 7: Any songs still translated to the if.

921
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 9: We remember in the much talked about but extremely defunct

922
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 9: Quincy Jones episode when he started introducing us to the

923
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:45,879
Speaker 9: Alpha whatever one am thing, someone told Sidney like, dude,

924
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:50,279
Speaker 9: you don't have a big dance number for Emerald City,

925
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 9: and so they had to That was that whole gold,

926
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 9: red yellow thing was a last minute addition.

927
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:58,799
Speaker 2: To and that didn't you didn't have an Emerald City

928
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 2: and we were just in green and it had to

929
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 2: be fierce and it had to be sparkling, and that's

930
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 2: why it's just magical, you know, to start with, and

931
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:12,480
Speaker 2: you needed something like that. Charlie came through a dirge

932
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 2: of some some sort. We were we were collaborating you

933
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 2: and so what I mean, So I had to win

934
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:20,840
Speaker 2: him over to that and he had to see that,

935
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:23,359
Speaker 2: and it had to change all of that. And then

936
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:27,640
Speaker 2: they had characters, you know, they were snooty and all

937
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:30,560
Speaker 2: of that, and Jeffrey put all kinds of things and

938
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 2: then he put traps. I mean, getting back to Broadway

939
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 2: was a bitch. No, we were forty second Street for real.

940
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:43,320
Speaker 2: The Blackbird version of forty second Street is the wiz.

941
00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:50,440
Speaker 2: You know, traps in costumes and shit, I don't understand traps. No,

942
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 2: my if my leg has to go up higher? Why no,

943
00:56:55,440 --> 00:57:02,120
Speaker 2: I I discovered I did sure lock discovering. I had

944
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 2: to have all of that taken out of those causs

945
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 2: I was like, why aren't they moving like in a

946
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 2: certain way?

947
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 7: Jeffrey Holder beef is this is this? How this happens?

948
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:15,879
Speaker 2: That's what? No, But that's that was the business. I mean, yeah,

949
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 2: they no, I'm standing my ground. But see I had

950
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 2: been a dancer in front of them. Everybody sold it

951
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 2: to me.

952
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 7: It's like, who were you to tell me what?

953
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:29,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I had cut it before he could come

954
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 2: back and ought. I only gauge in everything. I can

955
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 2: only gauge everything by applause, how loud. The applause was

956
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: not that hitting the note, just got to hit the note.

957
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:42,920
Speaker 2: But I'm talking about the dancing.

958
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 9: So are we basically hearing that There was a sort

959
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,800
Speaker 9: of battle of the control between him and Jeffrey in terms.

960
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 2: Of the producer didn't want to put all the power

961
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 2: in one person's hands.

962
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 7: And I'm computed about Jeffrey Holder's role in that way

963
00:57:57,480 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 7: because Jeffrey Holder at the time, what was his role?

964
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 2: Jeffrey walked out on the first day of rehearsal because

965
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 2: he wasn't going to be the director choreography, so he

966
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 2: was just he was. He did the costumes. We went

967
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:19,320
Speaker 2: out on the road. Jeffrey Holder, you know, is there

968
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 2: another one? Oh no, the colon.

969
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 9: Here's the thing I knew of Jeffrey Holder as an

970
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 9: actor because I saw Annie first and my mom was like, he.

971
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:40,040
Speaker 2: Was from Trinidad. He did Baron Sandy, you know, the

972
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:43,960
Speaker 2: island guy half white, half black. You know, he was

973
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:48,160
Speaker 2: in one of the Double seven movie. He was, he

974
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 2: was an character. But that was his acting side. Oh no,

975
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:55,520
Speaker 2: he did dance. He did great pieces like Doogler for

976
00:58:55,960 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 2: for the Dancer of Harlem and his own company. He

977
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:04,560
Speaker 2: did Prodigal Prince was which was about the painter and

978
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 2: I and I was, why.

979
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 7: Are you doing comes and you're doing choreography because.

980
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 2: The guy hired me after they saw Sweet Odors in

981
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 2: the park in delacort and they came up to me

982
00:59:18,760 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 2: and asked me what I do this this piece called

983
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 2: the Wiz and it was the black version of the

984
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 2: Wizard of Oz and so forth and so on, and

985
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:32,560
Speaker 2: I said, when you get the money, call me and

986
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 2: that part. And because I had a dance company. And

987
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 2: I didn't know I was going to do that. I

988
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 2: didn't know it was going to be you know, but

989
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 2: I put my best foot forward. I did the best

990
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:46,680
Speaker 2: that I could for the piece. I was serving the piece.

991
00:59:46,840 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 2: It's not like that. But you say you come in

992
00:59:49,520 --> 00:59:52,240
Speaker 2: with them, they come in with a microphone. It takes more.

993
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:54,520
Speaker 2: You got to go to books, You got to do

994
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:56,840
Speaker 2: some research, you got to do all of that.

995
00:59:57,000 --> 00:59:58,400
Speaker 7: How was it teaching Stephanie to dance?

996
00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 2: You could dance. She was a kid fifteen years old, right.

997
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 2: And hint in Battle was a trained ballet dancer that

998
01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:09,200
Speaker 2: I found on the street at eighty fifth Street.

999
01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:11,640
Speaker 1: And Hint Battle was the scarecrow.

1000
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a scarecrow. He just died not too

1001
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:21,880
Speaker 2: a couple weeks after Cheetah. Cheetah died too, right, So

1002
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:26,640
Speaker 2: all of that went on. So Jeffrey wasn't going to

1003
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 2: be the director in Gilbert Moses who did ain't supposed

1004
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:35,720
Speaker 2: to die a natural death and worked for nec Negro

1005
01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:40,320
Speaker 2: Ensemble Company. What's going to be the director? Jeffrey walked out,

1006
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 2: I'll see you in Baltimore and he came with the

1007
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:47,880
Speaker 2: costumes and all of that, and that was a nightmare

1008
01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 2: because you know, we hadn't nobody had tried on anything.

1009
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:56,200
Speaker 2: And then he made the yellow brick road again with

1010
01:00:56,440 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 2: trying to make the road, you know, And so the

1011
01:01:01,560 --> 01:01:05,880
Speaker 2: tails were like dragging the floor, and I'm saying, how

1012
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 2: could you let fifteen dollars a yard silk and like

1013
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:14,960
Speaker 2: that dragged the fort I'm feeling like that, that's not

1014
01:01:15,040 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 2: gonna last eight shows. And then I have to put

1015
01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:22,080
Speaker 2: another step in there to keep the tails out. So

1016
01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 2: I had them put it over their arm and carry

1017
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:29,520
Speaker 2: like that and cut them the excess off. And that's

1018
01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:32,840
Speaker 2: how we got that costume, just like we cut the

1019
01:01:33,040 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 2: first costume.

1020
01:01:39,200 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 9: So with all the hoopla or the Wiz and of

1021
01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:46,400
Speaker 9: course I can't even convey to our audience how much

1022
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 9: of a force. I mean, the Wiz was the Wizzes

1023
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 9: run in nineteen seventy five to seventy seven, the first

1024
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:59,600
Speaker 9: two year period. I mean to me, maybe the whole

1025
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 9: hoopla over Hamilton, like you couldn't get tickets, none of

1026
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:07,720
Speaker 9: that stuff. Maybe for this generation, if you had an

1027
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 9: opportunity to see Beyonce's homecoming in the flesh, that's what

1028
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 9: it was like to see the Whiz back in the

1029
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:19,880
Speaker 9: mid seventies when it and yeah, we saw twice as

1030
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:23,800
Speaker 9: like even I mean I barely remember it was like

1031
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 9: five or six, but I still just remember everyone's reaction

1032
01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:30,080
Speaker 9: to it, and it was nothing like I've ever seen before,

1033
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:33,280
Speaker 9: with all the hoopla, with all the celebrities.

1034
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 1: I remember.

1035
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:37,360
Speaker 9: I think Michael Jackson came to see it, like at

1036
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 9: least six times, I believe where he said in an

1037
01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:43,480
Speaker 9: interview he kept coming night after night after night at

1038
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 9: the night to see it. How did it feel to

1039
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:50,600
Speaker 9: see something at that magnitude really hit the hard. Yeah,

1040
01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:54,600
Speaker 9: the target and all the subsequent Tony's and all the

1041
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:55,160
Speaker 9: accohlop It.

1042
01:02:55,240 --> 01:03:00,560
Speaker 2: Was really unbelievable to have, you know that happen to

1043
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:05,080
Speaker 2: experience all that. But also it's a personal journey too

1044
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:11,200
Speaker 2: because we all land. And I remember a stage manager saying,

1045
01:03:11,840 --> 01:03:14,920
Speaker 2: you know, to me, when all of this turmoil was

1046
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:20,919
Speaker 2: going on, just do your job, Just do your piece.

1047
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:26,959
Speaker 2: And that's what I did, and did it the best

1048
01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:30,000
Speaker 2: I could. I know some people didn't like it because

1049
01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:34,520
Speaker 2: I changed it, and you had to change the arrangement too,

1050
01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 2: and the copyists were sitting in the hotel room copying it.

1051
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:43,960
Speaker 9: That's why I was asking the question about music and choreography,

1052
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:44,439
Speaker 9: like if.

1053
01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:47,360
Speaker 2: You have to change something right, but we were making

1054
01:03:47,480 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 2: this up, okay, you know, and then you tell how

1055
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:57,560
Speaker 2: Wheeler that okay, it's so many bars, say sixty four

1056
01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:01,360
Speaker 2: bars or thirty two or in the increments, so that

1057
01:04:01,440 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 2: we could keep track of what with technique, it's all

1058
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:10,000
Speaker 2: down to that, not what you hear and what you feel.

1059
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:12,600
Speaker 2: You know all of that, you make all of that.

1060
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:18,720
Speaker 9: So this obviously leads to you getting a lot more

1061
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:23,200
Speaker 9: work with the professional musicians. So who was your first

1062
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 9: client in terms of like, hey, can you stage our

1063
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:28,920
Speaker 9: hill like Simpson?

1064
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:29,760
Speaker 1: Okay?

1065
01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 7: They the video to all of them like solid this

1066
01:04:34,360 --> 01:04:34,600
Speaker 7: is like.

1067
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 2: It was.

1068
01:04:39,440 --> 01:04:40,560
Speaker 1: Okay for thirty years.

1069
01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 2: I keep telling could you just give me a royalty?

1070
01:04:43,920 --> 01:04:47,080
Speaker 2: We need So when they're like looking at each other

1071
01:04:48,480 --> 01:04:50,360
Speaker 2: and then from each other and.

1072
01:04:51,960 --> 01:04:57,800
Speaker 11: Told them how to do that, that's you, right, and

1073
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 11: you know that groaning one where they're like hang on, yes.

1074
01:05:05,400 --> 01:05:17,280
Speaker 12: Yes, yeah, right righting, And I told you to walk

1075
01:05:17,360 --> 01:05:20,920
Speaker 12: over here and do this and the audience is going to.

1076
01:05:22,960 --> 01:05:27,760
Speaker 2: Oh the audience when crazy? And I said no, and

1077
01:05:27,880 --> 01:05:30,600
Speaker 2: then you go over here. See I didn't think like

1078
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:33,160
Speaker 2: that took I just thought that was their natural chemistry.

1079
01:05:33,440 --> 01:05:33,960
Speaker 1: His husband.

1080
01:05:34,240 --> 01:05:36,960
Speaker 2: That's how it was supposed to be, and that's how

1081
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:39,400
Speaker 2: it was supposed to look with earth wind the fire,

1082
01:05:39,440 --> 01:05:40,960
Speaker 2: I'm not you don't change.

1083
01:05:41,040 --> 01:05:43,760
Speaker 1: You used what the person has. So when do you

1084
01:05:44,040 --> 01:05:49,919
Speaker 1: enter the earth wind and fire spear? What year? Oh God?

1085
01:05:50,040 --> 01:05:50,920
Speaker 1: So you're here for.

1086
01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:51,600
Speaker 2: All in all?

1087
01:05:51,920 --> 01:05:55,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw phil the Philadelphia show in which.

1088
01:05:55,680 --> 01:05:57,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, the tubes, the tubes came down.

1089
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:00,560
Speaker 1: One of them couldn't get out of the tube and Filliladelphia.

1090
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 2: Then all ten of them on the front line wanted

1091
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 2: we had one trick where they all came out in

1092
01:06:09,280 --> 01:06:13,280
Speaker 2: suits that you suits, and they all wanted them to

1093
01:06:13,480 --> 01:06:15,880
Speaker 2: rip off and disappear, and there they were. I know

1094
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:16,680
Speaker 2: we had that trick.

1095
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:18,880
Speaker 1: So how did you work?

1096
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:22,120
Speaker 2: He's like, but if you know, but if it you know,

1097
01:06:22,920 --> 01:06:25,680
Speaker 2: you got dates and things to make. And if it

1098
01:06:25,720 --> 01:06:29,880
Speaker 2: doesn't work, you know, we got him there, but it's here.

1099
01:06:29,960 --> 01:06:32,480
Speaker 2: All nine of them want to go up in the pyramids.

1100
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:37,240
Speaker 2: In the pyramid, then the pyramid takes off and then

1101
01:06:37,320 --> 01:06:39,800
Speaker 2: it explodes and they're not there.

1102
01:06:40,080 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 1: And then verdein.

1103
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:49,880
Speaker 2: No Verdine. It is really enthusiastic, and yes he has

1104
01:06:50,000 --> 01:06:50,560
Speaker 2: a spirit.

1105
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:52,960
Speaker 1: Three times in this interviewer.

1106
01:06:54,800 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 7: Yeah, we owe he said, we owe him here.

1107
01:06:58,960 --> 01:06:59,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you.

1108
01:07:00,440 --> 01:07:05,880
Speaker 2: Working with Doug Henning and or Copperfield who was first?

1109
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:10,480
Speaker 9: Dug Hanning or Doug Henning? Okay, so Copperfield was his apprentice, No,

1110
01:07:11,000 --> 01:07:14,000
Speaker 9: just separate. Okay, so Henning was first.

1111
01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:18,400
Speaker 2: And because that were different tricks. Yeah, but this is

1112
01:07:18,520 --> 01:07:20,560
Speaker 2: like unheard of magical.

1113
01:07:21,240 --> 01:07:22,400
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, Dave.

1114
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:28,040
Speaker 9: Got their start the magicians, oh my okay, yeah, like

1115
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:31,080
Speaker 9: Maurice White was not playing.

1116
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:34,560
Speaker 1: Been with me.

1117
01:07:36,920 --> 01:07:41,040
Speaker 9: So basically, Maurice wanted to figure out how to really

1118
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:45,240
Speaker 9: introduce metaphysics to the black audience, make them believe in magic.

1119
01:07:46,080 --> 01:07:48,560
Speaker 9: So but literally that's how the Jackson is, like they

1120
01:07:48,600 --> 01:07:50,920
Speaker 9: would be in the audience like taking notes, we want

1121
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:51,560
Speaker 9: to levitating.

1122
01:07:52,240 --> 01:07:54,360
Speaker 1: It started with Verdein was floating first.

1123
01:07:54,720 --> 01:07:58,439
Speaker 2: Are you kidding? I didn't realize all that. Yes, well

1124
01:07:58,480 --> 01:07:58,920
Speaker 2: you were there.

1125
01:07:59,040 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: You helped facility ate it.

1126
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:04,160
Speaker 2: I know, Richard giving me information. I didn't. I didn't

1127
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 2: know they were.

1128
01:08:06,480 --> 01:08:08,760
Speaker 9: Marius's whole plan was through the music and through the

1129
01:08:08,800 --> 01:08:15,320
Speaker 9: presentation to introduce metaphysics, and he figured magic tricks are

1130
01:08:15,760 --> 01:08:19,000
Speaker 9: a sure fire away, like you know, like that sort of.

1131
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 7: Thing, and it worked, so he sounded like a puppet man.

1132
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:26,479
Speaker 9: First Verdein started levitating in the air and all that stuff,

1133
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:28,360
Speaker 9: and then then.

1134
01:08:28,280 --> 01:08:32,679
Speaker 2: I saw them after after I didn't work on that show, okay,

1135
01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:36,360
Speaker 2: because they had it was sparse, but I worked on

1136
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:37,840
Speaker 2: all of the subsequents.

1137
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:39,599
Speaker 9: Well, you worked on the first show that they stepped

1138
01:08:39,640 --> 01:08:42,360
Speaker 9: their game up and did his presentation?

1139
01:08:42,479 --> 01:08:43,800
Speaker 1: And how long did you stay with them?

1140
01:08:44,760 --> 01:08:45,120
Speaker 2: Weeks?

1141
01:08:46,120 --> 01:08:48,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in the project. The project.

1142
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:51,320
Speaker 2: I went on tour. We went to Egypt, we went

1143
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:55,480
Speaker 2: to Paris. Wow, we went to We played with Notcimento

1144
01:08:56,040 --> 01:08:59,000
Speaker 2: in Brazil. Right, all of that?

1145
01:08:59,600 --> 01:08:59,880
Speaker 1: Really?

1146
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:00,800
Speaker 11: Wow?

1147
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:05,280
Speaker 4: What are some of your favorite dances like or styles

1148
01:09:05,320 --> 01:09:07,040
Speaker 4: of dance like tango.

1149
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:11,799
Speaker 2: Or all of you know, I did the Josephine Baker's

1150
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:14,080
Speaker 2: story with them, but you know, it takes a lottle.

1151
01:09:14,320 --> 01:09:16,040
Speaker 2: It takes a little bit of time. You got to

1152
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:18,479
Speaker 2: have all the time to learn them.

1153
01:09:19,880 --> 01:09:22,080
Speaker 7: Real, you know, like what's your most fun Like did

1154
01:09:22,080 --> 01:09:23,880
Speaker 7: you have really had a good time doing?

1155
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:26,599
Speaker 1: Like if you go out to a club and your

1156
01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:27,920
Speaker 1: song come on, what are you doing?

1157
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:28,200
Speaker 9: No?

1158
01:09:28,800 --> 01:09:30,920
Speaker 2: What am I doing? I'm doing what the people are doing?

1159
01:09:32,040 --> 01:09:36,680
Speaker 2: Oh no, I can clear the floor? Oh no? Still know?

1160
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:38,479
Speaker 2: When I went to Brazil. You know, you go to

1161
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:41,240
Speaker 2: you know the club. I work with Fannie Mickey down

1162
01:09:41,360 --> 01:09:48,080
Speaker 2: there in uh Colombia. She had the International Theater down

1163
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:50,599
Speaker 2: there and I did it. I did a stint with them.

1164
01:09:50,800 --> 01:09:52,559
Speaker 2: But then they would go out to the clubs at

1165
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:56,519
Speaker 2: night and people are just dancing, and then they some

1166
01:09:56,680 --> 01:10:00,240
Speaker 2: of the club the people are playing salsa clubs, he

1167
01:10:00,760 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. I just jumped in there with them,

1168
01:10:05,800 --> 01:10:10,360
Speaker 2: and then then the crowd happened. Yeah, you know when

1169
01:10:10,360 --> 01:10:13,200
Speaker 2: you're doing it, when we are doing it, we're not

1170
01:10:13,280 --> 01:10:16,639
Speaker 2: showing off. When we are doing it and you love

1171
01:10:16,680 --> 01:10:19,120
Speaker 2: it and you're in it and you can feel it,

1172
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:20,800
Speaker 2: ain't nothing like it.

1173
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to the Latin Quarter?

1174
01:10:23,400 --> 01:10:33,920
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, the original, not when the rappers was there.

1175
01:10:34,360 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 9: No for for a lot of us that are into

1176
01:10:39,920 --> 01:10:42,360
Speaker 9: that have the knowledge of at least my knowledge of

1177
01:10:42,439 --> 01:10:46,240
Speaker 9: this really came because I'm an MTV generation person, So

1178
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:48,800
Speaker 9: watching those Michael Jackson Michael.

1179
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:51,920
Speaker 1: Peters videos, then I was like, oh, choreograph.

1180
01:10:52,000 --> 01:10:54,120
Speaker 9: And then you know, I realized like, Okay, this is

1181
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:58,599
Speaker 9: a Gene Kelly reference or Freda Staire reference or whatever.

1182
01:10:59,120 --> 01:11:02,240
Speaker 2: But what was your feeling towards that whole?

1183
01:11:02,439 --> 01:11:07,840
Speaker 1: Like early eighties rush for now, everybody wants choreography and

1184
01:11:07,880 --> 01:11:09,000
Speaker 1: their videos and all.

1185
01:11:09,040 --> 01:11:12,479
Speaker 2: If you remember, Michael Jackson was the first one to

1186
01:11:12,680 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 2: have that. So that left Stevie, Maurice and all of

1187
01:11:17,479 --> 01:11:24,080
Speaker 2: them feeling left out. See, MTV was not creative for you. Okay.

1188
01:11:24,120 --> 01:11:28,960
Speaker 2: You got to remember that Michael Jackson broke that color line. Okay,

1189
01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:32,280
Speaker 2: so you know that's how we weren't. So you gotta

1190
01:11:32,960 --> 01:11:36,720
Speaker 2: you know, embrace all of that. So, yes, and that

1191
01:11:36,840 --> 01:11:40,320
Speaker 2: sparked a whole lot of it stepped everybody's game up,

1192
01:11:41,040 --> 01:11:44,560
Speaker 2: you know, to want to you know, do that or

1193
01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:47,600
Speaker 2: to be recognized that MTV was all over that was

1194
01:11:47,920 --> 01:11:49,639
Speaker 2: around the world, all over the world.

1195
01:11:50,520 --> 01:11:52,920
Speaker 1: But for you, like, did you see it as like

1196
01:11:53,960 --> 01:11:55,360
Speaker 1: finally the world's opening up?

1197
01:11:55,479 --> 01:11:58,280
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, I was different. I did something else.

1198
01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:02,479
Speaker 2: I worked with the artists. It's what they do. It's

1199
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:06,120
Speaker 2: what you do, Marie. No, I'd be we still be,

1200
01:12:06,600 --> 01:12:10,320
Speaker 2: you know, working on a combination that I could give Maurice. No,

1201
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:15,879
Speaker 2: they had their own sexiness, they had their own moves.

1202
01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:20,200
Speaker 2: You just work on that. So if their own grooves,

1203
01:12:20,240 --> 01:12:24,720
Speaker 2: you work on that person and yeah, I fight that

1204
01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:29,680
Speaker 2: and then you could use his sexiness, you know, serpentine

1205
01:12:29,920 --> 01:12:36,320
Speaker 2: fire and all of that, and then the music then

1206
01:12:39,600 --> 01:12:44,519
Speaker 2: it's the Phoenix horn. I mean, I have never in

1207
01:12:44,680 --> 01:12:48,679
Speaker 2: my life heard anything as great as and the rhythms

1208
01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:52,479
Speaker 2: that they were, you know, playing that was it was magic.

1209
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:55,000
Speaker 2: It was just like you know a Wretha Franklin here

1210
01:12:55,080 --> 01:12:58,120
Speaker 2: and her singing or all of that, if you took

1211
01:12:58,240 --> 01:13:03,120
Speaker 2: them separate and apart. Phil Collins tried to take them

1212
01:13:03,240 --> 01:13:08,240
Speaker 2: up them on we know, I know, so you know

1213
01:13:08,360 --> 01:13:11,439
Speaker 2: that was all all of that, but uh no, but

1214
01:13:11,560 --> 01:13:15,480
Speaker 2: that's what he was doing. And then he was already

1215
01:13:15,640 --> 01:13:20,120
Speaker 2: a fantastic drummer, you know, from Ramsey Lewis and so.

1216
01:13:20,400 --> 01:13:22,880
Speaker 2: But you know, I think that the great thing was

1217
01:13:22,960 --> 01:13:26,920
Speaker 2: that I had. I had Miles Davis. See I started

1218
01:13:27,000 --> 01:13:30,320
Speaker 2: with Miles when I'm one of my first you care,

1219
01:13:31,280 --> 01:13:34,200
Speaker 2: how do you do my diffusion? When he with Joe's

1220
01:13:34,240 --> 01:13:37,720
Speaker 2: Avenue all of that, when they were breaking into the

1221
01:13:38,920 --> 01:13:45,320
Speaker 2: the corner, you know, like you gotta and you gotta

1222
01:13:46,040 --> 01:13:48,880
Speaker 2: find your way in there. You know. I did a

1223
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:52,280
Speaker 2: piece not with Miles on stage, but I did a

1224
01:13:52,400 --> 01:13:56,160
Speaker 2: piece that I used his music in which I in

1225
01:13:56,280 --> 01:13:59,600
Speaker 2: which I did uh poppy, you know the drug you

1226
01:13:59,680 --> 01:14:03,080
Speaker 2: know and then and that was the street and so

1227
01:14:03,240 --> 01:14:07,640
Speaker 2: I became I became the character you personified, personified it

1228
01:14:07,960 --> 01:14:11,400
Speaker 2: with my with his with his music. Now I like

1229
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:14,240
Speaker 2: to really do it and then get one of these

1230
01:14:14,640 --> 01:14:22,479
Speaker 2: hip hop freaks to really know. But I but I

1231
01:14:22,680 --> 01:14:25,680
Speaker 2: need you need to get all of that, all of that,

1232
01:14:25,760 --> 01:14:29,240
Speaker 2: because they're thinking that they're feeling that, but they don't

1233
01:14:29,280 --> 01:14:30,040
Speaker 2: have a narrative.

1234
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:32,040
Speaker 7: Yeah, I really wish you and I wish you and

1235
01:14:32,120 --> 01:14:34,000
Speaker 7: like Fatima knew each other because who knew that y'all

1236
01:14:34,000 --> 01:14:36,240
Speaker 7: had such parallel stories and the fact that y'all are

1237
01:14:36,280 --> 01:14:37,799
Speaker 7: both kind of y'all self taught.

1238
01:14:37,720 --> 01:14:43,400
Speaker 2: Like y'all know you know I've gone to school albert A. Well, no, no,

1239
01:14:43,479 --> 01:14:44,559
Speaker 2: I'm talking about way.

1240
01:14:44,400 --> 01:14:46,760
Speaker 7: Back before when you started in DC. That's what I

1241
01:14:46,840 --> 01:14:50,559
Speaker 7: was talking right, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

1242
01:14:50,479 --> 01:14:52,840
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what But you got to continue to know

1243
01:14:52,960 --> 01:14:53,400
Speaker 2: the school.

1244
01:14:53,640 --> 01:14:56,240
Speaker 7: Yes, well, then maybe you and Fatima to me later

1245
01:14:57,520 --> 01:14:59,679
Speaker 7: for each other. Y'all know each other? Okay?

1246
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:00,639
Speaker 2: Good? Right? Good?

1247
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:02,160
Speaker 1: You know she know everybody?

1248
01:15:02,360 --> 01:15:06,439
Speaker 9: So before we wrap, could you tell me what it

1249
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:10,960
Speaker 9: was like to choreograph the inauguration of ninety one of

1250
01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:12,240
Speaker 9: the Clinton White House.

1251
01:15:12,600 --> 01:15:16,519
Speaker 2: I'm a director and a choreographer. That was all history,

1252
01:15:17,640 --> 01:15:21,280
Speaker 2: and what I had to do was bring all that

1253
01:15:21,479 --> 01:15:24,880
Speaker 2: together to bring a through line. So there was a

1254
01:15:25,200 --> 01:15:28,960
Speaker 2: there was either a Dorothy height that went through all

1255
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:32,360
Speaker 2: of them. I'm talking about from the women not being

1256
01:15:32,479 --> 01:15:36,880
Speaker 2: able to speak in nineteen sixty three all the way

1257
01:15:38,200 --> 01:15:41,519
Speaker 2: they're still struggling. You know, when you look at it now,

1258
01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:46,080
Speaker 2: you know it was that story and that all of

1259
01:15:46,200 --> 01:15:50,719
Speaker 2: that takes over even now. So whatever struggle they had,

1260
01:15:51,160 --> 01:15:53,920
Speaker 2: it was integration. It was so forth and then the

1261
01:15:54,040 --> 01:16:00,559
Speaker 2: men fighting, you know, Wilkins fighting a stokely Carmichael over

1262
01:16:00,640 --> 01:16:04,040
Speaker 2: what they were going to do. All of that is

1263
01:16:05,120 --> 01:16:07,439
Speaker 2: part of that, you know. So all I have to

1264
01:16:07,479 --> 01:16:09,840
Speaker 2: do is just follow that trail. And then you know,

1265
01:16:10,080 --> 01:16:12,840
Speaker 2: we used to substitute. You know, whenever you did a

1266
01:16:12,880 --> 01:16:15,720
Speaker 2: white person, you had a white mask or something like that. No,

1267
01:16:16,560 --> 01:16:21,360
Speaker 2: take off the masks. Everybody's going to do their part. No. Yeah.

1268
01:16:21,960 --> 01:16:25,880
Speaker 2: We had songs about protests and then we don't want

1269
01:16:25,960 --> 01:16:29,679
Speaker 2: them in here. We had the flag when the flag

1270
01:16:30,160 --> 01:16:33,640
Speaker 2: you know, I have three big Confederate flags, and they

1271
01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:35,360
Speaker 2: sang that song in front of them.

1272
01:16:35,439 --> 01:16:39,479
Speaker 9: You know, you know how y'all reacted, And that's what

1273
01:16:39,680 --> 01:16:43,240
Speaker 9: I was wanted, and you're a provocateur, did it right?

1274
01:16:43,960 --> 01:16:46,360
Speaker 2: And then this had to be the sheriff that sang

1275
01:16:46,520 --> 01:16:50,200
Speaker 2: the song, so you know, you got what it was.

1276
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:54,680
Speaker 2: The struggle, the confrontation, all of that, and then we

1277
01:16:54,800 --> 01:16:58,160
Speaker 2: could have those moments we shall overcome and all of

1278
01:16:58,240 --> 01:17:00,880
Speaker 2: those other things. But why were we singing all of that?

1279
01:17:01,920 --> 01:17:04,160
Speaker 2: Why were we why were we doing that? There was

1280
01:17:04,200 --> 01:17:06,920
Speaker 2: a purpose and there was a purpose for that show,

1281
01:17:07,960 --> 01:17:09,920
Speaker 2: you know, So what are we doing? You know, like

1282
01:17:10,160 --> 01:17:16,680
Speaker 2: I think that we'll we'll find ourselves, you know, you

1283
01:17:16,760 --> 01:17:19,880
Speaker 2: know where we should be if we stop denying the truth,

1284
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:23,880
Speaker 2: you know, and sharing the truth. Okay, all of these

1285
01:17:23,960 --> 01:17:27,320
Speaker 2: are periods that we are going through then, you know.

1286
01:17:27,400 --> 01:17:29,920
Speaker 2: And what we're going through right now, the reintroduction, this

1287
01:17:30,120 --> 01:17:33,599
Speaker 2: is what is this? This is a retelling of something

1288
01:17:33,680 --> 01:17:36,439
Speaker 2: that we had overcome, that we had we had been

1289
01:17:36,640 --> 01:17:40,400
Speaker 2: passed all it. We still have to come together. We

1290
01:17:40,600 --> 01:17:45,000
Speaker 2: still have to share all of these wonderful things that

1291
01:17:45,080 --> 01:17:48,600
Speaker 2: we have, you know what I mean, the technology and

1292
01:17:48,800 --> 01:17:52,040
Speaker 2: so forth. Our kids are sitting over there with computers

1293
01:17:52,120 --> 01:17:55,200
Speaker 2: that can't work, but there is so much let's beyond

1294
01:17:55,439 --> 01:17:59,120
Speaker 2: that that you know, other people can teach you. We

1295
01:17:59,680 --> 01:18:04,240
Speaker 2: are there, you know, I did. I have a piece

1296
01:18:04,280 --> 01:18:08,280
Speaker 2: that I'm doing with Ai, and I have Gandhi telling

1297
01:18:08,960 --> 01:18:13,280
Speaker 2: his story. But I have Cutter and all of the techniques,

1298
01:18:13,880 --> 01:18:18,759
Speaker 2: you know, the dance techniques opposing it. The British attacked

1299
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:21,920
Speaker 2: dancing and the other people are doing cutter and stuff

1300
01:18:22,040 --> 01:18:25,120
Speaker 2: like that. I want to go there. That's where we are,

1301
01:18:26,280 --> 01:18:29,720
Speaker 2: you know, And we're vamping right now. Why are we

1302
01:18:29,840 --> 01:18:35,040
Speaker 2: going back to the whiz especially? No, no, you're not

1303
01:18:35,040 --> 01:18:38,600
Speaker 2: gonna have a memory over there. I don't know how

1304
01:18:38,720 --> 01:18:39,360
Speaker 2: we get we were.

1305
01:18:41,800 --> 01:18:46,240
Speaker 9: I mean part of the human experiences looking ahead and

1306
01:18:46,439 --> 01:18:47,519
Speaker 9: occasionally looking at.

1307
01:18:48,680 --> 01:18:50,559
Speaker 2: This is fifty years ago. Just have.

1308
01:18:53,360 --> 01:18:54,360
Speaker 1: I have some memories.

1309
01:18:55,160 --> 01:18:56,960
Speaker 7: I would like a nice documentary at some point though,

1310
01:18:57,080 --> 01:18:58,960
Speaker 7: like between the original play and the movie. I think

1311
01:18:58,960 --> 01:19:00,479
Speaker 7: that would be dope. If I missed that.

1312
01:19:00,560 --> 01:19:03,320
Speaker 2: Already, you haven't missed that. That's what That's what you

1313
01:19:03,360 --> 01:19:03,640
Speaker 2: could do.

1314
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:07,839
Speaker 7: That's what another thing on the back of I done.

1315
01:19:09,040 --> 01:19:14,120
Speaker 2: Done done. I was there with the with the first movie.

1316
01:19:14,160 --> 01:19:16,799
Speaker 7: In that crowd they used to dance on that stage.

1317
01:19:17,760 --> 01:19:22,760
Speaker 2: You were in Harlem, really that you that's what that's

1318
01:19:22,800 --> 01:19:24,120
Speaker 2: when they were doing it.

1319
01:19:24,439 --> 01:19:28,600
Speaker 9: Equal opportunity, you know that all of that wait, you

1320
01:19:28,760 --> 01:19:33,040
Speaker 9: were in the park as a spectator because there were

1321
01:19:33,240 --> 01:19:36,519
Speaker 9: dance troops there that we had to drop out cut

1322
01:19:36,600 --> 01:19:37,160
Speaker 9: out the film.

1323
01:19:37,240 --> 01:19:39,519
Speaker 1: But so I thought you were about to tell me

1324
01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:40,679
Speaker 1: that you were one of the dancers.

1325
01:19:40,720 --> 01:19:43,880
Speaker 7: I was like, God on the stage, you are.

1326
01:19:44,160 --> 01:19:48,080
Speaker 9: A burst of energy and education and history, and I

1327
01:19:48,240 --> 01:19:50,040
Speaker 9: thank you for doing our podcast with us.

1328
01:19:53,640 --> 01:19:57,559
Speaker 2: We're going to do all this. Wow, it's amazing.

1329
01:19:57,920 --> 01:20:00,000
Speaker 9: Actually I was going to play the fanfare theme because

1330
01:20:00,120 --> 01:20:04,519
Speaker 9: is the way you were speaking about our history and everything.

1331
01:20:05,400 --> 01:20:10,920
Speaker 9: It just felt like I needed diploma after that. But yeah,

1332
01:20:11,120 --> 01:20:14,840
Speaker 9: on behalf of Unpaid Bill and uh Sugar Steve and

1333
01:20:15,040 --> 01:20:18,920
Speaker 9: pont Diegelo and Laya. But thank you brother Faison for

1334
01:20:19,040 --> 01:20:21,519
Speaker 9: doing this for us, and we appreciate you and your

1335
01:20:21,640 --> 01:20:23,759
Speaker 9: art and this Quest Love Supreme.

1336
01:20:23,840 --> 01:20:24,800
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week.

1337
01:20:27,280 --> 01:20:28,160
Speaker 2: This is Sugar Steve.

1338
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:31,519
Speaker 10: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast

1339
01:20:31,640 --> 01:20:34,040
Speaker 10: is hosted by a mere Quest Love Thompson, Liya Saint

1340
01:20:34,080 --> 01:20:37,799
Speaker 10: Clair Ponte Coleman, Sugar Steve Mandel and Unpaid Bill Sherman.

1341
01:20:38,760 --> 01:20:41,479
Speaker 10: The executive producers are a mere Quest of Thompson, Sean

1342
01:20:41,560 --> 01:20:45,920
Speaker 10: g and Brian Calhoun, produced by Britney Benjamin Jake Payne

1343
01:20:45,960 --> 01:20:51,120
Speaker 10: and Liah Saint Clair. Edited by Alex Conroy. Produced for

1344
01:20:51,240 --> 01:21:02,679
Speaker 10: iHeart by Noel Brown. What's Love Supreme is a production

1345
01:21:02,880 --> 01:21:11,240
Speaker 10: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1346
01:21:11,520 --> 01:21:12,880
Speaker 10: Apple Podcasts, or

1347
01:21:12,920 --> 01:21:14,559
Speaker 2: Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.