Good Life Project - Nicholas Palmquist | Dance, Equity and Access

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

This conversation is different, it’s actually two conversations recorded four-months apart. Be sure to keep listening after our guest, Nicholas Palmquist, answers what is usually my final question. The dialogue after is powerful.Palmquist is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer who has toured the world, performed and choreographed for stage, TV, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, The Tonys, and feature films. Finding his way to NYC, Nicholas focused more on choreography and began teaching packed classes at the iconic Steps on Broadway studios. There, he'd eventually bring cameras into the studio to share the experience with a global community on Instagram, and introduce a sponsorship/patronage model that allowed people from all over the world to sponsor dancers who struggled to afford his class.Then, the pandemic hit. Everything shut down, including Nicholas' work. A few weeks in, he found himself, like so many others, awakening to the realities of racial injustice, violence, privilege, and protests. This led to a profoundly personal period of re-examination, along with a commitment to bring himself, his heart, mind, teaching, and sense of service and equality to the world in a very different way. I asked him to convene for a follow-up conversation, which we taped just last week and edited into this episode, so we could tell the fuller story of his evolution. You can find Nicholas Palmquist at: Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/napalmquist/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey there. So today's conversation is a little bit different than any we have aired. It actually is two conversations recorded four months apart. My guest, Nicholas Palmquist, is a dancer, teacher, choreographer. He has performed and choreographed for stage, TV, places like Netflix, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, The Tonys, as well as feature films. Growing up in a small town in Missouri, it wasn't easy to be a young male dancer until he discovered a place of refuge in a local dance studio and the community around that. Eventually making his way to New York City, Nicholas took a very different approach to creating a career. Stepping into more of a choreography and teaching role, he has toured the world, awakening everyone from professionals to kids to movement music and

possibility, while also leading packed classes at the iconic Steps on Broadway Dance School in New York. And beyond his mesmerizing and really joyful choreography, he decided to do something a bit radical. He brought cameras into the classroom and shared these mini performances with a giant community on Instagram. That, in fact, is how I first discovered him when my daughter shared a clip of him dancing to The Who's Baba O'Reilly, which we both are huge fans of. And that was much of the focus of our original conversation in the beginning of March. Then the pandemic hit, crippling New York City. We decided to hold this episode,

to hold that earlier conversation for a bit for a time when people could gather in person again and be with him again in his New York City classes. Well, we all know what happened next. We are nowhere close to that moment. And in the intervening time, other things happen. We have experienced a renewed national awakening to racial injustice, violence, privilege, and protests. With so much change, I asked Nicholas to convene for a follow-up conversation, which we taped just last week.

And today's episode is actually these two conversations that unfolded four months apart. The first one that happened in our studio in early March, just before New York City shut down. And the second one taped a few days ago that captures a really powerful shift in Nicholas. One that he has been moving through and a window of fierce re-examination of who he is, what he has been doing, why he has been doing it, and how he is making really powerful changes to the way he choreographs, dances, and invests his energy in expanding access to this incredible art form. Really excited to share it with you today. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program. They've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes

to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple watch ever making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple watch getting you eight hours of charge in

just 15 minutes. The Apple watch series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations iphone tennis or later required charge time and actual results will vary mayday mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman i knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot if we him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

I first discovered you and your work, I think it was when we had an 18-year-old daughter. And I schooled her in the ways very young of the who. Yeah. And she stumbled upon your clip on Instagram where, you like and she's like dad you gotta see this it's amazing that really is amazing because that's like how many generations there right there enjoying enjoying the music and i find that music is half the battle if you find a good song than the classes yeah when you're looking for that is it about did lyrics matter as much as the actual music so i'm not a lyric guy yeah. I actually, I have a really vivid memory of being in college and my friend,

I was driving and drumming along to like the, one of my favorite parts of the song. And he's like, I've never noticed that in this music. And he was like, you always are drumming out the weirdest parts of the song while I'm singing along. And yeah, I can never remember the lyrics, but I definitely, always the music for sure. Yeah, and it sounds like you're like, your ear goes to a place that a lot of people don't notice

in the song. Is it like, is it like quirky, interesting things or hooks or riffs? I, you know, it's, I think it's just emotional things. I'm not really trying to listen to music differently. I think the parts that stick with me and the songs that stick with me are, are always kind of emotional. So it's really, I think, nostalgic based, whether, you know, The Who is an example or, you know, anything The Eagles, I grew up listening to it. My dad had

one tape in his truck. Literally, it would not come out. We kind of all make fun of him for it. And he's like, but now you all love it. You're all obsessed with it. All of us, my brothers and I are all obsessed with The Eagles, greatest hits album. It's like, how many notes do you actually have to hear before you can identify exactly what that is? Right? like yeah i have i mean i have to listen to music a lot so i don't i don't necessarily think that i have like a talented ear as much as a like studious one yeah but when i kind of react to a part of the music then i just listen to it over and over really try to like personify it so it's a visceral thing for you it's like an emotional thing it's like there's something that just reacts to yeah Yeah. And I think I was always like kind of dancing like that. You know,

I was always trying to make up my own solos. I was trying to like guide my teachers to give me what I wanted to do and kind of how I was hearing music and didn't always pan out. But I always, I always loved it for sure. So when does this touch on your life? Because I know you grew up in Missouri, small town. Grew up in a small town in Missouri. I was born in Minnesota. How smallish? Okay. I think like 3,500 people. Oh, so really small, legit small town. I mean, when I was there, we didn't have a Walmart. We have since been kind of upgraded. We got a Walmart.

But no movie theaters, no real entertainment things. I think after high school, we would hang out at a Sonic and just like talk, which was, you know, fun, but yeah, very small, very small town. Nothing to do. Siblings? I have four brothers and a sister. Oh, big family too. So your town basically made up like 10%. Totally. I know we should have had buildings named after us for sure. Yeah. My older sister danced and all of my brothers played instruments. So I think that's

also where my attachment to music really comes from. My mom loved it. She always wanted music in the house. So a brother was either playing piano or guitar or drums in some room of the house my whole life. And my sister danced. I did karate and gymnastics. And then I think the introduction of music to that coordination, watching her dance, I was like, oh, that's the thing that I'm really kind of missing. So was she kind of like the gateway then? Totally. Yeah. I actually, I went to one of her dance competitions and I saw this all guy jazz number to Smoke It in the Boys Room. And I literally was like, mom, I want to do that.

And now the convention that I teach for, BJ Cox is the guy that kind of runs the backstage stuff. And he was one of the guys in that number. I was telling that story to somebody once. I was like, yeah, I was at a dance competition and it was an all guy number. And I was in, in who we somehow figured out that it was him and very full circle in that way. But yeah, I was really captivated by my sister's love of it. You know, like she was my cool high school older sister, and all of her friends looked like they had so much fun. So when I started, she was graduating, so we never really got to do it together. But she was definitely my introduction to dance.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting also because growing up in a small – so I was a gymnast when I was a kid also. Not cool. No, totally. You know, and I suffered a bit because of that. We were, you know, like made fun of constantly. We were wearing tights when we competed.

Right. And so you started out there. And when you sort of like bridge that gap to dance, did you take any heat for sort of like for what you were interested in? Oh, yeah. Yeah, my whole life. And like when I first started, I told people I took hip-hop. Even though I was taking ballet, tap, and jazz, it was more socially acceptable to be a guy that did hip-hop.

And I did take hip-hop, and I was pretty good at it. I liked it, but that was kind of what my beard was, if you will. That kind of made it somewhat okay for people. I remember telling one of my really close friends once, like, hey, man, I got to be honest with you Like I do other stuff too. Like I do ballet and jazz and he's like, okay, do you want to go get something to eat? You know, like very unfazed by it, but it was really hard. You know, I think, I think even the people that loved and supported me didn't quite know how to love and support a male in that art form. So people were constantly

telling me to be more tough and to be more this and that. And out of love, you know, they were trying to say, like, if you dance like this, it'll be better for you. And so I think creating dance is where my real escape was, because then I kind of got to be like, well, I want to move this way and nobody can tell me not to. And I had a group of friends growing up that they were cool with it, but only it was like brothers that could make fun of you, but nobody else could make fun of me. So I definitely kind of learned how to use sarcasm and humor as a defense mechanism. And that's definitely something I'm trying to unlearn. And I also don't want to have resentment towards those people because I think if we were growing up now, I think all of them probably would have handled things very differently. You know, we've just, we've come a long way, long way to go,

but I think we've come kind of a long way in those regards. But yeah, it definitely was challenging. My mom was amazing. She was so supportive. My dad was really supportive as well. He kind of always hung back with the rest of my family so my mom and I could travel to bigger cities to do things with dance. And she's just always been a constant cheerleader always.

So, I mean, from there, what, what was the, um, is it trajectory sort of like into the world of competition? Um, I don't know how my sister got into it. I think that's just kind of a popular thing. If you're in a small town and you're like the local dance studio kind of is going to get plugged into that competition circuit to expose you to more. Because, you know, where I grew up, my dance teacher was also not really respected. You know, she was a woman teaching dance and people didn't look at that like a profession necessarily. So it's like, because she was also just really amazing. You know, I had really strong people trying to keep me into it. Because obviously there's some deeper connection.

Yeah, no, she, you know, her and my mom were very different personalities. And my dance teacher was, she's super strong and she's always had to be. And my mom is really emotional in the way that she speaks and is, you know, always, you know, and I'm her kid. So it's different whenever you're a dance teacher. And I can attest to that, that you, it's, they're not your kids. You kind of interact with them like they are. And oftentimes I would stay with her if my parents couldn't afford to take me, whether it was time or finances. And she definitely sacrificed a lot for me to be able to do it.

And again, looking back, it was like, sure, there are things that I wish had gone smoother. But at that time, and there was no rulebook for it, it was just like, here we are in the situation. How do we be supportive of it? And I would say, hands down, they were always supportive if they had the opportunity to be. She's pretty great. When you go with her, because I'm assuming there was sort of like a group of you at the school that would kind of like go and travel together and compete together. Yes, exactly.

What's the culture of that like? Because I mean, the reference you see on TV these days is kind of awful. It is. It is. culture of that like because i mean the reference you see on tv these days is kind of awful it is it is yeah i i prefer the the setup of convention slash competition where part of what you're doing is taking classes from a faculty that then adjudicate what you present as competition so that there's at least that that was what really opened my eyes as i started taking classes from male teachers and i started taking classes from people that were in different coasts of America. And so my eyes kind of were opened a little bit to kind of see how I could plan my future. But yeah, we would rehearse, like we would learn pieces of dance in my small studio and then we would travel to other places and we would compete

against other kids. And, you know, it's like competitive sports, you know, similar to that, but also very subjective. You know, one group of people is saying, you know, what all this is. So there's no like goals and like whoever has the most thing was the, yeah, it's, yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it comes down to like, did I just like that piece? Cause I liked it. Was this one technically better and we're kids. So it's definitely a hard, a hard concept to perfect. And now I travel and I teach on a convention. So it was really inspiring to me and it's what I do. And really what I try to make sure I clarify with these kids is there's a difference between trying to open yourself up to the opportunity in a class and

the learning process. What can I get out of this hour? How can I be kind to myself in the learning process and be my own cheerleader in my head? And then to present a piece to compete, I'm just adjudicating it. So I'm just kind of saying like, well, this was not as right as it could be. This part was really good, but mostly it's trying to give constructive criticism to people that you were just pumping up the entire weekend about like, just try for the sake of trying. So sometimes there are conflict of interest, but it's also this world that exposes kids to really amazing things. And, you know, I'm exposed to really young dancers who stick in my mind. And later when I'm, you know, when I come across them again or I can help introduce them to an opportunity,

there's a reason, you know, that this has been a thing for a really long time. And there are a lot of really great foundations that come out of it and try and plug kids into college and, you know, giving scholarships so that they can attend nationals, which is just like a really big thing if you're from a really small town. And suddenly you're in a ballroom full of kids that aren't asking you, why are you a boy that dance? You know, it's just like suddenly people got it. And it's just where do you want to go get lunch? Not like, do you do ballet too? And with a weird question mark, it's just it eye-opening to kind of walk into that world

and probably really surprising if you're not used to it. Because it's just kids running around learning dance. It's crazy and kind of magical. And I imagine to a certain extent normalizing when you finally step into it. You're like, wait, I'm not the oddball here. Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to explain yourself for loving to do this thing

because everybody there is that same way. Yeah, and I think most teachers that are on a convention faculty, they really have a love for inspiring kids to have the same love that they did. You know, and I can attest to that with the group of people that I work with. It's just, it's really cool to see people trying to be that light bulb moment for kids. And I try to say to them a lot, too, like, you know, I'm not saying anything different. I'm just the shiny guest teacher. So whatever's clicking, make sure you go back home and like trying to hear those same words come out of other people's mouths. And it's usually the people that love you the most that you're tuning it out, you know, but I'm sure that I'm not giving

you any type of constructive feedback that you haven't already heard from professional people as well. And so it's, it's a really interesting age to try and impact. I'm on a stage with a microphone in my hand and sometimes it feels like crickets. It's like a ballroom full of 13-year-olds. So sometimes they love the who and sometimes they're not into it. So it's a fun little challenge

to try and get that age group excited and into something that you're doing. Yeah. When you were that kid, how much was the competitive element a motivator for you to go into? Like, did that actually, was that significant for you?

Or was that just like, it just happened to be part of the structure? It was more of a detriment. I wasn't very good. Yeah. And like when I started, I just had a really like earnest love for it that everybody kind of recognized.

So then whenever you try and take that earnestness into a different realm and you try and compete with it, I think people are always super positive, but they're basically, you know, they can't lie to me and say that this is something that I wasn't. So I had a lot of work to do. You know, I was really just behind in a lot of regards. And when I went to college, I felt like I was behind.

When I graduated college, I felt like I was a little bit behind. So the competitive aspect was definitely a hindrance to me because it really started to make me question if I could do it professionally, which happens for a lot of kids. And so I really try and give them that reality. Like, if you do well here, you might not do well in an audition. You know, you've been practicing this routine for a year. So what is it like to learn something, pump it out there,

and then be in a room full of other people that can also do that? You know, sometimes it's not the same equation. And I rarely won scholarships. I rarely won, you know, like the overall types of things for me to feel like, yeah, I should definitely do this with my life. So it was, you know, I really had to ask myself, and I remember having the conversation with my mom, like college is going to be, you know, we're going to have to take loans and we're going to have to really like invest in this thing. So is it something that you think you're going to want to do long enough? You know, and I just thought, what else would I do? You know, I mean, it just blew my mind to try and even question it. And I think it probably, I was probably even offended,

you know, to say like, mom, of course I'm going to do this. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. I'm sure that was my reaction, but yeah. Looking back on it now, I really get it. It's, it's really expensive now to try and pay back as an artist you know and and um yeah a whole nother conversation yeah and and maybe we'll circle back around to that but i'm always fascinated when you when you take something that somebody there's just like an intrinsic tribe to do it just because there's something inside of you that wants to do more of it and then you wrap this external metric which you know like says well this is success in the domain of this thing that you love to do and then you wrap this external metric, which, you know, like says, well, this is success in the domain of this thing that you love to do. And then you're not hitting that external metric for whatever reason.

You know, you start to judge yourself. And rather than saying, no, this really means a lot to me and I just love it and I want to keep doing it as much as I can and just keep growing. And that's my organic metric for being in this. But when winning a competition or placing becomes a thing that you're supposed to be shooting for, and that's what externally defines success in this area, it's this really weird sort of dance that you're doing between those things. I couldn't agree with you more. It's really complicated.

And maybe the competition world isn't exactly like the professional world but it's exactly like that when you're saying if i'm not booking the jobs if i'm repeatedly getting cut from auditions why why can i keep convincing myself that i'm capable of doing this for a living and you have to remember that there's a lot of things that go into it and it's really not always about if you were good enough for it it's about if you know you know if other people from your same studio are also competing, they can't, you know, every competition can't give every single award to every single group. And that exists in the real world as well, where they try and spread out, you know, whether it's diversity and inclusion, or if it's a director wanted this person,

the choreographer wanted that person, and it had to go with something that, you know, wasn't in the original plan. There's always so many things. But even on top of that, I think it's really important to try to always find your internal value. That's exactly what you were saying. As long as I know that I'm putting effort into what I'm doing and it's causing me to be a better person and it's helping rub off on other people so that they can also be better people, then it's no different than any kind of profession where if you really put everything into it, you can benefit other people. And sometimes that can be hard because we perform for a living and we kind of expect applause or we expect a reaction

from it. But I think we're also trying to give and share and make people leave, an entire audience of people leave in good spirits. So when they get in their cab, they pass on that good energy to the cab driver. Or when they get cut off on the street, they say, oh no, it's totally fine. I'm in a great mood because I just saw some really wonderful dancing. It takes daily dedication to be that impactful with your performance quality that you're so willing to share. And in my experience, hearing the word no over and over and over and over again made me really develop like, what is it that I think I'm capable of then? If I've been so specifically told no is it that I believe in and I've really tried to hone in on that and then you kind of have control of your happiness because you say like am I being accountable to what I want to be

and most of the time I can say yes and that's really validating and rewarding even if it's not financially successful or in the eyes of other people it's not successful on paper or my resume wouldn't say that I've accomplished things, but I feel like I have. And it's harder for people to take that away, I think. Yeah, for certain. I mean, when it comes from the inside out, it's sort of like you're generating it rather than waiting for somebody to give it to you. There's a sense of agency of control that you step into. And also, I mean, you're talking about all the different things that go into it, especially in the area of dance and maybe performing arts in general. It's also, I mean, it could be your physical body type, which brings in a whole different realm of

like awfulness sometimes. Yeah, almost mostly. And I will say we're in a really cool moment of time where I think we're trying to really be as inclusive as possible. And that's something that my eyes have really opened up to traveling outside of America and seeing, you know, when I ask people to put their own flavor into dance and they're from another country, that flavor is so different than what I'm used to, than my Midwest bread, you know, and it really then inspires me. And so I think it's important. I think visibility really is so important to have a new set of people look at what you're doing and be like, Oh my gosh, I literally see myself there. So now I can forge this path that at first I wasn't sure if there was something like me, it's kind of like me stepping into those ballrooms. I really hadn't seen other male

dancers. I was the only one in my studio. And I obviously I knew it was a thing, but to see them my age and interested in other things like, oh, we like that same band. We're like in the flesh, real people. And sometimes you think you know something when you see it in TV and film, but then to really be there and see people interacting and pursuing the things that you want, it can be really life changing. And so trying to in person give those experiences to people is really amazing. And I am glad that it's such a kind of a push right now in pop culture to try and open up like the perspectives that we're hearing from and that we're catering to. And I think a lot of good is coming out of it. Yeah, I think we all benefit from that. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die.

Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. So you end up going, you end up studying performing arts in college also. Dance specifically? Dance performance, yeah. In Oklahoma City, yeah. And in your mind, you're like, okay,

so just like you said to your mom, well, there's nothing else. So you're thinking, I'm going to do this and then go out and this is going to be my life. Yeah. You go straight from there to New York or was there something in the middle? Yeah, I went straight from there to New York. And, you know, one of the great things about college is that it's preparing you for the real world in a little bubble. And so when I did move to New York, I already knew there were people older than me in school that were already there.

So getting plugged into the city wasn't as complicated as learning how to do laundry and live in a city like this. Everything else I had really been preparing for. She had the opposite experience of most people. Exactly. I got here and I was like, I can really only do two errands in one day or I will go crazy. I've since learned how to multitask, I think, like a New Yorker does. But that was really what was shocking to me, the pace of everything and being in a subway car full of so many different kinds of people.

And all of that was really shocking. But before I went to New York, I didn't think I really wanted to do theater. I didn't grow up with theater as much as, you know, jazz and hip hop. So in college, I learned a lot about theater. I was really inspired by people like Michael Bennett and these really joyful jazz kind of legends. And I really learned about the training of ensemble dancers. And that's what my college was really geared towards, being a

versatile ensemble member and being a valuable member of the show as the ensemble. And so I moved to New York and things just change by the time you get here as to what you were learning about. And so this whole conversation we had about kind of diversifying the ensemble, I no longer fit the mold that was like the most reassured thing. You know, I was a tall white male and I think I didn't want to move like a tall white male. I wanted to be wispy and long and musical in a way that wasn't being asked for. And then, like you said, body type kind of always played a factor into it. And I kind of did a little bit of everything. I became a jack of all trades and I didn't expect that. And it was exactly what I was meant to do.

I got involved in a company called American Dance Machine and they restaged numbers by Michael Bennett and all of these people that I had really admired in college. At the Joyce or was that? Yeah, it was at the Joyce. Yeah, I was there for two seasons with them. And it was just amazing to have people not hide their cards. They would watch us do a routine. And they'd be like, we loved it. And we loved this. And we loved that. And I didn't feel like there were mind games kind of being played about like who they liked or who they didn't, or if it was working or not, they just they couldn't wait to give us positive feedback. And that was really landmark for me that like, look at how hard these people are working for a compliment, not because they're afraid, you know? So I think sometimes people think if you overindulge with nice things that people will take it for granted and maybe they do.

But I think a lot of the dancers I know that are really great dancers work really hard for positive reinforcements and it goes a long way. And that company was a really defining moment for me to see like how to lead a room and how to get people like on your side so that they want to work harder for you because they respect you, not because they're afraid of you. Because there's also, I mean, I think there's this association too with certain, there are certain types of dancers and certain genres and you kind of stick to your thing and also certain types. And you know, like you think about ballet and then you think about sort of like the eastern european schools and the approaches to training dancers you know like and and kind gentle you know like respectful non-intimidating complimentary doesn't come to mind necessarily like the orientation for when you're trying to get somebody to be the best that

they can be to elicit that from them and and it is really hard because I have been on the side of trying to lead a room with those things. And people do start to show up late. And at times, they do start to feel like you do have to, I understand the need to keep a delineation between leader and friend. And sometimes people want you to be their boss. They just want to know what the expectation is. And so it's hard to just flip

from one to the other and even to diagnose like what is the in between then. But I do think I'm a part of a generation of dancers and educators that really want to try. Like I think it's important to start building kids up really early so that they know how to build themselves up. And then hopefully they'll be adaptable enough to take constructive feedback as well. But I think leading with that kind of positive energy is as well. But I think leading with that kind of positive energy is, is really important. And I think, you know, every industry is kind of hoping for that right now. Like let's, let's kind of lead with like positivity. Yeah. I think there's a bit of a renaissance in that. You said something also, which,

which struck me, which is, and tell me if I'm getting this right, which, which is in the context of you and maybe just broadly, you sort of look at a person, you look at their body type and there's assumption that this person's body should move in a particular kind of way. And when it doesn't, that's almost like an aberrant experience. And people kind of want to put you in the box of like a tall guy should move this way. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think, and it's probably not as personal as it feels. It's very much just like, we need this thing to fit this, you know, this peg to fit this hole the way that sometimes the costumes already made. So it can literally come down to the, like, especially if you're replacing somebody in a show that already exists, it literally is going to come down to if you fit the costume the same way. And yeah, I mean, I think it's totally that people, you know, maybe not all people. And I think that's part of what I love about dance is being surprised. Watching somebody whose body you think is going to do one thing and then allowing it to do another.

And having that be a positive thing, not a negative thing. And I think just in the terms of the casting process, you're fighting time. So you don't always have time to explore different avenues and all of those things. I know there's a reason that things have been whittled down to the way they are, but I'm also really excited for this kind of reinventing and kind of re-imagining things to say like, well, why have we been thinking about it for that long? You know, like maybe we could assume that other people are capable of these things and yeah it's it's definitely uh an industry that kind of relies on assumptions about people because if they're building a show they want they want to be able to assume the audience is going to react in

a way that they can predict because they're creating the show to do that right so you know throwing too many curveballs i think is sometimes not, you're not able to tell the story that you're hoping to tell. I'm fascinated by that dynamic because on the one hand, I totally get you're trying to create something where it will reliably evoke a certain emotion from the audience night after night after night after night. And on the other hand, there's nothing more exciting than when the reality does not meet expectations in a positive way. Like when you're surprised, when something you never saw coming happens. But I guess from the dancer's standpoint, or maybe from the audience's standpoint, when that works, it's magic. But from the producer's standpoint, it's like, that's a risk. How do you invest in that?

Yeah, exactly. The investment is risky, especially in the way that I think shows are kind of built right now. It seems like the production value of shows is incredible. The sets and the lighting, all of that is amazing. And so the ticket prices reflect that and the process and the risk involved

in taking a chance on a new choreographer or a new piece of talent, you know, all of that becomes harder to convince other people that it's going to work. You know, you can even look at the West Side Story revival versus the new one now. And if you ask 20 different people if it was successful, you might get 20 different answers. So what does a producer do with information like that? You know, how do I, how do I, in a sense, gamble with something that is never going to appeal to everybody? And that's when we have to kind of say, well, it's art. And we have to kind of play with that line where we can't always know every single outcome or people will feel like they've already seen that show, even if it's brand new.

You know, if it's that predictable, then it's not really taking people out of reality. And that's what's so fun sometimes about being an artist is saying like, here's this grain of truth. And now we've expounded and romanticized it to a place that is trying to be really poetic about life and that can be positive or negative. And, but yeah, I think from a production standpoint, it's, it's probably really hard to be kind and polite and intentional and politically correct when you're, you're just trying to say like,

we're trying to shape the way the stage looks and we have to talk about certain realities and how do we be sensitive to that across, again, different generations because different people are offended or amused by different things. And it's a lot of revolution at once. Yeah, and I totally see the perspective

of both sides in there. And yet at the same time, there's something in me that says on an individual level, art is about expression and essence and awe. And on a societal level, the artist was always the person who pushes the boundaries. They're always the person who provokes. They were the person who goes out there and does something or creates something that breaks the mold time, I wonder what we may be losing if we create so much constraint and, you know, so much normalcy and so much, you know, like we know what's coming that we don't have somebody who now has the freedom to go out and play that role, you know, like on a large enough scale where it's actually making a difference. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. So you land in New York, you get wrapped

up in Friends and stuff like that pretty quickly. End up part of your story on dancing with Kevin Bacon pretty quickly. Yeah, it's kind of one of those funny, amazing New York stories where I auditioned for an agency and they signed me. And a couple weeks later, the choreographer for The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live, her name's Danielle Flora, another amazing woman that just like took a chance on me out of nowhere, is a redhead and literally just looked at my headshot and said, I love the color of his hair. Let's book that kid. And the job was, you know, it was fun. It was just like kind of paying homage to Footloose. And so we were, you know, it was easy steps. But so how it goes, right? Like the color of my hair and the fact that I happen to be a natural redose. And so we were, you know, it was easy steps. But so how it goes, right? Like the color

of my hair and the fact that I happen to be a natural redhead. And she was like, yeah, let's get him in here. And it was so great because as a brand new to New York City, I got plugged into kind of this commercial world. And it can be kind of hard to break into that because it really is built on types and heights and colors and sizes and things like that. So if those heights and colors already exist, then it's been filled. And there's not really a reason to look elsewhere. I do like the sense of loyalty like that. Like, no, we got a person. So to break into that was really amazing. And then that further opened my eyes to the possibilities of New York. And it was no longer like I had to be on Broadway to be successful here. I could work in a commercial vein and be successful here. I still didn't have it totally right about what the value of success really was.

But I realized you didn't have to be one thing. You could do a lot of things. And American Dance Machine was restaging all these old iconic Broadway shows. And then The Tonight Show was trying to make people laugh. And Saturday Night Live is trying to make people laugh

with dance being really silly. And I had never trained that way. I was like, don't you want me to kick my leg? Or like, I can do all these turns. Like, you sure we should just like step clap. And, you know, she, you know, I learned so many lessons from her. She just, I think a lot of times a choreographer has to be a leader more than anything. And especially on a show like Saturday Night Live, this, I mean, Danielle is balancing all kinds of different egos and different kinds of personalities and to do it with positivity and to get people to enjoy the entire work environment. I was like, you know, embarrassingly shocked. I was like, shouldn't this be like more stressful? Shouldn't

there be more, you know what I mean? Like I've, I watched the show with my brothers growing up. I've idolized the show for so long and it's really this fun. It's really just this simple to get people to work hard for you. And yeah. So then every once in a while I'll get a call from her. I'll do an episode of SNL and it's always really great to be able to jump back into it. What's it like? I mean, I'm sure your parents and your brother and sister saw you dancing, you know, like all coming up into that. What's it like when you're like, Hey, I'm going to be on SNL, like tune in on this one night. And I'm, I'm, I'm guessing like they were watching. Yeah, they were, they were, it was really cool. I mean, all of my brothers just, they couldn't believe it. I, I think I've

done a couple of episodes of each, you know, each time I tell them, and I have to be careful because sometimes with SNL specifically, the episode won't air, you know, if it's a digital short that gets cut or they don't have time to get to our skit which is really cool to be a part of that process but also dangerous to tell your mom who's like alerted the entire 3500 people and then it's like where were you yeah yeah and they're like didn't you know and and so i and and more so for her she just gets crushed she's like how could they cut you i don't get it you know so um but yeah they were they they have little watch parties and things like that yeah Yeah. That's awesome. Proud and supportive.

I mean, the way you describe it also, it's fascinating to me because there's like, you know, there's these sort of like fine art side of dance and then there's this commercial side of it. And my mind goes to Warhol and what he did in sort of like in the visual arts where he got blasted for a lot of what he did, you know, but he came out of the advertising industry, but he's like, no, like this, I'm all in on this. And people are like, but this isn't art. And he's like, maybe not your kind of art, but yeah, it is. And it's legitimate and there's demand for it. And I'm actually paying my bills. In fact, I'm doing okay. Absolutely. I really relate to that. Actually, when I, when I first started teaching at Sips on Broadway, my class was called commercial jazz and everybody was kind of like, what does that, what does that mean? Oh, is that a dance for the camera? And I just felt like, yeah, there's nothing wrong with the medium here being commercial. The fact that it's getting pumped out to more people than what can see a live show. So it's not that it's a type of dance,

it's that's a medium of dance that it's more accessible to people. And so usually the choreography lends itself to trying to cater to a lot of different perspectives, which some people would consider to be watered down or without taste or, you know, however you could spin that to be a not so positive thing. But my goal was always the, then just like,

how can I elevate this thing? And how can I make this something that people would not question that it's art? They would assume that it's art and pop music can be so poetic. Pop music can have incredible orchestrations and especially music from like the nineties and two thousands. They're orchestrated pieces of music. So to try and highlight that live sound in a pop song is no different than a ballet to me or an orchestra on a Broadway pit. And if we treat it like that, really cherish this music and make it feel like it was intentional and not just like a throwaway lick or hook, then other people can

appreciate the music as well, which is also what ballet and Broadway does. It enhances the music by adding dance to it. And I think that's exactly what commercial dance does as well. So I was really grateful to kind of get lumped into this really eye-opening thing that there are no rules, really, whenever you're dancing on film. You can cut and you can change the musicality and you can do all of these things. And you got to be really imaginative. And I really loved being able to think like, as a medium, I can do something with dance that hasn't been done because cameras have only been around for so long. So there's a little bit more opportunity to try and do something new and exciting. And when you're trying to do that strictly in theater, anytime you use a saxophone, people are like, oh, Fosse. And I'm like, okay. So he gets the market on just like the whole horn section I can't touch or otherwise people will automatically assume it's Fosse. Yeah. That's too funny. It's interesting also because we need to dive into this because we've been talking about largely you as a dancer, but when we start talking about Steps, and I'm guessing this

touched down way earlier anyway, what we're talking about a lot is, yes, you're out there, you're leading, you know, generally a packed house. And for those who don't know, Steps is this icon in New York. It's sort of like one of the premier dance schools, places where a lot of the students are professional dancers. It's an amazing place to be. So you teach there. So you're leading the class and dancing. But at the same time, you're regularly taking a piece of music and choreographing an entire

new piece on a really regular basis, really quickly. So before touching into how challenging that is, when does that side of dance start to touch down with you? Was that happening in the early days? Were you looking at this and saying, I not only want to move to this, but I want to create within this context? Yeah, I was definitely always choreographing. And when I was in college, a lot of the people I work with now as like my associates were people I went to college with that would help me twiddle with a little piece of choreography in an empty studio at midnight in college because we had had class all day long and we still wanted to like make something else up I think for me I thought I

would do it way later I thought I would have like a career that I had dreamed about and then I would logically like choreograph for the places I had worked as a professional. And when I was dancing, that was kind of the goal. And then I, you know, like I talked about a little bit earlier, I just started to feel like people weren't asking me to move the way I wanted to move. So I wasn't feeling special or valuable because I felt like I was wearing something unfamiliar to me. And so of course I can't showcase the best way possible. It doesn't feel natural to me. So I just kind of made this decision, like, I'm going to stop kind of trying to book work as a performer. And I'm just going to, like, really try and make it as a choreographer. And I reached out to a couple places to be like, I would really love to teach as, like, a priority.

I don't want to use it as a side job. I'm not going to try and use it as a stepping stone. I just really want to, like, develop my vocabulary and my perspective as a creator of dance. And I've often found that if you can teach your steps, you have to learn them a little bit better. You have to understand what it is a little bit better to be able to speak it. So I thought this would be a really great way to kind of switch paths a little bit. I got a meeting with Diane Gromet at Steps on Broadway. Yet another incredible woman that really just took a chance on me. I didn't

really have like a lot of teaching credits. I had done American Dance Machine and she had seen it at the Joyce and she was a big fan. So that's kind of how I got the meeting. And when I was talking about what I really wanted to do with dance, I don't know that I impressed her, but I think she definitely could see that I really cared about it. And I remember she said to me that, you know, people that care as much about their words as you do often like put them into action. And I find that if you're really this passionate about trying to make it happen, that you will. And so like, let's, let's give it a go. And I didn't ever feel her observing my class to be like, what's happening here? Is it succeeding or not? A lot of weeks I had two or four people. Um, if you're listening to this, like big shout out for coming like multiple times, Stephanie, like Elizabeth,

these people that would just, I would say like, technically you can get your money back, but I'll teach it if you want to take the class. And they would stay with two people, which is the most vulnerable way to take a dance class. Like it's basically a private. And if that's not what you thought you were in for when you came to the building, that's, you know, awkward. And, yeah, that was really challenging, obviously, on the ego. And I had just given this big speech about how I can bring people into the room. And, you know, like, I really believe that people will kind of follow what I see. And for the first couple classes, all of my friends came.

And then when you become consistent, it's, first of all, it's expensive. And second of all, it's just life happens. So, you know, the numbers kind of d friends came. And then when you become consistent, it's first of all, it's expensive. And second of all, it's just life happens. So, you know, the numbers kind of dwindled. And then I really kept at it. I really didn't travel. I really didn't audition for other things. I really kept at trying to do this. And I think when I first started teaching there, cameras weren't really allowed in the room at steps.

It's like you said, it's really iconic. It's really well known for its ballet classes, which have gorgeous live instrumentation in the mornings. I mean, you take a 10 a.m. ballet class and it's just like the most beautiful music ever. So a lot of the professional dancers of New York maintain their bodies here at this building. And same thing with Broadway dancers, commercial dancers. It's just a place for them to go and take class either for their bodies or their souls. I really wanted to kind of give people the opportunity to get used to dancing on camera because when I danced on camera live, it was really shocking. And we changed the combination 15 times and then they were like, it's live. This is the one that counts. And no one's born with camera awareness. It is something you need to get used to. So that was kind of how I was trying to project my class is an opportunity to get comfortable with the camera, take it off the pedestal, don't don't learn how to be perfect on camera, just get used

to one so that whenever you're really having fun, that's what the camera captures. Instead of trying to please the camera, because there's not a trick, it really will just capture what it is you're naturally feeling. And I want people to naturally feel good. Then having that kind of camera floating around the room made me want to be really proud of the things that i was teaching people so like you said i i teach i teach kind of a new combo every week or every other week and they're always 30 to 45 seconds of a song that i find to be really musical and i try and break down the nuance in a in a way that is digestible and it's really incredible what what people can do and in 90 minutes and you know i i do a warm. And it's really incredible what people can do in 90 minutes. And, you know,

I do a warm up. We learn the combo. We film it a little bit. And like I said, I wanted to be really proud of then what I posted. And so I initially started posting on social media to try and get people to come take my class. And, you know, that kind of started working and people were coming. And then I was really working on it and putting it out there. And I think I wasn't sharing it to gain followers. I was sharing it to gain students. And then after that, I just really wanted to maintain this feeling of I'm really proud of this and I want to share it and I want to post it on this thing because like, I love it. And I think maybe other people will love it. And I think that is really what I had to constantly remind myself, Nick, this is what's working. Loving and believing in what you're actually doing is what's allowing

other people to love it and see it. And speaking that into other people while they learn your choreography is allowing them to love it and not fear it. And when they feel taken care of by the process, there's just a lot of joy in these videos that I film each week. And I'm honestly just so proud and so grateful to be able to look back and be like, kind of documenting that process of, you know, I remember making that combo up. And I remember not being in the best place mentally. And I really tried to change how I felt by creating a piece of joy. And it worked. And now I get to look back at it and I get to look at that product versus the kind of trauma of whatever it was that I was going through. And I really want dancers to feel like that, too. I want you to be able to look back at Steps allowing me to kind of cater it the way that I wanted to.

But yeah, the path has kind of changed a lot since starting there. And now I really consider myself a teacher more than a choreographer, even though I aspire to kind of be both. But I really kind of learned how much responsibility it is to be in front of the room every single week. And it's really fun to teach a guest class here and there and to pop into a new state or a new country and be like, Hey, I'm the shiny like guest teacher, but doing it in New York every single week, multiple times a week at the, at the price that it costs to take it is really hard to find consistency. And I learned pretty quickly that it's not about gimmicks. It's not about trying to find the song that everybody's going to love or find the move that everybody's going to love. It's finding what I really love and making sure that I speak passionately and that I'm educated and that I'm trying to include

multiple perspectives in what it is I'm talking about, whether it's gender terms or the kind of music that other people maybe were exposed to that I wasn't. But as long as I really kind of believe in the product that I make in that 45 seconds, I think other people are really willing to kind of sign on and really go there with me. Yeah. It's really rewarding. I mean, what a huge lesson. Also, you know, when you realize, okay, so I can try and figure out what I think other people are going to want to hear and move to, or I can just trust that if there's something

that touches me so deeply that lands with me that I just have to create around it, that's going to create so much passion, creativity in me and energy when I step into the room and share and teach this and lead people that that will infuse the room with something and everybody will just rise to the occasion. That's a lot of, that's faith, you know, that's, that's, which is not the easiest thing to step into, especially in a room full of amazingly accomplished dancers. And when it's being filmed and then shared with now like a huge audience globally.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And it kind of goes back to what we talked about before is if I'm trying to create what other people already think is going to be out there, it's that same risk that I've started to learn my value now. So if I'm pitching myself to do something and people are like, oh, we don't know. I'm like, well, I do. So you're just going to like miss out on that, I guess. And you're going to kind of do what every other network is doing or what every other show is doing. Because if you can tell me

what you want to see in dance, why do you need me at all? If you're the production or the direction mind of this, and you're trying to hire somebody to infuse it with dance, and you have somebody that's really saying, I really believe in this thing. And you, you assume that you can tell that choreographer how to do it better. It just, it starts to make me wonder, like, not wonder, but I just realized, okay, you really are after that thing. You're not after something more unique or a little bit twisty. And I'm after unique. I'm after being able to have somebody be like, I, I believe in your vision because that's what I want from a director. I want to hear your vision and be like, yes, in your vision because that's what I want from a director.

I want to hear your vision and be like, yes, that is what the story needs. And then if we add dance to it and we both believe in that story and that trajectory, then we both get to add to it in a way that we believe in. But if you're kind of just trying to tell me what you think I should do, I'm personally not very good at accomplishing that because I feel like my own kind of vision gets in the way.

So I'm just starting to learn to trust my own voice and then wait for the people that also trust it. And that's also very hard because I'm waiting a long time. And a lot of times I self-produce a lot of the projects that I put out there and I'm really proud of them. And I feel like they really speak to what I would like to create and the way I would like to create it and if other people can't afford that with time or their budget I understand that but it's going to take me a while to teach the dancers more intricate choreography so if you're approaching me because you like that that is what it's going to take and sometimes that's hard for producers that don't quite understand that you know like well this choreographer could do

it in that period of time so why can't you and it's like that's under i understand why you think like that but from my point of view it's it's a very easy explanation to say like my process is very different and that's why my product is very different yeah kind of circles back to what we're talking about before where it's sort of like you know if you're stepping more into that role of pushing to create something genuinely different and new and inviting people to come along with you. I'm curious about the cameras also, because on the one hand, I could see how it would create an environment where people want to rise to the occasion. And for you, you know, you're going to be held accountable to not just a room full of

people, but also huge audiences going to be watching alongside. And you want to show up and do your best work. And at the same time, we're talking about people who very often are either, like they're dancing all day long or they're going on go-sees all day long. And it's a really hard life

for a lot of people. And then they show up here and they want something just for them. And they're being filmed. And I wonder if on the one hand, it makes them rise to the occasion and it helps you do your best work. Do you ever get concerned that people will feel like,

I'm having a really bad week. I just need this to be entirely just for me. I love Nicholas. I love the class. I love everything. But I'm kind of not in a space where I want to be on camera today. Absolutely. And that's like the fairest I love the class. I love everything. But I'm kind of not in a space where I want to be on camera today. Absolutely. And that's like the fairest statement in the world, the most fair statement in the world.

And I think that's a statement that a lot of teachers in New York feel like people should be able to make mistakes. They should be able to just like throw themselves into something and not worry about the camera catching it. And I completely agree with them when they say that. And also, like I always let people know in advance, like today's class will be filmed. And the system is kind of always like, one class I teach isn't filmed, and then the second time I teach that combo, I film it. So there is an opportunity to take one or the other.

But if that's the class that you could make that week, and it is the camera, I know there are people that feel like that. Like, I really wish that I could have done that without the pressure of the camera. What I really wanna start teaching people people is that in 2020, every mistake that you make on camera is not going to follow you around. There is tons of content out there. And if you happen to be in the, in the group that messes up, I just won't post that video.

And I personally am the kind of person that won't be mad about that. And I won't be mad at you for that because that's not the point of filming the class for me. I'm always proud to share things, but it is not to finish with a glossy product. It's to try and be able to look at your own eyes in the mirror and be like, I really love the dancing that's happening here. And if you can do that, then it's the same thing to look into a camera and be able to say, I really love what I'm doing here into that camera lens as well. And you have to practice that, you know, you really do. And I find that the people that come and take my class are trying to either challenge themselves in that way, kind of get over that hump, or they want to break into that commercial world. So it's literally practicing what they want to do. And also there are people that come and take my class

from all over the world. There are multiple languages being spoken in my class before it starts, which is so cool to me, literally the coolest thing ever. And I think a lot of those people just feel really included by being able to have something that they can share. And especially not coming from America, I think a lot of those people are less concerned with perfection and more about the community that they can show other people that they're a part of. I think it's really cool for them to say, like, I only got to go to America one time. I got to go to Steps and take the class and it was filmed and like, here's me in the back. And for my classes, I just break them up into groups. I

point randomly at people and I film it. Occasionally I'll pull people out to dance with me. You know, people that I know are like really kind of ready to take that moment because I don't want to put somebody in that moment before they're ready for it. So really I just break up the groups into kind of just like, you're not the bad group. You're not the good group. It's just even numbers. And people that want to really take the moment, go to the front and people that don't are in the back. And if you don't want to use that video for anything, you don't have to.

And I really don't believe there's somebody out there collecting your blooper reel and trying to blackmail you with it, you know, and I say that in class a lot and people laugh, but I really think that's the narrative in their head, that if somebody happens to see a video of me where I'm messing up in the back, that it's going to inhibit me from some kind of work. And, you know, I guess that's a fair statement, but I also just feel like it's a bit of a long shot that a casting director happened to see you in the back of someone else's video and blacklisted you because you had made a mistake in the video. And maybe that is true. And so definitely I've had this concern raised to me by people at Steps, by other people in classes, just saying like, you know, and so I definitely have had to ask myself, like, what is the value

of it? And I think some people think it's ego, you know, and that you're trying to create content so that you can continue gaining followers. And I don't know how my ego could not be involved in something. I spend so much time and energy and, you know, it really is something that I feel like is speaking for how I spend my time and what I, when I tell people what I'm doing, this is an example of that. So I love to be able to document it. And I really, it's not just part of like being able to validate saying it. I really do want to teach people how to become comfortable watching themselves dance. For the longest time, I couldn't watch myself dance. I was so critical. I was so, you know, there, there was just no part of me that enjoyed watching it because it didn't feel anything like it looked. That to me was really important to try and create choreography

that felt like something so that when people watch it, they understand that feeling. And a lot of my followers aren't dancers. A lot of them are moms and a lot of those moms are single. And they'll message me saying, you know, I'm like, I love every time I see that. Like, I don't, I'm not looking for any of those things. I look at it and I'm just, I just make my whole body smile. It's just pure joy. That's all I say. I appreciate that. That is really my goal. I want, I want people to like genuinely enjoy watching something because they get it. I feel like I want my audience to understand it. I don't want it to be so conceptual that you don't see your own humanity in that dancing.

And joy and empathy and sadness and all of those things people can feel. But I like to also try and say any shade of emotion can still have something positive to take away from it. So even if you're feeling sad, I want people watching it to feel like they cried and then felt better after crying. Not just that I'm never going to stop crying. You know, the other thing I've had to just kind of realize is that you can't please everybody. So if there are people telling me like, I really wish you wouldn't film class,

there's other people telling me like, it'd be really great if you filmed class. And so again, it had to go back to like, what is it that I feel like is real for me? And for me, it's that I've developed a cool relationship with my videographer. And I believe that he really has a cool instinct for how to film dance as well. And that I really like that relationship of people can kind of tell when Jacob has filmed my class or not. And he started to get some kind of attention because of his perspective on dance. And that to me is art.

It's not commercialized. Like he's not a robot. He's a human being that's thinking, Oh, if I film this on the other side, it's more flattering to that person. So they don't have to worry about being flattering. They can worry about loving what they're doing and he can make sure that

it's catching the angle at the right time. And there's a chemistry to that. And I think doing it as consistently as we have has kind of built that. And I'm really proud of that. And I truly am honestly always open to why somebody would feel like they didn't want to dance in front of that camera. And I think I always try and hear it, but I always try and remind them to like, just because you made the mistake and it was filmed, doesn't make it any more profound than if you had made that mistake and it wasn't being filmed. You can potentially learn from that mistake the same way. Ask me a question. I'll tell you, you stepped on your right foot instead of your left. And it doesn't have to be this huge

summation of your talent because you messed up the time that the camera was in front of you. Yeah. I think so much of that has got to grow out of a, you know, partly out of a culture of perfectionism also, you know, and to a certain extent, this is has got to grow out of a, you know, partly out of a culture of perfectionism also. Absolutely. You know, and to a certain extent, this is an invitation to step out of that mindset. Yeah. You know, sure, you want to do your best. You want to learn the steps.

You want to feel and be undue awesome. And at the same time, you're there because you want to just like, like stand in your joy and be and feel free. So it's like a giant invitation to be like, you know, like that matters too. Most. Yeah. And you, you you paid you paid for this experience you know you are you're spending a lot of money and that was also something that was important to me like now you have something that you can actually use you can put it into a reel you can you know that's the world we live in you know it's so romantic to try and ignore cameras and cell phones but it's not the way the world works anymore and now when people are trying to cast you for projects if you have a great video of you looking like you love dance

and killing it on your Instagram, and they can search your name from Google and find you on Instagram, then that's how I find dancers. That's how a lot of people I know find dancers. And I'm not saying it's the only way to do it, but it certainly isn't a good reason to spend $22 on a class. If you can get the video out of it by sending a message to the choreographer. And I'm happy to send it to anybody that asks for it. And, you know, that, that's also part of my, something I try to be really sensitive to. Like we talked about, I had a big family and dance was really expensive and my siblings all like had to kind of deal sometimes with my stuff being more expensive than theirs and, and birthday presents and

Christmases sometimes encompass the way that I could travel and do things. And these people that have believed in me and taken my class at cost to themselves, I want to make sure that I'm building them back up. So I want people to realize I'm trying to do this for the community of people that have never questioned if I was valuable. I've had to submit myself to people my entire life. And this was an opportunity where people were coming because they believed in my perspective in dance or musicality, or they just like how I phrase things or I count music and that's helpful to them. But either way, they're choosing to come to that class.

And if someone comes and is uncomfortable by the camera being in there, they're so welcome to not come back. I would totally understand that, you know. But I think I've learned that this is part of, especially in New York. My classes in New York are also special. I don't film whenever I go and guest teach somewhere where I'm not as consistent. But I think it's exactly what you're saying. Try to gently convince people there's no reason why you shouldn't be super proud of yourselves for just trying hard the whole class. If you gave 100% of effort the entire class, then it was not unsuccessful.

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We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Yeah, you've referenced the cost also a number of times, which touches down something I was curious about also. Because if you look on your Instagram feed pretty regularly now, you're constantly saying that, you know, I've got a benefactor sponsoring five dancers tonight and ten dancers here. And so you've created this dynamic where you're sort of, you're sponsoring, like you're bringing people into the mix who maybe couldn't normally afford to be there on a regular basis with you. How does that, how does that start with you? And because it seems like it's a pretty,

it's a consistent thing and it's an important thing for you. Yeah, it's, it's become consistent because other people have really started to make, help make it happen. Which is amazing. It's incredible. And I, you know, I totally understand all of the downsides to social media and then comparing and, and, you know, how it's, I get all of that, but then there's some really cool side effects to being connected the way that we are. And I announced one day, you know, I just was kind of aware when I would ask people, you know, like, Oh, you come to class and they're like, no, I wish I could. And I would kind of be like, well, why, you know, is it auditions? I'm trying to figure out is my class time? Does it, you know, what would be helpful? And they're like, I just can't afford another one this week. You know, I already took ballet this morning. I if you're having a hard time affording consistent class this week. Really, it was for the freelance community that are trying to maintain

and train their bodies. And I had a couple people message me and they were like, this is really amazing. And other people should do this so that you don't have to like you shouldn't have to pay for the people that are coming to your class because this is how you're trying to make a living. And, you know, I was like, Oh, I appreciate that so much. That's so generous. And so, you know, kind of in each time I would post about how either I had donated or somebody else donated, it brought in more people saying, I would love to donate or sponsor. And like I said, it's a lot of times it's not my peers. It's not other dancers. It's people that have for two or three years been following me and feeling real joy from these videos telling me like, it's a way I

can give back to you. I feel like you've been giving to me for so long. I literally, my mood sometimes improved by watching these dancers in your class. And I would love to, you know, I've even wondered myself, is it hard for them to afford this consistently? So some people donate, you know, a one-time class, which is around $22. Some people donate like 10 sponsored slots and it's just kind of like continued to roll. And I'm definitely at a place with it now too, where I would like to try and legitimize it a little bit more and create a scholarship and try to collect kind of a larger scale of donations that can go through these dance schools to help promote this kind of freelance training mentality, where it's not about somebody trying their very first dance class. I think that's really great and important,

but it's more for the people that are trying to invest in themselves and can't afford to do it five times a week. And I would really love to be able to take the power of social media and all of these people that are benefiting from a free platform. And these are New York dancers. They're really great. They're really talented. And I would never try to charge them to view,

but if people are trying to donate to give back and it's and it came from without being asked and consistently that really spoke to me that like this is something people want to do. There's no there's no gimmick here. It's just that people want to help make this happen. So, yeah, I'm going to try and make it happen as long as I can. If I can kind of make it something else, I think it would be easier for other teachers to kind of promote it. Right now, the way I can control it is to say, like, come to my class. But I would really love for anybody that believes in this idea to be able to kind of benefit from it. So I would love to create some kind of fund or scholarship or benefit that could just be isolated so that people could apply and we could understand your need for this

and that we could kind of help you understand your need for this and that we could kind of help you be able to get to that next level or maintain the level that you're at. Because it's really hard when you're freelance and you don't have company class every morning built into your job, which is what a lot of people that have consistent work do. And I was never that person. My jobs have never been longer than a couple weeks or a couple months. So it's always on me to then keep my body in working order. And if I take five ballet classes a week to try and stay up on it, that's over a hundred dollars. And on an artist's salary, that's really a huge proportion. Yeah. It's really, really big. Yeah. So I think it's amazing because when you look at your feed, it's so joyful and so fun.

And I'm not the person who shows up to class, but I still love it, enjoy it. It changes my state, but it's really amazing because then when I look at the caption and then I say, hey, this person has sponsored 10 dancers or five dancers, it adds this whole different element. You know, it reminds me that in a world where you hear so much bad stuff about the state of humanity, that people are good, that there are still people out there who are just saying, I don't know any of the people that are benefiting from this, and I likely never will. And yet they're doing something that they love, that's joyful.

It's bringing me joy by doing it. And I want, and I know it's hard for them, and I don't need anything back from this. I just want to help make them be able to do it more. That's a beautiful, like to see that it's just a, it makes you feel good on a whole different level. Yeah. It makes me feel, I mean, I kind of have goosebumps hearing you say it because it just, it feels so amazing to be a part of that. And I know that that's how those people feel that are donating a lot of them. Not that it matters if you want your name mentioned or not, but a lot of them prefer to remain anonymous because they just want it to be about the act of doing it.

And I just, I agree. I admire it so much. It really, I did not, you know, I thought that maybe a couple people would try and do it. I did not think that it would be as consistent as it has become to where almost every class I can assume that people saying that post will bring in more people.

And, you know, the other side of it too, is it's interesting. Once I, once I offer these slots, I feel like there's a whole other conversation about people feeling like they can admit that they need help or, or some people assuming that I'm not poor enough to need the help. And again, we live in a crazy time in 2020, where you can be in, you can kind of qualify for food stamps, but still have an iPhone, you know, so what is poor and American poor versus another country where, you know, I'm kind of always trying to see like, what is it like, what is a dancer's lifestyle like? And in America, I think people really want to be seen as successful. They want to prove that this isn't a hobby and they want to prove that they're professional. And so then kind of admitting

that they can't afford the way to train is maybe hard for some people. And I think that's why it's also so amazing to see that the people donating, they don't, they don't want these people to know that it came at any cost. Like I was more than happy to give this, this, this money so that they could take an extra class. And, you know, and I think a lot of them believe too, that if that dancer were in the position in the future to be able to do the same thing that they'll probably pass it on as well and that's part of artistry and in humanity and part of the thing i do want to make sure i clarify is that the price of class in new york is also somewhat understandable i don't think that these dance schools are raking in billions of dollars and you know the overhead to have a large enough space to be able to dance in New York is really pretty huge

as well as a lot of youth programs that the price of open class goes towards. A lot of them send teachers to other countries to audition and bring scholarships, to bring people back, to be able to study in New York. And all of that is included in the price of open class. And I think I'm not just trying to develop dancers, I'm trying to help develop artists.

And I think that's part of artistry is if the price of me to train in class is going towards youth programs so that younger kids can also do what I'm doing, then that is something that I should be willing to pay. But sometimes I can't. And even though I believe in that idea, I cannot afford that price. And I also don't want to have the conversation veer into the fact that teachers in almost every genre are not as regaled and not as well compensated as they should be. And we don't have a government that really sponsors and endorses this idea of learning and teaching dance. Just anything that I can do to try and bridge the gap and be sensitive to every side involved and to not point a finger at what somebody is doing wrong, but just this opportunity to do something right, to just

collect donations or, you know, give when you can. And I think that it's just, there are, sure, there are changes that can be made and maybe we'll get to figuring that out and really codifying how we can make kind of lasting change. But in the meantime, if this free app that connects a bunch of people can allow people that really need it to take class every week, because a lot of them, it's for their souls and their hearts and they're recharging. A lot of women take my class and a lot of these women wake up at four in the morning and they stand in line and this line wraps around the building and they're in coats. And by the time they get to the door hours later, they'll get cut because their headshot, somebody looked at their headshot and said, this isn't the kind of person that we need for this. And again, it's not personal. It's a timing thing. And if

there were 800 people, there's got to be a way to get that number to be smaller. It seems ruthless and it feels ruthless, but it's also part of a process. And then those girls go to another audition and then they probably take a ballet class and then at 6 p.m At night they come and take my class and it's like you said then maybe that class is being filmed And so it's my job and my responsibility to make them feel absolutely incredible and build them up so much that they believe in themselves And they really just they can't help but to look straight on and not down at the floor and when when they practice looking straight on, then it doesn't matter if there's a camera in front of them. Because they know what it's like to have their chin in the air. And they don't have to think so much about that.

And I think the result is pretty infectious. Yeah, totally agree. It's really cool to see. You know, I scroll through my own feed and I watch my own videos. And I watch these people in my class and I feel really lucky. And I feel really grateful to have been able to kind of forge that path and claim some of that happiness because I work really hard for it. And what I tell other people is like, when you work hard for what you do, you've earned that confidence. That's not ego.

You've put in the work in this hour and a half to be able to look straight in the mirror and say, like, you look good, girl. You got this, you know. And if you're not, then there's your answer. Put the effort into that, what you weren't doing. But you know, the second you leave that studio and you expect the world to give you something because you're talented, that's ego. And nobody owes you something because you killed that dance class. But if you really put in the work and the effort to enjoy what you're able to do, which is a gift, then you should totally be able to smile at yourself and cheer for yourself. And part of celebrating that is allowing yourself to be filmed and to watch it later and like how you look.

Yeah, which brings up something I wanted to ask you about. There is a quote that I saw from you in Dance Magazine where you said, I realized the power in loving the dancer I am by loving the man I am. How does it land with you when you hear that back? Well, I'm definitely a crier, so it makes me cry a little bit. It's definitely taken a long time for me to be able to say without a quivery, quivery voice that I'm proud of who I am. And I think part of it is because there were reasons that were fair for me to feel like I wasn't being treated right. But I started to react in a way that also wasn't fair. And just because you have a valid

reason for feeling upset or isolated doesn't mean that you can perpetuate that feeling and pass it on to somebody else. And I'm not as proud to say that it took me a really long time to kind of figure that out. And I figured it out through other people making sure that I loved who I was, not other people telling me that they loved me, but being a mirror for me and saying like, how can you give grace to other people, but not give it to yourself? And my mom was the same way. You know, I think we both came to this moment where I was like, mom, I want for you and you want for me. But if we wanted that same thing for ourselves, maybe we would be where we at, where we want to be for each other. And I've met

some really incredible people that have offered support to me in a way that has made me investigate, do I deserve that support? And I want to be able to. I want to be accountable to the person that they see in that mirror. And I want to be accountable to that person. And it takes work. For me, it does. I don't know if for some people, it's really easy to just kind of wake up in this really positive, like take charge mood. But for me, I have to like convince myself. And when I try and convince myself that you can do it, I have all these past experiences saying, but you didn't, and you couldn't, and you haven't. Sometimes it's a lot of effort to convince yourself that you're capable of something that everyone has specifically told you that you cannot

do. You know, I've auditioned for it and been told no. So why do I think I get to go to that audition again and expect another outcome? But that's what happens for people. They audition for things four and five times and then they book it. Or I get in a class and I try the same step four and five times and then I get it. And what I wanted to always be able to say is like, once I got that breakthrough moment, I wanted people to be proud for me. I wanted to be like, yes, we have seen him like really on that path for a really long time. And he's been really convicted by that thing and he deserves that outcome. And I think sometimes whenever you're frustrated by the process and it rubs off on your personality, then when you finally get that breakthrough moment, people are kind of like, okay, well, good. Now he'll

like stop talking about it so much, you know? And I, I just, I really, I want to be happy for other people when they're succeeding. And I want to be happy for myself when I'm succeeding. And I want to try and do my best to stay accountable to that. And that really is by trying to love the man that I am and not in a, not in a frivolous way, you know, like you really have to try to be more patient with people than Nick. If you want to say that you deserve this love you're talking about. And it's not about for me going to the spa and treating myself. It's about learning how to be really patient in an impatient city and how to struggle with the way that everyone else is struggling and not feel

like I'm any different. You know, I think sometimes I feel unique in my traumas and I'm not, and kind of realizing that has allowed me to push forward and then be proud of myself for pushing forward. And then each time you're proud of yourself for that growth, you grow a little bit more. Yeah, I think my performance quality started to imbibe some of who I was as a human being. And that really just taught me so much about everything as well. That humanity and dance and dance and humanity are one in the same. And whenever you're putting in work in the studio and work in your real life to try and be proud of the person that you're trying to say that you are, again, you get to own your sense of happiness. You get to own your kind

of sense of power because you know the steps that you put in to kind of make that happen. And then it's no different than a dance class. Then that's kind of just like a whole metaphor for how you take one 90-minute class. You know, like make a goal for yourself, allow yourself to be excited, but also try not to persecute yourself for making a mistake because it's probably going to be the thing that teaches you how to not make that mistake again.

If you're consistently stepping on the left foot, step on the right foot. And if you're consistently being hard on yourself, be kinder to yourself. You know, like it's just. It starts with you and then what's inward goes outward. And some days be proud just because you showed up. Showed up. You spent more than you should have to. You're putting a lot of time and energy into it. And absolutely, absolutely. I think if you tried that whole class, then who's not to say that it wasn't a real big success. And you've even kind of proved to yourself that,

yeah, I can do it when I don't want to do it. So imagine what I can do when I really want to do it. Yeah, it is metaphor for life, right? Sort of like you zoom the lens out. Everything I say in my class is advice that I need to be taking myself. It's a huge projection. And that's also why I have to stay really accountable to it. You know, I can't sit and tell these people what they need to do

and then walk out and be nasty to my barista because my $5 coffee is late. Right. It just doesn't read right. I mean, to you individually and also to the world around you, this feels a good place for us to come full circle also. So hanging out here in this container of a good life project, if I offer up this phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Yeah. I mean, I think I've thought something similar to that the last couple years. And I think it's the people that you surround yourself with. I think I want to care about what I spend my time doing every day. But I want to more than that be surrounded by people that I admire and feel like other people feel that same way about me. To live a good life is to take the things that I was inspired by and give them to other people and kind of experience that goodness by sharing it with other people

that I really care about. I didn't grow up with a really lavish lifestyle and I wasn't ever somebody that wanted it because I didn't have it. I think I watched my parents be happy with what they created with their hands and they both have such servant's hearts. And so that always was my definition of a good life. My parents are able to be happy and I know that they're stressed about all these things. They have six kids that they're trying to like and somehow they're able to tell us in different ways

that they love us with different love languages. And I think they live a good life. I think that they have like, they've created a whole family that they never had. They broke cycles. They had, you know, so many different cycles that they were fighting against that they didn't perpetuate for their kids. And I think that that would be my definition of a good life, trying to give that to whatever I call family, whether it's kids of my own or a community that I teach to or an environment of people that I work with. I want to try and

break the cycles that caused me pain and pass on a better life for other people, because then I get to really enjoy the life that I have, because I think that helps give me perspective. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, so I'm popping back in here just to set up this second part of the conversation, which as I shared in the beginning, is actually a new conversation that we just a person whose thoughts on dance and teaching have changed, but a person who has been profoundly moved to question his deepest assumptions about movement, equity, access, and so much more, and lead change in a very different way. Here now is part two, recorded just a few days ago. So I was looking back on a calendar. So we recorded our original conversation hanging out in the studio on March 5th, which was like, you know, literally a couple of days before New York City just imploded.

And then I reached out to you two weeks later. So this was March 20th. And this was when New York was really heading into the darkest time. And I was like, hey, listen, you know, given what's going on right now and everything live has just shut down, why don't we hold this conversation, you know,

just for a couple of months until everything is fixed. And, you know, so we can wait until the live classes are back. And so we've been sitting on it and then things didn't resolve quickly. You know, we're having this conversation now in the middle of July and New York is certainly in a better place than it was at the peak. But, you know, I think what we've all realized is this is going to be a much longer journey. And I guess at some point along the way, you realize that too, and decided you didn't want to wait and started doing some really cool and interesting things that built on where we left off. So I want to touch base with you again.

And first, just find out after we sat down on March 5th, what were the weeks following that like for you? And then what was going on that made you start to really shift your plan? So right as things started to become serious in America, and it was almost ironic because we've watched it happen to the world. We knew that it was coming and didn't really know at what capacity. But in the back of my mind as a freelance dancer, teacher, and choreographer, I was thinking I'm most likely not going to be protected in any way. Most of the jobs that are going to get canceled are paying me in future ticket sales or paying me in money that they haven't yet made. And so I was anticipating not having any kind of help.

And that's exactly what happened. And I think maybe because I saw it coming and because I'm lucky enough to have a savings, I kind of just decided to give myself the opportunity to unplug and remove myself from my work, really. And I think as a dancer and as an artist, that was always a point of pride, that I loved my work. I loved being busy. I loved doing what I was doing. And almost immediately, I realized what it cost me to operate at that pace and what it really, what we really do in New York, especially and in America and how we operate and how we find validation. And even though I've been speaking for years against this idea, it was really a moment to say like, what do you see in the mirror when you're not dancing? What is your worth whenever you're not creating, when you don't have a product?

And almost right away, I think everybody as artists was trying to figure out like, how do I create in the midst of this? And I really applaud those people that still had that curiosity and that ambition. But I was like, I think I maybe deserve a break. I think I've maybe been working really, really hard. And if I don't have the opportunity to, maybe I can find the silver lining in rest and recovery. And yeah, I didn't get a single paycheck from any of these places that I've worked for that have, you know, that consider their employees family. And I really don't say that as a jab, just as kind of the reality of working freelance, that when the job stops, your job stops. And it took me a really long time to get qualified for

government assistance. And eventually I did. And it was a weird moment for me to be like, wow, the unemployment system is the only way that I'm able to pay my bills and survive right now, even though I've considered myself a successful teacher and choreographer or whatever it is. I don't, I can't rely on any of that right now. And trying to separate anger from that, trying to realize like, what does that mean? What, what does that mean for how we're going to continue? And just getting really curious about things, honestly, and trying to get curious about things that are outside of my nostalgia and my positive emotions now that we're faced with so many things. And pretty quickly, you know, for a couple weeks, maybe even months, I was really unplugged from everything. I was really enjoying that aspect of being unplugged. And then the George Floyd for people that don't look like me. And I think I had

been so focused on my own sense of marginalization, my tunnel vision of how things hadn't worked for me, that I felt like I could stay selfish in my path, that I'm really only trying to discover things that affect me. And then those things that I figure out will help other people, but it only helps other people that look like me, or that maybe can relate to the metaphors I use or the music that I relate to. And I was really humbled and actually listening back to the podcast, you know, when we were going to kind of catch each other up here, I listened back to the podcast and I have to be honest with you. I was, I was a little bit uncomfortable at how much I was centered in everything. And you know, it's a podcast about me. So obviously it's coming from my perspective, but the amount of times I

mentioned ballet as the pursuit of how to make yourself better and not really giving credit to the same discipline as required for any style of dance and will make you better at ballet. Ballet will make you better at hip hop. Hip hop will make you better at ballet. But just constantly centering my own experience and really validating that I get to do that, that I'm allowed to like really focus on how I'm affected because I am a creative. So I'm creating based on my history, based on my perceived marginalization. And that's really what struck me about listening back to it and thinking about the coronavirus in general has really given me the opportunity to understand this Black Lives Matter movement and understanding the importance of anti-racism in the arts. started teaching back at BDC, it was really this idea of we've got to continue giving access to people that don't have it. And I, who was college educated, need to look outside of my white sources of inspiration and make sure that the people that I'm inspired by, I understand who they were

inspired by and that haven't been mentioned. And what types of TV and movie and music, what can add to my curiosity and not my insecurity at not knowing. And I just feel there's this huge lack of genuine curiosity and more this real huge respect for nostalgia that, well, it's always been this way. And my Christmas has always gone that way. And 4th of July has always felt like this to me. And so I owe it to myself to continue having that emotional experience and really trying to separate what do I get to keep that was positive and motivating for me? And what can I influence with just wonder a little bit more? Curiosity leads to a genuine connection to learning more because I want to learn more, not because somebody else has told me that I need to learn it, but I literally wanted to look this up for myself, learn more about it. And that led to more kind of intersections of other things that I wasn't as well versed in as I should be. And

that that led to enthusiasm for making change with my privilege because the curiosity was founded from me. And I don't think if we had had the coronavirus period, there wouldn't have been this kind of luxury and time to read a book front to back in one sitting and ruminate on it for another day and have all of that uninterrupted and then continue to kind of see what other people are exploring and how that applies to what you're also figuring out. And it's really, I don't even know how to describe it. You know, it's something I should have, I should have been aware of a long time ago, you know, something that I should have done a lot more investigating in a long time ago and, you know, constantly trying to mix like this new wave of accountability with the fact that we're still

in quarantine and that we actually can't meet up, that everything is still done online. That's how I kind of felt teaching online classes and being able to offer free spots to those online classes was what I felt like I could do. And so it became very inspiring to me to have people continue. You know, we've talked about before that people tend to donate to my classes to be able to help dancers who can't afford to take it. And when I was starting to teach online with Broadway Dance Center, they had done kind of these technical innovations to make it feel like it was an elevated class experience. They had done some sound mixing so that my voice and the music could overlap and they weren't delayed so that people learning from me weren't frustrated by, you know, like what part

of the music was he talking about? Because it came in at a different way and they had a host for me. You know, I had really amazing attendance, really a lot of people coming and a lot of people being sponsored. I think there were around 50 people that got to take free class almost every time I taught for seven weeks. And those people were from literally all around the world. And again, it just, it made me think like so much outside of what I already thought I was doing. I already thought I was kind of really trying to make myself accessible to more people. And we don't really value that in America. We're not raised to value that, to share in other people's ideas and assume that it will make your ideas

better. We're taught to kind of colonize our ideas and claim them and make sure that other people know that it was our idea and that we get the credit for it. And, you know, just really, really watching how things were changing only from one medium, only from our phones, are we getting to see and hear from people in this time? And how can we be enthusiastic about that? How can we embrace what is being said, even if it means taking a look at what we haven't done correctly. And I just was listening to that podcast thinking, wow, this wasn't that long ago. And there are things that I feel so drastically different about now or so much more convicted about. And more so than ever, I feel that America has to reprioritize its relationship with teachers

and with education. And we have to value learning things that we don't know. And we have to diversify who we're learning from. We really do. And sorry, this was a really long, you know, I've just been thinking about it a lot. And so I think that was a lot of things that we probably would get to in one question. But I think more than the coronavirus, it's really been how does America operate and why has it operated this way for so long? And actually having the time to investigate it and let it really sink in has been what's been going on with me. Yeah. And that's why I wanted to circle back because like you said, it's on the one hand,

it wasn't that long ago, but on the other hand, it feels like it was a world ago, especially in, you know, you and I are both in New York. We, we sat down originally in New York. We were, you know, we led everything in this country. You know, like we went to the absolute darkest place wildly quickly after our conversation. And now it's sort of spanning out across the country from the virus standpoint and then in the middle of all that as you mentioned george floyd and then this awakening around race and injustice and you know the protests and the uprising um all swirling together and then i saw you you know we hadn't been in contact that much but i saw you start to come online and offer because i knew you know like steps where you'd been teaching these incredible classes you had already sort of

been developing this patron model there where all these people were donating to sponsor people who couldn't afford to come to your live classes and then when i saw you transition to doing that online i was a i was just i was really curious just about you know technically what was happening there because like you said it's actually not that easy to pull it off especially when you have dancers and your what you teach is a an approach which is very fast and very precise yeah very dense very dense. Right. So so that alone, just technically was not so easy to put together. But also, I got really curious. I was like, wonder, which is why I want to talk to you again. I was really curious about what was happening in your mind and in your heart that led you to step back into sort of to create that online space. And then what else was was sort of

fueling your decision making and the actions you were taking underneath it you know jonathan some of the messages i would get with from people before when they were asking for the sponsorship kind of trying to clarify why they felt like deserved it which i didn't need you know it was basically if you say you need it i was going to give it to you but to hear so many people say that 1212 or $15 was hugely beyond their means. I just, I was really, really humbled by that. You know, we kind of touched a little bit on how I didn't grow up wealthy. We weren't poor, but we were a middle

class family. And like I said, sometimes my birthdays and holidays would encompass how I could do things. But my parents could come up with $15 for me to take a class from somebody I was saying I really wanted to take. And to hear these people say, I've followed you for three years, and I never, ever, ever thought in my wildest dreams that I would be able to take from you. And now through the pandemic and through this online portal, I somehow have access to you is beyond a dream come true. I just like to get so many of those messages was just so much more validating

than to have a Broadway show credited to you or to have like all of these things that I've been taught my whole life is what's going to determine what your legacy is and how people remember you and solidifying your stance in this dance world. And, and then the messages I would get from people after they had taken about, um, how it either was what they expected or it wasn't. And I mean, Jonathan, all over the world. And it's so cool on zoom because people are logging on saying, hi from Paraguay, hi from Nigeria, hi from these places that it would have been so difficult to travel there and have an in-person experience. And the other thing is everybody that wrote to

me wrote to me in English. And that really kind of, again, just really humbled me that they assumed I wouldn't speak another language, which I don't. They assumed that in order to kind of win this prize, they would have to appeal to me in the way that I can digest the best way. And it just, all of it is really, it really stuck with me. And you know, it's funny. I, when I get into a room as positive as I try and be, my expectations are pretty high. I want to get through a lot of choreography. I want you to do it the way that I want you to do it. And, you know, some of the people that would, that would host the classes and kind of help me with it. They would say like, people really like they are, they go there with

you on these zoom classes. You know, I think sometimes it's hard. People are in their living rooms, the wifi is whatever, but you can see on the screen how devoted everyone is. And I would try and say every class, like, look at what you've done. Look at you in the midst of everything that's happening. So many things, racial injustices, I mean, all types of injustices on top of health scare, on top of financial instability, you have dedicated yourself to an hour and a half of self-improvement. And how many of you can really honestly sit here and tell me that you didn't improve over the course of this hour and a half? And whatever your expectation for yourself was, have a conversation with yourself about why. Why was my expectation to show up and do something

perfect? Or why was my expectation to just try? And if I met those or re-evaluating those goals. And I think for people not from America to hear an American choreographer say it's not about perfection, it's about effort. In a way, it's sad that that was a surprise to hear that like the goal here isn't perfectionism. And I think I thought race was an issue for black people to explain to me and for me to understand how race affects other people and not to understand that my whiteness is my race. And it's part of what affects other people. And it's part of what perfectionism is.

This idea that we need to conquer and we need to be the best and we need to claim is something that is universal and it is attributed to me and how I, what people think I'm going to expect from them when they see the color of my skin is something that I need to be more aware of and that I have the privilege and the ability to change. And to do that on an online platform and reach so many people in one class was really amazing. And at the same time, it was important to me to not add to this feeling of comparison because so many people are trying to do online classes. And what I didn't want to do is share the number of people that had attended my class and constant reposting of how successful this is going for me. And again, it's like trying to do something good, but the actual impact is to make other people feel like, well, why is my genuine efforts not being seen in that same way?

And so right now, my goal is to try and raise money so that other teachers can benefit from patronage and donation. And that we can learn how to engage with these institutions that endorse what is a good teacher. And for students to say like, hey, I've been taking from this person. Maybe you should have them teach an online class so that more people have access to them. And that we learn how to have dialogue instead of stances, that we have a conversation about what I think is valuable and that this teacher has made me feel valuable. And maybe you could, maybe not only could you give them a class opportunity, but you can guarantee 10 people are going to take their class and the teacher and the dance institution are going to get paid because that's a really important part of this. We are still in America trying to make

a business out of the arts. We're still trying to survive without government help. And it's more dire than ever that we have this idea of patronage, that teachers don't have to teach for free just because people would benefit from their class and that it's important to have a physical location for dance to feel like a community. And if we don't pay into that for six more months while everything is closed, they're not going to be there when we come back. And while there is definitely advantages to being online, there is something that we're missing about getting back into a studio and applying everything that we've learned socially distanced and learning how to talk to each other about why we're different but also why we're the same and connecting with eye contact and connecting with a shared sense of communal space is in jeopardy

you know and so it's still a challenge for me to figure out how to self-promote and do all of these things feeling at the same time like maybe my voice isn't the most important thing to be hearing right now, because it's one of many that have been heard for so long. So I'm trying to find my comfort level of putting myself out there as somebody that wants to be an innovator and a leader, but also somebody that needs to be led right now and that needs to follow. And I really am searching for other voices that I feel like I want to buy into that vision and maybe not so focused on being the only visionary out there. And I think, again, I'm trained to think like that as a white person, especially, I think that you have to be the best. You have to be the most original and unique and to be lumped in as a white person and have that mean a certain set of

behaviors is something that I don't think we like. We don't want to be grouped that way. And that's what we do to other people. And learning in such a patient way because we were quarantined and because it's the information age and I have so much access to all of these resources that I have been ignoring. It's been a lot. It has been a lot of, like I said, trying to cultivate a curiosity about this and not a reaction out of guilt. And that was obviously where I came from in the beginning of being like, oh my gosh, I'm guilty of all of these things and trying to understand how do I be curious about them so that therefore I can be enthusiastic about what I'm learning. And I think enthusiasm is what's missing from a lot of conversation.

We need to change these things because it will make everything better. Not we need to find the perfect size bandaid to fix something that is broken, but doesn't want to be revolutionized. I think for me, and I even talked about it in our last podcast, talking about how we're in this really cool moment of diversity and saying that as a white person, thinking that because there is diversity in what we see, thinking that there's diversity in who is leading those projects, who's lighting those projects, who's sound mixing those projects. And all of those projects are majority owned by white people. So to be this white voice talking about how cool this moment in time is, was really uncomfortable for me to hear. Thinking that I'm doing good, thinking that I'm

talking about all of these changes that are happening and not realizing that diversity is sometimes a distraction for real equality, for real equity between who owns these projects, who owns their own projects, who has access to trying and failing. I even talked a bit about how there was a period of time where I wasn't successful at steps. There was a period of time where only two people came to my class and I had the luxury of, no, no, no, it's going to pick up. We're going to continue believing in you, even though you haven't delivered basically on what we wanted you to deliver. And how many people that are marginalized in different ways than we get that opportunity to keep failing until they succeed. And that is what it takes for anybody to be able to succeed. True belief that you are valuable and that your differences are what are going to make you valuable and what's going to push things

forward instead of the exact thing we point to and say, we knew this is why it wouldn't work because it just takes time. You know, anything new, anything outside of mainstream, it's going to take time for it to become mainstream. And it's very much a chicken or the egg, which one comes first. But I think it really takes people believing in you. And it takes, I keep coming back to this word curiosity, because I think there's so much personal accountability in that word, that if you're personally curious about something, you are going to do the work to learn about it. That's going to enrich your perspective. That's going to enrich your perspective. That's going to enrich your sense of empathy

for other people giving you more things to be curious about. And again, I think in our education system in America, we're not allowed to be curious. We're told this is the class you're going to take. This is the point. This is the perspective of history you're going to learn. And we don't have room to question it and have dialogue because I'm the teacher and you're the student and that's not how it works. You don't have room to question it and have dialogue because I'm the teacher and

you're the student and that's not how it works. You don't teach me, I teach you. And that axiology, that kind of very European mindset of like, I have been endorsed as the voice to listen to, and I'm going to ask for everything that I want of you with no feedback is, I think, really, really detrimental and something that I need to you with no feedback is, I think, really, really detrimental and something that I need to continue doing a lot more investigating about and taking my nostalgia, figuring out how my personal insight to what I think could change, which a lot for me was about gender identity and how men and women are allowed to. And, you know, that's an important component of what needs to change in the arts.

But if I'm so focused on thinking that I don't have to diversify what else is out there to fix and improve, then I am still part of the problem. And I am still part of this exclusion from getting new people curious about new things. And so I'm really doing my best to be curious and to try and learn something

and not share what I've learned right away as an authority. You know, like, again, that is such a tendency to colonize the conversation from the people that need to be leading it to because I'm a leader in this other way, I need that's something I'm trying to also understand. Like, what is my role to share and give access because I have a platform that people can see this information and how much of it is not my place to be leading the conversation and to really be following. And I don't know that any of us have the perfect recipe for that, but I'm still, again, I'm trying to be curious about what is the right way to do this. And I think the follow up for this podcast is a really amazing way to be accountable to even weeks ago who I was and how I don't want that to be the definition of me. I want that to be part of where I was and where I'm continuing to go. And I really appreciate this opportunity to kind of touch back on that and realize how much can change when you learn,

when you become aware of something. And yeah, in a remarkably short period of time when the circumstances demanded of us, which I end every conversation with the same question, which is, what does it mean to you to live a good life? And I asked you that question last time as well. And even though we're going to hear your first answer to that question, I'm actually curious now asking you that same question,

some April, May, June, four months removed, and what seems like many lifetimes removed at this point. How would you answer that? What does it mean to you to live a good life? I think living a good life is maybe about having the same opportunity for everybody to have the same answer. It is maybe going to be different. We're all going to have different things that are valuable. But if we all have the same access to that good life, if we all have all have the same opportunity to pursue what we're passionate about, what we're creative about, and we're not held back by someone else's perception of a good life, then I think we can all have a good life that is different. really the American dream that has been really exploited. You know, this idea that freedom becomes selfishness and that if we,

if our freedoms don't extend to someone else having their own freedom, then it's actually not freedom. And I think that's a little bit how I answered it the last time, you know, my parents created this opportunity to be happy regardless of if it was with wealth or with notoriety, but to create a family and to share emotional experiences with that family and to try and provide however you can. And I think if we take that larger and if we do what we can to live a good life by making it possible for

someone else to live a good life, then we don't have to have the best life. We get to have truly a good life. And I think when we constantly try and put an order on who's living the goodest life, it defeats the purpose of being able to claim that you live good life because it's coming at the expense of someone else. So I really think just, I think a good life is an equal life, is fair and people feel safe to pursue what they're passionate about. They feel championed by people that look like them and people that don't look like them. And a version of a good life gets to be validated by other people that have a different answer of what good life is to them. And it doesn't have to encroach on their definition of what good is. And yeah, I think true equity and true equality, it really is a definition of a good life. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself,

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