Hometown: Born
in Lake Forest, Illinois; raised in Windsor & London, Ontario Canada and
Nassau, Bahamas
Current city: Oakland, CA
Age: 47
College and degree: Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from University of Windsor, Ontario Canada
Website: www.destinyarts.org
How you pay the bills: I work full time as the Artistic Director at Destiny Arts Center
All of the dance hats you wear: In my job as an Artistic Director I do everything from running rehearsals for the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company, our pre-professional teen dance/theater troupe, to writing curriculum, planning and running staff trainings for our 25 teaching artists, who teach in our main site and school-based programs, to working with other Destiny administrative staff on strategic planning so we continue to run quality, accessible, sustainable programs.
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Describe your dance life in your….
20s: I trained vigorously in ballet and modern dance. I performed and toured with various dance companies in Boston and the Bay Area – the Performing Arts Ensemble, Impulse Jazz Dance Company (http://www.impulsedance.com/) and the Dance Brigade (http://www.dancebrigade.org/). I started running the performing arts programs at Destiny Arts Center. I also danced in hip hop performances at various San Francisco gay clubs.
30s: I continued to train vigorously in modern dance and to perform and tour with the Dance Brigade. I ran my own dance/theater company with Erica Smith called i am! Productions and toured our two-woman show about growing up biracial in America called “Portrait of a Girl from Nowhere: an urban fairy tale.” The show toured nationally and internationally. I ran the dance program at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco for 3 years and ran the hip hop dance program at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond for 5 years.
40s: I started working with Destiny Arts Center full time, first as the Executive Director (5 years) and now as the Artistic Director. I stopped dancing professionally. Now I take classes in salsa with Yismari Ramos and soul motion (http://www.soulmotion.com/) with Valerie Chafograck.
How did you first get
involved with Destiny?
I first got involved with Destiny Arts Center when I was 25 years old. At the time, I was performing and touring with the San Francisco based dance/theater company Dance Brigade as well as bussing tables at a restaurant to make ends meet. Dance Brigade was connected to a small nonprofit in Oakland called Hand to Hand Self Defense Center (http://handtohandkajukenbo.com/) that taught martial arts and self-defense primarily to women. They had just started a youth martial arts program and Dance Brigade was working with some of Hand to Hand’s young students to create a segment of their annual holiday performance, The Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie. I was one of the choreographers for the youth dance number. When I started working with the Hand to Hand kids, the director of the youth program, Kate Hobbs, asked me to start a performing arts program at the center as a way to bring youth into the center who may not be attracted to the martial arts, but who needed the self defense and conflict resolution skills that were being taught there. One thing led to another. I wrote a California Arts Council artist in residency grant in order to get paid to teach free classes to youth at Hand to Hand. I started with 4 modern dance and 8 hip hop dance students. Since then (22 years ago!) the Hand to Hand youth program became its own nonprofit called Destiny Arts Center that serves up to 4,000 youth every year in dance, theater, martial arts and performance programs at our center and in up to 45 public schools in the East Bay.
What keeps you going year after year?
What keeps me going year after year is knowing that the work I’m doing, that we’re doing at Destiny, is making a difference in the lives of the young people we serve. Here are some examples of what folks say about the programs:
A student: “I’ve had the best time of my life with Destiny. I never felt so confident until I worked with Destiny. I feel more brave, artistic, stronger (mentally and physically), grateful and happier about life. Thank you so much for my first and last year with you guys. I’ll never forget you.”
A parent: “Destiny has broadened her (Destiny student) understanding of politics and social justice. She is discovering the world in which she lives and developing a strong commitment to making a difference. Your guidance and your energy contribute so much to her growth, as an artist and a person. We are so glad she has you to turn to!”
The dance director at Berkeley High School: “I can spot a Destiny Arts dancer from a mile away. Each year at the auditions for the Berkeley High School Dance Production, a few Destiny dancers show up and in the sea of high school dancers these girls ALWAYS stand out: they are remarkably poised, self-possessed and well-trained. More importantly, as young women they have clearly developed a sense of their own power on stage as separate from the over-sexualized “power” of the dancers we see in hip hop videos. These girls see their bodies as their creative tools and view performance as a forum for expressing the best parts of themselves.”
Destiny’s productions are incredible works of art. Can you write a little about making art with teenagers – and how these productions are your place to be artistic and creative? What is inspiring you these days?
I have always known that I wanted to be a dancer – as soon as I could articulate what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I was raised by activist parents who were constantly teaching me that I was responsible for creating a better world. My work at Destiny is the combination of my artist self and my activist self. My work with the teens through the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company reflects that blend of creating art that has personal and political meaning.
Can you talk about
the book Youth on the Move? How long did it take to write it? What was the inspiration/impetus
to take on the project?
The book Youth on the Move chronicles the process of creating original movement/theater performances with teens in the style that I created with the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company over the years. The project was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and took me about a year to write from start to finish. I had an incredible curriculum consultant, Maura Wolf, who helped me create a format for the book and then I just wrote about the process of the work, with the hopes that other performing arts teachers would get inspired to create collaborative dance/theater work with their teenage students that reflected their hopes and dreams for themselves and their planet. I have watched over and over again how this type of work empowers and inspires my students and the audiences that see their work and I wanted the program to be replicable in different settings besides Destiny.
On training and care of the body…..
I believe that eating well, getting enough rest and moving your body in the way that brings you joy are the most important ways to maintain glowing health. I used to get so much joy from training in ballet and modern dance and so I did that. Now I use that training in my more improvisational dancing (soul motion) and in my salsa dance. And it makes me sooo happy.
Non-dance movement practices important to you include…..
I love to ride my bike!
Finances and financial stability. Advice to young dancers –
Start saving retirement money early! I regret that I didn’t put away even $25 a month when I was younger, because now I am scrambling to save as much as I can in a short amount of time so I can actually retire one day.
General advice to young dancers
Never sacrifice your peace of mind and your love of your body to get technique or a gig. It’s not worth it! Your well being and your self love should come first!
Future career goals
I want to grow old at Destiny Arts Center and watch the children and grandchildren of my students experience the same ecstatic community building, empowerment through the arts as their parents and grandparents did. I want to teach other teachers what I know about working with youth in after school performing arts/violence prevention settings so that the gem of the work gets passed on.
Books, websites, blogs, and shows that serve as inspiration
Books:
- Assata: an autobiography by Assata Shakur
- This Life by Sidney Poitier
- A Thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie
- When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
- The Way of Love by Nigel Watts
- Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Somé
Shows:
- O by Cirque du Soleil
- Fela! (the musical)
- Fiddler on the Roof (the musical)
- The Medea Project by Rhodessa Jones
- The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
- All work by the Dance Brigade
- All work by Lines Ballet
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