Asha Yates. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Black Dancers in Higher Education Series
Pushing through Discomfort and Making Room: An Interview with Asha Yates
By Camryn Eaglin
Details and nuances can make all the difference in identifying individual and collective experiences within a community. How do we navigate traditional expectations of dance? How do these European standards affect black dancers in higher education institutions? Are there schools that are really attempting to infiltrate them? There is so much to question. For those affected by such structures, there is an evident struggle between fitting inside the box or going outside of it to not only succeed but thrive. Are you able to become the artist you truly want to be within these confines? This is a sentiment relatable to various contexts.
Our third interview in the series is with Asha Yates. She is a 3rd year BFA Dance major and a sociology minor at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We had a wonderful Zoom interview with great conversation. She broke down her experiences and offered a clear perspective/insider view of what her educational and artistic journey has been at Temple.
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CE: How many dancers are in your class? How many are dancers of color and how many black dancers?
AY: My cohort - or graduating class - is about 12 people I would say, which is really small for Temple. Other classes have had 20-40 dancers each. I am the only black dancer in the class. Dancers of color...I would say like three.
CE: Why did you want to pursue a higher education in dance?
AY: I knew from a very young age that I wanted to dance professionally, which was really nice just knowing what I wanted to do. Since then, I’ve realized there is more that I want to do and I’ve narrowed it down more specifically. I was also raised with not going to college not being an option. I knew I was going to college and knew I wanted to dance professionally so I figured majoring in dance made sense. I grew up training predominantly as a hip hop dancer. I took ballet, contemporary, jazz, and musical theatre from the time I was eight through high school. Though I was consistently training in hip hop, I knew if I wanted to be a professional dancer, especially in the commercial world, I was going to need more technique than I had. So, I wanted to use college as an opportunity to get technical training and foundational styles. Especially knowing college programs, every single one of them you’re going to take ballet and modern. So for me it was kind of about finding a program that was not too ballet and modern heavy.
CE: Does your department have professors of diverse cultural and racial backgrounds? Do they bring in guest artists in a variety of dance styles?
AY: Yes we definitely have a diverse faculty. Most of the faculty are adjunct professors but the faculty of the dance department is probably between 5-10 plus adjunct. I’ve had a lot of white women teachers. The most highly regarded teacher in our program is from China and I’ve had a few Asian teachers. We also have a large number of international students in the MFA and PhD programs. I’ve had at least one black male teacher and have had four black women teachers. All of my African dance teachers have been black women. It's relatively diverse but definitely more white women than anything.
A good number of guest artists are brought in. I went to a guest class taught by one of Beyonce’s backup dancers. We’ve had guest teachers in our African classes and that’ll be my African teachers bringing in people they know and then it will be open to anyone else who wants to come. But it’s not really the department on its own saying, “Let’s find teachers of other styles.” Guest teachers are probably majority modern in style.
CE: What dance classes are you required to take and what other dance courses are available to dance majors?
AY: We have a pretty strict curriculum in terms of what’s required and what’s optional. Most of the classes I take for my major are required; there are very few options.We have to take two years of Ballet, and two years of African which includes West African style, Neo Traditional and Umfundalai (a western contemporary African style created by Dr. Kariamu Welsh). It is a really local style so anyone outside of Philly is less likely to know it. We have two semesters of Hip Hop, two semesters of Improvisation, Modern for four years, two Composition classes on how to compose a whole piece for stage and how to create movement. We take Music for Dancers, Dance Science and Somatics, and Dance Histories. I’m taking Dance History right now but the curriculum depends on the teacher. My current teacher is teaching dance history with a focus on black dance history, which is really cool, but not everyone gets that.
We take a course called Making Meaning. It’s about dance writing and analysis where you learn to watch dance, analyze concepts, and learn how to write about it in an academic way. We are required to take Production freshman year and assist two shows. We take a Lighting Design class and that’s really cool. I unfortunately was taking that class last spring so it got cut off but we still finished online. We also take Dance in Cultures which is another theory academic class. Finally, your Senior year you take a set of classes called Creative Process and it prepares you for your senior thesis.
Overall we have a lot of theory classes and a good number of movement classes.
CE: Do you like the variety of courses and styles or wish there was more offered? Should there be an adjustment to certain requirements?
AY: I like the variety. I like it because I’m not a ballet and modern dancer. When I take those classes, I’m not like “Oh yes, this is what I love doing”...I’m like “okay this is like working out.” I do this for the stretching and strengthening, conditioning and training of my body. When I take improv and hip hop-- hip hop is just fun. Other classes hit my passion a little bit more. In that sense, I like the variety and I’m really glad that I picked this school, rather than a school that is really ballet and modern based. I don’t know if I could handle it. I do wish I could take a jazz class, or a tap class. I would love to take a tap class.
Overall, I take between 6-9 classes a semester which is probably a normal amount for a dance major and it’s a lot of classes, so there isn’t really space and time for more. Each semester, at least five of my courses are for my major. If there was a tap elective, I’m sure there would be a lot of interest but whether people can fit it into their schedules would be another question. A lot of us have other minors or majors. Also, there is a rule, you have to take a movement class every day. However, my classes have Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday classes and this leaves you without a movement class on Fridays. So, there are Friday technique classes you can choose from like an elective such as floor barre, Pilates, or a Graham inspired class. Hypothetically you’re supposed to take four of those before you graduate.
I love Temple because we also take African diaspora classes as a part of our curriculum, which is a pretty new one. I think my class is the first to take all four years of it. It does mean that we are in the very early stages of it so there’s always improvement that could be made. It’s nice to take African right after my ballet class. Even if I am really struggling through ballet, I can go to African and it’s a little more familiar to my body. It’s also good for the other prima ballerinas that come to Temple, to be able learn groundedness and other movement vocabularies.
CE: Are your dance concerts well-rounded in dance styles? Or does your department have a very specific lane?
AY: Our department has a super specific lane. It’s in the modern scope. It’s not very technical in a traditional way. That’s not to say that you’re not going to see more flashy types of movement but it’s more abstract. I don’t know why it’s like that and where it comes from. The student dance concerts and when students choreograph, don’t look like that and the BFA showcases don’t really look like that. However, most music won’t have lyrics, it’s still going to be modern; but you’ll see more traditional dance moves like more legs, more turns, more something you’d see somewhere else. I’m not saying it looks like So You Think You Can Dance or anything...it doesn’t look like that, but more of a middle ground. Even more faculty concerts have more conventional moving. The MFA concerts are where it's most different.
Now, there are student dance concerts where anyone in the program can choreograph but you do have to audition. I don’t know of anyone who has tried to put anything super mainstream in a student dance concert. I feel like I would be the one to do it but I just haven't. I've always been interested in what if I didn’t want to make a dance that was about something, or do something very commercial and just do a dance to a song, something super flashy--how would that be received by those who decide who gets into the concert? Judges are a couple people from each class including undergrad, MFA and PhD students. I definitely think people tailor their works to fit into the scope. I’m currently choreographing a piece and there may or may not be lyrics and I’m trying to decide. The fact that I’m even considering the no lyrics option makes me think, “Ahh I’ve been here too long.” That’s definitely an influence I got here and there’s nothing wrong with it. If nothing else, it broadens our range of how we think about what dance is and what can go on a dance stage.
CE: Does your department help explore and facilitate conversations or art about social issues like racial inequality, body image, etc.?
AY: The department as a whole does not make a focus to have those conversations. Except one time last year there was a whole department presentation on equity issues and it was really good. It was illuminating for a lot of people. I thought, “This is really good and something that should happen more often.” I don't remember if it was a reaction to something going on or if we were in a tense social climate. My freshman year repertory class was taught by an amazing teacher. She set a piece about immigration and this was around the time ICE detention centers, kids being kept in cages, and families being separated were made prevalent on the news. We did a 20 minute piece on that and it was powerful. That one piece happened because my teacher chose to do a piece about it but other than that, most of the cultural diversity work is due to us having African classes within our curriculum. So, it’s not a hush hush scenario but it isn’t a focus.
My high school was very diversity, equity, and inclusion focused so to me I’m like, “We don’t do anything here,” but probably more than a lot of other places. It definitely could be more. When something happens we’ll react or if a teacher decides to have a conversation then they can and will but it is not in the culture of the department.
CE: What is the environment like in your department? How do you interact with one another and the student culture overall?
AY: It depends on your class partially but overall I would say it's friendly. My class, which is 12, has been dancing with each other since the beginning so we are very friendly. The competition that exists is a normal competition, “Like dang she’s doing three turns, let me see if I can do that.” It’s a very comfortable environment to be in, it’s not like you walk through and people are sitting in their splits or people are trying to intimidate. We’re all just tired.
CE: Do you feel supported by your program's faculty? Do you have an advisor or mentor in the program? Is the person BIPOC?
AY: I would say I feel supported by my teachers in the way that they want me to succeed. I don’t think anyone is trying to set any of us up for failure. There are some teachers who verbalize it more and that you can tell are more invested in our success whether that be in their class or long term.
I’ve had two faculty members that I’ve been particularly close to. I was really close with my freshman advisor. She was a black woman from D.C. and I am also from D.C. so we bonded over that. We kind of have similar personalities and felt like we had similar backgrounds. We had lovely meetings and I met with her all the time. She is Norma Porter, a publisher of Black Dance Magazine, and I am applying for an internship with them right now. She's really great and does such cool work within black dance spaces. Another teacher I’ve been close to is Josephine D. Heard and she was my Umfundalai teacher two semesters in a row. Sometimes my friends and I like to go take the class and she’ll have us demonstrate. So I unofficially assist her classes sometimes.
CE: Is there a time you have felt alienated or different from other dancers in your department?
AY: All the time, everyday. Not only because I’m the only black dancer in the class but I’m also not technically trained and I’m a hip hop dancer primarily. So with those two combined, I feel very different. My class is 90% of girls that trained in modern and ballet in a Pennsylvania or New Jersey suburb. I am one out of two hip hop dancers but we’re just different kinds of hip hop dancers. I’m more hip hop studio trained. Those two things together leave me feeling alienated a pretty good amount. We’ll be in ballet doing something that is old news for everyone else and I’m like, “What is this move?” It was really uncomfortable at first but now I’m friends with all these people and we know each other's strengths and weaknesses. I’m not in ballet anymore and now we are in hip hop. Other girls are now like, “What on Earth?!” They’ve helped me through my years of ballet and now I can help them through hip hop.
It’s nice having a small cohort, as much as I wish there were a few more of us so I wouldn’t be the only black girl. There are often several black dancers in each class. So I’m like, “How did I end up in this scenario?” It was never anyone else doing anything to make me uncomfortable, not on purpose anyway. A saving grace is I keep thinking of more black female teachers I’ve had. A lot of times I would be the only black girl in the class but my teacher would be black too and I’d be like, “Okay..it’s me and teacher, holding it down.” In my black dance history class, my teacher had asked if anyone intensively studied black history. I hadn’t taken a class on it but my family made sure that I learned more than I got from my AP US history class. That class is unique because it’s different from when we’re in ballet or modern, just because those traditionally come from European cultures, versus being in a black dance history class, it’s a different feeling but I’m still very hyper aware of it. In my high school, I was never the only black person in my class but it was still predominantly white. Being in predominantly white spaces is not new for me, because if it was...this would all be hard.
CE: Overall, how has your experience in your program been thus far?
AY: I have had an overall good experience. The bad parts of my experience have been in my head. Not that they weren’t valid, but just my discomfort with a space that I’m in but not because the space is uncomfortable just cause I’m like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, that’s hard.” I would say overall it has been good. My least favorite part is the box I feel pressured to live inside sometimes.
CE: What are your goals in the future or post graduation? What are your aspirations?
AY: I want to perform as a dancer first while I’m young. I want to perform in commercial spaces doing music videos, tours, convention, casts; whatever I can get my hands on. Movie musicals are my main goal, like I want to be on the Disney channel, that’d be so cool. That has been a specific goal I’ve pinpointed recently. I want to get more into the choreography scene whether that’s doing work for stage or for camera. Making stuff for the sake of making it. I have slight Broadway dreams but I don't know how committed I am to that. It would be so much fun to do. I'm trying to decide if after school I’m going to move to New York or LA. I don’t know if I’ll make the Broadway decision before I make the moving decision.
Asha Yates. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Camryn Eaglin is a dancer and writer earning a Bachelor of Science in Dance and a minor in Broadcast Journalism from Wayne State University. She is currently an intern with Life as a Modern Dancer.
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Related posts:
5 Questions for Camryn Eaglin, Life as a Modern Dancer Intern
Organization Spotlight: C.A.A.C (Collegiate Association for Artists of Color)
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