Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 204 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title Centering the Margins. And I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honour and privilege to welcome Nena Gilreath.
Joanne Lockwood: Nina is one of the co founders of the Bath Ethnic
Joanne Lockwood: Ballethnik. That's easy for me to save my teeth in this company
Joanne Lockwood: who have spent over three decades reshaping ballet to
Joanne Lockwood: centre black excellence, belonging and cultural truth.
Joanne Lockwood: When asked Nina to describe her superpower, she says that it is holding
Joanne Lockwood: the line for black dancers creating space,
Joanne Lockwood: legacy and possibility where none was offered
Joanne Lockwood: before. Hello, Nina. Welcome to the show. Hey, Jo,
Nena Gilreath: how are you today? Absolutely fantastic. We're
Joanne Lockwood: not far from Christmas. It's cold and wet here, but
Joanne Lockwood: where are you in the world? Okay, today I'm in Athens,
Nena Gilreath: Georgia. I am in a place that I love,
Nena Gilreath: a community called Athens. But I'm at the Herd
Nena Gilreath: Park. Why can I get my things right? Today I'm at Heard
Nena Gilreath: Recreation. Today I'm working here because there's a renovation on
Nena Gilreath: the building where I usually work. So what's the weather like? You know, us Brits,
Joanne Lockwood: we like to talk about weather. Is it. Is it hot and sticky? I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: last time I was In Atlanta or 25 years ago, it was a really hot
Joanne Lockwood: and sticky place. Is it. Is it still hot and sticky this time of year?
Nena Gilreath: Today is not hot. Atl today I have a
Nena Gilreath: scarf on my neck. It's cold. And for people in the south, it's
Nena Gilreath: very cold. We're in the east and typically in the winter.
Nena Gilreath: Yeah, typically we're in the 30s or so. It's cold.
Joanne Lockwood: Has ice on the car. That's really cold. 30s? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: For those who are like me, I work in centigrade, so. But
Joanne Lockwood: 30s is water. Freezes at 32. So yeah, that's cold.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, that's cold. Yeah. Yeah, we have to wear a jacket
Nena Gilreath: and real socks and real shoes and most of the time we
Nena Gilreath: don't. It's not like the summer where you're wearing sandals and T
Joanne Lockwood: shirts and things. Yes, shorts, shorts,
Nena Gilreath: shorts. Yeah, well, yeah, you can just about get away with it here in the
Joanne Lockwood: summer, but yeah, most of the year it's not quite short, whether in the UK
Joanne Lockwood: where we are. But yeah, it sounds lovely. And you're not far from
Joanne Lockwood: Atlanta then. So that. So Atlanta is the capital of Georgia. Yes. And
Joanne Lockwood: so you're, you're not far from there, what is it, about an hour and a
Joanne Lockwood: bit away. Yeah. Like I always say, for me, I drive
Nena Gilreath: there several times a week because I work in Athens during the week and
Nena Gilreath: on the weekends I go home to Atlanta. So 90 minutes
Nena Gilreath: door to door if there's no crazy traffic. So do you have those big freeways
Joanne Lockwood: with sort of 20 lanes that all kind of snarl up and things like
Joanne Lockwood: that, do you? There's so much traffic here, especially after the Olympics,
Nena Gilreath: so we do have a lot of lanes. I usually take a little side
Nena Gilreath: street so that I can listen to podcasts like we're doing today,
Nena Gilreath: and then I end up getting on the expressway. So I love. It's a time
Nena Gilreath: for me to reflect, but also to listen and meet new great
Nena Gilreath: people. Like meeting you today. Yeah, I remember my times
Joanne Lockwood: in the States when I was driving and in. Either in LA or actually
Joanne Lockwood: in Georgia or South Carolina, that sort of area.
Joanne Lockwood: You join the freeway or the expressway and you stay in the same lane and
Joanne Lockwood: before you know it, you've managed to move your lane to move all the way
Joanne Lockwood: over, and then you end up getting filtered off in another lane by doing
Joanne Lockwood: nothing other than drive forward. Is 6, 7, 8, 10 lane motorways
Joanne Lockwood: sight to behold, really nothing really to have anything that big in the uk,
Joanne Lockwood: but they're phenomenal. It takes getting used to. And I'm
Nena Gilreath: from a small town in North Carolina, so when I moved to Atlanta
Nena Gilreath: it did get. It took some time for me to get accustomed to
Nena Gilreath: merging onto the highway and driving faster than
Nena Gilreath: I'd ever driven before. And by. By UK standards, the. You don't
Joanne Lockwood: drive that quickly, do you? So you're driving 55 to 70 miles an hour in
Joanne Lockwood: the UK quite regularly. People are 80, 90, 100 miles an hour, which is kind
Joanne Lockwood: of even more scary, I guess. Yeah, that's. A hundred is too
Nena Gilreath: fast. It's usually between 65 and 75 is what is
Nena Gilreath: legally Permitted. Yeah. We're not. We're not supposed to drive faster
Joanne Lockwood: than 70, but, you know, our motorways, people do push it up
Joanne Lockwood: quite often. Someone will come flying past you at 90 plus. So. Yeah.
Nena Gilreath: And then your car kind of goes, whoo. Shakes. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does.
Joanne Lockwood: But I've got a big German car, so my car's designed to go that fast
Joanne Lockwood: as well. But I never go much faster than 75. 80. I'll
Joanne Lockwood: get ticket otherwise. Good for you. Keep your money in your
Nena Gilreath: pocket. In my pocket, yeah. That's for sure. Yeah, that's where it needs to
Joanne Lockwood: stay. We were chatting just before we
Joanne Lockwood: went live and we talked about, well,
Joanne Lockwood: the pronunciation, alethnic. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's a merger of two words, isn't it? Ballet and ethnicity. Or ethnic.
Joanne Lockwood: So where did this. Well, what started
Joanne Lockwood: this Inspiration? You know, it's about trying to give not just a
Joanne Lockwood: voice, but an outlet for people
Joanne Lockwood: who don't fit the typical Swan Lake view of ballet, I guess,
Joanne Lockwood: is it? I know. And you kind of hit right on it. Were you in
Nena Gilreath: my brain? Yeah. So part of how we hit on it
Nena Gilreath: is dancing the classics. So in the late 80s,
Nena Gilreath: my husband and I were dancing at the Atlanta Ballet and
Nena Gilreath: we were performing the classics. Swan Lake was one of
Nena Gilreath: them, Giselle was the other. So with dancing
Nena Gilreath: the classics, once you're a classical ballet dancer and you get a certain
Nena Gilreath: level of proficiency, and if you're not the lead character, then there's
Nena Gilreath: a lot of standing and posing. So we were just standing on the side
Nena Gilreath: going, what's next? So we started to do the classical poses
Nena Gilreath: and then we started to add some, like, movements, isolating our
Nena Gilreath: bodies and our shoulders and our hips and adding that.
Nena Gilreath: And both me and my husband, because eventually we did get married, after he followed
Nena Gilreath: me to Atlanta, we both are social dancers, love
Nena Gilreath: to dance to R and B music. So we just thought about what?
Nena Gilreath: About a world where we take all this classicism, blend
Nena Gilreath: it up, mix it up and come up with a new formulation.
Nena Gilreath: So we also were at the Atlanta Ballet, and we're
Nena Gilreath: in a city where. It was a city. The majority of the people were people
Nena Gilreath: of colour. But people of colour were not coming to the
Nena Gilreath: ballet. It was not very integrated. Some of
Nena Gilreath: the wealthier black children could get their dance education
Nena Gilreath: from the ballet. So I would always say, where are the black people? The black
Nena Gilreath: children? Surely there are people like me that would want to be doing
Nena Gilreath: this thing. People like my husband, who was an athlete.
Nena Gilreath: So once we decided to leave the ballet, we decided to start
Nena Gilreath: our own company. But we were trying to at
Nena Gilreath: first get the choreographer, Louis Johnson, who
Nena Gilreath: choreographed the Wiz. We tried to talk him into coming to
Nena Gilreath: Atlanta and starting a ballet. And he said, I'm too old. A young
Nena Gilreath: person needs to do it. And we said, we don't know anything about starting a
Nena Gilreath: company. He said, you know the best part, the dance part.
Nena Gilreath: So that's how we set out on this mission. Had no
Nena Gilreath: clue where it was going to go. So my husband, I'm a big sceptic
Nena Gilreath: and at that time we were dating, so everything he said, I questioned.
Nena Gilreath: So he said, I think I have a name for this thing. I was like,
Nena Gilreath: yes, sure, what's it going to be? And I had my head all tilted and
Nena Gilreath: I had a little frown on my face. And he said, my two favourite forms
Nena Gilreath: of dance are ballet and ethnic. Put it together,
Nena Gilreath: ballethnik. And immediately I was like, ooh, he has
Nena Gilreath: stumbled on to something that I think we can really make great.
Nena Gilreath: So that's where we started. Yeah, because traditional ballet is very
Joanne Lockwood: white, very kind of colonial, kind of old
Joanne Lockwood: school European, isn't it? It's not. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: forgive me if anyone listening to this is really into their traditional ballet, but it
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't really excite me. Yeah, it's. It's very prim and
Joanne Lockwood: proper, designed for certain body types and certain
Joanne Lockwood: fitness levels and certain people Personas and
Joanne Lockwood: what I'm imagining listening and talking to you, and also the visual
Joanne Lockwood: identity that I see in front of me. This really fun, smiling
Joanne Lockwood: black woman with massive hair. You don't fit the
Joanne Lockwood: traditional ballet model, do you? From old. If you, like,
Nena Gilreath: never tried to. Well, I guess there was a time that all of us had
Nena Gilreath: to try to assimilate, to even prove that we could
Nena Gilreath: be in the field. So, you know, with anything, after you try
Nena Gilreath: to fit a mould and you don't fit, you just might as well blow it
Nena Gilreath: out. So we decided to just blow the mould out. I love the
Nena Gilreath: structure of ballet and what it affords. I love the
Nena Gilreath: absolute. I'm a systems kind of person, so I like things
Nena Gilreath: that you can replicate and build upon. But again, once
Nena Gilreath: you get to that level of knowledge and proficiency, what's
Nena Gilreath: next? So I found that I had become bored with the
Nena Gilreath: regular steps and I wanted to do more. And both of us really
Nena Gilreath: loved African dance and the drums from Africa.
Nena Gilreath: That's where it all began. So we both studied African
Nena Gilreath: dance and so we were like, what if we put a little mix and a
Nena Gilreath: little blend along with that? Soul music and R and B
Nena Gilreath: and Give something that will bring in other people.
Nena Gilreath: Just like you said, that we're not interested in the staunch
Nena Gilreath: standstill elitism of what people think of
Nena Gilreath: as ballet. So as we started to build our company, a lot of people were
Nena Gilreath: like, I hate ballet. So it became this problem that we'll
Nena Gilreath: solve. You hate ballet? Okay, we're going to show you a
Nena Gilreath: different kind of ballet. So we started creating
Nena Gilreath: programmes that were more accessible and so people could see
Nena Gilreath: themselves on stage. And so that was what we set out to do
Nena Gilreath: and it really became something very effective and
Nena Gilreath: very much exciting. And the other part is that we had to
Nena Gilreath: explore where there were all kinds of body types,
Nena Gilreath: not just one mould of body types. So we had people
Nena Gilreath: all sizes. We had very small, petite people, we had medium sized people,
Nena Gilreath: and we had some large, shapely women, and we put them all
Nena Gilreath: on stage. We took a lot of heat from that because people were like, those
Nena Gilreath: are not ballet bodies. So we were like, what defines a ballet body?
Nena Gilreath: We define it as a body that knows how to do ballet, but knows how
Nena Gilreath: to move effectively in space and creates excitement.
Nena Gilreath: Who cares if you have a stick thin body that's not
Nena Gilreath: exciting to watch, where you had these curvier bodies of all
Nena Gilreath: sizes? And it wasn't just black girls. We had girls that were
Nena Gilreath: Korean. They were from all parts of the world. One
Nena Gilreath: of our really beautiful dancers, she was tie, but she had a
Nena Gilreath: curvy body and she had hips and boobs, so she was always
Nena Gilreath: overlooked. But then when she came and started doing our
Nena Gilreath: work, people were like, I like the way that looks. People
Nena Gilreath: saw themselves on the stage and then people would come to
Nena Gilreath: our shows and go, I like this kind of ballet. I like this
Nena Gilreath: ballet. So I'm a complete ballet
Joanne Lockwood: novice. I know nothing about ballet other than getting guessing lucky
Joanne Lockwood: about Swan Lake. And I've seen famous ballet people
Joanne Lockwood: like Wayne Sleep in the uk, but I know nothing really,
Joanne Lockwood: apart from the Russian, the Baltoy Ballet Company. So that's about
Joanne Lockwood: my limit to ballet knowledge. So what makes ballet
Joanne Lockwood: ballet, you know, traditional? Is it around the
Joanne Lockwood: special shoes? Is it around the. Where you have to stand on your
Joanne Lockwood: toes and point your. Yeah, that's what ballet
Joanne Lockwood: is, is it? It's many things. It's a system
Nena Gilreath: that evolved from the Royal Courts, allegedly. But
Nena Gilreath: we also know that there was some travelling through Africa with
Nena Gilreath: ballet, so it's a formal process. And because where it
Nena Gilreath: evolved from, the costuming was very rigid and strict and,
Nena Gilreath: you know, the corseted bodices, so it was all about
Nena Gilreath: the port de bras and bringing people into the royal
Nena Gilreath: courts so that you could see the whole tradition
Nena Gilreath: and the formality of movement. But then it emerged beyond
Nena Gilreath: the courts, and people really started to extend and lift
Nena Gilreath: their legs higher, which meant that the costuming had to be lighter and
Nena Gilreath: change. So it's a formulative set of steps
Nena Gilreath: that are rotated outwards, built and steeped in
Nena Gilreath: culture. But now people are taking that culture and
Nena Gilreath: moving it to a different era where there are higher
Nena Gilreath: legs, more movement. They're blending it with other
Nena Gilreath: culture, blending it with other dance forms, so that it is
Nena Gilreath: more exciting. And I think we, as ballethnic, we
Nena Gilreath: had a lot to do with informing that evolution,
Nena Gilreath: because, again, you don't want something that's
Nena Gilreath: built with elitism, not affordable. And as
Nena Gilreath: you stated, ballet takes a lot of years of training to
Nena Gilreath: get at the top level, a lot of sacrifice, because for me,
Nena Gilreath: we're always in tight clothing, tight costumes to show and
Nena Gilreath: to reflect the body. So that means you're not going to be
Nena Gilreath: eating like a bunch of big fattening things if you're going to
Nena Gilreath: be on stage. And also, just like swimming and other sports, you can't
Nena Gilreath: eat a bunch and then use your body physically, it does not
Nena Gilreath: work. You will cramp up. So there's all those things that go with it.
Nena Gilreath: The highest form of ballet, you start with ballet or technique, soft
Nena Gilreath: shoes, and then build up to standing sur la pointe or on the
Nena Gilreath: tips of your toes. And that takes a lot of training and alignment
Nena Gilreath: so that you build the proper structure and muscles so that you
Nena Gilreath: can be strong enough to stand on your toes and be partnered by others on
Nena Gilreath: your toes. So really, it takes a good 10 years
Nena Gilreath: to really be proficient and competent in ballet. And
Nena Gilreath: then, you know, as soon as you really get there, then your body starts to
Nena Gilreath: age and you've got all this knowledge and confidence. But then, you know,
Nena Gilreath: just like a great athlete athlete, the wear and tear on your body can
Nena Gilreath: be detrimental. I feel like I'm pretty lucky because I started dance
Nena Gilreath: later. So I had a whole normal life before I started
Nena Gilreath: dancing at 13. And therefore, I was able to dance
Nena Gilreath: a lot longer than some of my counterparts, people that started
Nena Gilreath: when they were three and five. I didn't even dance
Nena Gilreath: until I was about hitting puberty. And that's another thing. When your body hits
Nena Gilreath: puberty and it changes. So there's so many things with being
Nena Gilreath: revealed through dance where your body is your tool, and as
Nena Gilreath: you grow up and your mind and your body expands, you have to,
Nena Gilreath: like, really grow into your new body. For people who start at
Nena Gilreath: a young age, so they start out with this young body. You go through puberty,
Nena Gilreath: your body changes. Then you have to learn how to move in an extraordinary
Nena Gilreath: way with your new teen and young adult body.
Nena Gilreath: So there's so many layers and evolutions of being like a
Nena Gilreath: professional, professional, proficient dancer.
Joanne Lockwood: So to me, correct me if I'm wrong, traditional
Joanne Lockwood: ballet is all about elongating limbs very
Joanne Lockwood: pointy as much in the expression, in the hands and the
Joanne Lockwood: feet. But the body is pretty rigid in the middle, isn't it? It
Joanne Lockwood: may be a bend over, but it doesn't really do. It's jerky, sort of
Joanne Lockwood: mechanical type movements. Whereas when I think about ethnic, danc,
Joanne Lockwood: tribal dancing, this is boobs and booty.
Joanne Lockwood: This is a full body experience. Less about the
Joanne Lockwood: hands, more about. More about the trunk, more about the trunk movement and
Joanne Lockwood: the visual. So how do you blend the two? Is this still the traditional
Joanne Lockwood: standing on your toes and the elongating with a bit of
Joanne Lockwood: trunk movement as well? Are you getting me so excited, Jo? That's
Nena Gilreath: part of what we started to do when we were talking about that swan leg.
Nena Gilreath: So we would be standing with our torsos more taut and
Nena Gilreath: rigid, and then we would add the undulation of the hips
Nena Gilreath: and the ribs moving forward, moving in ripples. In
Nena Gilreath: ripples, like the waves of water. So that's what
Nena Gilreath: was exciting for us because, as you said, ethnic dances, African
Nena Gilreath: dances, many of the other dances, the torso
Nena Gilreath: is empowered and it moves to the music and the structure of the
Nena Gilreath: music. So you have this polyrhythmic
Nena Gilreath: juxtaposition with the legs and the body while still holding
Nena Gilreath: balance. So that has been really the crux of our work,
Nena Gilreath: is taking this body that's trained in ballet and
Nena Gilreath: learning how to move it against both sides.
Nena Gilreath: So it's exciting. One of our most famous ballets
Nena Gilreath: is called the Leopard Tail, and it's a storey about a
Nena Gilreath: leopard that invades a village and he invades an African
Nena Gilreath: village. So part of the work in Part 2, or Act 2, is that the
Nena Gilreath: village women show their bodies undulating on top of their
Nena Gilreath: pointe shoes and the men using their torsos. So it's like
Nena Gilreath: a freedom of movement, a freedom of expression.
Nena Gilreath: We are no longer restricted to just this straight up body,
Nena Gilreath: but that your body can move like a wave from the top of your
Nena Gilreath: head all the way down to the soles of your feet. But the feet
Nena Gilreath: can still point, but they can also flex. So there's so much
Nena Gilreath: more freedom and expression as a regular person.
Nena Gilreath: So I feel like that ballet helped us to incorporate
Nena Gilreath: so many other people, especially people that just love to
Nena Gilreath: dance. I'm just, I'm going to have to try and find your website after this
Joanne Lockwood: recording and just, and just see some video on this because it sounds
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely fascinating. It's. In some respects it sounds
Joanne Lockwood: harder to master because you've got, you've got all the concentration on trying
Joanne Lockwood: to perform the traditional ballet type stances.
Joanne Lockwood: Yet as you say, get undulating, get your, your
Joanne Lockwood: body, your booty, your boobies, everything going in different directions and
Joanne Lockwood: get the expression. Because ballet is often expressionist as well. It's very, very,
Joanne Lockwood: very straight faced. But I'm guessing you're going to be really living
Joanne Lockwood: that in your facial expressions as well. I love that you're touching on
Nena Gilreath: all the things because joy has to be expressed.
Nena Gilreath: So when we started teaching the ballet with all these other mediums,
Nena Gilreath: the eyes became more involved, the smile, the neck and
Nena Gilreath: the head. Because in ballet typically we don't get to move our heads like
Nena Gilreath: from side to side or isolations of the head and the neck. So it
Nena Gilreath: brings on this whole joyous expression. But some of the people who were
Nena Gilreath: more balletically trained, it was scary for them at first. They
Nena Gilreath: couldn't let go of their bodies. And again, I'm going to refer back to the
Nena Gilreath: leopard tail because as we know with animals, animals are not
Nena Gilreath: afraid to turn around backwards, stick their booties
Nena Gilreath: up, especially cats. So the leopard is a
Nena Gilreath: cat. And part of the dance in a leopard tail, the leopard
Nena Gilreath: meets the leopardess and they mate. So part of the
Nena Gilreath: attraction is moving your body, arching your body up like a cat.
Nena Gilreath: So when we first did that, people were gasping, literally
Nena Gilreath: in certain markets and audiences, people were clutching their
Nena Gilreath: pearls. They were like, you guys turned your butt to the audience and you arched
Nena Gilreath: your back. I was the first leopardess and I had to deal with the
Nena Gilreath: harsh criticism of the people who were like very
Nena Gilreath: uncomfortable with their bodies. And then the
Nena Gilreath: celebration of people who understood the importance of
Nena Gilreath: that freedom that we were bringing to the stage. And, and it was a very
Nena Gilreath: complex time for me because we were a young company
Nena Gilreath: and we were trying to build audiences. We didn't want to alienate people.
Nena Gilreath: We wanted to be authentic and true. And with this ballet
Nena Gilreath: we were able to bring in all kinds of body types and we were wearing
Nena Gilreath: like catsuits or unitards is what we called. So they were slick
Nena Gilreath: things that were tight to your body. And again, as I said earlier,
Nena Gilreath: there are people with really small bodies and people with large
Nena Gilreath: bodies. But we said, what better way to celebrate
Nena Gilreath: people than to use a ballet about animals, because the
Nena Gilreath: animal kingdom, in fact, really, a lot of times if you're a
Nena Gilreath: bigger animal, you might survive the jungle better. So there were
Nena Gilreath: so many lessons to tell through this storey, the leopard tale, because we had
Nena Gilreath: the cats, we had the wild dogs, we had hyenas, we had
Nena Gilreath: snakes. So we could do the metaphor of how snakes come in and they can
Nena Gilreath: take you out. You don't even know they're there. And all of these
Nena Gilreath: bodies got to move very stealthily,
Nena Gilreath: using all the isolations of the head, the neck, the body,
Nena Gilreath: the torso. So it was kind of freedom that we developed. And
Nena Gilreath: the freedom was metaphoric in that it was not just freedom of the
Nena Gilreath: body from the ballet, but freedom of your spirit to
Nena Gilreath: express who you are and to become your authentic self.
Joanne Lockwood: I couldn't resist nipping onto your website as you were talking there, because I
Joanne Lockwood: needed to translate the picture you're
Joanne Lockwood: giving me and I needed to see that and I needed to
Joanne Lockwood: get a reference point, just to help me revisualize, make sure I was on the
Joanne Lockwood: right track. And if you're listening to this now, let me just,
Joanne Lockwood: whilst you're listening, nip onto this website as well. But bellehnic.org b a
Joanne Lockwood: l l e t h n I c.org
Joanne Lockwood: pop on there now. And there's a video sort of showing on the
Joanne Lockwood: homepage, isn't there? And it's. It reminds me of
Joanne Lockwood: the Lion King stage show where you have
Joanne Lockwood: the characters and I presume they're the leopards on the
Joanne Lockwood: show here. And it's beautiful movement, beautiful
Joanne Lockwood: expression. It reminded me so much of the Lion King stage show, the way
Joanne Lockwood: the human animal characters were interacting
Joanne Lockwood: with each other and sort of looking animal like
Joanne Lockwood: in their movement as well. I could see the leopard in them as they're moving,
Joanne Lockwood: but still, as you say, with that. That traditional ballet
Joanne Lockwood: feel in a way as well. And you name like the
Nena Gilreath: elongation and the lengthening, lengthening of the body. It still
Nena Gilreath: exists, but there's also the groundedness. So we have had
Nena Gilreath: guest dancers come from other companies or trainings. And
Nena Gilreath: what was difficult for them is to crouch really low, how animals get
Nena Gilreath: really low, and to use your arms, like paws
Nena Gilreath: or legs. So it's hard on the hamstrings and it takes a
Nena Gilreath: lot of conditioning to achieve that. And for the dancers, what
Nena Gilreath: was fun for me, there's an arts and crafts part because we have our
Nena Gilreath: pointe shoes and we got to decorate, like the leopardess shoes,
Nena Gilreath: to put the spots on it, and the gold rosettes the way the
Nena Gilreath: leopards or cheetahs have in the wild. And then the bodysuits
Nena Gilreath: have the spots as well. And then back when we do
Nena Gilreath: the really big stage shows for a long run, we would spread spray our hair
Nena Gilreath: gold, and then you would make your full. Learn how to do your full
Nena Gilreath: cat face. If you were a cat. If you were a snake, we learned how
Nena Gilreath: to do glitter scales. So imagine this ballet
Nena Gilreath: has given so much to us because it has so many layers of
Nena Gilreath: intricacies that people were interested. And even with the
Nena Gilreath: parents who were crafty and got away from it,
Nena Gilreath: they would help with the costumes and with the shoes. And it
Nena Gilreath: was just a really. If we go back to that centering, centering
Nena Gilreath: community through dance, that we all work together
Nena Gilreath: to achieve something great and to celebrate every
Nena Gilreath: type of body in our community. And not to say
Nena Gilreath: you're not good enough because you don't weigh 99
Nena Gilreath: pounds, everybody mattered. As long as you can move and that you're
Nena Gilreath: committed to the movement and committed to the celebration of
Nena Gilreath: the full community. I don't think I've ever weighed
Joanne Lockwood: 99 pounds. Maybe.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe the first six months of my life, but, yeah, I don't think. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: think I've ever built to be that. That skinny. No. How many dance troupes
Joanne Lockwood: are there performing this style? It presumably is beyond
Joanne Lockwood: just. Just your local one that you. You have a network across the States.
Nena Gilreath: See, I don't know how many are performing this style. There are a lot
Nena Gilreath: of companies blending, but I really believe we're one of
Nena Gilreath: the first and ones that continues to mix the
Nena Gilreath: ballet with the African dance, especially West African
Nena Gilreath: dance concepts, the ballet ethnic. We also have had the
Nena Gilreath: chance to travel to Tanzania
Nena Gilreath: for a couple of years to study East African dance, which gave us
Nena Gilreath: a whole different kind of sensibility of African dance.
Nena Gilreath: So we're hugely inspired by the
Nena Gilreath: African dance culture and the groundedness of it and
Nena Gilreath: what the simplicity of it is. So I think that's added
Nena Gilreath: a lot to how we view dance and community.
Nena Gilreath: Whereas, like, training with ballet is very
Nena Gilreath: specific, and to get to that level, I
Nena Gilreath: understand from doing it at a high level, it does require
Nena Gilreath: a certain sacrifice. But where we are, we feel like in order
Nena Gilreath: for ballet and this mixture to survive,
Nena Gilreath: you have to get other people involved and included and
Nena Gilreath: represented, or it's not going to last. There are too many things people
Nena Gilreath: can do. Like, people can just sit on their couch and experience the
Nena Gilreath: whole world. So you have to have something that people feel
Nena Gilreath: an affinity for or attached to to get them out of
Nena Gilreath: their house and in our case in Atlanta, to travel through
Nena Gilreath: traffic, to pay money, to sit still in a dark
Nena Gilreath: space, to be taken to another place. So it
Nena Gilreath: has to be something of great interest. It has to be beyond
Nena Gilreath: just the surface level of dance. So
Joanne Lockwood: I can see how the style is including
Joanne Lockwood: people who felt they would not be represented in a more
Joanne Lockwood: traditional ballet environment. What about the audience?
Joanne Lockwood: Are you. Are you tapping into an audience who
Joanne Lockwood: started with maybe a ballet, a traditional ballet type audience,
Joanne Lockwood: maybe that old school type? Are the audience coming with you
Joanne Lockwood: as well? Are you broadening the appeal, not just from a
Joanne Lockwood: performance point of view? Yes, I think we. I believe we are. In
Nena Gilreath: our 35 years, we started out, it was like two.
Nena Gilreath: Two dancers, a credit card, a mission and a dream. And
Nena Gilreath: now we have full audiences. In fact, we're gonna be performing this
Nena Gilreath: upcoming weekend with our ver. The Nutcracker, Urban
Nena Gilreath: Nutcracker, Balletnik's Urban Nutcracker. And the same with that
Nena Gilreath: ballet. We changed the setting to somewhere far away in
Nena Gilreath: Russia, to Atlanta's Sweet Auburn Avenue
Nena Gilreath: in the East. So we always try to do things that have
Nena Gilreath: cultural relevance so that we can celebrate
Nena Gilreath: many types of people and community. And this coming weekend,
Nena Gilreath: the theatre's a 500 seater. We have four
Nena Gilreath: shows. We added another show. They're all sold
Nena Gilreath: out with the exception of a few seats. So
Nena Gilreath: we've really worked to be inclusive and to invite
Nena Gilreath: people to enjoy what we do. And there's been generations
Nena Gilreath: of people that come to that holiday tradition, like
Nena Gilreath: families that are, like, for 30 years, they've come from
Nena Gilreath: the time that I was the brown sugar. So instead of being the Sugar
Nena Gilreath: Plum Fairy, we changed our character to the brown
Nena Gilreath: sugar, which is the sweetest sugar of it all. And we have a
Nena Gilreath: chocolatier instead of a cavalier, we have a big
Nena Gilreath: mama that narrates the storey. Because when we first started
Nena Gilreath: our Nutcracker, Urban Nutcracker, there were many in our community,
Nena Gilreath: they never been to a ballet, never thought about a ballet, not trying to go
Nena Gilreath: to a ballet. They said, I don't go to ballet because I don't understand what
Nena Gilreath: they're doing. So we added a big mama, which is your
Nena Gilreath: grandma, like, character, to tell the storey with her
Nena Gilreath: grandbaby before it starts. And now people feel
Nena Gilreath: like they have ownership of this ballet and generations
Nena Gilreath: come after generations. So it's a very big tradition,
Nena Gilreath: but we're also gaining new audiences as well. Wow.
Joanne Lockwood: It's. It sounds like a different paradigm, a different sort of
Joanne Lockwood: genre completely, which obviously it is. It's
Joanne Lockwood: ballistic. Which is different. So we talked about right at the beginning about trying
Joanne Lockwood: to create an inclusive art form to appeal
Joanne Lockwood: to a broader cross section of society, broader demographic.
Joanne Lockwood: Has it had an impact in allowing people with physical
Joanne Lockwood: disabilities, with maybe learning
Joanne Lockwood: disabilities, such as down syndrome, other people able to take
Joanne Lockwood: part in their own way? We are doing that. That's so
Nena Gilreath: interesting. We've had several of our younger students that are
Nena Gilreath: really family members or family related that have come through in our
Nena Gilreath: academy that have, you know, things that would
Nena Gilreath: prevent them to dance in some spaces, but
Nena Gilreath: they've been welcomed and it helps us to grow as
Nena Gilreath: instructors. Like, how do we grow to serve a population
Nena Gilreath: that wants to have artistic expression? And we
Nena Gilreath: continually do that because there are many people that are
Nena Gilreath: neurodiversion and you think about most
Nena Gilreath: creative people are. So for us, it's like another,
Nena Gilreath: like solving a problem that people could perceive as a
Nena Gilreath: problem to include people in. And again, as we talk about
Nena Gilreath: building audiences, we want everybody to be able
Nena Gilreath: to enjoy the art form. And the way that people enjoy
Nena Gilreath: it is if they've had their own opportunity to
Nena Gilreath: partake, it makes people understand it better. When you've
Nena Gilreath: been on the other side and you go, oh, it's not that easy. And maybe
Nena Gilreath: I don't want to go all the way to the stage to do it, but
Nena Gilreath: I appreciate it and I certainly want to see my friends do it. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm curious. I'm not a dancer by any means, but I do like
Joanne Lockwood: to feel a beat, to feel the. The vibration in
Joanne Lockwood: my body and allow that to express. Even as
Joanne Lockwood: an older person. I'm not as agile as I was in my teens and
Joanne Lockwood: 30s, but even still today, I like to just feel that beat, feel that
Joanne Lockwood: rhythm. And what you're saying here is this allows you to express yourself
Joanne Lockwood: in that way where there's still rules, there's still
Joanne Lockwood: a structure to the dance, but people can participate
Joanne Lockwood: according to their own ability or their own skill set or their own.
Joanne Lockwood: It's all about feeling the rhythm, really, isn't it resonating with that beat?
Nena Gilreath: Yeah, yeah. And you said that. So what I love about, again, our
Nena Gilreath: community, our ballets mostly the large productions, start at
Nena Gilreath: age 5. The oldest person typically is going
Nena Gilreath: to be 80, 81, because we create
Nena Gilreath: space for everybody. With the Urban Nutcracker, one of the lead
Nena Gilreath: characters, Professor Isaac, my
Nena Gilreath: husband Waverly, he created a space where
Nena Gilreath: Professor Isaac, he could have an entourage. And
Nena Gilreath: the entourage, they are older adults that like to dance in the
Nena Gilreath: community. And they have a special part where they come in, in one
Nena Gilreath: section and they do a dance with Professor Isaac and they
Nena Gilreath: exit. And that's been a tradition for all of our large
Nena Gilreath: ballets, including jazzy Sleeping Beauty. He created
Nena Gilreath: a part for them as the global dignitarians that come in,
Nena Gilreath: and they do a court dance. So, you know,
Nena Gilreath: once you got to stay moving, that's your circulation,
Nena Gilreath: that's your good health. So if you've been a mover and you're younger,
Nena Gilreath: you think about when people get older and they don't have the balance or the
Nena Gilreath: mobility, they fall, and that's your downward spiral. So we
Nena Gilreath: have a community of older dancers. They're in a lot of our
Nena Gilreath: productions. When we do outside community performances,
Nena Gilreath: we invite them. And they're also great advocates and great
Nena Gilreath: representatives of what dancing your whole life means.
Nena Gilreath: My mentor, Moselle Spriggs, is going to be
Nena Gilreath: 100 January 1st, and she taught dance
Nena Gilreath: and swam most of her life. And when we started Val
Nena Gilreath: Ethnic, she was one of the people that taught us how to put together
Nena Gilreath: a board of directors. So even just last week,
Nena Gilreath: I was on an interview with her, and she's outlived,
Nena Gilreath: like, a couple of her doctors. So it just shows you stay
Nena Gilreath: moving. It's good for you. It keeps your blood pressure down,
Nena Gilreath: it keeps your circulatory system, your respiratory
Nena Gilreath: system intact. So however you can move. And no,
Nena Gilreath: we don't expect to move the way we move when we were 20,
Nena Gilreath: but there's something to say about somebody who's 60,
Nena Gilreath: 70, 80, 90, trying to move to keep your posture
Nena Gilreath: in alignment so you're not humping over. And when you
Nena Gilreath: come together with your community to move, it is really
Nena Gilreath: inspiring. And then you'll keep doing it because you have somewhere
Nena Gilreath: to go. And then that really evades, like, the social
Nena Gilreath: isolation in which a lot of elders get
Nena Gilreath: depressed because they have something to look forward to. I'm going to
Nena Gilreath: go and I'm going to dance with my friends. I may be a little bit
Nena Gilreath: sore and have to get some salve or something to put on my knees and
Nena Gilreath: my hips, but I will have moved. And when you move
Nena Gilreath: scientifically, you know, you feel better.
Joanne Lockwood: You do? Yeah. We've. We've just got ourselves a new puppy, so a
Joanne Lockwood: little, little cavapoo. So I. I'm now doing
Joanne Lockwood: two to three miles walking a day, morning and evening.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, just that extra bit of movement. You feel good. It's incredible
Joanne Lockwood: for just clears your head. It gets you. Feels you got invigorated, something to
Joanne Lockwood: look forward to, to cause you to turn your PC off at the end of
Joanne Lockwood: the day and actually gonna do something different for a change. Yeah. Not rather than
Joanne Lockwood: just drift on. You threw the word swim in
Joanne Lockwood: there somewhere. Does this cross into synchronised
Joanne Lockwood: swimming? Cause that's a very traditional kind of
Joanne Lockwood: pointy toe, kicky leg sort of thing. I'm just thinking, could we
Joanne Lockwood: have synchronised bath ethnic in the pool as well?
Nena Gilreath: I think you could, because you could take that rhythm and use all
Nena Gilreath: of that dexterity and all that movement, all that rhythm
Nena Gilreath: in the pool. I think we could come up with something new and fascinating.
Nena Gilreath: Because you think about it, the linearness that you spoke of earlier,
Nena Gilreath: it's all, like, in synergy.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I think there's a. There's a huge
Joanne Lockwood: opportunity here. I'm speaking as a white person here who's been
Joanne Lockwood: brought up in a wild world where the norm is this and
Joanne Lockwood: listen to you speak, thinking, actually, this sounds more fun. This sounds more
Joanne Lockwood: exciting. And maybe we do need to sort of put more
Joanne Lockwood: rhythm into things. And synchronised swimming is definitely
Joanne Lockwood: needing. And maybe even some of the Olympic sports. We talk about the
Joanne Lockwood: Atlanta Olympics earlier, but we talk about some of the movements
Joanne Lockwood: on the floor with the ribbons. And the more rhythm with that, more
Nena Gilreath: rhythms. More rhythms than just waving a ribbon around. You could turn that into
Joanne Lockwood: a more expression and add your body to it. I
Nena Gilreath: love that. You know, what I didn't tell you is in 1996,
Nena Gilreath: Ballethnic was the only dance company that received
Nena Gilreath: an original commission to perform in the Cultural Olympiad.
Nena Gilreath: So we were able to perform during that Olympics. And we received
Nena Gilreath: a review from the New York Times. And then my husband, Waverly, he had
Nena Gilreath: choreographed a ballet that compares ninjas to
Nena Gilreath: ballet dancers in terms of, like, relating the
Nena Gilreath: stealthiness, the sleekness, the agility
Nena Gilreath: of a ninja to a ballet dancer, to this
Nena Gilreath: rhythmic music by Kataro. So that was able
Nena Gilreath: to be shown at the Cultural Olympiad. And then we worked with
Nena Gilreath: a choreographer from Burkina Faso, West Africa.
Nena Gilreath: She choreographed a ballet on Ballethnic. And she
Nena Gilreath: had never worked with pointe dancers because she had done
Nena Gilreath: mostly traditional West African and modern
Nena Gilreath: dance. So that was a whole exploration in which
Nena Gilreath: we worked about a year to pull together that
Nena Gilreath: synergy. And that allowed us for the first time to travel
Nena Gilreath: to Africa to train with Irene
Nena Gilreath: Tassambedo. And then she came to the States and worked with us a couple of
Nena Gilreath: times. And then we premiered her ballet, which was called Trouble,
Nena Gilreath: and then Waverly's ballet, Alonso, which was about
Nena Gilreath: the ninjas during the Cultural Olympiad. So that
Nena Gilreath: was, like, really amazing. And we met so many fascinating
Nena Gilreath: People. During that time, we met the president of Claremont College
Nena Gilreath: and he later on invited us to California to perform
Nena Gilreath: our signature style. So it gave us a lot of opportunity to
Nena Gilreath: travel nationally and internationally from this
Nena Gilreath: Olympic, global connection. It's fascinating. The more I'm finding out,
Joanne Lockwood: more we're talking, I'm thinking this is. This is amazing. Why,
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose I must have seen dance moves in a
Joanne Lockwood: similar style to what we're talking about here. But I guess I'd never come across
Joanne Lockwood: this term and phraseology about bad and ethnic.
Joanne Lockwood: And that, as you said, is kind of more down
Joanne Lockwood: to your brand of that. Yes. There
Joanne Lockwood: are other people performing their own variations,
Joanne Lockwood: blending dance styles with traditional African ethnic
Joanne Lockwood: dancing. So, yeah, I guess I see it all the time in
Joanne Lockwood: other areas, but never defined in the way you've defined it with
Joanne Lockwood: this core ballet blended with ethnicity. And I think that's
Joanne Lockwood: a really great way. Intentional. It's been an intentional effort.
Nena Gilreath: A lot of people blend ballet with modern or contemporary,
Nena Gilreath: but our brand is definitely the exploration into
Nena Gilreath: African dance concepts. And it's tough
Nena Gilreath: because it does have the opposites, because ballet is very
Nena Gilreath: lifted. The African dance can be very grounded.
Nena Gilreath: So for people to want to explore that, it really takes a lot
Nena Gilreath: of, like, put your ego to the side. You may look
Nena Gilreath: crazy because you're used to looking proficient and graceful,
Nena Gilreath: but now you're not going to look like that because you're dealing in
Nena Gilreath: a mode that you're not accustomed to. And you know, with
Nena Gilreath: anything, once you know how to do something well, it does not feel good
Nena Gilreath: to not do it well. It does not feel good
Nena Gilreath: to falter and to fumble. But you think about in life
Nena Gilreath: sometimes, when we go through our greatest trials, tribulations, and we're
Nena Gilreath: faltering, fumbling, when you come out of it, you really
Nena Gilreath: see that you've grown a lot. And so that's what
Nena Gilreath: happens. Like I always tell people, if you know and study with us, with
Nena Gilreath: this form, it's going to make your ballet better because it's going to have more
Nena Gilreath: air. Because a lot of times people that do strict ballet, they don't
Nena Gilreath: really breathe. But when you do African dance, when you perform
Nena Gilreath: African dance, if you don't breathe, you will be passed out on the ground,
Nena Gilreath: period. Because it requires a lot of stamina and a lot of high level
Nena Gilreath: energy and movement to the rhythm, to the beat. So if you don't learn
Nena Gilreath: how to breathe, exhale, show your joy, you are not going
Nena Gilreath: to make it. You're pumping some big muscles, aren't you?
Joanne Lockwood: Your thighs and Your back muscles are probably playing more than you would in
Joanne Lockwood: traditional ballet. And your arms, your arms, you can develop
Nena Gilreath: just beautiful arms from the arm movement because you're using your
Nena Gilreath: triceps and your biceps and you're using your neck.
Nena Gilreath: Isolations. Again, these are things that in our traditional ballet
Nena Gilreath: we don't. We're not allowed that liberty, that freedom of
Nena Gilreath: movement. And for me, it's like a really joyous place. It's
Nena Gilreath: like if you've ever been to a church, where they really do high
Nena Gilreath: praise and celebration is getting to that
Nena Gilreath: euphoric kind of feeling. And that's what. Back to the ballet.
Nena Gilreath: The leopard tail at the end, the finale is like about
Nena Gilreath: 8 to 10 minutes of just euphoric movement in a
Nena Gilreath: circle. The whole village dancing, from the very youngest child
Nena Gilreath: to the very oldest person, celebrating the
Nena Gilreath: joy of the village, meeting, like, its goals. Again,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm visualising this and imagine myself in the audience watching one of
Joanne Lockwood: these shows and I'm trying to contrast it with how I
Joanne Lockwood: would feel watching traditional ballet. I think traditional ballet, I would
Joanne Lockwood: probably be sat in my chair, very upright, very stern faced,
Joanne Lockwood: nodding gently and sort of. This is very interesting.
Joanne Lockwood: And I can imagine seeing your show and I'd be beating with the
Joanne Lockwood: rhythm myself. I'd be in the chair, I'd be moving, maybe even
Joanne Lockwood: singing along to some of the songs or whatever, and feeling that experience
Joanne Lockwood: with the people around me, feeling part of the performance,
Joanne Lockwood: not just an observer. So it's almost like a full
Joanne Lockwood: audience experience here as well as a performance. You're almost
Joanne Lockwood: leading the entertainment, but the audience becomes part of
Joanne Lockwood: that, that whole movement as well. Yes, it is
Nena Gilreath: immersive. And at the end of the ballet, what's so funny
Nena Gilreath: is people don't want it to stop. And we have done like several
Nena Gilreath: encores because again, in the leopardtail, act two is live
Nena Gilreath: drumming. So the drummers are drumming, everybody's upbeat, the
Nena Gilreath: audience has jumped up. Everybody's, like, moving. It's like a
Nena Gilreath: spiritual experience. It's immersive. Then the drums, the last
Nena Gilreath: beat stops. Boom. And you can just hear everybody just roar.
Nena Gilreath: And then the drummer started again. Everybody's back into it.
Nena Gilreath: Finally, like, as one of the directors, I'm like, no more, no
Nena Gilreath: more. We've got to get some water because we're exhausted. I remember
Nena Gilreath: when I was younger dancing the leopard tail. People would
Nena Gilreath: lose, like up to seven pounds in a week because it's very
Nena Gilreath: aerobic activity. So we would say it's
Nena Gilreath: almost like being a marathon runner. You better eat your carbs before the
Nena Gilreath: performance week, because you are going to slim down, you are going
Nena Gilreath: to lose weight because you sweat with the lights on stage and
Nena Gilreath: just the activity of it. But it is really by far
Nena Gilreath: one of the most exciting things that we have created. And we
Nena Gilreath: create it because the community needed it. We were
Nena Gilreath: working with my mentor, Mrs. Briggs, that I told you at Spelman
Nena Gilreath: College. And we wanted to create a ballet
Nena Gilreath: that did have the African drumming, the African dance, and that
Nena Gilreath: it could include every part of the community, not just ballet
Nena Gilreath: dancers. We wanted to be able to include the modern dancers, the African
Nena Gilreath: dancers, and we all wanted to come together to do something. So we started
Nena Gilreath: out with just a rough sketch and then eventually Waverly
Nena Gilreath: went away to do some Nutcrackers in Detroit. And when he came back, he said,
Nena Gilreath: I have a storey. And like, both of us are very
Nena Gilreath: fascinated by cats and their agility, because
Nena Gilreath: if you can make your body look like a cat, that is a real feat.
Nena Gilreath: So he made the ballet in Act 1 happen
Nena Gilreath: in the leopard's domain and then Act 2 comes to the
Nena Gilreath: village. So there were so many things that we could do, like really cool
Nena Gilreath: costumes that have a ballet aesthetic, but
Nena Gilreath: also that has the colour and the fabric from Africa.
Nena Gilreath: So that was a way that we could come together. So many, many
Nena Gilreath: cultures, blending our African, respecting
Nena Gilreath: our African tradition and that ancestry, but
Nena Gilreath: also our African American tradition and
Nena Gilreath: culture and then anybody in between, because
Nena Gilreath: all people have usually a culture or
Nena Gilreath: a way that they do things. So different people that came
Nena Gilreath: in, we would celebrate, like their parts of their culture. Our
Nena Gilreath: first, very first leopard was a Filipino guy
Nena Gilreath: and they talked about like their, their culture in the
Nena Gilreath: Philippines and how they did things as a community. So not only was it
Nena Gilreath: an opportunity to put together together something really amazing on stage, but
Nena Gilreath: to really work together off stage to create more
Nena Gilreath: understanding of how we do things. So as you've been through this
Joanne Lockwood: journey for the last 30 odd years, developing this,
Joanne Lockwood: what barriers have you found that you've had to come up
Joanne Lockwood: against that you had to overcome? Whether it is societal
Joanne Lockwood: prejudices, the arts prejudice. So
Joanne Lockwood: what are the big challenges you face and how did you navigate around them?
Nena Gilreath: Yeah, a lot of prejudices. One of the first that we
Nena Gilreath: experienced it was the prejudice of being
Nena Gilreath: youthful and trying to do something impactful
Nena Gilreath: and getting people to validate that. Because when we
Nena Gilreath: were started the company, we were in our 20s and everybody just
Nena Gilreath: doubted that we would stay the course. People go, oh, yeah, that's, yeah, but
Nena Gilreath: you're young, you want stay here, you won't keep doing it. And then
Nena Gilreath: 35 years later, we're still doing it. So we had that barrier
Nena Gilreath: and people to say, oh, but you don't know anything about business.
Nena Gilreath: You know, how can we give our money? But once we kind of broke through
Nena Gilreath: and people saw that we were in it for the long haul, we started to
Nena Gilreath: break through those barriers. And then also coming from the
Nena Gilreath: Atlanta Ballet, we had people that said, we don't need
Nena Gilreath: a black professional ballet company. Why can't you people
Nena Gilreath: just be satisfied and stay where you are and be
Nena Gilreath: representative there? We don't need you. So we're like,
Nena Gilreath: I think we do. And why can't there be room for more than one?
Nena Gilreath: And then the female barrier. When we would go and
Nena Gilreath: work and do jobs and get paid, people
Nena Gilreath: would always give my. He was my boyfriend
Nena Gilreath: first Waverly. They would give him the cheque. But I'm the one who took care
Nena Gilreath: of the money. So I'm like, wrong. Thank you.
Nena Gilreath: I am the money person. I add the finances.
Nena Gilreath: So so many different things. And then the body stereotypes that
Nena Gilreath: we talked about, the colour stereotypes, you know,
Nena Gilreath: it was always like, we were always trying to prove that we
Nena Gilreath: deserved to get the money, to keep the
Nena Gilreath: money, and that why did we have to work harder to
Nena Gilreath: get the money? So a lot of times in Atlanta, even though it was known
Nena Gilreath: as a black city, larger businesses
Nena Gilreath: would call us when they wanted something for diversity only.
Nena Gilreath: So it's like, why can't you just call us? Because we do good work.
Nena Gilreath: We want to be included in all the conversations, not
Nena Gilreath: just the diversity conversations. Of course. We know
Nena Gilreath: who we are and what we do, but we believe we do good work
Nena Gilreath: all the time. So you had that to deal with, and then you,
Nena Gilreath: of course, had the size and all of that as well. And
Nena Gilreath: then building or the desire to build an institution, to
Nena Gilreath: break through the systems and say that we deserve great spaces,
Nena Gilreath: a good building, funding, going to
Nena Gilreath: different meetings to talk about funding and about the
Nena Gilreath: level of funding that we desire. We don't want just a little
Nena Gilreath: penny when it's the black dollar. We want to
Nena Gilreath: be a part of the whole economic system because we pay our
Nena Gilreath: taxes like everybody else. So many, many, many
Nena Gilreath: barriers. And most cities, they only want one ballet
Nena Gilreath: company, one symphony and one orchestra, and that's what's
Nena Gilreath: funded. And because we just really were dogged at staying at it,
Nena Gilreath: we've been able to break through, but not to the extent that we have the
Nena Gilreath: funding that we really need to thrive at the
Nena Gilreath: level that we need to have the staffing. So it's been a Lot of
Nena Gilreath: personal sacrifice to the fact that
Nena Gilreath: we call ourselves personally, we're
Nena Gilreath: philanthropists because we give of our time, our money,
Nena Gilreath: our energy. And then also we get all
Nena Gilreath: the people around us in our families to contribute and to support
Nena Gilreath: in all the ways. So it's really. We've made a lot of
Nena Gilreath: breakthroughs. And if it wasn't really like, divinely
Nena Gilreath: ordained, we would not exist. And if we weren't stubborn and
Nena Gilreath: persistent to persevere through, like, really
Nena Gilreath: hard times, like, sometimes we've not had health insurance
Nena Gilreath: because we couldn't afford it. Sometimes we've had so little money
Nena Gilreath: that we've worked, like, several other jobs to give back to
Nena Gilreath: our nonprofit organisation because we just believe that
Nena Gilreath: the arts is a way to empower and to
Nena Gilreath: build transferable skills that people can use
Nena Gilreath: everywhere and still support the arts. I hear what you're saying. Definitely
Joanne Lockwood: around the Black History Month. We need black representation. We
Joanne Lockwood: want you become socially acceptable in the white
Joanne Lockwood: arena when we're looking after you because we want to promote
Joanne Lockwood: ethnicity this week or this month. Yes. But
Joanne Lockwood: trying to unpack that so that you become the norm, not
Joanne Lockwood: the. Yes, the celebrity act. You're
Joanne Lockwood: just. You're every day as you are in your own community. You want to be
Joanne Lockwood: everyday in all communities. You said it so well.
Nena Gilreath: You said it so well because it did used to be like, February is the
Nena Gilreath: shortest month in the year and people would want us to work every single day,
Nena Gilreath: do 10 jobs. And in fact, we started saying in February,
Nena Gilreath: we're very selective and we only get the highest. We
Nena Gilreath: only get the highest dollars in February. And I would even say to
Nena Gilreath: people, we will still be black in March. Can we extend
Nena Gilreath: the month? It's a bit like uber surge pricing, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: You're going to be 10 times more expensive in February because that's when white people
Joanne Lockwood: want you. Yes, thank you. Yeah. But actually
Joanne Lockwood: want you all year at Christmas and in the summer.
Nena Gilreath: Thank you. But I can imagine. And I don't know,
Joanne Lockwood: Valet. I'm not trying to pretend I do. And I'm probably playing to the stereotype
Joanne Lockwood: here. Whereas when you said that, the town said, there's
Joanne Lockwood: only room for one ballet company here. If I'm thinking traditional
Joanne Lockwood: ballet, there's a very small repertoire of
Joanne Lockwood: ballet performances. Song. We talked about Swan
Joanne Lockwood: Lake or whatever it may be. But what you're introducing
Joanne Lockwood: is a complete break of the mould. You're not getting another Swan Lake, you're getting
Joanne Lockwood: a Swan Lake reinterpreted. Or as you say, the Leopard Dance are getting other things
Joanne Lockwood: I guess you can also be more contemporary with more modern music and more
Joanne Lockwood: diversity of music and screenplay. Or the stage play can
Joanne Lockwood: be broadened beyond those. Oh, this is what ballet is
Joanne Lockwood: supposed to be like. We have to conform, we have to have these certain moves.
Joanne Lockwood: Our ballet artists trained for generations in order to be this
Joanne Lockwood: character. Whereas you can say, we don't need any of that. We can
Joanne Lockwood: be ourselves and create on the fly and evolve.
Joanne Lockwood: So there's room for you everywhere. I feel like you know us
Nena Gilreath: because really, you're hitting on so many points. The storytelling
Nena Gilreath: for us is about telling our unique
Nena Gilreath: storeys and being inspired by all kinds of storeys in the
Nena Gilreath: community. So it's not just the regular ballet
Nena Gilreath: canon that people would expect to hear and to see.
Nena Gilreath: We're always looking of new. Looking about new ways to
Nena Gilreath: tell things, to celebrate things. We worked with a playwright,
Nena Gilreath: Pearl Clade, and she has a ballet called
Nena Gilreath: Flying west, and it was the most produced ballet in
Nena Gilreath: the 90s, early 90s, and it was about migration from the
Nena Gilreath: south to the west. So people didn't
Nena Gilreath: know a lot about that. Waverly saw the play
Nena Gilreath: one time and he was like, if ever I get a chance, I want to
Nena Gilreath: turn that play into a ballet. So eventually we had a friend, Dr. Young,
Nena Gilreath: that knew Pearl and her husband, and he told her and she
Nena Gilreath: gave us the rights to change that, that play
Nena Gilreath: into a ballet. And we travelled to the setting, which is in
Nena Gilreath: Nicodemus, Kansas, travelled there, we rode
Nena Gilreath: horses with some of the original buffalo
Nena Gilreath: soldiers so that we could see how it felt to ride
Nena Gilreath: a horse and to really figure out how it is to move
Nena Gilreath: in the West. We created original
Nena Gilreath: score and we used black classical
Nena Gilreath: composers for the music. And even
Nena Gilreath: Pearl Clegg, the playwright, she came in and did
Nena Gilreath: this amazing voiceover for us and she has a very distinct
Nena Gilreath: voice. And we were able to educate about
Nena Gilreath: blacks migrating to the West. So it's a different way to
Nena Gilreath: educate our community on that particular part
Nena Gilreath: in history. And the show, where we fit in the history
Nena Gilreath: and the ballet was amazing. We were able to do the ballet all
Nena Gilreath: over the south and take really small portions of it
Nena Gilreath: to tell that storey to talk about racism,
Nena Gilreath: colorism, the plight against women in the west,
Nena Gilreath: and then what it took at that time to survive in the
Nena Gilreath: harsh elements of the west, that it took everybody, the Native
Nena Gilreath: Americans, everybody to work together to survive. So it
Nena Gilreath: was a really amazing venture. The end of the ballet,
Nena Gilreath: and it's a very interesting storey. We used techno
Nena Gilreath: music and we got an original band to come in and play
Nena Gilreath: techno. So we were doing ballet with techno and
Nena Gilreath: psychedelic lighting to show that one of the characters
Nena Gilreath: in the ballet that was trying to take the land away from this family,
Nena Gilreath: we had to get rid of him in a very different
Nena Gilreath: type of way by feeding him a special pie that had
Nena Gilreath: a little bit of lacing of something in it, because he couldn't
Nena Gilreath: be taken out in the traditional way with a gun, because that was
Nena Gilreath: messy. So there was like the. The storey is
Nena Gilreath: amazing. So that was an opportunity to tell
Nena Gilreath: not only a part of history, but to tell a
Nena Gilreath: storey where we could include all components of the
Nena Gilreath: community, from very young to very old. We had children
Nena Gilreath: to be. To signify the wind. So
Nena Gilreath: they came through and we had these costumes on it and they were like the
Nena Gilreath: wind. And then we had children that acted like
Nena Gilreath: tumbleweed so that we could really get all the elements
Nena Gilreath: of the West. So it was like such an
Nena Gilreath: extraordinary, fun ballet, something we were so
Nena Gilreath: proud about. But again, the storytelling can go
Nena Gilreath: anywhere because there are so many storeys to tell. So
Joanne Lockwood: you've done 30, 35 years. Hopefully you'll carry on for another at
Joanne Lockwood: least 20 while you're still physically able, maybe even 30.
Joanne Lockwood: So what's next? How do you bring this to
Joanne Lockwood: more people? How do you get more people involved? Is that the mission, to expand?
Nena Gilreath: That is a mission. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for being
Nena Gilreath: so perceptive. We are located near the
Nena Gilreath: airport in East Point, and most recently, our city
Nena Gilreath: council and mayor changed the name of our
Nena Gilreath: street, our portion of the street, to Ballethnic Way. And
Nena Gilreath: because we're very close to the airport, we want to
Nena Gilreath: make our place more of a destination.
Nena Gilreath: So before Waverly and I
Nena Gilreath: succeed to something else, we have some of our younger
Nena Gilreath: students that came up through the academy. They are running
Nena Gilreath: portions of the business now. So we're working to raise money
Nena Gilreath: so that they can not only they don't have to just survive, but
Nena Gilreath: they can thrive. We want it to be an easier journey for them.
Nena Gilreath: When we hand over the baton tag, you're
Nena Gilreath: it. So we're slowly working out our succession plan,
Nena Gilreath: wanting to renovate our building so that it's a more aesthetically
Nena Gilreath: pleasing campus. We own our building and it sits
Nena Gilreath: on a little piece of land and we own one whole side of the
Nena Gilreath: street, which is on Ballethnic Way. So we want that campus
Nena Gilreath: to be enhanced and for it to continue to be a
Nena Gilreath: safe haven and just a cool place for the community
Nena Gilreath: at large to come to celebrate one another. We're also
Nena Gilreath: working with an archivist to really focus on our archives,
Nena Gilreath: so people can pull up some of the things. A portion of our archives are
Nena Gilreath: located at Emory University. So we're trying to digitise
Nena Gilreath: a lot of those ballets, from old VHS tapes to
Nena Gilreath: digitization, so people can pull things up.
Nena Gilreath: So really the next level is just making it greater,
Nena Gilreath: making people more aware of what we do. And
Nena Gilreath: then for us, we want to continue to travel. We've had the opportunity to
Nena Gilreath: travel to Tanzania, but also to teach at
Nena Gilreath: the Dutch National Academy of Dance in
Nena Gilreath: Amsterdam. We've worked in Canada and
Nena Gilreath: taught and worked with Canada's National Ballet School. So
Nena Gilreath: to be able to continue to share what we
Nena Gilreath: do with the ballethnic style. Our great friend
Nena Gilreath: Mavis Staines, who retired from Canada's National
Nena Gilreath: Ballet School as a director after 30 plus years, I consistently
Nena Gilreath: talk with her about, like, vision for the future. So I'm hoping
Nena Gilreath: we'll be able to go back there and set
Nena Gilreath: another piece on that school. We were able to travel
Nena Gilreath: to Amsterdam, to Den Hague for the Holland Ballet
Nena Gilreath: Festival two years ago because Mavis
Nena Gilreath: was thinking it was a great thing to do when she was retiring. So we
Nena Gilreath: work with our company members and some of Canada's National
Nena Gilreath: Ballet School, their graduates to.
Nena Gilreath: They were able to partake in Waverly's unique style, which was challenging
Nena Gilreath: for them because they were really serious ballet dancers. But they learned
Nena Gilreath: some of the African dance moves in one of the ballets called Waltz
Nena Gilreath: Tango, which is a waltz, a tango and a gallop. And
Nena Gilreath: we took those live drums to Holland. So I'm hoping we
Nena Gilreath: can continue to do this global work. It's so much
Nena Gilreath: happening. I feel like we're on the precipice of a lot of greatness. We just
Nena Gilreath: need more funding so that we can continue to
Nena Gilreath: enhance our staff and give them the tools and support.
Nena Gilreath: That was a long answer. Right. As I'm thinking, sitting there thinking about
Joanne Lockwood: the global aspect of this, bringing in
Joanne Lockwood: Australia or Maori culture and ethnicity into
Joanne Lockwood: this or Pacific island styles of dances. So not
Joanne Lockwood: only an African aspect, but also Aborigine.
Nena Gilreath: Yes. The aboriginal First Nation from down there, from
Joanne Lockwood: that Pacific island, all of that part of the world.
Joanne Lockwood: They're, they're. Yes. And dance and music as well.
Joanne Lockwood: That sounds to me that's a real way of expanding globally to
Joanne Lockwood: get even more appeal. And I love it because, you know,
Nena Gilreath: it kind of tunes in with being a lifelong learner. So I
Nena Gilreath: think a lot of times when adults get bored or feel isolated
Nena Gilreath: or lonely, it's because they lack things that
Nena Gilreath: stimulate. I mean, look at, look at you with this podcast. You
Nena Gilreath: have this thing that stimulates your curiosity. And when you
Nena Gilreath: have things that excite you, stimulates your curiosity,
Nena Gilreath: it puts a certain energy in your body. And I think it just really
Nena Gilreath: extends our life and definitely our vitality. Right.
Nena Gilreath: So the more we can learn and the more we can be with other
Nena Gilreath: people to motivate us, it makes it even more like
Nena Gilreath: some days I feel just as excited as when I
Nena Gilreath: was like, 8, 10 years old. It's overwhelming
Nena Gilreath: to me. Some days I wear myself out like a little kid and then I'm
Nena Gilreath: still fighting to stay awake because I want to do
Nena Gilreath: so much more in the world. I feel so lucky that
Nena Gilreath: this art form inspires me so much. I love teaching
Nena Gilreath: kids how to find themselves through dance
Nena Gilreath: because it gives you your posture, your confidence, your
Nena Gilreath: voice. So that's exciting to me. And I feel like if we
Nena Gilreath: can make the world better by using those aspects of
Nena Gilreath: ourselves, what a gift that keeps gifting. Nina, we've
Joanne Lockwood: been chatting away for well over an hour in the green room and online here.
Joanne Lockwood: It's been absolutely fascinating. You said just now that
Joanne Lockwood: I was able to bring out some questions. I had some insight
Joanne Lockwood: here, but, I mean, before we met, I knew nothing about ballet. I knew
Joanne Lockwood: nothing really about dance. I knew nothing about you. So
Joanne Lockwood: it's been your power, your energy that's brought this to
Joanne Lockwood: life visually in my mind and given me the
Joanne Lockwood: inspiration to sort of dive in and find out more. So, yeah, all credit to
Joanne Lockwood: yourself about how you've. You managed to paint these pictures in my head. Now
Joanne Lockwood: I've got all these explosions going off and I'm. I'm going to cheque your website
Joanne Lockwood: out. I'm going to see if I can find some more examples on it. If
Joanne Lockwood: you've got a YouTube channel and other places just. Just to find out more. And
Joanne Lockwood: it's been absolutely fascinating. And if I lived anywhere
Joanne Lockwood: near or close to Georgia, I would be buying tickets to your next
Joanne Lockwood: performance and sitting there in the audience excited to
Joanne Lockwood: get my rhythm going and being part of that. That celebration.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's been absolutely awesome. Thank you so much. How can people find
Joanne Lockwood: more about you, more about the ballethnic
Joanne Lockwood: dance style? The easiest way is just to go@,
Nena Gilreath: well, ballethnic.org that's our website, so that's the
Nena Gilreath: easiest way if you want to see me. I don't post a whole
Nena Gilreath: bunch, but Nina, and it's Nina N E N. A
Nena Gilreath: leopardess, so the female version of the leopard. I was the
Nena Gilreath: first leopardess, so. And you know, I have that little
Nena Gilreath: snap, crackle and pop. And I can hiss if you get on my nerves.
Nena Gilreath: So at Nina Leopardis on Instagram, you can
Nena Gilreath: find me there. And those are the two best ways. And then on
Nena Gilreath: YouTube, it's @valethnic. So any of those. Yeah,
Nena Gilreath: we're always happy to entertain new audiences
Nena Gilreath: and to find new family members to join
Nena Gilreath: us. And again, we're near the airport, so if you're ever in town.
Nena Gilreath: I see, you know, you talked about Columbia, South Carolina. So if you're ever
Nena Gilreath: coming this way, again, we're near the airport. And then in the
Nena Gilreath: meantime, you can do a little bit of Port de Brasil and a little bit
Nena Gilreath: ballet on your own. I'm just. When you just,
Nena Gilreath: you can add some ballet arms. I can, I could do all this. Oh,
Nena Gilreath: you got the hands. That was nice. I love it. That's a bit
Joanne Lockwood: more Indian style, isn't it? So, like more Bollywood, isn't it?
Nena Gilreath: Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. I love it though.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, I've just found you on Instagram. I found you on Instagram. I just
Joanne Lockwood: followed you on there. Yeah, I found you at ninolephatist and
Joanne Lockwood: there's a video on there. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be sit there, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: gonna be doom scrolling your Instagram, your video feeds. And
Nena Gilreath: there's so much more. You have inspired me today. Like, I
Nena Gilreath: love that you made me think about things in a new way.
Nena Gilreath: And your perception about things that I, that we do,
Nena Gilreath: that I don't necessarily think about, but you pull that out. So I've got
Nena Gilreath: my journal over here. So when we get off here, I'm going
Nena Gilreath: to write down the things that I'm grateful for from this
Nena Gilreath: podcast. I have a lot of gratitude because when you
Nena Gilreath: think you can do, but if you don't think
Nena Gilreath: about it, you're not necessarily going to do it and be intentional. So you've
Nena Gilreath: put some new inspiration in my brain. So my hair
Nena Gilreath: is going to like fluff up even a little bit more. Bigger hair. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: What we need, we need bigger hair. That's what we need. It's superb hair. Anyone
Joanne Lockwood: who's listened to this, not seeing the video, then you need to cheque out Nina
Joanne Lockwood: and find her. She's got the most enormous big hair. It's
Joanne Lockwood: fabulous. It's absolutely fabulous. Love it. And you know what's funny about the big
Nena Gilreath: hair? As a ballet dancer, all the years, like in
Nena Gilreath: my earlier days, I had slick hair. We had
Nena Gilreath: to have slick, laid down hair. And I always
Nena Gilreath: straightened out the natural curl because that's what was expected.
Nena Gilreath: When we talked about in the beginning, the assimilation, we had to have
Nena Gilreath: straight hair. So one of the things when we did that ballet fly
Nena Gilreath: in west and we studied about moving from the south
Nena Gilreath: to the west, I decided to liberate myself and
Nena Gilreath: I cut off my straight hair and just let my curls pop out.
Nena Gilreath: And it's funny, it was freeing to me because I felt like I was no
Nena Gilreath: longer bound by that restriction.
Nena Gilreath: And so, I mean, there are times that I do straighten my hair, but it's
Nena Gilreath: such an effort that I just. I let it go. And I. I think about
Nena Gilreath: the hair is like, sometimes it really showcases what's going
Nena Gilreath: on inside my body. My energy is like, popping for sure.
Joanne Lockwood: I can imagine it would take a whole day in the salon just to tame
Joanne Lockwood: it. It's taming. Yes. It's free.
Joanne Lockwood: Like the leopard. Like the leopard. S. It's. It's out there on the plains of
Joanne Lockwood: Africa. Yes. I love it. The Serengeti.
Joanne Lockwood: Serengeti, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Nina, it's been
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I look forward
Nena Gilreath: to connecting again. I can't wait to see the episode and to enjoy
Nena Gilreath: some of your other 204 episodes.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community,
Joanne Lockwood: driving real challenges change. Share this journey with friends, family and
Joanne Lockwood: colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.
Joanne Lockwood: Got thoughts, storeys or a vision to share? I'm all
Joanne Lockwood: ears. Reach out to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
Joanne Lockwood: more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and
Joanne Lockwood: unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world, one
Joanne Lockwood: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.