In this episode of As Grandmother Says, Brinda Guha hosts a conversation with Dianne McIntyre and Darrell Grand Moultrie.
In this episode of As Grandmother Says, Brinda Guha hosts a conversation with Dianne McIntyre and Darrell Grand Moultrie.
Brinda Guha: Welcome to How People Move People, a podcast about the impact that our words, art, stories, and lives have on each other. Each series' journey unfolds in a sequence of six episodes, and Series 4 is titled “Dida Bole Je”, or “As Grandmother Says”. Thanks for being here.
Welcome to Dida Bole Je (As Grandmother Says), on How People Move People podcast, a production of the National Center for Choreography, Akron. I'm Brinda Guha. My pronouns are she and her, and I'm a non-disabled, cisgendered, caste-privileged, queer South Asian woman with roots in Bengal and the Jersey Shore. Lenapehoking is the land I occupy today.
I make things for a living and I bring together like-minded folks to make things with me. In this series, choreographers, grief and health workers, musicians, activists, and writers will connect with an artist in the same field but of a different generation. They will have conversations with each other, reflecting on stories of their grandmother figures, mentors, and guides, folks who may or may not have had the most profound impact on us, but who have always seemed to stand in the glory of their truth, their hypothesis of what's coming, and their reflections on what was and what could have been. In this shared time, these impactful artists will speak on their processes, their understanding of the times that we’re living in, and a moment in their lives when they fundamentally change their mind.
Amar dida bole je. We need beautiful things. What are your grandmothers telling you now?
When dance takes the big stage, I imagine that so many people from different backgrounds flock to the theater to be transported into a nostalgia that helps us reflect or a future that keeps us dreaming. And when we're lucky, we might get to experience what it means to be fully present in our bodies as a witness to other artistic bodies painting pictures and emoting words and notes and rhythms that have the potential to speak to our most personal instincts. To be able to assemble these bodies intentionally, to create shapes and stories that allow us to place ourselves inside and outside of the narratives before us, is a testament to the genius of very few individuals who can create a container that feels both safe and risky, kind and confrontational, beautiful and truthful.
Choreography is technically defined as the art of making dances, the gathering and organization of movement into order and pattern. But I'd like to think it's a bit more than that. Perhaps it's the art of gathering and organizing movement into patterns that transport time and space to the rhythms and silence dictated by the context of the story that's being told. What does it take to create choreography that moves people? What is it that we need to tap into when we're compiling ideas, textures, sounds, words, and movements so that those who experience these ideas fully embody the purpose of these creations? What do we have to negotiate when we are making something beautiful with many bodies? I feel that understanding choreography and feeling choreography are two different experiences. I, for example, can understand dances of water cognitively when I'm being told it's about water and hear water sounds and watch water movements. But I feel water when the choreography organizes all the elements into an emotion that quite literally washes over me. I understand dances of love when I read the program notes that accompany it, telling me that what I'm about to experience is a love story. But I feel love in my body when the choreography collects moments of tenderness and connection with that of care and compassion.
For me, it's one thing to understand what the choreography is supposed to say. It's another thing to feel what the choreography may have been designed to have me endure. Today, we'll listen in on a conversation between two striking and accomplished artists who every day exemplify the genius that is required to design works that continue to dance in our chests far after the curtains close. Miss Diane McIntyre and Darrell Grand Moultrie are master teachers, choreographers, performers, and storytellers, and they are both profound culture shifters in the world of dance and live performance.
Besides the awards, accolades, and acknowledgments for their contribution to the field, their work in concert, live theater, and commercial dance performance and education has undoubtedly created generations of remarkable talent in art making, which I would argue is the juice of legacy building. I'm humbled by their willingness to share this conversation with us, and I continue to be forever moved by the history-making work they create every day for audiences all over the world.
I can only imagine what their ancestors are telling them today. Miss Diane says, “I ask them, the dancers, to be as close to what it is that I'm doing or what they think I'm doing. And they have to make it so that it's not a step. Don't give me steps, okay? This is a flow from here and a pull. I always ask them to go beyond just your hand. And I also ask them to sculpt the space. Don't just have an arm go there and float around. If it's supposed to float, I'll ask for that float. Your dedication is to the theme of what the piece is.” Darrell says, “A lot of my concert work is rooted in gratitude, love, living in the present. I lost my mother during COVID. There's something about that that makes you want to leave people with pieces of beauty. And these are things we have to find and break into. If you come see a show, it's our duty to inspire you, to lift you.”
And with that, welcome to the episode with Darrell Grand Moultrie and Miss Dianne McIntyre.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: First of all again, I will say it over and over, this is truly an honor. Just to, it's like breaking bread through the camera. Just knowing your history, you know, to even do a dive into your history, it's actually overwhelming to, to, to say, how did she endure? How did you endure? Was there a grandmother or grandfather or ancestors who started this path for you? I never met any of my grandparents. God sent like, sent a grandmother figure to me through a public school teacher in Harlem.
Dianne McIntyre: Hmm. Who was that?
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Her name was Gwendolyn McLeod (McIntyre: Hmm). And she was at PS 144 in Harlem, on 122nd Street. And I met her in the third grade. And she just took me under her wing. She said, you're mine. She went to my mother and was like, he's gifted. My mother was like, take him. I was the youngest of five. And my mother said, he's yours. And she poured into me and became a major mentor and figure and a grandmother figure as I got older. She passed away at 91 in 2015. But she was my grandmother figure who I hear her to this day. I was wondering, who was that for you? Was it a parent or grandparent?
Dianne McIntyre: Okay, well thank you for telling me that because it sounds like she was not necessarily a dance person.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: She was a music teacher. She would put on musicals that were like, she put her heart and soul. She would transpose everything. She would write out the scripts for us for all different types of diverse musicals. And we would present them. Parents would do costumes, fabulous costumes. She had artists come do our sets in the, in the public school, elementary auditorium. And she would, my first show with her was My Fair Lady. And we had to learn, we learned the whole show, costumes, choreography. A choreographer came in on Saturdays. Public school in Harlem, she used a lot of her money to put these productions up. And they were well known throughout Harlem and throughout the school district. So she just poured into me and she, she retired after like 35 years when I was graduating. And she made me sign a contract that said if I got, did well in school and did, had good grades, she would pay for everything I did in the arts. And she paid for everything.
She took me to see all types of shows, Alvin Ailey, Dancing Theatre of Harlem, New York City Ballet, operas, Jazz concerts. She put me in dance classes at Broadway Dance with Frank Hatchet. She was with me through Juilliard and she did this for many students. I was the last student that she did it for. She took care of so many. It was like she was otherworldly.
You know, I was, I was just truly, truly blessed. And I kept my part of the bargain, great grades, always was, it was like drink water. That was like on the contract, drink water, September 11th, 1989, drink water, don't be late. You know, always do your best. It was very simple, you know? And if you do this, I'll pay for everything you do.
Dianne McIntyre: Wow. And she passed, you say, in 2015?
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Yes.
Dianne McIntyre: She got to see your work. She got to see what you blossomed into.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: She did. And she always would, I would always thank her constantly, but she always would keep saying, I knew you would go far, but I did not know you would go this far. And I'm so proud of you. There's so much stuff you did that you couldn't have gotten where you've gotten if you didn't bust your butt to get there. So she would take the thanks, but she would always throw it back to me. But I was always just so grateful. And just grateful for this, she was a grandmother figure. I called her grandma.
Dianne McIntyre: That is a beautiful story. Oh my goodness. I'm glad you told the whole thing and people are going to hear it on this podcast. So in my life, I'll say, okay, when I was a little girl, I was just dancing around the house to music or wherever I heard music because I'm old enough that at first we didn't have a TV, okay. But we had a radio, the music was going all the time, classical music or whatever was the popular music. And my parents thought, Oh she is just dancing. Maybe I was dancing in the womb. I don't know. I was just dancing all the time. And my father knew a family where their daughter was teaching dance. He knew that family. And my mother said, well, take her to Elaine. Elaine was one of the people in that family. Elaine Gibbs was starting dance classes. She, I would say, would be that person for me related to moving forward in the arts. So Elaine started dance classes in her mother's basement, and I was one of her first students. And I continued with her. She taught Ballet and other types of Tap, but Ballet was really her focus . And then, and then she moved into Corey Church, which had a beautiful gymnasium. All of these places were in walking distance to me.
So maybe it was three blocks or four blocks. It didn't matter that I was four or five years old. I didn't need an accompany. I didn't need an adult to accompany me to Corey Church, even though it was a big street. It was a different time. So I don't think parents are just like, Oh my goodness, I might be nervous about my child. Well, especially they're four or five years old. Anyway, at that time we could do that. That's a shift. So I took classes with her at Corey Church, then she moved to had her own studio that was Miss Elaine Gibbs. Later, she was married to her second marriage. Her name was Elaine Gibbs Redmond. And I studied with her through my whole, all the way through high school.
She not just cultivated me in the dance. It was also my parents were very supportive all the way through in thinking about the person who helped shoot me into the cultural arts area that was Elaine. And she also talked about the way we carry ourselves, the way we groom ourselves, not just as a whole group, but to me individually. You must do this and you have to do that. So it had to do with the, the refinements of how you carry yourself through the world. It was so beautiful.
And then I went to Ohio State University. I eventually became a Dance major, even though I went there first to be a French major. (Moultrie: Really?), At that time you could do the dance curriculum even if you weren't a Dance major. So I started with the dance majors from the beginning. I like, are you kidding yourself? Go on into dance. You, you love that. You've been dancing forever. So Elaine, later when I got older, I was able to call her Elaine. Okay (laughs). That was a little shift. You know a person you call them Miss so -and -so all forever. Then you have that little creaky period when it's okay. Yeah, you could call her Elaine. All right. Maybe that was after I moved to New York. She followed me. Everything I did, all my concerts at Ohio State, whether I was performing (Moultrie: Wow), whether I was doing choreography, she was there all the way. When I had my company in New York City, she was there all the way. She would come to my studio, see all my dances. She'd go, that one is wonderful. She would just like giving me that energy. She passed in August of last year at the (Moultrie: Wow) age of 95, at the age of 95. And two weekends ago, Saturday before last, we had a big celebration for her. It was so beautiful. There were people there who didn't know her, but they heard all about her. They heard the songs, they heard the stories. People who knew her in different ways. And we had a young man who danced at that concert. This is special because this young man, his name is Jaylen Black. Jaylen, um I was working on a piece which Elaine saw, I was working on a piece with Dance Theatre of Harlem. It was my first work on a Ballet company. It must have been 2017. It came to Cleveland. So at the end, maybe I bowed or if I didn't bow, they must have said my name.
Okay, this young man comes up to me in intermission. He said, hello. I don't even know if he said his name is Jaylen. He said, my grandmother is named Laverne. I said, Laverne Brown? I didn't know her maiden name, her married name. Well, he said, yes. Laverne and I were buddies in the dancing school with Miss Gibbs. And we had lost touch with the, I hadn't seen her for like 30 years. He called her on the phone (Moultrie: Wow) and then we became reconnected after all those years (Moultrie: Wow) . And she became reconnected with Elaine and with me. And so Jaylen is the generation afterwards who became inspired to dance by his grandmother. So he, and he knew Elaine very well. So it was from a person like me who studied with her from four years old back in the 1950s to him who was inspired by her through his grandmother . And here we go in 20, in 2024.
Another thing I would like to say about her is all the people, even though our community at that time was what you would call was mixed racially, eventually it, eventually it, eventually it was an all-Black community. At first it was all-white, then it became all-Black. But at the time when I was with her, when I was young, it was mixed (Moultrie: It was mixed) with Asian, whites and Blacks. At our dance school, we were all Black, which was in this very neighborhood. So we didn't think about it. We, we had a wonderful time. We had the, we had the, it wasn't like we weren't in Harlem or we weren't in what would be called the inner city. We had a wonderful time. We weren't missing anything. But later when I grew up, I realized that we would not have been invited into a dance studio run by a Caucasian dance studio leader. We're like, Oh (Moultrie: Wow) that's why we were all the little Brown children around the city all were with Elaine, but I learned that later. But later (Moultrie: Wow), I realized that it was not, we didn't, we didn’t miss anything. We had the best with her.
I'll tell you one other story about Elaine Gibbs Redmond. I now live in Cleveland where I came here to help my parents back in 20, 2003 and I lived in New York forever, over 30 years. So when I came back, Elaine and I got to talk very close and be together. She told me a story that I had never known. She told me that when I was a child taking classes at Corey Church, one day, Janet Collins, who was in Cleveland, she must have been here to do Aida because I saw Aida with the Metropolitan Opera when I was, must have been six. I said, there's a person in this opera and I look like her (Moultrie laughs). She's Brown like me Oh my goodness, and she was doing like a hundred fouettes. I'm like, whoa, I want to be her. Elaine told me that Janet Collins came and visited one of our dance classes. And she said, she pointed me out and told Elaine, you have one there. You have a dancer (Moultrie: Wow) in her. That was miraculous. So there would be my angel grandma in dance, Elaine Gibbs Redmond. Yeah.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: With her living such a long, fabulous life… easier to hear things she would say (McIntyre: Yeah)? You know, like things that, or do you get signs from her already? I get signs always you know through numbers and through butterflies….
Dianne McIntyre: Oh yeah sometimes through birds, birds also because my mother passed in 2015, the year that your grandma mentor passed. And then you say your mother passed not long ago in COVID.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Three years ago, yeah, she passed away three years ago in COVID. And it's been three years of just regrouping, you know? Recalibrating. And still trying to figure out what that is, you know? Who am I on this earth without my mom, you know? How am I navigating life without her? Having to, you know, when we go in rooms, we love to inspire and we have to inspire and lift up the next generation. But, you know, trying to find the way now to make sure you keep yourself lifted up while grieving or while sometimes not knowing what's next, not knowing if what you're doing is, it means anything or you want it to mean more or feeling like you're not doing enough.
And so it's been a very interesting time, as it's changed so drastically, and just how we're navigating our body space. So I find myself roaming through the city, finding sunspots, sitting and just breathing. I tell my friends I'm going to zombie out. It feels so good, you know, when I get those little breaks to just go rejuvenate and sit (McIntyre: Yeah), you know. If I'm depressed and feeling down, I go in that studio. I can come out completely different. Sometimes I'm dragging to the studio. Most of the time I'm running to the studio because it's healing me. How are you feeling now?
Dianne McIntyre: Okay, that is fascinating. I was talking about it today because I had maybe like five years ago or so, I had the very good fortune to be connected with somebody here in Cleveland who allowed me to come to Cleveland State University and just give my own self a class or warm up or with other dancers, whatever, whenever the, whenever the, one of the dance studios was free. And that was just great because it's these beautiful state-of-the-art studios they have. And a lot of times they were free. Open, what I meant, I don't mean, it was free for me related to money and also they would be available at times. So I had a regular times I would go there. And then something in the whole politics of the way that the department was set up, shifted. And so the people myself and another company called Groundworks Dance Theater were no longer able to come in and do that. So I'm like, okay, what am I doing now? I don't have that much room. Sometimes I do move in my space or do something on my, on my yoga mat. But there I could just dance and do, I do a class and then just dance, improvise all around. So I have to figure things out.
So I do, do every day, I do jumping jacks, do a series of jumping jacks. And then because I live in a two family house, I'm up and down those stairs. I never counted, I, I never counted how many times per day I go up and down those stairs. I never thought of it as exercise. But I heard somebody else say that, Oh when I go up and down with my stairs, that's my exercise. I'm like, okay. And then there's a hill and a park close to me. And I tried to go there every once in a while to walk that hill.
There are things that the body's talking like, what is, what is happening with this? Is this something that's gonna continue? Is it just for a couple of days? (laughs) Is it just like, you know, is this like, oh my ankle, my ankle? Oh my goodness, is this gonna stay like this? Oh my goodness. And then, and when it gradually goes away, you don't even notice that it gradually (Moultrie: You don’t). But you have to remember, I have to sometimes remember, well, thank you ankle, thank you hips (Moultrie: Yes), thank you. So I feel grateful for just my joints, my abilities to just be moving around, da da da da.
Brinda Guha: Darrell and Ms. Dianne talked a bit about their bodies and how it’s been feeling these days after experiencing a global pandemic and loss. Three years ago, I started my gym journey and it is the wildest thing. I hate it and love it. I need it and reject it. Ask my fiance: every day it’s an internal struggle to get there. And I have absolutely no excuse because my beautiful gym is…wait for it….across the street from my house. After the first year of just stalking people at the gym and seeing what their workouts looked like, I can confidently say I’ve found a routine that works for me. I just knew that if my performance career was not dead yet, that I needed to build my stamina in a way that allowed me to reach new levels of creativity. I pretty much lost my dance company during the pandemic so I was feeling so stuck and uncreative. My focus returned to body and mind, and the gym was my salvation. Therapy too, shoutout to Liberated Therapy for culturally sensitive therapists and an ideology that focuses on reflective talk therapy and dismantling cycles of shame and pain. Self-care is so annoying and so freaking necessary, I can’t even tell you.
I’m three years in, and I’m realizing that my relationship to my own body was exactly what I needed to clarify to prepare me for the stage again. Little did I know that it would give me the freedom to explore ideas outside of the internal experience I was having with back pain and low stamina. I systematically changed my physical reality, and now I’m facing new issues that I now have pivotal information for. I think about Ms. Dianne’s jumping jacks and stairs routine, and I think about Darrell running to the studio in anticipation of getting a creative idea out no matter what his hips are telling him that day, and I’m inspired by our willingness to center our vessel no matter what stage in life we’re in. When we’re in our body, we can source those sun spots in the street Darrell was talking about just a little more clearly. We can feel the window to our creativity open just a little bit more. From there, anything is possible really. Let’s return to the conversation with Darrell Moultrie, and Ms. Dianne McIntyre…
Dianne McIntyre: When my mother passed, she was a very funny person, like ha ha ha. Ha ha ha funny. She could turn a phrase and you're like, ma, how do you think of that? She would just, she, she could have been a standup comedian. And (Moultrie: Really?) Yes, and I'll talk about the times where she was so, she was so elated when Barack Obama was elected president. She's like, wow, in my lifetime, she said that over and over again, in my lifetime to see a Black president of the United States of America, because she was pretty political. My father was more, was more quiet about his politics, but my mother was just verbal. She'd come out and talk about it. Even though, even to Caucasian people, she said, you know, I'm Black. I'll go Black all the way, even though she was more not even that even that Brown. Okay, but anyway, when he was elected again, she would just beside herself like, whoa, okay, America, you are getting it right. The thing is, she did not live until the era after that.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Yeah.
Dianne McIntyre: She'd been talking about it though. I could hear what she's saying about it now. She would be talking.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Sometimes my, with the ancestors, and these, you know, these amazing people, these other teachers, I had another theater teacher who left early, who poured into me. You know sometimes with my career, I'm always just asking them, are you proud of me? I hope you're proud of me. And I, and I sometimes it can, you know, it seems like it could be crazy, but I feel like I can hear them just sometimes saying, we are very proud of you. I think you said it earlier that you just love choreographing. So is it, the gathering is that something that recharges you? If I’m depressed and feeling down I go into that studio. I love it. It feels like a calling.
Dianne McIntyre: Yes, I, I just love it. That's what I am there with the dancers and also over these many years have had the good fortune to be with musicians too. Sometimes it's one musician who is the composer and his or her instrument, piano or trumpet or whatever they play, and then the dancers and maybe a whole group of musicians. I’m just in heaven in that. And sometimes I come into the rehearsal, I might have a kind of sketch of what it is I have in mind, the shapes or the, depending on where we were at the previous rehearsal, like a kind of shape of how, where, where it's gonna go from here. I have to do a warmup with the dancers. It's not so much to, sometimes I have warmed up before, but it's not so much to make sure that they're completely warmed, because maybe they've done their warmup already, or maybe another person helped them warm up. But it's like to connect us all together in one particular mode, energy, in one particular energy.
And maybe, if it's pre, if we're pressed for time, like when we did this last event at the Apollo, sometimes it was just a short time before we had to go through a run through or spacing or something. It could, it could be something like 5 minutes or 10 minutes, but it's emerging and I connect with them. They connect with me and they also connect with the style that I'm, that I feel is coming out of my body.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Same thing, same thing is because to me, the vessels in front of you (McIntyre: Yes) are the ones that they're inspiring you in the present moment. It feels so good to create when you each, I think that's what's exciting about what we do is because every group of people, whether it's 1 or 600, they are completely different and need completely different things, you know? And bring out different creativity in you, you know?
Dianne McIntyre: Yes. That is what is so invigorating and, and exciting and just being there with them. They are the vessels. That's the way you said it was perfect. They are the vessels. And if you, I feel if I come in completely with, I'm not saying anything against the people who have everything thematically exactly what they must do in this rehearsal, some choreographers work like that. But for me, I have to be connected and feel the people. If it's one of his whole big group of people, and then that is where my inspiration comes from. They could be just standing there. They're not necessarily even moving yet, but something in their presence just says, okay, let's do this. Yes. That works (Moultrie: Let’s do this). Yeah, that works and then that's not exactly what I meant but I like it. Keep that.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: That's right. Yeah, exactly. Have you, you know, I feel like for me, some of the themes that are, they have been important for the beginning of my career and they will remain important are themes of joy, themes of healing. It's not about always entertaining cause that's a commercial aspect. But it's also about just people coming in, maybe if they were down and being inspired (McIntyre: Yes), feeling more in love with something. Just, you know, I think a lot of my themes revolve around what the audiences don't see. And it's going in and getting a dancer out of a, to move in a place they've never moved before, a way they've never moved, building their confidence so that in the building of them, it builds that transfer to the audience. It's a part that audience don't see, this process of building up this dancer to a place where they're confident enough to get out, transferring energy to audiences, to make them feel something, to make them heal. It's the stuff you don't see. So when you see this magical dancer, we had to get them there. And there's a magical hidden window that no one ever sees. That window I love, that window of coaching.
Dianne McIntyre: You are talking about two things right here. First, you're talking about what you pull out of the dancer of what is already inside of that person. And then open up into like a blossom, and then they just radiate out something and it goes to the audience. Something they didn't necessarily know they even had (Moultrie: Exactly). That coaching, and sometimes that coaching for me, sometimes it takes place over a period of time. Sometimes it's not, I mean, could be all happen in one day, because maybe you're not with those people that, that long, or it could happen over several weeks. And then you're like, whoa, look at them.
And for the audience, for me too, whatever the theme is, I always like for the people to walk away with whatever it is that they do in their lives. Could it be just, it, it could be an engineer, a teacher or whatever. Then something they take from that performance. They're like, Oh tomorrow I'm gonna do this in my classroom. The classroom could be about history. It's, it’s not necessarily about dance or music. And or it could be an engineer. I have a new idea. This is going to work with us. It could be a person that cleans houses. Oh this time it's something like just open something opens up. They don't even have to know that it came from that dance they just saw.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Cracking up their mind to a new elevation through, through art. They don't have to run and go dance. They can run into something that it just inspired them. I feel that's so important for us, like to remember that, to remember that we're sharing with people and not to get so caught up in our own personal head space. You know, I feel like there's so much narcissism. There's just so much, you know, look at me, look at me, look at me. And no one's really thinking, and sometimes we're made to believe that if we're thinking about the audience, we're pandering to them or we're catering to them. No, we're just thinking about their experience coming into theater and wanting it to be a heightened place that they leave where, like you said, their brains could crack open to new heights, versus just come in and stare at me and watch me, watch these dancers do this stuff, and I don't even care about how you feel, you know. Just look at me, look at me, look at me, you know. Those types of themes I'm trying to run from.
Dianne McIntyre: Let me tell you, what you said is just so true. What you said before about what you crack open something in a dancer and then they, sometimes they are a look at me dancer.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dianne McIntyre: And it may not be their fault. It may be that's how they're trained. They're trained.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: When I see that dancer, that's when I actually get, if you say like heated energy, like an excitement, because then I go, oooh I have a job (McIntyre: Yes). Now I have a job to help them find the real genuine person. So it's always, cause they, the best part is that they do come wrapped differently. So when you meet that show, you know, kind of like a show off dancer, you get to go, let's strip that and get to the real source. And to watch them change and go, I don't always have to do excess.
Dianne McIntyre: That's right. And sometimes, okay, say like if I'm having an audition, so the dancers I choose are those I'm going to be working with. However, sometimes the people are given to you. And, and you could, what I meant is they're a whole company. Like you work with, with many different companies. So you don't have to say, I'm not working with that person because they're a look at me person. No, they're in the company. So you work with it within the parameters of that particular company. And that is very exciting too, because then it influences the other dancers as well.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: I think the constant state of creation. No matter how old we get, no matter how young you are, if you're a person who is called to create, that just always gives me life. Like if I could put, if I had a list, that's the top of the list (McIntyre: Yes). I'm ask you a question too about love because I always wonder when I see resumes in there so full, where did love come in? (McIntyre: Mmm)You know, I’m trying to squeeze in love now or intimacy or, you know, but the choreography has been the love.
Dianne McIntyre: I could say that love is like this. There are certain people, I would say, with my relatives too. There are certain people that I have conversations with. There, some are other artists and some are not necessarily an artist. And I can be flying from those conversations. They don't even have to be in person. There's something that just in me, just like, Awwww. Just, it, it's, we could be talking about something has nothing to do with the arts. It could have something to do with politics, but not necessarily. It could be anything but there's a, a human connection that, that it could be and sometimes it's a lot about history. This it could be about the past but it opens up something and I feel very upbeat and joyous and it is a experience of love and it could be a person of different genders. And it could be, and it's that love and it's feel like, Oh yes, I feel, just like I say how the audience could feel leaving the performance. It's like, yes, I'm going to do this today. I need to clean that stuff. I need to do da-da-da.
I have it in about four or five people I talk with. That is where I find the, what I'd call that human, that human love. I don't have like a personal partner, so to speak. I do have a sister lives close by and her children and a lot of love I, I give and receive for them. When they, her children were growing up, I was far away from them in New York. I saw them only a couple of times a year. So now I'm closer with them. Since I've been here in Cleveland, we have these gatherings, these family gatherings. I like, Oh I just have to drop everything and just do that. So one year they said, what do you want to do for your birthday? I'm like, birthday? Well, but I'm in Cleveland. I said, I want to go to the park for a picnic like we used to have when I was, when I was growing up. It's those things that brings, that brings the love, the family love and these individuals either in person or on phone conversations that just opened me up to that love. Thanks for asking that question.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Definitely, definitely. It's really good to hear because you get to see the other side of it because we get, you know, people see us as creatives and people who inspire. So I'm always interested in like those moments of, you know, after you have these magnificent process, you know, these, these moments of creation, what is it like sometimes when it's over and...
Dianne McIntyre: Is it loneliness. This, I just got this when I did this piece at the Apollo. The Apollo's new, I have to pronounce it correctly, Apollo's New Stages at the Victoria Theater. Okay. We were the first dance company to be there. Okay, so it was so high, all the performances and the people, the people who were there and all the love coming from the people and the music and the dance. And it was just like, Oh wow. And the poetry is like, Ohh. And then afterwards I was just almost like… I'll tell you, years ago, when I first started, had my, one of my first performances was at Clark Center. And we did this performance. We were just moving and dancing and da-da-da. We had been working on it for months, of course. And then, someone took a picture of four of us. It was me, Bernadine Jennings, Lynetta Gaines, and maybe Dorian Williams. We all were sitting there on a bench outside the theater, and we were just sitting there with these roses, and our faces said, ‘Now what?’
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Mmm.
Dianne McIntyre: Now what? If they had been a cap, because we weren't like, Ohhh, everybody was gone. All the people had left. All the people, all the people who were cheering us and everything. Maybe we were slow, gathering all our things. And that is the beginning of those several days of just the…Now what? Now what? Now what? Because nobody is scooping you up and saying, Oh let me take care of you. Let me take care of you now that you did that. That was so beautiful. Because even if somebody could scoop you up, you would still have to go through that period. I think you still have to go through that period.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Yeah, it's a very real space. Yeah, you enter in and it keeps you human too.
Dianne McIntyre: Yes.
[music lyrics - Everybody can be somebody, and every body is free to make a difference.]
Brinda Guha: Being deeply connected to art-making is a process for me. I’m listening to Darrell and Ms. Dianne talk about this deep knowing within themselves that dance was their path, and I reflect on the times I wanted that affirmation from my extended family that I too, wanted to try and do this thing: dance as a career. You know, my thamma, or paternal grandmother, didn’t live with me, but I would visit her in the summers growing up. When I got older, and started traveling to India for some teaching and dancing gigs, she started showing more interest in my career. Before that it was all, okay dance is nice but what will you really do with your life? Over time, she realized with the help of my parents talking to her, that I actually wanted to dance for an actual living. Getting hired to do a workshop with the renowned Mamata Shankar dance company was proof that I had something to offer in her eyes. She started saying things to me like, “when you get married, don’t change your last name - you have a brand now!” or “did you get that price in writing? Make sure they pay you on the first day and the last day”. I was like, okay Manager Thamma! Listen, that woman made sure she got paid, ok?
I didn’t realize she paid that much attention to anything I was doing. I was basically out dancing all day, and came home for bhaat/macher jhol (riche and fish) lunch with her – but it was those conversations at the lunch table where I talked about my work where she started imagining my place in that work, and wanted to provide some insight into how I can hold on to my autonomy, be a tad business-savvy, and be seen as a professional in this field no matter how young or new I was. She would say, “kalker jonye thoiree hoycho?” or “did you prep yourself for tomorrow?”, or “bhalo kore khei nao, pore onek naach-te hobe” meaning “eat well, you have a lot of dancing to do”. I wish I realized how much our grandmothers were pouring into us. I wish I knew the depth of what their support looked like, that it wasn’t random or unsolicited advice - it was investment.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: If your teacher was here now, what would your teacher be saying to you about your life, about this moment?
Dianne McIntyre: Yes. She would be proud of me, saying, you keep on going with what you're doing. She had playbills and articles and photos of me that I mean that I have just seen recently since she passed. I'm like, Oh my goodness, they were some were a place that she had never, she was not at all of these events. I said, did I send her these? I think my folks did. Sometimes she said, my father, who was pretty quiet, she said he would come by. All those years I was in New York, he would come by and he would just sit. And sometimes he'd sit for a long time with no words, but that didn't bother her. And then he'd say, Dianne is doing this. She's doing this right now. And that would be the only reason for his visit. He could have called her on the phone, but he wanted to tell her in person what I was doing and she would be so proud.
One thing that she did want me to do and that I did not do, okay, when I came, returned to Cleveland in 2003, she had, I guess, some income from, I, I don't know, maybe for her husband had passed. I don't know where it was. She wanted to start a studio again and she wanted me to be the teacher of the young people and the and the thing is I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. I just she I was doing that kind of teaching around different parts of the country and in Cleveland but was not an ongoing like in a studio. Maybe I just had to be free to be able to go here and there. Even though I was here, really helping my parents, taking care of them, because my sister was close by, I still had a freedom. I could go here for a week or so, work with these people and teach in this university and that. So I was doing it not in the conventional dance studio particular way that she had in mind.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: When you think something's gonna be one way, so you have this, you have this multifaceted career. You know, is there a time, there is a, I think growing up in my 20s, coming up as a choreographer and, things were moving and they still are moving. It's a lot going on. But it's also people expect you to go certain routes and you start believing it. it should be this. And then you get fired from your first job and then you don't get the job you thought you were going to get or you don't get the jobs. You know how having to deal with that was something that was a, that's a, I think that's a moment throughout all of our lives that repeats at different moments of when you thought something was going to be one thing and then it wasn't and you have to recalibrate and go the other way and endure. So for me, it was moments where you think like, you should be working here and doing that. No, it's going to, this job is going to come a totally different job, or you're going to meet these new people and it's going to go the other way. You know, so I've had many moments like that in my life and they continue where there are things you could have wanted that you didn't get or landed on new places where you, you never thought you would be, you know? What is that space like for you?
Dianne McIntyre: Well, before I answer that, I want to ask you one question of something that you kind of brought up. What did you mean that some people would say, you should be doing this type of work? You should be doing what, what, can you give examples of what people would say?
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Yeah. It's like when I first started, right? So if I was, I did a piece for Ailey II, very early. And then I think I did a second piece for Ailey II, right? And then my career started going into the Ballet world. And then I did a third piece for Ailey II, you know? So I think I have, yeah, at this point I have three pieces for Ailey II. So it got to the point where many people were like, why haven't you done First Company? You know, and I kept going, I don't know. You should have done First Company. And I'm like, I'm happy over here. Of course, I would love to do a piece for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. It was one of my first inspirations, but it was the pressure of people from the side saying, how could they not have called you? How could they not, that type of stuff in my ear, you know? So when it came, it was just an amazing moment, but it will be things like that, you know? So they start making you question yourself, where you should be, what should go.
And I think that, that, getting older and watching my mother take her last breath has really been like that leveled out everything of like being content and saying, I am exactly where I should be. Everything I'm doing, whether it's a play, whether it's I'm at a school with young people, whether I'm with professionals, whether I'm with modern dancers, whether I'm with Ballet dancers, whether they're very technical, whether they're amateur, can't dance. You know, they're just starting out wherever I am. I have found this like peace of like, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be in my life right now. And that's that was a big moment of change seeds of change. You know, Brinda was talking about where I'm like, it's like a calmness has come over me. Reviews don't affect me anymore. You know, that's a special place to be in, you know, where it's just like I'm here for the art when you know you have the right mindset and what you want to do for the dancers and for the audience, nothing can kind of stop you. And you know that it all ends. You know, I think seeing my mother leave Earth, never having seen anyone leave Earth, like I was there alone with her when she took her last breath, it was like, Oh this all ends? And it started to feel like, what am I overthinking about? (McIntyre: Whoa)
And it was, so, you know, I'm interested to know, did you have that moment of like, when something, when it was a drastic, like I'm changing or…
Dianne McIntyre: Okay, so for me, I had a big major change. Okay, I was at a very young age at 25. I started my own company, Sounds in Motion, and we were based in Harlem. We're based in Harlem for many years. We toured a lot. We, the style was very clear and working with the live music. It was just, I really loved it. It, it got to be where I was becoming more and more just preoccupied with everything it took to keep the studio open, to keep everybody paid, to, I said, I had this studio because I wanted to just be free to any time go into the studio and work, to be here at 10 at night if I wanted. Nobody was gonna lock up the place and say, it's time for you to leave. I said, but wow, I'm doing all this and all other people are just in the studio. I, I had to contemplate this for a while and everything with the company. I loved the company. But I was tied into something. I was tied into something also of what even the funding people and the powers that be in terms of the arts, culture, world.
They were saying early on, it's not like that today, but early on when I started, people started having their dance companies in the 70s and 80s, and there was money for that. It was a way you were supposed to do. If you want to dance group, you keep it together. You should do like this. You should have a board of directors. You should have a this or that. And then you should be connected, I should be reaching out to these people. I should be reaching out to those people to get monies for this and to look at what I'm doing. People telling me that's what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be, and then the whole dance world. I'm like, this, this whole dance world and the intricate ways of people being connected with each other. And, and I'm like, am I connected with them like this? I said, I don't know. It was just bugging my head. And then I stopped. I stopped the formal dance company. That was a big change. It was a big change.
The dancers who were in afterwards, I was still working with a lot of the same people who had been in my company after that time. I closed the studio. I talked to all the funding people. I said, thank you all these years, the NYSCA, NEA (Moultrie: Wow), thank you for the support you've given me. The people congratulated me for the courage to do that, because it was the dancers had a regular salary. I had, it had built up to, up to that. Like I'm aspiring to be like a Paul Taylor or Graham or, you know, these, the old established companies and Ailey, they started that way before I did. They were entrenched. Entrenched is not a bad word. But in that particular form, that structure, I said, I'm gonna leave that and I don't have the people doing all that outreach and all. I'm gonna leave that, I'm gonna be free. And then being free, I felt free.
And I also continued choreographing with the same people I had worked with before. I brought in new people, but it didn't have to be like you're part of the company. And that is when other people started inviting me to, choreograph on their companies like Cleo, like Cleo Parker Robinson, Philadanco, and DCDC. They were inviting me and a lot more universities and colleges. They were inviting me because I didn't have that conflict they knew I had a freedom. And also they were also giving me some, some work as well.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Do you ever dream you would be where you are creatively right now, having done what you've done?
Dianne McIntyre: Oh I haven't even thought of it like that. Yeah, I just said more. I have more and more to do. And I like merging theater and dance with spoken word, because I have directed, developed theater dance pieces. I call them dance-driven dramas. I want to do more of those. I remember reading Donald McKayle's bio when he was maybe, maybe he was in his 60s or the 70s. I'm like, wow, this bio is very long. But the thing is, it probably was not as long as it could be. If you continue in this field, all of these years, that your bio has to be like that, especially unless you have had a singular company for all the years, you don't have as many different variations on what you've done. I was like, whoa, look at this bio. Look, it just goes on and on. I guess mine is looking like that now.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: It has to be that way because it shows us that there is so much more you can do that you can continue doing it through the decades and that there is a space for us to keep going. So they actually have to be long. They have to show what you have endured, how you have blossomed. I mean, it's actually inspiring to keep going. Cause I'm like, all this stuff we think we're doing and we want, you've all done it. And I really have to say this, is that when we do, you are heroes to us, right? And when young people come to me for advice, for choreography, this, I make sure I'm there for them, right? And just even talking to you today, when you meet your heroes or you meet people who have done so much and they're open and they're genuine and they're not, insecure and they're ready to help. And it is the, it's priceless. It's magical. I'm so grateful and it just shows who you are and we need more of it.
Brinda Guha: The pure joy and positivity that exudes from this conversation has fed my soul, I hope it’s done the same for you. Perhaps their grandmothers were speaking through them just now.
Dianne McIntyre: Dida Bole Je, as Mother always said, keep your finances in order.
Darrell Grand Moultrie: Dida Bole Je, Good, better, best, never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best.
Brinda Guha: How People Move People, is brought to you by The National Center of Choreography at The University of Akron, or NCCAkron. This podcast is produced by Jennifer Edwards, Associate production by Lisa Niedermeyer, and editing by James Sleeman. How People Move People theme music by Ellis Rovin, and As Grandmother Says theme music by Roopa Mahadevan Mahadevan. Transcription is by Arushi Signh, and cover art is by Micah Kraus.
For this final episode, I want to give a massive thanks to this episode's moving duo, Darrell Grand Moultrie and Dianne McIntyre. For the Penetrable joy and beautiful memories so generously shared with us today To be invited into their world of dance making and to meet their spirited grandmother figures is so important to me, and I hope for everyone else too. Gratitude to Anjali Roychowdhury and Bani Guha, my grandmothers. And a huge thank you to the cohort of creatives I brought together that held me accountable in this curatorial vision, including: Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Farah Yasmeen Shaikh, Barkha Patel, Sydnie Mosley, Stacie Webster, Candace Thompson-Zachery and Christy Bolingbroke.
Special thanks to The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for their continued support of NCCAkron programming. To learn more about NCCAkron, please visit us online at nccakron.org and follow us on Instagram or Facebook @nccakron. We hope you enjoyed this episode and encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform by searching for How People Move People.
Dida bole je…Free every person in the world fighting their oppressors, and listening closely for their grandmothers, too.