How People Move People: Back and Forth host Cara Hagan is joined by Dr. Julie Johnson, the Chair of Dance and Performance at Spelman College, and two of her undergraduate students, Asili Johnson and Anaya Hicks.
How People Move People: Back and Forth host Cara Hagan is joined by Dr. Julie Johnson, the Chair of Dance and Performance at Spelman College, and two of her undergraduate students, Asili Johnson and Anaya Hicks.
INTRO: 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. The first series titled ‘Back and Forth’ is hosted by Cara Hagan, a New York City-based choreographer, professor, and mother who explores the influence of pop culture on the lives of Black girls, from the1990s to today. Guests range from poets and thought-leaders to mom-and-daughter teams, to an original Fly Girl from the Wayans Brothers hit ‘90s TV show, “In Living Color.”
CARA HAGAN: Welcome friends, if you listened to the last episode, you heard my conversation with mother and daughter Tiffany and Rayna Christian. On this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Julie Johnson, the Chair of Dance and Performance at Spelman College, in Atlanta, GA. I first met Dr. Johnson at the International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference in 2017, where we sat on a panel together, convened by the legendary Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild. For those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Gottschild, she is arguably the preeminent scholar on Black dance in America. Since our meeting, I have come to know Julie Johnson as one of the most generous educators in the field of dance and dance studies, as well as an astute artist whose work engages community through a social justice framework. For this conversation, I am joined by Dr. Johnson, and two of her undergraduate students, Asili Johnson (no relation) and Anaya Hicks.
Dr. Johnson, I want to start with you. And before we delve more deeply into your work in the world, I want you to tell me a little bit about your childhood. What was it like growing up? Where did you grow up? Who did you grow up around? What were you watching, listening to, reading?
DR. JULIE JOHNSON: Well, first, I want to say thank you so much for inviting me into this conversation. I'm really happy to be here um uh representing the Department of Dance Performance & Choreography with uh the two of my students. Uhm but yeah, I uh when you asked me to join this conversation, it just sent me down this rabbit hole uh. And I guess I I, the first thing that came up was my uhm mother's daycare that she ran out of our home. Uhm, I think it was sometime between uhm ages 3 and 5 for me. Uhm and both she and my father were really such strong music lovers. Uhm and uhm my mom would always explain that music, dance, the arts were a vital mode of expressing the human experience. So, I remember these early days of dancing in the living room with neighborhood kids to things like uhm Motown—my father raised us on Motown—uhm and Joni Mitchell and Carole King. I remember having conversations with my mother about what is the Big Yellow Taxi song? And why would people want to pave over, you know, trees for a parking lot and think, you know, having all of these songs not only just uhm infuse in my body, these rhythms, but also a sense of like, uh social responsibility.
CARA HAGAN: I think everyone has a piece of media that stays with them more than others. So, in this moment, because I know it might change from day to day, week to week, but what would you say was the most influential piece of media to you and how did that media influence you as a mover?
DR. JULIE JOHNSON: Okay, so I guess I'll come back to the Fly girls uhm and Living Color, and watching those dance interludes in between the sketches. Uhm it was so exciting to me. They took up so much space, they were fierce, they were beautiful, they were powerful. Uhm, I remember trying to emulate some of those dances. Uhm and, and also feeling excited about seeing them do some of the things that my friends and I were doing just kind of playing around or, you know, on the playground or in a friend's basement or at parties, and uhm having it feel really legitimate. Uhm and of course, they killed it [laughter]. They did it so much better than us. But yeah, it was, it was inspiring, for sure. So that that stands out.
CARA HAGAN: No, I agree.That's definitely one of my big ones too, for sure. Hands down. I've mentioned it in so many spaces where people have asked me a similar question. And I always come back to the Fly girls. So now you're all grown up. You're this amazing artist doing work in the world and teaching the youth about social responsibility through dance. So, tell me a little bit about your work and how what you grew up with continues to influence that work?
DR. JULIE JOHNSON: So, I think um it's that sense of value and legitimacy that I felt watching the Fly Girls that is coming to mind right now. Umm and, you know, loving the opportunity to instill in students umm that their own embodied knowledge, that their modes of youth culture and their modes of cultural production, um are valuable, are legitimate, are just as important as uh any, anything that they are training in. Uhm and, and that that is very much a part of the training in the curriculum in our dance department at Spelman College. I had the honor of taking on one of our dance history courses that was created by Dr. Veta Goler are called “Black Presence and American Dance.” Uhm and uh and it is so affirming to look at all of the ways in which uhm Black—Blackness, Black Lives, Black embodiment, Black history, Black knowledge uhm is really at the root of American culture. That it is American culture. And so that shows up and our dance theory classes and our choreographic process classes and our technique classes – It's all there. And so, uh that feels really wonderful. And I feel very fortunate to be a part of that along with my colleagues in the department.
CARA HAGAN: Mmm. So, tell me a particular project that you are working on right now. What's going on for you artistically and how are some of these influences showing up in those spaces?
DR. JULIE JOHNSON: I am a uh Lead Artist and Director for a collaboration called Idle Crimes and Heavy Work. Uh this is a an endeavor that is taking place through my creative practice “Moving Our Stories” that amplifies or explores Georgia's history of incarcerated labor, through the experiences of Black women, uhm through their experiences, experiences of labor, resistance, and restoration. Uhm and so we are looking at uh the uh Progressive Era, right, so this uhm you know, the late 1800s, early 1900s uh where these you know laws, structures, uhm policies, uh emerge to criminalize Black bodies, to to incarcerate Black bodies, and to continue to extract free labor uh towards the building of the infrastructure of the South. Uhm and so, in this work, where we are, uhm you know, digging into archives, to find stories of real women and connecting them to sites around Atlanta, uhm that is, that are embedded with Black women's labors—labor in ways that might not be visible uh to the eye, you know, uhm in our, you know, or in our daily lives. Uhm and so not only are we digging into uhm you know, uhm archival collections at institutions, but also into our bodies, and understanding our bodies as archives. So, there are going to be lots of things missing from the archives about Black women's experiences, because the people who were creating these archives in the first place either didn't necessarily care didn't necessarily understand. Uhm and, and so we turned to our bodies to find what was missing, what may have been passed down, uh you know, gen-generationally. Uh and one of those things is, you know, how we can understand work and labor through our body, but also, you know, sisterhood, joy, uhm you know, things that have always been part of our story, not just the oppression, right? And so, when I think about uh dances that had been passed down to me, when I think about the dances that, you know, we created in our youth, uhm there's so much information there, about our, our, our lives, collectively, as uhm Black girls and Black women. So, it's, it's feels exciting to kind of pin those pieces together.
CARA HAGAN: So, Anaya and Asili, I want to bring you to into the conversation. Um so either well, either one of you start by just saying your name, and where you are in your collegiate journey, like maybe your rising sophomore, uh junior, or whatever you are. And tell us a little bit about what you're watching, reading listening to these days?
ANAYA HICKS: So, I can start. Hi, everyone, my name is Anaya Hicks, and I am a rising junior dance Performance and Choreography major woop woop. And some of the things that I am currently reading watching listening to right now. I am currently listening to a lot of like, old Prince like and I'm not talking about like “Purple Rain” Prince, like all the way back like his first album For You Prince like demo stuff Prince. And for me, umm it really ties into just sort of the cultural like melting pot that I grew up in, as like in my family and my parents are both musicians. So, we were always hearing like different styles and music in the house. So, I always like pull back from things that I've listened to as a kid. And watching currently, I'm on a social media like strike right now, because screens are kind of draining right now. So, it's a lot of listening and reading and books right now is All About Love bell hooks [Hagan: Hmmm]. Yeah.
ASILI JOHNSON: All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Asili. I am a rising junior, Economics and Dance Performance Choreography double major at Spelman. My father is a West African drummer but he's also historian and loves to talk and lecture and just enrich me with a lot of the history of music. So, I grew up on a lot of the beginning of Hip Hop, the beginning of Jazz, and my grandmother is a Jazz singer, my grandfather's a Jazz musician. So, a lot of that Black vernacular music has been in my life, ever since I was younger. I'm really in love with poetry at the moment. And I love \ Rupi Kaur books, bell hooks, Nikki Giovanni, and just umm finding those ways that those pathways of what they were saying how they enrich myself, but also, what do they make me feel, and where do I find these connections in my daily life and then how does it enrich my academic work and my movement as well as in school and where can I find those intersections. And as far as me watching, I am on social media a lot these days, in just on the opposite side of Anaya. I think because it inspires me a lot more like I find myself watching other dancers and other movers and seeing artwork and things and just wanting to always find those information in those connections with people and figure out okay, all right, cool. That's what they're up to. Alright, now, what can I how can I put this into my own my own work, my own things?
CARA HAGAN: Yeah, I love it. And both of you are kind of speaking to this – both lineage, of course. You’ve named so things that are totally not of your generation and things that are of your generation and of the fluidity with which we consume media. Right, like we’re never consuming the same thing at the same time. We go on different trajectories with what we consume. We have different periods where we’re listening to this really heavy and then we move out of that and listen to something else really heavily or watch something really heavily. So, one thing that I'm wondering is how what you're listening to or watching um follows you into your work with Dr. Johnson and other folks that you meet at Spelman? And you touched on this a little, Asili, which I really appreciated, so if we could talk about that a little more as a group, that’s be so wonderful.
ASILI JOHNSON: One of my classes on my first class that I took was improvisation with T. Lang, who is one of our esteemed faculty in the dance department. Um and I wasn't a big improv person before I went in there. So really taking that in and um allowing myself to be open at the same time was a challenge. But then it also made me the mover that I am today. And using the movement and retrograding. And moving in and playing with backspace, playing with the energy, the negative energy, that negative space, and still adding in your touches, but also watching how the other people in the class moved and took their own movement and added it in while also picking and choosing from what the other person did, and trying to one up or trying to, like, get into their movement style. So, all in all, I want to say that it's a really collaborative space. And whatever you’ve seen earlier in the day, or whatever you listen to you kind of bring it into the space with you and allow it to take over that day. That's what I've that's what I've witnessed a lot in our department is that okay, well how whatever I'm feeling today, alright? How can I put it onto the floor? Or how can I tell a story with it, and then move from there?
ANAYA HICKS: So, over the last year um we did a lot of things I had never done — my background is like I'm a competition dancer and I grew up like in you know, the glitter, rhinestone costumes and you wait for your award and you know, you get the badge and it says “Star Quest” on it and like you know all those things. I had danced in a cemetery with our guest artist’s first film and dance theater T’lonnie Marine who was very awesome. And that was an experience I had never had before, like doing site-based work was something I'd never hadn't experienced before. Um and before you come into another like, this is another ecosystem that we're all joining, and being a part of. So, coming in, it was a little bit strange getting acclimated to it, but at the same time, it's stuff that you all add into the language that we're all speaking and communicating with one another. And I discovered that it all, it all ties in together the moving body and the moving mind. They all like, it feeds off of one another.
CARA HAGAN: Absolutely.
ASILI JOHNSON: I just wanted to add really quickly to that, like something that I really appreciate about the department and about like just dance at Spelman in particular is we're movers and we're thinkers. But there's times where our professors will see that we're in our head so much, and they’ll tell us, like, literally put the academics down. Like, don't don't think, don't think don't, don't try to analyze just move and see what your body does. And that's what I like, personally, sometimes is that I'll get so stuck in, gosh, I have to write this essay about the Black vernacular movement, and the Black presence in American dance with Dr. J and I'm like, okay, like, can I put this down. Yeah, so [laughter] and but then when we, when we have those conversations the next day with Dr. J, and Professor Kat and T. Lang and CiCi, it's like, okay, were you able to ever put it down and just move and see what your body does. And then were you able to go back and reflect and do that instead of just trying to write, write, write or move, move, move, you have to put one down and pick one up, and then put the other down to pick it up. So, they give us that space and that authority within ourselves to make those conscious decisions. And, yeah, it's just there's not a lot of places like that anymore. And that's something very special about our space at Spelman.
CARA HAGAN: MmmBeautiful. Do you have anything to add to that Dr. Johnson?
DR. JULIE JOHNSON: I I I just uh feel very loved in this moment [laughter]. I appreciate the affirmations. Because it’s so great to hear. You know, your experiences, Anaya and Asili, as students. I tell my students, I’m I'm always learning from them. So, I, I am reflecting on thinking of it as Anaya said, as an ecosystem. So, every student is coming in with their unique perspectives and their cultural experiences. Um uh So every class is different, every semester is different, every academic year, is different. Um and uh to find the ways in which we all, you know, kind of intersect and build off of each other is one of the things that fascinates me the most.
CARA HAGAN: Yeah, and you know, what I'm hearing, ‘cause we're talking about Black people studying Black vernacular art. And you, both of the students, came in already with so much knowledge about things that are not happening in your lifetime, right? I think there's this perception that young folks don't know where they've come from, or don't know where the, the influences of the things that you're listening to, and watching and reading are from, but clearly, you all do. And clearly a lot of other young folks do too. So, when you're thinking about uh being people who are (a) already steeped in Black culture in the ways that you are and (b) studying Black culture through a critical lens, um how do you kind of reconcile those two parts of yourself? And do you feel like in your regular everyday life, not in your academic space, and in your academic space, are you seeing those connections between those things that you're seeing on Tik Tok? And the early Jazz music that you were listening to?
ANAYA HICKS: Um Okay, I can start on this. A lot to take in, um, when you're young, and you're into, like, certain things that are older than you, I feel like a lot of times you get the, you're an old soul distinguishing. And it then separates you from the rest of your generation who may or may not be consuming that same media. So, it's kind of a dichotomy, in a sense, where you're existing alone, outside of this peep.. outside of this group of people who are now in the know, for what is current and present, versus someone who is in the middle of a swirling sort of infinite universe. And growing up, I shyed away, I think my preference to what isn’t of this generation to what is is because in my home, like that was what was affirmed. And even though we had access to um television, and we were fortunate enough to have access to internet in my neighborhood, um we just as we got older, me and my siblings, we didn't really gravitate towards any of that, because we were all um by the point of our like adolescence in a creative practice. So, mine is dance. For my two other siblings, it's music, and then my parents are both musicians. So, coming into a public school setting, or somewhere where there are other people, other children, and you're meeting other folks that are your age. And you're asking people like, well, what are you listening to? And as Dr. J said, I grew up listening to Carole King as well. So, telling other kids yeah, I'm listening to Carole King. And my friends are like, well, who's Carole King? And oftentimes, I grew up in on the border of Washington DC and Maryland. So like Prince George's County area, a lot of times, like, for our community, it can feel like a, a pulling, like a separation from, like, you are a part of a certain group of people that consume a certain type of media. And we are consuming the normal media as far as like, what is hip and current to our generation. So, a lot of times, like I feel, I feel disconnected in a way from people my age, because I don't really, even now my adulthood, like I said, social media is my antithesis. I absolutely hate social media. So um, you're seeing a repeat of thoughts constantly over and over and over again. And it has me like thinking to myself, like, how do we develop public speaking or our own thought process, if we're all feeding off of this one parasitic thought that just gets vary over time over and over and over again, down your timeline every 30 seconds?
ASILI JOHNSON: I'm going to go off with Anaya’s last thought. So social media. And like Anaya said, we have a battle, it's a it's a push and a pull. And I sometimes I'm pulling teeth I'm like Anaya, I don't have to have the app on your phone, at least just go to Safari on your phone and just look at what I just sent you. Um and a conversation that I've had with Anaya is don't worry about the algorithm. Don't worry about so much of the feed, find what you can take from it, and leave what you can't. And you don't have to agree, you don't have to disagree, but just take what you can and if it inspires you beautiful if it doesn't, okay, like move on to the next thing.
I remember when I was, um, I think both Anaya and I are ‘02 babies, we were born in ‘02. And that was at the end for me, I guess in my household, my mother and my father are born in the 70s. And my mom is 73, my father is 71. And I grew up listening to the evolution of Hip Hop, and a lot of those things while also having Jazz. But the funny part is my mother hates Hip Hop, a lot of times unless it's like very, very old school. So, a lot of times when I was with my mom, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Al Green, John Mayer, like a lot of soulful R ‘n’ B music. When I had that influence, while also having Hip Hop, and very traditional West African music in my household, while also going to church while also being in different environments, and taking all of that in and saying to myself, okay, like, what can you do with this? And how does it affect you and inform you? And I think it was because of the music and the way that my family had me grow up it was kind of you stay true to who you are, and how we raised you, but at the same time, come to us with those questions and those things that you feel like doesn't resonate with you and we can have that discussion, that dialogue.
CARA HAGAN: Yeah, thank you for all that. And you mention, you know, public speaking and that kind of thing, and that’s movement too, right, like, you are moving energy and moving words, helping people to mobilize people. So that also matters and is a bit part of what we do in the world as artists. Um, and so, to wrap up, I'd love to know, what has everybody excited today in this moment? Is there a song that you are jamming to that you have on repeat? Is there a show that you are binging? Is there a book that you are reading all night? What is what is shining for you today?
ANAYA HICKS: Stranger Things is really popular right now in my household. And it started, we kind of stumbled on it. But right now, me and my dad and I think my second oldest brother, we're all binging Stranger Things. And it was it totally circumstantial [laughter]. Like it didn't we didn't plan for it to happen. But now we're on Season 4 and we started Season 2 maybe last week. So yeah, that's what Stranger Things for us, for sure.
CARA HAGAN: All right. What else?
DR. JULIE JOHNSON: I also bing Stranger Things in a show called Severance which is like really absurd and kind of dark and enjoying that as like uh an escape uh from reality uhm. And um I am enjoying the conversations around Beyonce’s new album and uhm like all those conversations around you know connections to House and remembering back when my friends like I I uhm uh learned a lot of House dance without realizing I was learning it from friends uhm and uhm so the these these conversations about, you know, what's new, what's old, what's coming back again, you know, what if people have you know, where they were in what spaces have things like house dance never died off, right? So just you know, the kind of the existence of these multiple spaces and experiences are super interesting to me. Um yeah, and I'm and as an educator, I'm enjoying what you know, Asili was just talking about and watching um kind of this generation navigate all these different spaces, and bringing their whole selves um in ways that I think sometimes when I was younger, I didn't, I didn't quite figure out for some time, like things felt compartmentalized. Uhm going to a party and being am I supposed to pas de bourrée and pirouette? [laughter] No, this is not where I do this. Uhm so yeah, having them kind of buck those conventions and norms is really fun to watch.
ASILI JOHNSON: Um, speaking of pas de bourrées, it was funny, I was teaching people how to do um I can't I think it was a Cupid Shuffle, and some other like, line dances and I was usually like,chassé, pas de bourrées and then you turn half turn now to the right. Yes [laughter]. Um that resonated with me real quick. For me right now, music-wise, something about the song “Rain” by Sunday Service choir, uhm which is Kanye West’s choir, that song has just been on repeat for me as well as “16 Shots” by Stefflon Don. Uhm those two, which are two opposite sides of the spectrum have been very just in my head a lot and on repeat and breaking down the music and listening to for different nuances. Uh show- wise it has been, which is crazy, ‘cause I should have watched it when it first came out, because it's making more sense. I'm a very big I'm a Marvel head and I'm a big Avengers person. So, I've seen every movie of every series from phase one to now. Uhm I'm watching Agents of Shield. So that's been me binge watching that, and it's making more sense now. Like all of the different movies and things with this series. It's making a lot of sense. So, yeah.
CARA HAGAN: Hmmm, Awesome. Thank you so much. That was really fun.
DR. JULIE JOHNSON, ANAYA HICKS AND ASYLE JOHNSON: Thank you. Thank you so much.
CARA HAGAN: Join us next time, where I talk hip hop, inspiration, and talking to the little girls inside of us with Michele Byrd McPhee of the Ladies of Hip Hop.
OUTRO: 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, James Sleeman is our editor, theme music by Ellis Rovin, transcription by Arushi Signh, cover art by Micah Kraus. I am Dacquiri Baptiste, Vice President and COO at Orpheum Theatre Group in Memphis TN, and a proud NCCAkron Board Member. Special thanks to The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for their continued support of NCCAkron programming like this. 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.