In this episode of Mid-Ground, Tara Aisha Willis hosts a conversation with Melanie George and Reggie Wilson.
In this episode of Mid-Ground, Tara Aisha Willis hosts a conversation with Melanie George and Reggie Wilson.
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. This series titled "Mid-Ground" is hosted by dancer, curator, and scholar, Dr. Tara Aisha Willis. “Mid-Ground,” brings pairs of dance and performance artists together in kinship around their roots and work in the Black Midwest.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Where are you speaking from right now? And I think that neither of you is in the Midwest, but when was the last time you were there?
MELANIE GEORGE: Well, I am in what we call New Jersey now (laughs). Um And um I teach at Rutgers, so I live near there in an area called Franklin Park. And um I was last in the Midwest, like, what, a week ago? Two weeks ago? Um And um I was there on tour, actually. I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Um But I am from Detroit, the Detroit area. Um And so I actually got to see a lot of family because Ann Arbor is only um 40 minutes away. Uh And am, and also while there, uh our group, uh the Jazz Continuum, um did a tour of the Motown Museum, which I had not been in in decades. And um and there's sort of some tangential relationships of, of that history to my family's history. And so, um yeah, I feel very, quite tethered to (Willis: Hmm) Michigan right now. Um I go back fairly periodically. Like my mother's gonna be 91 next month. And so um I go back I'd say, I don't know, I'm there maybe every one to two months to just (Willis: Hmm)check in on her and make sure she's okay. And, and uh yeah, I always feel like a Michigander. I always feel like a Detroiter. It's very much in, I think, in my sensibilities (Willis: Yeah). And uh when people ask me things about myself, that's one of the ways I describe myself, is that I'm from Detroit.
REGGIE WILSON: So I’m in New York and, but I currently live in Brooklyn and have lived in Brooklyn ooh, since the early 90s. And I'm originally from um Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And it's, as I was taught to say when I was growing up, a great place on a great lake (George says: “Mmm” and laughs). And I just, I just got invited to one of my dear board members' wedding, which will be in Detroit. And I've never been to Detroit (Willis and George: Ohhh). So I have family in Michigan a branch of our family that was really, back in the 50s and 60s, actually ended up (George: Hmm) locating there. And the last time, I had to look on my phone that I was actually in Milwaukee was last November. Most of my relation to Milwaukee is family and I have what many folks have documented as a gigantic family (laugh) and um originally from Mississippi and from Arkansas. And um they started coming up in the 50s and 60s. So most of my relations and reason for traveling to Milwaukee was and has been for my mom and for my family. But um almost like anywhere I go on the globe um for either research or for relationships, it's at some point I start reaching out or things start reaching out to me and creativity starts kind of happening. And so I, last 10 years or so, ongoing relationship with um uh Linden Sculpture Garden, in Milwaukee and um the director there, Polly Morris, has been a fan of my work in bringing me back and forth to Milwaukee as well as some other scenarios and situations.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Melanie, do you know where, like, what your family migration (George: Yeah), generally speaking, looks like?
MELANIE GEORGE: Great Migration paths are so fascinating to me because you can so easily track the southern city (Willis: Yeah) to the northern city, you know (Willis: Completely). And so because we are Detroiters, uh it's Alabama and Mississippi, which is quite common. And Alabama on my dad's side, Mississippi on my mom's side. And yeah, and, and my mother's side in particular has been very invested in tracing that lineage. And so like, we truly know like the, Mississippi city is Yazoo City. And, and my parents are like two generations older than me. My parents were born in the 30s and I was born in the 70s. And so I was really fortunate as a young person to just be around um people who had those stories, you know, in a way that I think that my peer group wasn't engaging with their elders in that way. So yeah, I would say that I don't necessarily feel connected to the South in that way. But, um but I do very much feel connected to the Great Migration narrative, and particularly Detroiters. Those, so my mom's family, they're Westsiders. And um just for the record, that Journey song about South Detroit. There is no South Detroit (laughs). You're Eastside or you're Westside (Willis laughs). My family side are Westsiders and you know like the Westsiders are like thick as thieves. Like everyone knows everybody (Wilson: Hmph) and so um uh and my mother, you know, I remember all the time as a kid like she would we would be out and she wouldn't see someone it would be like oh aren't you so-and-so's niece or aren't you so-and-so's. My mother and her sisters all looked alike and so she would get mistaken for the older sisters and, and, and um like these people were really in each other's lives as family, you know, sharing houses, and in rental situations. And, and um so that Motown thing that I was talking about, Barry Gordon, the founder of Motown, also a Westsider. And so his little sister was in my mom, my grandmother's wedding. We have a photo of it (Willis: Wow). And it's just like, it's, it’s, it’s really been fresh in my mind lately because um I've lost a couple of uncles in the past few months. They live very long on my mom's side, so they were each very close to 100. But yeah, that sort of, that connection to family is, is Detroit. Like that network of family, of extended family and, and blood family, found family, all feels very much part of the, my Midwestern, my understanding of being a Detroiter and by extension a Midwesterner. And it's interesting hearing you talk about, Reggie, going to Milwaukee, and you're there for family and also there's this connection to work. I don't work when I go to Detroit. Like, it's like a whole other (Wilson: Hmm), I don't think anyone there knows me in that way. I'm not even, I’m not even sure my family knows what I do, to be honest (laughs), but, but, or understands it. They know that I'm doing things, but (Wilson: Yeah).
TARA AISHA WILLIS: I think we can all, we can relate to that (Laughs).
MELANIE GEORGE: (Laughs). But I have had occasion to work in, you know, the surrounding big Great Migration cities: Milwaukee and Minneapolis and Chicago and um uh uh Indianapolis. And it's so interesting because whenever I'm called to go to one of those cities, I get there and I'm always like, oh, I recognize this place. Like it, it (Willis: Yeah) feels so familiar (Wilson: Yeah). Those cities, those cities as Black cities feel so familiar to my understanding about like how to live in a place, you know. And as someone who's a nester (Willis: Mm-hmm), it's always very comforting when I get to work in those cities because I don't have the adjustment period trying to figure out how to settle (Wilson: Hmm). Um It takes me a minute to like get myself settled in a new place even if I'm there short term. And so um I feel a real affinity to those cities and I'm quite frankly, I've often said if I thought I could do the work that I'm doing now and still live in Detroit, I would move back. I would absolutely do it (Willis: Yeah). Um I don't think that those two things are necessarily compatible (Wilson: Hmm), at least not in the way that I want them to be. I left Michigan when I was 27, I believe, um to go to graduate school in DC, and I remember being in DC and just feeling like, aah, I don't know. You know? (everyone laughs) Like, I don't know about this (laughs). This is so different, you know. The Detroit that I love (Wilson laughs), from that time, that younger me, you could walk into a bar and you would come out with a new friend who was like literally your friend, friend and you would hang out and you would have a relationship. And DC was so not that. And it took me a long time to like find my people there (Wilson: Mm-hmm) because just the way, just the way you introduce yourself is so different (Wilson: The culture is so different). Yes. Oh different (Wilson: Yeah), you know.
REGGIE WILSON: The East Coast thing. Sorry for, did you (George: No. Go ahead), when did you, when did you, you said you didn't leave Detroit, like, to live until you were 27? (George: Yes) Okay. I left Milwaukee when I was 17 (George laughs).
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Yeah.
REGGIE WILSON: So that's also another (Willis: Another thing. Yeah), a big difference, yeah.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: But, yeah, yeah.
MELANIE GEORGE: Yes. I was a fully formed adult when I left (Wilson: Yeah). Um uh And I remember I cried like a baby because I had never lived anywhere but there. I just cried so hard (Willis: Yeah) right before I left. Um and every time I go home, I'm just like, oh yeah, even though there's things about it that are different. You know, architecture changes. Detroit truly as a city has dramatically changed over, you know, the past several decades because of the way the auto industry has changed (Wilson: Yeah). It's such a driver of how that city functions or functioned. Um uh But yeah, I go home and I'm just like, oh, I remember, feel settled in my bones when I'm here, you know. I just, I breathe a little bit easier. I think honestly has something to do with like, being near my mother, like I sleep better when I'm near my mom, you know? And that is something that's become very clear to me, cause I'm an insomniac and I sleep better when I'm there. And um, and the only other place um that I felt something related, not quite the same, as I feel that same sense of like my, my heartbeat slowing down, when I go to New Orleans, for reasons that (Willis: Hmm) I'm not clear about. I feel my Midwestern-ness all the time. I feel like it's shaped my social behavior and it shaped my understanding of Blackness.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: So my next question was gonna be like, what is the Black Midwest for you? Does that mean anything to you? And how has it inflected or not, or sat next to your practices as creative people?
MELANIE GEORGE: Mmm.
REGGIE WILSON: Wow. There's something about me having left Milwaukee at such a young age, even though I would come back, you know, anywhere from two to four times during the year, um, until the last few years. So I've always, I've never been able to define Mid, like Midwesternist and Black Midwesternist and the thing. And, um, whenever I've had the opportunity to bring my dance company to Milwaukee specifically, it's, it’s been like a fact-finding thing for me. It's just like, can you think, do you see this? Can you name this? So Melanie, that thing that you're talking about that you can't name or articulate, it's, it’s also, and I don't know enough about linguistics to remember what that, like the Midwestern accent was kind of like the standard, like the belief that there is no accent. And so like the (George: Right) Black Midwestern accent (Willis: Yeah) in relationship to the East Coast sounds kind of Southern.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Mm-hmm.
REGGIE WILSON: But then when you go down South, you realize (George: It's not) oh, it's not Southern at all (laughs) (George: I know. Yes. Yes). And so I've struggled, and with the mix of folks that are in my company, I always kind of use them as like in my own little internal lab. I don't even have to call it internal, but like a little lab where it's just like, okay, this is interesting to me as an African American, do you think that this is weird or interesting or great? And they would always be like, yeah, there's some... And so the only thing I've come up with calling it is like non-ness. Like there's a... There's... It's like that, it's just like, it is. There's an is-ness and there's kind of just like, but it's not... like pushing in your face-ness (George: Mmm). It's, there's a relating, there's a support, there's a manner, there's a way of being, there's a knowing within. I can't, I... So I feel like I'm at loss. I've been at loss for words so far. And the folks in my company, or folks that I've related to when I'm able to get them in Milwaukee, I'm like, do you see this? Do you see this? Do you, can you, do you, they're like, oh, yeah, that doesn't happen. Or I don't, I've never seen that before. Or I don't know what's going on here. And I, listen, I was gonna talk about Steppin (Willis: Mm-hmm), because there was a period of time where I was really, where I kind of had like an epiphany and discovered my cousin took me out to a club and I was just like, what, what are they doing? What is that? (laugh) It was nighttime. But the club didn't like have like club lights. It was kind of, like the lights in my head were on. You know what I mean? Like it wasn't like (George: Hmm) dark like a club, like a New York kind of club, a disco, you know. It was like young, young people there and old, old people there and they were stepping and it just looked slower and it was hand dancing (George: Yeah). And I had been throughout the Caribbean and throughout Africa and the places and I'd seen couple dancing, but this, and like the way you don't look, the couples don't really look at each other. They're feeling each other (George: Mm). Like it's a non-ness that is like the quality of being able to relate without making a show about it, and the way you kind of, it's slower than you would ever think anybody should be moving together (laughs). And I was just like, what is this in my own backyard that I have had no idea? I've been traveling across the globe looking for different Black culture. And here is an entire articulated universe. That became a foundation of a lot of knowledge. So the research part of it, a lot of self-reflection and discovery. But it was specifically, the piece I was working on was called The Tail, Npinpee Nckutchie and the Tail of the Golden Dek. I started taking little stepping classes, got, you know, went to some of the stepping competitions and got all line dance crazy. And anytime I was making any kind of work during that period, I was trying to play with that material. I played with it down in Trinidad. I played with it in California. I played with it, I mean like in dance contexts. I'm sure I did some teaching and stuff in Europe like playing around with that and thinking about it in relationship to um social dancing cause most of my research and focus had been more in religious kind of context in the African diaspora, so I hadn't spent that much time thinking about salsa and merengue and other hand dancing kind of things. Like the last kind of flash in my head and experience was probably back remembering disco (laughs), disco dancing.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Okay, Melanie, do you have thoughts? The Black Midwest and its influence on you.
MELANIE GEORGE: My understanding of a Black Midwest is grounded in, of, how do I say this, it's grounded in an awareness of Black people in the 20th century in America, like specifically, the 20th century. And that also being the, you know, time in which I was born as well, the late 20th century, but like that feels very specific to me, like particularly looking at America in that sort of hundred year span, I think that's mostly where all of the kind of research and investment I have around art is centered around that as well. I think it has to do with, as a young kid, I was very much like, I wanted to hear the stories from, from my elder relatives. I wanted to, and I loved, my mother would always talk about how I loved looking at the old photo albums of seeing who they were before I met them. That always fascinated me with my family. And so in saying that, I also say that like, there's a vagueness to what I'm languaging here because I am aware that I have a reluctance to deconstruct it because it is home to me (Willis: Hmm). And I want it to be in my heart as home and I don't want it to be in my heart as work (Willis: Yeah) or, or knowledge or (laughs) even though it is those things sometimes but I, I, it's a purity about my relationship to the Midwest. And so I love when there's a serendipitous like recognition of that thing that Reggie was talking about. I'm like, do you see this? Do you recognize it? I love those moments, but I also don't wanna become the Detroit dance history historian. I don't want that for myself, you know? (laughs) I don't, I can't, like that's a (Willis: You’d be great at it but yeah), that’s a different. But that’s a different, that’s a different identity (Wilson: Mm-hmm) for me (Willis: Mm-hmm). And, um and this is sort of off topic, but maybe related, because Midwest (Wilson: Mm-hmm), but so this summer I'm going to do, for the first time, I'm going to sit on a panel about Prince and dance. And anyone who knows me knows how much I love Prince. And, and Minneapolis is another city that I went to (Willis: Mm-hmm) where I was like, oh, home like I drove (Willis: Yeah) to the Purple Rain House and I was like, Home! like I recognize you, right? And I've been so reluctant to make Prince any part of my profession because my love for his work is so pure. And my love for his art is so pure. And so, um yes, the Black Midwest is a part of an identity for me. And I want to understand it through all of my senses that don't involve research, if that makes (Willis: Mmm) any sense. Um And so I'm being vague on purpose, because uh my relationship to work is sometimes unhealthy and I don't want my relationship to home to be unhealthy. You know?
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Yeah, yeah (Wilson: Can I?), but I love that the, the example you gave is like looking at photo albums as a child because in a way it's like you were like a little researcher, you know? (George: Oh, absolutely) You're like, let me understand this in context, let me get the background (George: Oh, absolutely. Yes) information, you know? (George laughs and says: Yes) So methodologically, your Midwest ties are actually extremely influential.
MELANIE GEORGE: Well, well and I think that um particularly for where I sit in my family. So I'm the youngest of 13 grandchildren (Willis: Mm-hmm), and I have first cousins who are easily 20 years older than me, because my mother had kids in her late 30s and her sisters and brother had kids in their 20s. So there's like this huge gap, right? And I am the last of my grandmother's grandchildren. And um and so I was always having to relate to older people and their older stories (Willis: Hm). And was um sort of socialized to, to believe that that was really important information to know (Willis: Yeah, yeah). I love still to this day, looking at those photo albums of the family, who they were before they had children (Willis: Mm-hmm), before they had more resp... I mean, my grandmother didn't ever not have responsibility. She was the oldest of 13, um and she was born in like 1903, I think. Um And so she had to help raise those kids and then she had 5 of her own that she had to raise and (Willis: Wow) her husband died when her youngest was three months old So she truly raised those kids by herself and did not get remarried because she didn't want to bring a man in the house because she had four girls (Willis: Mm). So um like by the time I came along she was over children (laughs), but there was this understanding of like, of like my family contains a history and that history is embedded in this city. And it's very interesting for my mother, when I hear my mother talk about her memories because it's almost always related to geography of the city, you know, of this street and that street and this school and that store. Like it's all related to how she had to navigate the city as a person, as a younger person (Willis: Yeah). And I don't necessarily think that that's the way I move through the world nowadays, but I think it's very much connected to um uh being a Black person in the 20th century and knowing which parts of towns were safe and what parts weren't (Willis: Mm-hmm). Um I think that very much informs how they viewed the city. And as a result, how I viewed the city because my sensibilities were shaped by them.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: My dad is 89, so I very much relate to the, he's, you know, born in 1934, and I very much relate to that kind of multiple generations. He moved here in the 50s, I think, the early 50s or something like that. And he, yeah, his understanding of the city is still based on that information. And I'm like, this is not how it works anymore. I mean, it does in some ways, right? A lot of like the segregation is still present, but it's not like literally you can't go over there. He's always shocked whenever he sees a Black person walking down the street on the North side of Chicago. And I'm like, there's a lot of them up, you know, like there's a lot of us up here now, you know? So, I totally understand what you're saying. It's um ingrained in, like the memory is ingrained on the land and the kind of geography of both migration and like safety and creating home. And, um and for my dad, it was much more, I think also about like escaping in some ways. I mean, obviously that's part of it for a lot of Black families, but for him in particular, there was like a um cutting off as well that was part of it (George: Hmm). And, you know, so I think there's like these, this like um, sense of like this is, this much at least is ours.
MELANIE GEORGE: My immediate family, my mother, father, sister, me, we were among the first in our sort of wider family to move into the suburbs (Willis: Hmm). We moved in the suburbs in the 70s, and before that everyone else lived in Detroit, you know? (laughs) And so (Willis: Yep) I was born in Detroit, and then when I was 4, we moved like across 9 mile, you know, which means you're now in the suburbs (Willis: Mm-hmm). And so (Willis: Yeah), so yeah, there is this understanding of like, all the people that I loved lived in Detroit, you know? We didn't (Willis: Hmm) (laughs), but everyone, everyone else did, you know? (Willis: Yeah, yeah) And that thing that you're saying Reggie about like, oh, that, that Midwestern, the Black Midwestern twang isn't Southern, but it feels Southern. Um But then you go to the South and it's not that. When I was a kid, I sounded more Southern (laughs), because of the family members that I was around (Wilson: Yeah). I remember I used to, I remember being in middle school and I said the word pail, P-A-I-L, but I said it as pale (laughs). It had two syllables. And my teacher couldn't understand me. She's like, what are you saying? My white teacher couldn't understand me. And I was like, pail (Willis: Yeah) (laughs). You know, and I know (Wilson: I still can't hear the difference).
(everyone laughs)
TARA AISHA WILLIS: I love it. Wait, okay, so Reggie, you mentioned a story about like encountering dance in Milwaukee and maybe you have another one, but Melanie, I'm curious if you have, even though I don't wanna mix work with home too much, but (George laughs) (Wilson: Yes you do!) But if you, I do. And so, and so, do you have any, any specific childhood memories or a young person, you were there for so long also that are not necessarily something that totally overlaps with your work, but that maybe are part of, is part of the path that got you where you are, dance-wise?
MELANIE GEORGE: Mm. I think one of the great things about being in Detroit as a city that was recognized for an arts culture is that um I was, it was very easy to be exposed to, to art. Like it wasn't, it wasn’t you know, I hear stories of other people who had to like go seek it out. Um It was readily available in my city and surrounding areas. And I had parents who were interested in it. I was a music kid more than I was, I danced, right? But my, my dance experiences were in white dance studios with, you know (Willis: Hmm), quote, Jazz, air quotes around that word, because it wasn’t actually Jazz, um Ballet, you know, tap, and, and then I had like my social dance environment, which was dancing with my friends and dancing at family reunions. And I see those things as being really different, really separate and very different (Willis: Yeah). So many people of my generation are like, oh, I saw Ailey and that's the thing that made me wanna be a dancer. And like, I think I have a version of that story as well, but I also would say like being in a city, being in a Black city, where the arts are readily available, I saw Black people doing dancing and singing and painting and like all the time. It was so (Willis: Yeah) visible and readily available to me. And so I don't think I have the story of like, I had to conceive of myself as being an artist by like watching so-and-so on television. Like, no, like literally it was just, it was, it was everywhere. And I think that is like this really beautiful benefit of being a Black person in a Black city (Willis: Hmm). Detroit wears its Blackness openly. There are many Detroits, I should say that, there are many Detroits (Willis: Yeah). But the Black Detroit wears its Blackness openly and confidently. And as a result, there wasn't any translation I had to do around (Willis: Hmm) who I would be, right? I just had to figure out how to get there, but I didn't have to translate it. So my work now, which is very much centered around rooted Jazz dance, it's so interesting to, every time we do the Jazz Continuum and we go to a new city, we bring in local folks to bring in their social dance traditions, their Black social dance traditions into our show. And so we were just in Michigan and we had all these Detroit Jit folks come in and it was amazing. And, and, and it's so funny, because I feel like that life I had as a young person who was like always in the club and like always going to see her musician friends and had all these DJ boyfriends (laughs). And like that version of my life is actually converging with my Jazz (Willis: Hmm) Continuum life now. Um And I've actually been able to reconnect with a lot of those folks who I haven't spoken to in decades. Um Because I can see that like Detroit Melanie and professional dancer Melanie are actually the same Melanie (laughs). You know (Willis: Yeah), which I don't think I always saw them that way.
TARA WILLIS: Can both of you describe your practice and what lineages do you see it being part of?
REGGIE WILSON: I tend to have talked about my lineage in a couple of ways. It's probably three ways I talk about it. One is I go back and talk about first getting started in swing choir, which is a Midwestern term. I understand that's a Midwestern term as opposed to (Willis: I was in the swing choir. I was in the swing choir), as opposed to show choir, right? (George: I have never heard of this term before in my entire life) (Willis: Yeah, it's not show choir).
MELANIE GEORGE: (Laughs) I've never heard of this before. Tell me everything I want to know.
REGGIE WILSON: Do you, do you know show choir?
MELANIE GEORGE: Yes, I'm familiar with show choir, but not swing choir (Wilson: Uhhh). Swing choir sounds better (laughs).
TARA WILLIS: I don’t know, I don't know where swing choir came from, but we had a swing choir at my little private elementary middle school that was kind of half Black half white because it was in the near south in Hyde Park and the music teacher was a Black man. He was like the only Black man on faculty (laughs) at this elementary middle school and it was a swing choir. He ran that swing choir for like decades.
MELANIE GEORGE: And he said, I'm gonna make these babies swing (laughs) (Willis: They're gonna swing!) We're not showing out, we're swinging (laughs).
TARA WILLIS: (Wilson: If you know) I don’t know where he was from but...
REGGIE WILSON: If you know, if you know Glee, if you know the TV show Glee, or Show Choir, (Willis: Mm-hmm) that's basically swing choir (Willis: Swing choir, yeah) (George: Okay). Like the same geeks singing musical, like songs for musicals, as well as like Jazz songs (Willis: Yeah). Like arranged Jazz songs.
MELANIE GEORGE: Oh my God, you have just unlocked a core memory of mine that I completely forgot about.
REGGIE WILSON: (Laughs) You were actually in…
TARA WILLIS: …in the swing choir.
MELANIE GEORGE: I wasn't, but I wasn't, but I was. Like (laughs), when I was in the fifth grade, we had a Black music teacher coming to our school. Um He only taught for one year. And this was clearly like a man who had gotten his chops in the church. And he had us as like fifth graders singing these really swinging jazzy versions of like, Are You Sleepy, Brother John? And I still have the cassette tape of it, of like me and three other girls like we're the Andrew sisters or something (laughs).
REGGIE WILSON: That's it. That's it. That's it. That is step touch (George: I was in swing choir). Step touch (George continues to laugh).
TARA WILLIS: You were in swing choir for one year (laughs). Okay, so Reggie, so you were in swing choir first. That's your first kind of moment of choreography (laughs).
REGGIE WILSON: (Laughs) So, well, it was middle school chorus, and then like we did, we did musicals. We did Godspell, we did Guys and Dolls, we did West Side Story, we did, and there was a huge, there were competitions citywide, and we would win those competitions. So I started off in uh musical theater, and then I took some uh like, Gus Giordano Jazz, and some ballet and then went off to a summer camp at Northwestern and got introduced to Graham. And so that, like, and somebody came to New York and then got the postmodern, because it was like NYU and it was all like, you know, the Grand Union and, um, postmodern, you know, city.So that's one version of my lineage, right? And then another thought about my lineage is in that, um, modern dance, concert dance, like studying Horton, studying Graham, studying Cunningham. Um, um, and then my comp teacher, Phyllis Lamhut, who was with Alwin Nikolai. And so those, that's another part where I kind of talk about Phyllis as my composition teacher. Then Phyllis was from Alwin Nikolai, Nikolai from Hanya Holm, Hanya Holm from Mary Wigman. So that, you know, back to Nazi Germany, right? So being from Milwaukee and Wisconsin and the Germans, I somehow like try to awkwardly and hopefully uncomfortably tie myself back to that, to those traditions. So that's the second one. Then the third one is when I got to New York, thinking about who the Black choreographers were when I was starting to choreograph and think about myself as a Black choreographer making, for lack of a better term, kind of postmodern work in downtown New York. It was Bebe. Miller, it was Ralph Lemon, it was Jawole, it was Ron Brown, it was David Roussève, it was Bill T., it was Lady Gortsongoma it was a numerous, oh, Marlies Yearby. And so each of these kinda downtown, I think we call ourselves more downtown than postmodern (George: Mm), Black choreographers. All of their work look different. And there's, I mean, there's like a whole list of names that I'm not like recalling or bringing up as part of my lineage. But I remember looking at those choreographers that I just named, looking at their work and specifically thinking they're doing whatever the fuck they want. They are articulating their truth with the things that they've been exposed to in the manner in which they want and who they have access to perform their work, and doing it the way that they want. So I can do whatever I want. We date Fist and Heel Performance Group as starting in 1989, and that was my first professional in New York performance. And it was by the mid 90s, I kind of had found the term, um, Fist and Heel Worship and said that it wasn't, I didn't want, I wanted to kind of have a performance group, because I think there was Mark Morris Performance Group, there were a couple other performance groups, David Gordon Performance, like Collective, like I was just like, I don't know how much I'll be committed to this dance thing for how long, so let me like get a title (George laughs) that will last if all of a sudden I'm doing more singing than dancing, or more acting, or more performance than, and I was just like, I can, so it stuck, so I was like, Fist and Heel Performance Group. I like the sound of that. And then um I was like, let me just throw all these different words together to confuse people because that'll be funny. So I start saying Post-African, Neo HooDoo Modern dance. And I was like, people were like, well, what is it?
MELANIE GEORGE: I definitely used all of those words in the pre-show talk that I gave (laughs). I definitely (Willis: I bet you did) used all of those words (laughs).
REGGIE WILSON: And I feel like now, thanks Melanie, for individuals such as yourself doing like real, you know, academic scholarship, um and talking about me when I'm in the room or not in the room. And um but now it just feels like a serious thing Post-African, Neo Hoodoo Modern dance. It sounds like something solid. And it started off as just like, those are too many words back in the 80s and the 90s to talk about (Willis: Mm-hmm) a dance. When there was a debate about (George: Hmm) what was Black dance? (George: Mm-hmm) Um, was my dance Black dance? And I have a younger dancer in the company now. And she was just like, yeah, there's a group, you know, there's a bunch of us, Black postmoderns and da, da, da, da. She kept talking. I was just like, wait a minute, back up. Did you say like a whole group of us Black postmodern dancers? (laughs) I was like, wait, what?! (George laughs) It's like a community of things somewhere. I was just like, we didn't even know how to call ourselves that. And um.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Yeah. But (Willis: Oh wow) because of you and all those people you named, there is that (George Yes). I mean (George: yes), you know, like there's a lot of young dancers who identify that way, myself included. Melanie, go for it. Your practice and lineages.
MELANIE GEORGE: Oh I also am reluctant to name a practice um as something concrete when I work in Jazz which is you know born of change and shift and change and um so um what I can say is that um, and also I should probably name the fact that depending on how you know me, you might be thinking Melanie the Jazz dancer, you might be thinking Melanie the curator, you might be thinking Melanie the dramaturg. And while I think of those all as Melanie the dance scholar, I think all of those things are interrelated in creative work. I think people tend to make them quite discreet when they talk about my work. For many, many years, there was a duality in lineages and training for me. And that I had a, I grew up in a Jazz household, which is to say I had a father who was not a musician, but was obsessed with Jazz music. And there was never a time in my life where I was not exposed to it. And, and when I was young, I resented that because it was kind of like forced on me (laughs). And then you get to your 20s and you're like, Oh my god, I have all this knowledge and it's because of him. So I have this like deep understanding and connection to music in general and specifically Jazz music and related forms, funk, blues, you know, R&B. So there's that. And then there's also like, I think being a Black person in America, being exposed to people dancing all the time because Black people dance, you know, in our social environments. And then also I had like my formalized training, which was very white. My dance studio as a kid was white. It was run by a white Jewish woman and I went to college and while they did focus fairly equally, maybe 60-40, Ballet- modern Jazz, and the curriculum, the hidden curriculum was if you're gonna be a serious artist, you need to be a modern dancer (Willis: Hmm). And if you're going to be a modern dancer, you need to understand postmodern choreography. It was never said explicitly, but that clearly what was happening, right? And so I feel like I am someone who had to learn to speak many languages to figure out which environment I was in to figure out and navigate that. And so, and I didn't gravitate towards the Dunham’s or the Urban Bush Women. I came to my work working with Jawole much, much later. Um And, and don't regret not having discovered that sooner because I feel like it comes to you when it comes to you. Like it came to me when I was meant to experience it. Um And I also came to like an understanding of Jawole as a Jazz artist, in a way that I would not have had an appreciation for if I had been exposed to it earlier. And I think I would have been quite didactic in how I um shared what it is she does as opposed to like really seeing it as this generative Jazz thing. So, um so my modern dance lineage was a Hawkins, Eric Hawkins (Willis: Wow) and a Judson Church. And like that was what I studied at Western Michigan University in the 90s, you know? And um the Jazz was a Giordano, Maddox, you know, thing. And then I got to graduate school in my late 20s and I was really beginning to ask questions around why are we calling it Jazz dance if we're not dancing to Jazz music? How does my, how does my understanding of this music relate to who I am, my identity as a Jazz dancer? Why in the music if you're going to be a virtuoso you have to improvise but it's been nowhere in my Jazz dance training? That was like the root of the work that I was doing in my late 20s. And um so that was the shift. And that was when my history and my family began to align with my aspirations as an artist. And like Reggie, um rhythm has always been incredibly important to me, but I separated that from like these, you know, these rocks I'm doing in the Hawkins class, you know (laughs), or improvisation as an intellectual exercise and not a rhythmic musical exercise, you know, which is how it was taught to me, you know. So, My practice, um while I don't want to name it, I would say, um is a reclaiming of an identity that I was born with, a reclaiming of a birthright that I was sort of socialized to, to devalue a little bit. And when I stepped back into my Jazz identity in my late 20s, I began to recognize myself and I didn't have to become somebody else to be in the practice, whatever the practice was going to be. Whereas before that, as a modern dancer, someone who was identifying exclusively as a modern dancer or whatever that means. Um I was always trying to become something else. I didn’t wasn't allowed to just be. And Jazz (Willis: Hmm) allowed me to just be. And so my practice is about being um and um recognizing and valuing my natural inclinations and gifts um and interests um and, and, not, um not de-centering them (laughs) in the practice. Like centering them in the practice (Willis: Yeah) is what I would say. Yeah.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: That's beautiful.
REGGIE WILSON: Describing my practice, I was thinking so Melanie it was wonderful to hear, like, that home, Jazz education and experience and I'm thinking, oh my god, that's it. I, Jazz was not a big thing in my home. The big thing, the BIG, BIG thing, music in my home that was really drummed, it was really Soul and Blues (George and Willis: Hmm). But blues, like Chicago Blues and the Delta Blues. And then of course, Soultrain. But those were like the things that were just like really, really pressed into my head. And the thought that I've been trying to get my head wrapped around it, I have it with many of my dancers, is this relationship to improvisation, which I've been starting to call extemporaneousness in my work because it's, I love structure. I've been thinking and playing around the newest thing and I haven't figured out how to comfortably figure it because I haven't gone as crazy as like a new Post-African, Neo HooDoo Modern dance (George laughs). But I think part of that, or maybe in addition to that, is what I've been calling African formalism or Africanist formalism (Willis: Hmm). And thinking about how, and I got to that through my um socio, anthro, ethno and more spiritual and religious practices of looking at how structured Africanist religions are in the, in the ceremonies, in time and in space and in action, just like how specific the pattern is. And knowledge of that pattern, deep knowledge of that pattern, communal knowledge of that pattern, and then being able to take that pattern and do something. And I somehow the Soul Blues versus the Jazz, that kind of set my head up. It's just like that was a, I feel like that's a new key I have (George: Hmm) to think about my relationship to…I was just talking in rehearsal with the, we're teaching a new dancer with an older dancer some material that's older. Was just like, yeah, this whole thing about improvisation I keep trying to figure out what's my relationship or not to it is you know, people come see my work and it's just like, Oh my god, the dancers were improvising. I was just like, how were they improvising for seven minutes in unison on the beat? (Wilson and George laugh) Like in unison improvising. No, there's a different thing, you know, but because it was, they were themselves in it (George: Yeah), it has a sensibility that folks usually only identify with improvisation (Willis: Hmm), but how those two things live together. So somehow, my head wrapping around African formalism is what I'm trying to (George: Hmm) language.
MELANIE GEORGE: I have a deep love for language and words and like finding, I feel like I'm always trying to figure out like what's the right combination of the word to get at the thing I'm trying to say. And also I feel like I've been using some language for a number of years and I'm getting ready to let go off (Willis: Mmm) to how I name and define what I do because I feel like I've maybe outgrown it or it's ceased its usefulness for me in terms of how I describe my relationship to, to movement and music. And um, you know, thinking about even the word improvisation, if you talk to House dancers, they don't say improv, they say freestyle. It's important to me that I remind myself that even when I commit words to publishing, that it's still something that is meant to be timely, not timeless for me. That it can be quite um complicated and uh difficult for future generations if we lock in on a thing right now and say this is it, as opposed to this is it now. You know, for a long time I was calling my work Neo-Jazz and I feel like I'm letting it go. I have out run the usefulness of that term to describe what it is I do while also trying to figure out how to say, because I'm in this touring production of a show, of an offering that is with dancers who have a completely different lineage than mine, House dancers, Hip Hop dancers, Lindy Hoppers, and that's actually not my training, right? Um And I feel much more aligned with like a Jawole or Dianne McIntyre, you know? (Wilson: Mm-hmm) But here I am seated in the middle of this thing and it's all Jazz, like it's all layers of Jazz in the same way that Duke Ellington and Sun Ra can coexist, you know? Duke Ellington and Albert Ayler can coexist, right? And so, so, I've been thinking like, well then how are you referencing this thing? Because I don't want to be in a place where I'm saying, oh the thing that I do is analogous to the, the years of experience that these incredible House dancers have. Like our paths were just, our routes were different. And so I’m not saying what I do is that thing, it has a relationship to that thing. In my notes, I've been saying, and like when I write about, when I think about like, what am I doing, who am I? I, I call it um Toward an expansive view of Jazz, because I think right now there is a dialogue around like, what's authentic Jazz? And I'm like, oh, I'm less concerned now with authenticity as I was many years ago. And I'm more (Willis: Hmm) concerned with roots and fruits that come out of a Black understanding of Jazz. um And um that to me feels expansive um in a way that language can be quite condensing.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: And the toward is really interesting to me because in my work I think a lot about like dancing rather than dance, you know? (George: Hmm) like the way that we put like a capital in front of the thing and then like the ing allows it to have this movement, you know, and this process to it and Blackness as a kind of like, like Black is important, capital B, right? But there's also something going on that's like a little more hard to put a finger on that is also there and we have to figure out how to name it to communicate with each other, right? But, so I'm really hearing in that phrase, toward, also this movement, and it's about the practice and the on-goingness and the work to kind of be in it and explore it and not necessarily like, here's the name, right?
MELANIE GEORGE: I used to have this website called Jazz Dance Direct. And it was, and the whole thing was like, I can't, we can't find Jazz dance anywhere. So I'm gonna make a website that says like, here are the companies, here are the books, here are the schools, you can study Jazz. Like, what is that thing, right? This like database of things. And (Wilson: Mm), and a peer in the world said, well, my company should be on there. And I was like, but are you Jazz? (George laughs) (Wilson: Oh, hey!) And they were like, am I not? (George continues to laugh) And I was like, okay, Melanie, okay, you cannot keep saying that all your work is through community and then keep closing these gates on people (Wilson: Hmm, hmm). That is, that's not expansive and nor is it welcoming. So you need to really look at how you might be disenfranchising um people whose work is very much adjacent to the thing that you are so value by saying like, Oh, you know, like authentic Jazz, like I'm gonna focus on the Lindy Hoppers, I'm gonna focus, like, and I still am, I'm working with those people every single day, but like, I'm actually not one of them. So am I disenfranchising myself? Like, you know (laughs), like it was, I really had to do some deep thinking around that, you know, and going back to your question about lineage to figure out like, Oh, who am I? Who, who is part of my family, my sub tree in the bigger family tree? You know, it's, yes, it's Frank Hatchett and it's JoJo Smith and it's Lynn Williamson and it's, and it’s also Jawole and Dianne Walker, Dianne McIntyre, and also Dianne Walker. And like, and where do those things overlap? Sheila Barker, like where are all these things intersecting? Um And also being aware of how Black women (Wilson: They intersect in your body). Yes, yes, yes. And how can I be (Willis: Yeah) more transparent about that in a way that isn't coming from a place of defense?
TARA AISHA WILLIS: How as you both grapple with like the problems and possibilities of languaging, what you do and what you've inherited, how are you thinking about transmitting? Um How are you thinking about like how those legacies and inheritances are passed on through you, to other people or beyond you?
MELANIE GEORGE: At this particular moment, I'm in a time where, well yes, I am front facing as an educator in a classroom weekly. Um uh For me right now personally, I feel like I'm in a very sort of internal phase of, of um excavating and rediscovery. And because, even though I'm talking very publicly on a podcast, I'm also feeling very private about some of that work in the sense of it's not ready to be transmitted yet. Um uh And so there's some sort of like time delay in what students are receiving from me and where I'm actually at right now. Like they’re, what they're getting is actually, um uh yesterday's bagel (laughs), while I'm making the new bagels right now (continues to laugh). You’ can’t eat the bagel and make the bagel at the same time, right? So like they're getting the done bagel (laughs), while I'm thinking up the new recipe.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: (Laughs) Amazing.
REGGIE WILSON: Going through when I just first started admitting that there was a pain, a physical pain that I was experiencing every time I had to language or write about my work, either to get funding, to get a show, to convince a dancer, to validate myself in some context, um nationally, internationally, across the body of water or whatever. And it went from that to, you know, saying that I hate words to saying I hate the written word to, you know, people are accosting me and saying, Well, how can you hate the word? And you write this and you have reading lists for your shows and you da-da-da-da and you teach them in these contexts and you show them your work. And it's just like, I can be in multiple places at the same time (laughs), emotionally, psychologically, and kinesthetically. But then thinking about the history um Tara what you were referring to is we we've been investigating and thinking about what a Fist and Heel Institute would look like (George: Mm), and clearly as far as I can imagine economically as well as my own bandwidth for um work (laughs), administrative work is, um you know, it's the work that we've been doing. Some type of form or structure or container that could hold um what all the different types of work that we're doing, the work that happens for the performers in the studio, um the work that happens when we perform with an audience or viewers, the work that happens when we're in the studio sharing what we do, when um I'm engaging with other choreographers and scholars and talkers and thinkers and doers and makers and believers um in multiple contexts, whether that's K through 12, whether that's undergrad, graduate, whether that's with elders or seniors or with folks with different disabilities. Like how to come up with something that could house an archive, the work that's already been done, the work that the different folks connected to Fist and Heel that they've done that's connected to. The surprising number of spiritual leaders (laughs) that have come through or out of Fist and Heel (Willis: Hmm) has been something that's (George: Mm) kind of surprising to me (George: Mm-hmm). And folks that have come out of the closet as having had a religious background or having a spirituality or not having to sever that in order to kind of be part of the [long pause] concert dance world. I think definitely believing and knowing that the body thinks and that dancing is my, has been my way of coming into relationship with the world, with um math concepts, with intellectual concepts, with philosophical concepts, with my own self and culture and community, um my own regionality as it changes and shifts, as my accent changes and shifts (George: Hmm) You know looking at other places and systems that have used the body, not just for performance, not just for emotional release, but for really important functions in communities, for exercise, for healing, for communication, for war (laughs). Like, allowing, I think it's, it's the soapbox I want to get on is like trying to figure out how to advocate for dance to be at the table (George: Mm. Mm). And by that I mean like respectfully and at all tables and at all levels where decisions are being made. I feel like those of us that have spent a lot of time in studio or in performance or in motion, um we need to continue to struggle to language it, to (pause) um crystallize it, pinpoint it, be flexible with it and what I, what I would sometimes call when I teach composition, like a working, working vocabulary or a working notebook, that you write down what works for you in the studio, a working definition. So what works for you right now (George: Mm-hmm). And my definition of time, um choreographic time might be, or has been for a long time, that serves me in the studio is how long it takes something to happen. Right? But if I go in the studio and I'm thinking about time in a really different way, choreographic time in a really different way, um I'm fine changing it (laughs). If it's going to (George: Yeah) help the bodies in the studio help me get somewhere that I'm trying to get to, but being able to work with an idea that I got from actually a Black Catholic nun down in New Orleans at Xavier University at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies was, it's not either or, but it's both and plus. You know ???Add the ‘both and plus and then some… (laugh).
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Last question, who is your work for?
MELANIE GEORGE: My short answer is that my work is for community. And the fostering, the bolstering, the amplifying of community. And um, and there are multiple communities um in which I'm working with, but I think that that's, like I'm trying to do all of that work through that. It's the way I teach. Um It's the way uh I curate. Um And I hope it's the way that I make. Although all those things are still making. Um And I also think that like my work as a dramaturg really informs that in that my work as a dramaturg is artist-centered, right? And so um, as is my work as a curator. And so I think that, you know, one of the things I say to artists when I'm working with them is that, you know, I want you to have made a thing that you feel satisfied with before an audience ever sees it. I want you to be secure in those choices before it gets to the stage. It doesn't mean that that's in opposition to an audience, but just to say that the work, it has to stand on its own and also it's yours. Like it's not theirs. I'm less concerned with like, for as much as I'm concerned with, with, yeah? (Willis: Hmm) Less concerned about who it's for and more concerned about who it's with.
REGGIE WILSON: (Laughs) My smart ass answer to that is anybody that can pay for it (George laughs).
TARA AISHA WILLIS: That’s a great answer (Laughs).
REGGIE WILSON: But it's more than, um I feel like some people have tried to call me on when I've said this before, but I really don't think that I think about the audience when I make my work there. It's like, yes, you do (George: Mmm). Cause I don't know. I'm just like, Mmm. I feel like I've been really blessed. And um as I, I, I, make the work I need to make at a particular moment um to help me figure out things or to be in relationship to. And I have not had to have spent an enormous amount of time, for better for worse, thinking about who I do or who I don't want to see the work. I feel like my curiosities take me to a bunch of different places and a lot of different contexts and I'll show my work to, I'll try to show my work or I'll be forced to show my work in many of those contexts. So, I feel like it answers itself. I, it's like not one of the major concerns I need to, if I keep asking enough questions, if there's enough rigor around whose asking the questions in the room when I'm making the work, there's, I mean there’s always more of a particular group or that a particular work should see, oh, that work should definitely be seen by the Steppers community. Oh, that work should definitely be seen by the Spiritual Baptists. So that work should definitely (Willis: Yeah) be seen by Cunningham dancers or so-and-so or whatever. And it's just like, okay, well, if they can bring me there or they can get here or I'm happy to do it (Willis: Yeah). So there is an economic question to it that's real. But in the making of it, I'm trying to be as full and complete and whole as I possibly can be and allow myself to really try to, in the dance studio or in this performance space, answer the questions kinesthetically that are truly coming up to me and allowing myself to really hear those questions. I want the piece to stand up within any context, like for it to feel like it has integrity and it has authenticity in any context that it's presented in (George: Mm). So if my work is presented in front of a white Jewish audience in California, they will see me. If it's presented in a township in Zimbabwe, in Bulawayo, they will see me or see enough to ask questions about that is a worldview. Like that's coming from a particular perspective. Like it holds that water (Willis: Yeah). And I want, I feel that's the rigor I was kind of talking about is having the rigor in the process to make the thing that it will hold up in multiple contexts (Willis: Mm. Yeah). That's who I want to see my work. Or that's the audience that I'm making it for (George: Yeah). Nobody and everybody (George: Yes). But it needs to be clearly me.
MELANIE GEORGE: Mm-hmm.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Yeah. Who is from Milwaukee? (laughs) (George laughs)
REGGIE WILSON: There were, are, and have been Black folks in Milwaukee and that it's, you know, the way Milwaukee County is actually developed, but it's majority Black now. I can’t make my work based on your ignorance (Willis: Yeah). But because you don't know Black people can be from Milwaukee, you don't know what to look for. And you don't know which part of this is actually because of me being (George: Mmm) Black from Milwaukee (George: Mmm). And my family (George: Mmm) is from Arkansas and from Phillips County with the largest number of lynchings in American history. You don't know that, but that's part, all of that is embedded in there (Willis: Yeah), and that's in relationship to Trinidad and Zimbabwe and Senegal and Poland and Germany and Japan, and then whoever else is in the group, and who's like somebody from Ivory Coast and somebody from (Willis: Yeah), like the people that are. I can't hold that mantle to educate. Or I think that's the best way, I need to remember that.I can't make my work based out of your ignorance.
OUTRO: How People Move People, is brought to you by The National Center of Choreography - Akron, or NCCAkron. This podcast is produced by Jennifer Edwards, James Sleeman is our editor, theme music by Ellis Rovin, Sound Design by Damon Locks. Transcription by Arushi Signh, cover art by Micah Kraus. I’m DeMarcus Akeem Suggs, Director of Development at Mid-America Arts Alliance, Founder & Framework Culturalist at kummbuntu LLC, and an 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.