In this episode of Trace Elements, we spend time with Rosalynde LeBlanc in conversation with host, Jose Solís. LeBlanc, a former member of the Bill T Jones Company, talks about her film, "Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters," her time in the company, and coming into adulthood as a dancer in New York at the height of the AIDS crisis.
In this episode of Trace Elements, we spend time with Rosalynde LeBlanc in conversation with host, Jose Solís. LeBlanc, a former member of the Bill T Jones Company, talks about her film, "Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters," her time in the company, and coming into adulthood as a dancer in New York at the height of the AIDS crisis.
https://www.facebook.com/DManMovie/
'Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters' can be streamed for free as part of 'AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange' on the Black Public Media YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeroIYl1kvM&t=10s
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 ‘Trace Elements’ is hosted by Jose Solis, a Honduran, Madrid-based culture writer and researcher who explores the impact left by artists both dead and living, who were impacted by the AIDS epidemic that continues today. Solis traveled between the Americas and Europe to gather stories of men and trans women. We honor their stories in their first languages, offering half of this series in English and half in Spanish.
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Okay. So, my name is Rosalynde LeBlanc, and I also go by Rosalynde LeBlanc Loo. So, one in the same person. And the reason why I say both of my names is because it's kind of talks to both of my roles in in the dance world. So as Rosalynde LeBlanc Loo I am a professor and the current chair of the dance program at Loyola Marymount University. I have been here for 10 years, and I've been teaching full time in higher ed for 12 years. And then as Rosalynde LeBlanc, I have had a career in dance, that I guess it's 30-year spans, 30 years now. And as a performer, of course in my early, early career, and with touring companies, and then also, currently, I still dance and perform and choreograph. I also produce, produced and co-directed, Can You Bring It: Bill T Jones and D-Man in the Waters, feature-length documentary, really about, about that bridge, kind of, between being a former member of Bill T Jones’ company, and now carrying his legacy on by teaching his work, to, to college students.
JOSE SOLÍS: Okay, thank you very much for that. In the documentary you mentioned that D-Man in the Waters was the piece that made you realize that you wanted to do this for a living. So, can you talk a little bit about, do you have any impressions that you can recall of what made you feel that way? If I may, I saw the piece about 10 years ago, when City Center did the first part in December of 2013. And what I remember the most, being a complete, you know, dance, I don't know how to, I mean, I know how to move, I don't know if I know how to dance. But not knowing much about what was expected of me as an audience member going into dance performance, what I can remember and what I can recall, and it still gives me goosebumps thinking about it was the urgency of the work. And with your documentary as context, obviously, you fill in so many of the gaps that I felt watching that performance. But enough about me, I want to know whether you felt watching that performance that make you go this is it for me?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Yeah, and that memory is so, it's a core memory for me that is still so crystal clear. So, I was 16 years old, and I had gone to the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina. It was 1989. The background to that is that I was always around dance. My mother was the first woman of color in the original Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1959 to 1966. Elizabeth Walton, So, she had a very distinguished career that I was always around, so I knew this thing called modern/postmodern dance. And I was familiar with it. I started dancing myself with kind of, I would say more seriousness around the age of 13. But I did not consider it a career. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. But I was interested in a couple things. I was very interested in music. I thought I might want to be a conductor. I was very interested; I had a very compassionate heart. And I was very compelled by social justice. So, I had already gone to quite a few marches on Washington. We lived in Baltimore, so it was not hard to go. I was a member of Students for Social Responsibility. So that's kind of who I was, and I danced on Saturdays. And so, I went to the American Dance Festival that summer. And the first night of the festival was the Scripps award. And the Bill T. Jones Company performed, Absence was the first half of that program, a piece called Absence. The second half was D-Man in the Waters. And I felt like, I remember where I was sitting in the theater, in the balcony, and a couple of rows up on the on the aisle because I was so impressed by this piece. The impression that I got was that these worlds kind of came together on stage. I saw this athletic, vigorous movement to this rhapsodic music. And I felt this sense of solidarity among this group of people that were diverse, not just in race and ethnicity, but in body shape, size, training, right? Someone who's clearly balletically trained with someone who is just you know, I didn't know it at the time, but an actor who moves you know. So, this true depth of diversity on this stage, yet there was a solidarity and a singularity about their purpose and what they were doing. And I had never seen that in dance before. It wasn't so much about a visual cohesion like, like unison. It was a spiritual cohesion which, which I would term solidarity, you know. And, and it made sense to me because it was the it, it, it transcended, I think one of the issues I had with dance, I love dance, but I, I was looking to transcend dance as image and dance as beauty. Because it didn't, that didn't quite, I wasn't first of all that type of dancer who met those images in the mirror, you know, it's just say, Oh, I'm making pretty lines. I look feminine and beautiful, you know. That, that wasn't happening for me. So, so it wasn't that that drew me. I think my natural, my natural interest in the world was challenged when I was in the studio because it felt like such a selfish kind of endeavor. I now know that it's not, but at that time, you know, perfect your lines and put your arms here and look at yourself in the mirror. And all of that stuff felt very self-centered. And I'm like, but what about the famine in Ethiopia? You know, like, what about the National Organization of Women? What are we doing for them while I'm perfecting my lines, you know? So, I think I had that conflict. And then I saw this piece and it felt like, okay, everything's coming together like, that I could do. That I can buy into, and it felt like there was such purpose. And it was greater than all of those people on that stage. I had no idea that D-Man was Demian Acquavella, and that he was at that time at home, dying of AIDS. I had no idea who Arnie Zane was and that they had just lost Arnie a year before. I didn't know any of that. It was just the piece. And I, after the show, there was strawberries, a strawberry fondue pot. And the reason I remember that is because I was standing there dipping strawberries and fondue. And it was this crystal clear aha moment that I'm going to be a dancer because I have to do that dance. It was that, it was that powerful for me. It was it was that much of a pivotal moment. I will close this just so you don't get that noise anymore. So yeah.
JOSE SOLÍS: And I guess everything, you know, like an epiphany of this kind is obviously improved by having strawberries, right?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Well, the interesting thing is, you know, I'm reading this book right now, and I just started it. So, I really shouldn't rightfully talk too much about it. But the Body Keeps the Score. It is, you know, a classic of, of, of, of nonfiction, of course. And, and so this idea of what makes a memory, absolutely core like, I'll never forget that, you know. The details of, you know, dipping strawberries in this. Why did that, why did that stay in my mind? You know, how many, how many, 40 years later, or 35 years later, like I'm, I still hold on to, I know exactly what seat I was in. So, I think all of that speaks to the fact that seeing D-Man in the Waters went straight into my psychology and my heart. And I was the, and it was I became a different person in that moment. And my mind really latched on to it. Yeah, and I'm not exaggerating. It truly, I know, it sounds very, you know, very exaggerated and hyperbole. But it really is true. It was a pivotal moment of my young life at that time.
JOSE SOLÍS: I completely believe you. Like I've had, I've had, I have some of my favorite movies that I've seen touch, I mean, not the movies, but, you know, images from the movies tattooed on me. And I have like performances that have marked me, literally marking my body. So trust me, it does not sound like hyperbole. I, I feel you all the way. This is a question that is asked at some point in the documentary, and I'm really interested in knowing your answer as well. When, what did you know about HIV AIDS, when you first saw the piece? And let's, let's start with that.
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Oh, that's a great question. And it's yeah, you're right. I asked my students that. And have I asked myself that. So, I'm trying to think. It was a about the same time, the person that I remember first hearing the word AIDS from was Eddie Murphy. And it I don't remember which, we had the album of his standup routine. And I don't remember which album it was. But I remember the line “AIDS sticks with you like luggage” and, and then all the raucous laughter from the from the audience. And I didn't know what AIDS was, and I didn't understand the joke. But I remember that really stands out to me as that was the first time I heard of it. And it, I'm guessing I may have been around 15-16 years old. I was in high school. And definitely when I was in high school, nobody was talking about AIDS. At all. Not at all. And never even it was only that Eddie Murphy recording, but my teachers, the students at the school, the principal's, there was no talk of that there isn't an epidemic growing. And that's, that's remarkable to think, because we are high school students. So, if there's anybody who's about to have sex, and probably unsafe sex, it's us, right? So, we probably should have been hearing about it. But we weren't. It wasn't until I went to college, and I went to SUNY Purchase. So this was an art school, that I began to be educated about what was happening. And so then, I was going, Oh, that's that thing Eddie Murphy was talking about, you know. And by the time, they would bring in speakers and things and talk to us about AIDS. And by the time I had graduated, I had started to see a couple of different teach-teachers of mine, who were starting to carry the signs coming back, you know, I don't know 30 pounds lighter than they were the semester before, starting to lose their lose hair, like as if they were doing chemo treatments and things like that. And still not talking about the personal. Like still not having, I had one teacher who said their HIV status, but only one. The ones who are getting sick, were still not revealing this, what was happening. But we all knew. We all knew. So, it was just like the unspoken terror and horror and upset that we were all carrying, but not talking about.
JOSE SOLÍS: How did you negotiate as such a young person, also as a student, as a performer, how do you negotiate seeing so much death around you that you weren't, you didn't understand fully, you didn't know what was happening exactly?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: I think it was so scary that I, in a way we couldn't face it. I remember, I was not sexually active at the time. But I remember after a talk that the entire department was brought together at SUNY Purchase, and they had two people from, maybe, it may have been Gay Men's Health Crisis, but or Act Up, I can't remember. But they came and, you know, they were talking about how HIV is transmitted, and, you know, putting the fear of God in us about, you know, doing anything without and it wasn't just condoms. I mean, this was the other thing that I think, you know, now it kind of gets reduced to just condoms. But at that time, it was dental dams, condoms, finger condoms. There's, you know, I mean, there was a whole array of paraphernalia, rubber, you know, latex paraphernalia that you need to arm yourself with, before you engage in sexual activity. And don't be drunk, because you're gonna forget to use it, you know. So it was that kind of terror. And I remember the person sitting across the aisle from me. A woman. She was older than me. She was maybe a junior, I was, I think, a freshman, first year student, absolutely sobbing and shaking. And the group kind of huddled around her after this talk, and she was saying to her friends, I overheard her saying, like, I think I already have it. I've done everything you're not supposed to do. I'm sure I already have it. And they're, you know, and just seeing that like, absolute terror in her shaking, sobbing. You know, that really stands out to me. So it was seeing that, not having been a sexual person yet. And I, it was only I think in retrospect that I realized how those two moments kind of, you know, of course, being this horny little, you know, teenager and seeing death associated with this thing that feels so organic and natural, and that you want, you can't help but be drawn toward. And that is a particular, I think one of the reasons that HIV AIDS crisis interests me most is because it is a particular conflation of to sex and death that is very unique to that crisis. And it created a psychology that I think we are still trying to unpack the effects of. That live in the bodies and minds, and hearts of the people who were at the, in the, in the vortex of that crisis in ways that, you know, we're, we're almost just beginning to unpack, you know. So, yeah, it was huge. It, it changed my whole life. And it made me a different dancer. And it made me a different, a fraught partner. Always fraught. Not, there's no easy falling in love, when you've, when you've gone through the AIDS crisis.
JOSE SOLÍS: Thank you for sharing that. That's really sad to hear. I'm so sorry. That that that you've gone through that. I wonder if the moments when you were performing, when you were rehearsing, or were you when, when you were fully immersed in dance, were you able to live away from this terrifying world of death and decay? Was dance a safe space for you?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And one of the things about, and this is also what I'm reading, when I'm reading this book, The Body Keeps the Score, one of the things I've just recently read about is that when the, when the body can act, when like physically act to do something, that it actually helps to process trauma. And so, what all that dancing did was, was put us in action. Even if we're, you know, we're not doing dances about AIDS the whole time, you know, or Bill would probably say, if ever, you know, he didn't choreograph a dance about AIDS, quote, unquote. But, you know, it's, certainly we're living in it. And, and so and we're mobile in it, you know. And that did a lot, I think, to help process. I think D-Man in particular is dance that is exactly what, at least I'll speak for myself, it's exactly what I wanted to do at that time. You know, I want to run, I want to slide I want to beat my fists in the air, I want to catch people, I want to hold people, I want to be responsible for people's bodies and know that I can keep them safe. Even if it's just in this 38 make-believe world, 38-minute make-believe world, I've caught that person. They're safe, and they can keep moving on. And there's something about that that is that, gor me, that was exactly what I wanted and needed to do, to reconcile all of the emotions of that time.
JOSE SOLÍS: The way in which people talk about HIV and AIDS change once you were a member of the Bill T. Jones Company, did people talk about it more?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Absolutely. I mean, the Bill T. Jones Company was one of the places that was talking about it the most. And I think my most profound education came from being around that group of people at that time. And that, yeah, also, I mean, in terms of the time period, I mean, I graduated from college. I guess I came to New York City, I moved to New York City around 92-93. So and I was traveling in and out of the city all the time when I was at school, so you know, being in downtown New York and seeing you know, you would see, I feel like the kind of quintessential image was, you know, a seemingly young man who was emaciated and moving like a, you know, 95-year old, with lesions, and skeletal with a baseball hat, pole blow, you know, and huge clothes on. Like, that was an image that really stands out in my mind as something that was kind of, you saw a lot in New York City, especially downtown. So, so it was like that was on the street, and then you, and then I went into rehearsal with the Jones Zane Company. At the time that I was there, it was already public information, that Bill was positive as well. I'm, I'm pausing because I'm like, is that true? But I'm pretty sure it was true as certainly among the company, everyone knew and talked about it. And there were little things like, you know, the, the, the, the, the education was so exact and refined, and of a high quality that it was little things where it was like we knew, you know, we can be all over each other, we can sweat on each other, we can even kiss each other, we can, you know, we can share sandwich like, you know, we there's just so much normalcy. Yet, if someone cut their foot or a blister popped, it was stop, everyone stop. Don't move, don't move. Get some latex gloves. Get the alcohol, you know. So, you know what I mean? It was like, it was like, really, the level of education was so high that we understood where the boundary was. And that boundary was not messed with, right? Because we knew we had people in the room who either were HIV positive or could be, and we need to protect all of us. Also, the same thing about illness. Like I have a cold, don't come near me. Because you are protecting people who are immunodeficient in this community, in this small 10-person group, and you have to do that. Don't mess with that, because that's life or death. So, so it was, that, that was the conversation, you know. And then in 96, the protease inhibitors came out, and then it was like, Whoa, everything kind of shifted, because it was, in a way the crisis kind of felt like you can exhale. But also, it was like, what do we do with all of this? We've been living with, we've been operating with all of this now, what is this mean? Is it no longer life and death? Is it, you know, can we let go? Can we not let go? You know, I think that was also confusing, as good as it was to have a drug that seemed to be working. So…
JOSE SOLÍS: Although you have pointed out, rightfully so, that D-Man in the Waters is not specifically a piece of HIV AIDS. Obviously, you know, it's partly inspired by what was going on within the company, and people in the company being ill. And something that I had not thought about that really struck me was, and I hope this isn't a spoiler, if there is a spoiler, I'll cut it. You'll let me know. But something that I found really moving and really horrifying as well and heartbreaking was, there's a moment when you're talking to your students, you're talking to your company, and you're trying to find a modern parallel to the HIV AIDS epidemic. And for them, it's extremely hard to come up with something even remotely similar. How did you, let me ask you that, I don't know what I want to ask this, but I guess, you know, hearing the reactions, which were very honest, you know, they talk about things like gun control, they talk about things like sexual abuse and rape on campus, they talk about things that are very specific, and you keep urging them to find something grander that unites them, and they can't seem to find anything. I find that a blessing for this generation that doesn't know this. But for you, as someone who lived through all of that, how was it to, to hear this, that there's nothing that they can compare it to that? There's, you know, when I was embarking on this project, one of the reasons why I wanted to do this was because in similar ways, obviously not the same ways, the COVID pandemic brought a lot of those feelings back about people like isolating, about people being afraid of being with people, being afraid of touching other people being afraid of, you know, sharing with others. So I don', I'm not trying to guide you, and have you say COVID, but have you found that that there is something that they could actually compare it to? Because I was trying, I was wracking my brain, I was like, I don't think there's anything, there's not been anything like the HIV AIDS epidemic.
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: I agree with that. So, I think that an important piece of the story, and that's not a spoiler, so you can keep it in. An important piece of that story background is to know the time when we were shooting, which was 2016. So COVID was nowhere in the realm of any of our imaginings. And also, I would say, the gun violence epidemic, which it is an epidemic, I believe. The gun violence epidemic was not as bad as it is now. I mean, it was still, I mean, it's horrible to say that it's, it was on the rise. It hadn't peaked yet. But yeah, I mean, I, it's, it's heinous. But so, so I think for those two reasons, they were hard-pressed to feel, as you said, beautifully, I love the word urgency. And that's exactly what it felt like, what the air felt like, during HIV AIDS crisis, in this country, was this sense of urgency, or at least, maybe even not country, but in New York, in the New York art world, it was a sense of urgency. They are, they felt hard-pressed to find that they were just like we, yeah, what would that be gun violence I guess? they were, you know, rape on campuses? Now, my frustration, and the reason why I didn't feel like, Oh, this is actually a good thing. Like, we're in a moment of peace right now. And let's, let's be happy about that. I wasn't happy about it, because it was 2016. And we were on the precipice of allowing a, you know, fascist, sexist, racist dictator into the office. And so, and the fact that they weren't pointing at that, that's what made me so upset. That none of them were seeing what could happen and ultimately did happen. We didn't know at that point that it was going to happen. But, but my feelings of don't you get it? Don't you, what is it y’all like, don't you see the monster that's coming. and how bad it's gonna be? And for them to just kind of look around and go, Hmm, you know. So that's what that was. And, and, you know, now, they, I think it is the, the, a little bit of a side effect of having had Obama as president for up till then most of their public awareness. Right? They had eight years of Obama. So as being people, being young people who are now aware of politics, aware of the president, aware of legislation, they had eight years of this person who had their best interest at heart, you know. Who was, who was in every action, or, you know, arguably so but in every way, kind of bestowing the fact that young people, health, the arts, you know, these are our values, folks. And so, they were lulled into a kind of like, this is the way things are and, and it was only Trump and Trumpism, and then COVID, and then the continued rise of gun violence. That group of students who are now professionals out in the world are very different. And they look back on that, them at that age and go, Why didn't we speak? I can't believe we didn’t. What was wrong with us? you know. And they can't be blamed for that. They were where they were, and we were as a country where we are. And that's, that's, in my opinion, how Trump got elected, because we were all kind of like, oh, that won't happen here, you know. So yeah, I think that that's, that's why, that's why they were kind of in that complacent state and that's why I was so not felt so uncomplacent in that moment.
JOSE SOLÍS: The thing about, excuse me, thinking about COVID now, the Coronavirus pandemic, how has that, if at all, shifted or changed or affected your relationship to movement? Because obviously when we were in lockdown, you were not able to perform in public, you were not able to teach. You know, I guess you taught on Zoom. It's clearly not the same. So how has your relationship to the way in which you move in the world changed because of that?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: That's a great question. Well, it's made me really, I mean, two things which are in a way antithetical, but, but coexisted. It’s made me value, live performance and live exchange so much more and not take that for granted. Because there's nothing like it. If a dance is meant to be seen live, there's no, there's no screen rendition, that can bring that, that art fully back to its, that can represent that art the way it's supposed to be. If it's a live exchange, it's meant to be a live exchange, and it has to be. So, it's made me appreciate that and value that. But it's also made me value dance on screen. Because we certainly saw a lot of bad dance on screen during COVID, right? Because that's all we had. We were all making it, you know, especially in the beginning, it was just like, oh, dance on Zoom, okay, let's try to do the best we can with Zoom choreography. But then it started to get really good. Like, you know, and that's thrilling, because it was like, you were feeling these two art forms cut, like, you know, getting pushed together in a really short period of time. And innovators with, with film and dance, were just leading the pack. And, and that's really exciting, because I feel like it has the potential now, as I'm chair, I’m chair of a department. So, I'm in this big time, there is an opportunity now for dance, artful dance, to enter the mainstream in incredible ways, and start to be, have commercial value and commercial worth. Like yields commercial levels of money, but artfully, respectfully, and with dignity, and diversity. Like there's that potential now. And, and that's thrilling. So, it's, yeah, I didn't expect to be someone, because I was someone who always kind of said, there's commercial, and then there's art, you know, and I definitely had a bias, you know, toward the art thing. But I don't feel that way anymore. You know, and that's COVID. COVID changed that. So [Solís: That’s good to know]. Yeah.
JOSE SOLÍS: I, I wonder, you know, when, when I saw D-Man in the Waters, all that time ago, I remember, and this is like, obviously, you've probably heard this before, from people who don't know that much about dance, and I kept thinking, how are they pulling this off? This is just like an incredible work of, you know, athletics, and just like how the body moves. But thanks to your documentary, I was also able to realize there's a whole spiritual component to the piece that I hadn't detected as an audience member, as a neophyte in the dance world when I saw it. And now I'm really curious, you know, you've had the opportunity of going from being a fan of the piece and someone who fell in love with the piece into a researcher who dived, who dove right into the belly of the beast, to go and see what was at the bottom of the piece that fascinated you. So, what surprised you about the piece itself once you were directing it, and once you were living in the heart of it with Bill as well?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Hm another great question. Well, what was beautiful is that I started to see Bill’s, to understand the sensibility of the choreographer. You know, Bill’s sensibility, I felt like I started to understand that more. And that came from having to co-direct with Tom, because, and Tom Hurwitz as a co-director was absolutely brilliant. I mean, we worked so well together, but this piece would never, this film would never have been made without him. But what that forced me to do was to understand the piece. Imagistically. And I'm using that word as opposed to visually, right? Because it's your you're watching it, like it's always visual. But imagistically, what are the images that are being created? And then also to understand the piece energetically. So, one of the things that I learned from Tom, and from watching him film dance is that he's understanding not just the image that the bodies are creating in the frame, but where is the energy? Where, what's the trajectory of that movement? Where is it headed? And where does the camera need to be to, to catch that energy, which is not visual, but the camera needs to capture it? Otherwise, you don't have the dance, the dancing, you just have formal bodies in space. So, so that was an amazing thing to, to become aware of. And then that allowed me to see Bill's craft. Because I was like, oh, this is the energy. This is the, it's like that the nuance of the dance, or the spirit of the dance is in its energetic flow, and rhythm, and trajectory. And I started to see that kind of between the bodies. And so that was a beautiful thing. I felt closer to Bill. I felt like I understood him more. And I felt really capable of taking care of his work. Because I felt like I was able to see that. That would be his, you know, that'd be up to him to say whether he felt he took care of it well. I think he would say yes. But so, so yeah, I really learned that. The other thing that I learned that didn't make the film, but is in the DVD extras, so if anybody wants to see it, you can buy the DVD, is that Demian kind of has this, and this is a beautiful aspect of the story, which I wish we could have had in the film, but we didn't. But it's almost like this eerie foretelling that D-Man in the Waters was going to be made. Because there are all these pictures of Demian as a young person. Jerry Acquavella, as he was before he became Demian in his later life. Jerry Acquavella in the shapes from the dance. As a little boy, he's sitting by the pool holding a beach ball. Now there's a beach ball motif, in D-Man in the Waters. There's a picture of him as like a young, maybe 18-19, standing on the beach, and his arms are outstretched like this. And that is an image in that is a theme, a movement theme in D-Man in the Waters. There's a picture of him on his belly, in, at the beach, in about, you know, I don't know the first kind of like, you know, few inches of water, but he's on his belly, kind of in his belly slide shape in the water before, and this is before any notion of D-Man in the Waters was in existence. And they're all these images of him. And it was, it gave me goosebumps. To almost feel like oh my god, this was fate. This is, you know, maybe this dance was really Demian’s parting gift to the world. And his whole life was kind of moving toward the manifestation of this piece. Is it complete coincidence? Or is Demian really mapped? Like if if, if holding a beach ball, you know Bill is a collaborative movement maker. And that room is really, when he's in process, as I remember, when he's in process there's a lot going in that room. And he's seeing it all. He's incredibly observant. So, if Demian were ever over in the corner like with his arms and a beach ball shape, maybe Bill unconsciously picked that up, you know. If this movement with the arms out in a V, you know was something that was natural to Demian to do. You know, he's been doing it since he was a kid you know, on the beach, did Bill unconsciously see that and put that in that dance? You know those kinds of things. And so, then Demian’s being and his physical personality is written into that dance. And that becomes his, you know, that's his memorial, that's his grave in a way, you know, And that is beautiful to me, regardless of whether it's true. It can be my reading, my own reading, but it just made that dance even more precious.
JOSE SOLÍS: That's really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I'm thinking about the piece that was both a memorial but also an extension to Demian’s life, you know. As long as a piece is alive, his that, you know, young man with the beach ball, wherever the piece goes, right? [LeBlanc: Absolutely]. I want to be very mindful, sorry to cut you [LeBlanc: Yeah], I want to be very mindful of your time. And do you have five more minutes for one final question?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Yes.
JOSE SOLÍS: Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that, by the way, there was such beautiful imagery. And I think it's going to bring this to a close perfectly. And I'm sorry, if this is a too hard of a question to answer, because I, I kind of sense that it is. But to the best of your, of your abilities, if you try to sum up, why is Bill's legacy is so important? Like if you want to talk about in terms of movement, if you want to talk about you know, like for someone who sees D-Man in the Waters, as someone who sees any other of his pieces, as someone who watches the documentary, why do you think (?) the movement is so, you know, iconic and brilliant and moving and profound, that you want to make sure it stays alive for as long as possible?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Hmm. I think that if I had to say, I mean, Bill is such a prolific artist, and he has made so many dances for so many decades. And I think inherently he's not one to be a, to, to sum up or to tie with a bow, you know. He's dynamic he's ever changing, He's responsive to the world in which it, to the contemporary moment, at all times. However, if I really think about, if there were to be a three line for me, a singular through line, that D-Man is emblematic of, it would be community and human connection. And I think that, you know, community is one of those words that's used so much, I think it really loses its resonance and its meaning. But when I think about the early duets with him and Arnie, you know, the metaphor of a young Black man, who is coming out as gay, from a migrant family, migrant farm worker family, reaching over to grab the hand of a young Jewish man older than him, you know, from a fairly, I would say, conservative Jewish family in Queens. That act of connecting, I think defined and defines why Bill is so important to, you know, to our culture. Because he's been doing that in all of his work. And he did it first with Arnie, fearlessly, boldly. And then, you know, and then that company got bigger and somewhere, I think, perhaps you could say in all of his works, that sense of connection, connecting to someone else across the aisle, if you will, is in there somewhere, right. There's, there's touch, there's communing, there's collaboration, there's community, there's coming together, there's, we need each other, there's a sense of “we” in all of his works. Or an if not in it, in an affirmative way questioning it. Like in a piece like Last Supper and Uncle Tom's Cabin, he's questioning the “we.” Do we have it actually? Are we a we? you know. What happens if we're all nude and stripped down to our, what happens at that moment? Do we touch? Do we dare touch? You know, like, all of those questions are in a piece like that, you know. In a piece like Still/Here, it's like, where is the moment that we convene? There are people who are the arrogant well, and there are people who are tasting mortality. What is it the afterlife that, you know, there's a sense of spiritual convening. Like, I think in all of those pieces, there is both in the, in the casting in the movement invention, and in the deep concepts, there is, there is the, the community. And, and a critical investigation of community. And so that's why he's so important. I feel like that's, you know, I mean, a Black artist, born at the time that he was in this country, coming of age at the peak of the Civil Rights movement, that his work is about connection, and coming together. That's, that's an artist that we have to keep alive forever, because that tells us a tremendous amount about who we are, and our survival, as a, as a, as a nation, I think is in that like, can we come together? So, I think that that's what I would say. And you know, again, that's just me. So, there might be other dance critics, writers, philosophers, theorists, who might see something else, but that's what I see.
JOSE SOLÍS: I'm getting a sense from what you're saying, and please correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong or if I'm misquoting you, I might be paraphrasing you and coming up with like my own, but what I’m, the sense that I'm getting is that when you are doing a piece by Bill T. Jones, we are never alone, because it's life?
ROSALYNDE LEBLANC: Yup. I would, yes, I would say that.
OUTRO: How People Move People, is brought to you by The National Center for 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’m Eduardo Vilaro, Artistic Director and CEO of Ballet Hispanico, 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 we encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform by searching for How People Move People.