- They are ballet companies on the leading edge of creativity, growth, and diversity in dance.

New York's Dance Theatre of Harlem and Collage Dance Collective in Memphis, Tennessee.

Their artistic directors, Robert Garland and Kevin Thomas, are here together with me, Dacquiri Baptiste, for A Conversation on Dance.

Welcome to A Conversation on Dance.

My name is Dacquiri Baptiste and I'm the vice president and COO at the Orpheum Theatre Group.

It is my pleasure to sit next to two amazing individuals who help shed light on dance all over the world, but also here at home in Memphis, Tennessee.

I'd like to introduce you to Robert Garland, the artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Kevin Thomas, the artistic director of Collage Dance Collective.

Why don't we take a quick moment to allow yourselves an opportunity to introduce yourselves to the audience?

Why don't we start with Robert?

- Okay.

Well, my name is Robert Garland.

- Mm-hmm.

- I'm originally from Philadelphia.

- Awesome.

- I studied there at the Pennsylvania Ballet and also at the Philadelphia Dance Company.

And while at the Philadelphia Dance Company, Joan Myers Brown's founder always believed in having New York teachers come down.

So, whenever the original Dance Theatre of Harlem company was off from the performing, they would come to Philadelphia to teach.

And that was my first, including Karel Shook, the co-founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem.

And so, that was my first introduction to Dance Theatre of Harlem.

And my second introduction was as a 8-year-old child, actually.

Well, that one is actually before being at Philadelphia.

- Of course.

- Mr. Mitchell had been commissioned to do a work for something called the National Congress of Catholic Churches, - Mm-hmm.

- In honor of Dr. King.

And Marian Anderson was a friend of his who lived in Philadelphia, did the narration.

And I was seeing this wonderful thing for the first time in an outdoor theatre with women in nun habits all around.

And so, it was very interesting that way.

- What about you, Kevin?

- Well, my name is Kevin Thomas.

I am the co-founding artistic director of Collage Dance Collective.

I'm originally from Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago.

That's where I was born, but I grew up in Montreal, Canada, and that's where I started dancing.

And it was when I left Montreal and I had moved to Cleveland to dance with Cleveland San Jose Ballet that I was introduced to Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Dance Theatre of Harlem came to Cleveland.

And for me, it was a wrap after that.

When I saw that company, I was like, "Okay, I need to join."

So, [laughs] I say a few years later, I was in New York dancing with Dance Theatre of Harlem.

- And now, we're sitting here today with you at the helm of DTH, Dance Theatre of Harlem.

- Mm.

- And you're here, of course, at the helm of Collage Dance Collective in Memphis that I'd be interested to know how and if your paths ever crossed on this Dance Theatre of Harlem journey.

- It's crossed many times, 'cause we...

I joined the company in 1995 until 2005.

And my first introduction to Dance Theatre of Harlem, I mean, I met Robert right away.

I got to join a stage full of dancers of color.

That was my, "Wow, incredible."

And I remember joining the cast of "Four Temperaments" and Robert was Phlegmatic.

[everyone laughs] - That's right, that's right, that's right.

- I was Melancholic.

And it was, you know, [Dacquiri chuckles] just so wonderful to share this stage with all these artists and having, you know, at the helm, of course, Arthur Mitchell.

And for me, you know, my background when I started dancing, I didn't have an Arthur Mitchell to look up to, someone who looked like me.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, many years forward having, you know, getting to experience this moment at Dance Theatre of Harlem was incredible for me.

And another great memory I had with Robert, is when we were on tour.

Well, touring was fantastic.

Those are.

[everyone laughs] I have to say, those 10 years of Dance Theatre of Harlem, fantastic days, but I remember our tours used to be so much fun.

But one of my aha moments is when we were in, I believe it was Granada, was it Granada, Italy?

- Mm-hmm.

- Performing outdoors, is the Alhambra Castle.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah, outdoor performance.

I'm sitting down watching rehearsal and it's "Serenade".

- Mm-hmm.

- And I've seen, performed in "Serenade" many times with Les Grands Ballets, Cleveland Ballet, have seen the ballet, of course, George Balanchine's famous ballet.

Everyone loves it.

But when I saw it on Dance Theatre of Harlem, when I saw all those different hues of color, all those different color on the women in these dresses, these tutus, I was like, "Wow, you know, we are beautiful.

"We are so beautiful.

"We are beautifully beautiful, classically-trained dancers on this stage."

And, you know, those really are my memories of DTH is seeing how beautiful we are.

- Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely.

- It's such a beautiful memory, and it makes me wonder why was DTH founded in the way that it was founded?

You know, it's interesting, as Kevin's point of view is seeing people that look like himself, which we know is so important for you to be able to aspire for more.

So, I'd love to know if you could just share a little bit about that.

- Yeah, well, you know, our Dance Theatre was founded in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell, who was the first black male principal dancer of a major ballet company, that being New York City Ballet, and that was important, because at the time, it was believed that black people could not excel at the classical art forms.

That's all of them.

Classical music, painting, sculpture, anything from the European artistic tradition, we could not excel at.

And Arthur Mitchell, through dance and specifically ballet, start to prove them wrong.

He went to LaGuardia High School, a public high school in New York City, went to School of American Ballet, at the invitation of George Balanchine.

And the School of American Ballet was a theater for New York City Ballet.

So he joined New York City Ballet, had a fantastic career, and decided he was gonna go to Brazil to start a company.

On his way to the airport, he heard about the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And he said, "Why am I going to Brazil to start something "for people that look like me when I can go back "to my hometown or home community and build something there?"

Which he did.

He got back, he spent, according to Cicely Tyson, they sat up all night hatching their plan.

One little unknown fact about the early days, in those early days, it was that Arthur Mitchell's mother always told him, she was a church woman, and she said, "Arthur, you know, after you tithe 10% to the church, always tithe 10% to yourself."

So, by that time, he had gathered $150,000, which in today's universe, would be millions.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- And he used that money to have hatch Dance Theatre of Harlem.

So, he was not just a great artist, he was also a shrewd businessman- And knew how to pay attention to things that typically you weren't trained to pay attention to.

- Right, right, right.

- So, of course, the connection is this location being Memphis, being, you know, and for Dr. King and that importance and significance- - Yeah.

- Of what occurred here.

I've watched Kevin's photographs.

Some of you guys have done some lovely pictures of the Lorraine Motel, which has been wonderful to see, you know, all honoring that specific moment- - Of course.

- For our world as Americans, but also for Dance Theatre of Harlem specifically.

- That leads me to ask Kevin to share Collage's journey, and why Memphis?

- Why Memphis?

Well, Dance Theatre of Harlem is in Harlem that has a majority make up of people of color, right?

So, we wanted to move to a city that was similar, and we had heard about Memphis and it was 65% minority population.

And we're like, "I think this should work."

So, we came here in 2007 and we did two years due diligence to make sure that what we wanted to do was needed.

And we realized, yes, it is needed.

And in 2009, we opened a school in the basement of a church.

[Kevin laughs] - Always, always.

- Where all the best ones start.

- That's right.

- With one child.

And that's how we started.

And now, we teach over a thousand kids a week.

So, why Memphis?

We saw that there was a need.

And I know just from my own personal, you know, background, again, as I talked about representation and what ballet has done for me, you know.

The places I've been, the schools I was able to get into, ballet is a gateway, you know, to education.

Mr. Mitchell would always say that.

- That's right, that's right.

- Do you know?

And all the lessons, too, that Mr. Mitchell would teach us.

I really started learning there at Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Things like you are bigger than yourself.

You represent more than yourself.

He would say that to us all the time.

I mean, I had never heard that until I came to Dance Theatre of Harlem.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yes, you represent something larger than yourself.

- Much larger than yourself.

And that means so much.

And that's, again, our whole mission, too, at Collage Dance, is that you represent more than yourself, you know.

You are larger than yourself.

I say that to my students, say that to the dancers when we're on tour.

And it's, you know, it's important that we realize that.

- Yeah, you know, Mr. Mitchell, over time, he was so busy with us as dancers.

Sometimes, he did not find enough time to tell us the genesis of a lot of the pithy sayings that he gave us over the years, and you're representing something larger than yourself was one of them.

And right before he was to go into emeritus phase at Dance Theatre of Harlem, he explained to me how that happened, and how it happened or how the phrase came to be was that he actually, and this is where I think sometimes historically, we don't realize that he was dancing with New York City Ballet in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement.

So, there were lots of people that said, "Arthur, you know, why are you still dancing there?

You know, you should come out here with us."

You know, blah, blah, blah.

And he was torn for a very long time.

And it was Harry Belafonte that told him, "No, Arthur, you should stay there, because you're representing something larger than yourself."

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

And so, that's how that phrase came to be and never forgot it, you know.

[Dacquiri laughs] And then the other thing he never forgot was Ruby Bridges.

- Mm-hmm.

- You know.

He was at New York City Ballet as the only black person, and was watching this young lady who was maybe six, or seven, or eight integrate a school in the South.

- Yeah.

- And the things that were said to her.

And after he saw that, he said, "I never want us to be ever by ourselves again like that."

He didn't believe it.

- Is there anything, I mean, I'm sure you share the things that you've learned from Mr. Mitchell, but is there anything you wanna share that, you know, that you also have created for your own that you think is helpful to this next generation of dancers?

'Cause there's certainly living in, unfortunately similar times, there's lots of similarities, but there's also lots of growth, technology.

I feel like there's a lot more distractions.

- Yes.

- So, how do you navigate that, not just with the school, but also with the dancers in the company?

- That's a good question, because yeah, I think about what was our life like without our cell phones?

But now, everyone has a cell phone, so it's the information age, you know, all the... You know, your students, your professional dancers, they have all this information.

It's acknowledging that they do have the information, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- And you're dealing with a different generation.

- Yep.

- Basically.

And, you know, still being in front of the room, acknowledging that this does exist and you using it yourself, too.

So, I mean, you know, it's not gonna go away.

[everyone laughs] - No.

- It's here, so we have to live with it and deal with it, but know that, you know, we're dealing with a different generation- - Yeah, and adapting.

- You know, but also using it to your benefit.

I mean, you know, yes, we're talking about Dr. Martin Luther King, you know, kids Google everything, you know.

I'm not gonna sit there and tell you the whole story.

You can Google it, you know.

[Dacquiri and Robert laughs] - Yeah, you know, in the early days of Dance Theatre of Harlem, due to segregation, actually, there was a very robust infrastructure of media in the black community.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, there were many, many black newspapers and black radio stations, and that was sort of how the communication happened in the early success of Dance Theatre of Harlem with our community, which it wasn't a traditional ballet community.

We were making an audience as we were created.

And that has slowly gone away.

And so, one of the things that I'm here this week to do, which is kind of filling in the gap for that, is to really go back into the community, do things like this, but the beauty of this is that I have someone that I know extremely well in this space, as opposed to going in cold.

But while we're here, we're going to make a visit with some churches, work with, you know, the marathoners, and just kind of get connected to the community in a way that kind of gives people a level of comfortability with the art form.

You know, sometimes people still see ballet as something that's over there, you know.

And this gives us an opportunity to, again, press the issue of this is for everyone, Kevin's work is for everyone, Dance Theatre of Harlem work is for everyone.

And so, that's kind of how I kind of look at it now.

And I think the information age side of it is good.

- Mm-hmm.

- You know, our dancers volunteer to do a large part of our social media that represents the organization.

- Wonderful.

- And they do a great job, you know, because they're the ones that know how.

And so, hopefully, we'll have a marketing director or you'll have a marketing director, either of you- - Yeah.

- From that experience, so.

- I think there was a few things that were shared that I just wanna circle back to.

One of them being, you shared about the moment during the '50s and '60s where there were lots of black papers and lots of ways and you were creating the audience.

I wonder, though I can say I experience it, we're doing the same thing now, coming out of COVID.

We're recreating our audiences- - Yes, yes.

- To come back and experience live theater.

So they get off their phones, they get off the television all the time.

There's nothing like sitting in an audience next to somebody you don't know to experience something together.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's just, to me, that's a beautiful part of the art in general with live theater.

And my passion, of course, is dance.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so, I understand, I completely understand, but often, the words can be trying to to bring in an audience that doesn't know what they don't know.

Some people may not even know that they're dance lovers because of the words you said- - That's right.

- Which is like, "Oh, ballet."

[gasps] It can be scary.

- Oh, yeah.

- It's polarizing, that word.

- It is, it is.

And I don't like that it's polarizing.

And we need to figure out how to make it more comfortable for people.

- Yes.

- And so, Robert, you shared some of the ways that we're working all together in this community to make it more comfortable.

- That's right.

That's right.

- Collage is here doing that all the time.

- All the time.

- And we call it reframing the narrative.

- Exactly.

- Right, we wanna tell stories that people understand or they connect with, telling the story about Dr. Martin Luther King.

- Yeah.

- You know, talking about that, or "Their Eyes Were Watching God".

That's one way to connect someone.

And once they see that, "Oh my God, this is really quite astounding."

As I've told a lot of my board members that I have, you know, parents come up to me, especially fathers come up to me crying, saying that, "I didn't know that I would be moved this much by this."

You know, so that's a testament to, again, proof that dance is for everyone.

Once that story touches you or that story brings you in.

- Absolutely.

My first experience with Dance Theatre of Harlem after I understood what I was watching, 'cause I had the eight year old's experience, [Dacquiri and Kevin laughs] but then after I started training, I understood what I was watching.

They were doing performances of a teenager in Philadelphia, and they were performing a ballet called "Forces of Rhythm" and "Forces of Rhythm" combined, like, bits of Tchaikovsky, and I was studying classical music as well at the time.

Bits of Tchaikovsky and then popular Motown songs and Aretha Franklin song by Louis Johnson, and it was kind of his kind of take on where we sat as a community post Civil Rights.

Beautiful piece in that sense.

And it met me there.

It met me there.

Curtain went down, curtain goes back up, and there's this woman, her name was Yvonne Hall, actually.

And she had these beautiful legs with these beautiful shoes on that she could stand on her toes, and this purple pancake-looking thing, which I ended up finding out was a tutu- You know, and she was dancing with a gentleman by the name of Ronald Perry, And they were doing a pas de deux, you know.

So, for me at that time, it took me from this wonderful Motown Aretha Franklin thing over to this really classical thing.

And to this day, that's how I do my programming, honestly.

- I was gonna say programming is key.

- Yeah.

- Programming is key.

- That's what I do, because I really believe that we have to create more Kevins, and more mes, and more Dacquiris.

- Absolutely.

- You know.

- Particularly post pandemic.

- Absolutely.

- You know.

One of the things that people were asking during the time we were in the pandemic, "What do you think we're gonna get out of it?"

And I said, "I'm hoping we're gonna get out of it, the local dance artists again."

When I was at Pennsylvania Ballet, most of the dancers in that ballet company and the Philadanco, Philadelphia Dance Company, all were from Philadelphia.

- Mm-hmm.

- Every single one.

Trained, were phenomenal dancers, you know?

And I believe that we are about to return to that space.

There's a beautiful Korean dancer in the... Soloist maybe by now, with San Francisco Ballet- - Mm-hmm.

- And she holds great pride in this, was born and raised up through the San Francisco Ballet School.

Her mom had a nail salon around the corner, you know.

Like, that means something, I think to people.

- Absolutely.

- Mm-hmm.

- So- - That, I mean, I can speak personally about it, but Collage, and I know DTH, but again, Collage is doing that.

You're creating these beings that are falling in love with this art form that- - Yeah.

- However long ago, they didn't know anything about, and now, look at how this is thriving, beautiful facility.

And you moved to Memphis and you said you learned some things that informed your decision to come here.

Can you share a few of those things that you may have learned on that journey?

- Well, I've learned it's, you know, things really grow by word of mouth, too.

So, when we started with one child, you know, we didn't have that much advertisement.

So, I had one child, and it was through the training that one child told another child, told another parent, and it just started, you know, growing that way.

So, what I've learned that is community is important.

You know, creating a community.

You talked about how we introduced these young kids to something they didn't know about, but what they also have now are lifelong friends.

- Yes.

- You know.

We have a few sets of kids that are in university programs, training programs, and they're in contact with each other every day.

- So special.

- You know.

And it is special to know that you've created a community that did not exist before.

There's a love of an art form that I love.

You know, people ask me, "Why do you love ballet so much?"

I mean, because it did so much for me.

It was my way to communicate, you know, was the best way that I could communicate- - Of course.

- And it led me to, you know, doing great things.

And I just know within my heart that if I can give that same gift to someone else, and we've been able to give it to many kids, it makes me so proud to see, you know, our kids going off to different schools to study, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet, SAB, you know.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And they're coming from Memphis, they're homegrown.

So, again, what have I learned?

Yes, it's the same rules that you learn in ballet.

It's hard work, it's passion, you know.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's repetition.

- Yes.

- You know, all these things you keep pushing yourself.

- Absolutely.

You know, I was talking to Dacquiri about theater goers and the conversation we were having, and, you know, there are people that come to see different things, you know, and one of those things is Broadway- - Mm-hmm.

- You know.

And we were chatting and, you know, and at one point, you know, I kind of realized that, you know, most of the people that are now Broadway people or even straight theater people, started somewhere, and a lot of times, it was in dance.

- That's right.

- It was in dance.

- Like Dacquiri Baptiste.

[everyone laughs] - That's right.

Some of the best dancers rule the world.

- That's right, there you go, there you go.

- We're seeing it every day.

Whenever I talk to kids or high school kids, and they're doing dance a little bit, but, "Oh, I really like math instead."

And I said, "Be a CFO for a dance company."

- Yes.

- What better people?

Be a managing director.

- Yes.

- Be something like that- - Mm-hmm.

- Because I don't think your schools exist because you wanna make a gazillion dancers.

- No.

- Your schools exist because you wanna create art lovers.

- That's right, that's right.

- And if you have an art lover, you're building the next generation of these amazing people.

- Yeah.

- That's right.

- I wanna shift just one more moment and talk about sort of more of the cross-pollination of the two of you and the companies.

And if I remember correctly, it was February of 22, "Dougla".

"Dougla", Dance Theatre of Harlem and Collage Dance Collective- - Mm-hmm.

- Came together and collaborated, and did "Dougla" here.

- Yes.

- At the Cannon Center.

I would love to just know a little bit about how that happened and just what that was like to do that.

Again, share that moment.

- Well, that was prior to my time as artistic director- - Right.

- But Kevin can speak to that, but I did perform the ballet many, many, many times.

- Of course.

- It's the pride and joy.

- It's a pride and joy.

- It's the pride and joy of Dance Theatre of Harlem.

- But Kevin.

- Well, it first began with, yeah, Virginia Johnson.

She had phoned me saying that they wanted to bring back "Dougla", and that was in New York first, and that's how it first began.

So, they brought back "Dougla" and they needed to supplement.

So they used some of my dancers.

And for me, "Dougla" is magical.

When I told you that I saw Dance Theatre of Harlem in Cleveland, the ballet that I saw was "Dougla".

When I saw that ballet, I was like, "I'm gonna dance to this ballet."

And you know, the other beautiful thing about "Dougla" is that, for me, another sign of representation that the choreographer, Geoffrey Holder, is Trinidadian.

So, again, that's another connection for me.

But anyway, so, of course I love this ballet.

So, when Virginia asked us to do this, I was like, "Of course!"

and I know the ballet, we danced it.

That was our Revelations.

- Yeah.

- We did it.

We would do "Four Temperaments"- - Yes.

- We would do Tchaikovsky.

Everything.

[everyone laughs] Come out and do "Dougla".

- That's right, that's right.

- That was the last thing we did.

So, it was great for me to share, again, this history with my dancers.

And Marcellus, our executive director, Marcellus Harper, he had this great idea that, you know, let's bring "Dougla" to Memphis.

And that's really how that started.

We're like, "Let's do it in Memphis."

So we called Virginia this time [laughs] - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- And we reversed it and said, "We would love to do it in Memphis."

And really have it look like the two companies are kind of getting married, because there's a wedding ceremony.

- Yes.

- There's the groom and the bride.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, you know, one night, it would be the bride from Collage and the groom from Dance Theatre of Harlem.

And then we would reverse it the next night, you know?

- Yeah.

- So, it was a wonderful collaboration.

Again, for me, it's always wonderful for me to teach something I know really well.

- Of course.

- You know.

[laughs] It's ingrained in you.

- It's ingrained in me.

I have all this knowledge and I, you know, we got rehearsed by Geoffrey Holder.

- Exactly, exactly.

- You know, we got rehearsed by Arthur Mitchell.

[laughs] - Yes, exactly.

- Exactly.

- So, yeah, it was a wonderful experience to bring this.

- I appreciate you sharing that moment.

I think the importance of that, and just, again, this whole conversation is this beautiful art form transcends so many different spaces, but also to know we're sitting in a room with two amazing institutions, two amazing companies of color that are not in competition with one another.

- No.

- They are not here to, you know, have a difference, but more so, so many likenesses that help elevate everything- - That's right, that's right.

- In the art, and I think that's just beautiful.

- Yeah.

- I think we're coming to a close.

This conversation could go on forever.

I have so many other things I wanna ask, so many other things that we know we can share, but I appreciate your time today, and thank you for allowing me to sit between you two and just guide, because you have all the perfect words to say, to share.

So, thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Dacquiri.

- I appreciate that.

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