[ominous music] - When the pandemic hit, we had to basically close our doors.

It was just this feeling of how can this happen to us now?

What do we do next?

And it wasn't just what was happening in your own city, it was worldwide.

- The arts were so affected.

I was like, we're not coming back.

The last thing they're thinking is about opening a theater to see dance.

- Finally, your dreams are coming true to be in a company, a professional dancer.

And all of a sudden, everything just shuts down.

- I thought about quitting.

This is my fourth year auditioning, and then COVID happened.

And I was like, okay, it's done then.

- As a dancer, the pandemic made me feel like who am I as a person?

- This is how deep the pandemic affected us mentally.

- We had to start soul searching and feeling that it was still possible.

[soft music] [uplifting music] - We knew that this could work, but how to make it work.

This was really starting from scratch.

We're gonna start in like five minutes.

I'm taking liberties and reimagining this piece, but why not?

You know, we built this building, so what else can we do?

It was very ambitious, and it was kind of scary, but if we were to let fear keep us from doing something, then Firebird would not have happened.

There was one point before we started rehearsals for Firebird and I was like, oh my goodness, am I really doing this?

[uptempo music] Can I just see that part?

- Around here, 'cause as it is now.

- So one step up.

You can't be stiff like the ice that's outside.

- These two to go to front, and these two go to back.

- Try it again.

Lemme see you run down this back.

Five, six, seven, go.

One, two, three.

I wanna change one thing.

- Maybe we come straight down into it.

[indistinct speaking] - Let's go back.

- This is very like tribal, African love.

- "Firebird" meets Wakanda.

- Exactly.

It's not like anything that anyone else has done.

[uptempo music] - It's only 25 minutes, but what a 25 minutes, you know, Stravinsky.

- It takes me back to Arthur Mitchell being able to take Giselle and get Creole Giselle.

For me, Creole Giselle was the first ballet I saw with brown dancers and made me say, I wanna do this.

Now, here you come bringing along your version of Firebird, and now other kids across the country are gonna be like, I wanna do that too.

- It's not just created for my dancers to dance, but it's for the community.

So it's important for us to put together a story like Firebird where I have princes, maidens who have braids in their hair.

[uptempo music] - I love this because then it's like, you didn't have to strip your blackness.

- That really is our history.

We were kings and queens in Africa.

- It became more colorful, it became more lively.

- I think we were all like, oh, that's exciting.

Like, can we do that?

Like, is it possible?

- Just the fact that we were able to carry on the season this way, that is pretty exciting.

- And it's a learning process for all of us.

We are learning new ways to display this art form.

People in the dance world have hope that the arts are not done.

[somber music] - Shows got canceled.

I didn't know when I would go back to work.

So I was just like, what am I gonna do?

I was holding onto the window or chair and like dancing in like this little square of space.

And I found myself going out in nature.

Every time I saw like a nice spot, I would just put up my phone and start improving.

And like, it just became this thing that I do.

- They were like, everything's canceled.

And so I immediately booked a flight home, and I ended up staying there from March until August.

I actually took time for myself, like for the first time since I was 15.

It was difficult for me to keep going day after day when you don't have a show or performance to look forward to.

- I was definitely excited that Adji and Erica were coming.

It did take a long time for me to find the guests.

It wasn't that easy because we are in pandemic.

When they got here.

My big nervousness was that this was a new piece never tried out or anything.

And they really only have one week.

[soft piano music] - It's been a blessing to be back in a studio again.

It's really been a year since I've been in a studio for a set amount of time, and the vibe here is just fantastic.

I've never been with such a like warm and loving group of people.

- We were so excited to have them here, and I think that brought the excitement for them to be here as well.

[soft piano music] - I wanna see how do they do what they do?

Like how do they approach class?

How do they approach rehearsals?

Okay, they have a coffee in the morning.

I don't know.

- What is the secret?

- It was more so like an inspiration.

[soft piano music] - Here we are in a studio with others, dancing, exploring together, taking class, and then even performing on stage.

Like that is huge.

I will never take that for granted again.

- Maybe it was just something that they needed personally, to have this environment.

- I feel like coming to Collage after COVID, I have a new sense of confidence.

- Oh, those are our costumes too.

- Sorry.

[laughter] - I love my costume.

- The costumes are amazing.

- Yeah.

[cheerful music] - I have been working for Collage for over seven years, but this is the very first time that I have to build a whole ballet.

Everything you'll see on stage, it's designed and made by me.

- And I was already so excited about being in the studios, and then I tried on this beautiful costume, and I was just in heaven.

- She had a cape, and I was like, come on.

Like, it can't get any better.

- I'm not taking it off.

- Erica was very excited.

The costume wasn't even finished, but she said, "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever worn."

- It made you feel like royalty.

Like you want me to look my best and perform my best.

That was just like really awesome to experience.

[dramatic music] - It's good to hear the dancers.

When they try the costume and they feel confident, they feel pretty, they feel handsome.

I wanted to be vibrant, happy, joyful, magical.

It's very exciting.

It's a big project all from scratch.

Make it different.

It's what Kevin and Marcellus, we talk about.

So that's what we try to do.

So I started looking for texture, fabrics, colors, African print, African accessories.

I found so much inspiration that I have to kind of narrow it down because I couldn't add everything that I found.

It's that freedom of creativity that they allow me to be who I am as an artist.

I just, I always feel like it could be better.

You have to find a stopping point.

I think this one works.

It's a little nerveracking because there is no audience.

This is my first time working with film.

I'm used to seeing costumes, thinking how they're gonna look on stage far away, but they're really close so I have to pay attention to the details so that the camera can catch everything.

It's this strange feeling, you wanna hear the clapping.

I think we all miss that.

[uptempo music] - Wow, we're back in the theater.

This is great.

And then we step on stage, and it's like that one person that's going like this.

[claps] - Take five, we're gonna come back and do this from the very beginning.

Recording was not easy.

A live performance is different.

It's once, it's done.

- Even though it was broken up in like sections, recording it was almost like running the piece five times.

- Can you go back, can you do this part again?

And again, and one more time.

- Are you gonna get this done or not?

- And I was one of the people that kept messing it up.

So I felt awful.

- We're gonna go back to that same spot that we fixed.

- The level of awareness that you have to have.

Like, there's a chance that when you're in this corner and you messed up, nobody saw it, but this camera over here, they got you.

- That was a true test of stamina and patience at the same time.

The emotional stamina too.

To be able to hit that emotional part every single time.

- I think it helped to sharpen my senses on stage, and that's something that I can take when we actually start to perform live again.

- Dare I?

I dare.

The magic of creating in the moment is cool.

You don't know what it's gonna look like until you turn the lights on.

[soft piano music] - Magic, passion, violence, anger, intense love.

It's a world of high emotional stakes.

So it's crucial that the design of the environment support these themes, support the music support what Kevin has created for movement.

- Let those lights dissipate and we're seeing through the vines.

- Okay.

- We're telling a story with a lot more tools at our disposal.

Give me the lens.

Give an arm up, a GO, an arm up standby, and an arm down GO.

Is Hayes okay with that?

Wilburn and I and have worked together for many, many years.

So we have a really wonderful common language.

We don't even know the ceiling to this world, and they have to on the understanding of the full depth of space.

Having that fluency and ease of sharing ideas is super important.

In this production of Firebird, we are in the jungle.

We are not in a Russian forest, as Stravinsky may have thought of it.

Which got me towards this idea of trying to represent something like a forest using something soft.

Because I don't know how you explain this.

Okay, we want this tendril, but they're kind of ugly, beautiful tendrils.

And there's a little bit of like a, like "Nightmare Before Christmas", and they're a little bit sexy, and there's a little bit [indistinct].

Are they roots?

Are they vines?

Are they emotions?

We are very intentionally not beholden to a traditional or maybe Eurocentric approach to this piece.

[soft piano music] We're seeing all the ways that Wilburn can play with the space, which is fairly static, but is radically transformative because of the way the angled intensity of the color of light that he can use to resculpt it and reveal it in different ways to us.

[soft piano music] - That's good, lock.

You open up this world for people, and everybody suspends their disbelief and sits back and watches this thing happen.

And at the end, it gets grand and beautiful.

But I don't know that any of us will know whether my design is any good unless we've seen it run end to end.

Thanks, dancers.

We're gonna take it from the top again.

[triumphant orchestral music] - Coming back from the pandemic, it feels like an awakening.

- This year has been surreal, but it's been absolutely amazing.

- Like you have to, you have to go forward.

That's it.

We go on or we die.

- We're able to adapt and show that ballet can be more mainstream.

We're changing the way that we are showing the art.

[triumphant orchestral music] - I'm so grateful that Kevin and Marcellus kept pushing.

- It was very ambitious.

Very, very ambitious, but we did it.

We've made room for more exciting work, bigger things to come.

- I had thought it's over.

And you guys said, no, it's not.

It's different, but it's not over.

[triumphant orchestral music] [applause] - I don't think I could have made it through this entire process without the help of you guys.

- I think we came together in the best way that we could as a company, as friends.

- We did it, and we did more than we thought we would do.

- Collage is a really special environment, and I could feel it from like the first day that I stepped in this year.

- I love the work that we do, and I'm so grateful.

- There's a level of comfort and family and home that I feel when I come to work.

- I'm grateful to have Collage as a place where I can show up authentically me.

- Here, I feel appreciated.

I feel like I matter.

- Raise a glass.

Let's toast to each other.

You guys did a great job this year.

We've overcome many challenges, yes, but through community, we've gotten through together.

Because of that, we're moving into the future to brighter and brighter and brighter days.

Here we go, cheers.

- We hope that you've enjoyed Firebird Rising.

The past two years have been all about turning poison into medicine, and this project is a great example of that.

And although we've been so grateful to be able to be creative during this period of uncertainty, we're even more excited to be back in the theater, back on stage, doing live performances, the power of video is so amazing in that it's made it possible for so many people who otherwise might not be able to to experience our work.

However, there's something so special and so powerful about experiencing the performing arts live.

So I encourage you this season, if you're able to, to experience Collage at a theater near you.

The performing arts need your support now more than ever before.

So if you've enjoyed what you've watched, I encourage you to continue to support organizations like Collage by attending live performances and staying in touch with us through our social channels.

After two years of not being able to perform live for an audience, I'm so excited to share with you our return to the stage.

What you're about to experience is an excerpt from Kevin Thomas's Firebird performed live at the Cannon Center in April of 2022.

[applause] [Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite - Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses] [Stravinsky: The Firebird Round Dance of the Princesses] [applause] [soft orchestral music] [Igor Stravinsky - Firebird Suite 1945]