In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke, enters the 'studio' with West Hollywood, California-based choreographer, writer, director, filmmaker, and performer David Roussève. A Guggenheim Fellow and Bessie Award winner, Roussève has toured extensively domestically and internationally with his dance/theater company REALITY. Roussève is a Distinguished Professor of Choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA and, at the time of this recording, was developing his first full-length evening solo performance in over 20 years.
Jennifer Edwards: Thanks for joining us Inside the Dancer’s Studio, where we bring listeners like you closer to the creative process. Inside The Dancer’s Studio is a program of the National Center for Choreography in Akron, Ohio. This podcast was recorded as an ongoing documentation practice with NCCAkron visiting artists in 2024 and 2025. In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke, enters the 'studio' with West Hollywood, California-based choreographer, writer, director, filmmaker, and performer David Roussève. A Guggenheim Fellow and Bessie Award winner, Roussève has toured extensively domestically and internationally with his dance/theater company REALITY. Roussève is a Distinguished Professor of Choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA and, at the time of this recording was developing his first full length evening solo performance in over 20 years, tentatively titled Daddy AF.
Christy Bolingbroke: Full disclosure to our listening friends, uh, our relationship goes way back and I am grateful to count David among the mentors during my collegiate dance experience. And I'm really curious, when did you know you wanted to be a choreographer?
DavidRoussève: I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be an artist. A performing artist and, my mother, Genevieve Arsenal Roussève, who I just adore, was this real force of nature, who grew up in the projects of Houston. (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). Her family are Creoles from the, literally the back swamps of Louisiana. Born in abject poverty, just faced incredible racism and misogyny in her life. And I mention that because. In not an obnoxious way, and actually in a way I really appreciate it. She was hell bent on the fact that we were going to, if not be forced to do the things that she didn't have the chance to do, we were gonna have the opportunity (Bolingbroke: Mmm) to choose to do those things. And so when the Alley Theater opened in Houston, and you know, the Alley Theater is now a huge regional, really important, but it's called the Alley Theater 'cause it opened in a raggedy ass space in an alley. The ceiling leaked. It was so mom ’n pop, and, but it was paradise (Bolingbroke: Mm). And my mom enrolled me in these, she always wanted to take acting class, but as a, black woman of color, she could not
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
David Roussève: As a child. And so she offered me that opportunity and I took to it like a duck takes to water. I knew right away I was just in heaven. So I was compelled from the earliest age to be a performer. But there was a, a, a clash, what I thought was maybe a not doable tension between my wanting to be on stage and sing and dance, and I took like jazz class, think bad jazz hands (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm), stuff in my background, which I, which I love. I'm not knocking bad jazz class…
Christy Bolingbroke: But you know, I'm like, did you go to the Swayze studio since you were in Houston?
David Roussève Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
David Roussève: I did go to the Swayze studio and then I was, um, remember Astroworld, our version of Disneyland?
Christy Bolingbroke: Oh Yes.
David Roussève: Well (Laughs), I laughed. That was my first quote unquote dancing job.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yes, you did.
David Roussève: Remember Marvel, McFey, the, uh, the, the, the, like, he was like their Mickey Mouse.
Christy Bolingbroke: Okay.
David Roussève: This ridiculous guy. And like a big orange hat with a big orange beard. And you wore this a hundred pound costume. I was Marvel McFey. That was the, that was my celebrity as a child (Laughs).
Christy Bolingbroke: Oh my goodness.
David Roussève: Dancing Marvel McFey (Continues laughing), like Mickey Mouse (Bolingbroke: Deep cut) minus a hundred steps (Bolingbroke laughs).
David Roussève: But I was hooked nonetheless.
Christy Bolingbroke: Amazing.
David Roussève: Having been a child of the sixties (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). And the tumultuous Civil Rights years. And, to make a very long story, very short, my parents, the Roussèves (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm) were always free people of color in New Orleans with phenomenal, phenomenal educational access. They were never slaves. However, they were Black. The [unclear word] were the poorest of the poor. My, uh, both of my grandparents were, uh, descended from slaves and I grew up around them (Bolingbroke: Mm). And so I had a very strong social justice commitment and, and interest, and I saw how poorly my grandmother was treated. So I wanted to become a social justice lawyer to make sure that other people were not treated that way.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm.
David Roussève: The morals of the story, I mentioned that because I could not get, I didn't understand how my desire to, you know, be a Broadway hoofer and sing and dance and triple threat, could gel with the desire to do something. That was what, how I defined as socially responsible 'cause I do not dump my interests and opinions and desires on other people. For me, I wanted to do something that had, was gonna affect society in general in a positive way. I'm getting to answer your question in so in such a roundabout way.
Christy Bolingbroke: It’s amazing.
David Roussève: But I got, um, Princeton sent me an application. I had never heard of Princeton. I didn't know what a prep school was. I didn't know what an Ivy league, it was just, in fact, I was disappointed 'cause I wanted to go to University of Texas with all my friends and my mom thought this Princeton thing was such a big deal. So I returned the application and I got in and I went there. But that was vital to my becoming an artist, ironically, because at Princeton I started studying modern dance ( Bolingbroke: Mm)and choreography and seeing a bigger choreographic and theatrical world (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). And I realized. OMG you can do, you can be a performer and a creator of work, and if that's what you wanna do, you can make it. You can try to move society, you can try to touch people, you can try to get people to see the other themselves in the other, and the other in themselves through dance and theater. And so when I graduated from Princeton, I had a bigger context for what it might mean to be an artist. I, uh, got into Columbia and NYU law schools, but deferred for three years because I discovered in that those three years, the downtown alternative experimental dance community (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). And I knew, I knew that was what I wanted to do. So when I graduated from Princeton, I understood that I could be an artist and fulfill all of my, uh, seemingly conflicting, uh, desires (Bolingbroke: Yeah). Um, and when I met the downtown alternative community, I thought there was such freedom in this experimentation that they were doing that almost right away I knew this is what I want to be doing. I want to be an artist. I want to do socially responsive work. So work that's responding to the world in which we live, and I want to do it through alternative dance.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm. I mean, you, you got there. You are the embodiment of your family's history as well as their hopes and dreams and possibilities, and a way to embody all of your interests. And, and I love the, the takeaway that, to be an artist is a, you know, a means of affecting change or representing a socially just and responsive world. As an artist that has spanned both the end of the 20th century and made work well into the 21st century, I’m really curious, how would you describe 21st century dance practices? How would you define it?
David Roussève: Oh my gosh, that is such a great question. I think we're in the realm of the unknown. I can tell you how I define it. For me.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yes.
David Roussève: Because what, the way that I responded that is, I remember way back when, because when I first started making work, the kind of alternative New York dance community was very Eurocentric (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). AKA white.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yes, absolutely.
David Roussève: Yeah. And I remember someone asked Bill T. Jones, well, what do you think a Black dance is? And he said, well, any dance that a Black choreographer wants to make ‘cause there's such a range. And I would say, it’s very personal now what, being a, like a contemporary and, dance artist and what a, what an idiom and what a language can be. I would say that for me, the things that were important for my development as an artist were that my training was highly eclectic. But I had a really easy time for me putting together the dots, meaning connecting up all these myriad. I thought they were all related and it used to really bug me out, really bother me that people couldn't see (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). There was a huge tension then, and I’m hoping that being a 21st century dance practice means the tension is gone (Bolingbroke: Mm). That you can recognize and study all these divergent forms. I studied ballet, you know, rigid Cecchetti technique with a guy named a, a a, a master named Alfredo Corvino. Very simple placement of the body. He really taught me how to dance through ballet. So to this day, when people say., Aren’t you opposed to classical training? I'm like, No. Oh God, no. Good classical training (Bolingbroke: Mm). He taught me everything. I was also, primarily focused on the Graham technique then. And I thought, Graham's use of the back use of spiral is all contained in ballet. And port de bras, the spiral, the aplomb, is all based in organic spiraling of the body for me (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm). And then I started studying contact improvisation, and it's all about spiral and connecting tail heel. And so for me, and jazz is all about these things. And once I started to connect those dots, I thought, the thing that makes me a 21st century dance practitioner is the fact that I studied a diverse range of form, which I'm not saying that it made me the most diverse dance artist. It's not like I was adept at all those techniques. But what I realized was that the principles of movement that each one was conveying, was, contained in the other. The dance company model, as I knew it, in the ’80s, ‘90s, and early 2000, does no longer existed (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). And so I feel like it's an era, perhaps blessedly so of individuality and finding out how to choreograph and work across forms, or at least have forms be accessible to a diverse body of dancers. I have dancers who come and work with me for a long, you know, it takes me five years to make an evening length piece. So they commit to that, but they're also working with other people at the same time. I think it's a, it's, it's an era of performers, blessedly for me, being adept at a wide range of form, based on, uh, excavating the underlying kinetic principles that each form contains.
Christy Bolingbroke: It makes tons of sense. I mean. One, as, as you were talking about your own training, where I found out some new things that I don't think I had known when I first took class from you. But two, hearing how you've processed it in your body, and I, I just remember those mornings. 9:00 AM starting on the floor.
David Roussève: Oh my gosh.
Christy Bolingbroke: In a wide X, flexing and pressing the heels into the ground and being told to feel the sequence of the backs of our legs up to the spine, all the way out to the tips of our arms. And it's that awareness (Roussève laughs), it's that groundedness that you were not teaching us the Roussève technique. You know, I think it was called something like release technique at that point. But you know, that might (Roussève: That’s right), that might just be branding, and marketing speak (Roussève laughs). And then hearing how, you reflect, how it becomes a sort of groundedness, a way to move through your various interests. You've done work that's, that is much more, uh, been rooted in jazz music, that. It creates a strong groundedness to be able to stay attuned to the facility of your body as instrument without only limiting ourselves to single techniques. And so I've had some conversations with artists that often feel, limited by when (Roussève: Yes) you have to tick off a genre on that grant application (Roussève: Yeah), and they're like, but I'm, (Roussève: Yes), I'm feeling expansive. Where's that box?
David Roussève: Exactly. Exactly (Bolingbroke: Yeah). And it's also, um, you know, I am definitely not afraid of crossing over to the commercial world. My students are always like, How I gotta make a living? And I'm like, well, you're in the Hollywood town. Uh, my hope for you is that, you know, you bring some smarts to choreography for film and theater and (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm) get a gig once in a while that can pay you for a year and you can do your dance thing for the rest of the time (Bolingbroke: Yeah). Um, so I, uh even the professional, the commercial, the studio, the, competition. I am in favor of all of those worlds being, converging and blending and (Bolingbroke: Mm) and, and I feel like they are starting to.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah. But it, it took a lot of time, I think for, for people (Roussève: It did) to kind of let go or be open to that and that, that might be a, you know, part of the, the benefit of social media that sort of changed the definition of what dance could be. But I wanna come back to your creative process and ask, so where do you start? Do you have a consistent way that you usually begin a project knowing it's a five-year stretch?
David Roussève: Every time I finish, you know, a large scale work, we're, you're in my, I'll just be for myself, I'm always exhausted and thinking every single time, do I have another piece in me? Do I wanna move forward? Because if you can stop, then stop. I remember someone said to me, don't do this unless you are so compelled. You can't stop yourself. Then do it. Give it everything you've got. And so every time I finish a piece, I feel like I take a, a little bit of a break and exhale and go, is this still satisfying my curiosity? I have to let a little bit of time go by and the, indulgence for me, the, uh, the kind of self-focused part of being an artist is the beginning of a piece where I go, is there something that I feel so compelled to converse about right now (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm) that I have to make a piece about it? Or what is the thing that I cannot avoid that I'm insanely curious about right now? And if that does, that issue doesn't show up, I just move on. Uh, but it always has, it's, it's been sometimes political, sometimes social, sometimes personal, but there's always some driving force, driving quest, series of questions, um, are usually around the human condition. I did a series around the word, uh, bittersweet and, uh, life as a series of colliding extremes. So once I get that, philosophical underpinning of a work. (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). Because again, that's, that's where I start and, and, props to other artists who do not start at that place because that's very, just personally how I start. And I used to always start with the writing. I would write the text and then go into the studio and figure out what the movement and the kinetic base of the piece is. And then about, uh, maybe 15 years ago, the whole thing switched where I had an idea of the thematic underpinnings or the questions that I was asking through the piece, no idea how to approach them. And I started, uh, realizing about 20 years ago actually, 'cause it's been a long time, that the movement was simply not as strong as the text.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm.
David Roussève: And I thought, don't write the text. Just start with the movement. So now of late, I have been starting, with the movement and writing the text based on what the movement and the kinetic base of the piece i (Bolingbroke: Hmm). Whereas in the early days, I would always write the text and that would tell me how to approach things kinetically (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). Um, and they reverse. Now I, I go into the studio first to start to excavate a movement vocabulary, and then that tells me what the text wants to be around the thematic focus of the piece.
Christy Bolingbroke: It's interesting for, to notice how that has changed or informed over time because I would definitely consider, I think, you know, one of your specific choreographic points of view is that balance between text and movement, which has also been part of your background in theater and in dance, and your strength as a writer, which is not something that everyone chooses to do or can do as well. Uh, you know, too, because, was it Joe Goode says like, everyone knows dancing and talking, cancel each other out (Roussève: Exactly). So that, that's an interesting tension to navigate too.
David Roussève: That's a really interesting tension. Yeah. Yeah, I'm constantly also telling my students, because speaking, dancing and speaking, maybe it's not as wildly popular as it was, but, uh, it, at one point it was, and you couldn't make a piece without, and I just kept saying, as a, a speaking, moving artist, you might not need to speak and move.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah, yeah.
David Roussève: If I could say what you could say through pure movement, maybe I wouldn't be speaking either. Like you have to go with what your heart and your idiom is. I remember Simone Forti gave a speaking lecture, a dancing lecture where she said she's really in love with the specificity of language. Because language can be specific in ways that movement cannot, and I agree with that a hundred percent. But she's in love with the metaphor and the poetry of dance (Bolingbroke: Mm0hmm). And I thought, oh my gosh. Bingo. Yes (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm).
David Roussève: If I wanna speak on specific social issues, for example, movement, it would be demeaning to dance. I'd have to pantomime those issues out, which is just not my focus. There's nothing wrong with mime. I love a good mime. But for me, I also can't make a, a language narrative, go as deeply as I can make a movement metaphor go (Bolingbroke: Mm). And so it's about combining abstract, metaphor based movement with the specifics of narrative and language. And so those two things move in a dance are bringing something separate to the table. One is speaking literally and one is speaking metaphorically.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah. Well, and as someone who does value language, how do you name a dance? Do you have a, a, a certain practice or moment in your process where that surfaces itself?
David Roussève: It used to be that my titles were all really long. They were usually line from the text (Bolingbroke: Uhuhh). So the first piece I did in. Los Angeles on tour was called, Had Me Somebody But I Lost Her Very Young, which was a line from the text (Bolingbroke: Mm). And all of them were about that length (Bolingbroke: laughs).
Christy Bolingbroke: You're killing the character count (Both laugh).
DavidRoussève: Yeah. I think, uh, Colored Children Flying By, which was also a line from the text. That was probably my shortest, and I have to say, my first gig (laughs) at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Joe Melillo was the Artistic Director then came really, really early in my career (Bolingbroke: Hmm). It was ridiculous. Oh my God. It was ridiculous how early that came, but I'm very grateful. But Joe rightfully was like this guy needs mentorship because there were a couple of really famous cases and I would not be mean enough to mention their names of people who got a BAM gig super early and it just destroyed their careers 'cause they weren't read (Bolingbroke: Mm). And I mentioned that because Joe said to me (Laughs), I was making my first piece, and it was about my grandmother who was a Creole woman and juxtaposing her life stories from the early 1900s with my life stories from, um, you know, AIDS-ravaged New York of the early 1990s (Bolingbroke: Hmm). And I had, I don't remember the title.It was some long, I loved it, poetic title. And he was like, No (Laughs). And I was like, what? How can a presenter tell me…He was like, no, you cannot come to BAM with a paragraph long title of a piece. So we settled on Urban Scenes/Creole Dreams and I was like, Oh, that is what the piece is (Bolingbroke: Hmm). It's urban scenes, my urban scenes and Creole dreams. And that changed the way that I titled my work, and I started looking for something, somewhat poetic. But that succinctly captured something about the piece. But the current piece I'm working on, uh, is called, uh, Daddy AF. And, um, I have to say it's a solo for myself. My first solo in 25 years. Evening length. But there was a monologue in it where I talked about becoming, after I got divorced from my first husband, Daddy AF (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). And it was gonna be a funny monologue about discovering like dating apps, hookup apps, and the hashtag on Instagram how my, um, likes just quadrupled what I would tag Daddy AF. So I learned really quickly (Laughs), but that monologue got cut (Bolingbroke: Oh). And so I just love the title so much that my husband tells me every day, you, you know, you need to change the title. It doesn't have anything to do with Daddy or AF anymore. But I love the title so much that in my mind it's like, No, I'm making a piece about dDaddy F becomes a symbol or metaphor (Bolingbroke: Mmm). Um, it no longer is a narrative literal, and so I just really loved the title and I thought it was, I was gonna call it #DaddyAF but a manager suggested to me, you don't really need the hashtag, which I don't. Yeah, so my, it has evolved. It used to be these long poetic type, in my opinion, poetic. I'm sure other people were like, Oh my God.
Christy Bolingbroke: Well, only the copy editors for the playbills were like, Oh my God.
David Roussève: Yeah, that's right. That's right (Both laugh). But I was grateful 'cause he was absolutely right (Bolingbroke: Well), he was like, you are, you are not in a downtown alternative space. You're gonna be touring this piece. Just no, no (Bolingbroke: Yeah), you can't do it. But I was pissed. I was like, you can't tell me what you call my piece.
Christy Bolingbroke: Well, sure. In that moment, but I, I, the, what I'm hearing, the lesson learned is around editing, whether it's self-editing (Roussève: Exactly. Oh my gosh). And, and because I know you've, both have a writing practice, a dance-making practice, and over the years have also made films. I'm curious how you might reflect on editing as a creative tool and how is it the same or different across these, these varied mediums that have a different relationship to time too?
David Roussève: Filmmaking transformed my editing across all genres and forms (Bolingbroke: Mmm). It, it was, it transformed how I use language and voiceover, in particular, and also how I edit. The first film that I made was in collab, for a PBS series called Alive from Off Center and then a live tv, and they paired up a filmmaker with a director (Bolingbroke: Hmm). And the director edited the film and I watched Ayoka Chenzira, who I adore, edited this film. In the old days when you had to splice, there was nothing digital. When I started directing my own film and working with an editor, something about sitting in front of that digital editing equipment, you know, Final Cut, and not having dancers in the studio with me because it’s so painful to cut someone's solo (Bolingbroke: Mmm) or edit it down and they're in the or. I have to face 'em the next day and go, your pivotal moment is cut. Ah, and I just, it's very clear, it became very clear to me when there were no emotions attached to it including my own sequences on film it was very clear when something was superfluous (Bolingbroke: Mm). And so it was through film and look that I recognized. Oh my gosh. That is, that's, that doesn't need to, that doesn't absolutely need to be there. And then making my film Two Seconds After Laughter, which was a collaboration with Cari Ann Shim Sham and Sri Susilowati who's a, a Indonesian dancer, choreographer, performer. And Cari Ann is a, she shot and edited and I wrote choreographed and directed this film, and I remember that we were starting to submit it to festivals and Cari Ann knew the director of a couple of festivals and they watched it and it was 30 minutes long and they said, love it. It's a really strong piece of work. However. If you don't get this down to 15 minutes, it's not gonna screen. Two of them said both of them. One 30 minute piece takes means I can't curate two15 minute pieces, means I can't curate three 10 minute pieces, which means I can't curate, you know, 6, 5 minute pieces. So I factor that in. It's knocking other pieces out of the running. And he, and I remember one of them said, do you want it to screen or not? And if you do, you should get it down to 15 minutes. And honestly, I think it's a stronger work at 30 minutes. But we went back in and it taught me a brand new lesson. Even when you think things are vital, they usually aren’t (Bolingbroke: Mm). Some neutral voice who's I, who sees this film, won't know what you cut out. And so that's been my, my motto. I thought my work is usually too long. I think it was Doris Humphrey who said every, I think it was Doris Humphrey. Oh my God. I hope I'm not misquoting who said every dance is too long (Bolingbroke laughs). I would agree with that (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). All of my dances are too long. So, it was through film and something about it being an exclusively visual medium, that allowed me to see the connections that weren't there (Bolingbroke: Mm). And how perhaps scenes and episodes and dances were existing on their own and did not need that extra five minutes of narrative context. So it really transformed how I feel about editing. Having been said, I'm having a terrible time editing my solo. Terrible. But when I go into a theater in this day and age, and I see in the program. 45 minutes with no intermission. I'm like, hallelujah (Bolingbroke laughs), I'm gonna love this (Bolingbroke: That’s true). So I try to keep that in mind, like my attention span is basically nailed these days. (Bolingbroke: Yeah). And I'm satisfied, sometimes associated with, you know, a 50 minute, an hour piece (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). So I'm trying my best to get it down.
Christy Bolingbroke: In this making of a creative life, as full and as long as it has been, is there a piece of advice that you haven't named yet that you've received or something else in particular that you would like to pass on. aybe that you've shared with students or you could bake it up on the spot right now?
David Roussève: Yeah, I would say there are probably two things that I am gonna make up, up on the spot (Laughs).
Christy Bolingbroke: Excellent.
David Roussève: Uh, the first is so important. And I know it's so simple and I know we hear it all the time. Um, but it’s, Be you (Bolingbroke: Mm). Um, you know, Christy, everything has been done already. Everything except one: you (Bolingbroke: Mmmm). But that's what I'm constantly like, no, you don't have to be Trisha Brown derivative, or you don't have to be like, adore Trisha Brown. One of you don't have my favorite choreographer on the planet who rocked my world, Pina Bausch. You don't have to emulate Pina Bausch. She's been done (Bolingbroke: Yeah) a thousand times and no one can do it better than Pina. No one has done you though. What is your aesthetic? What is your awkward or graceful or virtuosic or pedestrian way of moving (Bolingbroke: Yeah). That's the only thing that a choreographer can do that has never been done.And it's them. It's being authentic. No one has done you. (Bolingbroke: Hmm). Um, so that's what I constantly tell them. If you wanna have a great commercial career, bring something original. And the only thing original we have is ourselves.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm.
David Roussève: I have an original movement language and you see that all the time. It just, it takes off when people go. Whoa. I've never seen that before.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah. I mean, Paris Goebel is blowing up, right, and, and yet (Roussève: Yes) works for so many different commercial musicians and artists (Roussève: That's right). But people are drawn to it (Roussève: Yeah). Because you know what she does for Lady Gaga is not what she does for Rihanna. It's just…
David Roussève: That's right.
David Roussève: Different enough.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah.
David Roussève: Yeah. And then the second piece of advice I would give them, which may sound a little bit pretentious, but this is, my own personal stance. Not only given the time we are in, but any time the arts along with our cousin, the humanities, are what is needed to literally save the world (Bolingbroke: Hmm). And that has never, ever been truer than the current time in which we live. Allowing people through a humane, heartfelt dialogue to either see themselves in the other on stage through movement, or to see beauty. I love a good, beautiful ballet. I love seeing beauty. I love seeing agony. I love seeing, tension. But the arts are what allow us to better ourselves as human beings and to connect with each other. And I personally would say to every choreographer, why are you doing this? You have to be convicted on your own terms. But my terms are already, the arts and the humanities can save the world. Every, everything else has failed (Bolingbroke: Hmm). Um, I am alive today because of STEM and medical advancements that has saved my life. But the thing that gives me a better life is the arts and the humanities, and without those, I would not want to be on the planet. So my main advice is to be really aware of why you're doing what you're doing, knowing that it is the most important thing that a human being can do at this present time. It's the only way we will save ourselves in this current moment (Bolingbroke: Hmm) is through the type of compassion that the arts can further. So yeah, I would say know that you're part of a movement that is saving the world and be aware of what your role is in that movement.
Christy Bolingbroke: Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much, David, for the work that you have done in that movement that has shaped so many people's perspectives and being the people that we are in this space. And also that reminder, what you're talking about, NCC Akron as a National Center for Choreography, we certainly are here for new work to get made, but we're also here advocating for dance and the creative process as essential parts of culture in this country. Because it is the tools that we need to process the world that we live in and to move it forward.
Jennifer Edwards: Inside the Dancer’s Studio Conversation Series is produced by NCCAkron and supported in part by the University of Akron, the University of Akron Foundation, the Mary Schiller Myers Lecture Series in the Arts, and Audio-Technica, a global audio manufacturer with U.S. headquarters in Northeast Ohio.Our podcast program is produced by Lisa Niedermeyer of Handmade Future Studio. Rahsaan Cruz is our audio engineer, with transcription by Arushi Singh, theme music by Floco Torres, and cover art by Micah Kraus. Special thanks to Laura Ellacott, Sarah Durham, Christi Welter, Nakiasha Moore-Dunson, and Dante Fields. To learn more about NCCAkron, please visit us online at nccakron.org. And follow us on Instagram or Facebook at NCCAkron. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and we encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform by searching for Inside the Dancer’s Studio. Thanks for listening and stay curious.