In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Brooklyn New York based choreographer, Raja Feather Kelly. Raja is the artistic director of New Brooklyn Theatre and founder of the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Brooklyn New York based choreographer, Raja Feather Kelly. Raja is the artistic director of New Brooklyn Theatre and founder of the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory. He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College. He is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019). Over the past decade he has created fifteen evening-length works for the feath3r theory, choreographed extensively for Off-Broadway theatre, and performed with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, David Dorfman Dance, Kyle Abraham | A.I.M, and zoe | juniper.
INTRODUCTION: 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 at The University of Akron, as part of our Ideas in Motion initiative. This episode was recorded in the presence of a live audience in February of 2020. Today we join Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive / Artistic Director in conversation with Brooklyn-based Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly. Raja is the artistic director and founder of the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory. He is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner, he has created fifteen evening-length works for the feath3r theory and has choreographed extensively for Off-Broadway theatre.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: How or when did you know you wanted to be a choreographer?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Oh. I knew that I wanted to be a choreographer when I was in college and there was Dance Club and I started doing, I was asked to perform in someone else’s work. And I thought that meant that I got to decide what happens…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Oh.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: In the work.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Ah, that wasn’t the case.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: That was not the case. So, so I knew that I wanted to be a choreographer I think then. I also, I have an issue where I can’t do the same thing twice, which I also learned in that same rehearsal room. Where they’re like, ‘ok, repeat it.’ And I’d be like, ‘but we just did it, so can we do something else now?’ So it was, it was in that process that I learned, ‘oh, I think you want to be on that side of things.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: But, if I remember correctly, weren’t you an English major?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: I was. I, I was an English major with a concentration in poetry. I went to Connecticut College particularly because I could double major, so I was in both departments.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Mm-hmm.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Mm-hmm. Writing essays, making dances.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Writing essays, yeah, I think, I think, I think there’s something very similar about them. I think about dance as essaying, I think about grammar in performance and performance making. I think about where the argument is. How to make a sentence. How to have a full thought in terms of phrasing material or phrasing concepts in dance theater and performance.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I’m going to think more about dance sentences.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, dance sentences.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I like that. So, where do you start? What inspires you?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: I am obsessed with popular culture. And I am obsessed with how popular culture is created. I am obsessed with wanting to understand the question, ‘do we make popular culture or does popular culture make us?’ I had a particular interest in the work and the life of Andy Warhol when I was also in college. And there was a quote that Andy Warhol purported and he said, ‘in America ever since the movies were made, they tell us what to do and how to do it, how to look like how we’re doing it, and how to feel like we look like we’re doing it.’ And I feel like my work is always wondering if that’s true or not. And so each piece of dance theater that I make tackles a different part of that question. I know that you’ve seen the show The Love Episode, and so in some ways it tackled how love is presented and represented in popular culture. And so we, our work is sort of a receptacle of 30, 40 years of popular culture in, in a, in a moment, in, in a work and tries to interrogate it and celebrate it and then ask the audience if they understand how they might be complicit in what we created.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, and for those that haven't seen The Love Episode, and you'll correct me if I misspeak, it, it's almost as if a mashup of ‘if Andy Warhol wrote a Saturday Night Live episode.’
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: That's correct.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And then that is what's performed. You often in, incorporate a lot of popular culture from rapping Kanye West's lyrics…
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Uh-huh.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: To referencing reality television episodes, too. And so there's a, a familiarity, I think, in watching your work. It's like, ‘wait, I've seen this before,’ because we're inundated by it all the time. But yet at the same time, you, would you identify kind of where on the, the dance spectrum as far as genre, I hear you using the term dance theater?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah. I would certainly say we are in the devised dance theater. I think that's the genre. And that's particularly because we’re, we are, there's no content without form for us, and there's no form without content for anyone. But for us it’s like, it’s, we’re, we’re really interested. And us, I talk about the company, I have a company of about 7 core members, but about 18 members at large that continue to come back to the work. And leave and come back. So I say ‘we’ because I utilize that structure to make the work that we’re making. It’s not just me, although I, I do concept first, meaning that I come up with the concepts and then I present them to the company. And then the company is like, ‘well, here’s how I relate to that, here’s how I relate to that.’ And that, that begins a devised, a devised, a divisive? No. A devised.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Experience.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Experience of like where does the information come from if it’s a person in the room, where are we getting that in terms of culture. How do we recreate that, comment on that, and serve it back to audiences? I think when I was, I remember how, rather I remember in college, accessibility was a big topic. So some, somehow in the early 2000s, a conversation that was happening to my knowledge was about how people were, were, people/audiences were interacting with performance, postmodern performance particularly, and how it was being made accessible to them. And that stuck with me because that’s what, that was the conversation at the time when I was wanting to make work. And popular culture to me felt inherently accessible, even to people who are like, ‘well I, you know, I don’t listen to pop music. I don’t know Selena Gomez. She’s like, not my thing. Like, who’s Brittany Spears?’ And I’m like…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: They’re lying.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, I’m like. Ok. Right, I’m like, ‘the way you say Brittany Spears tells me you know a little.’ Like, ‘who is Brittany Spears?’ You’re like, ‘you know who she is.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You have some Spears concept.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, exactly. So that, that to me was always an exciting doorway into being able to talk about bigger different human things. Popular culture was always, and still for me is, a doorway into those things.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So since a lot of the popular cultural references that you’ve been bringing up have been musicians, music artists, how would you characterize your choreographic relationship to sound?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: My choreographic relationship to sound. My choreographic relationship to, I’m going to keep repeating that until something tings. How would I…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Characterize.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Characterize.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Your choreographic relationship to sound.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Well, the first thing that comes to mind. I’m not sure if this answers, I’m gonna start…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It’s however you want to interpret it.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah. My choreograph. I would characterize my choreographic relationship to sound as a soap opera in that I certainly believe sound and or music is, is a director in the work. And so something that, and you know, and now you, I will tell you all. I watch a lot of television. I watch television all day, all night. I just, television movies, tv, I take as much of it in as possible. And, and, and I had a particular change of relationship to sound maybe in 2009 or so where I do this thing where I watch tv where I try to guess the line, I try to guess what’s going to be said. I’m very good at it now. I’ve been watching and I’m like, ‘I don’t like you,’ ‘I don’t like you.’ ‘Please leave,’ ‘please leave.’ And I, I’ve like, very, I’ll have to show you, I’m very good at guessing. And I couldn’t figure out why I was good at it until I, until I questioned in some way the relationship, like, my relationship to the sound, like, to the sound score that happens underneath television movies…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It’s telling you.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: That’s telling you what to do and how to feel. And I was like, ‘oh my god. It’s sound.’ It’s, it’s all in the, like, ‘mmm-mmmm-mmmm-mmmmm. Christy, please leave. Ba, dun, dun.’ You know, like, it’s just like, the sound is, like, leading you to, it's like a trope. So in some ways I think I characterize that as, like, current day soap opera. Where soap opera, where like the music was a character and this is like more insidious.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Even your verb usage of, of and now we’re really diagraming dance sentences now, but that the sound is directing, it is a director in the dance is very telling and very interesting to think about. Let me ask you this, how do you name a dance work?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: I usually start with a name.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Really?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah. Because for me, if I don’t, if a dance could be anything. So for me, because I call in some ways and I have to, like, try to figure out to find a new work because I call my dances like receptacles, or like receptioncals. I’m like, ‘this container…’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Is holding your idea.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: ‘Is holding, is holding the idea.’ So like, The Love Episode. It’s, it’s very easy when making devised work, what doesn’t belong in the work. Or like, ‘oh that doesn’t, that’s not for this piece, that’s not for this piece.’ And so when we name it, if you think about the mind or our process as, as a cabinet, then we’re like, ‘ok, we can file this in The Love Episode, we can file this in Ugly, we can file this in McCarthy Era.’ These are names of works that we are working. We can file this in Fantasia. We’re, we’re certainly better at knowing what doesn’t belong in a work versus what does, so naming it first helps us to contain that.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: How many containers or, or work titles do you have at any given time to do that sort of filing system?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Two years ag, three years ago we changed our mode of working. So, it’s very difficult to be a choreographer, if that isn’t clear. And...
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I think you have a lot of empathy in the room.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, I just feel like, you all know. And usually, and I can say for the first maybe 6 or 7 years of our, of my process, it was, you make one work and then you find the place to present it, you present it, and then you go back to square one. You’re like, ‘ok, so now I need an idea, and then I need dancers, and then I need money, and then I need someone to put it on.’ And then I need a tech person. So that, that was, that sort of process was not exciting for us. We decided, ‘well what if we’re working on multiple projects at a time so as that we as a company can always be in process.’ And when a presenter, or a commission, or something comes in, there actually, we actually are, are able to do what we want to do and we’re not like, ‘oh ok, let’s make this piece for this venue,’ or ‘let’s make this piece for this commission,’ but ‘here’s what we’re working on.’ Like ‘we have a, a process, we have an approach to making work and we’re working on these five projects.’ We’re currently working on four projects right now at the same time. And depending on what, you know, where we can find funding in that it fits into that, we don’t feel like we’re ever suffering. We’re like, ‘oh alright, we can just do our day to day practice with this,’ and then, ‘oh, we’re going to go into a residency, and they want a residency that has, like, a community aspect.’ Well well. We’re not going to just create a community aspect, when this project involves community people. And then we don't feel like we're, we’re changing our work in order to get support because then that sort of doesn’t feel good in a way.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah. It sounds more proactive than reactive.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, we’re just, we’re, we’re, so we’re working on where, we work on four projects at a time and we feel like that allows us to stay in process always. So then, when, once a show is over we’re not like, ‘hmm, got to get an idea.’ We’re like, ‘ok great, so rehearsal for McCarthy Era in the morning? Great. Goodnight.’ And, and I think the, the moral and the ethics of the company and the people who are involved, I think they’re, they feel that they’re able to invest more because they’re not like, ‘oh well this project is over then, like, we’re not gonna have anything.’ They’re like, ‘oh we’ll perform, the performance has a lot less preciousness around it, feels like we can go in, we’re doing this thing, and then tomorrow we might be rehearsing something else. We might…’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It sounds a, a little bit, and I know you’ve done work with opera and theater, so it sounds a little bit like how repertory theater companies or operas would operate. They have usually three or four things in rotation. They might not call it all process because maybe they already have the script, they’re not navigating it and devising it from the start. But it sounds like maybe you’ve borrowed a little bit of that experience and said, ‘wait, this works.’
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah. I think so. I mean we definitely, we don’t, yes and no. I mean, I don’t think you’re suggesting this, but I want to make it clear. We don’t, we don’t, we’ve never brought a piece back once we’ve made it. So we, we’re not a repertory company...
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Right, yeah.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: In that way, but, but in the structure very similar in that…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: The content isn’t repertory.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Right.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: But what works within that model.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Exactly.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Fantastic.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Exactly. Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So, how do you get out of a creative rut?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: I watch TV. I go to the movies.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It sounds like it’s a constant source, which is great.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Well, the thing with popular culture, popular culture’s on a 10 day cycle. So.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Can you explain?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: So, something that is popular today, in 10 days might not be popular anymore. Or why it’s popular, or who it’s popular for will change, will have some sort of legible shift in 10 days.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Ok.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: And that’s usually, like, a rule for us is we’ll, cause some things do stick. So if we’re like, ‘ok we’re working on,’ like with The Love Episode. When we’re like, ‘oh this is really popular right now, like, the idea that every, every story has Romeo and Juliet, any love story has a modicum of the Romeo and Juliet story embedded in that.’ We’re like, ‘ok, let’s find, let’s find one.’ And then we’re like, ‘ok, ok, then there’s this song that’s, like, kind of related to it.’ And here’s people who are talking about it and then we’ll watch it for 10 days and we’ll see it change. ‘Well actually, no, it’s not.’ You follow the thread of conversation, and over 10 days it will change. For example, let’s say there’s like a media flare up, they’re like, ‘Oh, Beyonce’s in a fight with Katy Perry.’ 10 days we’re on to something else, like it doesn’t last. You know, they’re like, ‘and this is gonna be, and this is gonna change culture forever because they are in a, like, a real serious fight.’ And 10 days we’ll be over it, we’ll be onto something new.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We’re done.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: So there’s like two examples of something more superficial and then something more, more impactful in terms of culture and how over 10 days it could be a completely different conversation.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It sounds like that you, you’re also giving your, yourself sort of this built in time. And I’m sure some things might, you know, move faster. Some things you might, it might stick for two, three 10 day cycles, but that to me seems to be subverting the idea of a linear making model. Right? Where you go in and you’re making the piece and you know you have ‘X’ number of weeks of rehearsal and this is your premiere date, and, and I think it sort of counters the idea that you just have to always move forward. You’re like, ‘no sometimes there’s a little plateau,’ and then maybe it continues. And then maybe it zig zags and finds other ways of thinking about that. I like it.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: I think also we change often and so something when I, when I performed a lot, and this difficulty I have of doing the same thing twice I think made me consider what a rehearsal room could be differently. Made me consider differently what a rehearsal room could be. So, I noticed that when I partner, and I was always in a lot of companies where there was a lot of partnering, and I would, I, I thought I was a good partner, I think I'm a good partner, but I would often change my approach to partnering. And it wasn't until like with David Dorfman’s company where it’s like the partnering is very intense, it’s like, I don’t know, playing football between just, like, two people, you start to build a certain amount of trust. And then you’re like, ‘oh, this actually does make sense,’ like, we, ‘our bodies change everyday, I’m a different person today,’ you know, ‘I’ve eaten things, I’ve experienced adult life.’ In, in my life, over the course of 5 years of touring a work is going to change the way that I approach the room. And so if there’s room to be able to grow and to bring my full self, then there’s not like a, like a tyranny of like, ‘well this is the way we did it this one time and if we’re not exacting that every time then that’s not the thing.’ That doesn’t, that doesn’t work for me as a human. I don’t, I think that if we were allowed to shift and change, we would in processes like this. And so being able to do that in that company and then sharing that with other performers in other companies, that’s something that was, like, a bottom line in my company, and almost a rule where I’m like, you can’t do the same thing twice. You just, it’s, well it’s a part of our approach, it’s an ethic. It’s a pillar. Change.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So how do you navigate between new or old movement vocabulary. Now you have a growing body of work, are there some, this is a, a quintessential feath3r theory step or every dance has a ball change? Where, wherever you…
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: That’s David Dorfman. I think that I don’t believe that we have in movement, we have many. I, we, I don’t, I don’t know. But I also, I don’t know. I would have to ask someone who’s seen our work more. Because I don't know if I can see it. I do think there is an approach to how we do things that shows up a lot, and people are like, like I’ve, I’ve noticed people are like, ‘that’s so you.’ and I'm like ‘what are you talking,’ you know, ‘what does that mean?’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, ‘tell me more.’
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah. And there’s a certain style, I think, that is not in movement, but in the way that it’s presented. And often people think we're improvising, and that feels particular. And I think for me its because while I need you to get there, from there, to there at a certain time every time, and I want you to do these four moves in this sequence while saying this the exact way I want you to say it, those are the rules, but I'm also gonna say you can't do the same thing twice. So like, how then do you approach getting from here to here with the same four movements with the same text said and the exact way to communicate every time we do this thing, but I’m also saying you can’t do the same thing twice.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Right.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Like that, I think, starts to, like, that becomes a, there’s an approach to how you figure out how to do that and that I think once you see the work more than once you're like, ‘oh that is what the approach is. I see the approach.’ And that has to do with who you are as a person and how you motivate yourself over there with the language that, and structures that I give you. Which in some ways is what I believe we’re always doing all the time. Right? Like we all go get gas. We all order coffee, we all use the bathroom. It’s the same set sequence of events that we do all the time, and I would challenge us to imagine or to believe that we would never do that, we don’t even think about doing it twice the same exact way. Although you think you are. Even if you’re driving, like, ‘oh I’m going to grandma’s house, I go to Sycamore street. I take a left,’ you know, ‘I count four houses, I make my right. I always, I go that way. It's the same every time.’ Different music, you know, you’re wearing something different, the way you turn the wheel is different. Like you’re not doing it the same way.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You might be stopped by traffic.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Right. You know, it might be sunny that day. You’re driving a little bit slower, so all of that, all of that changes. And I think acknowledging that change, and acknowledging that, that malleability makes the work feel more alive and more present. Which is why people, audiences sometimes believe that we’re improvising.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Because you’re so hyper-present.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So I’m hearing the emphasis on, on the individuals that are a part of the company and the works. What do you look for in dancers and collaborators?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Reliability.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Which is kind of an interesting tension, I don’t want you to do the same thing twice, but you must be reliable.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, you must be reliable.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Ok.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: It’s about, it’s about, it’s about trusting the approach. Which I think is hard and we call it, we call it the approach in our room. And it’s about trusting that approach which I think can be very difficult especially when you do something and you’re like, ‘I achieved that.’ Like, ‘I got there on time,’ you know, ‘so why, why do I have to do it differently?’ and I’m like, ‘well you just have to pay attention to the room, you have to acknowledge that things are happening.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Call in was a little bit slower today.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Exactly, exactly this. So, so, so your reliability. There’s also a saying that we have in terms of our approach, which is ‘honest reactions to imaginary situations.’ That’s, like, the subtitle to the…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Honest reactions to imaginary situations. I like it.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Exactly. So, so if you are reliable, to me, you will react honestly to imaginary situation. And so if you need to motivate, if you’re like, ‘ok.’ like, ‘how do I reinvent getting over there for the 80th time today in this rehearsal?’ I’m like, ‘well, react honestly. So if you’re pissed off about having to do that, I don't know, let’s see what that, let’s see how that changes the room.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: ‘Show me.’
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Right, like, it’s the butterfly effect of, of, of perform, of like performance. Because if you do that, if you approach that with an attitude problem because you’re a little tired of repetition, that should change the whole room. So then the process becomes about you seeing how you affect other people.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I think something you may be choreog, choreographing reality shows.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Well, you know. You know what my favorite reality shows are.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We’re there.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, I’m like, ‘yeah, just, you know, react honestly.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So how would you define virtuosity in dance, by your own terms?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Virtuosity, I would say, has to do, the language I would include to create a definition includes commitment, integrity. Your, I would say that virtuosity is someone’s commitment to, a dancer/performer’s commitment beyond their commitment, beyond what they believe they can commit, to upholding the integrity of the proposition.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Nice.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: That’s how I would define virtuosity.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love it. One of the things, so, Raja and all of our guest artists this semester are here as part of our Ideas in Motion Initiative with the University and the Mary Schiller Myers Lecture in the Arts series, and we’ve chosen to name this first phase as ‘21st Century Dance Practices.’ And there’s a reason we didn’t call it technique. And I think that’s been one of the things we’ve been grappling with our, our faculty as we envision what do 21st century dancers need beyond what in the 20th century, we’ve had our ballet technique, we’ve had our modern technique and there’s just, dance can be so many other things. And so this is why we grapple around ideas of virtuosity. I wanted to also invite you - what does the term ‘21st century dance practices’ imply? Because you got this invitation and accepted it…
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah. Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So…
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Wow. I believe that it implies a change. Like a, like a, a, a, a, a what is this called?
KAT WENTZ: Shift!
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: A shift, thank you.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Kat. She’s so good.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Kat, yeah. A, like a shift in perspective on, on what we do when we say we’re dancing. That’s what I think that implies.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Nice.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: That’s what I believe that implies.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I have one last question for you.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Thank you.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Thank you, Kat. In making a creative life, what is the best piece of advice you've received and would you mind sharing it with our audience today?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yes.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Or you can make one up.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah. I won’t make one up. But I’m just trying to, I’m trying to. I really don’t like advice, I should say that, that’s why I laughed. And I don’t like giving advice, so im trying to also thwart this. However…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Do you want to use truism, or…?
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Well, no, no, no, I can, we can, I’ll just say that the best piece of advice which didn't come in the form of advice was someone telling me that I couldn't do something. And I was like, ‘hahaha.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Then guess what.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: I was like, ‘oh wow, you just gave me so much power. I’m gonna do it.’ And even if I fail, I'm gonna be so excited because, like, ‘you, you have just become,’ like, ‘a roadmap of,’ you know, ‘try, you just,’ like, ‘trying,’ you know? I just don't believe that anyone can tell someone that they can't do something. So I remember, I remember, I’m not gonna say who cause, but I remember so it was like, ‘yeah well that, that would be pretty impossible for you to do, and you probably shouldn’t try.’ and I was like, ‘thank you so much, you’re so right.’ And I never spoke to them again. And I, and I certainly, I certainly went for it. And some of those things I achieved and some of those things I didn’t, but I felt like I, I, I was able to decide what was good for me, and what success was for me, and what I wanted and how I would go about getting it, and how I would go about if I didn’t get it, how to continue moving forward. So that, that was a form of advice that I did not take, and in not taking was able to persevere.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I think you taught us all so much right there.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Yeah, so.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Everyone, Raja Feather Kelly.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Thank you, thank you.
OUTRODUCTION: Inside the Dancer’s Studio lunchtime talk series is supported by NCCAkron, The University of Akron, The University of Akron Foundation, and the Mary Schiller Myers Lecture Series in the Arts. Our podcast program is produced by Jennifer Edwards, Ellis Rovin is our composer and editor, transcription by Madeline Greenberg, theme music by Flocco Torres, cover art by Micah Kraus, and Julian Curet and Kat Wentz are our artist coordinators. 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 Inside the Dancer’s Studio. Thank you for listening and stay curious.