In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Asheville, NC/Cleveland, OH based choreographer, educator, curator, performer, musician, and administrator, Mustapha Braimah. Braimah brings over two decades of international experience and high artistic acclaim to his roles as an artist-scholar from Ghana, West Africa. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of Dance Program at UNC Asheville. His art practice and creativity are deeply rooted in contemporary, popular, and traditional forms.
Mustapha Braimah (Asheville, NC) brings over two decades of international experience and high artistic acclaim to his roles as an artist-scholar from Ghana, West Africa. He is a choreographer, educator, curator, performer, musician, and administrator. He holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Maryland, an MA in African Studies from Ohio University, and a BFA in Dance from the University of Ghana. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of the Dance Program at UNC Asheville. His art practice and creativity are deeply rooted in contemporary, popular, and traditional forms. His works utilize diverse virtuosic approaches in applying 21st-century skills and creativity, including improvisation.
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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 front of a live audience on the university campus. Today we join Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive / Artistic Director in conversation with Ghanaian choreographer, educator, and administrator, Mustapha Braimah whose art practice is deeply rooted in contemporary, popular and traditional African dance forms as well as drumming and singing.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Really interested in understanding a little bit of craft for both our artists and maybe non-artists, but everyone’s had to make something, whether that’s a thesis or an object. And so I’m curious, for your role as a maker, how and when did you know you wanted to be a choreographer?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: So I realized I wanted to be a choreographer, I realized I, I had the passion to start creating when I. So when I was, I think I was 16 or 15 I saw a, so there was a, this, this was back in Ghana in West Africa. There was a, a national assignment, like, a, we were celebrating independence and they had asked my then director who taught me, who taught me dance in higher education to create a dance piece. And he told me that, create a dance piece, we need to sit down, I need to ask you a lot of questions, and this is a politician. He was having a meeting with a politician and I happened to sit next to them. And this, he was a minister, he really didn’t know what he wanted to, and my Professor turned to me and said, ‘how do you want me to create something if you don’t know what you really want?’ So, and I said, but, and I was in agreement with the politician. I said, ‘well, create the dance, it’s, dance is dance.’ You know, in my little 15 year old brain. And he said, ‘no, no, no. I need to know what, what they are, what they are making, what they want me to say, what, you know, the kind of things they want me to project. Costumes, sound, number of people.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, and especially with, with politics being that in the middle.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Colors. So one of the things that he mentioned was, I don’t want you to use blue and, and white. Cause blue and white is the opposition, their colors. I want you to use black, red, yellow, you know, their color. So that’s when I, the first time I critically thought dance it’s not just, cause I used to be a freestyler on the street. I dance and just dance and not really attaching any sort of critical thinking or analysis to it. So that was the very first time I said, ‘oh, so you need to think about all these, there’s a lot of things to think about.’ And so I worked hand in hand with this Professor Neati who, I followed him. I worked, he even give me all of the lists, all of the things we have to buy and the number of dances. The style, the style of dance we were supposed to use. Contemporary, traditional, what kind of traditional, cause there’s infinite traditional dances. So he selected and I saw all the things on the book, in the book, he’s written it in a book, and I was like, ‘ok.’ So this, I need to study this, I need to know more about this. I think that’s when I decided to be a creator, choreographer, and also study dance in higher education.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: And so when I went to higher education I majored in choreography, cause that’s, that’s how it started.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And it’s, your experience is very unique because you were, you were in Ghana. But what has been consistent with a lot of our guests is there, there does seem to be something. It’s around those teenage years where you’re like, ‘oh wait, there’s, there’s something a little bit more.’ You know, and male or female when it finds you or you find it. So now, without maybe a politician’s impetus, where do you start? What inspires you?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: So these days I try to address contemporary issues. Issues that a lot, well I can say that about, if I say a lot of people, well people, everybody. Issues that are happening. For instance, since I came here, one of the issues that I have talked about more and that I’ve danced about more is the issue of immigration. The, the bias of, you know, the binary of you coming from a, a, a third world country into a first world country, you know, traveling the process of, traveling from, for instance, any sub-saharan African country to the United States or UK or Germany or France. What you have to go through before you get here is amazing. And a lot of, and the people here who live here do not know what we’ve been through to be here. When they see us here, ‘oh, you’re here, it’s fine, everything is,’ yeah, they talk with us. But they really, and, and, and they can’t, you know, they can’t process it because they have a US passport. And US passport is one of the powerful passport books you can ever, wherever you reach, they treat you like the God, oh he’s from Europe. And in many countries you don’t need a visa to travel.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Because of that?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Because of your US passport you don’t need a visa. But if you have a Ghanian passport you need a transit visa. If you are going to, for instance, Guyana and you need to transit in LA, or somewhere, anywhere in the US, you need to get a transit visa. And they don’t care, it’s a transit visa, they are going to treat you in the same way as if you are going to visit someone or attend school. And I have been refused visas twice in Ghana trying to come here, twice, on two occasions. And so when I arrived I tried to tell people that, ‘hey, you, you, we, we, we went through a lot to get here.’ And so, I, this followed me through my MA in international studies and through my MFA, and my MFA thesis was about that. It was about immigration and, you know, so what I did was, I wanted to, I wanted to give, to immerse the audience in the piece to make them really understand as much as I can. So I created a passport, like a fake passport from everywhere in sub-saharan Africa. Nigeria, Ghana, Tugu, Benin. And I had, so the studio, the theater had, about six entrances and exists, so depending on when you arrive and you buy the ticket, at the box office they will hand you a passport and they will tell you to enter with one of these. And so depending on the kind of passport they hand to you, and you’re coming to, everybody knows, this is Gate A, that’s where we enter. When you get there, there are TSA, I had TSA agents and then they would tell you, ‘oh you were supposed to enter from the above, from the top.’ And then some people, then they, they, they take you in, and they march you, and they place you at a setting vantage point onstage, and the others, if they have a US passport they just go and sit, and then they be watching you. And so I had projections, you know like, projections come and then there’s a red box. So depending on where you stand, you find yourself, when the show start you are in a red back. And then it tells you ‘stop,’ and then you are watching, and then it turns green and then it says ‘go.’ And then you go, and these are audience, I haven’t rehearsed with them, I don’t know who is gonna end up with what passport.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Right, right, who rehearses immigration?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yeah, right. So, so you know, and then, and then a projection says, ‘go,’ and then they start walking and then ‘stop’ and then they stop. And the audience, some of them, those who got to sit, sometimes they laugh, sometimes they think it’s funny, sometimes they sad, sometimes a lot of people are getting in and then one person is coming in and they get blocked. And so these are all my experiences that I have lived, getting a visa from a US Embassy in Ghana. And arriving at JFK and going through the homeland security, and you have to go through the, the same interview again and again.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Certain systems.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes, and then there is this cultural dynamics. The cultural dynamics, so in Ghana, you can’t really talk to someone and anyway, let’s say your parents or any person who’s, or any person who has a parent status, and then they have you, like, you look into the eyes. You can’t look into someone’s eyes when you’re talking to them, it’s disrespectful, so if you’re looking in someone’s eyes, that’s disrespectful. But when you go to a US Embassy and you’re being interviewed by a consulate, and they ask you, ‘where are you going?’ And you say, ‘I’m going to the University of Akron,’ ‘what are you going to study,’ ‘I’m going to study.’ You know, they think, you don’t look, he say, ‘oh, he can’t even look me in the eye.’ It’s not true, you know, like, so I think when I went there the first time, I think that was my issue, because I couldn’t look at a lady in the, in the eye. Because you can’t look at your parents in the eye, they smack you when they talk to you and you look at them in the eye, you get smacked, like, you get slapped like big time. So if you look at them in the eye. And so you go to these embassies and you know, you know, you bow. And then so when I realized the cultural differences, I had my friends, well I have students, international students that I taught at the University of Ghana, so I had them sit and then I would look at them in the eye and I say, ‘talk to me.’ And then I can look them in the eye and I say, ‘yeah, I’m going to.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Practice.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes and then I, I have them practice, like, look at the eyeball. Like, it not enough if you’re looking at them, like, look through them. And that’s how, how I was able to go through.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well there’s so much in that, I mean, and we have, we’ve spoken with a lot of artists, I’m sure you’ve studied artists who of course make things based on their personal experience, right? But I think what you task specially in your work is it’s not just, this is my finished personal experience, but how can you share an embodied version of, of your identity politics? Everything from the choreography of immigration, cultural differences, and, in terms of practices. And those are things a lot of people talk about dance as the universal language, but it is the, the dialects, the inflections, the different societal influences that also change how that affects in the room. One particular thing I’m wondering if you could talk to us about is how you would characterize your choreographic relationship to sound and music? And maybe there’s, there’s something also in your experience as a Ghanaian, you know, that, that informs that differently than we’ll say more Eurocentric forms.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: So, when, when I’m, when I’m asked to create, or when I’m in, you know, when I wear my creative hats, I usually don’t start with music because. So, so this is, this is the reason, because back, back in Ghana, and I’ll travel to, you know, the length and breadth of the continent of Africa, every African traditional dance form that you study, you have to know the music first. And you have to connect with the music. In fact, in African dance forms, if you are unable to connect with the music, don’t, you know, be in sync with the music, your movement doesn’t matter. So you, you, like, you can be a fine movement, movement executioner, like you execute movement, clean, needs fine. But in the, in the community they, they say, ‘no, no he’s not a good dancer.’ And then you ask, ‘why is he not a good dancer?’ ‘Oh, he doesn’t understand the music.’ So in Ghana we say you see the music and you hear the dance. So the music, in my language, that’s how they say it, you see the music and you hear the dance. So if you say someone, if you tell someone that Mustapha is a good dancer, the next question you’re asking, does he, does he see the music? And they say, ‘yeah, he’s a very good, yeah.’ And then they know I, you know, you have connected to the music. So I started as a drummer, I started playing as a drummer before I started dancing. So before I started dancing, I’m in sync with this drum, when I’m dancing, I’m also singing in my head. And so sometimes when I teach my technique, I have them sing rhythms in their heads. So the reason why when I start creating I remake or I refrain from using music is, it’s easy for the music to dictate to me. I’ll connect with the music so much.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: That’s the comfortable spot, right? And, and you, you, you know, yeah.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yeah, and I want to be, you know, be in the place of the unknown, explore more. And that's where I think that I can be of my best self, like, where I can bring a lot out. So I don’t start with music, I start with movement. So when I finish, even though when I’m doing the movement I’m still singing in my head, but when I’m finished then, that’s when I come back to bring. So in my creative process during my, one of the biggest shows I’ve done in my creative process, I didn’t involve the sound people at all until later, like, in the middle of the piece. That’s when I started having them come to watch. Because, you know, I’ll be singing the rhythms while we are dancing. Cause I don’t want the movement, I don’t want this music to dictate or kind of overshadow my, my, my, my, my dance. So I, I also love using spoken word sometimes I’ll just dance to speaking like a poetry or a rap without instruments so. In order for me to project my dancing more, because I’m from a very music and dance married together kind of background and so when I dance, yeah, music I try, yeah, negating from music and so, so that the movement will be more visible is, is what I, I, I trend towards.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, similar on this like, cause when we came up with the idea of 21st century dance practices it definitely felt, I mean we’re still in the first two decades of, of the 21st century, so we’re making it up as we go, but I do think, and there’s that question of how is it deviating or pushing away from, I like your term of the use refrain from that habit. How do you navigate that same sort of tension between old and new vocabulary, or the traditional vocabulary and something, you’ve used the term contemporary. How would you describe that?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: And, let me build off of where I, where I left off. And so in, in refraining from, refraining from the music, using the music, it also allow me to come up with my unique movement. Because once I have the rhythm and, you know.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: The rhythm from within.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes, once I have the rhythm I think I’ll, I’ll start getting towards the traditional, and you don’t want to touch tradition. You don’t want to appropriate, you don’t want to touch tradition knowingly. Like me, if I do it, know, they know who I am, they know I grew up here and I know exactly what I’m doing. I can’t say, ‘oh, oh, I, I, I saw it somewhere, I don’t really, I don’t really, I wasn't really thinking.’ So when I start creating, I, like, consciously get the traditional dances, refrain from the music, one, and then when I get the movement, spend a lot of time in the studio, deconstructing these movements. That is what I, in my 21st century, cause I mean, I was born in the 21st century. So, or I’m growing up in the 21st century like I, like you said. And so my movement, my set of movement, like the kind that I taught, these are all traditional dance movements. If I wash it down to the real movement, you even, that’s, that’s the only time you see that, oh this is coming from [something] this is coming from Dundunba this is coming from Kpanlogo. But you can never tell because I spent a lot of time trying to, to, to conceive this idea and, you know, give birth to them and make them, name them and make them Mustapha’s style. Make them my own.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So it sounds like it’s not just about making new work or building off of the traditions, but how can you really mine.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And get, you know, just, the, the diamond of that.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes, yes, still maintaining the philosophy of the traditional dance movement, but not being too clear, not being too close to it. But you have the philosophy, you have the groundedness, you have the musicality, you have the polyrhythmic, you have, I have all my movement, one ends, the end of one is the beginning of the other. And these are, these are rare in most traditional dances and especially in Ghana, we have like one, this is one, you finished, this number two. And so most of the movement is dictated by the rhythm, the dance.So the drum plays before you change, and it’s clear when, when they want you to change. It’s clear that this is one, this is number two, this is number three. And so first, when I, when I go into the studio, that’s what I try to deconstruct, that’s what I try to unpack.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It sounds like it’s also, that your training as a drummer has given you a sense of how you would organize choreography too. Even without dictated by the music and responding, that that, it’s the same way you would outline an essay and that training. Even when you’re like, I’m going to write something new, but you have that so ingrained in how you organize your thoughts. Less deep, or perhaps not, one of the big challenges, and I know that this comes up for choreographers, you know, young, emerging, established, and it comes up any time that you have to make something. How do you title a dance? How do you name it? Especially if you’re like, that’s supposed to encapsulate the entire 100 pages, an entire evening of dance.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: The title, naming a piece. So, so for me, me coming, me being Ghanian, and being African, one of the things that I want to be like inherently, all my pieces is identity. I want you to see a title and know exactly where this person is from, where this choreographer is from. And so, I give, so first I give, so my, my mom is an Ashanti and so I speak Ashanti, I was raised by my mom. And so I do, I give it an Ashanti name and then I give it, and then I explain. Because, you know, I’m from Africa, you know I’m from Africa, and I’m also in a diaspora, you know, I live in a diaspora. And so, you know, me thinking of both, both places, I’m thinking of Africa, I’m thinking of United States. And so for instance my, my, my, my Thesis my immigration thesis I named it Akwantuo: The Journey. The journey, ‘The Plight of the Immigrant. So Akwantuo imply means journey, but if you translate it into English, you are not really making it, you’re not making dance for it, it’s more, it’s, it’s heavier than just the journey. So ‘Plight of the Immigrant’ I think explains that more. And so when I, I said Akwantuo, Akwantuo means journey, and then Akwantuo then a colon, and then the Plight of the Immigrant. That in rare occasions, I name pieces before I start working on them.By most cases, I go with themes, I work with themes, little, little blocks and then I’ll ask at the end, I’ll ask the dancers, all of us if I’m doing, if it’s just me, it’s just me. If I’m doing a duet, or a trio, a quadruple whatever that is, I’ll ask them, ‘what do you think of doing this, this piece, what do you, how do you feel?’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: For their idea of what those themes are.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what are, what do you, what do you, what are, and then, you know, in the beginning I’ll throw some themes out there. So for instance I’m currently working with Asheville Ballet Company in, in, in down in Asheville, I’m setting a contemporary piece on the, on them and we’ve started rehearsing. We’ve rehearsed for like six weeks and they will ask the title of the piece and I’m like, we, let’s not do titles because I don’t want to be restricted. Once I name it, then I’ll have to create towards that. And then you are narrow, you know, you name this glass and this is where you are going so that’s where you’re supposed to go. I don’t want to do that.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: But that is the challenge, it’s usually someone in marketing, right? And you have someone, the marketer in the room totally admits it, they’re like, ‘we need to submit our prompt here.’ So maybe there’s something to be learned in like, maybe we need more time to make the work. Back it up from the marketing deadlines.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes, give us time, yes give us time. Cause you restrict us when you impose these names. Once you name it, it’s there to be advertised. The audience expects this advertisement, and so you can’t all of a sudden bring someone, all of a sudden bring, you said you were doing spoken words. If, if your favorite artist releases a song all of a sudden you can’t because it’s already gone. So that’s the box I don’t want to put myself into.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I think that’s also a consistent challenge that we’re hearing for sure. How, let me ask you this, how do you get out of a creative rut? You are making, you’re making, it’s going along great, you only have so many weeks of rehearsal and then one day, one week, you’re, you’re kind of, you get stuck. How do you unstuck yourself?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: So I do two things. First of all, I go, so I always drive. I, I always, I barely take like Uber or any, anything like that. I’m always, you know, behind the wheel. Sometimes I, I’ll take an Uber and then I’ll sit in and they’ll say, ‘where are you going?’ and I’ll say, ‘just drive me around.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Really? The surge pricing! I’m like, ok! So, alright, you, you’re, you’re making corporate structures work for you and creativity.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: So I say, I say, I say, I say, ‘so in Asheville, where is the, the fun? What do people do here’ They say, ‘oh, you go to the Biltmore, you go to, you go to.’ And one is go see bear, you know, people love to go, there are places to go see bear jumping around. So I say, ‘oh, well you drive me there.’ And now I have apiece of paper and a pen, so while we’re going, whatever I see I just write it. Or, or like green leaves, trees, little kids riding bicycle, or you know anything. So sometimes I’ll, I’ll depending on how long, whenever, when I think it’s getting too expensive I say, ‘ok.’ And then when we are coming back, I'm also gonna see different things and so I’ll write. So let’s say I have, I get like 10 core items on my paper and then I’ll have you turn around, take me back home. And then I have another 10 core things. And so when I come and I have 20 words, I will look at these words, the words that have like activities like riding bicycles, eating, group, having fun, group of people having fun. Sitting under trees or sitting on the bench. Walking my dog, you know, these things. And I’ll, I’ll, I’ll use these words, coming into rehearsal the next day and tell my, tell my cast. I’ll put them in little groups and tell them, so think about, I need you to improvise. So in your group I need you to improvise, thinking about walking dog.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Have fun as a group.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes, have fun as a group. Bigotry, with green leaves, which sometimes doesn’t really make sense to them.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: No.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: And it doesn’t make sense to me.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, it’s not a linear path.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yes, yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: What I, what I’m hearing as you tell this story, cause sometimes when we get in a rut it’s, sometimes you, you can just spiral and it’s all internal. And this active, you know, you know, piece where you’re going to go out in the world and literally get out of your head and notice something around you. Not necessarily for the answers, but just to get out of your head. So I’ve not heard this before, it’s fascinating. We’re going to need to add an Uber budget into all creative processes.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: And it being, and it being, so I try to deviate from anything that would take me to a studio. Anything that would take me to a dance. So I, I get off the internet because if I go on the internet, Facebook I’ll see dance because all my friends are dancers.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Sure.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: And if I go to, the University, the school, I’ll go to the studio, dance studio, my office, I will see dance stuff there, I’ll see photos, evenings, anything. So I try to refrain from anything dance and go for what would tell my non-dances, this has nothing to do with dance and bring them and see how I can make those convert them into a dance and it’s fresh. And then that’s how I get the ideas and then I build off from there.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We have time for one more question. In making a creative life, what is the best piece of advice that you’ve received and would you mind sharing it with us today?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: I was, this was 2016 in my ACBA, ACBA in mid-Atlantic ACBA.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Our students just came back from ACBA.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yeah, ACBA, so in 2016 we, we went, I was in University of Maryland so we, we had our ACBA at University, Washington, West Virginia, WVU. We went, so we went there and, you know how all the pieces that we showed and you know first about 42 different dances, and then they select 12, and so when we finished the first round, there’s a feedback session for the adjudicators. And so one of the adjudicators. So it was, it was, it was really nerve wracking because when you hear other people, when I have seen other people and their pieces and, and I think it’s so good, it’s really good work and the kind of feedback the adjudicators give and so, and then I, I was thinking about mine. Cause mine, I didn’t use music, it was, it was spoken words, it was me saying a poem and my two dancers dancing. And it, it got to mine and they, and they told me, they said, ‘you know, you don’t have to touch this piece at all. Don’t try to change it or anything. Leave it as it is. It’s a complete piece of art.’ And, and, and I started, you know, like, I started seeing stars. It was, it was, it was really satisfying for me because before that I hadn’t heard any positive feedback that they gave, all the feedback that they gave was ‘I don’t understand it, this needs a lot of work, this needs to do this and that, I don’t know where this is going.’ You know, and when they said that, and my piece needed work. So I have two of my dancers that when we make the dance next time, we have to rehearse and so after that feedback, they were in a room and I said, we need to make, meet them, and they said, ‘no, there’s no rehearsing, they said, you heard them, they said this is at, this is what they said like that.’ And it was, that was like, one of, one of the moments that, that, that one of the highlight moments of, you know, hearing my work by three greats, and since I’m the one making that makes, they’re really great dancers in their field that give like me positive feedback about, about, about a piece that I have created in collaboration with my dancers, it was really, it was really great and, you know, and when you asked me immediately I remember because I, I how can I forget that?
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, it’s such a beautiful reminder to really hear the feedback, both, both the good and the bad. Cause I think sometimes we often make from the place because we want, we have drive, we want to do more. We can be our harshest critics sometimes when you’re making something and so to really hold strong. Now, did you actually give up rehearsal or did you still make them rehearse?
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: To be honest I, we rehearsed.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, so there’s, there’s a little give and take there.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Yeah, we made it to the next round, we made it to the Gala, and I think we were selected, they select three or four, at the last four and then they select two.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It depends.
MUSTAPHA BRAIMAH: Or four. So there’s, I think there’s another three and they selected two, anyways, so mine was number four. Three made it to the Kennedy center, and mine was number four. We were, we rehearse, you know, nothing changed really, but we have to rehearse because I just didn’t feel comfortable.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Alright, that’s alright, it’s also that work ethic, it keeps us going. Everyone, please join me in thanking Mustapha Braimah.
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 Floco Torres, cover art by Micah Kraus, and Julian Curet and Kat Wentz are our artist coordinators. 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.