- For over two decades, New Ballet Ensemble has immersed Memphis students in high quality ballet training alongside multicultural dance genres to create an award-winning program that cultivates excellence and talent, regardless of the student's ability to pay.

Its annual performance of "Nut Remix" is a Memphis holiday tradition, and as the ensemble's founder, Katie Smythe has promoted a unique vision for arts education in Memphis and beyond.

I'm Mark White and this is A Conversation with Katie Smythe.

[gentle music] Katie, thanks for being on the show.

- Thanks for inviting me.

I'm glad we could do it this time.

- Yeah, it's gonna be fun.

So let's talk a little bit about New Ballet Ensemble.

When was it started?

What was the thought process behind that?

I know we've known each other a long time.

You've been dancing forever, so that must have been a big part of it.

So let's talk about it.

- Literally forever.

- Almost forever.

- I probably started when I was three years old.

So I'll go back maybe 50 years before that.

- Okay.

- Maybe further.

- Okay.

- My grandmother was a dancer in Memphis, Tennessee as a young girl.

And she lost her mom when she was eight years old.

And her dad married the nurse.

That's what people did, right?

You just marry the nurse and she'll take care of your kids.

And he didn't honestly take very good care of the little girl.

He paid attention to his son.

So she loved dancing, but this is what brings us together.

In a way, this story does.

You remember the third floor to Central High?

- Absolutely do.

- Okay.

- Yes.

- The long walk on in 12th grade when that was your homeroom?

- That's right.

- Were we in the same homeroom?

- I don't think we were.

- We weren't quite.

- Not quite.

- S and W.

- Yeah.

- But my grandmother couldn't do it because she had an appendectomy in the 11th grade.

- Oh, oh.

- And so, because there was no ADA, no protections for kids, she just couldn't graduate from high school.

So she moved to Chicago to dance with the Chicago Grand Ballet.

It's a Chicago Grand Opera.

It was the ballet company within the opera.

It was one of the first American ballet companies.

- Wow.

- And then her dad ran for sheriff against Crump's man.

- Oh.

- My great-grandfather was Mike Tate, and it was unladylike to have your daughter on the stage.

So he made her come home, give everything up.

So she came home and started teaching.

Great Depression hit, and she started teaching children in her living room regardless of their ability to pay.

- Wow.

- So kids who had pennies to give her, would give her pennies, and kids who could pay a little bit more to help cover the pianist.

They would do that.

My dad would sit on the stairs and watch all these little girls dancing, and he had to put a sailor suit and tap shoes on every now and then.

But she taught me about service through an art form.

An art form that perhaps 1% of our population cares about.

- At that point.

- At that point.

And so that's basically what I did.

When I went through a journey after we graduated from Central, I went straight into a professional life in Minneapolis.

And one of my favorite things to do was tour the schools.

And there's still this big organization nationwide called Young Audiences.

And so we would, at 7:30 AM, Minnesota Gymnasium, tights and leotards, dancing for kids.

- Right.

- And to just see the kids come to life because something was different in their day.

And now in retrospect, knowing that there were those few kids out there, maybe more than 1%, right?

Because they were maybe not brave enough to say they were creative in school 'cause they might be stigmatized by it.

But when the creatives came in, they thought, "They're my people.

I'm with my people, my wizards."

And so essentially, I tried to repeat that throughout my career.

After I did a little acting, did some television, did some theater in LA, married, had children, came back to Memphis.

My mother was selling Memorial Park.

I needed to be home.

My parents were here, I missed them desperately.

Los Angeles was becoming a struggle for my then husband, who was an actor and picking up episodes of things.

He had gone from being the stars of things to being an episodic actor, and it just wasn't very easy.

And so we moved home.

It was great to be with my brothers and my parents.

I loved it here.

And I thought, "You can go home again."

- That's right.

- But I don't wanna be home and not be who I am in this environment.

I wasn't ready.

I was a young mom, so I wasn't really ready to just take my kids to school and take care of the house.

Although, I could have.

What I really wanted to do was contribute.

And my mother was very involved in public education.

She was one of the founders of Partners in Public Education.

She was Frances Coe's campaign manager back in the day.

So I used to go in the living room and stuff envelopes with Frances Coe's picture on them to mail out.

- Yeah.

- And so, and my mother always woke up every morning, at least Sunday mornings, New York Times, reading the education page.

So I would say to my grandmother when I was little, "Why are you making all these costumes for other people and not for me?"

And she said, "'Cause you have everything you need."

And I'd say to my mom, "Why are you always reading the education page?

There's so much in the New York Times."

And she said, "'Cause this is the most important issue in our society."

And then it was her decision to send me to Central, where I met Florence Leffler and she facilitated my career.

- Yeah.

- In a diverse environment.

I don't wanna brag too much about Central, but in the 19, late '70s, early '80s, it was kind of a utopia.

- Yes it was.

I remember those years fondly.

Florence Leffler was our principal at that time and just an amazing woman.

And I know she helped you quite a bit early on in those years, just encouraging, and which is absolutely Florence Leffler to a T.

- And she taught me to give back.

She said, "If I'm gonna accommodate you, "you don't have to take PE, "'cause you dance 20 hours a week.

"I'm gonna put you in Humanities and French and biology, "all the things you're interested in, "'cause I know this is your education, "then you've gotta give back.

"You have to perform at the talent show."

- Yeah.

- So I put on pointe shoes and a tutu and danced in the talent show - I remember that.

- At Central High.

You do?

- I remember that, yes.

- Well, I got a little respect from Coach Cates after that.

- Well.

- I didn't have much before.

- That says everything.

[both laughing] Yeah, and then, so that's really how you got started.

You founded New Ballet Ensemble because of that.

- Based on what these great women taught me as a child, yeah.

My grandmother, my mother, and Florence Leffler.

- Wow, and that was 2002 you started?

- Officially a nonprofit by 2002.

- Okay.

- We moved into the Ice House, which became the Rail Garden for a little while in 2001.

So, you know, we had applied in 2001 for our nonprofit, but it came through in 2002.

And then we moved over to York Avenue, kind of off the beaten tracks.

So people don't know where we are.

They get us very confused because ballet is in a couple of titles around town.

And we're all very, very different organizations.

So we're the folks over by where Memphis Made used to be behind Urban Outfitters, and in 10 public schools throughout Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

So now we teach as many, if not more kids, in Memphis-Shelby County Schools than we do in our studios in Cooper-Young.

- Wow, and a tenet of all of that is, it doesn't matter if they can pay or if they cannot pay, they're still equal there, and can come in and learn every type of dance, but mainly ballet, and other types of-- - Well, and the reason for that is our post-secondary institutions have still not graduated to the next iteration of dance.

So I know we're gonna probably talk about him, but one of our former students and a big star, Lil Buck, has changed dance as we know it, but he couldn't have gone to a BFA program.

With all of his talent and his genius, no one would've recognized it because he was a street dancer.

- Right, interesting.

- And yeah, so he's redefining dance.

So still, the first audition in 90% of dance programs in colleges are the ballet class.

- Wow, still to this day.

- To this day.

So for example, we have two students on full scholarships at Howard University.

- Wow.

- First part was ballet.

And Sonya Fisher, who's one of those students, her favorite dance is West African.

She loves it.

She loves Jazz and West African, but her ballet had to be competitive enough to get her in.

- Right.

- So we don't think ballet is the begin all, end all, but it is necessary to get a college scholarship.

And our kids need to get out of Memphis, just like I had the opportunity to do when I was 18.

- That's right, yeah.

- And go find the world.

- Right, absolutely.

And you've put on some great productions over the years.

We've mentioned "Nut Remix".

How did that get started?

- It's kind of a nutty story.

In my head, so, you know, when we identify kids throughout Memphis who are daydreaming or maybe can't sit still, we sort of say, "Oh, those kids have ADD.

Those kids are not paying attention."

Those kids are probably creatives.

I was always daydreaming.

So I kind of daydreamed "Nut Remix".

I loved the "Nutcracker" as it was, but it's an anachronism now.

- A little bit.

- And also, Ballet Memphis had a beautiful "Nutcracker".

Why would I do another "Nutcracker", right?

But kids need to grow up through it.

So I thought, let's just kind of make it like core curriculum.

And common core at the time, let's make it a geography lesson.

Let's bust all the stereotypes in that, too, and not pretend to be Chinese people, but learn Chinese dance from a Chinese dancer.

And then let the Asian kids dance their legacy on stage alongside black kids, white kids, Hispanic kids.

Same for, our students contributed so much.

So Christie Streeter, that was her name at the time, she's now Shestreet on Instagram, if you look her up.

She's brilliant.

She's working one of many, many kids, who graduated from our program and went straight into a professional career.

She's a transformative dancer.

Sorry, I have to stop to think about her.

She's an amazing dancer.

But she looked at me and said, "Where am I?

Where am I in your story?"

We had danced it for one year and I said, "I don't know any West African choreographers."

And she said, "I do.

"Mississippi Boulevard's where I go to church.

Ms.

Candace Washington."

So she came over.

So really community built "Nut Remix".

- Right.

- The kids who could flip, flipped, and they said, "Hey, Ms.

Katie, what if I try this?"

And I'm like, "That's brilliant, keep it."

It's still in there, you know?

- Right.

- So it was created by kids.

And that's really what the National Community Arts School Coalition, National Guild for Community Arts Education started something called Creative Youth Development.

It's really for those of us who love dance, it's in our DNA, or love music, it's in our DNA.

- Right.

- But we wanna give it back to children who want children to develop through it, because they can be recognized for their genius.

- Right.

- And so, that's what I tried to do with "Nut Remix", is have them help tell the story, create different dynamics.

If a couple of kids were in love, we danced it.

- Yeah, right.

- We danced it to Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long to Stop Now", you know?

- And it takes place in a different location.

It's Beale Street.

- It's on Beale Street.

- Yeah.

- Clara works in a cafe with her dad.

She can't go out to a play, all these visitors come in from around the world, she's never traveled.

Her uncle Drosselmeyer shows up with his lovely wife, gives her gifts from around the world, and she dances with them.

- Right.

- And then in Act II, in her dream, they come to life and she's a world traveler.

- Right, it's an an amazing production, I've seen it.

It's really great.

- And the Hip-Hop battle is amazing.

- Is, yeah.

- And that is really about, you know, it's really about conflict resolution.

- Mm-hmm, right.

- So it's Hip-Hop has maybe a violent reputation with some folks who don't know that it's a peace movement.

And so we try to bring that peace movement to our stage, which is more relevant than ever.

And then Lil Buck created the angel, so that was his creation.

- Yeah.

- When he was maybe 22, he came home and he said, "I see it, I see it, I see it."

And he just, all of a sudden, he was, "No, no."

And they did this big kick and he fell to the floor, and then the snow fell and it was peaceful.

And everybody gets up and bro hugs.

- Yeah.

- And we all love each other.

And that's what we wish for our community, and that's what visionaries and artists do.

We put in front of the community what we want to see.

- It's a teaching moment without being too heavy-handed.

Just something.

- Hopefully.

- Yeah, hopefully.

Well, let's talk a little bit about Lil Buck.

He started at your studio and sky's the limit.

- He started with Marico Flake, Rico.

- Okay.

- He started kind of around the Crystal Palace in South, South Memphis.

- Yep.

- And you know, jookin' comes from skating, roller skating at the Crystal Palace.

And also, you know, way back, when we used to see guys in zoot suits in the '70s.

It's a very quiet bounce, you know?

It's not the big bounce that you see kids doing now.

- Yeah.

- But it is the genesis of it.

So he learned from those people.

And Rico's a Memphis city cop who taught kids to dance.

So when he walked in the door at New Ballet, he was already a genius.

He was already trained in jookin'.

He was already an expert with something he could share with us, so people could learn from him and be inspired by him.

But he wanted more tools in his toolkit.

- Right.

- I think he knew, I don't know, you know, maybe choreography is not my favorite thing to pick up because I love improvising and generating things myself, and it moves people and I can feel that they like it.

So I'm gonna have to work against my gifts to balance it out.

So he took ballet, flamenco, African a little bit, but then he started blending it into his performances.

And then I started seeing him bring New Ballet Ensemble's ethos of all these cultures coming together with Yo-Yo Ma in New York City.

Whether it was a nightclub or Lincoln Center, he was bringing it to the world.

So he is an angel.

He is like the messenger that goes out and tells the world, there's this incredible group of people in Memphis, and there are young men and women who can change the world.

And you don't see us for who we inherently are, you see us for the stereotype.

- Yeah, right.

- So really, again, that was a collaboration, and he was self-taught when he came in, in so many ways because he never stopped practicing.

- Right.

- I'd have to lock him in the studio and go home, and just say, "Close the door behind you."

- "I'll be back."

- Yeah.

- Yeah, that's amazing.

Well, I know he's gone on to all types of things.

You mentioned Yo-Yo Ma, lots of exposure from that, which again, just shines a light back on y'all, which is an amazing thing.

- Yeah.

- You know, we talked a little bit about the fact that it doesn't matter if the child can pay or not.

Arts funding is obviously in the news a little bit, and I think it will be in the news for a while.

Let's talk a little bit about that.

- Well, we were just reminded in Denver this past week that things go in cycles.

We've been here before.

- Yes.

- I don't know if you or your viewers remember the Robert Mapplethorpe photos that were very scandalous, - Right, absolutely, yes.

- Considered pornography.

- Yes.

- The NEA was under threat of closure because of that.

And they didn't even necessarily fund that exhibit.

- Right, right.

- But they needed someone to blame or, you know, sort of point fingers at.

And it's such a low budget organ-, you know, division of the government.

It's so small.

- Very small.

- Personally, I love the NEA because I saw our kids benefit from it.

So after we won the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from First Lady Michelle Obama, and that was the President's Committee on the Arts.

She was just the chairperson.

I don't know that she awarded us that particularly, but there were 12 organizations around the country, and we were one of the lucky 12 to win it.

And it's because we were working in education.

It was really an arts education award.

After that, the NEA started funding us at about $40,000 a year.

And without them, we could not have sustained our work in Orange Mound, for example, for the last 18 years.

- Mm, yeah.

- It's all because of them.

- Right.

- And it is starting to shrink.

- Mm.

- And we feel, and the Department of Ed funds some of our programs.

Right now we're in the third, we're starting the third year of a five-year grant.

So we feel secure and hope that that'll continue.

And that's in Northaven and Frayser.

But individuals, I think, are trying to make up some personal giving to organizations that they care about, that they read about, have had cuts.

And the arts are always the last.

- Yeah.

- You know.

And among the tiers in the arts, the arts have a hierarchy.

Music.

- Right.

- And then, generally, visual art.

- Yeah.

- Because those are what are required by the state for the blueprint for education, and then theater, and then dance at the bottom.

- Dance, the last.

- So dance is the first to hurt.

Peter Abell will come talk to you about the Memphis Symphony.

It's hurting because when we hurt, you know, perhaps maybe we can't hire the symphony for "Nut Remix".

We are this year.

We are, we're going out on a limb and doing it.

So we're bringing them in because it is an ecosystem.

- Right.

Well, and it's very important the funding of that.

I read a stat on your website that 100% of your students go on to college.

- Or career.

- Or career, okay.

- Since 2003.

- Three, yes.

- Since 2008, a hundred percent have gone to college.

- Wow.

- A couple have decided it's not for me.

And they've come back and joined our apprenticeship program, and they're paid to learn.

- Right, right, wow.

You have a new executive director?

- We do.

- Yeah, let's talk about, it's Matthew Best.

He's just started.

Let's learn a little bit about him.

- It's funny 'cause he just started almost two years ago now.

- That's true, that's true.

But it's like, we also have a new artistic director, who's come in to help us, at least for a year.

We're hoping he loves it, you know?

We're hoping it's mutual.

- Sure.

[Katie laughs] - Sure, yeah.

- But you never know, you know?

This is a very unique organization and if you've only worked for a ballet company, it may or might not be the right place for you to land.

And that's for folks to figure out.

He loves our mission.

He's a fan.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, we're in good hands.

But Matthew was a student.

Matthew was a student at New Ballet starting around the age of 13 or 14.

At the age of 16, he danced in "Nut Remix".

That might have been his only "Nut Remix".

He was my daughter's beau in "Nut Remix".

The traditional "Nutcracker" role.

And they danced to an Isaac Hayes song about interracial relationships.

And that was like when they were both in high school.

So that was around 2003, I think.

And he went on to go to UT Knox.

He walked onto the UT track team D1.

He's self-deprecating about it, but I'm sorry, if you can walk onto the UT track team, come on.

You're not bad.

- No, you have some skills.

You have a little talent.

- And he's big guy now.

You know, he's like, he's a big guy.

But he always loved ballet.

So we went a couple of years ago to Knoxville to perform for the Change Center, which he was running a youth development organization in East Knoxville, which needs a lot of community development.

And he lived in the community in a Habitat for Humanity house.

And he was working at the Change Center, and he had a big vision for it that involved the arts and games, and everything that he could.

I mean, it was a very, very big vision.

So he brought us in and we danced.

And I turned around and he was in tights at the bar.

All of him.

And the kids were so impressed.

And then some of the younger dancers, maybe 20 years old, some of the males got into what we call turns in second.

It's repeated turns with your leg out to the side and you're spinning, spinning, spinning like 32 times.

- Wow.

- And he beat 'em.

- Of course.

- So they ate some humble pie.

- Yeah.

- But as I started thinking about how I need to move on to the next iteration of what the organization is giving birth to, a separate organization, I really needed someone, who trusted that youth development side and who could talk across the lines of youth development and the arts.

And there's no one better than Matthew for that.

So he's made fast friends with the director of the opera and the symphony and Collage Dance, et cetera.

But at the same time, he goes into a ballet class and puts on some tights and takes class.

And he's kind of fanning over Ben Kubie, our new artistic director, 'cause he's such an excellent teacher and he loves the way he works with the kids.

- Right.

- So he's informed on both sides.

- Yeah.

- Even if it was a narrow experience with dance in the beginning.

So I hope that with these two directors, and they aren't, neither of them a woman, so we're trying, we're looking to fill up with women here now because [laughs].

- I believe, obviously, I believe in female leadership.

- Absolutely.

- But these were the two best candidates for this job and they fit the mission, which is the most important thing.

- You mentioned a new organization, launching something new?

- Mm-hmm.

- Let's talk about that.

- So we're giving birth to a performing arts and technology school.

- Right.

- So the name of it will be Memphis Middle and High School for the Performing Arts and Technology.

We hope to be able to call it what we've been calling the working title for years now, is MemArts.

We're working on getting the trademark for that.

And it might be a little sticky, so we may have to be adaptable.

Artists are adaptable.

- That's right.

- Flexible.

That's one of the traits.

- Absolutely.

- That kids carry with them.

- Right.

- Who study the arts.

But it will be hopefully located in downtown Memphis in a very at-need community in a disinvested census tract that really could stand the breadth of life brought to it by young folks from all over the county, but also immediately surrounding the school.

And we will have five conservatories.

So I can get really granular about this, so stop me if I talk too much.

- Go right ahead.

- You combine block schedule for academics.

Most of us know what that is, which is very similar to college.

So in middle school, you have to be careful about how long an English class is, for example.

- Sure, sure.

- And then a conservatory at the end of the day.

So one of the things that we face when we go into a wonderful neighborhood school like Overton, that has a performing arts program within it, kind of like, I don't know if you were in the optional school at Central.

- Yes.

- The school within the school.

There are some inherent problems with that because you might have a very advanced dancer that needs to be in the most challenging class.

But she also has to take dual enrollment English, 'cause she's trying to get that scholarship to Vanderbilt.

- Right.

- And one's gonna win, and it's usually the dual enrollment English class because that's a credit that she's getting, and it's gonna help her get into Vanderbilt.

This is a real story.

- Right.

- And so then a child is forced to go to an afterschool program if they're really gonna have a professional dance or music education.

And we have wonderful afterschool programs in Memphis, but they're not accessible.

You know, our main barrier to anything, a job or school, community colleges, transportation.

And so we're trying to eliminate that barrier by putting academics and three hours a day of arts.

So a minimum of 15 hours a week of arts.

It'd be great if it could be 20 and it might be during rehearsal week.

- Right.

- Into one building and one round trip for a parent.

- Right.

- So we see parents at Dunbar Elementary, where we teach Peabody, LaRose having to leave work, take their lunch hour just to pick up their child, eat a sandwich in the car, get them home, lock the door.

Are they gonna be able to come back at 4:30 and drive them to their violin lesson?

Are they gonna be able to pay for it when they get there?

So by making it free, we really thought we were providing the most access, but not if children can't get there.

- Yeah.

- This solves for that.

It also puts all these kids in a Hogwarts.

You might have different houses.

- Right.

- Music, theater, dance, technology, stage set and design, which is one of my favorite, costume design.

So you have all those different personalities in there, right, just like Hogwarts.

- Sure.

- But everybody's a wizard.

- Right.

- And they're not being pointed at when they walk down the hall.

Or having to hide who they are, or feel guilty about it.

- Yeah.

- And we see these schools, I've researched 20 around the nation.

I'm very excited for Memphis to have this.

So regardless of the location.

- Right.

- I'm hoping if someone watches this 20 years from now, they're gonna say, "Oh, that's the first time "I heard about MemArts or Memphis Middle and High School for the Performing Arts."

- And what is your legacy gonna be and what's next for Katie Smythe?

- So at this conference, and it was probably the last conference for the combination of the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts coming together.

It's called the Arts Education Partnership.

So you had a lot of very stressed out arts leaders, arts education teachers, you know, from music teachers, from schools and principals.

I mean, people from Denver Public Schools, everyone just going, "How are the arts gonna continue?

"Do I lose another job as an arts specialist - Right.

- In my public school?"

And the answer was the cycles.

We've been through this before, let's just stay together.

Just keep your head down, just keep working.

You know, someone will wake up.

I find the arts to be very non-partisan.

I can walk Capitol Hill and have as good a conversation with David Kustoff as I can with Steve Cohen about music education.

- True.

- Everyone cares.

Lamar Alexander started the Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts at MTSU.

You know, so everyone cares.

But they asked us to sit and think about something other than our work, something other than our craft.

Where do we find peace?

And now draw a picture of it.

And I drew a picture of my stepdaughter's son, sitting in my lap, and we're reading "Madeline" together.

So I'll put the 12 little girls in two straight lines.

I hope it's 12, somebody's gonna check me on that.

And I look in the photograph that I saw of that moment, so completely happy.

But I'm happy with a lot of scenarios.

- Sure.

- But that one I'm really ready for.

- Oh, okay.

- But I have the privilege of being ready for that.

Joseph has the privilege of sitting in that comfortable living room behind that book, having three grandmothers and people reading to him.

- Right.

- And I want that for every kid.

So I can't let go of that until it's finished.

- That's right.

- And it'll never be finished.

So somebody's gonna have to fire me.

- Which would never happen.

- It might.

- Yeah, well, Katie, thank you very, very much for being on the show.

It's been a real honor to have you here and to learn everything about New Ballet Ensemble.

It's been wonderful.

Thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

It's great to talk to you again.

- Thank you, this has been A Conversation with Katie Smythe.

[gentle music] [acoustic guitar chords]