♪♪ Bauman: I was so excited by your courage.

That's what I walked away with.

I thought, "Wow.

'Cue' was fully himself."

That's what I walked away with.

And I'm so grateful.

You know, as people, we need to do that, as artists, as black people, as black artists.

And I was really, really glad.

And I feel like what I saw was a lot of ways in and you figuring out for yourself and along with the dancers, "How do I help an artist excavate themselves?"

You know, from the work that you did.

A lot of games and strategies and tools that I think we are often encouraged to invisibilize in our craft, and you really made them visible.

And I don't think there was pressure actually at all in this particular lab.

But still, we're never immune from the bigger societal pressure, and we're always in the bigger societal pressure, which says, "Produce, produce, produce, product, product."

You know, capitalism.

Right.

So, I really appreciated that you took time to show the, like, the seams.

Do you know what I mean?

And to say, "Actually, I've been excavating my process" and that's really important as an artist.

And to have a lab like this and to use it, like, to take them seriously when they said it's really a lab.

And I feel like you took them up on it, you know, in your own way and said, "All right, I'm going to explore."

The word that comes up for me is vulnerability.

And I think to be vulnerable in all spaces is tiring and takes courage, yeah.

And so, thank you.

Yeah.

Good job.

But, then, that's our work -- right?

-- as artists, to be vulnerable.

Exactly.

Or to somehow figure out how to invite our own vulnerability and other folks'.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

And what I personally feel for myself and constantly see is that we use our craft to hide ourselves.

And so, it's this thing of like, "Yeah, that's our work."

And yet we're constantly hiding.

At least I'll speak for myself that I can.

And so, it was like, yeah, how do we end up using that same tool of the body and the same friend to be able to flip that on itself and instead of using it as a veil, to utilize it as an instrument for self-understanding?

I appreciate what you're saying about the rub or the friction between honesty and craft because I think we start out being taught our craft as a vehicle to express ourselves.

And yet when we get so craft-focused, sometimes it can be a vehicle to hide.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's where my work is.

I'm really interested in craft, but craft doesn't frame, not necessarily, like, shape, but the shape of a container, the shape of a way in.

I think this lab speaks to why it's important to have a multiplicity of experience.

So, the answer is I don't know all the answers.

Yeah?

And we're going to discover some of those answers by doing.

I, too, saw a tipping point where it was like there was a certain point of time that I don't think it was any particular thing that I did, and maybe it wasn't a particular thing that you did.

But I think it's like the practice, right?

You just show up.

I remember as a younger dancer, it's like I can't figure out the day where it's like, "Oh, I understand this alignment between my knee and my pelvis," but it's just cumulative.

It's like I just stick with it, and then all of a sudden it's there, you know?

Right.

And I felt that with these students.

I felt like, "Oh, today they are more open, you know, to this idea "of evidencing their own point of view through their improvisation."

And, again, I don't think it's because that day I said a magic word, but I think it's the the daily-ness, right?

Yeah, exactly, of them having worked with you for a while, worked with me for a while.

It just reminds me, honestly, seeing their growth reminds me to keep putting myself in new positions.

This idea of being one track and kind of staying on that line and that will make you the best and that doing anything else will diminish what you're good at, I disagree.

And Dr. Jones would call it "pluralism" -- you know what I mean?

-- that if we take a pluralistic approach, actually the whole thing rises rather than, oh, one part diminishes because you "muddied" the water with these other techniques.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think as far as the growth that I've seen, the challenge and a growth, this lab is such a blessing and an offering to just exist and to be and be like, "Hey, well, now that we're here, what are we interested in?"

Can I really trust that I can just be?

Can I really trust that you, as a perceived leader, as a perceived teacher in this space, just trust me to do me?

And then they would leave.

So, I would be like, "Yes."

And then they would leave.

And then there would be classes where that's a no.

And so, they're like, "But wait."

I feel like I just witnessed that rub, that tension of really -- I think about it as code-switching in a lot of ways, and I think about how our ancestors being enslaved and, like, needing to do the cakewalk for survival and then also made sure that they took that and remixed it into something that was making fun of who they had to do it for.

And so, there's just this constant sense of code-switching but in a way that always feels sustainable to self and to sustainable to the joy and the love that one wants to commit themselves to.

And so, I saw that growth.

To have process archived, to have people get to see some of the seams.

We need that.

You know what I mean?

That's part of the ecosystem.

Alvin Ailey always said the most interesting works of art are those that are the most personal.

And so, it asks of you to open your heart and sort of walk naked into the world, because at the end of the day, it's your voice, it's your work when you wear your heart on your sleeve.

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