Transformational Dance with Davalois Fearon
SHOW NOTES
In today’s episode, Dava discusses:
The culture shock she experienced when moving from the Bronx to the SUNY Purchase campus in White Plains
Her college experience, professional auditions, and eventual joining of the Stephen Petronio Company
The creation of her dance company, Davalois Fearon Dance, and some of her brilliant works including Time to Talk and For C.J.
The profound gifts she has received as both a mentee and mentor
Her biggest piece of advice for college students as a current faculty member at Princeton University
Davalois Fearon is a 2017 Bessie awardee and a 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow finalist, is a critically acclaimed choreographer, dancer, and educator. Born in Jamaica and raised in the Bronx, her choreography is said to embody a “tenacious virtuosity” honed over 12 years with the Stephen Petronio Company (2005–2017). It is now reflected in her work as founder and director of Davalois Fearon Dance (DFD).
Established in 2016, DFD pushes artistic and social boundaries to highlight injustice and inequality and spark vital conversations about change. Fearon’s work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at New York City venues such as the Joyce Theatre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among many others, she has completed commissions for the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Barnard College. Her abundant honors and awards include DanceNYC’s Dance Advancement Fund Award and grants from the MAP Fund and the Howard Gilman Foundation.
Follow along on Dava’s journey: @davalois_fearon@davaloisfearondance
TRANSCRIPT
Jess
Hello and welcome to The Story Project. Today’s guest is Davalois Fearon, a 2017 Bessie awardee and a 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow finalist, is a critically acclaimed choreographer, dancer, and educator. Born in Jamaica and raised in the Bronx, her choreography is said to embody a “tenacious virtuosity” honed over 12 years with the Stephen Petronio Company (2005–2017). It is now reflected in her work as founder and director of Davalois Fearon Dance (DFD).
Established in 2016, DFD pushes artistic and social boundaries to highlight injustice and inequality and spark vital conversations about change. Fearon’s work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at New York City venues such as the Joyce Theatre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among many others, she has completed commissions for the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Barnard College. Her abundant honors and awards include DanceNYC’s Dance Advancement Fund Award and grants from the MAP Fund and the Howard Gilman Foundation.
In today’s episode, Dava discusses the culture shock she experienced when moving from the Bronx to the SUNY Purchase campus in White Plains, her college experience, professional auditions, and eventual joining of the Stephen Petronio Company, the creation of her dance company, the gifts she has received as both a mentee and mentor, and her advice for college students as a current faculty member at Princeton University.
Please enjoy this episode with Davalois Fearon…
Okay, hello, Dava.
Dava
Hi, how are you? I'm so excited about this.
Jess
I'm so excited too. I am really happy to be here talking with you. And I am going to start us off with our classic question on this podcast and just kind of rock and roll, get going right into it. So what is your human bio? So the bio that exists off of your resume.
Dava
Cool, yeah, you know, that really reminds me of a question that I got as a part of an icebreaker. And in a second, I'll run to the book, just to kind of like have it as a reference, because I learned about it from a professor at Princeton who just wrote a book that I'll go reference really quickly. But it's, what is your...bullshit degree, meaning or like if you were to introduce yourself to someone, you know, it's like, okay, I have a bullshit degree in X or what have you. So that's a great question for me to ponder in terms of my human bio. I would say that I moved through the world as a bridge maker and a person who is astutely paying attention to the energy and the needs of the people that I'm encountering and always weighing it against my internal compass or balance of fairness as a Libra rising individual.
Jess
Beautiful. And now I'm gonna give you another really heavy one right off the bat. So my question for you is, why dance?
Dava
Well, dance picked me. I don't know if I can say that like I picked dance. So coming from a Jamaican family, music and dance and expression through the body was a very normal experience for me growing up. And being the fourth child in my immediate family, I'm sorry, no, I wasn't fourth. So this is going to get kind of awkward. So my dad had my eldest brother, then he had two other children, then he married my mom and had my older sister, then had me. So then he married my mom while she was pregnant with my older sister. So growing up when they were married for 16 years, it was four children in the household. And then my half siblings would come visit occasionally, mainly my sister Nicole. But I was number three. And the only way that I felt like I could get attention was being very physically good at stuff in a kind of like impressed way. I learned from a young age when I would contort my body or like do a certain thing, I would get attention or some sort of like reaction from my family. So I think in my early...attention seeking middle child development age, I realized that that move in my body was a way that I could say, hey, hey, over here, over here, don't forget about me. And also watching Dominique Dawes during the Olympics was very impressionable. I wanted to be a gymnast at first. And then I realized that like my parents being immigrants to America..
They just didn't have the means or the know -how to put me into gymnastics. And then Ailey had an outreach program when I was in junior high. And I remember, I think like in second grade, the Ailey company came and did a free assembly for our school. And I remember seeing Black and Brown, beautiful dancing bodies on the stage and saying like, you know, I want to do that. I think I can do that. So when I got the opportunity to do like a free Saturday program, shout out to Ron Alexander, my very first ballet teacher, that was like my chance to finally get to do what I had, or get as close to doing what I wanted to do from a young age.
Jess
Mm -hmm. And what led to your wanting to pursue it professionally?
Dava
So when I was, so I did that Saturday program that was conducted by the Ailey company in partnership with the DOE. Then there was some like leadership change over where by eighth grade that program got gutted. And that was when I was applying for high school. And my sister was really great at helping to kind of like get me through the crazy New York City high school application process, because my parents still were kind of like, what, how do you do this? You know, they still didn't, as immigrants, figure out how competitive it was to get into a specialized high school. So I was applying to LaGuardia, to professional performing arts, to Martin Luther King, Talents Unlimited, all of these arts -focused high schools with dance and musical theater and acting as my in. So when I got into professional performing arts with dance, and also dance was the only thing that I actually had a background actually physically doing with that little bit of experience through the Aelia Outreach program and then growing up doing it at family events and things of that nature. And then also like that was what we would do for recess throughout elementary school was make up dances. You know, I was on the step team. There wasn't really sports. So we kind of like had to figure out what to do with ourselves with the resources that we had, which was basically our bodies in space. We didn't really have anything else. And shout out to Kira Armstrong and all the other like.
Jess
Hmm.
Dava
amazing Bronx dancer choreographers that just kind of allowed me to learn different dance styles that originate from the African American diaspora.That was kind of like my own training and also like my the Bronx is like very heavily Latin and Puerto Rican. So getting exposed to those traditional dances, particularly salsa and then bachata and merengue and all of those kind of like dances that I got exposed to just from growing up in the Bronx. I had a I didn't really understand. I had a vast knowledge of dance at a very young age, but it was very informal so I had no chance in terms of like acting and, you know, voice or anything like that. Dance was what I had the most, exposure to, albeit, unstructured or not, not formal. so once I got accepted to professional performing arts for their, dance program, that was kind of like, what solidified that track for me. I do think if I would have gotten into musical theater, if I would have gotten acting, dance would have still been a part of my story, but maybe not the centerpiece the same way it ended up being.
Jess
Mm -hmm. And then can you detail your journey moving from that point on to the next years of your life?
Dava
Sure, so I had the great fortune of getting the major foundation of my dance training from Alvin Ailey and their program with the Professional Performing Arts High School was really great. We had academics from 830 to 130, then we got bussed over to Ailey, which was at 60 something Street at that time, before they moved over to their gigantic building now. And we got ballet, we got modern, which was specifically like Graham. I think we might have gotten like a tiny bit of limon, but it was mainly gram that we had and Horton, obviously, and jazz. I was privileged to take a master class with Katherine Dunham when I was 16. She came and taught a class. I also got into the junior division and the professional division. So after the normal like 430 cutoff class, time I would start the junior division and professional division because I think junior division up until 16 and then 16 till by the time I graduated high school it was professional division and that went I think until six or eight I can't remember I just know I was getting home at like 10 or 11 after dancing yeah for hours after finishing with my academics at 130 and…
So that was, and then of course we did West African as well. So all of that for four years and then I got a scholarship to SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance where I also had the great fortune of studying under Kevin Nguyen who recently passed away this year. And he got this huge commemoration at dance space where we got to see the breadth of his influence in the dance world, which is vast, super vast. And also there we studied ballet, limon, and then it was kind of like the budding of contemporary. So it kind of got a little bit, vague. It wasn't as attached to technique. So for example, Megan Williams, who was my professor at that time, she, pulled from Limon, but then also her own aesthetic. Larry Clark, who was there, pulled from Viola Farber, who danced with Cunningham. So like he's three generations removed from Cunningham. And so he did his own contemporary class. Same thing, Kevin Wynn did his own contemporary class. It was called Modern at the time, but I think it's...
Dava
probably fair to say it's contemporary because it wasn't a strict codified written down technique. And.
Jess
Hmm. Right.
Dava
the one strict codified technique we did have was gram and at the time that i was attending and ballet of course then after that my junior going into senior year of suny purchase i started auditioning for schools i'm sorry for for a professional job which you're not supposed to do but i had to do as an immigrant because i was like i come from an immigrant family if i don't get a job upon graduation, I don't think I can pursue dance. I just don't know if I would be able to convince my family that it's a viable career. So I auditioned and I actually, I believe I made it either finalist and or on the second gram company list, who Nia Brown.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
double -check her last name, but Nia was like, I think your name was on the list because we were in the audition together. But I also auditioned for Petronio at the same time and Petronio gave me an apprenticeship, so I did not go back to check to see if my name was on the list for Graham because at that point I had already accepted the apprenticeships with Petronio and I think they were down to four or five women for the Graham company audition at that time.
Jess
Wow.
Dava
And so then I had to petition Carol Walker, who was the director of the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Preaches to kind of allow me to graduate early in order to pursue my apprenticeship. So I struck a deal and I said, okay, I will go to class on Wednesdays and Fridays and go to rehearsal Monday through Friday. So I would wake up at like five and no, I would go take Kevin Wynn's class in the morning, jump on a bus because I was a poor student so I would take a three and a half hour journey on the 60 bus transferring in at Fordham so the 60 bus would go all the way from White, from yeah White Plains. So I would take the 12 bus to the 60 bus to Fordham and then get on the train to make it to rehearsal by noon and three and a half journeys and it would cost like one transfer it was like well okay it was the 12 bus or the shuttle because I don't I'm not sure if they had the shuttle running that early.
And then you took the 60 bus and you got a transfer to the train. So I kept it under like $2 to get to rehearsal. And then I would rehearse Monday through Thursday, 12 to four in Manhattan. And then I had all my credits completed. I had like a certificate in arts management. I was like a minor in psychology. And so I didn't have to worry about my general academics at that point. I got all of that out of the way and I just needed to complete my thesis. So I had a choreographed a piece, did a solo and completed my degree. So I graduated with my class, but I kind of struck a deal that I would balance school and professional life for my senior year. Yeah. And then by March or somewhere thereabouts early in the spring semester, I officially became a company member.
Jess
Wow.
Dava
So before I graduated, which was my plan, I had a job.
Jess
That's incredible. That's truly incredible and exhausting, it sounds like.
Dava
It was exhausting, yes.
Jess
Yeah. What was your college experience like? The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful.
Dava
Well, I, it was an intense culture shock. So coming from the Bronx, where it's majority people of color, and then going to Westchester, where it's majority white, attending a 92 % white university at the time, I didn't know what culture shock was, but I experienced it.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
I would, it was, traveling to Manhattan senior year was nothing for me because I went home every single weekend during my first year at college because I was like, I felt like a fish out of water. There was nothing there for me. So I just left. I was one of three folks of color in my freshman class of 63. Dancers. There was like me, Mayte Natalio, Amber Mayberry, so one of four, and Matt. So there was four of us. And then everybody else was white. So I didn't really make friends, because my team, Amber, got along. Matt, I never saw where Matt was. So I didn't really connect with the other folks in my class. There was a big cultural barrier that I just didn't even know at the time. I didn't have the language or the...wherewithal to even understand that that's what was happening. So I became an RA sophomore year in order to one, I knew that I wasn't integrating very well into the conservatory of dance. I came in on a scholarship and I, because of my immigrant mentality, worked all summer long also because like I did not get professional division at Ailey because, because I think they expected me to go to Fordham because I was accepted to Fordham Ailey, which would have put me on like the Ailey company track, which I couldn't afford because Fordham being a private university, I would have had to take out loans and commute from home, which I wanted the college experience of not living at home while going to college. So despite...
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
that being my comfort zone and my home, you know, and what trained me for the last four years, I went with Purchase. And so then when I auditioned for professional division for the summer, they were like, the nerve. And so I did not get that scholarship. And so I did not dance for three months and I was out of shape. So, you know, they're like, this is the girl who is on scholarship and she comes back out of shape. And then I completely
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
disassociated. I don't even know if I went, I think I went to the senior auditions. I don't know. I just, everything was like a blur and I did not integrate very well freshman year. So I was prepared for them to take my scholarship away. I was like, I would take my scholarship away if I was in leadership without knowing the nuances of culture and how to help first generation specifically, not like my parents.
Jess
Hmm.
Dava
didn't have an education, but when we're talking about coming to America, your education elsewhere does not count. So my mom was the equivalent of a 10 -year faculty, you know, professor in Jamaica, but coming here, she's like, had to go get a GED. So, you know, being a person with that kind of a background and understanding the extremely Euro -American culture that was, what was happening and I don't think that they knew that that's what was happening. But like when I was going into my sophomore year, I was prepared. I was like, I need to get other means of paying for my college because I just don't think I can maintain my scholarship given the experience I had so far. And I was right. So I became an RA and
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
Yeah, they, they did take the scholarship away and I, and I started looking elsewhere. I found my people through the community. There were a lot more folks of color. I, Also found community within like, looking into political science and taking classes and while I was trying to get my arts management and trying to and I, and I completed those pursuits as well as getting my psychology minor. So I found other people that I related to that were from New York that were of color that were interested in in things that I was also interested in, in addition to dance, since I couldn't find my people in the dance department. So, yeah, so needless to say, it was not a good experience. Hence why I was very excited and motivated to not have to be a part of that for the entirety of my four years. So it was so funny that like, by the time
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
Junior year came and I got my life together and I matured a little bit and I understood what was happening. I definitely junior year integrated more. I was like Martha Graham scholarship, Cunningham's work study, Steps work study. And I just was like, I just need to stay in shape. And so by the time junior year came around, I was in shape and I did a lot more senior projects. I performed in the purchase dance company things and so I kind of like rehabilitated myself within the department so by the time I graduated I actually got the faculty award so I kind of redeemed myself.
Jess
Wow. That's wonderful. Okay, so then you're dancing with Petronio for many years. What was that experience like and how did it feel to be one of the, I would say the lucky ones, but clearly you had worked so hard towards it. It wasn't just luck, but in terms of just that phrase, one of the lucky ones from graduation who went out into the world with a job right there in front of them. What was that transition like? And then the longer broader experience in the company.
Dava
Yeah, I definitely did feel lucky. And I think some people coming up behind me and also some of my competition. I remember auditioning with a particular person who had graduated two years or three years before I did from Purchase. And I remember that we were going up against each other for at the Petronia audition. And she looked over to me, she's like,
aren't you still in school? You're not even supposed to pee here. Because what they pound into your head is it takes two years on average for someone to graduate and then get a dance job. So I never really felt...
Dava
you know, lucky per se, because it was a lot of strategy on my part because of my background. But then I also understood, I guess I'm pretty good with math. I know what ratios and percentages are. And so I understood my chances and I took them. I did the risk taking that I got rewarded for. So.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
and put in the work to do it. So once I was in the company, I was embraced for the most part by Gino Greenick. So I was like definitely a part of the boys club. We would go out to the gay clubs and, you know, just dance all night long. I remember like being in West Hollywood with Steven and I'm like, this is my boss. And I'm like out dancing with him. Like, this is crazy.
So it was kind of like my crazy college experience because in college I was, our race, I was very straight and narrow. I didn't drink, I didn't do anything that you would think someone going to college and having those like liberatory experiences may do. I didn't do any of that because I was on the other side of things. I had to make sure that everybody was safe. So I was like, now I get to like.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
go wild and crazy and dance until three or four o 'clock in the morning. And they taught me how to drink. They were like, OK, first start with a cider. And then after that, mix the cider with a light beer. Then after that, you graduate to a light beer. Because they would always make fun of me because I would go and I would get like a amaretta sour or pina colada. So yeah, it was kind of growing up through…through being with, I was a baby, you know, I was like, it was a fun experience. Ton Dao was also in the company. He was, he is an Asian man. Sheila, who, she's mixed with Italian and Peruvian, I believe. Elena Domenico, who's an immigrant. So, you know, through those kind of like shared experiences I was able to kind of find. It was easier to assimilate into that company than purchase actually.
Jess
Mm -hmm. And at what point did you feel the draw to make your own work and how did that come to be?
Dava
So I got engaged really young and was pressured to leaving the company after being with them for five years to go beyond Broadway to make more money. Cause this person clearly did not know anything about dance or musical theater or what have you. But they just knew that Broadway is like where you were supposedly going to make more money. And they had a different lifestyle than I had, but whatever, I was young and dumb and this is what you do. So I quit and I started trying to get into the Broadway world before I understood what the great white way meant. And I would show up to all of these auditions that said, female this age to that age, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I would show up and I'd be the only black girl in the room. And then I was like, I can't show up at the time I was bald or just, you know.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
barely had like an inch of natural hair. So I got like the straight wig and I would show up to like cabaret, Beauty and the Beast and all these things. And I would always get cut. And I didn't know, again, like very ignorant to race and politics in America being that like New York has a colorblind weird way of dealing with race in terms of like, you can walk with your blinders on as an immigrant, and forward with your ethnicity, and be seen and accepted as such, outside of New York, that doesn't happen. I'm a Black person outside of New York. I can't claim Jamaican -ness and think that that would mean anything to anybody outside of New York. I didn't know that at the time. And so I'm showing up like, I'm Dava. I have this resume. That's what matters. But no, what matters is that if they didn't say explicitly African -American female, hence at the time, Color Purple, Lion King, then don't show up, which all the other Black girls knew and I didn't know. So I went through that whole thing, but that's how I met my husband. So I'm kind of glad that I had that experience because I was pursuing that whole career. And I met him at a songbook release for a Broadway show that was going to...
Jess
Hmm.
Dava
That was fundraising. So got rid of the ex because that was not a good person for me. And actually reached it was only like a couple of months, like six months went by and I reached out and I was like, hey, Steven, I made a terrible mistake. If there are any opportunities to work together again, you know, just know I'm here or whatever.
Jess
Hmm.
Dava
And I think he knew that when I left, it was not… my clear -headed decision to leave. So he had a project that he had me come in as an assistant choreographer for, and then it kind of slowly, after that, those two different experiences, there was somebody leaving kind of last minute, or he needed to replace someone, or he needed to increase the cast for something for Underland. And so I came back as a guest artist and then was lucky enough to get back.
Jess
Right. Right.
Dava
into the company. So that was like a six minute hiatus that I really don't like talk about as much. But here we are. It's a little hiatus and then got back into the company. But when I got back into the company, I was much more mature. I had a much broader understanding of my positionality of my race as it related to being in that company being in the dance world. I had a bigger appreciation for.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
working for him because I understood that like the way he moved like distally and proximally so that's like from the arms and limbs out towards like and then also proximally like moving from the center undulating articulating the spine and the pelvis in a European dance form is not necessarily what you do so I was very fortunate to work with a person who excited me in those ways that that my Jamaican -ness could kind of pour out through. And it was when we were making the non locomotor piece, when he gave me the assignment to do my solo without moving my arms, just move my spine, like do the whole solo with just like my torso and maybe my legs, but you know like pare it down. So when I did that and I basically made that solo and my mom saw it later on. She was like, my gosh, I saw the little two, the two year old that I used to bathe and how she would like move her body. Like there she was like for everybody to see. Cause it was like a top down, like the whole space was black and then just like one spotlight. And for her, like brought her back to when I was a child. And so I was like, well. You know, that assignment, I think, prior to meeting my husband, prior to kind of like the universe pushing me towards choreography, you know, he's a composer and he had this album coming out in 2013 and he was like, I really want to, you know, pair it with dance. I think it belongs with dance. And, you know, me being a jealous woman, I was like, you know, no other person is going to come and choreograph to my man's music.
So I forced myself to choreograph to it and then I was being asked by other people to choreograph and I was just kind of like getting pulled by the universe and I was like, why is the universe asking me to do this? And I had a conversation with Laurie Anderson who was the executive director of Petronio at the time. And I was thinking about my transition because at that point it had been 10 years of working with Steven and I was like, well, maybe I want to do education. I was like interning with Pentechol and I was like, maybe I want to do arts management. I don't know. And, you know, she said, well, is there a reason why you think you want to do education and not choreography? Like maybe because you're a woman and. And then, like, she kind of like blew my mind. And in that moment, I was like, my God, yeah, I'm defaulting into these other areas of dance because that's the only thing I was really shown is that.
Jess
Hmm.
Dava
this is where women like me belong, not in the history books, not, you know, headlining, not forging ahead and starting, you know, my own company. And then I went to get my masters and started doing some deep research and, you know, learned about urban Bush women, learned about the work Jowell was doing, Diane McIntyre, Bebe M iller, and, you know, Wendell Cummings, and just being like, my God, like all of these amazing Black women doing experimental work and breaking the stereotype and notions of what it means to be a Black woman in dance and not doing the Alvin Ailey thing. These are my heroes, these are my women that I look up to and aspire to be like, that I didn't know about because of how I was entering into the dance world. So with Lori planting that seed, the universe kind of like pulling me in that direction. And then getting that kind of assignment from Steven and, you know, as he was getting older, more and more, it started dawning on me that the reason why I loved working for him was because I did have a collaborative experience of like being able to assert my ideas from day one, you know, interpreting how he was doing that movement and putting it into my body in my own way. So,
Jess
Hmm.
Dava
learning artistry, learning choreography, learning and witnessing and, you know, being an assistant choreographer and restaging his work as well was kind of like studying from, you know, choreography from a master and getting to create under his watchful eye and very, you know, amazing feedback. So that moment of doing that solo and hearing my mom say that, at that moment I was like, okay.
Jess
Yeah.
Dava
it's time for me to leave. It was clear as day that I needed to dig deeper into what she saw to find my true essence, my voice, my movement, without the context of the company, the Petronia Company.
Jess
And then what was it like forming your own company?
Dava
So, back in 2013, when my husband inspired me to choreograph, I started researching, like, well, if I'm going to be doing this choreography thing, I don't want to be like one of those abusive choreographers that just, like, take advantage of desperate dancers and not pay them. And I want to make sure I can pay, you know, because I know what it's like to be a dancer and not recognized just because I'm so desperate to dance and not paid appropriately. And so I went to Pentacle and that's how I kind of like learned about arts management and grant writing and things of that nature. Started writing grants and from there, I just from, you know, the ground up slowly but surely built
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
my knowledge around things and worked with my mentors such as like Charmaine Warren and Stephen and my brother -in -law who you know is well versed in business, my sister who at the time was an accountant. So I leaned on my elders to kind of like help me figure out like well how do I do this thing ethically? How do I do this thing without replicating you know harms? And slowly but surely working my way through, my work was seen at Harlem Stage, because it was a part of eMoves. And then it was presented at the Joyce. And so when you're going to be presented at the Joyce, you can't show up like a pickup company. You're going to have to have all your ducks in a row. And so I became an official company in 2016. And...It was daunting. The contract was like 60 pages. And I was so happy that I had the support of the Pentecost Arts Initiative, which was a two -year administrative support grant where I was able to lean on them to help basically me transition from being a single choreographer with pickup dancers or being a pickup company.
I was lucky enough to have the same dancers from when I started and then when I officially became a company for about three years and then, you know, went through different, I would say three iterations of company members where everybody stayed for around about three to four years, some a little bit longer. But you know, life happens. People move and go to school or go on to greener pastures, which I'm always happy that I was a part of their journey and trajectory. Yeah, so I had a lot of support.
Jess
I've been on your website for hours watching and reading, and I am just blown away by your extraordinary body of work. And I am wondering if someone is listening to this and they're going to go onto your website and they're going to do the deep dive that will benefit them, what is one piece of yours that you would suggest they begin with?
Dava
That's a hard question. I think like the one that I think. I toured the most with Time to Talk, because I feel like it's the bedrock of my aesthetic in terms of blending projections with live music, with spoken word, dance, audience interaction, historical context with social justice initiative. So it kind of like was the piece that established my aesthetic per se. Other works have like bits and pieces of it, like Consider Water is like heavily more focused in the contemporary dance abstract realm of it where there's not, there is words but it's like projected words, you know, for CJ there's lyrics, you know, so there's kind of like aspects of it, but time to talk like packs it all in.
Jess
Yeah, Time to Talk was going to be my recommendation too for people to start off with. So there you go. Two votes for that one to begin. But there is so much to dive into. And on your website, it says that your mission is to push artistic and social boundaries and help cultivate the next generation of dance artists. So I wanted to ask you, is there one moment...that you can identify where you tangibly saw your mission come to fruition in real time.
Dava
Yeah, there's, there's, there's many moments, but I would say where I am now, you know, working at Princeton and mentoring young artists, I feel like all of them are doing miniature time to talks. Like all of the young students that I'm working with are blending genres. They're pushing, you know, aesthetics. They're pushing social questioning. They're...
Jess
Mmm...
Dava
doing all the things that like when I created that piece, I got a lot of people saying like, well, why are you making this work? Like we did that in the sixties or talk to Kyle Abraham, like he figured it out. Like, what's your problem? You know, I got a lot of people who just didn't get it to the point where in 2020 when I did the virtual premiere, everybody was like, this is so timely. You know, meanwhile, I had been working on it since 2014. And it premiered in 2016. So the Wisconsin premiere, that is. So, you know, to premiere it four years later, once everyone else caught up, you know, it felt like…validation, but in a very like uncomfortable way because it just reminded me of, you know, why I'm in the position that I'm in, you know, with the work that I'm doing, I kind of have to accept that like, it might not be me that is going to be rewarded for these works, but maybe my mentees, maybe the artists that I'm training and, you know, passing the torch to. In them, I see my mission fulfilled if that makes sense because yeah.
Jess
Absolutely.
Dava
Yeah.
Jess
Yeah. What has been one specific rewarding moment that you've had with one of your mentees at Princeton?
Dava
geez. man. Gosh. I can't pick. I would just have to say probably the one that surprised me the most would be my very first mentee, Cameron, because I encountered her kind of close to the end of her process. And she was kind of like in a standstill and didn't know.
Jess
Hehehe
Dava
where to go, what to do, and you know, I was pretty new there still. I hadn't completed a year yet, and I knew my worth and my value outside of the Princeton Institution. You know, I have an Arts and Social Justice internship that I have. I had a, ever since I started the company, I always had a partnership with Pentacle where I was taking in young hopefuls and training. And I kind of like to think of myself as like being, since I don't have like the funds to like fully give of a well -rounded kind of job that I believe they deserve, I can make up for that in other ways to help them, help bolster them so that they can move on from me and get that type of like financial support. So that was always what I was doing. I knew my value was there with young dancers. You know, I was at Purchase and also I was visiting lecturer at many other universities where any opportunity I had to kind of like help give advice to those young dancers about how to make it and, you know, do those things.
I had the artistpreneur workshop that I was doing. I had all of these things that were outside of like a particular institution that I was doing that I had full control over. But in the Princeton Institution, there's these boxes that you have to check through. So it was super rewarding to see that in a short amount of time working with her that I was able to help usher her into the...the final phases of her thesis and ask the probing questions and give her the food for thought and help her bring this really, I would say, master's level, professional level piece to light. And it really kind of like brought in a lot, like all of the kind of like bits and pieces of how I've mentored individuals, it kind of crystallized it and brought it in. So like, everything was needed, actually. All of the things were needed and all of the little initiatives that I had created along the way kind of were all helpful in that moment.
Jess
Hmm. That is so beautiful. Okay, I'm gonna pivot a little bit and I'm gonna ask you, were there any moments in time where your passion for dance faltered for any reason? And if so, how did you move through that?
Dava
thank you.
Dava
So there was this dark era, which was around like maybe 2021 to 2022… where I felt like, so 2020 happened. And what I loved about 2020 was that a lot of us slowed down. And I took a step back and I saw that I was like over producing, over giving, creating works that, you know, folks on budgets 10 times mine are creating. And I would say, and not to like toot my own horn, but I would say like the work I was creating was on par with someone who makes and gets a lot more support, you know. And I'm producing and volunteering and giving, giving, giving, giving, giving to what felt like an abusive partner at the time. It felt like someone who, and this is a dance world proper, felt like they, it was like a vacuum, you know, and it was in that time that I said, well, you know, the value of a black woman is what she can do to and for others was kind of what I was experiencing of like, you're only as good as the knowledge that you're able to give and the labor that you're able to give, but you're not as good as what a white man deserves to get, for example. So that kind of became harder to ignore when, you know, folks were calling in Black and people all of a sudden were like, my gosh, like, I didn't know racism was around and, you know, all of that just became a little bit hard to digest, especially after going through what I went through in graduate school, creating time to talk and...
you know, dealing with that kind of like rejection of like, well, no, you, you, you don't know what you're talking about. Like, no, no, no. And then 2020, I had like 200 people show up to the virtual premiere and everybody was looking for the answers to their white racism and all for free, right? They, no one wanted to actually like pay to receive that sort of redemption. It was almost like my job was to provide it for free because I would receive a better white person as my pay. That would be how I would be paid was, well, of course you want to do all this work because you would be benefiting from that. And then slowly but surely when the vaccine came and my numbers started dropping because folks were like, OK, well, yeah, now we have the vaccine. Now we don't have to.
Jess
Wow.
Dava
care about black people anymore. Now we can get back to business as usual. you can't call them black anymore. let's move on, move forward. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. Everybody was exhausted. It felt like all the grace that was given got gobbled up, sucked up. It also felt like my company at that time, was financially on this on on life support just like everybody else's company you know because of all the things that were happening to venues and you know losing all the work that I lost so did everybody else and you know it was a very difficult time to say like okay I should continue this self -sacrifice with this very abusive partner you know who doesn't see my value.
Jess
Right. Right. Yeah.
Dava
who doesn't understand my plight nor care to. So that was a hard time. And then Mosaic Fund and then Howard Gilman and then, you know, Princeton and all of the work that I had been doing for free, what it felt like free, started to pay off where...You know, I remember telling people at the time, you know, when I was starting all of these initiatives and volunteering, I did the Mosaic and I still am a part of the Mosaic Network. That was all free. Nobody paid. You didn't get paid to like show up and fight and fight and, you know, give your knowledge for free. And, you know, it was all just passion for about a year and a half and, you know, consistent meetings and just continuously giving. I was on the board for new purchase, just giving, giving, giving, trying to make the world a better place, starting all of these things. And I remember, yeah, my cousin was like, why are you doing that? Like, why, why, like, why are you doing that? You should stop doing that. You should do this. You know, constantly people, you don't need to do that. Like constantly, there was always times in my life where people were like, don't do that. Don't do it. Why are you doing that? That makes no sense. What are you doing? And finally, I'm like, aha, I was right. I followed my passion and f***ed up. Finally, it feels like it's being recognized that all of the work I did was not in vain and that I continue to do. It feels like people were listening and people were taking what I was doing as valuable.
Jess
Thank you for sharing all of that. And I think that leads perfectly into this next question, which is I would love to ask you to finish this sentence. I am proud of myself because.
Dava
I'm proud of myself because I didn't give up. When there were many times where it felt easy to give up and a lot harder continue on this life trajectory of being true to my mission. And I'm proud of myself for pivoting away from overproducing and being undervalued to strategizing a way to not burn myself out and to do less and make more. Very proud of myself for that.
Jess
That's incredible. And…on this podcast, we've had a lot of people who have experienced trauma in college dance programs. And some of us are still healing today from these experiences that may have happened a few years ago, decades ago even. So I'm wondering if as...a current faculty member in a college program, you could give somebody who went through a college program experience some advice on healing or moving through or maybe just having some hope that things are a little bit different now for the current generation.
Dava
Well, I guess that's kind of like one of the cornerstones, is that the right word, of my company. I feel like, you know, every single dancer that I've mentored in some way, shape or form, who, you know, has, Michaela, please don't be mad at me, but like, I'll use Michaela for example, like, when she first did her first thing with my company, she was like, like sitting under the table and hiding and just being like so shy and you know like just like a fly on the wall and I don't know if you ever truly like 100 % recover. And I don't know if that's the goal. I think the goal is a practice of resilience that we inherited. And when I say we, people of the African diaspora, inherited from our ancestors how to survive despite when things...are not in your favor and not created for you. It is a muscle, it is a practice that requires the support of a community. And when I recognize that hurt, that pain in someone else, it is healing for me to...see them to validate their experiences through listening and through sharing my own. And, you know, Michaela and I would talk a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And through my experiences and how I talk to my elders like Charmaine Warren, and we talk a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And...through those conversations, what I've learned and the books I've read, I share and, you know, watching her blossom into this very strong, confident, beautiful dancer that isn't apologizing when she walks into the room and picks up space is a type of healing for myself. And through community, through conversations and knowing that folks like me are in and will continue to be in positions of power in leadership roles eventually. And it is our responsibility to shift culture, to change culture. And I think through every mentee I've had, through every student I've taught, I've given them hope that like,
There's people like me out here. We're doing the work. We are writing the curriculums. We are telling the stories. We are making the works. And even just being at Princeton and watching the type of work that is being made by the students, I would have never thought I would be in this position. So just knowing that these students are making these works that are being mentored and supported and… validated by folks like myself, it's really encouraging knowing that like, it's only gonna keep going in this motion. It's not gonna go any other direction because the folks under that generation have grown up watching these individuals. And so even if the political larger, world doesn't accept what we're doing, we're here. I've paved ways outside of the mainstream dance world to continue making my work. And I… don't really need the permission of others to continue to do that. And so more and more, I'm seeing folks pave their own way.
Jess
Thank you for saying all of that. That really speaks to me and I know it's going to speak to a lot of people listening. And to finish up this conversation where you've been so generous and intentional and I thank you so much for that. I'm going to ask you to think back to a moment of your life when you were younger, maybe things were a little bit harder. And I'm just going to invite you to talk to that younger you.
Dava
Well, I guess the hardest part for me was when I was a freshman in high school and I showed up for my very first day of dance class, which I was so looking forward to. But given my circumstances of like having parents who didn't understand what it meant to have a young pre -professional on their hands and not having the financial support to be able to even pursue a pre -professional career to the point where I auditioned wearing a cat suit that I found in a lingerie store that wasn't locally accessible to me and socks, because I didn't have any ballet shoes. I didn't even know where to get them or what have you. And so when I showed up, so excited about the first day, I had to sit and watch ballet and sit and watch modern. And then I went into the lost and found and I found a leotard and I found tights and I found a ballet shoes and I took it home and I washed it. And I remember saying to myself, I'll never sit out in class again. And so but that was like a humbling experience to, you know, have clothes from the lost and found. But that was the only way I could have be prepared for class the next day. So to that young dancer, I would say, the lost and found is not that bad. I found some great things in the lost and found. It's not that deep. It's not that deep, girl. You weren't prepared for that.
Jess
Yeah. It was not.
Dava
I don't know about you, but I found some great things in the Lost and Found.
Jess
You heard it here, that's the takeaway of this episode. Go find your local Lost and Found and see what goodies you will find.
Dava
Because it's gonna end up in the trash, you know? Like there's always like, they're like, every Saturday we throw these things away or like the first month or whatever. And I'm always like, man, you know, like, I'm sure whoever will never find this would be happy to know it's in right hands and it's being used rather than like ending up in the trash.
Jess
Yeah, we're sustainable.
Dava
Well that's kind of where, I mean it's on brand, I'm very much so like, all about sustainability, you know?
Jess
Yeah. And also we can make it broader and we can say you'll never know where you're going to find goodness. If you just keep your eyes open, you know, if you feel like you don't have something, maybe you're looking in the wrong place or maybe you just don't know what you're going to stumble on. So we'll, I'll circle it like that.
Dava
Right. Well, I mean, okay, yes, to give the more hallmark ending to it, it was more so thinking like, well, no, but it's just more so thinking like, you know, you're don't more so like, don't worry, you know, because because everything was like, do or die. Like everything was at that point in my life, like.
Jess
You don't need one!
Dava
survival. Like, and so it's just letting rest and leisure and lightness and not everything has to be that that that you can look forward to a more balanced, healthy way of life like that. We don't have to go into the lost. You know, like that to survive would be the real essence of it. Is that you made it girl, don't worry. Like it's for a good cause. Because you are going to come out and be in a place where you don't have to worry about that.
Jess
Mm -hmm.
Dava
But I'm still gonna double down and say like, hey, it was for a good reason. There was really no other choice.
Jess
And also. That's so good. Well, that is a perfect place to wrap this up. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story and your wisdom. I'm so grateful that we got to connect through this. Shout out to Jessica Chen. Thank you so much. And I didn't ask her a question because, so I asked Jessica Chen, who was on season one, to give us a question because she's who connected Dava and I. And...The question was pretty similar to other ones I had asked anyway after we ended up talking, so I didn't answer it, but she just also was shouting out what an amazing person and artist and educator you are. So I will give that shout out to our lovely Jessica as well.
Dava
Mm -hmm. Jessica, thank you.
Jess
So yeah, thank you so much.
Dava
Thank you.