For the choreographer Tiffany Rae, dance is a language that is deeper and clearer than words. “I can show you better with dance what I have to say than actually talk,” she said in a recent interview. “You will understand how I feel.”
Part of what drives Ms. Rae – aside from her innate love of dance – is exploring issues rooted in social justice and black culture. Dance is a way to demonstrate both artistry and activism, and last summer she did both during a protest at Borough Hall in Brooklyn, where she preferred to dance than talk, and to her surprise, the crowd paid attention.
“Everyone sat down,” she said. “We didn’t even have to ask. It was just amazing – thousands of people sat down for everyone to see. “
At the protest, Ms. Rae, 24, presented a version of “Underground” that explores the trauma resulting from the struggle for racial equality and the continuing cycle of pain in black communities. She said, “The power that we had in our hands, in our faces – there was a kind of silence for everyone to say, OK, this is the time to focus, this is the time to listen.”
Gillian Walsh, a contemporary dance artist who interviewed Ms. Rae for Movement Research’s online publication Critical Correspondence, wrote, “Seeing this dance unexpectedly, so seamless between people making speeches and marching, really set me on fire.”
Ms. Rae, who grew up primarily in Brooklyn, has also created videos on Instagram and YouTube, some political and others for fun, such as The Parkers, her jubilant homage to the television series. Intended as a Thanksgiving gift for her followers, it went viral; Missy Elliott, whose music is featured, has republished it.
Her latest Rae Beast production, Unearth Birmingham, is more urgent: a response to the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. Four young girls were killed and many others injured. Ms. Rae’s film, shot in Gymnopedie, the basement of Bushwick United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, brings girls’ perspectives to life through an inventive, lively dance floor – full of hip-hop, modern, jazz and moments of improvisation – and music beginning with Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real” and ending with Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”.
14-year-old Naomi Southwell, who portrays one of the late girls, Cynthia Wesley, knew nothing about the Birmingham bombings before the project began. Ms. Rae let the girls see Spike Lee’s documentary “4 Little Girls” (1997), but her own narrative is more impressionistic than linear.
“She wanted to show people history through our movement,” said Ms. Southwell, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music, Arts, and the Performing Arts. “She wanted us to express how we might have felt if we were these four little girls, if we were in their shoes.”
Towards the end, the four girls find themselves in a place they have never been to: a gym. Startled and confused, they stand close together as more young dancers enter, some dressed as schoolgirls (from the Dancers Dreamzzz studio where Ms. Rae teaches) while others cheerleaders with the Brooklyn Diamonds (which Ms. Rae was once a part of). . “The other girls come around,” said Mrs. Southwell, “trying to comfort us and show us that we will be fine.”
And then they all dance, superimposing shapes that reflect Ms. Rae’s eclectic background. She has trained in many genres including ballet, jazz, modern, West Africa, Horton, and hip hop. Thanks to cheerleading, she can move large groups.
And there is something else: she was the only player on the soccer team in middle school. (She was a cheerleader and soccer player at the same time for a while.) “I feel like soccer helped me be a strength dancer,” she said. “To dance softly and subtly, but still have that power behind it. ”
Her first time in a music video was Beyoncé’s “Let’s Move Your Body”. She was in elementary school. “Instead of paying attention to the dancing mostly, I was paying attention to what they were doing,” she said. “I would watch the choreographer.”
Now young girls are watching them. In a recent interview, Ms. Rae spoke about the Birmingham bombing, why it was important to show the innocence of her cast and how joy wins in the end.
What follows are edited excerpts from this conversation.
When did you first find out about the bombings and how did it affect you?
When I was little, I actually played one of the girls in one piece. It always resonated in my heart and I wanted to do something on my own.
That moment triggered so much. After this bombing, there was unrest – just like today. Even then, people who were racist, they realized: Oh my god, these are four innocent children. I have the feeling that this triggered the turning point a little.
I like the way your video jumps between grief and boisterous dancing.
I want you to know these girls are alive. Not to make it so sad, but to show the brightness at the end of this tunnel. I wanted to show that these are young girls; You have fun. Like they could have, but it was taken away. I always wanted to grab feelings.
I thought of studies that talked about how black girls are perceived as less innocent and more adult than other girls their age. Was that part of it too?
Yes / Yes! It’s so important. That’s why I made her so funny. And of course they did that themselves – these kids are really fun and full of energy and they are really girly girls. And innocent.
How did you develop the choreography?
I had to make sure I knew every single girl – her character. I don’t like to force choreography. I don’t have to take a thousand steps, but I want to do choreography, not just for the dancer’s eye, but for normal, everyday people so that they can feel what they are feeling.
Sometimes you don’t have to do everything so technically because the message doesn’t appear. So I knew I just had to be any girl. I’m fine – it has to be our turn here or she has to jump here. Or that has to be a kick. OK: what am I feeling?
You ask yourself
Sometimes I just have to sit back and not be a dancer for a while and just be a normal person. So sometimes it’s good for me to be on the train and just listen to music and just say, OK, if I wasn’t a dancer and I saw a show, what do I want to see? What do i want to feel And how can this movement relate to what I could convey? I think that’s how I was able to create this choreography.
How did you come up with group dance in the gym?
I knew I wanted something simple but loving. Something that would be simple but subtle. We don’t have to be sad forever. We have to grow and move forward. They look down on us and they shine. And it’s like we’re dancing That’s the point I’m trying to make. Dance is everything.
