Hope Boykin: Art and Leadership After Ailey
An educator, mentor, filmmaker, speaker, dancer, and choreographer, Hope Boykin was a three-time recipient of the American Dance Festival’s Young Tuition Scholarship. She worked as assistant to choreographers Milton Myers and the late Talley Beatty, was an original member of Complexions, and danced many years with Philadanco, The Philadelphia Dance Company. Hope joined The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2000.
Note: You can see the gallery of beautiful images below much better on the website.
Jewel: You recently retired from Alvin Ailey, the iconic dance company on the planet. What have you taken away from Ailey that will inform the next leg of your journey?
Hope: No one has ever asked me that question. I love it because I can't imagine what Mr. Ailey was thinking in 1958. But I can bet that he wasn't thinking that the company would be on a block named the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Place, in one of the largest buildings dedicated to dance in the country, with an education wing.
The company has evolved wonderfully into a profitable, well-oiled machine. There is a thoroughness in the administration and planning that goes into how to build on art. During this pandemic, which I'm calling an intermission, I have so many of those Ailey tools.
Working for myself, my head is wrapped around my art differently. The value of what's involved is so much higher than if I had not watched the organization run. It's all forward motion because you don't make the same mistakes. I don’t have individuals dedicated to fundraising, marketing, or the press, but if I can start with a folder that has each of those titles, then I am prepared to use all of what I learned and valued about this work and the necessary infrastructure.
I've just been able to hire someone as an executive administrator. Knowing that someone is on your team, working towards the same goal, even though our duties are different, is mind blowing.
With Ailey, I got to teach and to choreograph. As an entrepreneur, I'm going to take those things and build a brand, which is just as important as the artistic things I learned from Ailey.
Intermission
Jewel: You call this challenging moment an “intermission.” You were already going through a transition with your retirement. Do you feel this “intermission” has shaped or redefined how you are moving forward as an artist?
Hope: I am 1,000% positive that had things remained the way they were, I would not have the relevance that I have right now. I still would have gotten the artistic calls—the master classes, teaching, but I've been busier than ever.
Next week, I start teaching and choreographing at George Mason University in the morning and then at USC in the evening. I've had two Commissions—one for National Black Theater and the Charlie Parker-themed dance-film I just did for the 92nd St. Y. I've been giving keynote presentations, I just got a new commission, and I've been asked to do a live stream in 2021.
I was worried—about funding, money, and support. But because I had all this equipment, the lights and cameras, and because I knew what I wanted to do, my learning curve was not steep. I was able to dive into this work using what I had. My standard of excellence for video and presentation was different than this format [holds up a smart phone]. I was prepared and I wasn’t fearful. I was ready, so I didn't have to get ready.
Jewel: What inspired you to combine your dance artistry with filmmaking and poetry?
Hope: You gave me my first shot. Everything happened from that night in Tarrytown [Hope performed her first poetry/dance work at the Hudson Valley Writers Center when I was Executive Director in 2015]. People asked if I had a book and Greg suggested that I put the piece on film. Now, I have a book, and I put that work on film. An entirely new platform opened.
I only recently acknowledged that I'm a writer.
After that night in Tarrytown, I knew that I needed to direct what I wanted. I was already a director—as a choreographer I’m moving bodies around in space exactly as it has to be done. I thought this was something new, but then I would find videotapes from the 90’s or a camera with an old SD card of the same flower from different perspectives. Because my cadence in movement and my cadence in my voice are the same, all I have to do is put the movement with the text and it just . . . [she gestures widely with her arms].
The writing, the filmmaking, the photography—all of that was suppressed because I was so busy being a dancer. So now I don't need to ask if it's going to work because I've already seen it. I'm directing the shot. I'm guiding. It's just what I'm supposed to be doing. It's always been there. I have journals under my bed and beta tapes, VHS and old Hi 8s.
Jewel: So now it's a matter of revealing and birthing this work.
Hope: A friend of mine told me that I'm a content collector, not a creator. Well, that's not true. I'm just waiting.
Jewel: You mentioned the word evolution. As you shape your own projects, how has your leadership evolved?
Hope: Until there's a vaccine and people are ready to take it, we have to be ready, we have to be virtual-first thinkers. That's the difference—to think ahead in this way is going to be the game changer.
Because I'm thinking virtually, I'm not worried about what we used to do. How do I go through the screen to you? [as she reaches out to me]. When I’m working on a project, I'm not just going to record on Zoom and then have the dancers learn it. I’m a part of this virtual-first thinking because I want to be a part of the learning. Saying ‘learn this footage’ keeps separation. If I can move myself out of the way, the way I just shifted [her position in the camera], then we can move to the next part.
I'm evolving because I'm using my ability and I'm using the technology and then allowing it to close the gap. How can I continue to make them feel while we're working together? I also want to include them and how they feel in the work. If its all about me, I can do that alone. I need to ask them how they're doing.
Jewel: Beautiful and so aligned with the principles of our Jazz Leadership Project of Individual Excellence, Shared Leadership, and Ensemble Mindset—defining your voice through a collaborative platform.
Hope: Yes, when you saw the last segment of the Charlie Parker piece, Patrick Coker was running out of his apartment. You don't run up and down New York streets unless you are committed to the person who's asking you to run. Patrick did that because, he said, “I know this is what I would have wanted.” That's the person I need to be. I want to make sure I find and give them as much of me as possible so they in turn are not afraid to give me the absolute most.
Jewel: I wrote a post recently about artists as transformational leaders—giving us the opportunity to transform based on how the work resonates with us. What values and truth inform your work?
Hope: I love the word transform because I feel that as a black woman in this particular field, I always felt like I'm living with a body that wasn't ideal. But I love to say that the idea is in the word ‘ideal.’ It was someone's idea of what ideal should be, right? But when you conform yourself to a situation, then you become misshapen. If I'm transformed, that's coming through me and then it can come out and I continue to grow.
When I write about my truth, it’s the fact that I didn't feel enough. I'm constantly saying: You are the most important person to you—you should be. You are too powerful, too beautiful, too everything. The too is usually a negative—too thin, too tall—but no, you are enough.
Creating for a Digital Space: Dancing with Charlie Parker
Jewel: That’s a wonderful segue to the work you recently created for the 92nd Street Y … a movement journey, a dance film inspired by the music of Charlie Parker. How did this work evolve?
Living through a time such as this, when our eyes are open to the world’s need for healing, artists continue to refocus their thoughts toward the creatives of the past; those who have paved the way and created lanes, inspiring us to build on their legacies and dreams.
Using the life and sounds of Charlie Parker as a foundation for a new work –short vignettes choreographed and created for dancers who have been isolated during the world’s intermission, struggling to find a way out, and searching for their stage. Standing alone or woven together, the works created will show the struggle and celebrate the survival of life.
Charlie Parker left us a soundtrack of the world in which he lived, and I use the story the music tells, through his body of work, to create and celebrate all he left us. I wonder if he knew what his genius could provide to the future he wouldn’t get to see.
Hope’s Description of the work
Hope: I thought—I'm not going to tell the story about Charlie Parker because it's been done—Ailey really did it. I could tell my story and get to know who he was a little bit. I called Ali Jackson [drummer in Wynton Marsalis’ quintet] because he’s truly a historian. And as he shared Parker’s complexities, I said, “it just doesn't seem so danceable.” He said: “You can dance to anything.”
Ali made me hear the beauty of the odd meter. He opened the gate to a new understanding. I like to say ignorance isn't bliss—it's just ignorance. The more you learn, the more you add to your resource closet, and so he gave me more resource with which to make something.
I didn't want to use a cover, but Laura was just so beautiful. I wasn't trying to make you fall in love with Charlie Parker. I was just going to try to tell a story with him as the soundtrack knowing he struggled, knowing he lived his life, knowing he had been through so much. But he knew what he wanted. He had a short life, but he led such a long life in that short time--depression, dysfunction, loss of a child.
I thought, if he can do that, then let me be just a little bit transparent.
Jewel: It was a beautiful piece—the concept, the music, the choreography. I loved everything about it.
Hope: Thank you. It was hard though.
Jewel: What was challenging about it?
Hope: Creating movement to music that is three minutes long doesn't seem like a lot of music or time. But making it visually appealing so you continue watching is the challenge. As I watched the editing, some of it wasn't good. The hardest thing, and what I've learned is: you have to be very specific with the artists. You have to give them a shot list and they need to send you a shot list. It's like all the pieces of a 30-piece jazz band. You need to know what each person is doing, what they're playing, and how they're going to send you all the footage.
This time has slowed us down. In the opening, when I talked about solitude, I said that even though this time has been solitary, I can see and hear differently than I could see and hear before.
Future Generations
Through this new-ness, creating in a time none could foresee, I’m striving to find new ways, carving new lanes for our future generations.
As the Artistic Lead for the Kennedy Center dance lab, Hope taught twenty-six 12th girls grade this summer.
Hope: I tell the young people: Add to your list of awesome. Remind yourself what's already there and add to it instead of trying to cross off things you want to work on. You’ll see the list of transformative properties increase.
I gave four prompts to the students for their writing: I can see, I will learn, I will become, I can change.
When I teach, I want to know: what can you see in yourself? What have you learned from this experience and what will you change?
If I believed in myself a little bit more, maybe I would have known that when those older videos come up now, they're showing me that I can look at myself and be proud of what I see. I didn't feel proud when I was doing them.
I need them (students) to feel their pride while they're in the midst of their work. We held meetings about choreography, how to position your camera, clean your background, levels and composition. They each had ninety seconds to create what they wanted.
I am super proud of these young people. You know that we're okay because the future is okay.
Jewel: Thank you.
