The first two times the Ian Judge production of Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet were performed by LA Opera, Kitty McNamee was the choreographer. It was her first time choreographing an opera. This year, the third time around for this production, McNamee is sitting in the director’s chair and serving as choreographer.

McNamee had her own dance company in Los Angeles: Hysterica which launched in the late 1990s. She’s choreographed many other opera (for LA Opera and other companies worldwide).

McNamee has also worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Hollywood Bowl, Pasadena Playhouse and more.

Hopping into the director’s chair was both exciting and daunting for McNamee. Though she knew the production well, there were things she wanted to do to freshen it up. A serious re-working of the production wasn’t an option. She found the areas where she felt she could bring something new to this tragic story of star-crossed lovers.

McNamee discusses her journey on this production, the power of love stories where couples don’t end up together and whether she can see herself in her work in Romeo and Juliet. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with McNamee, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Composer Charles Gounod is quoted as having said, “My opinion changes rapidly. One minute I can think it is very good and the next time I look at it, I see all the flaws and weaknesses therein.” How much does does that perspective reflect your experience as a choreographer and perhaps as an opera director now?

I think that resonates so profoundly with me. I mean, I could have written that myself particularly when there is an audience watching with you. You just feel so exposed because any little problem or shift in the flow, you take such responsibility for. It’s interesting because I can look at the archivals to give notes and I’m removed and it’s not people with me. I’m so much more comfortable. And you think, wow, this is really gorgeous production. I can see the strength and the beauty of it. But watching with an audience is really terrifying.

Is it more terrifying now that you’ve taken on the title of director?

Yes, because this is the first opera I’ve ever directed. Actually, Romeo and Juliet was the first opera that I’d ever choreographed. So the first time I was quite nervous. The second time, less so. But this feels right and feels like a great fit for me. But my palms were sweaty. 

There are certain restrictions on how much you can change an existing production. This one was originally directed by Ian Judge. You told San Francisco Classical Voice that you don’t have that much freedom except to “freshen it up.” How would you define freshening it up as this production looks compared to the two previous productions? 

That’s a great question. The set is as it is. I can’t change the set. I could adjust slightly, maybe the timing of transitions, but the set functions in a very specific way. I inherited that. Also, the score calls for when people enter the story, calls for who comes in and what happens. So that’s all fixed. But the nuancing of performances and making some choices. For instance, having Mercutio stay on stage after he dies. The Romeo and Mercutio, Duke [Kim] and Justin [Austin] are also friends, have worked together and they have a very dynamic chemistry. So I decided to keep him onstage.

I think my biggest impact is in the performance of of the singers and how I can perhaps add my my sense of drama, my physical interpretation of storytelling and utilize that to give their performances a little bit more freedom.

If you had the freedom to not do a 100% overhaul of this production, but say if you had the freedom to change 50% of it or more freedom than what you had, are there things that stand out to you as things that you would like to see different? 

I would like to somehow simplify the transitions. There’s quite a few. Towards the end it’s very challenging. So that would be my number one thing. I think the set is glorious. Maybe in the past we had more bodies on stage to help deal with things or the budget is not quite maybe what it was before. And I have to say a shout out to L.A. Opera, by the way, for continuing to make work and continuing to bring this extremely high level of talent to L.A. audiences.

This is your third collaboration, as we discussed, with L.A. Opera on Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet. How have you seen your work grow in the 19 years since you first were involved with this production? 

I think the number one thing is that I trust my instincts more. I think that I’ve learned to trust my instincts. Within the noise of directing there are so many people asking you so many questions, which is very different from just choreographing. My assistant director, Erik Friedman, was incredibly helpful. He handled a lot of the task-oriented, schedule-oriented [work]. But also in the room he said, “You know, it’s your voice, it’s your vision that counts, Kitty. In this situation you’re the director.“

You’ve stated previously that you wanted this production to be experienced through Juliet’s eyes so there’s more agency of her story and her fate. How do you, as a director, make that something an audience is going to inherently feel or just think about?

Our Juliet is very powerful as a person. Amina is very powerful. She is insightful and not afraid to voice her opinion. When I encountered her, and she came in very late, I had to remind myself I wanted her opinion. I wanted her point of view. Duke is elegant, princely, wonderful and gentle. Like the epitome of a romantic lead. And I knew that trusting my gut was going to bring this fire, this sort of pressure to the role. So I just tried to listen to her and actually truly let her have agency, which I think comes through in the production.

The way it came through to me is and I am assuming this is part of the construction of the opera, is how quickly Juliet says yes to marrying Romeo. I just feel like only somebody who has that agency can say yes that quickly.

And is willing to risk everything for it. Particularly, for me, in the poison potion aria when she makes that decision. She’s willing to risk everything to not only fulfill her love for Romeo, but also not be given away. Not have her body given away. Not have her soul given away by her parents to someone. She had already committed to Romeo at that point.

Is it important for the audience to understand this?

Maybe I just assumed that they would. Sometimes I just make those assumptions. I just assume people would make that leap. She’s a heroine. In my mind it should have gone smoothly. This should’ve been a romantic comedy, but the parents had to get in there and society had to get in there. One thing that I really appreciated about Amina was that she’s able to pull off the lighter youthful tone in the beginning of the opera and she has the resonance and the depth of character to make the later moments plausible.

Why do you think we, as an audience, respond so strongly to stories where the couple does not end up together? Why is great love doomed to separation or death? 

It’s weird when you put it that way. It makes me want to cry. It does. And I’m not a crier. But there’s such hope for me in young people believing in love and believing in a peaceful existence. It’s so incredibly hopeful. I think that all of us wish that this never-ending hatred, this never-ending war… And people don’t know why it started, but it continues. How the young people today would love for peace and for love to rule. It’s manageable to see this tragedy in an opera. It’s done. We can walk away. It’s cathartic, but it begins with the hope and they start with the purity of love. So maybe it’s a way for humanity to sort of manage reality. 

Or get a sense of how fragile that purity of love really is. 

I thought about my first love. Other people’s first loves. How you just had every hope in the world that it would be this beautiful thing forever. Then reality smacks you in the face. The differences creep in and reality creeps in the day to day. Maybe this is just a way to hold on to that hope.

With Romeo and Juliet now open, does that fuel a desire to direct more operas? Was this so gratifying that you can’t wait for the next one?

Yes. Even though it was terrifying, I felt very much that I was in the right place. It felt so comfortable. I love music. I’ve always been obsessed with music. I’ve always been obsessed with storytelling. Usually it’s telling the story through movement and music with no text. Even though I’ve worked with opera singers as choreographer, it was different because I was working with them directly with their interpretation of these roles over time. You know, I loved it.

You’ve mentioned in previous interviews wanting to work with composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, two women who I think are amazing composers and they’re also disruptors of what the form is. If you look at a couple of male directors, Yuval Sharon, James Darrah, they’re also disruptors. How important is it for you to either be a disruptor or to work with disruptors as you continue your work in opera?

It’s fascinating because my company was called Hysterica and we were in L.A. for ten solid years. But we were very much disruptors in the dance world. And all of the people that came out of my company are very much disruptors like Ryan Heffington and Nina McNeely, both of whom just won Emmys for work in a medium that ten, 15 years ago, would not have hired any of us. It’s kind of ironic that I’m in this very classical world given where I started. I was like a punk rock dance company. I feel like all of these startups are bringing me to the place where maybe I can do what I did in the dance world in the opera world.

How important is it now for you to take a risk yourself?

It’s very important because, I’m not going to lie, when I got the job, I was like, don’t fail. That’s all I kept thinking during the entire rehearsal [process]. Don’t fail. You hate to fail. I think my entire life has been open to risk. I have failed in the past and you suffer. But the joy of taking the risk is larger for me than if I didn’t take the risk and I turn the opportunity down. That is more of a failure for me. 

Martha Graham is quoted as saying, “Nothing is more revealing than movement.” What does your movement on stage, whether in Romeo and Juliet or anywhere else that people have seen your work, reveal about you?

First of all, I love Martha Graham. Some of my dancers from Hysterica days came to opening night. They said we can see your touch in this super-heightened format. They’re still human and you can feel the humanity in the way they’re moving. I think that’s really what drives me – human reaction.

And do you see yourself on the stage? Not just your work, but do you see aspects of yourself on that stage?

If I look back at my contemporary dance work, I’m like, my God. Looking back at it now, my whole psychology is on parade, right? I mean, I’m a romantic. I think that’s on display. My personal dream for that pure love is on display and my investment in that.

To watch the full interview with Kitty McNamee, please go here.

LA Opera’s production of Romeo and Juliet continues at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles through November 23rd. For tickets and more information, please go here.

Main Photo: Kitty McNamee (Photo by Nate Lusk/Courtesy KittyMcNamee.com)

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One person who loves Stole and could probably quote just about anything she’s ever said on screen is Peaches Christ, the drag persona of Joshua Grannell. Peaches and Stole are hitting the road in their two-woman show, Idol Worship. The show is a combination of songs, stories and conversation between these two longtime friends and colleagues. Grannell cast Stole in his 2010 film All About Evil.

Idol Worship begins its tour with two performances at San Francisco’s Eclectic Box on February 10th and 11th. On Valentine’s Day they will be at Cinema Salem in Salem, MA. On February 15th they will be at the Columbus Theater in Providence, RI. Stole and Peaches have two shows at The Green Room 42 in New York City on February 16th and 17th. (For those not in any of these cities, The Green Room 42 offers the ability to live stream the show.) The final two stops are Philadelphia’s Punchline on February 18th and The Comedy Loft in Washington, D.C. on February 20th.

Earlier this week I spoke with Stole about her long-standing friendship with Peaches/Grannell, her collaborations with John Waters and her thoughts on the gay backlash going on today. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview (and I strongly encourage you to do so), please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: The Bible is filled with all kinds of warnings about worshiping idols. You and Peaches Christ are going on the road in a show called Idol Worship. So is it fair to assume that this show is going to be biblical? 

Absolutely. We’re coming out and I’m going to be wearing togas and Joshua is coming as a camel. Actually, I am the idol in the eye of the Idol Worship show. This is Joshua’s fault. Apparently I am one of his idols, so he thought this would be fun. 

There are worse things to be called, aren’t there? 

There certainly are. I have to say I feel a bit of a heavy responsibility being an idol. That if I ever make a mistake or do anything that displeases him, I will be tossed from my pedestal and shattered to the ground. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. We’re really good friends.

You’ve known Joshua for quite some time. What surprises you most about your onstage relationship with his alter ego, Peaches Christ and how has that evolved over time?

I met him as Peaches Christ. And here’s we get into trouble. Because I will forget sometimes when I’m on stage with Peaches. I will call Peaches him and Peaches is a she. But Joshua is a him and it becomes, you know, kind of gender pronoun confusion.

It was an amazing first meeting because he invited me to be a guest at his Midnight Mass show in San Francisco. This was about 20 years ago; neither of us can remember the exact date. I had never met him. Didn’t know who he was. But I thought, sure, why not? I’ll come in and it’ll be fun.

I came into the theater and he had done such an amazing job of making me feel welcome. There was a huge banner at the back of the stage saying Hail Mink! He gave me a bouquet of flowers and there was an animatronic Peggy Gravel on stage stirring a vat of rabies potion. They were showing Desperate Living.

I was so impressed by the effort that he had put in to make me feel good that I slightly fell in love with him. Nothing that he has done since then has made me feel any different.

Could you have imagined that this kind of response would ever develop? 

Never in a million years. The reality is that when I was first working with John, all of the attention, or the huge bulk of the attention, was going to Divine. I remember interviews where I would be there with Divine and John, and I would not be asked one single question. I would sit there, keeping a smile on my face, pretending like that was fine. So I wasn’t accustomed to being the one in the spotlight. I was always accustomed to being over there in the corner, not unvalued, but not lionized. Not idolized. So it did come as a big shock to me when Joshua did this for me. I admit it’s very gratifying. It’s really lovely, but it’s not something I ever expected.

I interviewed Joshua/Peaches in 2019 when he was doing one of his stage parodies here in Los Angeles. Peaches said, “We actually find that when the show is flawless, it’s not as fun.” Do you share that that opinion with Peaches?

I kind of do. In the show that we’re doing, Idol Worship, we don’t script it. We have an outline. We have a roadmap to where we’re going to go. But there’s always room for spontaneity. We’re not afraid of mistakes. We’re not afraid of going, “Oh, I didn’t mean that. What I really meant to say was this.” That’s fine. We’re just being honest. I can’t say we’re being completely ourselves. We’re being our heightened selves because we’re on stage in front of an audience. But we are as ourselves as we can be.

It sounds like the show that you’re doing allows you to be like jazz musicians – you can just improv and riff however you want. 

Pretty much. Joshua opens with a song and I come in with a song. We do a couple duets and we have conversation and film clips. It’s a lot of film clips he’s put together. Amazing film clip reel. I’ve seen some of it and it’s great. I forget sometimes what I have done. Then I see Connie next to Taffy, next to Peggy. It’s like, I did that. So it’s really interesting for me. Joshua puts my career and my work into a completely different perspective for me, which is really very interesting.

Was Peaches able to find any lost footage of you as Auntie Em from The Wizard of Odd or the Kansas City Pothead? [A very early John Waters film.)

He might have it somewhere, I’ve never asked. The Academy Museum here in LA has a show about John and the work that we’ve done. There’s no footage there. So I think if it existed, they would have it.

Five-and-a-half years ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held a big 30th anniversary screening of Hairspray at the Sam Goldwyn Theater. You just referenced Pope of Trash, which is the exhibit at the Academy Museum right now dedicated to John Waters’s career and work. What do you see as the changes that have taken place in the way this work has been accepted and embraced by the industry’s most formalized institution? 

To tell you the truth, it baffles me. This is stuff that was reviled when we did it. Over 50 years ago now that we did Pink Flamingos, people hated us. Not everybody, but the mainstream press and the mainstream cinema world, they hated us. It was through John’s absolute dedication to what he had done. He worked really hard. I can’t give you the details. You would have to get them from John. But he pushed. He went out. He shot the movie. He went out and pushed and pushed and pushed until it found a home in the midnight world. Had he not been so ambitious and so determined, it could easily have just been forgotten. It could easily have had a couple of screenings in Baltimore and then just disappeared.

I think part of it is that John has proven himself to be so charming. He is so smart. He’s really a brilliant man. And he’s charming and he’s funny. I think John himself has basically charmed the opposition. Of course, Hairspray helped.

I have a question on behalf of one of the readers of Cultural Attache. His name is Joshua Schwartz and he regularly attends the John Waters camp. He was curious, what are the highlights for you of attending that camp each year? 

I love being there. This is a camp. It’s out in the country. It’s in Kent, Connecticut. It’s completely isolated and it is filled with nuts. I mean, these people are fanatic. They have tattoos of John’s signature. They have my picture on their legs. These are people who are such intense fans and they have created a family. There are people who go every year, too, because this is where their friends come. This is where they convene. It’s like a convention out in the woods. They can drink, they can take drugs. They can completely leave their lives behind and just be in the world of their John Waters friends and fans. I think it’s amazing.

When I first heard about it, I thought it was insane. I thought it was the dumbest idea I’d ever heard. Nobody would possibly want to do that. And hundreds of people come every year. I walk into the room and feel this intense amount of love from all of these people. They love us and I love them back. It’s really a happy place. 

So you get your summer fix of idol worship as well. 

I do and it’s just enough. I’m usually there on Friday night and Saturday and then I disappear and somebody else comes in on Saturday night, Sunday. But it’s just enough for me. I feel like I’m being bathed in this glow of love. It’s really kind of amazing. It’s gratifying and wonderful, but I like it in that intense concentration of the camp rather than having it constantly in my life. That would be difficult. 

I read an interview that you did in 2013 with Logan Lynn that was published on HuffPost. It was around the time of Jeffrey Schwarz’s documentary about Divine. Logan asked you about Roman Candles [another early Waters film.] At the time, you couldn’t remember if Divine was in it or not. [Divine is.] Logan said, “You have to fully rely on the reel in your head.” What I loved most was your response, which was, “It’s full of scratches and splice marks.” Over ten years later, how is the reel in your head?

It’s more scratched and more spliced together than ever! People ask me if I’m going to write a book, if I’m going to do memoirs, and I really can’t because I didn’t take notes. I can see film clips and I can remember certain things, but the minutia of my life that might be interesting, it’s gone. I’m a well into my senior years now. There’s only one way that I could possibly do it. And I’ve said this before, if I had lots and lots and lots of marijuana gummies and somebody to walk around writing down every word I said as I muttered to myself. 

You’ve worked with John Waters rather famously and with Divine and presently the work that you’re doing with Peaches Christ. But a lot of people don’t know that you were off-Broadway working with Charles Ludlam in the early 80s.

Yeah, that was really a great time.

The thing that all these people have in common is they were not afraid to be unapologetically themselves. In the case of John and Charles Ludlam and Divine, that was certainly at a time when it was not okay to do that. One faced a lot of risk and condemnation if you did. It seems like we’re back in the time where being your authentic self is still a problem, particularly if you’re gay or if you do drag. What are your thoughts about where we are today and what is your hope for where we will end up? 

I’m actually really surprised at the gay backlash. I really thought that when RuPaul came out with with Drag Race, that drag was going to the mainstream. I was really happy with things like Drag Queen Story Hour and drag brunches and stuff because it’s just performance. That’s all it is. It’s performance. It’s fun. People enjoy it. I have known nine-year-old boys and ten-year-old boys who dressed in drag. Doesn’t mean they want to be girls. It just means they want to dress in drag.

There’s such a thing as grooming for nefarious purposes, but you cannot groom somebody to be gay. You’re either gay or you’re not gay. Or you’re bi, or you’re this or you’re that, but you can’t be taught it. I was very happy with the Drag Race and the fact that everybody knows a drag queen. Now suddenly drag queens are ruining the world? The earth is going to shatter if a child sees a drag queen? I find that really difficult to deal with. I don’t understand it.

The irony as you were saying that you can’t you can’t be taught to be gay is that you can be taught to be a bigot.

You can be taught to hate. And that’s unfortunate. There are people who, in the name of whatever religion they practice, think that they have the right to tell other people what to do. I’m hoping for the backlash to the backlash and that there will be a flip. I’m optimistic. Cautiously.

Perhaps as you discuss the joys of just being yourself and having your career, that’ll help melt some of that away.

Laughter takes a lot of pain away. I do think people need to get out there and be themselves.

And we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you hadn’t done the very same thing. 

Here’s my caveat to be yourself. When I got started I didn’t know who that was. People would say, be yourself. And I was like, I don’t know who that is. Am I this or am I that? You’re an awkward kid or awkward teenager. So am I this awkward person? Is there a butterfly inside this cocoon? I don’t know.

I was really lucky because I found a way. I lucked into a world that encouraged me to express myself and to figure out who myself was and to explore the options. So I wish that luck for everyone. Not everybody’s going to meet a John Waters. That’s an extraordinary piece of luck. I want people to be able to get out and read and play. People have to play.

To see the full interview with Mink Stole, please go here.

Main Photo: Mink Stole and Peaches Christ (Photo Courtesy Peaches Christ)

The post Mink Stole Is Peaches Christ’s Idol… appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Owen will be performing at the Grammy Museum on Monday, October 9th. She follows that with four performances at the McKittrick Hotel in New York beginning on October 11th.

Earlier this week I spoke with Owen about the lusty songs she recorded on Come On & Get It, the role of female empowerment in modern music and we discussed what, if any, difference there is between Judith Owen and Lady J. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: You sing He’s a Tramp on this album. Peggy Lee, who wrote that and other songs for Lady and the Tramp [with Sonny Burke] said, “I try to project not only a song, but a personality.” Your album is released under the name Judith Owen. But on stage, you’re Lady J. How much do the songs that you choose to record and perform reflect Judith Owen? And how much is a preparation for who Lady J is when she performs them?

Very good question, actually. But the truth is it’s all Judith Owen. I was christened Lady J by my trumpet player, Kevin Lewis, his mother. When I did the first ever show at Snug Harbor, New Orleans, right after the last day of recording [this album], she jumped out of a seat after I’d finished singing King Size Papa and screamed, “We love you, Lady J.” The whole place cheered. It was amazing. So my band and everyone else has been calling me Lady J ever since. I think what it refers to is the unapologetic badass woman that I’ve been gestating, that has been hiding inside. 

I always wants to be the consummate entertainer. I want to sing and perform and dance and play the piano and have that stagecraft. Whether it’s my songwriting or whether it’s me covering somebody else, you have to inhabit it. Peggy Lee was absolutely correct. But the truth is, that’s all me. It’s all me finally on display, unapologetically. I love being the front person. I love being that lady J out front, center. Whatever you want to call me, it’s me. 

What inspired you most about this collection of songs, all performed by women, that have innuendo at their core?

What these women were all about, whether they wrote it or not, was about the ownership of it. It was about the fact that they could sing it and deliver it in a way that no one else could. No man would ever get away with this or do this and be that empowered. This was an era where women were meant to be decoration. Nice girls were singing about romance, for God’s sake. These women were not only singing about sex, they were celebrating female sexuality and enjoying it. They had a smirk on their faces. They had their tongues in their cheeks and they were putting it out there that they were woman in control of themselves. 

If people think that sexuality has only just occurred with Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B, think again ladies. These woman were in control and sexy – out of control sexy. And they didn’t even take it off. I’m bringing my fresh take on this and showing the joy and the sexiness of keeping it on.

I assume singing these songs on stage allows you to bring even more than what you do in a recording studio?

That’s correct. I’m a very visual artist. Performing is my true love. Live performance is what I live for. Everything is recorded live. It’s one take. I believe in that completely and utterly, because I want to keep that seat of the pants feeling that makes great performance.

I’m very proud of the album. But the thing that I love about performing it live is to entertain you. But also to transport you and to leave you breathless with that art form that is rarely seen these days. It’s an old art form and it’s a wonderful art form. If I could spend the rest of my life on stage performing like this, that’s really what I’ve always wanted.

Female self-expression and ownership has changed a lot from the time of the music that you’ve recorded to what’s being released as new music today. Where do you think female self-expression will go vis-a-vis artists in the next ten or 15 years?

Young women are asking me what is the answer? How do they get to that place? You, in your lives, are not here to be pleasers. It’s to please us first and then we can everyone else. I do believe in that strongly. I think that whatever way you look, whatever way you dress, the future is woman. However you present yourself, your music, your gift, your sexuality, is on your own terms. Because when you’re authentic and when your voice is true, people can tell.

I spent a whole career being told why do you talk so much? Why do you think you’re funny? Why do you want to do this, do that? Then you get to a point where it’s look, this is who I am. Do you understand? This is who I am. You like me or you don’t like me, but I can’t do anything about that. It’s not about how other people judge you, What matters is the voice inside you that’s judging yourself. We all know that you get to that point [where] we actually don’t give a shit. That’s the most freeing moment. That is moving forward movement. I really hope that is the future.

Let’s talk about your future. 18 years ago you were Lost and Found [her 2005 album]. Now you’re at a point where you’re saying, come on and get it. What do you feel is the most authentic next step for Judith Owen?

That is unbelievably insightful and I never even thought about it that way. I’m somebody who every single CD, every single album I made, you could tell where I was, who I was, how I was doing, how my mental health was. I was lost. I was found.

Here I am 18 years later after all this time and all these albums at a point where I’m saying to the world grab this life. Just embrace who you are for real. It’s a short life. It’s a short time we’re here. Don’t waste it. If I could have got here faster, I would have. But I couldn’t. So here I am looking forward. These women gave me permission to be my unapologetic self, to reveal the bad ass that was gestating all this time since I was six years old. I kid you not. Moving forward, I’m going to be performing and recording and being that person. 

Since we started with Peggy Lee, I want to end with something else that Peggy Lee said. She said, “I regard singing pretty much like acting. Each song is like playing a different role. I get very involved with my material. I feel a responsibility for the emotion it brings out in the listener.” Do you equate singing with acting? And if so, how does that inform not just how you present yourself today, but how are you going to present yourself in a week or a year or a decade?

Having an overactive imagination, but having a core actor sensibility in me, I do believe that. Being an interpreter is about being an actor. Somebody like Sinatra was so extraordinary in that way. Peggy Lee was so magnificent in that way. You felt like she meant every single word. That’s what I believe in. It’s half acting, half really exposing your true self. Because like any fine actor, you must immerse yourself in the character. You must immerse yourself in the role and you must mean every word that you utter. So if you’re going to do it right, and do it well, you take it to the place inside you where it resonates.

I’m not just singing this song because it’s pretty or lovely or what sounds good or my voice is nice. That’s not what it means to me. I want you to be on this ride with me, to feel what I feel and remember how you’ve been there. She could not be more right. I’m a big believer of this. Again, it’s not incredibly popular, I guess. You don’t see that very much these days, but I believe in it.

To see the full interview with Judith Owen, please go here.

Main Photo: Judith Owen (Courtesy Judith Owen)

The post Is Singer Judith Owen Lady J or Vice-Versa? appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

During a 70-minute performance Tao is at the piano playing music by Bach, Arnold Schoenberg, Art Tatum, George Gershwin and more while Teicher dances – most of it improvised. They will perform Counterpoint at The Nimoy Theatre, CAP UCLA’s newly opened theater in Westwood on Saturday, September 30th. They will also perform the show on October 6th at Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Both Teicher and Tao do a fair amount of improvisation as I learned when I spoke with Teicher earlier this week. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Teicher, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Tap dancer Dianne Walker said in a story that she wrote for Dance Magazine in 2022 that when Tina Pratt introduced her to jazz pianist Barry Harris she really “got the improvisational connection between musician and dancer.” What was the process by which you got the improvisational connection between dancer and musician?

When I went to the New York City Tap Festival for the first time I met a teacher whose name was David Rider. And David was, for lack of a better way to describe it, very much in the modern day tap dance scene. Being in the modern day tap dance scene usually involves being very connected to the history, to the lineage, to the roots of this dance. And by that I mean I came into the dance a little bit late to meet a lot of the folks who had passed away.

The teachers who were at these festivals had a direct connection to the jazz tap tradition. That’s to say, the Black elders and the white elders of this dance form. When I started working with [David], I became aware of the importance of improvisation historically. Then as I started to tap dance more amongst the present day type community, I became aware of just how important it was to be an improviser and a good one.

What role do you allow or want improvisation to be part of what you do generally and specifically what you do with Conrad?

For what I do with Conrad, it’s mostly improvisation. Mostly because I want to feel really present with Conrad. We’ve played now the same set a number of times, and we both do different things to provoke each other to play, to show that we hear each other, to show that we’re in conversation. What is the point of gathering in person? To me, improvisation answers one aspect of that, which is to say, if it’s happening live, then you have to see it live.

What are the discoveries in that process that you’ve made about Conrad?

This is not a show I would do with any other pianist other than Conrad. It’s not I’m a tap dancer looking to do a show with a pianist. It’s I am myself, a dancer, looking to do a show with my friends and collaborators and someone who I’ve forged a long-lasting connection with. That’s Conrad.

Conrad and I met for the first time when we were teenagers and collaborated together for the first time when we were 19. Over the years we have become friends. I’ve seen so many of his shows and he’s seen so many of mine. This is not something that we’ve kind of put together just to make a show. This is something that came out of a shared respect and admiration for each other that led to something where it says, well, maybe we should share this connection that we have.

Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is a huge component of Counterpoint. Can you break down in a basic manner how you came up with where each of you would take solos and particularly where the solo would become, in your case, the notes played with your feet?

I should say that while it’s improvised, every time we get to that particular section, Conrad does not play. That is something that is relatively set amongst this improvisation. My memory tells me that was Conrad’s idea and I just sort of humored him. I said, sure, I’ll try it. It was something that we always discussed doing together because it was such a fun piece and I had never danced it. Conrad had played Rhapsody quite a bit, but had never done it in a duo capacity

I think there are a lot of people who have very meaningful connections to Rhapsody. So it’s a relatively easy win. But also to both of us. I do feel like it goes through so many emotions, so many colors and textures and shapes. As I dance, I feel like in that 16-and-a-half minute experience I get to live such a full life. I get to do all these different things and explore my dancing in so many different ways. If it’s the thing that we are doing the most these days in terms of a piece, it continues to be a really fertile ground for our conversation.

You’ve been doing this show with Conrad for the past few years, do you want to expand it beyond what you’re doing now?

We just thought we were doing it once or twice. We had these three gigs back-to-back and we said if we don’t feel great about it after those three gigs, we’ll stop doing it. It turns out it was show two or something. We got to the dressing room and Conrad said that was really fun. The audience really took to it. So we said if people are willing to pay us to hang out and play music together that we enjoy, then who are we to argue?

The set has more or less stayed the same over the past couple of years. We don’t do this program every week. If we do six or eight engagements a year, that’s a lot. I’m happy to keep it as is for now. But we are performing it at the Gilmore in Kalamazoo, Michigan this year which has a piano festival. I believe they’ve commissioned a new piece for Counterpoint as part of that. So we will create one new piece for our duo this year, which is fun. We’ve discussed if maybe someday we really feel like a piece has seen the end of its time, then we’ll take it out. And if we’re excited about something new, then we’ll put it in. That is on the table.

There’s a composer named Jonny Greenwood whom I like very much. I like his work for film. I obviously like his work in the band Radiohead. When he was told that Radiohead is innovative and there are all these things that are great about Radiohead, he’s quoted as saying in response, “When people say you’re doing something radical in rock or dance music, I’m not sure how special that is. What we do is so old-fashioned. It’s like trying to do something innovative in tap dancing.” What would you say to someone who thinks that tap dancing is old-fashioned, whether it’s a rock star or somebody that you meet at a local store?

This is the nature of us, of our limited capacity to become familiar with the intricacies of things. Every community, every subculture, every genre of dance and music has a dense and rich and textured and complex history. It’s not uncommon for me to experience what I might be so bold as to call a sort of ignorance around the depth of tap dance.

Some of that is because tap dance has been historically marginalized because it came from Black culture and a lot of things that come from Black culture have been diminished in terms of understanding their complexity. But the truth is, I think everything is as beautiful or as rich as we make it. If someone thinks that something is simple, they’re just maybe not trying hard enough to see how beautiful something is.

To see the full interview with Caleb Teicher, please go here.

Main Photo: Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher in Counterpoint (Photo by Em Watson/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

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