The idea was crazy AF. But I figured with Mellon deciding to pull out of funding arts effective next year, a beloved black dance company (and alma mater) firing all of their dancers for organizing, and my absolutely phenomenal, loved-by-all colleague Michaela DePrince dying at 29 suddenly, maybe crazy AF was in order. Maybe it was time to flex my own executive director prowess.
Resume be damned.
So I called Jenelle Figgins to mourn, and she reminded me that she is DC-based and happy to embark on crazy with me. I rehearsed her in a Donald Byrd ballet I managed years ago at Dance Theatre of Harlem. Then we danced together at Wideman-Davis Dance Theater on a grant in Montgomery. And she’s a Figgins - every one of those sisters is top shelf. That she was game made sense.
Left to right: Jenelle Figgins and me, Marjani Forté-Saunders choreographing on some of the dancers, others in rehearsal last year and a bunch of us at a gala last Spring.
What made this crazy is that the entire performance would be produced that night.
I asked Jenelle to give business casual. She showed up in light slacks and a cocktail reception blouse, open-toed shoes. Wardrobe done.
I had her walk through the bar so that someone could notice her there without me. Black folks tend to pay attention to when new energy shows up in a space. Dramaturgy sorted.
Then she met me downstairs on the third floor of conference room levels below so that we could talk through the rest of it. Choreography and rehearsal direction done.
We grab each other’s hands and bow head to head to ask God for all the things. Mid-prayer we feel some other people in the hallway making their way, likely trying not to disturb.
I open my eyes after the Áśě.
Tyrese is standing there, dapper, surrounded by a cadre of put-together, upscale men.
“We just didn’t want to interrupt you,” he says.
Jenelle can’t wait, stands back tall on her leg and throws the other into a long front bevel, Dorothy Dandridge channeled.
“Do you want to meet me, sir?” she says.
We all fall out laughing, Jenelle too.
Anyway, these black men are moved by the moment, the prayer, the acknowledgment, the surrender to ancestors. And it means the world at this moment that they said as much.
I tell them we are about to do a surprise performance for the CBC bar patrons in a sec to raise money. I say less about this in the moment because I have ways to get to him later and don’t want to contaminate the occasion and the feeling he and his people have in it. This is a strategic executive director decision. I’ll ask my executive secretary (also me) to sort this out later.
I consolidate her purse and valuables in my backpack a la company or stage manager. Then we do the stunt:
She looks at me, I see her. I buy her a drink.
She moves to the concourse portion of the bar.
I follow. We stand far from each other.
I invite her to come over. She does.
We slow dance. We talk trash.
This improv develops. I pick her up overhead.
I sit down - she says quite a bit.
I sit her down – I solo.
We dance together again and plan to go up the stairs, but there were people taking pictures there, so this part of the plan had to change. But at the end, after Jenelle says she needs a drink first, I address the audience directly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Jenelle Figgins!”
I introduce myself to the bar as well.
At this point, a table of folks invite us over to have drinks, alerting me that they are interested in the arts—or at the very least what they just saw.
And they listened to us talk about the 40 black and brown dancers on the Opus Dance Theatre NY roster that we want to employ for a few cultural ambassadorship projects, and that we need about $200k to fund.
This was a successful stunt. I mean, I still have to find money to cover what I paid her and reimbursed for parking when I was stage managing. But it’s okay. I’ve now added executive director to the list that includes wardrobe advisor, dramaturg, choreographer, rehearsal director, stage manager, dancer, artistic director.
And executive director, of course.
It’s the reason I tell corporate folks all the time that if they want to hire people versed in covering all the bases, you have to find someone who has worked for several poor black grassroots nonprofits. We can design on a dime; imagine how much change you’ll get back when there’s actually a full C?
Hopefully, everyone I know is about to find out.