Season IV, Ep. 2 feat. Monica Stephenson

Monica Stephenson is originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina. She is a graduate of the University of
North Carolina School of the Arts and the Professional Training Program at the Houston Ballet Academy.
In 2002, she received her first professional contract with The Washington Ballet. She went on to perform
with the Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble from 2003-2005. During this time, Monica also performed
in The Nutcracker with Pennsylvania Ballet and Ballet New York and as a guest artist with Ballet Black in
London, England. In 2006, Monica joined the Los Angeles Ballet as an inaugural season company
member. She performed with the LA Ballet through 2010 and enjoyed the opportunity to dance in
classical and contemporary repertory and in many of Balanchine’s ballets. In 2016, she completed her
Master of Arts in Dance Education from New York University with a concentration in American Ballet
Theatre Ballet Pedagogy and is certified in all levels of the ABT curriculum. Monica was previously a
member of the Education Staff at American Ballet Theatre as both a Teaching Artist and the Project
Coordinator for Project Plié, an initiative to increase diversity in classical ballet.
Monica joined The Washington School of Ballet SE Campus as Full-time Faculty in the Fall of 2016.
Monica assumed the role of Associate Head of School SE Campus in 2018 and Head of School SE Campus
from 2019-2021. She is currently a PhD Student in Dance

https://linktr.ee/CulturalInnovationGroup

Transcript

Fluency Season IV Ep. 2 w/ Monica Stephenson

[EXCERPT]
Monica Stephenson: 
I think that the image of what a ballerina is supposed to look like has not changed in centuries, and it is really something that the art form has to address. We have to retrain our eyes, we have to get used to seeing all colors on the stage. We have to get used to seeing a variety of body types do classical ballet.

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Hello, dear listeners, we are back with another episode of Fluency and today I couldn't be more thrilled to be joined by the incredible Monica D. Stephenson. Monica, welcome to Fluency. How are you today? 

Monica Stephenson: 
I'm well. Thank you so much for having me. I am really honored to be able to spend time with you and the listeners.

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Well, I'm honored. I'm honored to have you. I'm really excited about this, this conversation today. You know, we had an opportunity to meet because our paths crossed during some of our work with the Misty Copeland Foundation. And I really am excited about the listeners having an opportunity to get to know a little bit more about you and your background. We'll start with your, your origin story. If you would be willing to share a little bit about your childhood and your upbringing. 

Monica Stephenson: 
Absolutely. I grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, born and raised there. My parents are still there and started ballet around the age of four.

My mom had danced as a girl, her and her sisters in Dallas, Texas, so she signed me up to dance just like a lot of parents do, thinking I would go one day a week, you know, just Saturday mornings, and I ended up falling in love with it. I decided at a very early age it was what I wanted to do with my life, and my parents really supported that and helped me navigate and find the training.

They were both in the medical field, they're recently retired and really didn't know what I needed to do. So we had some wonderful teachers that guided me along the way, and I ended up training throughout high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. And NCSA is a really interesting school because it's also a university as well.

And the standard of training there is very high. So we're really blessed in North Carolina to have a school like that. And I really received the training that I needed without having to go too far from home. And then after I did the professional training program at the Houston Ballet, I started dancing professionally at 19.

And I danced f irst with the Washington Ballet back in, I wanna say it was 2002, so that's dating myself and it was really a great experience. I ended up dancing with Dance Theater of Harlem Ensemble. DTH ended up folding the year that I got there, so that was really a moment in dance that was very critical.

DTH went on a nine year hiatus. So for those of us that really looked up to Dance Theater of Harlem, it was really a challenging time because it was almost a decade of a void being there in the dance community. So Dance Theater of Harlem is now back, which is wonderful. But when DTH folded, I ended up getting a contract with the Los Angeles Ballet, and the Los Angeles Ballet was just starting. I was an inaugural company member with the LA Ballet. So it was really interesting being in a ballet company from its inception. As you can imagine, that was very challenging to be in the start of a company in a city like LA but they too are doing really well now. They have really built a base in Los Angeles.

So that was a little bit about kind of my dance career, but I ended up going to NYU like you and received a graduate degree in dance education. And then that started me on a whole journey of being a dance educator and working administratively for ballet companies. And I have to say I enjoyed this much more than being a professional dancer. I wish that I had known then that I would enjoy, especially teaching children, as much as I do. So it's been wonderful to now cross over to the other side of the profession and be working really on creating opportunities for the next generation of dancers. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Oh, wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm thinking about that transition and I wonder if we can stay in that for a moment. I am getting of a certain age to where I'm starting to see dancer friends of mine who went on to become professional dancers. They, they are now at the stage where they are, are starting to retire from their performing careers and starting to sort of conceptualize what the next phase looks like for them.

And I imagine that that's probably a significant amount of listeners as well, sort of like just transitioning through that performance career thinking what could be on the other side. And could you talk with us a little bit about what your transition was like to make that decision. And how did you know education would be where you would go with it next? 

Monica Stephenson:   
Absolutely. I think I have probably an unusual path in that I never really decided I was done performing. I wish I had known it was my last performance, that would've been nice.

But you know, I knew I wanted to learn how to teach, and so when I enrolled at NYU, I was very naive in that I thought I could perform and be a graduate student, and I was very mistaken in that. I did not have the time at all to do much outside of school, going full-time because the graduate program in dance education is a full-time program and the courses have to be done in a certain order, so you can't really go at your own pace.

And in conjunction with that, there was an opening at American Ballet Theatre to oversee their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program called Project Plié. And I thought that was a natural fit for me because I'm so passionate about black and brown children dancing classical ballet. Getting into the art form.

So once I started going to school and working at ABT, all of a sudden I just didn't have time to perform and I also really quickly felt fulfilled. So I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything by not performing. Being a performer is so difficult mentally, physically, emotionally, that once that weight was taken off, it was so hard for me to even conceptualize going back. So I think my career just naturally ended because there were other opportunities and I liked the other opportunities. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
You speaking to like that weight being lifted, ugh. I mean that is such a great metaphor to what it feels like when, when you know it's time to, to let something go or time to move on to something else like that, that moment of liberation has to be amazing.

So now we're, we're in that moment. And, and you're you're, working more with young people. You're working more with programs that are aimed at making the ballet world more inclusive. What are some of the aspects from that that really started to fulfill you in your professional career?

Monica Stephenson: 
I think with all of the organizations that I've worked at post performing - so I was in New York at ABT, as I mentioned. Then I was in DC at the Washington Ballet for six years, and then now Miami City Ballet. What has really captured my heart in those roles is identifying children that have talent to go into those respective schools.

And a lot of the talent that I find in the public school system are children of color. So it gives access to kids that otherwise wouldn't go into the facilities and audition for the school. Going out into the public schools and into the community and finding talented children and children of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds, is really, I think the gist of what makes good engagement happen - is that we're creating access and opportunities for children. So that hands down has been my number one goal and love in doing this type of work, is making sure that children have what they need to be in the art form, and that includes transportation, uniforms. , a snack in between school and dancing. So really setting up children for success. It's looked different for every company, but you have to offer all of those wraparound benefits to make sure that children can be successful. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Thank you so much for sharing that. You know, I, I couldn't agree more with you. When I was at a performing arts organization We had a program called Mentor Link. And the purpose of Mentor Link was to help rising eighth graders who were interested in going to some of the performing arts high schools in New York City. Particularly those students coming from Title I schools in one of the five boroughs to help them prepare for their auditions or portfolio reviews or interviews to get them into these schools . And one of the things that we realized very quickly was the necessity of 360 degree support for those young people to be able to get in because, you know, they were already going up against students who were well-resourced, well-researched and, you know, had the opportunity to be prepped sometimes by parents and or coaches to help them get in. And, you know not all students had that opportunity so this program was really trying to bridge that gap there. And you're right, from the uniforms to the transportation, you know, like whether it's metro cards or you know, public transportation. And even too beyond that, it, it was also the mentorship aspect too.

You know, what is the representation that we have there for young people to be able to see? Oh, well I know I can see myself there because look at the other people that kind of look like me, who have, who have done it. And so, you know, it's that peer to peer mentorship, but then it's also having people like you that they can look at and say, oh, you know if Monica was able to do all of these different things, then, you know, I can do it too. You know, because I, I've seen now like a, a path forward. 

You mentioned working in New York City and also Washington and now Miami, particularly in arts admin roles. What similarities or differences have you sort of noticed working in those three geographical spaces, which, you know, are metropolitan in their ways, but also unique.

Monica Stephenson: 
Absolutely. I think the public school systems in New York City, DC, and Miami are all very different. One of the unique challenges in Miami is that a lot of the students in the schools, English is their second language. So, Spanish is most commonly spoken in their homes. So not only do you have a gap sometimes in what they need to be successful, it also brings an additional challenge that you have to communicate to families in the language that they speak. If you're offering a scholarship to a young dancer to come to the Miami City Ballet School, everything that they need has to be explained in Spanish. So I started taking Spanish, and I can say I'm definitely still at the novice level, but I have two staff members that are fluent in Spanish, and I think it's extremely important. When we're working with young people, getting them to accept the scholarship, understand all of the support that the family has to provide, even though we cover transportation, tuition, uniforms, it still is a family decision and commitment. All of that has to be communicated in Spanish, so it's been really critical to cater specifically to the community. I have to treat Miami very differently from DC and very differently from New York.

It's about meeting the child where they're at in the moment. So it's been really a great experience. Working with the students in Miami. A lot of our faculty members at the Miami City Ballet School are also bilingual, including the director of the school. Our communication that's written, every email that goes out, we try to do both languages, English and Spanish. So it's really about serving who's right there in front of you. So I think that's kinda just an example of how I've had to cope with differences in the communities.

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
I'm thinking sort of along with that at any of those three institutions, is there, or has there been a focus on, say, hiring people who might be local to that area or like race in that area? Especially kind of thinking about working within a community engagement role. Has any of those institutions kind of gone, like, this is where we've decided to focus as far as the human resources aspect? 

Monica Stephenson: 
That is a really great question. In DC I was overseeing a satellite location of the Washington School of Ballet in a neighborhood that's southeast DC which is predominantly African American. And one of the things I loved about the school is several of the faculty members grew up in that community, went on to dance professionally, but then came back to that community to give back to children. And we had faculty members that were alumni. Of the school. So that had trained there, gone off to college and again come back.

And that's important because they relate to children in such an intimate way. They grew up in that neighborhood and that's important. I think in Miami it's really, probably, unusual to have a director of community engagement that didn't grow up in Miami. Probably not as ideal. You know, they had a really big pool of people that they were looking at through a search firm called Arts Consulting Group, and I'm blessed. I'm glad that they offered me the job. I love it. But I am learning Miami. And I'm grateful that I have team members that have been in Miami for a long time, have gone to college in Miami, so I'm the only new one to Miami, which is good. But I think that intimate connection is important. It really is.

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Yeah. and you know, there's also something to be said about particularly hiring someone at your level, at an organization who has had comparable experience in multiple geographic locations, to be able to bring that. There's something to be said about that because that perspective is also very valuable. And being able to look at sector-wide, what is happening in real time application so it's no surprise that you were selected, like thinking about your background and experience and clearly you have been the right person for the job. So I guess let's go in a little bit deeper there.  You talked about some of the nuances in working in Miami as compared to some of the other places. What have been some of the glows and grows maybe of your time in that role there? 

Monica Stephenson: 
I think what really attracted me to Miami City Ballet is their community engagement programming is very strong. I really haven't come in and added programming. What theyey were already doing before I got there was really remarkable work. So for me, it's been about enhancing it. Working with partners like National Dance Institute in New York to do professional development for our teachers to go into public schools and teach in an engaging way, but they were already doing so many remarkable things that it was very hard to, in the interview process, say what direction can we go in, what can be better? Because really, I love the programming. They have a program called Ballet Bus, and that is a 10-year scholarship where students get picked up from their public schools. They provide the transportation to Miami Beach, to our studios. And it's one of the only companies that's making a long term commitment to children, that they can renew the scholarship for up to 10 years, the time it would take to make a dancer. Most times students are offered a one year scholarship coming out of their public school program. Things like touch tours where the visually impaired receive a guided tour before the show where they touch the costumes and the sets, and then they receive live audio description during the performance of what's happening on stage. You know, little moments like that, that might be a one time engagement. They're so meaningful. We do a summer dance camp for students in Title I schools where they can come for three weeks and train in West Palm Beach with us. So it's like every single program is such a special contribution to the community that I love. So I can't imagine getting rid of any program even though we do a lot, It all has to stay. So we just have to figure out how to get it done. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Yeah. I love that. And, and grow your budget. So you can do even more, right? And give you even more staff to do- yeah. Hopefully the organization is really seeing just how incredible this work is and honestly how pioneering it is also for a ballet company to be doing some of these programs. I mean, you can speak to this better than I can, but you know, coming from these different markets where you've worked professionally on the stage and behind the stage, those programs are pretty unique in the field of dance, you know? 

Monica Stephenson: 
Yes, I think so a scholarship program for up to 10 years. Programs for the visually impaired. We do a pop-up series where we take the company around to different outdoor venues in South Florida. It really is going over and beyond what most ballet companies do in the community that I don't know if Miami realizes how cutting edge, their community engagement programming is. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Wow. 

Monica Stephenson: 
I think that they've been doing it for so long that they don't realize that that's not the norm in the ballet world. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Wow. Well, I guess, you know, kind of thinking about that, what do you see as sort of the largest area of opportunity in the dance world for growth and expansion to become a field that is more radically inclusive and welcoming of differently-abled bodies and people within the space?

Monica Stephenson: 
I think dance, and especially classical ballet, has a long way to go in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I think that's hands down what's gotta make the difference in people feeling like they belong in the art form. The companies are in the work. They've begun the work. They're in it. But it's got a long way to go still.

I think that the aesthetic of classical ballet companies is very hard to break. I think that the image of what a ballerina is supposed to look like has not changed in centuries, and it is really something that the art form has to address. We have to retrain our eyes, and I think that's really where a lot of this in terms of the aesthetic lies. We have to get used to seeing all colors on the stage. We have to get used to seeing dancers wear tights and shoes that look like their skin, on stage. We have to get used to seeing a variety of body types do classical ballet, because what I see in the school level is more diversity. But when we get to the professional company level, the aesthetic hasn't changed much.

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Mm-hmm. 

Monica Stephenson: 
So we're training a more diverse group of students, and I find that schools are doing a better job with belonging than at the professional level. I think that's where the aesthetic hasn't shifted and where we have to retrain what our standard of beauty is because it can look very different. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Oh, thank you so much for that and, and just a very small sort of follow up question to that: do you think that's more apprenticeships at companies or more partnerships between dance schools and organizations to create a direct pathway from educational institutions to professional companies, if that's where students want to go? What could be that next step to be able to bridge that gap that's currently existing there?

Monica Stephenson: 
I do think that a lot of schools are training more diverse dancers. I see more black and brown dancers getting all  the way up the ladder in the schools, into the professional training programs. I think at the company level, a lot of companies, frankly, need more funding so that they're able to hire more dancers. There's still such a small percentage of students that get a contract. It's really, really tight in these professional companies. And so I think funding is part of the equation, but the aesthetic has to shift. You can have all the money in the world and still hire dancers that look the same, so it's really the aesthetic has to change and evolve.

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Thank you for all of that. What's next? What, what do you have coming up next? 

Monica Stephenson: 
Oh gosh. I think I'm taking it day by day. I'm looking forward to hopefully coming back up to New York this summer and getting a chance to see The Misty Copeland Foundation in their teacher training. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
Yes. 

Monica Stephenson: 
So that would be, yeah, something I'm looking forward to. But we have so much programming, like I said, in Miami that I just feel like sometimes I'm barely hanging on, to go to one program to the next, but it's all good work, good things. So I can't complain. 

Dr. Durell Cooper: 
That's, well, that's amazing. And a shout out, this just reminded me, shout out to the International Association for Blacks in Dance, just won the National Medal of the Arts and also the Billie Holiday Theatre where I'm currently a board member. Shout out to both of those organizations for finally being recognized for the incredible work they're doing in this space. And thank you to champions of this work like you, Monica, for doing the work when it was not popular to do. And it's increasingly - specifically in Florida - it, it's coming back around to where it's again not popular to do. So thank you for your courage. Thank you for your fearlessness in the work. And just thank you for, for being you. And thank you for being here. 

Monica Stephenson: 
Absolutely. Thank you. I really appreciate what you 're doing to also increase diversity and equity in the arts and in education, so thank you. 

Dr. Durell Cooper:

Thank you.  This has been another incredible episode of fluency. Any final words or parting thoughts that you would like to share with the listeners? 

Monica Stephenson: 
Oh gosh, I don't think so. I think we just have to all keep working towards more inclusion and doing our small part in it.