SUMMARY KEYWORDS

girls, brown, ballet, people, dancers, ambassadors, pointe shoes, dance, arts, privilege, program, shoes, called, amazing, color, match, equity, tights, classical ballet, guilty

 

SPEAKERS

Amber Cabral, Takiyah Walace

 

Amber Cabral 00:00

Three. Privilege is all around you. It shows up in your clothes, where you live, the places you frequent, your network capital, and even how you spend your money. It’s useless until you recognize it. So it’s time to stop feeling guilty and figure out how to use your privilege to make an impact. Welcome to guilty privilege. Welcome to guilty privilege. My name is Amber Cabral, and today we are talking to takia Wallace. She is an entrepreneur, as well as the founder and executive director for brown girls do ballet, and we are here to talk about equity in the arts. And I bet you don’t realize just how much ballet plays a part in what equity looks like. Let’s jump in. Hey, Taki, Hey, I am so excited to have you on this podcast.

 

Takiyah Walace 00:55

I’m excited to be here.

 

Amber Cabral 00:57

So secretly, we had a podcast before we did, yeah, didn’t last though.

 

Takiyah Walace 01:03

It did not.

 

Amber Cabral 01:03

We were busy humans, and it didn’t really pan out for us to do that.

 

Takiyah Walace 01:08

I think it was just not my lane, you know, you

 

Amber Cabral 01:12

say, saying something is not your lane, and then

 

Takiyah Walace 01:14

it actually is your lane. Podcasting was not no, so

 

Amber Cabral 01:18

isn’t your lane either. But

 

Takiyah Walace 01:19

here we are you are correct. You are correct.

 

Amber Cabral 01:22

So speaking of let’s talk about how brown girls do ballet. Got started,

 

Takiyah Walace 01:25

yeah, yeah. So brown girls do ballet, obviously, is a nonprofit organization centered around providing resources to young dancers of color. But it started as just a photo project for me. I was moonlighting as a photographer, moonlighting because your main job was. I was an elementary school teacher for 18 years. I was in the classroom in the in the trenches. Okay, it was like going to war every day, and I survived, obviously, but so I was moonlighting as a photographer. And at the time, I also had a three year old, my daughter, Charlie, and she told me she wanted to take ballet, because all little girls do, yeah, not this girl, though, not the one that was parenting her. And so I didn’t, I knew nothing about ballet. Yeah, I knew what I saw on television, and I’d seen one version of Capella when I was in college with a random friend who happened to be a dance major. So that was the extent of my ballet knowledge. But I did know how to Google as a parent, thank goodness. And one of the first things that jumped out to me in looking for a classical ballet program for her in my very diverse city of Dallas, Texas, were that there were very few images of little girls that look like my daughter on websites. So I decided that year as a personal photography project to find more dancers of color. So it really started with that small idea. I put a casting call up on Facebook, and it went viral. And I learned very quickly the word viral actually means you never sleep again. So I have not slept since the year 2012

 

Amber Cabral 02:53

You and me both actually, well, maybe not 2012 so we were just doing this math a moment ago. So I started cheering brown girls. What year?

 

Takiyah Walace 03:02

2000 in it would have been 2016

 

Amber Cabral 03:05

ish, yeah, because I was living in Arkansas when it happened. So I do remember that, yes. So it has been a long time I, too am not sleeping, but it’s all, it’s all for great cause, like we love brown girls. Brown girls, you will see both of us probably have a pin or something visible for you. So what I would like to kind of zoom in on is equity in the arts. So the reason I wanted to have this conversation was to kind of talk a little bit about that, because essentially what you’re saying is, you know, I started this because I didn’t necessarily see brown ballerinas, yes. And so what exactly, you know, comes to mind when you think about equity in the arts, because art and culture and things like that are kind of subjective, so it isn’t always crystal clear what equity might look like. So what does that

 

Takiyah Walace 03:49

mean to you? I think if you want to boil this down to a very small point that everyone can wrap their heads around, spaces, arts, schools, all things should be reflective of the communities that they serve and of the world. So if you look at something like classical ballet, up until recently, and I’m I’m still saying, within probably the last 10 years, if you looked at any major ballet company, they were

 

Amber Cabral 04:18

all white, all white, so white and pink shoes, by the way, pink shoes,

 

Takiyah Walace 04:23

yes. And so in a world where brown girls are not given the opportunity to even be exposed to classical ballet, that’s right, there’s not enough funding for them to continue on if they are, which means you don’t have more girls of color in classical ballet companies, exactly. So I think if you just wrap your head around the fact that it’s very hard for someone to see or to to be what they can’t see, that’s it. Yeah, that’s and creating opportunities, or more opportunities, for our girls to even have the experience to be. HOST, yeah, because that lights the spark and makes them want to create and be in that space.

 

Amber Cabral 05:04

Yeah. So I want to zoom in a little bit on arts. So we are recording this podcast in New York, and you and I had the privilege, which I love when this happens, to do a little brown girls business on this trip and so, well, I’ll let you tell what

 

Takiyah Walace 05:17

we did, yeah, yeah. So yesterday, we had the chance to see one of our own former brown girls, du ballet ambassadors, which means she was in our mentorship program for a number of years. She’s now an actual mentor, because she is a professional, a young, 21 year old professional, perform in The Lion King. She’s the cheetah in The Lion King. Now, well, that’s she says that she’s the cheetah. But yesterday, after seeing him

 

Amber Cabral 05:43

playing all the parts, she’s playing all the parts, I think that’s maybe the most visible, I guess, in the in the So, first of all, if you haven’t seen the Lion King, please go see it. I know you might be thinking what I was thinking, like I saw this cartoon. Why would I go see this as a play? It was phenomenal. The shoes alone were amazing, but the cheetah, like she was like, she totally, like, embodied, transformed.

 

Takiyah Walace 06:05

And I think that’s a great thing too, because when, obviously, we’re working on the side of dance and ballet, yes, right, but being able to use those skills that you learn in a ballet studio and make them translate to something else that amazing on stage that that is what we’re talking about. That’s where it starts. So to me, she is the kind of success story, yes, that people need to see coming to us as a as a young dancer who’s just twirling away in class, yes, connecting her with a mentor who’s going to help her get to the next level. And she is there now. She is the mentor, exactly,

 

Amber Cabral 06:42

and she mentored someone else in the show, yes, which is amazing. Hey there. If you’re listening and finding value in today’s episode and want to add a couple tools to your toolbox, I’ve written a couple books that you might find useful. My first book, allies and advocates is to help you be able to show up as an ally or an advocate and to help create a more inclusive and equitable culture, whether that’s in your own life or in the workplace. My second book is a little different. It’s called say more about that. What say more about that does is help you to push back advocate and actually challenge. It gives you tips, tools and language to help you navigate difficult discussions, whether that’s in your personal space or your workspaces. So if either of these tools sound like they might be useful for you, you can scroll down into the show notes and click the link and get your own copy of either allies and advocates or say more about that. Back to today’s episode. Let’s talk stereotypes for just a moment. Okay, so some people will say black people are more naturally inclined to, let’s say, play jazz, and white folks are more, you know, inclined for ballet. What are your thoughts about stereotypes like that? I

 

Takiyah Walace 07:52

think they’re ridiculous. Absolutely. I think, I think that the reason we enjoy art so much is because people put themselves into it, yes, but if not given the opportunity, does that happen? No black people have adopted Kenny G Okay, he’s a white jazz music also Justin Timberlake, yes, yes. And then when we bring our sauce, our flavor, to the stage, you know, we add a different level and layer. And then also, to be quite honest, as a patron of the arts, as someone who supports them when I go to a show, if I’m going to pay for a ticket to see anything, to see someone on that stage that looks like me, just adds a special little razzle dazzle that I can’t put, I can’t put a name to.

 

Amber Cabral 08:36

Yeah. I also think that we have to realize that, like through brown girls, we’re not asking for everything to be completely brown Exactly. We’re also not asking, you know, for people to think about doing something that is exclusive for us as in a separate way, although there are some times that that shows up like we have, you know, like the chocolate Nutcracker and the hot chocolate Nutcracker, but I do think, to your point, like making sure that we are considered is it goes a really long way. And I think that we’ve, we’ve seen some things happen in the time that we have been working together on brown girls, particularly the pointe shoes. I always use this example. I would love for you to talk about just the journey of point shoes, because

 

Takiyah Walace 09:13

I think a lot of people don’t, don’t know this, but when you think about ballet dancers, they are wearing pink tights and pink shoes. And the idea is that that color matches the dancer’s body in their line, that’s right. But if you are a brown girl, or you have even a little bit of extra melanin in your complexion, pink does not match your line. It clashes actually, okay? It cuts you off, that’s right. And if you’re supposed to look ethereal and fairy like That’s right, but your bottom half doesn’t match your top, that’s right. It’s a whole thing. Yes, even moving beyond the types and shoes, there’s a documentary called first position. It stars Michaela de prince, and this is before she became she’s getting ready for a competition, and her mom, she’s adopted. Did her white mom is literally dying her costume to match her skin, because even the inseam of your skin, the latest is supposed to match your skin. So thinking about the fact that a dancer of color has to buy, spend the same amount of money on an item, take it home, it yep,

 

Amber Cabral 10:18

which takes, by the way, an hour or two.

 

Takiyah Walace 10:21

Yes, buy the extra materials to die that’s right, to even fit in. Yes, it’s crazy. It is. So of course, we’ve had changes that have happened. And I’m glad to say, brown girls has been a part of those, being able to partner with different companies that do make pointe shoes and do make tights to make sure that our girls are able to color match now and buy those items off the shelf that look our reflective of them? Yes, and

 

Amber Cabral 10:44

we’ve been really, really serious about that, about the representation piece. I have two things that are on my mind, and I don’t know which direction I want to go in. Let’s go this way. I do think sometimes we get a little bit of push. And in fact, I’ve talked about this in some other episodes of the podcast, how we are brown girls do ballet, and how sometimes we get pushback about specifically, the word girls, yes. What are your thoughts about that?

 

Takiyah Walace 11:12

I think I always go back to why I started this. Because it was for a girl. It was for my girl, right? But now it serves so many other girls around the world. And then you think about the word women, when, when a girl becomes a woman, she is like an owner of her her life, her agency for the most part, and she knows where she wants to go, right? We’re dealing with girls who do not for the most part. Now, some of them come to us like together. I have a plan that’s true. I need you to help me execute. Here

 

Amber Cabral 11:45

is where I would like to go. I want to go to this school Exactly. This is what I want to do after school Exactly.

 

Takiyah Walace 11:51

But I think that when I think of brown girls, it is for young girls. Now, we are are very blessed in the fact that we have girls that will come to us as young as 10 and never leave us. So I still have brown girls who do ballet, who are like 24 now, that’s

 

Amber Cabral 12:06

true. That’s true. They are brown women, and some of them, I’ve gone on from not just doing ballet, we have other dances and other art forms too, which is also really amazing. I love that about ballet, specifically, is that it’s a great foundational

 

Takiyah Walace 12:19

it is, it is, and it’s one of those things. If you know from a from probably around the age of 12 or 13, if ballet is going to be the thing that you do, that’s true, if you’re going to want to go to eventually dance at New York City Ballet or abt You know that very young, we have a lot of girls who come to us as 17 year olds who love dance, who love ballet, that’s right, but know physically they may not be for them, yeah. So we have been fortunate enough to be able to connect them with other professionals that expose them to other ways that they can still be attached to dance, but not maybe be a dancer or on stage. So we have a lot of girls that are in college now getting degrees and looking at things like arts administration, because if we’re in making making those decisions

 

Amber Cabral 13:06

Exactly, we can make easier Exactly. So like, to that end, like, that was why I wanted to ask you the question about brown girls. Because, you know, I remember when we first started to get, like, the pushback around that, and I was like, Okay, we get to be focused on who we’re focused on, like, yeah, inclusion doesn’t include everybody all the time, yes. And so we are focused on brown girls. But that doesn’t mean that brown boys or brown trans people or white folks don’t have an opportunity to donate, to show up as allies, to still apply for a lot of the money that we give away,

 

Takiyah Walace 13:36

that I tell people that all the time, because there has been a big push recently for us to consider boys in what we do well, that we’ve gotten that in waves. Okay, I am, I am not changing the name. That’s not happening, no. But we do help boys. We do when they fall on our radar, yeah,

 

Amber Cabral 13:51

yeah. And we’ve done things for boys in the past absolutely, you know. So it just kind of depends. And so I think it’s really important to realize that just because you are not centered doesn’t mean that it isn’t still for you. You just aren’t the identity that’s at the center in that moment. And I think

 

Takiyah Walace 14:04

it’s educating the people who do that as well, because what they don’t know is, if you are a boy who wants to dance, you are 10 times more likely to get a scholarship for your social and complete training than any girl, absolutely, simply because you are a boy who wants to dance. Exactly that is a fact. So it’s not just pretty pictures, no, even though, definitely, if you go check out our Instagram at brown girls do ballet, people love our pictures and share them, which we love, please continue.

 

Amber Cabral 14:30

But it is, I mean, it’s a full company, and it requires a lot of work, and we’ve made a lot of positive impact. So besides just, you know, the pointe shoes actually being available in diverse colors. Yes, what are some of the other things you would count as wins? I have 20 wins that I could list, but I’m only gonna ask you for like, three,

 

Takiyah Walace 14:49

three wins. Oh, okay, I’m just gonna go straight off the off the dome, like a rapper today. So last year alone, we gave out over 44,000 Dollars in scholarship funds? Yes, so that’s girls who are continuing dance training. Those, those are girls who are pursuing higher education, some intensive, summer intensive, all of that we also have supplied. I can’t even count at this point how many pairs of point shoes to help offset the cost for those dancers and their families, because pointe shoes are one of the most expensive things that you have to purchase to be a dancer, and they don’t last a long. They do not last a long. Last two hours.

 

Amber Cabral 15:29

If you are a professional, literally one show you go go through pair. Yes. So, yes. So I

 

Takiyah Walace 15:35

love our pointe shoe program, our supply closet. We send out leotards tights all over the place. We have also recently, and this is not on anybody’s radar, so I guess you’re finding out right now. We’ve helped pilot a few after school and in school dance programs. Oh, I

 

Amber Cabral 15:51

didn’t know that Dallas, Texas, I’m the chair, and I did not know that this is what my executive director was doing with this program. That’s

 

Takiyah Walace 15:58

phenomenal. We’re introducing kids at the school level to ballet for the first time. Yeah,

 

Amber Cabral 16:03

so brown girls do ballet is a nonprofit. Yes, that means that we need donations. We all the time, all the time. Yes, we always need donations. We always need donations. So I always describe brown girls as my happy place, because I do it for free, right? For a long time, you

 

Takiyah Walace 16:18

did it for free, yeah, for eight years, I

 

Amber Cabral 16:20

did it for very long time. You did it for free, and so, you know, we are now fortunate enough that we can actually pay you to do all the amazing things that you do. As the founder and executive director of brown girls do ballet. But I would love for you to just talk to us about how people can support Hey, I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode of guilty privilege. My name is Amber Cabral, and I wanted to share with you that I actually do this for a living. So if you’re interested in coaching or training or workshops or even a conversation like this one, you can reach out to me and my team by going to cabralco.com that website link is in the show notes, and we can work with you to create an experience, to bring conversations that are sometimes difficult to have to your workplace or to your team. Now back to the show,

 

Takiyah Walace 17:04

yeah. So I always tell people, obviously donations would be helpful. Yes, we are a nonprofit, and we rely on donations to keep things moving and going, but if you are unable to donate, just talking about what we do to someone else is so helpful to us. Number one, it provides a bullhorn that I can’t pay for to let other people know about the programs that we offer. But then also it allows other young girls to find out about us as well, and then they get to join our mentorship program, which we call the we call them ambassadors. Our mentees are ambassadors, and they are the first line of defense and combating negative stereotypes. Okay, and we have some amazing ambassadors. So if you can’t donate, please just share as much information as possible that you know about our organization. I

 

Amber Cabral 17:51

would love to, and this isn’t on my list of questions, but I would love to talk a little bit about our ambassador program. One of the things that I love about brown girls, and I’m biased, obviously, because I chair the organization, is that we are very much led by our young people. Yes, a lot of the ideas that we pursue and that we end up putting dollars behind come from young people. Can you talk about why that’s important? Sure, sure. So

 

Takiyah Walace 18:15

a lot of the reason that I want brown girls to be an outwardly youth led organization is because of my time in the classroom. Directly related to that. For 18 years, I taught gifted and talented, and one of our big things was independent study, letting the children choose what they’re learning. And I’m just there as a facilitator to make sure you don’t end up in any dark parts of the internet, right? So in building brown girls that was also important to me. So I do Lean on our ambassadors a lot to kind of figure out what should be next. And so our ambassadors are single handedly. The reason why we even have an ambassador program because I met 12 random young girls out on the road while shooting the project who kept asking me questions that I could not answer personally because I did not have the experience. And so I would find dancers on the internet and say, Hey, I have a girl who lives in Tennessee, she wants to know where she can find brown tights, where she is like, Do you have any resources? And connecting people like that, and our ambassadors are the reason we even have a point shoe program. They came to me and said, Hey, is there some way that we can either collect shoes for girls and send them, or we can ship them out to them. I was like, let’s make it happen. Our ambassadors are the reason that we even have our Summer Intensive scholarship programs, because they came up with that when we do any relief efforts, if there’s ever a flood in an area or some sort of natural disaster, we ship out supplies to dancers in those areas to kind of give them a sense of normalcy that was kicked off by an ambassador from Baton Rouge Louisiana, right? So all of these are programs that we continue to run year round now, but they were the brain children of

 

Amber Cabral 19:51

children exactly our young people fundraise for us, absolutely, totally outside of us. They’ll just go and start a fundraiser, and we’re like, oh. Oh, we have money from this person we may not have even met, yes, that is connected to the organization or interested in supporting.

 

Takiyah Walace 20:06

They’ll text me now and they’ll be like, Hey, Mr Kia, my school wants to do a tight drive for blah, blah, blah. I’m like, Okay, right? What’d you need for me?

 

Amber Cabral 20:13

Exactly? Which is amazing. It is. I think it’s amazing. I think it’s a testament for what equity really looks like. And, you know, just dispelling the idea that children don’t know what they need, like they may not know everything, but a lot of times they do know

 

Takiyah Walace 20:26

it exactly. They may not know the system or how the process of how to get things done, but they know what needs to take place. They know what needs to happen. And it’s really kind of up to us as adults to be facilitators and make sure that those things are done in a way that they can understand and process. And when you give them those tools and information, or connect them with the right people that can give them the tools and information, the sky’s the limit. It is, I

 

Amber Cabral 20:51

agree. So you’ve done a little bit of everything. You’ve touched on a lot of it in this conversation. So I mean, we know you were a gifted and talented teacher. I also know you taught at an all boys school for a moment and then an additional layer of painting. Don’t Don’t do that.

 

Takiyah Walace 21:04

Don’t do that.

 

Amber Cabral 21:05

I also know that you used to run a couple restaurants. You are also a photographer. You weave that in there. Yeah, you run a nonprofit organization called brown girls do ballet. So I would say you are truly a multipotentialite. I would just love for you to share a little insight about what is it that has to happen? What what goes off? What tickles you that makes you say, You know what? I’m gonna go. Run down this path.

 

Takiyah Walace 21:26

I think that I’m still always curious about things, and it’s never a situation of I think I can do that. It’s not that I doubt myself all the time, but I’m willing to try pretty much anything, except for hard drugs twice,

 

Amber Cabral 21:43

same, by the way, insane. I’ll

 

Takiyah Walace 21:46

try it, and normally, after the first time, I’ll decide if this is for me versus not for me. But then there have been some things that I didn’t think I would be doing anymore, like even being a photographer. I thought I would have been done with that by now, but it just keeps pulling me back in. Brown girls, I tell people I quit, like, every two weeks, because it’s hard. It’s hard work. You can quit. If I can’t quit, you won’t let me quit. No, no, no, no, I quit in my head. But then, you know, take 24 hours, you know, come back around, drink some champagne, and then get back to work. Exactly. Right? Okay.

 

Amber Cabral 22:15

So tell us what you have coming up. You have a few things coming up. So tell us what you have coming up. I do. I do. Brown girls. Are you? Either way, or if they’re so combined, brown

 

Takiyah Walace 22:25

girls is getting ready to have its very first ball. Yes, we’re going royal, and it is more of a celebration for our girls, because, because of the pandemic, we haven’t been able to gather they haven’t seen each other. And at this point, we have 86 girls that we have currently in our mentorship class that are around the world, United States, literally global, Canada, Trinidad, Tobago, Sydney, Australia. They’re all over the place. And so this will be an opportunity for them to come on down to where we’re headquarters, in Texas and Fort Worth Texas, and hang out and just have fun, have a have a good time. And also will be raising money as well, so And there’ll be a little learning opportunity, learning opportunity. And as for me personally, but also brown girls adjacent, it’s been, at this point, 12 years of shooting dancers around the country. A book, a coffee table book called The color of dance, is released in September 26 and several of our girls are in this book. So it is truly gonna be amazing. Anyone should love

 

Amber Cabral 23:34

the pictures. Please go get the book. It’s great. It’s beautiful. Please go get it. I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to have like, a peek at it. Okay, you should totally get it. I cannot wait until it comes out. I’m so excited about it. Yeah, I am too. And you’re working on another one. Secretly,

 

Takiyah Walace 23:49

it’s a second book coming to

 

Amber Cabral 23:52

Okay, so my last and final question, the show is called guilty privilege, okay, okay. And the reason I called it that is because privilege is one of those things that people either feel guilty about or they’re in denial about having it, or, you know, just don’t have the self awareness to really understand what kind of privileges they are walking around it. And in reality, privilege gives us an opportunity to show up and be impactful. And so I would love to just know from your perspective, what privilege Do you have that you refuse to feel guilty about.

 

Takiyah Walace 24:22

I would say I refuse to feel guilty about it. But every once a while it creeps in. I am a magnet for good things. You are. I really am. You are. I don’t know what I did in the life before this one, but good things come to me even when I’m you know, regular life happens. It does things happen and they get you down. But on the other end of that, I’m always okay because something good is coming out of it. I am a magnet for good things. I

 

Amber Cabral 24:48

love that, all right. Well, thank you for joining me on guilty for having me. All right.