Dr. Iquail Shaheed offers a personal reflection on the life, work, and profound impact of his teacher and mentor, Milton Myers. Shaheed frames this exploration with thinking from his recent doctoral dissertation on Myers, a mainstay of The School at Jacob’s Pillow since 1985.
Dr. Iquail Shaheed offers a personal reflection on the life, work, and profound impact of his teacher and mentor, Milton Myers. Shaheed frames this exploration with thinking from his recent doctoral dissertation on Myers, a mainstay of The School at Jacob’s Pillow since 1985.
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
INTRO: Welcome to PillowVoices a production of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow Archives. I’m Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation and it’s my pleasure to introduce our host Dr. Iquail Shaheed, a former Pillow Artist and Research Fellow. In this episode, Iquail offers a personal reflection on the life, work and profound impact of his teacher and mentor, Milton Myers. Milton’s history with the school at Jacob’s Pillow began in 1985 and his influence continues to be felt here today.
IQUAIL SHAHEED: It was 2016 when I enrolled in Texas Woman's University, and at the time of coursework, there were all sorts of experiences around policing of Black male bodies, being the only Black male at a predominantly white female institution. I was having experiences both academically and in the space of research inquiry, were shaping themselves within this conflict of what is theory and what is lived experience. And how can the two in terms of Praxis be a force for unearthing new understandings of dance or not even new, but what is already there that wasn't paid attention to. And so very early on my lived experience, as a Black man from Philly, in school in Texas, a stand your ground, open carry state, meaning you can open carry a gun anywhere, forced me to recognize where the intersection of other Black male bodies exist, and what information exists within those bodies that are always present in the movement of those bodies. And that's really important because as a dancer, I'm looking at movement, right - movement on stage, movement in life, movement in society. But as a researcher, that movement is fodder for understanding the hope, the fear, the pain, the joy, the total life experiences of a group of individuals, in this case, Black men that may not readily have language, verbal language to it. And ironically, though, the situation was really grave in my early days. Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown - these names were popping up on a daily basis. And these were Black men that were visibly being marked by death in that time period of 2014 to 2016, when I had enrolled in the program, and here I am, the lone Black man in a PhD program that really was doing diversity, but there was no other Black male experiences. And so that kind of led me to question well, yes, we are marked by death. And these images are constantly in our textbooks, it’s constantly in our in our news feeds on our social media platforms. But there are tons of other narratives about us that can be equally and productively visible. And I started to comb through my own experiences, having a Fred Benjamin, who was just so wonderful, and so pushing, but also so encouraging, or Ron Brown, who was similar. And ultimately, all of those things that I was traversing my lived experience as a Black man, wanting to encourage other Black men and other Black people to see these stories wanting to promote Horton technique, which is also what I teach, and wanted to document how Horton has, both in legacy and in technique, encouraged sort of this diverse world that doesn't really get paid attention to. All of that landed me on Milton Myers. In addition to that, it was Philly, so I wanted to be Philly, I wanted to be Black. I wanted to be Horton. I wanted to be pro-male. I also wanted it...I wanted my dissertation to not necessarily talk about the hardships of Blackness, but that the hardships of Blackness would be the backdrop and a catalyst for the thing that I really wanted people to pick up. That was 2016. So that all landed me to Milton. Milton seemed like the perfect intersection. He was teaching me in Philly, master Horton teacher, Black man, dealt with Alvin Ailey in terms of being mentored by Alvin Ailey, being mentored by Joyce Trisler. All of these people I wanted to talk about and generally just a very nice person, right? So fast forward, I was going through more and more experiences that were just painful as a Black male. Now we're talking 2020, George Floyd is murdered...publicly. Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, and more and more, I felt the need for healing for myself and escaped from just the bombardment of those images. And I took a trip to Africa, I went to Morocco in the height of the pandemic. And I sat under the stars, I’d just received tenure. I had become the second Black man to get tenure at a college that as of right now... that was founded in 1889. And sitting under the stars in the pitch black, dark Sahara Desert, I looked up. And I just thought about my life as a Black man growing up in a particular low socioeconomic status and being able to plant my feet in the sand in Africa. I look up at the stars at night and said, joy, this is the experience of joy. And that is, it can be a destination that people seek - this sort of place, of nostalgia and euphoria that meet together, that gives one a sense of optimism, hope, or joy. And it dawned on me, but what if that was the catalyst for the ways that artists constructed every aspect of their artistic creation. And sitting there again, Milton came right back. And just like the stars that were popping up that night, or as I use in my dissertation, like a glass of champagne that we use for celebration is and into itself, something that titillates dopamine receptors in the brain, but so too are each of the little bubbles within the glass of champagne, and as you consume the champagne which is a reward, the bubbles that titillate the back of your palate, are too themselves a reward all of that together, both macro, the glass of champagne, and micro the bubbles of champagne within are all joy. And how can we use that image to see what artists, how artists use joy as a strategy and as an outcome. And so that's how I landed on joy in particular. It also has synergy because one of the first works that I ever saw of Milton Myers, was actually titled “Joy”. And so I was like, Ah - I'm talking about joy, I'm in Africa, there's joy, I want to do Milton, and a work of Milton's is titled "Joy." And I was like - This is it, this is the lane. And so to tie in Blackness at that time, and 2020-2021 until the present of this recording, African Americans and global Black folks in the struggle for equality and equity, we're using songs of affirmation, and all of them were about joy. They were about joy in the process, joy as an outcome, joy as a method of being and resting and resisting. And so, I adopted that from the movement and I said, Well, how can we see joy as a strategy for artistic creation, as a method or a pedagogical method for teaching, and then also as the outcome of...of artistic work or mentorship? And those three became the registers for, for how I looked at Milton's work. And with a specific attention on the ways that Black folks were experiencing joy, meaning that the definition of Black joy I was pulling on to pedagogical structures where...where there's a sense of joy and euphoria that circumvents the oppressive forces of racism and marginality that Black people experience in the continental US and abroad. That is more nuanced than just joy. It is a specific type of joy that allows them to go around those particular experiences. But then also there was a second nuance to that joy that I pull from scholarly literature around Tommy DeFrantz, Thomas F. DeFrantz, where he argues that Blackness isn't tied to Black people, that Blackness can exist and the nature of Blackness can exist, even when Black people aren't present. And I thought about that, and I was like, oh, so we all can experience or be affected by a particular Black artist’s Black joy, even if we don't identify ourselves within the realm of Blackness. So then too it became both freeing and hyper specific, it became a way to look at Milton as the catalyst, as the steward, as the glass of champagne. And that all of our interactions through and with Milton, and because of Milton, were the champagne bubbles, and all of that was, was centered in his particular Black joy.
As part of my research, I visited the Jacob's Pillow archives and combed through books, photographs, videos and even walked the grounds. Here Milton talks about how he began his journey in dance in the PillowTalk from 2012, moderated by Pillow Scholar, Maura Keefe.
MILTON MYERS: I started out as a mathematician, and so I started late. And I was at the university and actually I had an archery class and it was canceled. And I had a very good friend, her name was Venice Forth, and she was in the Phys-Ed Department and she said we need some men. Your class is canceled, please come dance with me. I thought what are you kidding me? And she said no, no, no, come, come, come, please. And so I did it and of course, to make it go faster… I took the class. I liked it. They brought in people from the conservatory and said you should look at this young man and see, you know, we think that he has something. He might really be a good dancer. I went over to the conservatory. I did the conservatory, I said what is this – whole new world. I didn’t know what they were wearing. I didn’t know why they were hugging each other all of the time [laughter]. I just didn’t get it. I just didn’t get it. I thought this is a whole other world. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I fell into it. And Tatiana Dokoudovska, was in charge of the ballet department. I had two men who were in charge of Hanya Holm technique, and they did percussion so it really, I embraced it very quickly. Now, at the university, there was the Black Student Union, of course, and there were those that wanted to do art and wanted to do dance. And was so enamored I though boy, this is the best. This is crazy. Whole other language, everything. Tatiana Dokoudovska, Madame Dokoudovska, gave me the key to the conservatory. This began my teaching. I took all of the artists in the Black Student Union that wanted class, we, on Saturday, went into the conservatory, I opened it up and taught everything that I had learned in ballet class and in modern class to them. We started a company called Black Exodus. I think I was starting to teach, even at that time, probably before I really understood what I was doing as a dancer. So, I think I was cultivating that at the time. And as time went on in my career, went on and on and on and inevitably, everyone kept saying, “can you teach for us? Will you teach for us?” Alvin Ailey, when I got to New York, I auditioned. I said this is the company. I want it. This is what I want. And he asked me to teach the company, before he asked me to dance in the company, and I didn’t get it. So, to say all of that is to say I think that perhaps, it was something that inevitably I was supposed to do. And through the process of all of my dancing, and learning and watching these instructors, and getting information from them, and finding out why are they so fantastic. Why am I getting the information so quickly. Why someone that started so late is gaining so much information so fast. So, I fell in love with these instructors, and I copied them. Whenever I did something, when they asked could you teach, or someone would say, I would just copy them. Point for point. Whatever they said, step by step, ‘till eventually I said, you’ve got to find your own voice. But, I imagine, those teachers that I thought were so fantastic, were already teaching me how to teach, and I didn’t know it.
BILL T JONES: Today, I came and I heard Milton Myers teaching, a great, great modern dance teacher. And he was speaking to a room of young people, and he was daring them to throw themselves into space. Daring them to invent a turn every time you perform it. And I guess he was daring them to be artists.
IQUAIL SHAHEED: That was the voice of Bill T. Jones, addressing a group of Pillow supporters in 2000, at a dinner in Blakes Barn.
I think that this is the magic of of Milton Myers, as a teacher, is that I argue that he uses those things as strategies to, of affirming students of giving them agency in the space, to be able to push them to take risks. And not feel that risk is somehow weakness. But that risk is the necessity for development. But that in order to be ready for risk, especially as a Black person, where society might always be trying to, like, tell you, you have to prove yourself, in Myers’ class, in Milton, it was not about proving yourself, it was about disarming you so that you could be ready to accept the challenge of the day and accept the demands of the craft. And I think that that's his particular genius. And that is the strategy of Black joy, it is to understand that the people in the room regardless of race, regardless of class, regardless of ability or disability, are all fighting systemic, systematic or institutional pressures that have to be disarmed authentically and genuinely in order that the work might be received, without it being personal attack or defeating the student. And that to me, when I was able to realize that about Milton, I see it in every teaching, in every, all of his teaching in every situation in every environment that he's in, and it's what every student of his former and current says about him, even if they're not using those words.
In a 2003 PillowTalk titled “Passing It On: Mentors In Dance,” Robert Battle talked about the reciprocal nature of teaching as a way of learning.
ROBERT BATTLE: So, teaching is a form of learning. And I think that, that sometimes I think that it would be a wonderful thing in a curriculum to have students have to teach. Because only then do you understand how to be a better student because now you have to look at people who are looking back at you sometimes with blank faces going what are you talking about. And so sometimes it makes you a better performer, it makes you a better dancer, it makes you a better person. And so, teaching is something I’ve always loved to do. And I know there are some teachers who teach, and I don’t think they love it, and that’s unfortunate because I think it’s one of the most important things that one can do, is to be a teacher. And Milton, you do it well.
IQUAIL SHAHEED: In my dissertation, I looked at three ways of looking at Black joy with Milton across three registers, and I titled them Black Joy as Performance, Black Joy in Performance, and Black Joy from Performance. And I wanted to argue that those categories weren't fixed, that they are fluid, and they blend and bleed and shift against each other. But if we gave them language in that way, it allows us to see that when Black joy is used as a performance mode, it is what I'm talking about in Milton's teaching, it is this...the strategy by which to disarm and push and mentor and (excuse me)negotiate the politics of one's artistry in training and development to become better at the challenge of the day. Particularly Horton technique is full of challenges. Physical, mental, emotional, and to use Black joy as a performance strategy. Genius. I thought of Milton. The second register is in performance, then I started to look at the ways in which his his work, "Joy," was a mode for Black joy. It was it was curious to me because I grew up in 1980s. I was born in 1980s Philadelphia, and I argued that there was one very significant experience in 1980s Philadelphia for Black folks that affects them to this day, and it was the Move bombing in May 11, 1985. And it happened within the, in the same community, maybe less than a mile away from the headquarters of Philadanco at the time. And it premiered two years, if I'm not mistaking, one to two years after the Move bombing, Milton premiered this word called "Joy" on Philadanco, a predominantly Black company that is about the uplift of African American experience through dance. Half a mile from where these Black bodies experienced this horrendous thing is a piece titled "Joy" that on first glance, it just looks like people running around the stage and being happy and being free. But that, I argue that that also was a strategy both by Milton, in collaboration with Joan Myers Brown, to again disarm the audience to be able to receive joy. So joy was being, Black joy was being used as a strategy to invite and welcome Black bodies, Black people, Black subjects in and allies in to be able to receive the glory of these bodies. And if you just see it as people moving around and having a good time, that's great, that's wonderful. But if you happen to peek behind the curtain a little bit more, what you happen to understand is that even the dancers on stage right now are endowed with the agency to take risks, and to make choices that ultimately communicate a particular state of being for themselves in real time. But that also communicates to the audience. Such a feeling that allows them to respond and clap and appreciate the dancers' ability, and all the while being free. Just like the movement to run and no bounds, fast, free flowing movement quality, made of the hardest vocabulary of like, an amalgamation of Horton technique and ballet technique, where the synthesis of both of those forms are so masterfully blended, that you can't see where one ends and the other begins, which ultimately means that the dancers have to be so skilled at both to the highest degree of both, and then blend them together, and then do them with Milton's excellence on precision and movement quality. Genius, that that is black joy in performance, it is literally the epitome of the Black experience, to be able to transverse these difficult situations that will really have you down in life. The bombardment of images of our denigration, of...of our our destituteness, if that's a word, of our indigence, as they would like to say. But here you see intelligence and craft and elegance and smarts, if I can use that word, in decision-making, authority in their body, precision and clarity in their movement. On display for 15 minutes, genius about how Black joy was used in performance. And the subject isn't about the narratives, but it is there it is "both and" on so many levels. If we just pay attention to how Milton crafts such such methods, there are choreographers that are very much like here's a subject, say it loud, these things, and that's great and wonderful. And then you have artists like Milton where Jennifer Dunning in her 1986 review of the Joyce Trisler Danscompany said, it's easy to take Milton for granted as a choreographer because he makes innovation look so easy. And for me, again, 1986, she wrote that, and "Joy" was crafted in 19...created in 1986. Here it is, here's his genius and we took it for granted. And so I wanted to create that opportunity for him....for people to see his work. I didn't need to create an opportunity for him, let me correct that, he created opportunities for himself. But being able to have the opportunity to appreciate that aspect of Milton in a different way, is what I wanted that chapter to do. Because so much of our work, we talk about his teaching, but his choreography is just as masterful. And so then finally I moved to Black joy from performance and this was the most tricky chapter for me. It's what is the nature of an artist, of a Black male artist who centered joy in his artistic practice? What's the nature of it when the curtain comes down and the class is over? And that question got me to see that it wasn't just in the classroom or on the stage, but it was also the ways in which he advocated for you outside, or talked to you, or asked you a question about how your life is, or invited you to come experience, this...this moment or this art experience, or just have a conversation. And that to me was about mentorship. And as I went through my research, mentorship showed up everywhere for Milton that...he wasn't called a mentor. But he was mentoring everybody all the time.
I'd like to close with one more clip of Milton in conversation with Maura Keefe, in a PillowTalk from 2003 PillowTalk titled “Passing It On: Mentors In Dance.”
MAURA KEEFE: So, one of the things, I mean I didn’t realize until you said earlier, that you had already been identified as a Master Teacher even as a young dancer, ‘cause it takes a really long time to become a really good teacher, and I’m wondering if for you, it’s more important than choreography. You continue as resident choreographer at Philadanco, but do they complement each other? Does one surpass the other in importance for you?
MILTON MYERS: There was a time when they were even. Teaching now, has surpassed it. If, and well, I loved dancing, more than anything. More than anything, it was the best. Teaching was always there. And I think what I was loving is what I hadn’t accomplished. I then wanted to be a choreographer, desperately. I loved choreographing. I loved it. Desperately. Both of those things started to be fulfilled and something was enough. Choreography is still there, if something really hits me, and moves me deeply, then I will allow it to come forth. Teaching is something that is a must. Teaching is something that I need to do. Teaching is something that I have to do. And I think it was teaching that I was always supposed to do.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
OUTRO: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow, we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at danceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.