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The Characters: The Dancer is the Dance

In choosing the characters for the film, I wish to involve people who are excited about dance fusion, but I also want to include the voices of those who are weary of cultural mixture, and who instead value specialization of dance and adherence to tradition.

The following characters are teachers, performers, students, choreographers, and innovators. They all have their own particular relationship to dance and reasons for dancing, some are the same, and some are very different.Each has a story to tell through their dance.Throughout the film, we will see these dancers in their separate worlds, and then we will see the worlds merge, sometimes in surprising and enriching ways.

Takeshi Hamagaki: Japanese Jazz Dancer/Teacher/Choreographer

When you first look at him, you might think of the martial arts expert in the Karate Kid.  But when Takeshi dances, you see a strong and graceful body in motion.  Takeshi started studying jazz dance over thirty years ago in Japan.  Now, he runs a successful dance studio in Los Angeles called Hama Studios.  Takeshi is an expressive and emotional teacher, and imparts a love for dance and respect for the body to all his students.  He is my dance teacher.

Naila Azar: Indian Afro-Cuban Dancer

Naila studied the classical Indian dance of Bharat Natyum as a little girl growing up in India. When she came to Los Angeles, she threw herself into African and Afro-Cuban dances. She enjoys the contrast of the strict discipline of classical Indian dance with the freeing African dances. She has sometimes experienced feelings of discomfort in African dance classes because she is Indian and not African-American.

Michelle Zietlin: White Jewish Hip Hop Dancer/Teacher/Choreographer

Michelle is a pregnant choreographer. Even though she's pregnant right now, she's a fireball of energy, filled with passion and enthusiasm. She is as comfortable grooving to hip hop as she is doing classical ballet on pointe. She likes to combine different dance forms and play with different "vocabularies" of dance whenever possible in her own work. She choreographed the pieces that we shot on 35 mm film.

Irene Cho: Korean Ballerina

Irene has had a successful career as a classical ballet dancer and in musical theater. At a young age, she moved to New York to pursue her dream to dance. After touring as a ballerina for years, she got a part in "The King and I" on Broadway. She has experienced racism in the ballet world, being of Korean descent. She would sometimes be asked to apply white make up to herself so she wouldn't be darker than the other ballerinas.

Malathi Angar, Classical Indian Dancer/Teacher/Choreographer

Malathi was the first classical Indian dancer to go through the MFA program in dance choreography at UCLA. She has performed and choreographed a number of pieces, some of which have incorporated African dance, poetry and modern dance. She teaches out of her home in Sherman Oaks, and has performed across North America and in India. She has lived in LA for the last 20 years.

Frank Harris, Step Dancer

Frank Harris is a step dancer and he sees dance as an important part of his heritage as a member of the African-American community. Step dancing is a specific dance form that is closely linked with the Black fraternity and sorority system. As a result, members of these organizations are very protective of their dances and dance steps. Even if another black fraternity was to use steps from one of another fraternity's routine, it would be considered "stealing."

Ana Morales, Member of Ballet Folklorico

Ana is a young Mexican-American woman who is part of the USC Ballet Folklorico. They perform a number of traditional Mexican dances around Los Angeles. Ana feels proud of her heritage and enjoys performing. She sees dance as a way of educating other people about culture. She also wants to learn African dances and ballroom dance.

Louise Reilchlin, LA Dancers and Choreographers

Louise founded the organization LA Dancers and Choreographers, and has her own company which consists primarily of white, Japanese, and African-American dancers. She also teaches dance classes geared towards music majors at USC. She has done programs in which she went into schools with her company and taught different cultural dance forms to the students.

Nsenga Burton, Step Dancer

Nsenga is PhD student in critical studies at the USC School of Cinema-Television. She is also a member of a black sorority, and has done step dancing. Nsenga believes that many African-American art forms, including dance, have been appropriated by white popular culture. She is wary of white people appropriating black culture and dance, and cautions against exploiting different cultures and art forms for ones own purposes.

Other possible characters:

Varla Jean Merman, a fabulous drag queen who performs clubs and bars around Los Angeles.

Scotty Nguyen, Asian-American, does martial arts, capoera, hip-hop dance  and break-dancing.

Eboni Nichols, a young African-American dancer struggling to make it as a professional dancer.

Doug Johnson, a traditional country western line dancer.

Julia "Jae", an Asian-American hip-hop dancer who is part of the break-dancing scene in LA.


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