Jeremy McQueen - Artistic Director | ChoreographerJeremy McQueen - Artistic Director | Choreographer

This next guest was connected to me by the wonderful Xtina. A big shout out to Xtina. She is always sending me great guests. Jeremy McQueen is from San Diego all the way to New York now. He is doing big things out in New York. I can’t wait for his plays to start hitting Broadway, but this was a delight right here. This is when art and entrepreneurship warm my heart and see him doing great things, doing the things that he loves, loving what he does, and hopefully, in the company of the people that he loves. Without further ado, let’s get into this episode as we learn about Mr. Jeremy McQueen.

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We are getting to know each other. How did we get connected?

Christina Jogoleff.

I call her Xtina because that is her name out on the streets. How did you meet Xtina?

We grew up together. We started going to school together in the second grade at Oak Park Elementary School in Oak Park. She lived right down the street from me for years and then we went to middle school and high school together.

You used to be out here in San Diego, right?

Yeah, I did. I moved to New York for college when I graduated from high school.

It sounds like you are never coming back with the life you live in.

There are a number of different opportunities that exist out here versus out in California. California is focused more on television and film, but for me, it was always my dream to be on Broadway and to be able to tour the world and Broadway shows. In order to do that, Broadway is in New York so you got to live here.

You got to live there. I haven’t watched a full film yet but I was reading The New York Times article. I hope that you get to record something in the juvenile or in the jail because that would be an amazing piece if you are able to do that. I was thinking about the choreography and the sonography that you could do in jail. I once saw a video. It was in the Philippines where they had all the people from jail doing this dance routine. I was like, “If he brings his love of the arts, ballet and beauty to jail and they do that, it is going to be life-changing for everybody.”

Unfortunately, the pandemic has presented a number of challenges to be able to do anything like that but I think this is a long-term project for me. Even though now I am focused on these first four iterations, I’m open to ways that this can expand, not only in New York but across the country.

Talk to us about the film. I read it but for those people who didn’t read it, how did this brainchild come together?

It was a series of a number of events that transpired independently of each other over the course of about a year. One of the initial moments was the Nashville Ballet. It had commissioned me to develop a new work for them. They had paired me with a composer that I didn’t know. I had not met him before but they were like, “I think you two would work well together.”

His name is Morgan. He is a singer-songwriter from Nashville that lives in LA. They gave us free reins to think about the type of ballet we would want to create for their institution. They gave us no limitations. Morgan and I put our heads together and he said, “What is a story that you have always wanted to tell through dance?” I said, “Where the wild things are.” Where the Wild Things Are was a book that I loved reading so much as a kid, particularly because it was full of imagination.

He was like, “Let’s try it. Let’s see what we can do with Where the Wild Things Are.” It wasn’t necessarily meant to be. It is not an actual depiction of the film or an adaptation of the book but we used it as inspiration to think about what it is like to be navigating through the world since we are both queer males. Before the pandemic, I went to the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, where my family is from. I fell in love with this incredibly haunting photograph by a photographer named Richard Ross. It is this young twelve-year-old boy from Mississippi that is staring at these walls in his jail cell in this detention center. The walls are filled with etchings, drawings, all words of affirmation, and reflections.

It inspired me in so many ways to think about the number of men that could have lived in that cell before him, the number of men throughout history that are continually impacted by the justice system, and the challenges of the juvenile justice system. At that moment, I was like, “I think that this is our story.” I started doing an even deeper dive into understanding more about the juvenile justice system, the school-to-prison pipeline, and how, in many ways, our public schools are not necessarily setting particularly Black and Brown children up to succeed.

That was a huge source of inspiration to me as well. It was wanting to figure out a way not to necessarily educate particularly White audiences about the Black experience or these systemic challenges but more so to provide these young men and women an opportunity to see their lives as something beautiful and valued. Something worthy of being shown on an artistic stage and giving them the opportunity to hopefully inspire them to dream bigger and continue fighting to turn their dreams into realities.

I resonated with so much of what you said because I remember me growing up as a young man in DC when it was the murder capital. I somehow escaped the claws of the prison pipeline system. It goes all the way back to being labeled as a child with ADD. I will give you one example. One time I got into a fight with a White boy when you make your mama jokes and you are snapping on each other. I outwitted him.

He thought it was cool to put his hands on me. Growing up in a Black household, what did your mom would tell you? If anybody puts their hands on you, you make sure that is the last time they put their hands on you. I did but me and this young man were treated very differently. I was expelled and sent home. He got to stay in school. That is how it happened. I’m like, “He started it. I may have said some things but I didn’t put my hands on him. He came at me.” From there, once you get that label and reputation, it doesn’t leave you at school. That is how they treat you from there on going forward.

That is the development of a record. Once you start to get these expulsions or these suspensions, they essentially go into your high school record, which makes it difficult for you to apply for a college scholarship or apply to go to college. There are a number of different factors that will put you in the system. What I specifically noticed living here in New York City and teaching in a number of different schools, these kids walk through metal detectors.

In the morning, they are padded down almost as if the system is in place to protect the teachers but it should be protecting the students. Their minds are still developing and growing, but they are being treated like these criminals from the moment that they walk in the door every day, assuming that they are going to bring something in that is going to harm either the teacher or someone else.

Seeing the presence of police officers every morning in a public school system is so traumatizing. Chrisy and I didn’t grow up with that but we had security. At least to our knowledge, no one was walking around with a gun. In New York City, these schools are somewhat modeled to often feel like a prison. You are held captive and there are all these bars over the windows. It is such a bizarre thing. I wanted to explore in this artistic dance film and the mental psyche of what that physical limitation does to early childhood development and growth of being able to think of how you look at life.

Even getting expelled for truancy or after a certain number of times of truancy, they can arrest you. I’m not sure what the rules are. My brain is a little foggy with all the things that be going on but I’m pretty sure you can get arrested for truancy and that establishes a criminal record outside of the school. It is a non-violent record but still, it is something and it is incredibly sad.

My parents met in college. They got married and moved to California. They decided they wanted to try something different, take a leap of faith and explore a world outside of the one that they knew. My parents vowed that when they had a child, they would expose their child to all the things that they didn’t have an opportunity to experience. At a very young age, I was exposed to music, dance, and theater.

I started playing the violin around the age of five not because I wanted to but because my dad was like, “You should try this. You might like it.” I did like it. I loved everything that they pretty much exposed me to, specifically in the arts. It was when I was about eight years old that my mom took me to see the National Tour of the Broadway Musical, the Phantom of the Opera, when it came to San Diego. We sat on the last row of the balcony in this huge 3,000-seat theater so high up that we could rent binoculars.

We rented binoculars. I kept them glued to my face the whole time. I hogged them because I loved everything about that experience. It gave me chills in a way that I had never experienced before. Being able to sit in a theater with these plush red seats, see the set design, the orchestra, the orchestra pit, the costumes, and the lighting. Everything about it spoke to me in ways that I was like, “I want to recreate this feeling.” My parents were like, “We will put him in some dance and theater classes and see where those go. If he wants to try this, we will try it.”

I had no idea that I could make a living as an artist. I knew that I loved it so much so that I would lock myself in my bedroom, I would put on my CDs, dance around the room, and create my own ideas of shows that I would produce if I could. I’m dreaming of the days that I would live in New York, dancing on Broadway stages and all stuff. I let my imagination run wild and my parents continued to support and fuel that every step of the way.

I love that your parents were so supportive in saying, “Let’s try it.” At some point, if you have a dream out there, you have to try it. Just jump and you will fly.

I don’t think my parents ever thought that my interest in the performing arts would soar in the ways in which it has. There are a lot of studies that say studying music makes you better at Math, Science, and all these different things. I think they saw it as wanting to make me well-rounded but I don’t think they ever were like, “Maybe he will do this professionally.” That started to shift when I started to turn around 12 or 13 and that was when I started to know that people could have careers in it. I started talking about it a lot more. They were still very supportive along the way but it was more so of like, “We want to expose him.” They never pressured me.

The only thing that they did was they would get on me about not practicing my piano or my violin but they let me take the wheel and drive the car either as fast or as slow as I wanted. I started working professionally at fifteen in San Diego. That was pretty cool to be a fifteen-year-old. I performed in a number of regional theater shows in San Diego with a theater that doesn’t exist anymore. It was so great to be able to be exposed to professionals from New York and local professionals from Southern California, getting to learn from them, seeing that this is possible to have a career, and it is possible to see your dreams become a reality.

Is that job at fifteen your first job?

I believe so because I didn’t have a muggle job until I was in college. My parents didn’t want me to do it. It was my freshman year of college. I was studying at the Boston Conservatory at that time in Boston, Massachusetts. I loved Abercrombie & Fitch. I wanted that sense of responsibility of knowing what it was like to go into a regular job and all that stuff. My first job was in the theater at fifteen and I had my first muggle job at eighteen.

You are probably an anomaly in my interview sessions because usually, when I ask what your first job was, people give me McDonald’s because I like to show the youth that it is not where you start. It is where you end. You can always learn a lesson from that first job but you are the first person I know that first job was in the professional field that they want it to be in.

I feel so blessed and fortunate. Once I realized that I could make a little money doing dance and theater, it was what I wanted to do during the summer. I’m like, “This was my job,” and it was cool. I’m grateful that I have been planted the seed and the vision of being able to see life in the career but I know that in so many other young Black men and women, they don’t always have those opportunities. It always has been at the forefront of my mission to try to expose and share the beauty of the arts with as many people as I can to get them at least interested in it at a young age.

Let’s go through the blueprint, the steps of how you got into dance and theater. We know your parents were a big inspiration in inspiring you and supporting you but let’s look at it from the standpoint of if I’m a young person or somebody graduating high school or college. I’m interested in dance and theater. I have wanted to make a pivot towards this. Using your blueprint, what were you say were the steps you took to get into dance and theater?

The first thing was training. My mom put me in this children’s youth theater conservatory called San Diego Junior Theatre. I would go there. We would register me for different types of classes. I would go there at least three days a week after school. A lot of that training that I got in that program was carried over into the homework that I would do myself. Anytime I speak to someone about wanting to pursue a career in the arts, discipline is the first thing that I talk about because you can go and take all the classes. You can go to all the workshops but it boils down to how much you are willing to put into it. It can’t be a clock-in, clock-out situation.

I spent a lot of time in my bedroom doing research, watching whatever Broadway shows that came on TV or on the computer doing research, studying your lines, and learning new monologues. It takes a deep level of personal investigation and discipline in order to have a career in the arts. That was something that naturally came easy for me. I believe that when you are passionate about something and when you love it, it doesn’t feel like work.

I was having a conversation with somebody about this and I was like, “Black people are so amazing. We are so artistic that we create culture.” Think about that. That is how amazing we are. After we create culture, our culture is mimicked, stolen, and reproduced. Think about that. That is how amazing we are. We are not a monolith but there are so many different things that we can do.

Many stories and artists need to be brought to light to recreate this community of ours to reengage and reunite it. You are doing that with the work you are doing. What is some advice you would give to someone who would like to start a career in your industry? I know you said for you, stand on top of it and make sure that you are being disciplined. Outside of the discipline, what is some advice you would give?

The biggest thing that is resonating in my mind now is to start where you are. It is important to understand that you can start right where you are. A lot of times, people think like, “When I have money or one day, I’m going to do this.” I’m like, “No, start where you are, even if with what you have. If that is your bedroom and say you love to draw, you are starting with your bedroom and the crayons that you have right there and allowing your imagination to develop new ways or new techniques. Start where you are.”

A lot of times, people try to work until it is ideal but I have learned over the years that it is generally never a good time to start something. There will always be challenges, self-doubt, and things that will make you feel like, “Maybe I shouldn’t.” I always encourage people to start, even if it is starting small. After you have finished your 9:00 to 5:00 job and you want to dedicate one hour a day to do that artistic thing that you love, not even for money but learning more about it or practicing whatever it is. Just start and get going.

What is a trick that you do to get out of your head? I know you mentioned the rock climbing story. What is a ritual or technique that helps you refocus that energy or help you get started when you are in your head and you are thinking of all the reasons why you should not do it?

As I alluded to you, it is hard being an artist, especially in New York City because people are coming from all around the globe to do what you do. Many of them look like you with so few opportunities for people that look like us. I have battled for many years with depression and countless discouragement but one thing that my parents led me to at a young age was spirituality and keeping me grounded. For me, it is various affirmations. I love affirmations. Prayer is meditation for me. I was being able to have some private time to pray and to affirm my future, the things that I believe, and the things that I want in my life as well as taking time for you. I love chocolate. All of it is like chocolate people, candy, or whatever.

I’m glad you said that. That is where my mind went as soon as you said that. I love chocolate, too.

I grew up in San Diego, growing up loving See’s Candies. You can’t get See’s out here in New York but now you can. There is a store but when I was first in college out here in New York, you couldn’t find it anywhere. There was a Godiva chocolate store that was right by my university. On Fridays before my last academic class, I would stop in the Godiva chocolate store and I would get a few truffles regardless of how much money I had. Godiva was expensive. Two truffles are going to cost you about $5 but I would save my $5 during the week so that I could go and get my couple of truffles. I would take those truffles and I would either go to Central Park or walk around the city.

I’m in the season of trying to unlearn what has been passed down and taught to me and redefine what it is for myself. I’m trying to do more of what you do, like that self-care portion. I’m still a work in progress. One of the things that I often teach in leadership development that I got to know and love is, for example, we go on an airplane. The stewardess comes on and, in the unlikely event of an emergency, flight attendants tell us that at the start of every flight. “When the mask appears in front of you, place yours firmly over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. If you are traveling with a child and someone who requires assistance, secure your mask first, then assist the other person.”

At first glance, saving yourself might seem like an act of selfishness but the truth is though, if we pass out from lack of oxygen, we are unable to help those around us. This principle also applies to life in general. People have to remember, especially our people, self-care is not a matter of selfishness or ego. Taking care of your own needs on a consistent basis leads to better mental health, greater productivity, richer relationships with family, friends, and your professional colleagues.

You got to take care of yourself first in order to be able to take care of those around you. We need to do a better job at doing that so we can understand that. What happens is if we keep going and we are hurt, people hurt people. Whether you intentionally mean to do it or not, it will happen. To know what self-care is or what love is, you need to embrace that fully and start to work in that lens. What is one good lesson life has taught you? I gave you one of mine.

I could say so many. Believing in yourself is crucial. It is key to everything. This ties in with what you asked me about what keeps me going when things get hard or challenging. Aside from taking time for myself, it is also understanding that I bet on myself every day and that if I don’t do it, it is not going to get done or at least it is not going to get done here. Someone else is going to do it. Why not get up and try again another day? You got to bet, believe in yourself, and be willing to try and try again.

As the late great Aaliyah was saying, “If at first, you don’t succeed, you can dust it off and try again.” What do you think the future has in store for your industry?

Now, we are in a period of reform in so many ways because the civil unrest has brought a heightened sense of awareness of the inequities and inequalities that exist historically within the performing arts, specifically affecting Black and Brown people. While so many theaters are closed around the country, these organizations have time to sit and deal with these systemic challenges. They are now being held accountable as to how are you going to change that moving forward?

Performative solidarity is great. Thank you so much for your dream team shout-outs. However, now we need to start to see these structures being dismantled and rebuilt. In terms of where we go moving forward, now Broadway, as I said, is closed but when it comes back, I look forward to doing it and being even more diverse and equitable than it ever was before.

In dance, in the ballet world, we are having the same conversations. I look forward to more growth and innovation, especially in technology and how we are able to reach and compel audiences or engage with audiences in a different way. Perhaps before the pandemic, a lot of institutions were not thinking that way but the internet is such an incredible tool.

We only have to use it wisely, smartly, and creatively. It is so beautiful how technology can connect us. Even you and me from 3,000 miles away are able to have this conversation and share it with the rest of San Diego, which is beautiful. A lot of our industry in the performing arts is going to start to move, grow and progress with this idea of technology being an even greater connecting force between people.

I agree with that. This show was birthed not so long ago when we had all the civil unrest. People always tell me like, “You should start a podcast.” COVID happened and I’m like, “How am I going to do that now?” I found this platform which was what I was able to do it. The interesting thing about it is that I started with only San Diego in mind but the world has something different for me because I started looking at podcasts as the numbers. I started getting people from the UK, Nigeria, France, Spain, and Japan. I was like, “We got Black people out in Japan?”

Yes, we do. That is beautiful. Your spirit guides are leading you to think bigger, and it is beautiful. You planted the seed, you started where you were, and you put it off. You stopped putting of starting it and looked at what it is doing. I always loved those moments when we have that like, “This thing that I thought I couldn’t do, I’m able to do and reach even more people than I initially imagined.”

Important Links:

• Jeremy McQueen
• Christina Jogoleff
• Nashville Ballet
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Equal Justice Initiative
• Richard Ross
• San Diego Junior Theatre
• WILD
• Facebook - The Black Iris Project
• Twitter - The Black Iris Project
• @BlackIrisProject – Instagram

About Jeremy McQueen

Jeremy Mcqueen is an award-winning choreographer, dedicated to story-telling rooted in experience and social engagement. His work aims to create spaces of comfort, solace, and connection through reflection—a sharing of observations of what is going on around him.

Born and raised in San Diego, California, McQueen is a graduate of The Ailey School/Fordham University, B.F.A. in dance program. At the age of eight McQueen saw a production of The Phantom of the Opera and was immediately drawn to the arts. That same year he began studying music and theater. At the age of 11 he started his training in dance at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. McQueen has also trained as a scholarship recipient in the schools of American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, and Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet.

McQueen is a 2019 recipient of the Bronx Council on the Arts’ BRIO (Bronx Recognizes It’s Own) Award for Excellence in Choreography, a 2013 recipient of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago’s Choreographers of Color Award [Winning Works], and a two-time finalist of the Capezio Award for Choreographic Excellence. The film adaptation of McQueen’s ballet A Mother’s Rite recently received a 2020 Emmy® Award nomination from The New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. A Mother’s Rite has been nominated for Outstanding Arts: Program/Special, for excellence in a program or special that focuses on the arts – fine arts, literature, philosophy, and the performing arts.

McQueen’s choreographic works have appeared at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall, SummerStage in Central Park, Jacob’s Pillow Dance’s Inside/Out series, Dancers Responding to AIDS’ Fire Island Dance Festival, and has been commissioned to create works for organizations including American Ballet Theatre’s Jacquline Kennedy Onassis School, the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, and The Ailey School, amongst others. In 2014, McQueen choreographed Skylight Music Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of the Grammy Award-winning musical HAIR, and in 2019 he choreographed the world premiere of Harrison David Rivers’ Relentless Award-winning play The Bandaged Place

As a performer, McQueen made his professional debut at the age of 15 performing in regional theater productions in his hometown, and has also appeared in the Broadway national tours of Wicked and The Color Purple in addition to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. McQueen has also danced as a guest artist with the California Ballet Company and Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre, in addition to The Metropolitan Opera’s productions of Die Fledermaus, Aida, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and Don Giovanni.

McQueen cites two influential instructors as a source for his work and creative energy, Donald Robinson and Kazuko Hirabayashi. From Mr. Robinson, McQueen learned his guiding principle of discipline, doing what you know you’re supposed to do even when no one is there to make sure you do it. At a time when McQueen was in a struggle trying to make his way as a dancer, Ms. Hirabayashi told him to choreograph about it. It is in the craft of story- telling and making a way for yourself through discipline and focus that McQueen was led to start The Black Iris Project, a creation of space for other like-minded artists to reflect their experiences.