New York City dance coach Nekia Thomas-Wise was recently nominated by Fully Focused dancer, Tianna Brown for the 2009 Play It Forward contest. I had the opportunity to chat with coach Wise.
Here's what she had to say about being nominated, about being a coach and mentor in New York City, and some of her most memorable experiences, including the reality that comes along with coaching girls who confront issues like teen pregnancy and drugs.
I was really surprised to find out that Tianna nominated me! I don't really look at what I do with the girls as anything "worth" awarding. In fact, annually, I give the girls an awards ceremony during their recital where I praise their "good" work and reward it. It felt really awesome to have that sort of role reversal. You and your team, Brooklyn's Fully Focused recently won the grand prize for the 2009 Nike/YouthNoise Step It Up competition over the summer. How was that experience for you and your dancers?
The Step it up Competition was an amazing experience! Fully Focused has been in many competitions -and quite successful! Step It Up however was the first competition that they've ever won that required them to take so much responsibility outside of dance. I put lots of responsibility on the girls in terms of attendance, punctuality, and performing. The Step It Up competition gave my girls purpose in being performers and change agents simultaneously. It was a learning experience for them to be challenged to take their skill and use it to be even more productive in society!
[Fully Focused PSA for 2009 Step It Up competition]
How long have you been coaching dance?
I've been coaching dance for 10 years and through generations of girls coming and going, Tianna Brown has been under my wing the entire ten!
How did you get involved with coaching? Were you or are you a dancer as well?
I used to take modern dance classes at Brooklyn Academy of Music since age 7 or 8. I started dancing at neighborhood block parties in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn when I was about 13 and a non-profit talent show network, AllStars when I was 15. Then, by age 20, I started to teach girls from the neighborhood dances for the block parties.
One day as fall was approaching, I was coming home from college and I ran into one of the girls that had been in the block party dance (one of Tianna's old friends) and she said to me "Nikki, now that the block party is over, we don't have anything to do." That totally resonated with me in a huge way because it was true. After the rehearsals and the block party, they always sat in this area we called "THE SQUARE" in the middle of the project complex and just played spades, ate Chinese food, smoked cigarettes or weed, etc. I was going to and from City College and my part-time tutoring job. Some days when I left they were there and hours later they were there when I returned. So, I knew about the AllStars and prepared them for competition that winter. From there, I committed myself to working with these girls all year round to give them something productive to do, Hip Hop Dance. What better way to reach them? What are some of your most memorable experiences as a coach? What are some of your most memorable performances with dancers?
Step It Up will forever be a memorable performance! Attending the Up2Us conference and meeting people that were so passionate about coaching and young people was an inspiring experience. It made me feel like I'm on a mission with intelligent, powerful people!
What are the most difficult challenges you've confronted as a dance coach?
Difficulties being the coach of an all girl group have been the challenges of being more influential over these girls than their boyfriends! Within the past year, I have lost 2 Fully Focused Dancers to teenage pregnancy. Both 19 years old, one just had twins. It's also hard to keep the other girls on a straight and narrow path and encourage them not to follow their fellow dancers who have made poor decisions.
What are some of the most rewarding experiences you've experienced as a coach?
Most rewarding are outcomes of the girls I've worked with through the years. I've worked hard to take dance and teach real life responsibility. I always tell them that Fully Focused has a cool fun component and the business component as well. So, I have a girl from East New York who was in some gang when I got her, SFD (I don't know what the acronym stands for). She is a freshman in Howard this year and just asked me for a letter of recommendation last night for her business club. Also, Tianna. You guys already know her success story!
What are some of your favorite songs to perform to?
Favorite songs to perform to are almost all by Jay Z! However, Fully Focused tries thinks outside of the box in terms of mixing Broadway musicals with Hip Hop, etc.
[Jay-Z f/ Alicia Keys "Empire State of Mind"]
What do you think are some of the most important lessons a player or student can learn from her coach?
Students can learn a lot from coaches! They have the opportunity to see a bit of the future, even if it seems impossible. I want my dancers to take advantage of having me in their lives to some extent. I want them to use me for insight to structure, and planning life long things. I hope I serve as a model and help them achieve their future goals. I come from where they come from. When it's all said and done, I'm one of them! What are some of the most important lessons a coach can learn from her players or students?
Coaches learn teachable moments from students; for life and for the sport. How long do you intend on coaching dance?
I plan on coach forever! I aspire to open up a studio in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn and service so many more young girls. I'll have dance camp in the summer, classes throughout the year, and Hip Hop aerobics with moms. Then I plan on conducting workshops for moms too! Tara, I have such a plan. And, I'm training the current FF dancers to be the teachers at the studio to help them earn money!
Congrats Nekia, keep inspiring and continue to do great work in your community! Shout out to Tianna and the entire Fully Focused dance team.
Last week, I presented at the Cool Twitter Conference in Brooklyn, New York. I discussed ways in which people can use Twitter to disseminate and promote services, products, and ideas. I detailed my work with YouthNoise and how I use Twitter to engage in social conversations. My presentation was based on this idea/space I called Twitter Society. I define Twitter Society as,
"A place where cultural exchanges take place and un/written rules, etiquette, and behaviors are thusly devised and supported by the society."
The more I engage with folks on Twitter, the more I notice how this type of social space functions similarly to our 'offline' societies.
In Twitter Society, there are patterns of written language, etiquette rules, and by golly, there's even a Twitter jail! There are networking groups and clicks made up of academics, activists, celebrities and regular Jills and Joes. All of these people are engaging in some sort of dialogical relationship. Though Twitter has over 50 million users, not all of them are active. But the ones that are active sure do tweet a lot, including yours truly!
During my presentation I cited specific examples of how people engage. I mentioned one of my first ever encounters with an active tweeter; NBA player Shaquille O'Neal (@ THE_REAL_SHAQ). I joined Twitter about a year ago, but have only been active within the last 3-4 months (@taralconley). When I first joined, I began following Shaq because I heard his tweets were interesting (read: engaging). I noticed right away that Shaq tweeted a lot. One of the ways he would engage with fans was to send his followers on scavenger hunts. I remember one time he tweeted about being at the local mall in Miami and said the first person to find him at this particular mall would win a free pair of his sneakers.
Fans and followers have noted how cool Shaq is for actually responding and talking "directly" to them. They feel a sense of intimacy with their favorite NBA star. Arguably, before Twitter came along this type of "direct" intimacy with celebrities - namely professional athletes, was non-existent. Sure, athletes have Facebook pages and blogs, but it's Twitter that provides a sense of immediate gratification and direct engagement fans and followers seem to embrace.
"Howard is one of a growing number of athletes using social media to help build his image, and on his blog he chronicles some of the other things he’s done recently."
From a PR perspective, it seems as though pro athletes are adopting social media outreach for branding and image control purposes. While this may be true, I'm also incline to believe that celebrities and professional athletes are drawn to social media the same way you or I are drawn to these social spaces. They too desire to be a part of communities made up of diverse people and ideas. Call it narcissism, call it altruism, or call it our psychological need to be loved and belong to a social space. Whatever the case may be, it's apparent that these social networks speak to something human and societal, and they are changing the way professional athletes communicate with others.
As I mentioned in my presentation, "Twitter makes us more aware of our purpose in the conversation." Those active tweeters know that Twitter requires time and commitment, perhaps even more than Facebook and Myspace. Twitter also forces us to choose our tweets wisely. We've seen what happens when tweeting goes awry for public figures.
So while Twitter and other social networks allow people to connect instantly and directly, all of us are still responsible for our social behaviors and actions in these spaces. We've gotten accustomed to rethinking a position before uttering it to a family member or friend, but because we live in such a terribly fast and invasive age with the advent of the World Wide Web, we're now forced to rethink our (re)thoughts. And maybe, in the end, that's a good thing.
Johnson, Howard, and O'Neal are among many high profile athletes whose tweets will be scrutinized in Twitter Society. These athletes aren't only being watched by fans in the stands, but also by followers lurking behinds Twitter avatars. As a 'snew ' (social + new) media consultant, I'm hopeful these athletes can use online platforms of social media to further engage with fans and serve their communities off the playing field.
The Universe is so letting the sports world be great this week. Has anyone else noticed how many fascinating sports stories have been appearing in this week's news cycle? If not, no worries, I compiled a list of featured sports-related stories.
Yahoo! News reported yesterday that Ruth Frith, from Brisbane, broke the world record for being the first 100-year-old woman to throw a shot put 13 ft. 4 in. Um, wow. First of all, I remember back in the day when my fellow middle-school track teammates couldn't even jump 13 ft., let alone throw a ball 13 ft. - and these were twelve and thirteen-year-old teenagers!
This great-grandmother trains 5 times per week, lifts weights, doesn't eat vegetables (because she doesn't like them), and doesn't drink or smoke. In addition to throwing the shot put, Frith also throws the hammer and javelin. I tried to throw a javelin in college and basically sucked at it.
Ruth Frith is awesome. Period. She's also another reminder that I really need to stop coming up with lame excuses to avoid hitting the gym every day.
In other not-so-awesome-news, ESPN senior writer, Wright Thompson recently wrote a reflexive-expose, Seats of Gold: Yankee Stadium's Legends Suite Was Sparsely Populated at Times This Season - A Sign of What Greed Does to Loyalty about the high price of being a sports fan. His story centers around the brand new Yankee stadium, chock-full of luxurious amenities that service the most elite & over indulgent fans. If you're simply a 'normal' sports nut whose into Ball Park Franks and beer in plastic cups, then you're better off staying at home; you're not wanted in these parts.
Thompson was invited to watch a Yankee game from the Legends Suite, presumably because he's a sports writer. While he admits feeling the 'perks' he couldn't help but recognize a sad reality within professional baseball: greed. Wall Street brokers and wealthy Yankee baseball fans have had a long and, yes, corrupt past. Thompson details this lustful relationship in the article. But the Yankees isn't the only team gripped by corporate greed's stronghold, Thompson's commentary speaks to a larger, more tragic phenomenon happening within all major professional sports teams in the US. Thompson notes:
"A recent poll discovered an unsettling trend emerging for the first time. American families whose household income is $75,000 or less now have zero dollars of discretionary income. According to Luker, that means about 75 percent of the country can never responsibly afford to go to a live professional sporting event . . . The reason sporting events cost so much now, Luker's research shows, is because they are designed to be affordable only to those making $150,000 or more a year."
Professional pollster, Rick Luker adds,
"We have the first true sustained evidence of less interest in sports than there was 10 years ago . . . in general, sports will not be what it is today. We're burning out the love of sports."
Professional sports teams are pricing themselves into oblivion and losing tons of loyal and young fans along the way.
Thompson piece is honest and insightful. He struggles with being a loyal fan and objective sports writer while temporarily participating in the lavish luxuries of the Legends Suite. Somewhere between his charming and witty written descriptions, you realize Thompson unearths a complex relationship between the love for the game and the power of greed. Being part of the elite at Legends Suite has a moral price, one in which Thompson and thousands of other die-hard fans end up paying.
After leaving the game, Thompson writes: "Something important was lost in the transfer of money for services. The game happened. I loved it. Now it's over. People file out of every exit, disappearing into the night. They walk to subway stations, to cabs, to parked cars. Some of us won't ever come back."
(Wow, I'm totally realizing that this mid-week round up is depressing.)
A few months ago I posted a blog about the upcoming "Body Issue" in ESPN Magazine. At the time, I was eager to see how the folks at ESPN Mag would portray naked athletic bodies without crossing that all-too-contentious line of exploitation.
Well, looks like the Body Issue has finally been revealed, and folks like Serena Williams, Dwight Howard, and Adrian Peterson made the covers. Of course, we can't talk about the Body Issue without also addressing fetishism, agency, exploitation, blah, blah, blah. In fact, I couldn't wait to finally see the covers for that very reason; to hop up on my social commentary pulpit and go at it! But in my humble opinion, I think ESPN Mag does a good job. No matter what, there is always going to be a level of fetishism at play. Particularly with black bodies, fetishizing is culturally and pathologically ingrained in our social psyche. But what's also important to acknowledge is the subject (i.e. the person) claiming agency via the images s/he helps to create.
Serena Williams has publicly admitted to being insecure about her body. Despite Serena's obviously healthy physique, she, like many other woman, agonize over body image:
“My thighs… I think they’re too big,’ she has said. ‘And also my arms. I think they’re too muscular. They’re too thick.”
(If I had a nickle for every time I looked in the mirror and utter that similar sentiment . . . I can totally relate, Serena.)
Yet, still, by virtue of Serena participating in the Body Issue, does she not claim a bit of agency here? As I see it, Serena's photo (as well as the other athletes' photos) makes an empowering declaration that celebrates the human body in its most natural and even somewhat vulnerable form. And in spite of fetishizing eyes or publicly stated insecurities, these bodies in turn come to represent strength, power, discipline, and unguarded humanity.
And yes, I can argue all day about whether or not the way Serena poses contributes to or defies the beauty myth that women in society confront every day, but for the sake of this discussion (and for the sanity of my readers), I'll just end with this, from a fellow blogger/friend of Pitts Indeed:
With agency–and integrity–you know the difference between exploitation and exposure; between being taken and giving freely.
And damn if Serena don’t look fine.
And, um, I'd like to add that Dwight Howard looks pretty damn fine too.
The Body Issue hits newsstands tomorrow, October 9th. (I highly recommend viewing the "making of" video. It features all of the athletes talking about feeling insecure and empowered during the photo shoot.)
This week over on Womanist Musings guest contributor femonade blogged about Nike's latest commercial featuring NFL running back Adrian Peterson. The commercial centers around Peterson's agile athleticism and uber strength. One problem, though, according to femonde:
"[The commercial is] so horrible, I literally have to turn my head whenever it comes on. WTF? A black man can't be a great athlete without likening him to…an animal? An alien? Something inhuman, and some manner of scaly-skinned freak?"
Femonade criticizes Nike for perpetuating dangerous stereotypes, citing historically degrading tropes that always seem to creep up now and then in American popular culture; animalistic, barbaric, scary, dangerous, dark black guys. Pretty much opposite everything nice, tame, and um, light. Femonade also mentions the traditional practice of skin-branding that's been a commonplace in African and African-American culture.
Femonade writes:
"In my estimation, the best-case scenario here is that Nike wanted not to give a black man animalistic or inhuman qualities, but used “texturized” black skin to evoke a skin-branding ritual with a sordid history, but that has been somewhat reclaimed recently by black fraternities."
Femonade continues to argue that even if this is Nike's way of evoking a skin-branding tradition, it's probably not a good look for Nike (a mega corporation with a not-so-squeeky-clean history with folks of color) to evoke these traditions while claiming them for the purpose of marketing a sports product.
Dangerous territory, Nike. Very dangerous, territory.
But it's not like we haven't been confronted with questionable imagery in sports advertising before. How could we forget this gem:
This particular photo, splashed all over Vogue Magazine last year, started a s**t storm in and around the blogosphere. Everyone from fashionista bloggers to racialicious bloggers were writing about it.
Needless to say, Lebron likened to Tarzan the Ape while grabbing a white damsel in distress (though she really didn't looked distressed, but more like she was doing some kind of awkward dance move) didn't sit well with the folks. Aside from the ad being in poor taste, it was unflattering to both Lebron's athletic swagga and Giseles' graceful sexiness.
So here's the thing about the Adrian Peterson ad: It's scary. The last thing I think about while looking at the commercial is "Oh, hell yeah, I gotta cop whatever they're selling!" I'm not even quite sure what Nike's selling in the ad to begin with. The cinematography alone is dreadful - literally. Slow moving shots, grey imagery, cold, and uninviting. It reminded me more of freezing my butt off at a Browns game in Cleveland. Sure, I know Nike isn't trying to sell Popsicles here, but when and why did sports become so horribly depressing?
Without question, there are racial undertones attached to the Peterson ad. At the end of the commercial when Peterson's skin turns reptile-alien like, I can't help but squirm upon the sight of such imagery. It makes me uncomfortable. It's not so much that I fear reptiles or even aliens, but I'm concerned that these images, more often than not, make people fear each other. We're being told things big, black, dark, and amimalistic are scary, and society - a.k.a the real damsel in distress - should be scared. America has a long sordid history with attaching people of color to dangerous and inferior imagery, and because that history is so deeply embedded in our consciousness, it's best not to correlate these things at all - especially in a sports commercial.
Does this Nike ad fail on the racially sensitive front? Hell yeah it does. Does Nike have an alterior-motive to purposely degrade, dehumanize, and disenfranchise all people of color? I highly doubt it.
Unfortunately, the enormous gaffe here is that the Nike ad is an example of, (and further contributes to), our arrested development as a collective. We should know better. With that said, even though Nike has a history of epic gaffes, the company continues to work with communities of color (and HERE) and partners with great organizations like YouthNoise to make a difference in the lives of others through sport and play. Again, it's about the outcomes.
Nike did release a statement about the ad, which in my opinions sucked. My advice for Nike? Keep working with us, not against us, and by all means, send your ad executives on a week long ethics retreat.
