Transcript
Speaker: Hi, everyone.
Speaker: My name is Adam Price.
Speaker: And I'm Emily Jane Acree.
Speaker: And you're listening to the Relative Rhythms Podcast.
Speaker: Today we are joined by a tap dancer who has had an incredible impact on my journey and helped us launch our work with Relative Rhythms, Heather Cornell.
Speaker: Heather's work in music and dance have impacted generations of artists, including many of our previous guests.
Speaker: She has worked with legendary jazz musicians Ray Brown, David Fathead Newman, Lewis Nash, and tap dancers Cookie Cook, Eddie Brown, and Chuck Green, just to name a few.
Speaker: In 1985, she co-founded the groundbreaking tap company Manhattan Tap,
Speaker: which became a proving ground for many of the famous tap dancers of today.
Speaker: Through her long career, she has always prioritized the inseparable connection between music and tap dance, always working with live musicians, sharing how dance and music should exist in community, and mentoring younger generations to view themselves and approach the dance as musicians.
Speaker: We talk about Manhattan Tap, her work with Ray Brown, and her philosophy and approach to tap education and musicianship.
Speaker: We hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as we enjoyed recording it.
Speaker: Without further ado, please welcome to the podcast, Heather Cornell.
Speaker: Hi, Heather.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: I just want to say to all of our audience how important and pivotal Heather Cornell has been in my life as a tap dancer and Adam and I's work through relative rhythms.
Speaker: And so I'm just I am so incredibly grateful for everything you've given me, Heather.
Speaker: And then also just to finally be able to have you on the podcast to share with our audience.
Speaker: So thank you so much for for all of that.
Speaker: Looking forward to it.
Speaker: Could you just give us a quick like superhero backstory about how you came to your art form?
Speaker: Well, all the way back, my dad was a tap dancer, but I didn't even know that until years in because he wouldn't tap dance after he had a tragedy and stopped dancing and would never tell us that he was a tap dancer.
Speaker: But they tried to put all the kids into dance because of that.
Speaker: And I was the fifth and the rest of them were terrible.
Speaker: So they, you know, I was the last one.
Speaker: And I remember the day we were walking down the street, I was about four.
Speaker: And my mom said, Heather, do you want to dance?
Speaker: And I said, yes.
Speaker: And they took me to dance class and I was the one apparently like took five to get to me.
Speaker: But I, you know, I did ballet tap jazz when I was, until I was 14.
Speaker: And then I had maxed out a tap was always my thing.
Speaker: And I had maxed out on all of the training that, that I had any growth with.
Speaker: And I had good teachers.
Speaker: Like I had Dot Blakely was my last teacher and she was very good friends with Brian Foley.
Speaker: And at the time, Brian Foley was like the king of tap in Canada.
Speaker: But I just I got to the age of 14 and I didn't see any future in it because I want to be a musical theater artist.
Speaker: And that was and there was no history connected to.
Speaker: to the teaching at all.
Speaker: It was all, in essence, appropriated tap dance.
Speaker: You know, it was tap dance without any acknowledgement of the art form or the history or the practitioners that came before me.
Speaker: It was just, you know, here's steps and routines.
Speaker: And Dot was a phenomenal teacher.
Speaker: You know, she was really good at what she did.
Speaker: it still wasn't enough for me to sort of keep me inspired enough to stay in it.
Speaker: And also because there wasn't any relationship to improvisation at all in the way that they taught in the studios.
Speaker: And that was another thing that kind of turned me off.
Speaker: And so when I kind of went back to dancing, like I went back to dancing when I was
Speaker: 19, I guess, or 20, I went to college and got into modern dance right away.
Speaker: And that was because between modern dance and ballet, the one that you could improvise in was modern dance.
Speaker: And so that got me interested in that.
Speaker: Um, one of the people in the company that I was in this company the first year I was a modern dancer.
Speaker: It was bizarre.
Speaker: Alberta Contemporary Dance Theater.
Speaker: There's even a video of me, um, in Lincoln Center Library, apparently in that company.
Speaker: I haven't brought myself to watch it.
Speaker: I hope nobody runs it.
Speaker: But doing an improv, I think just throwing my body around the stage because I was doing it.
Speaker: I had no technique.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But at least I could improvise, you know, like they, they exposed me to improvising.
Speaker: And then I went to York and I moved to New York as a modern dancer and did a lot of contact improv and, and a lot of,
Speaker: improvisation in relationship to movement.
Speaker: But I never understood modern dance as a language.
Speaker: Like I couldn't find my vocabulary as a modern dancer.
Speaker: And I think it was because they were anti-music at the time in the late 70s and early 80s.
Speaker: It was like the postmodern thing.
Speaker: And they were like really anti-musicality.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They like to, you know, choreograph everything and then throw music on in the background and ignore it.
Speaker: That was the cool thing to do.
Speaker: And it was not cool to connect with the music at all.
Speaker: And I think I just got really irritated by that.
Speaker: So when I moved to New York, I went to the Cunningham studio because he was the most musical.
Speaker: and the most percussive.
Speaker: And then the guy who had introduced me back into tap in that company in Canada, which I just didn't really explain that well, but it's not that important.
Speaker: Brian Hayes.
Speaker: He also introduced, I said to him,
Speaker: you know, if I want to tap dance, I think I want to tap dance again.
Speaker: Where should I go?
Speaker: And he sent me to Peggy Spina because he said, oh, there's this really great woman who's also a modern dancer and she has a studio in Soho.
Speaker: You should check her out.
Speaker: She knows all these like older guys from this, from the, you know, early generations of tap.
Speaker: And I was like, what?
Speaker: What are you talking about?
Speaker: And so I went to Peggy and she's, I was in one class and she said, um,
Speaker: you need to go straight to cookie cook and so that week i went and and then that was you know the story of when i walked into the clark center and heard his sound and burst the tears knew that i was back that i had finally found my my instrument my voice you know but yeah i on my knees buckled when i heard cookie sound because it was the first time i had ever heard tap as music
Speaker: So that's kind of how I got into it.
Speaker: And then I met Cookie and then it was, you know, everything's history.
Speaker: Then he introduced me to Foster and Chuck and I met Steve and Harriet and Honey and all of the Copacetics and the Hoofers, you know, that it was just like Eddie Brown.
Speaker: I met Eddie Brown when I got the job with Jazz Tap Ensemble.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I just like, I worked, I started tapping.
Speaker: I think I auditioned for jazz tap ensemble when I had been tapping for six months.
Speaker: I didn't get the job the first year, but I got it next year.
Speaker: But in that year between I worked with Dale Conrad, Nita Feldman, Andrew Levine, I was Noel Perinty's clown partner.
Speaker: We did the first international clown festival at theater Guinevere.
Speaker: And we ended up headlining at Lincoln center later.
Speaker: We were partners.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I worked with everybody in New York that had anything, any small little thing to do with tap dance and then got the job in jazz tap ensemble.
Speaker: And while I was on tour with them, I had already kind of been playing around with Shelly, Tony and Jamie putting they all wanted to be partners with me.
Speaker: And I couldn't wrap my head around that.
Speaker: So I just put us all in the studio one day and we all met in the studio and it was pretty much clear that it was going to work with the four of us starting Manhattan Tap.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: And then I went to the Jazz Tap Ensemble.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Went straight into the company, making a company.
Speaker: We didn't know what the hell we were doing.
Speaker: We just...
Speaker: There wasn't any work at that moment in history.
Speaker: Zero, you know, there was, like, I just said all the work I was doing.
Speaker: But all those people were local.
Speaker: Gail Conrad had just gotten her first international tours and then she stopped her company
Speaker: So she did a tiny bit of international touring.
Speaker: We went to Italy twice and, um, Anita hadn't yet toured international and she was just doing New York shows.
Speaker: Andrew Lewin was just doing New York shows.
Speaker: All of them were just doing New York shows.
Speaker: So there weren't any big touring companies except for jazz tap ensemble.
Speaker: And I, I was one year in that group and went,
Speaker: this is cool.
Speaker: I want to tour internationally, but I don't want to do this work.
Speaker: I want to do my own work.
Speaker: And so, got the inspiration from Lan about and Fred about how to tour and how to have an international company, but it was just the wrong venue.
Speaker: So, we just made our own.
Speaker: It sounds like you've, as a kid, you always had this kind of desire to improvise.
Speaker: Would that
Speaker: Is that correct?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: I mean, as a kid, I had no exposure to it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: In the studios, you have no exposure to improvisation.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: For the most part, unless you're in a really hip studio.
Speaker: For the most part, the pedagogy in all the studios remains, you know, one of memorization and technique and memorization.
Speaker: and imitation.
Speaker: And there's not a lot of outlet for creation for your own personal creation.
Speaker: I'm generalizing, right?
Speaker: In many of the studios, in the studio sort of environment, the competition environment.
Speaker: And it's only recently and that's from a lot of work that we've been doing.
Speaker: It's only recent that there's any integration of improvisation into the process at all.
Speaker: And I think that comes from it's starting to shift from the experience that we had with that original generation of dancers where everything was improvised.
Speaker: And I don't know, it's a curious thing.
Speaker: Like if you think about the cookie or Buster or
Speaker: Steve or any of those acts that they did, they weren't improvising in their vaudeville acts.
Speaker: They were doing choreography and they didn't become improvisers really until the bebop era.
Speaker: When the explosion of the music happened, the explosion of the dance pedagogy happened too.
Speaker: And not pedagogy, the dance technique, I guess, happened like with Baby Lawrence and Teddy Hale, Groundhog.
Speaker: But even if you look at Bubbles, who is credited as the father of rhythm tap,
Speaker: you're primarily seeing him do routines.
Speaker: The improvisation was happening more.
Speaker: It wasn't happening as much on the stage as it does now, or as it did in the heart of the bebop era.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: It's been a while for me to figure out why I didn't fit anywhere because I am an improviser.
Speaker: And it's interesting because everything I do, like the way that my life is put together is an improvisation.
Speaker: But it took me a while to come to it in the dance because I wasn't taken down that path right away.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Before we leave your history entirely, I wanted to ask you about working with Ray Brown.
Speaker: When did you meet him and how did you guys start your collaboration?
Speaker: Well, the first time I met him, I was in Paris and I was on tour with, I think I was on tour by myself.
Speaker: That was one of my first solo tours.
Speaker: And it was in like 80 something, 87 or something.
Speaker: I was over there with this guy, Fred Moritel from, from steps ahead.
Speaker: And we were, he was helping me tour around Europe because it was my first or second international tour.
Speaker: And there was a train strike and I was going to be traveling.
Speaker: So I called him up and went, I don't know what to do.
Speaker: And he had just been thrown out of America.
Speaker: So he was like, Oh good.
Speaker: I need something to do.
Speaker: So we,
Speaker: He drove me on my entire tour for the month because, and if not, it wouldn't happen.
Speaker: But so he introduced me to Sarah Petronio and by, we all went out to see Ray Brown play in a club in Paris.
Speaker: And I was really cool.
Speaker: Jet lag.
Speaker: Like I was majorly jet lag.
Speaker: Cause I was sick and I had been on these drugs on the plane.
Speaker: And so I was like, I don't know.
Speaker: And we were in the club and I couldn't stay awake.
Speaker: And I kept like falling asleep.
Speaker: And every time I'd fall asleep, I'd hear a tap dancer.
Speaker: And then I'd wake up and go, oh, no, I'm in the club in Paris.
Speaker: And I've seen this guy, Ray Brown.
Speaker: I didn't even know who he was at the time.
Speaker: Then I'd fall asleep and I'd hear a tap dancer.
Speaker: And so then like skip ahead to 80, 89, I think.
Speaker: So skip ahead.
Speaker: And there was this grant that meet the composer.
Speaker: Now they're dance or new music USA or something, but then they were meet the composer and they were like our biggest funder.
Speaker: And because we always worked with live music.
Speaker: And so they loved this dance music thing.
Speaker: And we were,
Speaker: one of the only groups like that at the time.
Speaker: And so there was this grant and it was $5,000 for a composer and $5,000 for a choreographer to work together.
Speaker: And like there had never been that.
Speaker: That's like today that would be like 30,000 each, you know?
Speaker: And so you could actually pay
Speaker: You can get anybody to work for you for that.
Speaker: So I was like, oh, I can get anybody.
Speaker: So I just started cherry picking and I approached Tommy Flanagan because he worked with Louis Nash and Peter Washington.
Speaker: And I was good friends with Louis Nash and had worked with him a bunch.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I approached Tommy and Tommy said, no, I'm not a side man.
Speaker: That was his response.
Speaker: I used to take her out.
Speaker: And then I approached Benny, not Benny Goodman, Benny Harder.
Speaker: And yeah, and he said, no, I don't play for tap.
Speaker: I'm batting a thousand here, you know.
Speaker: Then I was talking to Keith Copeland was my drummer at the time.
Speaker: And and I said, you know, I really want to talk to Ray Brown because I remember being in Paris and thinking that.
Speaker: like that the drummer, Jeff Hamilton was a tap dancer when I was like out of it, you know?
Speaker: And he said, well, Milt Jackson was just at our gig the other night and he really liked you.
Speaker: I'll tell him to get in touch with Ray.
Speaker: And so I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker: And then just get his phone number for me.
Speaker: And he said, okay, I'll get it.
Speaker: But then Ray called me.
Speaker: So like two days later, I get home and there's this message on my machine saying, Heather Cornell, Ray Brown here.
Speaker: Call me.
Speaker: I'm in Japan.
Speaker: And all I could think of was I can't afford to call Japan.
Speaker: It's like 50 bucks a minute to call Japan.
Speaker: Like, I don't know if you know, but back in the 80s, you couldn't call Europe.
Speaker: You had to write Europe because...
Speaker: You couldn't afford.
Speaker: But so I just kind of, you know, bit the bullet and called Ray Brown in Japan.
Speaker: And he says, he said, I have this piece that I need a choreographer.
Speaker: And I told Milt, I need a choreographer.
Speaker: And he told me about you.
Speaker: Do you want to meet?
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I said, well, I need a composer.
Speaker: And he said, well, good.
Speaker: Cause I have a piece for you.
Speaker: And it was Gumbo Hump.
Speaker: And he had written Gumbo Hump and he, so he,
Speaker: So anyway, so he said, come to the Blue Note.
Speaker: Like, I'll be there next month and I'll play it for you.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So I went to the Blue Note and I took Buster to the Blue Note and we were sitting there.
Speaker: Ray was amazing.
Speaker: He was like, there's this beautiful young choreographer in the audience, dancer.
Speaker: She's got a company, Manhattan Town, like did the whole thing, you know, and I really hope she's going to choreograph this for me.
Speaker: And I was just like so blown away, you know, because respect was off the charts.
Speaker: You know, and like Tommy saying, you know, after Benny saying, I don't play for dub dancers, you know, it was like, wow, this guy really, you know, is cool.
Speaker: And then he played Dumbo Hump and Buster leaned over and said, if you don't take it, I'm taking it.
Speaker: But I was so stupid.
Speaker: I was all upset because he had already composed it.
Speaker: And I thought he was breaking the rules with the composer that, you know, he was supposed to compose for me.
Speaker: But then Buster said, stop being stupid.
Speaker: Just take it.
Speaker: It's a really good tune.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So then he we started working on that.
Speaker: We worked on it for.
Speaker: he didn't know what to do for the arrangement.
Speaker: I didn't know what to do.
Speaker: Like, you know, I had ideas, but I didn't know how to collaborate with Ray Brown and he, he was really vulnerable and we got together in the studio the first time and I must've been a mess.
Speaker: Um, but we got together in the studio and, and he had sent me just to had then, um,
Speaker: He said, well, what do you want to do?
Speaker: I said, I don't know.
Speaker: What should we do?
Speaker: How do we get started?
Speaker: And he said, well, just dance the head.
Speaker: And so I started dancing to it, to it.
Speaker: And he said, no, no, dance it, dance to head.
Speaker: That's the first time.
Speaker: And this is like an exercise I do all the time now with my students.
Speaker: But note for note, he wanted me to dance it note for note.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, never done that before.
Speaker: So I did.
Speaker: And he was like, no, that's syncopated that.
Speaker: Yeah, you got to get on top of this.
Speaker: And then he said, OK, I'm going to go away for a month on tour and I'm going to be back in a month.
Speaker: And I want you to make three arrangement choices in tap.
Speaker: And he left.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I had no idea what he was talking about.
Speaker: So I just like cried a lot because I had a month to figure it out, which I wish I'd only had two days.
Speaker: It would have been better.
Speaker: It wouldn't have been so good, you know, because I second guess myself on everything.
Speaker: But so I came up with three arrangement choices and then he came back to New York and we went, I had my dancers in the studio.
Speaker: Max was there, Janie, I think Bob Carroll was in the company then.
Speaker: And we did the three arrangement choices.
Speaker: And he just like watched them and he made us do each one about 10 times.
Speaker: I never said anything like I like it or whatever.
Speaker: And we were like shitting our pants.
Speaker: He hates this.
Speaker: He doesn't understand it all.
Speaker: And so he laughed.
Speaker: He didn't say anything.
Speaker: He said, meet me at my hotel tomorrow.
Speaker: We can talk about the arrangement.
Speaker: And so he left, we went to the bar, drowned our sorrows.
Speaker: And then the next day I went to the hotel and we were sitting in the lobby and we were kind of hashing out this arrangement.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Gene Harris walked in because Gene was working, was in the trio at the time.
Speaker: It was Jeff and Gene and Ray.
Speaker: And I was like a fangirl of Gene Harris.
Speaker: So when he walked in, I went mute.
Speaker: And Ray said, Gene, come over here, man.
Speaker: Come over here.
Speaker: And Gene came over.
Speaker: He was, oh, my God, what a gentleman, you know, incredible.
Speaker: That whole generation, it was just, they were just phenomenal people.
Speaker: But Ray said, this is that lady I was telling you about.
Speaker: She choreographed, she's choreographing Gumbo Hop.
Speaker: He said, it's so cool.
Speaker: I can see my music.
Speaker: And that's the first time I knew he liked it.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: What a compliment also.
Speaker: Yeah, it was, it was pretty, and I was just, I was so busy being a fangirl of Gene that I barely heard him say it.
Speaker: I figured it out later, but then, um, Gene left and we hashed out this arrangement and he, um, he was amazing to collaborate with because he, if he invited you into the room, it meant that you just had to understand that he respected you.
Speaker: And so he didn't,
Speaker: there were no kid gloves, you know, he fought, we fought when we made arrangements tooth and nail and, and came up with what we thought was the best arrangement.
Speaker: You know, we fought for our own ideas and, um, yeah, it was like a PhD in arranging, working with him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause I had to bend my ideas and I had to know why I was asking for them and I had to understand.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, it was pretty cool.
Speaker: And then, um,
Speaker: He didn't want to see Gumbo unless he saw it live.
Speaker: So it took him three years, I think, before he saw it.
Speaker: He finally saw it at the Ambassador Auditorium in L.A.
Speaker: in 1994.
Speaker: Then he wanted to, he said, I want to tour with you and Oscar.
Speaker: And can you imagine?
Speaker: I don't even know if I probably would have had a heart attack if I...
Speaker: I had to go to a rehearsal with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown, but he said, I want to tour with you and Oscar.
Speaker: And I was like, okay.
Speaker: And then that's when Oscar had the stroke.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: So that never happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The thing about Ray, like he kind of got me under understanding the history a lot more.
Speaker: Because now in my fundamentals class, I teach the combined history of music and dance.
Speaker: I don't just teach the history of tap because it's not separate.
Speaker: He kind of introduced me to... He would sit me down and talk to me about the tap dancers all the time.
Speaker: He'd talk about groundhogs.
Speaker: There's a step of groundhogs in Gumbo Hump that he showed us that he wanted me to put in the dance.
Speaker: He talked about Baby Lawrence.
Speaker: He talked about Teddy Hale.
Speaker: talked about watching them in the clubs, interacting with the drummers, with Charlie Parker.
Speaker: He was flat on that the bebop happened because of the way the drummers and the tap dancers were pushing each other's phrasing.
Speaker: And I wish I had him saying that on film.
Speaker: Only the performance with Ray Brown, that's all I have.
Speaker: And I really wish I had him talking about tap.
Speaker: I think it would completely change the nature of the relationship between music and dance if I had that.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I can say Ray Brown said it, but you know.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But you're a tap dancer saying.
Speaker: I'm a tap dancer saying Ray Brown said tap dancing is important.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when you were.
Speaker: I'm still trying to comprehend just.
Speaker: Having a beer with Ray Brown, I just, that's awesome.
Speaker: I'm so jealous.
Speaker: What like that interaction and that collaboration, how was, did you get any like imposter syndrome coming up?
Speaker: Like how is it working with legends of that like caliber?
Speaker: We were terrified.
Speaker: I don't know if I got imposter syndrome at that moment because I
Speaker: Um, he didn't treat me that way.
Speaker: He didn't treat me like that.
Speaker: You know, that really comes up when people are being assholes to you, you know, like when people are being gracious and humble and professional and kind, you know,
Speaker: imposter syndrome, if it comes up, then you're in the wrong business.
Speaker: I just had this conversation with a student the other day.
Speaker: I said, you know, you got to start believing in yourself because there's nobody in the room that doesn't.
Speaker: So I'm not sure why you're going there, you know?
Speaker: And that was the thing about like working with really great artists is for the most part, they were really, they wouldn't be in the room with you if they didn't want to, because they didn't have to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They got to choose who they wanted to work with.
Speaker: And so if you got chosen,
Speaker: you better be ready.
Speaker: You know, you better sit.
Speaker: Like there are a lot of things that I didn't, I didn't grab that I could have with Ray because I, not imposter syndrome, but because maybe I was afraid or, or whatever, like the whole, I could have pushed harder to do the tour.
Speaker: Ray at one point when we did, we did a photo shoot in Chicago one time before, before the 97 show.
Speaker: And he said to me, we should do a duo tour.
Speaker: you know, and I didn't jump on that.
Speaker: My life would be different if I had done either the Oscar thing or the thing, the duo thing, you know, because the door to the music world would have opened up, you know?
Speaker: And so I kicked myself for not like really going after.
Speaker: I wasn't somebody who pushed to get people to work with me.
Speaker: You know, if they said stuff like Tommy, when he said, I don't, I'm not a sideman.
Speaker: I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker: I'll go find somebody else.
Speaker: You know, I didn't stay in there and say, no, you know, it's not, you're not going to be a side man.
Speaker: I, I just, if the energy, like there were enough people from that generation that, that got it.
Speaker: And, you know, Dizzy Gillespie, like, you know, there's film of him doing this, Monk.
Speaker: Like there were a lot of great artists who really got it, got tap dance and got the connection.
Speaker: And so you didn't really have to beat down the doors of the people who didn't.
Speaker: And so if they got it, the only thing in your way is yourself.
Speaker: It's not like I'm not afraid, you know, and everyone has imposter syndrome.
Speaker: Everybody has that, but it's whether it stops you.
Speaker: I think I can, I can remember the moments where it stopped me.
Speaker: Those are the moments.
Speaker: That's something I say to young artists all the time is you're not going to remember all of the things that you did, right.
Speaker: But you're going to remember all the things you really did wrong.
Speaker: Those are the ones that stick with you.
Speaker: So, you know, that moment where you're not showing up for yourself, you're going to remember that.
Speaker: So don't go there, go to, you know, try and work past those moments and use them to get to the place that you need to get to.
Speaker: Because it's true, those are the ones that you remember.
Speaker: So we talked about kind of right missed opportunities, maybe within that relationship.
Speaker: What do you feel like, because you are one of the biggest advocates for continuing and really continuing
Speaker: building the communities between the music and the dance.
Speaker: So what do you feel were some opportunities that weren't missed opportunities that really helped you move that narrative forward?
Speaker: Were there moments where you're like, this is it, we're on the right track or people are getting it or like, wow, this is, this has made a mark or anything like that.
Speaker: Were there any moments like that for you?
Speaker: I don't really think that way.
Speaker: But so I'd say that every, every gig that I do where I'm on, on my game musically makes a mark, makes a difference in that connection.
Speaker: I remember working with four musicians or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Four musicians in Berlin one time.
Speaker: in a small theater, very small theater, but we did like an app, like two acts, you know, a whole full on evening.
Speaker: And I remember at intermission, because they had never worked at the tap dancer before, we were all really high at intermission.
Speaker: And I remember them saying like, hi on the work, not hi.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Just to clarify.
Speaker: I'm working together.
Speaker: But I remember them saying, it's like working with the best drummer you've ever worked with.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, I did my job.
Speaker: Because we should be the best drummer they've ever worked with.
Speaker: And there's been times where I haven't been on my game, but there's never really been times that I haven't been musical.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: There's times where I kind of suck, but...
Speaker: I don't go to a non-musical place to prove that I don't suck, you know, and I think that's really important that you stay in your musicality, whether your techniques, um,
Speaker: wherever your technique is at.
Speaker: I mean, life happens when you have a career that's 45 years long, life happens, shit happens.
Speaker: And you're not always on your game.
Speaker: You know, like when I gave birth and was off tour for a year and was pregnant and was bedridden for part of my pregnancy, I had to do a show with Lewis Nash's trio, like coming out of that.
Speaker: And I remember thinking, th is is insane, you know, because I can't really dance in a year.
Speaker: But I also had to do a tour of Europe with France, actually, 46 cities or towns in France.
Speaker: with my company like a reunion tour and was able to kind of pull my chops back together during that in order to go do this one but i would have liked to have been a whole lot better in that evening and you know you're not always exactly on your game but i think as long as you are consistently musical and consistently you know functioning as a musician not relying on everyone around you to keep you
Speaker: in the groove or in time or whatever, then, then every single gig you, you do is important.
Speaker: I remember I was working in Prague one time and, um, and that I was working with a very new tap scene, extremely new because the, the, um, country had just opened up right from, from and so super new scene.
Speaker: And, um, I was the guest artist and everybody else was local.
Speaker: And I went up to play with a piano player, to talk to the piano player, to tell him what I wanted to dance.
Speaker: And I, I don't know, I told him some three, four, I don't know what jitterbug waltz or something.
Speaker: And he said, Oh, you don't want to do that.
Speaker: And I said, why?
Speaker: And he said, I don't think it'll fit your steps.
Speaker: And so I said, oh, why?
Speaker: Because it's a three, four?
Speaker: And he said, yeah, I think, you know, you'd be better off doing, you know, something easier with, you know, that's in four.
Speaker: And I said, oh, could we just try it?
Speaker: He said, I don't think we're going to want to do that.
Speaker: And I said, well, maybe we could just try.
Speaker: And he said, okay.
Speaker: And we tried and I played like four bars and he stopped and he apologized.
Speaker: And then we had a great gig and we remained friends for the next 10 years.
Speaker: It's one musician at a time.
Speaker: I've worked with so many musicians where it's triage.
Speaker: They had a bad experience with a tap dancer and they have such an attitude when you walk on the gig.
Speaker: And then you work with them and you try and win them over with respect and musicality.
Speaker: This is the Relative Rhythms podcast, and you're listening to our conversation with Heather Cornell.
Speaker: If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you are listening.
Speaker: And if you'd like to support our work, you can join our Patreon where we catalog our full unedited episodes and share extra content, including unreleased music and videos.
Speaker: You can also check out our brand new store where you can get Relative Rhythms merch.
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Speaker: Go to RelativeRhythms.com.
Speaker: Thanks for listening.
Speaker: And now back to our conversation with Heather.
Speaker: We were talking to someone about the concept of musicality and this word that gets thrown out there a lot, especially with dancers.
Speaker: And it's pretty ambiguous.
Speaker: I was just wondering what your take on that is and how you teach, quote unquote, musicality to your students.
Speaker: How do you get them to understand what's happening musically and participate in a musical way?
Speaker: Well, I just had a big conversation with my tap one class.
Speaker: I was explaining to them why I didn't teach them the whole walk around and the whole Shim Sham, because in tap one here, the person who usually teaches it teaches the Shim Sham and the walk around.
Speaker: And I was explaining to them why I didn't teach them memorization first.
Speaker: I wanted to teach them a language first.
Speaker: And that frankly, they're not ready to do either of those dances because they can't swing.
Speaker: And until they're willing, until their bodies are willing to swing, that what's the point of memorizing a routine?
Speaker: Like, why not spend the time working on swing and working on...
Speaker: on willingness in your body, a willingness to shift your weight, a willingness to listen first, you know, music first, technique second.
Speaker: So we were working on all those concepts all semester.
Speaker: And today, like the second last class of the semester or something, I started walking, taking them through the walk around in order of the steps.
Speaker: And I said to them, you don't have to memorize this.
Speaker: I'm not testing you on this.
Speaker: I refuse to test you on this.
Speaker: But what I do want you to do is start to feel the dance as a concept, as a whole concept.
Speaker: But now you know who Honey Coles is and you know who the Copa aesthetics are and you know the standard tune that they danced it to and you know what a jazz standard is and you know what a phrase is.
Speaker: And you know what the standard tap phrase of three and a break is.
Speaker: And, you know, these are the things you're supposed to learn in tap one, not how to memorize a dance.
Speaker: And now you've seen the whole dance and hopefully you're so inspired that you're going to spend the next 10 years working on it to see, to get it to be truly musical because that's respect for the art form.
Speaker: But to come in here and go, Oh, I know the walk around and I know the Shimshan when you can't groove it, you can't swing it.
Speaker: You can't even hit the transitions.
Speaker: You can't stay in time.
Speaker: You're not listening to the musician.
Speaker: Like that's disrespectful to the art form.
Speaker: So, you know, it's about do we really think this is music or don't we?
Speaker: And if we do, music is a language and you have to learn it as a language, not you need to learn to be fluent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and not memorize, you know, paragraphs.
Speaker: And fluency is infused with improvisation.
Speaker: So nobody is going to learn all the basic technique of an art form and how to improvise and be fluent in three months.
Speaker: That's just silly.
Speaker: But the fact that institutions pretend that that's what they're teaching is disrespectful.
Speaker: So I talk to the students a lot about respecting the art form, about having humility, understanding their ancestors,
Speaker: being willing to credit their ancestors, which means if something comes up in class, they're compelled independently.
Speaker: I don't assign anything, but they're independently compelled to go and figure out who these people are.
Speaker: The only way you can become a musician is if you... It's like me and Ray Brown.
Speaker: It has to be a reciprocal relationship.
Speaker: or there's never going to be any real mastery learned.
Speaker: It has to be reciprocal.
Speaker: If there's no reciprocity, then you're always going to have a hierarchy that, that, that it's going to create, um,
Speaker: a lack of inspiration for the student to move to your level or a lack of trust, imposter syndrome, a lack of trust that in fact they belong at your level.
Speaker: which they do.
Speaker: Every student belongs at their, you know, mentors level and then some because things grow.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I think it's, it's a much bigger thing than just teaching musicality.
Speaker: I think it's teaching responsibility, history, respect for ancestry and understanding that, that,
Speaker: that tap dance is inherently multidisciplinary and that you better hit all the points, music, dance and theater.
Speaker: That if you're dancing, if you're trying to dance musically and you're not
Speaker: you don't have any comedy there or drama or, or angst or something, then it's also not tapping.
Speaker: There has to be some theater involved.
Speaker: There has to be some, you know, it's, it's comes from the vaudeville stage.
Speaker: It's all of the above, you know?
Speaker: So yeah, it's not just getting them to be beautiful.
Speaker: I think it's, it's bigger than that.
Speaker: How do you even convince your students that those things are important to learn?
Speaker: That's why I have fundamentals of tap and I'm trying to, I tried to teach the institution that everyone needs to take that no matter what their level, because they need to fill in the blanks that are not being taught.
Speaker: And in my fundamentals class, I have about 50% non-dancers.
Speaker: because it's gotten around that it's a really fun class.
Speaker: And so it's always cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like an hour into registration.
Speaker: And, and one of the complaints I've had from the dance department is that not enough dancers are in the class, you know, that we should, we should keep, keep it open for more dancers.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, dancers come from everywhere, especially tap dancers, you know,
Speaker: But the second that we start talking about these events, this history, and talking about the connection between tap dance and drumming, everybody is like independently
Speaker: inspired.
Speaker: Like it's incredible.
Speaker: It doesn't take much.
Speaker: You just have to, you just have to offer it.
Speaker: And then the magic of the art form is so tangible.
Speaker: Like that's why this class is packed all the time.
Speaker: I did it once and the word got around and, and because it, you know, it's, it's everything.
Speaker: It's multidisciplinary.
Speaker: It's, it's DEI.
Speaker: Everybody's, you know, diversity and inclusion.
Speaker: It's the racial mess in our country.
Speaker: It's, you know, the systemic racism in the country.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: tap dance just hits everything that is, that is America that is North American.
Speaker: And, and it's tangible when you start looking at the history and, and then also the, the outrage I get from the students about the fact that this history is buried.
Speaker: So actively, you know, they, they do presentations at the end and,
Speaker: at the end of the semester.
Speaker: And most of the presentations have something to do with the outrage that they had no idea that this was an American art form, that this was a Black American art form.
Speaker: that a lot of these practitioners, you know, were civil rights activists that without many of them, we wouldn't live in the world that we live like the Whitman sisters, you know, we wouldn't live in the world that we live today.
Speaker: And yet it's buried because it's black history.
Speaker: So just by nature of exposing people, I think you don't really have to do much more than that as long as you're honest and willing to talk about it.
Speaker: So we have a lot.
Speaker: I love our discussions.
Speaker: We have really good discussions in that class just about life, you know, and respect and lineage and culture and systemic racism.
Speaker: And, you know, like it's a very broad history because it hits many, many different aspects of who we are.
Speaker: Yeah, so it doesn't take much to get people interested.
Speaker: They just need to know it exists.
Speaker: It's been so, so carefully hidden.
Speaker: Like it's just, it's criminal.
Speaker: To kind of go back a little bit, this has been kind of in my head because Adam and I just had this conversation recently about how he goes, just for example.
Speaker: Are you going to throw me under the bus or something?
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: He was teaching.
Speaker: He was teaching a class.
Speaker: To tap dancers.
Speaker: And, you know, he said, raise your hand if you believe that tap dance is music.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: And 100% of them raised... Young tap dancers, right?
Speaker: 100% of them raised their hand.
Speaker: And then, you know...
Speaker: The conversation goes, he's like, okay, who practices with the metronome?
Speaker: And none of them raised their hand or like knew even why that would be, why it would matter, like beyond memorizing steps, like that was the most important thing.
Speaker: And so he's having this like mental struggle in his mind of like, yeah.
Speaker: How can you believe these two things in the same breath, right?
Speaker: And one thing that came up for me was something that you had mentioned in one of your, the COVID Eddie Brown things that like struck me like to the bone was you said, how many of you call yourselves a musician?
Speaker: And like, none of us were like, we don't, we can't do that.
Speaker: We can't call ourselves musicians.
Speaker: And you're like,
Speaker: It's time to start.
Speaker: Like it was almost like you gave us permission to be like.
Speaker: Even enter into that space and be OK with being a beginner level musician, as opposed to just like a middle to higher level tap dancer.
Speaker: And that was like really eye opening to me.
Speaker: And so that's something Adam and I have been having a conversation about.
Speaker: Like, you know, we have this like tap is music thing everybody says now, but we we are still afraid to call ourselves or practice in a way.
Speaker: to call ourselves a musician.
Speaker: So I was, I wonder if you just have any thoughts on that or, or.
Speaker: I have two thoughts on that.
Speaker: Two, two directions, not thoughts, but two directions.
Speaker: One is let's get back to that question, but.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because I want to go the other direction first and that's being an oral musician.
Speaker: in a world where that's not respected.
Speaker: When I worked with a lot of the original jazz players that were still from like the big band era, there were a number of like a large number of them who were oral musicians who didn't read, who were in the big band.
Speaker: And they were oftentimes considered the best musicians because they did everything by ear.
Speaker: You didn't have to hand them a chart.
Speaker: They heard everything and played everything.
Speaker: And I remember working with Panama Francis one time and all these young dancers were handing charts to this piano player that was working with them.
Speaker: And he was like, what the fuck do you want me to do with that?
Speaker: You know, and he was, you know, why, why are you giving me this?
Speaker: Why are you giving me this?
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: And he was so insulted, but that was like, I saw that as like sort of the beginning of this era that we're in, that there's no value in people who don't read.
Speaker: So I'm almost at that point now because I've kind of obstinately stayed an oral musician, um,
Speaker: my whole life.
Speaker: And there's been moments obviously where I could have stopped and gone to music school or there was a, I took a music theory class once and the music teacher came up to me and said, you can come forever and, and study for free.
Speaker: You can come to any of my classes forever because he saw my musicality.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that my reading and my my theory was my theory was there, but my reading, but I wasn't literate.
Speaker: And that really bugged him.
Speaker: And I didn't go.
Speaker: I didn't go.
Speaker: And a lot of times I kick myself for not doing that.
Speaker: But now I understand why I didn't.
Speaker: Because I'm glad I don't read.
Speaker: Because I have to rely on other aspects of my musicality.
Speaker: And I remember those musicians that I worked with and how great they were, what great musicians they were, and the respect that they engendered from the rest of the scene.
Speaker: And we need to find our way back to that kind of respect.
Speaker: You know, like I was talking to the students about this the other day, actually, because they were asking me why I didn't read.
Speaker: And we were talking about Buddy Rich in class and somebody had done a deep dive.
Speaker: And so I said, does anybody know anything about Buddy Rich?
Speaker: I mean, we talk about him and she did, you know, and she said he said that he was completely self-taught.
Speaker: He started his first band when he was 11,
Speaker: he was on stage the first time before he could walk because his parents were vaudevillians, but that he said, I'm so glad I'm self-taught because I wouldn't be the musician I am today if I wasn't.
Speaker: And, and I think that's something that I don't even know what your question was, but anyways, I think the oral tradition thing is really, um,
Speaker: in danger of being lost, in danger of disappearing.
Speaker: Because the respect for it is not broad enough.
Speaker: Like if you're going to respect oral tradition in terms of bringing back the traditions of how the transmission of the art form
Speaker: lives or how it should live.
Speaker: You also have to bring back the respect for those people who are really in living that.
Speaker: And that's being killed by our institutions right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's not easy.
Speaker: It's not easy to be someone who doesn't read in a rehearsal when everybody's reading charts, except for you.
Speaker: Sort of like you're the only person in the room who can try.
Speaker: But then I bring something different to,
Speaker: to the experience because they're so stuck in the page and I'm not.
Speaker: When we played with Ray Brown, we all played without charts, the dancers and the musicians.
Speaker: The listening is on a different level.
Speaker: It's just a different experience.
Speaker: Losing that.
Speaker: What was your question?
Speaker: The question was this idea of tap is music, but we aren't
Speaker: practicing as musicians.
Speaker: When you said to this, this group of, of tap dancers that I just like hugely respect and like have become good friends with right in this zoom room, you said, how many of you, how many of you in this room call yourself a musician and nobody raised your hand and you said, why not?
Speaker: Like if tap is music, right?
Speaker: If you are wanting to work with me at a Cornell, like why not?
Speaker: And that's always kind of like stuck in my head of like, number one, it gave me permission to be like, it's okay for me to be like,
Speaker: I was afraid to say that I was a musician because I wasn't good enough yet.
Speaker: And it's like, well, you can start somewhere.
Speaker: You can still call yourself that.
Speaker: It's funny because if a musician who's really quite crappy is in music school, they'll call themselves a musician.
Speaker: So being in the act of becoming masterful doesn't mean that you're not that.
Speaker: It's all about intention.
Speaker: So if your intention is to become a great musician, then...
Speaker: you're in process of becoming a musician and you need to start owning that, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I mean, I, I think the problem in tap is when, when people don't put in the time to really become good musicians, they're not listening when they're dancing.
Speaker: They're not, they're not taking responsibility for the time and the groove.
Speaker: They're, you know, not learning the language of music.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, they count in eights when everyone else in the room is counting in fours.
Speaker: I don't understand that.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: You know, when you can just count in four, like you could just speak the same language.
Speaker: It's the simplest thing in the world to be able to do.
Speaker: You know, there's just a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker: We've been like subjugated, I think, by the pedagogy of ballet and modern.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: And I think it's taken us away from our true heart and soul of who we are, which is music, dance, and theater.
Speaker: So we get called dance and we get thrown into this dance environment all the time.
Speaker: And so you have a dance class, which is what, you know, like you warm up and then you go across the floor and then you do an onshin or whatever.
Speaker: I have classes doing that.
Speaker: But what happened to the improvisation?
Speaker: What happened to walking in the room and taking
Speaker: you know, a read of who's in the room and why they're there and, and, and what, what they need, you know, and that's what you do in an oral tradition.
Speaker: You don't walk in, there's not a high, it's not the same kind of hierarchy as there is in, in the rest of dance.
Speaker: We have a different kind of hierarchy and we're not meant to go in and lured over.
Speaker: We're meant to share, you know, and, and so, and we're meant to, to, um,
Speaker: have the music and the dance and the theater speak first, not the institution around it or the structure around it.
Speaker: And it's meant to be infused with improvisation through the whole process.
Speaker: So that doesn't mean you go in and you say, okay, now we're gonna do improv, get in a circle, four bars each.
Speaker: That's bullshit.
Speaker: The whole class shouldn't be infused with improvisation.
Speaker: The whole nature of how you work and how you practice and how you communicate with each other and how much you listen.
Speaker: When you're doing an exercise in the class, it's a community experience.
Speaker: In fact, it's a band.
Speaker: And so if you're doing the exercise just for you in class, because while I'm working on my technique now, you missed the point.
Speaker: The point is you're in a room with other people.
Speaker: So therefore you have to play with them.
Speaker: And if you don't play with them, what exactly are you learning?
Speaker: What are you doing?
Speaker: You know, like I just think the, the, the, the dance etiquette destroys tap dance.
Speaker: Cause it doesn't incorporate music into the pedagogy, you know?
Speaker: And this thing of how, like,
Speaker: I have such a hard time when I have to work with accompanists, dance accompanists, because you know, the very like right away I'm like, no, you're not accompanying you're playing with.
Speaker: And, and accompanists are used to keeping everyone in time, keeping everyone.
Speaker: And my biggest peeve pet peeve was with working with accompanists is every time I shift a rhythm,
Speaker: they shift and imitate it, you know, because they think they have to keep everyone in time.
Speaker: They're like sheepdogs.
Speaker: They have to herd everybody, you know?
Speaker: When in fact, what I want is I want them to stay on where they are so that
Speaker: that we can experience polyrhythm, you know?
Speaker: No, don't do us.
Speaker: You do you.
Speaker: I just made something to that.
Speaker: Don't like shift to that.
Speaker: You missed the whole point.
Speaker: And that's, that's like a misconception of what tap dance is by, by the music world, because they've been trained to play for dancers that way.
Speaker: And they assume tap is a bunch of dancers in the room who need to be taken care of and herded.
Speaker: You know, and I mean, that alone is something that's got to change because we're percussionists and, you know, an accompanist needs to come into the room and understand that they're now playing.
Speaker: If they're playing percussion, they're now playing with 12 percussionists, you know, not keeping a bunch of dancers in line.
Speaker: and holding their hands, you know, and there's just so many things, like there's so many ways we can train.
Speaker: Like I know I don't count in for my class.
Speaker: I don't ever count in for my class.
Speaker: I, they have to learn how to count themselves in and they have to come in at the top of
Speaker: a chorus, not in the middle of a chorus.
Speaker: And they have to learn what the structure of the tune is in order to understand how to do that.
Speaker: So, you know, if you have a class and you're going five, six, seven, eight, you know, every time you want the class to start or move across, what did you just teach them musically?
Speaker: Like you should have to count somebody and they should hear what an intro is and they should understand that they come in, you know, at this place and they should make smart musical choices.
Speaker: you know, all the time while they're training and be building all of that.
Speaker: So it all happens like multi, like it's all happening at the same time.
Speaker: I think if we get on top of our pedagogy, we're just naturally teaching improv musicality, you know, history, survey theory, all of that can happen in a class.
Speaker: If we, if we understand it well enough to be able to actually, um,
Speaker: pass it on with, with context.
Speaker: Cause really when you're playing music, you're doing more than one thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, like if you're, if you have dancers, tappers who, um, every time they get, they speed up, they get loud.
Speaker: You know, that's a great example, right?
Speaker: Well, that's because they never learned that those are two independent things, that they're independent.
Speaker: So they have to practice, you know, speeding up and not getting loud, getting loud and not speeding up.
Speaker: They have to practice these things independently and then put them together.
Speaker: You know, that's training musicality.
Speaker: There's just so many aspects to it.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: But I'm really into this thing about fluency right now, about artistic fluency.
Speaker: And just any, actually, even beyond artistic fluency, just any kind of,
Speaker: pedagogy that exists in our society today, I think has gotten too far divorced from improvisation.
Speaker: I think improvisation is the true key for fluency.
Speaker: And I think a lot of what's going on in public schools, a lot of what's going on in our own pedagogy and tap dance, in other forms of dance, we've lost the improvisational aspects of it.
Speaker: And that's really messing up our fluency.
Speaker: Yeah, I feel like there's I mean, that's the whole public school, like teach to the test past the, you know, statewide board, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Teaching tests.
Speaker: No, I think I think I noticed it in the students coming in my classrooms that they're afraid of their own ideas.
Speaker: or they're just completely disconnected from their own creativity.
Speaker: They think memorization is being creative.
Speaker: They think, you know, being tested is being, is proving their creativity.
Speaker: Like it's just, it's so not real.
Speaker: It's just not real.
Speaker: You know, it's not, it's not the true source of creativity, memorization and imitation.
Speaker: And we're seeing way too much of that right now.
Speaker: So, I mean, there's a lot of great things.
Speaker: Like it sounds like a lot of doom and gloom, but there's a lot of great things.
Speaker: There's a lot of great artists that come in, great dancers, great young minds and things, but people, for the most part, there's a fear of their own voice.
Speaker: You ask a question and 20, 30 years ago, everybody would get animated.
Speaker: But now you ask a question and everyone takes a step back and gets really uncomfortable.
Speaker: And it takes a long time to get them out of that.
Speaker: That's why I love my fundamentals class, because we have these very intense conversations and the students are saying, and my improv classes too, they really say what they mean.
Speaker: They start to say what they mean.
Speaker: But when I get them when they first come in, they're pretty terrified of having an opinion.
Speaker: That's certainly not unique to dance.
Speaker: I've noticed that as well.
Speaker: Why do you think that is?
Speaker: I think the way that we teach.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that it's all, it's like, it's not just like you said, Adam, it's not just in this dance studio.
Speaker: Like we can say all sorts of things about a dance studio, but it's like you said, Heather, it's the public schools.
Speaker: It's the way we're trained and the way we're taught and the way we're...
Speaker: existing young, young students are existing right now is it's, you don't want to be wrong.
Speaker: I don't want to be wrong.
Speaker: I mean, I don't want to be wrong, you know, and, and not being encouraged to be wrong in, in the place where you're learning, which is the best place to be wrong.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I started a thing.
Speaker: Whenever I feel like a class is just not jumping in, I do stump the professor.
Speaker: Did I tell you about that?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they have to come up with something about tap dance that I don't know.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Has anyone stumped you?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They're doing pretty good, actually.
Speaker: But the funniest was this girl today.
Speaker: She's like, I know you're probably going to know this.
Speaker: And I said, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: Just do it anyways.
Speaker: Because then somebody, you know, we're going to hear about stuff.
Speaker: And so she said, well, there's this dancer in Barcelona.
Speaker: And his name is Giam, I think.
Speaker: And I said, Giam Alonso.
Speaker: And she was like, oh.
Speaker: And I said, well, what's your fact?
Speaker: And she said, well, he does this like sand dancing and he had the first international festival in Barcelona.
Speaker: And she said, did you know that?
Speaker: And I said, well, who do you think taught him how to sand dance?
Speaker: And she was like, I don't know.
Speaker: I said, me.
Speaker: I guess he headlined at the first international Barcelona festival.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, no.
Speaker: I said, if you want to stump me, don't do stuff from the 80s and 90s.
Speaker: I was there.
Speaker: Go back to the 60s.
Speaker: I don't have a clue what was happening in town in the 60s.
Speaker: But no, one of them, somebody came up with something about Chloe and Maude that I didn't know.
Speaker: But one kid...
Speaker: came up with this dancer in Japan on a reality TV show.
Speaker: I was like, you win.
Speaker: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker: But they have to prove it too.
Speaker: They have to like put, so they have, first they have to stump me in class and then they have to put it on the community page with proof.
Speaker: They have to say, I stumped the professor and then they have to put the proof.
Speaker: If I can find ways to get them to laugh, then they open up, they start opening up.
Speaker: You know, like they make a game of it.
Speaker: They start to like loosen up a little bit and it should be fun, you know.
Speaker: There's been some really good research because of that, actually.
Speaker: And it's great because it's painless because they're trying really hard to figure out what is going to stump me, you know, and so they go down rabbit holes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You can't, you say to them, you have to do this research tonight.
Speaker: And they never do.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Yeah, we just have to keep thinking of stuff like that because who's going to keep telling these kids to do research when they graduate?
Speaker: Nobody.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We have to turn it on now.
Speaker: You know, it's got to get turned on now.
Speaker: Oh, I heard about, I need to know who that is.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: You know, you go and look.
Speaker: I also tell them to talk about all these guys at like Thanksgiving.
Speaker: Like when I said goodbye to them, it was like, make sure that you mentioned Honey Coles and Cookie Cook and Buster Brown and Jimmy Slide at the dinner table.
Speaker: and tell everybody something about them, you know, be ready to tell them.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We just have to get back into the fabric of who we are, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you, Heather, so much for everything.
Speaker: We really appreciate you.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: Thanks for doing this.
Speaker: It's great to be, to be included.
Speaker: You've been listening to our conversation with Heather Cornell.
Speaker: You can find out more about Heather and her various projects at manhattantap.org or on the socials at officialheathercornell.
Speaker: If you liked our conversation today, please follow and leave a rating or review wherever you are listening.
Speaker: If you'd like to support our work, you can join us at patreon.com slash relative rhythms, where you can gain access to all of our uncut episodes and extra content.
Speaker: Our theme song is For the Love of It by the Adam Price Group.
Speaker: featuring Emily Jane Agree on foot percussion.
Speaker: Our mid-roll music was Parallel Realms, and our outro music is NY Nocturne, both off of Heather's incredible album, Making Music Dance.
Speaker: Don't forget to follow us on all the socials at Relative Rhythms, and feel free to send us a message.
Speaker: Check out our merch on our website, relativerhythms.com.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next episode.
Speaker: We'll see you next episode.
