- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum".

In the heart of every community, there's always that one transformative element that bridges people, speaks a universal language, and knows no boundaries.

The arts have served as more than just a creative outlet for black and brown children.

They are indeed a pathway to empowerment, a means of self-expression, and a source of hope in the face of adversity.

We'll explore just how profound arts impact is on the youth and their community.

Coming up next, stay with us.

- [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm your host, Kenia Thompson.

Historically, we're used to preserving history in the arts, it's always been seen as something fun and an additive to learning, but an emergence of art-related professions and art connections to thriving professionals have caused society to take another look at the art industry's impact on our black and brown youth.

Two of the art forms we'll talk about today are music and dance.

Kicking things off with a little two-step, over to the topic of dance, with us to engage in the conversation is founder and owner of Empower Dance Studio, Nicole Oxendine.

Nicole has spent the last 26 years bringing access to quality dance instruction to public schools and nonprofits with the firm belief that movement empowers people and builds communities.

Welcome to the show.

- [Nicole] Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.

- [Kenia] Wonderful, I did a little corny two-step into the topic, but you know, I figured we could incorporate a little dance terminology in there.

- [Nicole] Yeah.

- Talk about Empower and the mission behind it, and why, why'd you start Empower?

- Yeah, so I created Empower in 2015.

I was a high school dance teacher.

I taught at Hillside High School for years, and what I started to notice with my students is it was becoming more than just dance.

They would come to me with a lot of things that they were dealing with, and I was like, "Well, I'm not a counselor.

What's happening and what's going on in the classroom?"

So it really inspired me to get my master's degree in dance therapy and counseling.

So I left teaching for a little bit, got my master's degree in dance therapy, and really began to understand what the connection was between the movement and the mind and what was really happening in the classroom.

So I was learning, I was doing dance therapy the whole time.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- So kind of from that space, you know, I'm working with high school students and really a lot of self-image was coming up and, you know, having the background was understanding from that young age where in our development do we begin to shift how we see ourselves.

And honestly, it becomes a lot younger than high school age.

And, you know, developmentally speaking, we're looking at younger children.

So then that's kind of the idea of, all right, maybe, it's time to open up a studio.

And I noticed there was nothing, you know, for our dancers of color, there was nothing for anyone that looked like me or looked like us.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- [Nicole] So kind of launched it off, opened up Empower, We started at Hayti Heritage Center, then we moved over to Paris Street, and it just really grew and it's just been growing and it's been growing.

And the really anchor piece of what our mission and what we believe in is that use of faith and how our faith empowers our movement.

So how do we build empowerment in our young dancers?

How can they see themselves in a positive light?

How can they not, you know, I guess that pieces where they look at themselves, or I say, we look at ourselves, or I look at myself in the mirror.

How do I find that sense of what does it mean just to engage my core and to lift, and what does that do for me and how I feel when I look at myself in the mirror?

Do I look at myself and be happy about what I see?

- [Kenia] So let's talk about that impact.

And I love the fusion between that kind of mental health and therapy with dance.

I've always found that dancing and music has been a form of just comfort for me.

And so talk about what dance does to the psyche and how have you seen that transform the youth?

- Yeah, one of the big things that I see, and I say this from, I grew up dancing.

I didn't feel comfortable wearing a leotard, right?

Or having tights that match my skin color.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- When I grew up, it was only three shades of tights, right?

- [Kenia] That's right.

- So that sense of when, you know, when I see kids that have come to Empower and, you know, we start, they get the cute little pink skirts when they're little, and to see them of all different body sizes.

And when they get to that age and they wanna take their skirt off, and they're just like, "All right, I'm ready to move in just my leotard and tights."

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- That is empowering to me because I, at that age would never have felt comfortable to you know, just be able to be comfortable in my body and to see the impact of what we've been doing at Empower by instilling that sense of like, just the sense of, you know, and I say this lift, what we do when we end every class, we end it with an empower circle.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- And part of the circle, it's all about what I say is, the dimensional scale.

So it's the accessing our vertical, and that's our sense of self.

We extend into the horizontal plane where we connect with others, and then we go into the sagittal where we extend that one foot forward and we lift and we extend from there.

And just by organizing ourselves in this way where sometimes are we here.

- [Kenia] Right.

Are we here.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

And that's beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Because my daughter, she is part of the Empower Dance Studio family, and I have noticed her presence is different, right?

She stands a little taller.

She's already tall, but she stands taller.

- [Nicole] Yes.

- And her head is held high.

And I kind of attribute that to a lot of what you guys are doing over there.

You brought up a good point about body types.

You know, historically we weren't always seen in certain types of dance because we didn't fit a certain look.

So let's talk about some of those stereotypes and how you've shattered that.

- Yeah, well, I like to laugh.

My first teaching job, and anybody who knows me, I am a ballet modern dancer, but I taught at a ballet school, and they hired me to teach hip-hop, but why did they hire me to teach hip-hop?

Because I'm a black dancer and the assumption is that's what we do, hip-hop and jazz.

And I would say that piece of seeing that representation now we have wonderful dancers that are, you know, black and brown dancers that are really shattering that right now.

We pair that with what's happening right close to home, right?

What's happening where kids can see themselves reflected, you know, back in another dancer.

One thing that we do at Empower is our teaching assistant.

So usually, our teaching assistants are young, other dancers that are a little bit older, but them being able to have somebody else to look up to, and they're teaching and they're showing them.

So it's not just me modeling, but it's also other role models that they have that can look like them and they can identify with, "Okay, well, she's doing that, I wanna learn how to do that," or, "She's doing that, I can do that because I see that dancer doing that."

And that's that piece of what I like to say, is a full circle moment of what dance can look like.

And like I said, I just didn't have that experience growing up.

- [Kenia] Yeah, and dance doesn't just have to be, I mean, we are talking about the impact on our youth, but we were talking right before the show about, I kind of wanna get back into dance and move my body in a way.

Like what does that do for us as we get older and re-engage our bodies in that way?

- Yeah, so I think the big thing as we get older in that piece is how do we keep our bodies moving and how do we stay active?

And sometimes it's like, we gotta go do fitness, we go work out, but dance is a space where it's more expressive and we have that space.

And one of my favorite quotes is a Martha Graham quote, "Dance is the hidden language of the soul."

So it's that piece of what is here in that space that's in our heart that we want to express, that we want to tell.

And sometimes, we're holding that in, and we may not be able to verbally speak that.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- But I think in the movement, we can be able to demonstrate that and really be able to move through, all right, I might be able to move my feelings versus it may be hard to speak what we feel.

And we did talk a little bit about storytelling.

- [Kenia] Right.

- And that piece where I believe it's important for each class that we teach, or each dance, I really think about, all right, what is it that a young dancer may need to hear?

What message?

And this goes back to the dance therapy, at what stage of development, what messages, you know, do children need to hear?

And adolescence it's about identity and their sense of self so a lot of music I'll choose is all about, all right, let's talk about who you are.

Like songs that might be reaffirming their identity and their sense of self.

Where the young ones, they are really, you know, they're anchored in that, and it's all about autonomy and doing things for themselves.

So that piece, we may choose music to tell that story, and that inspires them to have a better connection to the movement that they're doing and their dancing.

- [Kenia] Unfortunately, you know, we hear all too often, especially in the black family, that dance or these art forms aren't an acceptable profession, we're not gonna go to school for that, right?

- [Nicole] Yes.

- But we're seeing a challenge to that ideology, and how are people using dance as a profession and integrating it into the workforce?

- Yeah, that's really exciting.

I was growing up, I was gonna be a lawyer that was gonna dance on the side, because that wasn't a career.

- [Kenia] Right.

- It was kind of like doctor, lawyer, teacher were kind of those pieces.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- What I do see now is that we're talking more, and I even would use this as a costume designer for Black Panther.

Like, oh, you can be a costume designer, you can be a director of a company, you can be a dance movement therapist.

I think now it's exciting to see that there's so many opportunities for people of color that we're actually talking about where people might have been doing these things.

Or even talking about Andre Leon Talley, like these different spaces in the arts where people may have been working for years and we're not celebrating that, or we're not seeing that.

It could be social media now that we can see, oh, you can own a dance studio.

You know, you can be a professional dancer, but there are also other areas of dance that you can work in.

You can work, you know, be arts administration, you can be a professor of dance.

So there's all these opportunities.

And I think now where in this culture that we're living in, we're talking about that more, and we're actually seeing it as a viable career.

I think that was, you know, I never entered this.

And I say, I'm an entrepreneur, but I never entered this thinking I'm an entrepreneur.

- [Kenia] Yeah, no, I've heard that so often people leave their passions behind because they didn't think it was an option.

Talk about what your plans are for Empower?

I know that there's a lot of movement inside and outside happening.

- [Nicole] Yeah.

- What are your plans?

- [Nicole] So the next thing that we... you know, we've grown, I mentioned that before when we started off, I never expected to have the number of students that we have.

And we've expanded so much.

We started on Black Wall Street.

Moved over to CCB Plaza, where the bull is.

And now we're moving to our new studio location on the Golden Belt campus, which is a dream studio, I would say, the dream that I envision.

And being able to reach and touch so many children and youth in the area.

And giving them a safe space.

A space where they can belong, a space where they can find themselves, where they can explore dance as a career pathway or dance as a place of just empowerment and understanding who they are.

And you know, like I said, that sense of self is so important.

- [Kenia] Yeah, and you're raising funds?

- Yes, we are raising funds.

- So tell me about that?

- We have a Kickstarter campaign that's going on, Dreams Under Construction, A New Stage For Dance, and you can support our Kickstarter campaign you know, like I said, it's that piece of the putting together what does a studio space look like for our children you know, in this area.

- [Kenia] And how do people donate and where do they go?

- They can visit our website, empowerdancestudio.com, and there'll be a link up there, or they can visit Kickstarter.

Kickstarter has promoted our page as well as a project they love.

So that's how you can find our studio with Kickstarter.

- [Kenia] Thank you so much, Nicole Oxendine, thank you for all the work that you're doing.

- [Nicole] Thank you.

- [Kenia] Not just with my daughter, but with all the beautiful young girls and boys.

- [Nicole] Yes, and boys.

- [Kenia] We didn't talk about boys, yeah.

- [Nicole] We didn't get a chance to talk and that piece of what we're doing in the housing community.

So we're offering classes to children 'cause it's important that everyone have access to dance and not just keeping it with certain people who can afford it.

It becomes where's the access for our families.

- [Kenia] I love it, thank you so much.

- [Nicole] Thank you.

- [Kenia] Thank you.

- As we transition into the second half of the show, I wanted to share a clip of our next guest.

I promise that you will love her sound.

She'll join us right here on set after this [gentle music] ♪ Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick ♪ ♪ And think of you caught up in circles ♪ ♪ Confusion is nothing new.

♪ ♪ Flash back to warm nights ♪ ♪ Almost left behind ♪ ♪ A suitcase of memories ♪ ♪ Time after ♪ ♪ Sometimes she'll picture me ♪ ♪ I'm walking too far ahead ♪ ♪ You're calling to me ♪ ♪ I can't hear what do you have said ♪ ♪ And you say, go slow ♪ ♪ I fall behind ♪ ♪ The second hand unwinds ♪ ♪ If you're lost, you can look and you will find me ♪ ♪ Time after time ♪ ♪ If you fall, I will catch, I'll be waiting ♪ ♪ Time after time ♪ ♪ Time after time ♪ It goes without saying, you can't have dance without a little music.

Her music has been considered the heartbeat of the black community and is an art form that we've known and respected for generations.

To add a little rhythm and beat to the conversation, another corny pun, I know.

I welcome our next guest, she's a vibrant musician coining herself as a lyrical storyteller.

Joining us is singer-songwriter and cellist, Shana Tucker, welcome.

- Thank you, Kenia.

- [Kenia] You got me pulling out my violet.

- [Shana] Yes, yes.

- [Kenia] After four years of not touching this thing.

So thank you for that.

- [Shana] I appreciate your courage.

- And we may do a little diddle later.

- [Shana] Yeah.

- [Kenia] So share with everyone, who are you and why do you do the work that you do?

- So I am a...

I am...

I am many things.

[Kenia and Shana laughs] Where do I start?

I actually went to school for cello, but I find that I sing and write songs and write music, compose a lot more as like, the portfolio of what I do.

But cello is my chosen instrument, the vessel, singing as well.

And I perform, record, tour and teach.

I think teaching artistry is my favorite.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- [Shana] Yeah.

- That's what we're here to really kind of talk about is that impact of teaching music to our youth.

I know, I grabbed onto music very early on.

I'm Haitian, so it's like part of our culture.

And I started out, I was telling you with the clarinet, I was allergic to the read.

Then I went to the flute, allergic to the mouthpiece.

And then I was told, "You should just go to a string instrument."

- [Shana] There you are.

- [Kenia] So I took to the violin and I loved it.

- [Shana] Yeah.

- I remember not always having space for myself in school, but that was my safe space.

Share with us the work you do with kids and creating that safe space within music.

- [Shana] Yeah, I also actually started on violin, was not good at it at all, but I loved- - [Kenia] I highly doubt that.

- [Shana] No.

- [Kenia] I highly doubt that.

- Please, let me assure you, violin is not my jam.

But I loved orchestra because it felt like, that was the belonging place.

And when I got to sixth grade, there were a bunch of upper strings and only two cellists and so my director was like, "Hey, does anybody want to transfer over?"

And this was my joy.

Like it just completely resonated with me.

The same space that I saw my friends gravitating towards with cheerleading and with sports and even theater.

My safe place, my happy place was orchestra and music.

And I look forward to just figuring out where the music lived on the instrument and how I could make that do what it do.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- [Shana] Right.

At the time that I was growing up, and we talked about this a little bit, it wasn't exactly a popular thing to be schlepping this - [Kenia] At all.

- big giant, like on the bus.

- [Kenia] That's one of the reasons I didn't pick the cello, I didn't wanna be- - It was a thing.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- [Shana] It's a thing.

It is an anchor, right?

But it was so worth it.

And for me, it became a means to an end because I knew I wanted to go to college, I knew I wanted to get a degree, I didn't know what I wanted to do for a living, but I knew that I could probably get a scholarship doing music.

So that is how this came to be a thing.

Then when I got to school, I started gigging and I was like, "Oh, I can make it," no one ever told me I could make money like making music, right?

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- [Shana] It was either you are a music teacher or when I was growing up, you're Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey or Janet Jackson.

Really wanted to be Janet Jackson, she didn't have a cello, right?

- [Kenia] Right.

- For me, teaching artistry is all about being that inspiration that I didn't see.

'Cause no one ever came to my school to talk about music and doing this for a living.

And the ways that you can take a classical instrument and turn it into a thing that you love to do, which for me, is jazz and chambers soul.

- [Kenia] So let's talk about that influence, you just mentioned, stereotype is that we kind of fall into certain categories of music.

It was easy to see black and brown kids in band, but not necessarily an orchestra.

How have we shattered that and how are you working to kind of change that stereotype with kids?

- I'm thinking off the top of my head, I remember most recently going to a black violin concert.

- [Kenia] Yes, I love them.

- Two gentlemen, one plays viola, one plays violin, and they have taken their classical training and transferred it into hip-hop and pop and R&B and soul and just taking it to a place where they bridged the gap.

And a lot of string players of color are doing this where it's like, yes, this is what we were taught.

Western European music written by dead white men.

But there is the technique and then there's the application of the technique.

And for you to say, you know, you said growing up as in your country of origin, right?

- [Kenia] Yes.

- [Shana] In Haiti, music is a thing.

It's cultural, it's all around you.

You could start singing a song and everybody will start singing with you.

- [Kenia] Yes.

- [Shana] Here we have that music too.

You know, if you play anything by Frankie Beverly and everyone will get up and start singing, before I let you go.

Exactly.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- So why not on our instrument, you know, there doesn't have to be a gap between what we learn on the page for how we learn our instruments and how we apply it to our daily life.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- And I see so many instrumentalists of color starting to do that, where they're taking this historically, traditionally classical instrument and saying, "But yes, Michael Jackson."

- [Kenia] Right.

- [Shana] "But yes, Jill Scott, but yes."

You know, and all the things that are outside of classical, outside of jazz, the in-between is where we are taking the music.

- [Kenia] Yeah, kind of like what we talked about with Nicole and how music wasn't always a profession, dance wasn't always a profession that was favorably looked upon.

Even if it's not a profession though, when we talked yesterday and breaking this down, music translates into so many other components of education.

Share with us what those are and how that helps kids?

- [Shana] Yeah.

So when I first started doing teaching artistry work, I was in this space of arts integration.

How do we take music and apply it to a social studies lesson or poetry is the unit we're working on right now.

How can you incorporate that into music?

And this has always been a thing.

Like I grew up watching Schoolhouse Rock on Saturdays, you know, that's how I learned about adverbs and conjunctions.

- [Kenia] Yeah, yeah.

- [Shana] And I'm just a bill, that's social studies, right?

- [Kenia] Yes, yes.

- [Shana] But we're singing it, there's patterns that we learn, you know, in just the routeness of...

I don't even know if that's a word, but- - [Kenia] It's okay.

- [Shana] The routeness of putting something to a rhythm.

- [Kenia] Yes.

- And repetition.

Turning a story, turning facts into a story that you then either say, chant or sing.

You can talk about The Underground Railroad, if you're incorporating rhyming and putting the facts in there.

And it becomes a part of your body because you're singing it, saying it, you might be moving to it.

Arts integration is such a wonderful, wonderful way to take the facts, the three R's and incorporate the arts into a way that has always been a non-negotiable bind and a pact - [Kenia] Yeah, indeed.

When we talk about the challenges of stereotypes.

Do you see more kids kind of flying in the face of that?

And how have they received you in this art form?

- I think the delight of seeing the fascination and the curiosity and the wonder of mostly what the instrument can do, right?

We see on TV Symphony or North Carolina Symphony has an awesome touring program where they see so many schools in the state.

But how often do you see cello played standing upright or playing bass lines on the cello?

I think that there is a special joy when I see black and brown children who are like, "I've seen that instrument before.

I've never seen anyone who looks like me playing this instrument."

And just to use Nicole's word, the empowerment of that exchange is like something that just instantly, it ignites, "Oh, I see me, I can do that too."

- In high school, my orchestra instructor was a black woman with dreadlocks.

That was the first time I'd ever seen someone in that space look like that.

And that made me think, even though I was the only black girl in that space, "I can totally do this."

And that empowerment was so beautiful.

And that's what I love with Nicole and with this, is that we're representing ourselves in a way that students and children and even adults have never seen us.

We have a few minutes left and I wanna get to, you know, you're an artist, you have an album coming out.

- [Shana] Yeah.

- And I'd love if you played a little something for us, but share your album and then maybe share some- - [Shana] Share some things?

- [Kenia] notes, yes.

- [Shana] Sure, are you gonna play with me?

- [Kenia] I might, okay.

I might, yes.

- [Shana] Okay.

- [Kenia] Yes.

- [Shana] Yes, I do have an album coming out in June, it's called, "Hiding in the Light."

We're having a CD release concert on June 9th at the Hall River Ballroom.

Information about it is on my website, shanatucker.com.

I'll be on the socials, all the places talking about it.

- [Kenia] All right, we have like a minute.

- [Shana] Okay.

- [Kenia] I'm told we have a minute.

- [Shana] Let's see.

- [Kenia] Let's see what we can do here.

- [Shana] Okay.

So I learned that you know a couple of skills.

- [Kenia] Yes.

- [Shana] So I want you to play this for me.

This is all you gotta do.

- [Kenia] All right.

[Kenia and Shana stringing] - [Shana] Okay?

- [Kenia] All right.

- [Shana] Ready to go.

[Kenia and Shana stringing] Do that again.

[Kenia and Shana stringing] - [Kenia] Awesome.

All right, I think we outta time.

Thank you, let's do a little bow tap.

Thank you, Shana Tucker.

- [Shana] Absolutely.

- I appreciate it, we're gonna jam out here.

And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS video app, I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.