The Link Between Dance and Health In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Joseph Jeffers, the CEO of Advice Support Knowledge Information (ASKI), a London-based non-profit organization dedicated to serving older individuals from the Global Majority.
The Link Between Dance and Health
DanceCast is a podcast that spotlights non-traditional dance artists. It is produced by Silva Laukkanen, an advocate for inclusive dance based in Austin, TX.
In this episode of DanceCast, Silva interviews Joseph Jeffers, the CEO of Advice
Support Knowledge Information (ASKI), a London-based non-profit organization dedicated to serving older individuals from the Global Majority. He reflects on his training and career in dance, and how that led him to working in the non-profit sector. When he started ASKI, he integrated many kinds of dance classes into its programming. He’s committed to spreading a message of health and wellness by creating an atmosphere where people feel comfortable seeking preventative care and asking for support. He also shares some of his findings from his Winston Churchill Fellowship where he went to South Africa to research the link between dance and health. He’s particularly interested in how institutionalized racism impacts Black bodies.
Joseph Jeffers is the Chief Executive Officer of Advice Support Knowledge Information (ASKI), a London-based non-profit organization dedicated to serving older individuals from the Global Majority. ASKI provides a comprehensive range of services aimed at enhancing the well-being and social engagement of its clients. In 2024, ASKI was awarded the Kings Award for Voluntary Service.
Joseph's journey began with a passion for dance, which he pursued from childhood through to a formal degree in Dance in 1985. His professional career as a dancer took him to more than 65 countries, enriching his understanding of cultural expressions and movement. Recognizing the transformative power of dance, ASKI incorporates dance into its programs to combat social isolation among older adults, currently serving more than 85 individuals aged 68 to 90 on a weekly basis.
In addition to his role at ASKI, Joseph has been awarded a prestigious Winston Churchill Fellowship. This opportunity has taken him to South Africa, where he explored innovative approaches to movement and social connection. Later this year, he will complete the Fellowship in the Caribbean, focusing on the relationship between movement and isolation in older bodies.
Joseph is in the final year of an MA in Dance: Participation, Communities, and Activism from The London Contemporary Dance School, further solidifying his commitment to using dance as a tool for community engagement and social change. His multifaceted experience and dedication to improving the lives of older individuals exemplifies his leadership in the non-profit sector.
Welcome to dancecast, the podcast in which I interview people who create inclusive dance all around the world. My name is Silva Laukkanen, and I am your host. Welcome to episode 87 Yeah, we're getting so close to being 100 episodes. That's so exciting. In this episode, I got to speak with another student at the MA program at the London contemporary dance school. He is in his year two, so he's about to graduate. And his name is Joseph Jeffers, who is the Chief Executive Officer of advice, support, knowledge, information, short for ASKI, a London based nonprofit organization dedicated to serving older individuals from the global majority, ASKI provides a comprehensive range of services aimed at enhancing the well being and social engagement of its clients. In 2024 ASKI was awarded the king's award for Voluntary Service. Yeah, that is also so exciting. Congratulations. Joseph's journey began with a passion for dance, which he pursued from childhood through to a formal degree in dance. In 1985 his professional career as a dancer took him to over 65 countries, enriching his understanding of cultural expressions and movement, recognizing the transformative power of dance. ASKI incorporates it into its programs to combat social isolation among older adults currently serving over 85 individuals aged between 68 to 90 on a weekly basis. In addition to his role at ASKI, Joseph has been awarded a prestigious Winston Churchill fellowship. This opportunity has taken him to South Africa, where he explored innovative approaches to movement and social connection. Later this year, he will complete the fellowship in the Caribbean focusing on the relationship between movement and isolation in older bodies. Joseph is also in the final year of an MA in dance communities participation and activism, further solidifying his commitment to using dance as a tool for community engagement and social change. His multifaceted experience and dedication to improving the lives of older individuals exemplify his leadership in the nonprofit sector. Here's the episode with Joseph. Joseph, welcome to DanceCast.
Thank you.
I've been trying to learn so much about ASKI, and you write reading in internet, but ASKI is huge thing, so I think you gotta tell me about it. First of all, I learned that it's actually advise, support knowledge and information, and that's where ASKI is coming from, and that you started it. Tell me, like what it is and what made what was the impetus for you to start it, and how does dance fit in there? And all of those things.
Okay, cool. So basically, ASKI has now been established for about just over 13 and a half years. It's, I think, in America, you call it a non for profit organization. And I never set out to set up an organization. I set up the organization because of frustration I was working in lots of organizations when I was applying to become this, to become a CEO, and each time I applied, I was told that I'd missed out by a couple of points, and then I would then be asked to induct the new CEO. And I just got very frustrated. How come I'm able to induct a new CEO, but you're not employing me. And also I then started realizing that anytime I asked for anything within the organizations I worked, as it pertained to people from the global majority, it was always a no. And it's, you know, we don't really think that. That's something where we want to go, and we don't see color, we treat everybody the same, and and so I just thought, I'm not the type of person who will just sit around and complain if something's not working out. I'd like to do something different. And I remember very specifically calling a good friend of mine, and I said to her, I've decided I'm going to leave my job. I'm going to set up my own organization. And I chose the person wisely, and that's what I would always recommend, because I wanted the person to say yes. I didn't want someone who was going to say to me, have you got enough money to pay your mortgage? Will you get another job? And she said yes, and I gave my notice in and I started the organization with $500 500 pounds of my own money, and basically just worked really hard at engaging people within the community from the very beginning, as opposed to lots of non for profits. I decided that the approach was going to be co-production, that I wouldn't be going away and making programs and then expecting people to turn up. I was going to do the work, engage with the community, find out what they wanted, find out how I could involve them in the monitoring, the evaluation, the poster, design, everything, and that way of working takes a lot longer, but ultimately it makes people feel invested within the organization. And so from day one, it just started to work. It began to grow. We went from a very small room where I think there was about 15 people. And within six months, I think we had over 100 people. And then we had to start looking for premises. And we moved around lots of different premises all over the actual borough that we live in, London. And ultimately, maybe three years ago, we established the site that we are in now, which is in Croydon in London. And here we have at the front of the building, we have a community cafe that's open to the public as well as and we have a small dance studio, and we also use another professional dance studio for some of our classes we have in the last three months, opened in another part of London called Sutton. So we've got another branch now, and that branch is primarily where we look at arts, crafts, garment construction, painting, creative writing as a way to get older people engaged. So I should say the work that we do primarily work, we work with older people. And we work with older people from the age of kind of 60-65 plus. And our oldest member at the moment is thinking about 89 or if not 90. Yeah, we work on average with 125 people a week. We have a full program of activities. And in terms of how dance came into it, I trained as a dancer back in the 80s. I did a degree at Leicester Polytechnic. I studied Graham Limone technique after finishing my degree, I went on to do what I think you'd call cabaret dancing. I worked on cruise ships, did that for a number of years and traveled and then I decided to stop that, because I think it's one of those kind of careers. Each time you come back home, you realize that all your friends, they got 9 to 5 jobs, and you just came back and you just realized people were settling down, having families. And so it was just very difficult. And so I decided to get a job in the non for profit sector, and then I stayed within the sector... dance...
Yeah, I want to ask this, how did you how? How did you end up in a dance world in the first place? Like, how did you end up studying dance?
Okay, so, so, basically, my mom sent me to stage school when I was little. So I started when I was about six, and I did kind of tap and modern and jazz, and end up doing sort of like competitions. And I did that for a number of years, did all my grades and my exams, and then I gave up dance and decided I didn't want to do it anymore. And then we had the era of Saturday Night Fever and Fame, and that kind of brought it all back. And I decided, yeah, I do want to do dance. And so I applied to do a degree, and I was accepted. And I suspect looking back on it now, in those days, there were very few boys doing dance. So the reality was, I knew that if I could get my degree, the chances of having a career and getting work were going to be kind of good, and so yeah, and that's, that's, that's what I did, and I suppose it has, it has a direct impact on the work that I do now, because I was always somebody who was very outgoing. I was always good at meeting people, making people feel comfortable, not having a problem, which with with strangers, creating groups. And so basically that work from dance resonated in them me moving into setting up my own organization and in all aspects of my life, because it just teaches you kind of a, kind of a false fearlessness, I suppose. And.
yeah, false fearlessness, I like that,
yeah. And then I suppose what happened was, as I said, it was, dance is one of those things. I think it's a bit like, although I can't ride a bike, but I think it's like riding a bike, apparently you never forget. And so once I actually started teaching, I realized how much I'd actually missed dance. And so yeah, I decided, let's try and actually move it into the organization. And as I was now the CEO of my own organization, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. So I started off teaching all the classes myself, as well as running the organization and doing the funding. And then it began to get too much. And then one day, maybe five, five years into being the CEO of my organization, I was walking down the street, and I just didn't feel very well, and then I woke up and I'd had a stroke, so I ended up in a stroke Ward, and I woke up and they said, you've had a minor stroke. And I was going, but I'm not an elderly person. What do you mean? But I'd had a minor stroke, and that was a wake up lesson for me, because I because I was running my own organization, and I was so passionate about it, and I still am. I never used the word no. I was always saying yes. And I was also maybe one of those foolish people that would you, that would say, Oh, I don't suffer from stress, but often stress we don't see it. And so it was interesting in both things. One by say, starting to say no meant that my health got better. But I also realized that what also saying no can actually do if you go from being a yes person to a no person, it can actually upset lots of people, because they think you no longer care about them. But in many ways, what you realize is that you're being used or you're being manipulated. And I think the idea of putting yourself first isn't something that I was brought up to do, I was brought up, but I was adopted when I was three years old. The people who adopted me was quite religious. My mum was a minister, and so basically, we were brought up with this notion that you always had to be there for everybody. And they also had this kind of notion that even if people weren't kind to you that somehow you would receive your reward in heaven. And so that kind of idea that basically, you can be treated terribly by anybody, because one day, when you die, you're gonna get some kind of reward. And it's funny that there's some people I work with now, in terms of elderly people, they still believe that, which is very interesting, because my final project for my masters, which we may come back to, interestingly enough, is looking at how institutionalized racism impacts black bodies and how it causes trauma. And I think it's one of those kind of issues that people kind of are very fearful about talking about. You start talking about race, and people get very touchy, and let's ignore it, but it's such an important kind of topic that I think to myself that it's something that you do need to talk about, you do need to touch upon it. You do need to look at inequalities, and you do need to see how we can actually jointly address them. So that's kind of a pot, kind of potted kind of idea of how we got to ASKI, but there was never one plan that I was going to set up ASKI my plan was I was going to work, I would have probably followed that path in Britain, where at 60 if you're a woman, and at 65 if you're a man, you retire, and then basically, and that's it. And what's actually happened is, since I started my own organization. It's almost as if, in my late 50s, now late 60s, it's almost I have a new lease of life and a new passion and something that I'm very interested in, and it's something that I hadn't even realized before how many people, or black people, I should say, older people, don't have access to dance, or never exposed to dance,
right.
Not something you know that was, was, it was, you know, they didn't take part in dance classes. And a lot of the dance classes that we do have in Britain, I mean, obviously, to go to something like The Place that's different, but like in your normal kind of community setting in any high street. It's mainly things like Zumba taught by site, taught by somebody who's done a one day course and never kind of look at the skeletal system. Don't know about osteoporosis, nothing, and people just having lots of injuries everywhere. And yeah, I think for me since, since we introduced, I mean, we even some of our elderly people now we also do dance exams. So some of them at 80 have taken their first kind of dance exam, and they're very, very proud of it. So, yeah,
yeah, that's a really cool that idea that you can bring into them this exam and like you're actually accomplishing something. Because, you know, we so often in the society, think that when you get to a certain age, that's it. You're you don't have to, have to accomplish anything anymore. But I love that idea that you're bringing that to be in a possibility. And I saw your schedule for ASKI you have dance almost every day offered,
yeah, we do left what do we do? We do seated dance, we do Caribbean dance, we do African dance, we do line dance, we do Pilates, we do our Alexander technique, we do Tai Chi, and we do yoga. So there's something for everybody. And all the classes we do have the ability to either do it standing or sitting, or combination of both. One of the things I'm looking to do now that once I finish my masters, I'm going to do some additional training in the whole area of dementia and dance, because there's a huge increase in the number of older people from the Caribbean community who have got onset dementia. And in, how do I put this, for lots of people, there's still, especially if people are kind of religious, there's still this kind of notion that people who may have a mental health issue or people who've got dementia, it's kind of linked with kind of superstition and voodoo and all and so getting people to actually think of it in a medical way, and that there are treatments, or there are ways of slowing it down, or ways of doing preventative work. It's part of the mission as well. Because the reality is, for me, where health policy doesn't really often work, is that the policy is often designed to work after someone's ill or after they've had a stroke, and people don't want to invest the money prior. And even within the people that we work with, we work for and with. It's like our classes. We charge if you can't afford to pay, it's free, but if you can afford to pay, an hour's class is the equivalent of $3.50 and
so very affordable,
very affordable, but even that, sometimes people don't want to invest. But if you were having a party or something, people would be happy to go out and buy a new dress, get their nails done or whatever. And part of our discussions with people is, you know, maybe you can do both, but the reality is, you need to look after your health, and for me, particularly with with older black bodies, in terms of the diet they eat, the diet is very akin to what they would eat in the Caribbean. It's a very full diet. It's kind of six days a week would have meat involved maybe, you know it's heavy. You're living in England where you're not walking, you're not sweating, you're not doing any kind of activity. You may be on four or five different types of medication, and you're looking at me and going, Joseph, why am I putting on weight? And it's not having that link between the fact that as we get older, we need to actually make small changes or any change. So part of the work that we do as well, in a very quiet way, through our dance and through our activities, is to talk about health, but not in a very preachy way, not in a way that shuts people down and we find now most of our members now won't miss their checkups. They will go for their checkups. Most people women now, you know, if they get a cancer diagnosis, they will talk to somebody. They won't go quiet for ages. And I think we've just tried to, and continue to try and create an atmosphere where people can talk openly and get support, and we link with lots of organizations, so the work that we can't do because clearly, we're not specialist we're not medical specialists, but we have ways of signposting people who know us as an organization, as a non for profit, and so it causes a shortcut when they get there or in them getting an appointment.
Oh, that's, that's super nice. Wow. And you went to Caribbean? Didn't you just go to Caribbean yourself?
Did I...?
Did you go to did you travel to Caribbean somewhere? You went to South Africa, and
I won a Winston Churchill Fellowship, which is researching the link between dance and held. So I've spent so far just under four weeks in Johannesburg, and I went to places like Soweto, Eldorado Park, one of my colleagues is actually based in South Africa, Gladys. And then I went to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, where I was looking again at at folk folk dance, and how folk dance is actually kind of dying out, and what it means to heritage. And once I finish my MA in a couple of months, I'm finishing my Churchill fellowship, I'm going to Ghana to look at dance and rituals, and then that will be the end of my Churchill fellowship. Yeah,
wow,
yeah,
wow. What did you What did you find out? What was some of the nuggets? What is this? That's like, super rich topic. I want to just hear all about that like..
um, I guess, in a nutshell, I think what's what surprised me? Well, I don't know whether it surprised me or not, but I guess South Africa is a kind of a country of two halves, the rich and the poor. And I kind of think if you're born poor, to get out of poverty, it's quite difficult. And I think I visited lots of organizations where there were women in the 80s who they had choirs, where they use choirs as a way of reducing isolation, or basic kind of dance exercise that they were doing. But then, when I compare it to England, they were walking maybe four and a half miles to get to the to the center, and four and a half miles back. And in South Africa, they've got something called load shedding, so basically, at any point in time, the lights would go out. So when I compare it to sort of like the luxury we have in Britain, where you just pop on the bus and you go and do a class, it's completely different. I think what I've found is that there was a level of determination amongst the people I met, older people I met in South Africa. Nobody was saying, Oh, poor me. They were kind of they're survivors, and I think they've come from from a history that, I guess, has made them survivors. I think one of the things that I was very disappointed about is that in South Africa after the age of 30, nothing is actually funded in terms of the arts. I met with the Arts Council when I was there, and they don't fund anything after 30 for anything, all the work that they do in terms of maybe dance or any type of art, it's for young people. Certainly if you're a woman, it's very, very difficult to have a career. It tends to be very male orientated. I met a number of dance schools I went to moving into dance, which is the big dance school in South Africa, and I was just kind of overwhelmed with the work that they're doing, to the point that I'm going to be setting up a scholarship to pay for one of the students for the next three years, starting in September, so that a woman can actually an older woman will be able to attend, because I just kind of feel there's so much, why should talent go unnoticed just for the sake of money? And in comparison, to say, a course in London, it's very affordable, and hopefully in time, I would like to fundraise to try and, you know, maybe have several scholarships, because I think, having been adopted at three, I think that there's something about my personality that I also want to give help to other people so that they too, can fulfill their ambitions. And I think I read something when I was when I was in South Africa, and I think Desmond Tutu said that in order to be a great leader, you have to be able to serve. And I think there are so many people who call themselves leaders, but are not good at actually serving or listening or reflecting, they bask in the glory of leadership. So within my organization, for instance, if anybody came in, whether it was a funder or anybody, unless they were to ask, they wouldn't know that I was the chief executive, because I don't have a need to wear a suit. I don't have a need to talk in a very academic way, which I can do. And I find that when I was working for other people, where it was very suit cultured, you found out we never found out anything about the people we were working for, and in many ways, the organizations I work for, they make people feel as if it was a privilege to get a service. Well, it's not a privilege. It's a charity, and everybody working in the charity is paid to do the job, and it's your job. But some people kind of make people. Try to make one. They try to make people feel that you should be grateful. And I think once you when you have an ethos like that, or when you have a system like that, it doesn't create an atmosphere where people are going to want to talk. People want to develop. I'd like to think on the research that we've done externally, that people feel that ASKI is theirs. You know, I facilitate, I lead the facilitation, but it's their building. It's their center. And if they said, you know, where we would like to start doing stuff on a Sunday, I will make everything possible to make that happen for them. I won't say, well, basically, we only work Monday to Saturday, so it's a no. And I hate I've worked in lots of organizations as well where had people who managed me, and it feels as if the only thing they knew how to say was No. It was never possible. It was a no. And even when they said they were going to think about it, you get an email later in the afternoon, it was a no. So one of my things is like, kind of like, let's not say no so often, yeah, yeah,
yeah. You know, it makes me think of this thing we, at least here in the US constantly, is this, like, this is safe space. This is safe space. But then we never really talk about, well, how do we create those safe spaces? And I think one of the biggest things in creating safe spaces is this, this feeling of community, feeling that there's not a strong hierarchy, there are not titles, but it is this space that is us, and we create together, and we all need to take care of it. And I think that's that's like a key of creating these safe spaces what you'r doing,
I agree, and I think it's a bit like equality and diversity. For me, it's you get people say, you know, this is a safe space, and we are committed to equality and diversity. But what does that actually mean? It's just a saying. And then you find what, what happens is, if someone was then to say: "My quality has been breached", everyone goes into like spiral. How do we deal with it? And I think it's one of the things that I think very much should happen within dance education more in that, if you're training people to work in the real world, whilst within the confines of a three year or two year degree course, you may be, quote, unquote, save you need to be training people that when they go into the real world of work, it's not like that. It's not going to be you may have the best technique out there, but the reality is, you know you're going to have, you're going to struggle to find work. If you're a black person, you're going to struggle to find work. If there's a company, they may have one black girl and one black boy, and those that one black boy and that one black girl will be used for years until they're no longer doing it, and then someone else will step up. And I kind of think that this is false sense of like, well, you know, if you can't get into a company in dance, then you can start doing your own thing. That's just such nonsense. Yes, you possibly can do it. But then that works on the basis of having spent all this money training to dance, you're going to work for free because there are no grants available. Large touring contemporary work is coming to an end now
yes
on the Arts Council is coming to an end. And this whole whole notion that I always hate, I always remember, when I did finish my first degree, people would be saying, like, you know, could you come and teach for us? And I'd be going, Yes, and I will tell them what my fee would be, and they would go, but it's only dance you're going to charge for that it's just jiggling about and I used to feel so offended, I'm thinking, but I've worked so hard for this since I was five years old, and now somebody's actually saying it has no value. So that's also something that we need to, I think we need to look at within dance education, and I really kind of hope I'm committed and moving forward to look at trying to work out, you know, what this safe space means? Because I've been in so many spaces in the last two years, and I would say they haven't felt safe to me. They just happen. So people have, you know, said they're a safe place. People do this kind of stuff that managers and people do. My door is always open, but when I knock on the door, you're basically not taking responsibility for the lack of safe space, or you're not taking responsibility for how you talk to me, how you speak to me. It's the case like it becomes my problem and I become the issue. And so many things that's happened to me over the last two years in terms of my world of work and in dance have almost taken me back a little bit to trauma, because I used to be one of those people that thought; No, I'm not involved in trauma. I'm doing really, really well, and then you actually realize when you're in certain spaces, actually the language, the conversations, are very traumatic. When you see how people are spoken to within the world of work, in the world of dance, it's very traumatic. But we have support. We have to have this resilience. And there's something about people who dance. We always have to have this kind of smile and the sun will come out tomorrow, type attitude. But the reality is, you know, the level of suicide and alcoholism amongst dancers is huge, and that comes from somewhere, you know,
right, right, yeah. And talking about dance education, you did go back for your masters for dance and you're almost finished?
Yeah, I'm currently doing, I'm one of the cohorts, or the first year of the dance community and activism at London contemporary dance school, The Place I'm doing the two year, Ma, course, and I think I've just got under five months left.
Yeah, are we going to have a big party, Joseph?
I don't know, but I don't know. I think we will have one within ASKI, definitely, yeah, yeah, you should, yeah. We'll definitely have one within ASKI. And already, one of the things I'm working on now is I'm going to be setting up a small Dance Company for older people. As a result, I've registered it. It's going to be called: "Echoes of Resistance", and that's going to be starting in September, because that's the title of my final project. So in that sense, I kind of think going back to doing this courses as being an eye opener, I think one, it's actually given me my confidence back within dance, because sometimes you forget that you know you had that level of confidence. It's definitely sparked my interest in how dance can be used for for good. It also makes me think when I when I watch now dance, who gets the money to create dance, and who doesn't get the money? And why are there so many people who are not from marginalized groups making work for marginalized groups? And why are the marginalized people when they apply for funding. Why are they not getting it? And I think it makes me feel like anything in order, I'm not one of these people who stays outside. I think you need to be at the table to bring about change. You need to have more places to bring about change, and I think you need to find ways of making your voice heard. And sometimes it can feel like a very, very long battle, but when you actually achieve something, a small win, it's so kind of good. So we're lucky now that in terms of our dance classes at ASKI, they. We have, like, part funding and people make contributions. So we know for already that for the next three years, our classes are going to stay as they are, at least, and if anything, they will actually continue. The market is it's getting a lot more competitive in terms of finding money. But I think that now that the government is seeing a link, more of a link between health inequalities and and how dance and the arts can actually help alleviate I think some programs that previously say, you know, we don't fund dance or whatever are now changing, and I think it's how you use the word dance in a more creative way. So sometimes you don't even say dance. You just have to say exercise, because everyone feels comfortable with exercise, you know? But yeah,
yeah, I feel like in the UK, you have actually been a lot taking leaps and pounds around the like preventative health care, what comes to like dance and arts, and isn't there now, like your GP can prescribe you an art activity.
We have something in Britain now called Social prescribing. So basically, if you went to your doctor and you, I don't know, you said I was feeling, I've got, you know, I've got some depression, or I've just not been feeling myself or not feeling that great, your GP can actually refer you for six sessions to do maybe to do dance or to do yoga, to do therapy, or to do some form of art therapy or something. It's a bit of a postcode lottery, because although the actual GP surgeries have access to this money, they don't shout out about it, because it comes out of their budget. But all the kind of research has been done so far is actually shown that basically, people can actually take part in dance or movement, it does bring about a difference. And I've just supported an organization that I've been mentoring down in Plymouth, and they work with women who have had had a recent diagnosis of cancer, and basically they use dance as a way to get people to re-engage with their bodies and it's such a beautiful, beautiful piece of work. And prior to that, I went on a course with a company called "Moving into Dance", and that's where I kind of really got the inspiration for wanting to go and do the MA, because I met the chief executive, Emma, and I just thought the work that she was doing was just so beautiful, and how she was able to engage over the long weekend workshop with non dancers.
Yeah, wow. There is so much to talk about, but tell us a little bit more about this, your ma project.
Yeah, my so my MA, final ma project, the overall title is, does institutionalized racism have an impact on black bodies in particular? Does institutionalize racism cause trauma? And it's something that resonated me from the very beginning of the course. We worked with Fumi on her class in terms of storytelling, and I got really interested in actually talking to people within ASKI and all part of something called the Windrush generation who came to Britain in the late 50s as a request of the British government, and I've always thought that basically, people can't be constantly abused because of their race, and it not impacts their bodies. And as I've been talking to the older people who are taking part in my project, I'm hearing horrific stories about their their arrival in in United Kingdom, and actually being told that no blacks are wanted. I were told that, basically there was a job available, and when they got to the job, they found they were told there was no job. My own parents told me stories as a child about the racism and inequality that they received. And sometimes, when we look at these things, we tried, we try and say to ourselves, like, this is something that used to happen, but basically it happens every day still in a more sophisticated way. And I guess what my project what I'm hoping that my project is actually going to show it's not about more research in the area, it's about who's doing the research. And a lot of the work that I'm actually reading is written by white psychologists and therapists about black bodies, and I'm not so sure that that's the best way to look at it. So I'm looking at basically whether or not trauma does race does cause trauma, and then, in many ways, look at in terms of families. I remember, for instance, maybe I was five or six years old, and my parents saying to me how important education is and how much harder I'm going to have to work just to get to anywhere. And then, whilst I was doing my research. I remember my God, when my son was seven, I said the same thing to him, and this is like, you know, 25-23 years ago, and I'm thinking to myself, like, so in a way, really, we created we having children, and before they're six or seven, we're already putting this trauma on them that basically, society, you're not going to get treated fairly. You know, I mean, they have programs in Britain where children who go to inner London schools or public schools go to some schools where they can support them, and they work really hard, and they can get into places like Oxford and Cambridge. And on the face of it, that sounds absolutely wonderful. However, when you look at the percentage of people leaving Oxford and Cambridge with the same degree as white their white colleagues, they don't get the still don't get the same opportunities. And I think to me, it's kind of saying that it's something that we do need to look at actually changing how we change it. I don't know if I've actually got the answer, but I think it's not necessarily about marching any longer. I think it's I think we have to do it in a more sophisticated way, in a more kind of subtle way, because when people have power and you challenge it, they think you want to take away their power, but all you're asking for is my analogy of this table is a place at this table so that we can all have an equal share. And I was talking to somebody in South Africa, and she said to me, and again, I think it was Desmond Tutu, she said, Desmond Tutu said that when the white man came to South Africa, he said, Let us pray. And when we closed our eyes and opened them again, they had our land and they gave us a Bible. And I just thought that is really, really interesting, because I was also looking at this whole thing about kind of slavery in the Caribbean. And it wasn't until 1974 that Britain stopped paying reparations for slavery to people who used to own slaves in the Caribbean. So Britain was still actually paying, up until 1974 money to this. And if you go into London to any of these big places, like with the Bank of England, any of those areas, they're all built on the back of slavery. And what's interesting is, I was talking to somebody else the other day, and I think what's interesting is, is that people kind of don't want to believe it. It's a case like, Just admit that basically, what you you know, like the moment, it's a bit like in America, I guess at the moment we have, we have the far right growing in Britain, and it's about we need to send people kind of home, but this is their home. And as part of my research, one of the things I also found interesting is the people I'm talking to who are now in their 70s and 80s, who came here at six or seven. This is their home. They have no intention of going in that if they went back to their original homeland in the Caribbean, they would be completely lost. They wouldn't survive, because basically that's no longer their reality. So, so, so, yeah, so I kind of think the degree, has given me an opportunity to put the actual hard research of race and inequality, and I'm using a way of having people write creatively, and hopefully I'll be using, over the next six sessions, all this choreography, all this all this literature and all these words to create the choreography.
Wow, and you're creating a video out of it, right?
Yeah, I'm making a documentary. So I'm working with Marisa, who I just found super nice to work with, very receptive to my ideas. And I went for a documentary because I thought, given that I'm going to be starting my own theater company, I see this as a bit of a calling card. They called it a final project, but I see almost this as the start of what I'm trying to actually kind of do, and it's also important for me, for the people I'm working with, so that they can see themselves on film, because often we don't see older black people anyway, on kind of stage I was looking the other day at, is it Bill T Jones? So he's, he's still going, I think,
yeah, I think so too.
And it's incredible, because I remember back in 1982 my I was at Leicester University do my first degree in dance, and I remember coming to London, to Sadler's Wells, to see Bill T Jones, and I just thought it was kind of absolutely fascinating that he's actually kind of still dancing. So any notion I have of kind of thinking of retiring is not going to happen. I'm going to continue dance and use dance as a creative force for good. Yeah.
I almost don't know if I want to ask this lesson, because that's actually a beautiful end, but I'm going to ask it, and let's see. Um, so Joseph, what is it that you want to see yourself in next five years? So you have made your decision, you're going to continue. What is it that you know? What are some of your dreams? Because you have accomplished so much, what are still some dreams that you have left?
I think one of the things that that I do dream about is that I will actually find a kind of level of peace that I don't think I've ever had, I think I don't know for other people, but having been adopted when I was three years old, an older I know the reason that I was adopted. My mom was white, my father was black. This was in 1960s Britain. There's something that I feel as if I've never, ever felt enough. And I often wondered where was that coming from. And I realized that comes from the fact that in my subconscious, I have always thought, well, why did my mom give me up? I mustn't have been enough. And I think there's a part of me that wants to learn to be enough, because I think I am enough, but it's actually saying it and believing it are two different things, and I think with the work that I'm doing in terms of the Masters, I hope it's going to take me into more of a space where I will be able to actually bring about change. Because one of the other things that we haven't mentioned, and I've completely forgot, is that, since I've started on the course, I'm now the chair of IRIE! dance. So IRIE! dance is Britain's leading dance company on Afro Caribbean dance in the country, and I became the Chair seven weeks ago. So I'm along with the chief executive, are going to be, over the next five years, shaping the future.
Oh, wow.
And so for me, I guess it's going to mean that I will actually be able to sit at tables now, where I will be able to have some input into how dance is funded, how it's managed, how who gets access to it. But I would say
it's incredible. Congratulations.
Thank you. But if, but it's in, it's very it's very interesting, isn't it, because, in a way, you think to yourselves, had I not embarked on doing the course, I would have been quite happy doing what I was actually doing. I felt I could do more, but I wasn't sure. Now I don't I'm not necessarily saying the course has made me do all of these things or give me that a skill that I didn't have. I think what it's allowed me to do is, almost, in answer to your question, is to actually dream and think, you know, I can do this. And I think the more you can do it and help others and bring others along, I think that's really, really important, because one of the things I have found within the sector is that often when people climb the ladder, they don't bring people with them. And often that's partly because sometimes where you're working, the only one, one person who's other, and so you can't bring others with you. So yeah, I'm not dreaming for much, am I?
No, but you know, like, that's the thing. I love that dream, because climbing up the ladder and bringing others with you, and you said, you know, often there's not space, but isn't the job of the person who is climbing and being on top to create the space for others to join them, that's like the whole point, right?
I definitely agree. And there are struggles to that, because if you put it towards, say, the black community, it could be that they may be one person out of very few, and they're in that precarious position. They have to manage their position, and at the same time, the person coming up is often seen as a competitor rather than somebody. But I've never, I think I've never been in my life, I've never wanted anything that badly that I would actually not want to help other people, even when I was dancing professionally all those years ago, I always kind of think to myself, what's for me is going to happen anyway. So I don't need to actually dismantle somebody else or take away somebody's dream, because if it's going to be for me, it's going to be for me anyway. And and there's, and I think there's something, there's something that I think that a lot of people can learn duality is as as dancers, especially new dancers to the world, have done. You may be able to spin 100 times. You may be able to do backflips and do splits, or whatever the reality is, I managed to go around the world as a dancer. I saw 87 countries, and I don't think that was because I was actually a brilliant dancer. It was because I was a humble person. And I think I worked with so many amazing dancers who went on to work in the West End, who went toured America and all that kind of stuff. But ultimately, they were, they were not liked. They were horrible people. And I just don't think that I was ever made to be a horrible person. Nothing, nothing, nothing's worked that much. Yeah, I'm going to be the honest. I don't know why I'm so proud of I am. I'm going to be the oldest person to have graduated from London contemporary dance school. They've never had anybody at 65 ever. So that record is going to stand for quite a while.
And it's fabulous.
I think it's important.
Oh, it's so important. So important. Yeah, I think you belong on that wall downstairs. You know, with all those people,
yeah, and if they don't put me there, I'll go in and do it myself.
Yes!