Choreographer Malaika Kusumi called me — I’d recently moved home to LA from Williamsburg, VA — and invited me to come to the audition for Stevie Wonder’s music video, Ribbon in the Sky. She had just choreographed Stevie’s Do I Do music video and Stevie’s production company, Black Bull Productions, was in preparation for its next creative venture. They were looking for a solo dancer.
Auditions were held at the dance studios of the Inner City Cultural Center on New Hampshire and Vermont — my home turf. Gerri Reddick was Malaika’s assistant. All the fabulous women black dancers were there. It was glorious and, it was intimidating. I captured the eye of co-directors Peter Allen and Penny Selwyn. Malaika and Gerri agreed: I should be the one. “But,” they all told me, “Stevie’s the final word. You have to meet with Stevie.”
So the Bill Parker Production Company arranged to take me to Stevie’s Los Feliz home,–an area also familiar to me growing up. I was escorted down the curved stairway that ushered me into Stevie’s music room–all white with a white baby grand piano. Stevie Wonder was there, illuminated, sitting on the piano bench. We were left alone. We conversed easily; he asked about my astrological sign. “Libra,” I told him. He grinned and let out a hearty laugh. Then reaching toward me with open hands he asked for mine. I placed the right palm of my hand onto his left palm. He then placed his right hand on top of mine. We sat quietly,–my hand resting between his. He broke the silence with, “Yes. You are the dancer.”
In addition to choreographing I make a cameo appearance in Shalimar’s Dancing in the Sheets. See if you can find me! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZmHu1t_5X0).
The Whispers music video choreography for Rock Steady was co-created with choreographer Jon Johnson and myself (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-02-05-ca-2536-story.html). Jon and I became collaborators on several projects: Jon’s company performed in my 1985 work, SpaceDance I ; later that same year I appeared as Guest Artist for his concert booking at Mandeville Center for the Arts on the campus of UC San Diego, performing my 1984 work, Pearls of Obsidian. The Whispers music video was our last collaboration before Jon’s death.
