Research Catalog

Interview with Zazel-Chavah O'Garra

Title
Interview with Zazel-Chavah O'Garra, 2021 / Conducted remotely Wendy Ann Powell on June 1, 3, and 7, 2021; Producer: Dance Oral History Project.
Author
O'Garra, Zazel-Chavah
Publication
2021

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Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections Dance to submit a request in person.

Moving imageSupervised use *MGZMT 3-3506Performing Arts Research Collections Dance

Details

Additional Authors
Powell, Wendy Ann
Description
4 streaming video files (approximately 5 hr. and 42 min.) : sound, color. +
Summary
  • Streaming file 1 (approximately one hour and nine minutes), June 1, 2021. Zazel-Chavah O'Garra speaks with Wendy Ann Powell about Montserrat, where she was born; her family including her sister, Kathy Joy O'Garra King; her childhood growing up in the Saint Albans neighborhood in Queens (New York, N.Y.) including more on her father; her first dance lessons, at the Ruth Williams Dance Studio including her instant affinity for dance and for performing in front of an audience; the strict discipline and competitive spirit at the Studio; around age 13, leaving the Studio and taking class at the Bernice Johnson Dance Studio in Queens; auditioning (successfully) for the High School of Performing Arts (New York, N.Y.) with a piece choreographed for her by Carolyn DeVore; first becoming conscious of her body in Bella Malinka's class; after matriculating at the High School, becoming obsessed with ballet; starving herself in her efforts to be thin; taking class at the Dance Theatre of Harlem including reminiscences of Tanaquil LeClercq, who taught in a wheelchair; an anecdote about being told by Arthur Mitchell to lose weight or lose her place in a trio; attending Alvin Ailey [Ailey School] on a merit scholarship; her teachers including Delores Browne, who taught ballet, and Denise Jefferson, who taught Graham technique; how she came to attend the University of Michigan; her experience as a student at the University where she majored in dance; the greater emphasis on students' mental health and availability of counseling services today than when she was a student; how her dancing was viewed by her parents and other family members; after graduation, continuing to take class while working at various jobs; her first job as a professional dancer, in a show choreographed by Mark Dendy; her experience as a dancer on a cruise ship; the harsh discipline and body shaming typical in the dance world at that time; reminiscences about the thrill of performing and the curtain calls; her next job, teaching jazz and modern dance at the New York City Dance Studio in Stuttgart, Germany including the competitiveness among the teachers, many of whom were from the United States [ends abruptly but continues on streaming file 2].
  • Streaming file 2 (approximately 37 minutes), June 1, 2021. Zazel-Chavah O'Garra speaks with Wendy Ann Powell about her experience teaching at the New York City Dance Studio including her impressions of Sabina Lynch (co-owner with Ray Lynch); finding herself in demand as a choreographer and teacher of private classes; her teaching style; the summer workshops at the Studio; leaving the school to tour for about five months in Germany and Austria with a show [Body and Soul] choreographed by George Faison; returning to New York after the tour ended; the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, including as compared with the COVID pandemic; some of the friends she lost; her experience as a competition judge including her reaching out to promising young dancers; reasons she thinks studios focus on teaching dancers "tricks"; her experience as a summer student at the Burklyn Ballet Theatre in Burlington, Vermont; how her dancing led to and furthered her career in modeling, beginning with her first Essence cover in 1987; the downside of modeling including the competitiveness and the pressure to be thin; her being engaged as a "plus size" model; the importance of understanding the financial aspects of pursuing a career in the arts; handling rejection at auditions.
  • Streaming file 3 (approximately one hour and 56 minutes), June 3, 2021. Zazel-Chavah O'Garra speaks with Wendy Ann Powell about teaching dance including more about her time at the New York City Dance Studio in Stuttgart, Germany; other places she taught including Yale [University]; the dance program for local children she started with the New York City Parks Department [New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]; more on her experience teaching at Yale; her experience teaching workshops at the University of Montserrat including how she, as a professional dancer, was viewed in Montserrat; her parents' surprise that she could make a living as a dancer; more on the importance of understanding the financial aspects of dance; teaching after-school classes; [in 2003] being diagnosed with a benign brain tumor [meningioma] and undergoing surgery to remove it 10 days later; after the surgery finding herself paralyzed on her right side; engaging in intensive rehabilitation at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation - West Orange (New Jersey); slowly and gradually recovering almost all movement except in one of her feet; after her discharge from Kessler, continuing her rehabilitation at NYU [Langone's] Rusk Rehabilitation; connecting with a social worker who introduced her to the Brain Tumor Foundation Support Group; telling her story and performing at Brain Tumor Awareness Day at New York University; her feeling of rebirth as she performed and her realization, as she received a standing ovation, that she could still dance; her resolving to embrace her new life and share her experience with people with disabilities; about 18 months after her surgery being engaged by Hospital Audiences [Inc.] to teach dance to institutionalized senior citizens and mentally ill people; how her success with these initial assignments led to a new career as a dance teacher of people with physical and mental disabilities including children; some of the challenging aspects of teaching people with mental disabilities; her approach to teaching physically-disabled people; how she and her classes were viewed at the institutions where she taught; the intensive and highly rewarding year of teaching and training she engaged in as a recipient of a fellowship for teaching artists from the VSA John F. Kennedy Center [Kennedy Center's Office of VSA and Accessibility]; how her disability has strengthened her ability to teach and perform and enriched her story-telling; her work as a volunteer teaching dance at [Memorial] Sloan Kettering where she and patients shared their stories with each other; getting her masters degree in social work (M.F.W.) from Fordham University; the Office of Disability Services [at Fordham] including some of the many services it offered to students with disabilities; her thoughts on how her experience at Fordham as a person with a disability could have been improved; her conviction that one should not hesitate to request the services and accessibility one needs; her core message that while a disability may require one to dance differently, disability is not a barrier to being a dancer, as shown by her own experience; her view that dance company directors should realize that disabled dancers are performers, for example as evidenced by Ali Stroker; her advocacy for disabled people in the performing arts world through membership in various organizations including the Screen Actors Guild and the PWD Performance with Disabilities Union; her friend Barry Martin and his role in educating her about the resources available for performers with disabilities and how to advocate for disabled performers; her decision to found her own physically-integrated dance company (ZCO/Dance Project) including how she was inspired by seeing Tanaquil LeClercq teach and by her own experience teaching at institutions for disabled persons; around 2013 putting together and performing a program at the Gibney Dance Center [Gibney Company Community Center] with Jamie Petrone, Sidiki Conde, and two young women; its success as the direct stimulus for starting ZCO/Dance Project; the personal and professional fulfillment she has found through the company; its expanding scope of activities and the widening recognition for its accomplishments; the challenges of running the company; the level of performance and professionalism she expects from her dancers as evinced, for example, by their work with guest choreographers such as Kim Grier-Martinez; Grier-Martinez's work What about us?; Wendy Ann Powell's work We the people; the interpersonal aspects of running the company including her recognition that she has to be tougher with the dancers; some financial aspects of running the company; her membership in organizations through which she continues to educate herself about financial matters.
  • Streaming file 4 (approximately two hours), June 7, 2021. Zazel-Chavah O'Garra speaks with Wendy Ann Powell about teaching; the many opportunities dancing has brought her, for example roles in [television] commercials; performing in the show titled The dark star from Harlem choreographed by Kim Grier-Martinez; the tremendous support she received from The Actors Fund in connection with her surgery and rehabilitation; her experience performing, about 18 months after becoming disabled, in Nothing like a dame, sponsored by [The Actors Fund's] Phyllis Newman [Women's] Health Initiative; auditioning and performing in Ping Chong's 2008 production Inside/Out, Voices of the Disability Community; an anecdote about her audition for a major beverage company including how she might have approached the audition today; auditioning with other disabled actors for television series pilots; more on Inside/Out; her experience performing in Ping Chong's Secret History [an interview-based theater production] in public schools in New York and New Jersey, including a recent virtual production; the audiences for Secret History; some of the places she teaches including (due to the COVID pandemic) virtual sites; her advice to disabled people who aspire to a career in the performing arts; more on ZCO/Dance Project including the satisfaction of watching her dancers grow; more on the administrative aspects of running ZCO/Dance Project including her increasing need to delegate; her efforts to ensure that her dancers have the opportunity to work with different choreographers and to explore different styles; what she expects of her dancers in terms of respect for her and commitment to the company; upcoming collaborations with choreographers including [Elizabeth] Streb; her relationship with other physically integrated dance companies and their directors; the diverse styles and themes of works created for the company; her field work (for her master's degree in social work) at FEGS (in the Bronx, New York. N.Y.); her continuing exploration of how to increase opportunities for her dancers and herself; how her training as a social worker, which dovetailed with her natural propensity for non-judgmental listening, has contributed to the success of her company; two uplifting experiences shortly after becoming disabled: taking a rigorous ballet class taught by a longtime friend and teaching an adult jazz dance class at ESOTA [Edge School of the Arts] at the invitation of Donna Edge; based on her experience as a judge at Starbound dance competitions, her view of how dance is taught today as compared to when she was young; adapting one's teaching style to accommodate the shift to virtual classes that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic [O'Garra demonstrates excerpts of exercises she uses in her classes]; her practice of ending class by having each student focus on a word that has a positive connotation for that person; dealing with the anxiety and other mental health issues performing artists have suffered during the pandemic including her work with The Actors Fund and Dance/NYC; following her very positive experience with a meditation course, arranging for Gha'il Rhodes Benjamin to give a meditation class to her company; how she maintains her own mental wellbeing; more on the financial aspects of running a company including her learning curve regarding fund raising and grant applications; some of the grants currently available in connection with the pandemic; other aspects of grants and grant applications; her thoughts on how to give voices to minority artists and disabled artists including within the socio-political context of the Black Lives Matter movement; how concern with socio-political issues relating to minorities and disabled people has influenced the company as manifested in Powell's We the people and [POETIC MOOVES: A Choreopoem Celebrating Black Poets?], which celebrates Nikki Giovanni, Ntozake Shange, and Maya Angelou; other works with like themes that she is envisioning; the potential of the company to function as a platform for expressing the concerns and achievements of disabled people in the political arena; future projects she has in mind for herself, including a film about her life's journey; future projects she has in mind for her company including participating in the International Disability Dance Festival in Greece and performing at the United Nations on International Disability Day; some of the company's upcoming engagements; how much she and the company are looking forward to the return to live performances; some of the challenges of performing and holding class on Zoom, both for herself and her dancers; her dream since childhood to be a star, which she has never lost; her mantra of never stopping and always keeping hope alive.
Alternative Title
  • Dance Oral History Project.
  • Dance Audio Archive.
Subjects
Genre/Form
  • Video recordings.
  • Oral histories.
Note
  • Interview with Zazel-Chavah O'Garra (in Saint Albans, New York, N.Y.) conducted remotely by Wendy Ann Powell (in Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.) on June 1, 3, and 7 for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
  • For transcript see *MGZMT 3-3506
  • As of March 2023, the video recording of this interview can be made available at the Library for the Performing Arts by advanced request to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, dance@nypl.org. The video files for this interview are undergoing processing and eventually will be available for streaming.
  • Title supplied by cataloger.
Access (note)
  • Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.
Funding (note)
  • The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation, 2021.
Source (note)
  • 0# Dance Oral History Project $c Created $d 20210701;
  • 0# Dance Oral History Project $c Created $d 20210703;
  • 0# Dance Oral History Project $c Created $d 20210707;
Call Number
*MGZMT 3-3506
OCLC
1357151875
Author
O'Garra, Zazel-Chavah, Interviewee.
Title
Interview with Zazel-Chavah O'Garra, 2021 / Conducted remotely Wendy Ann Powell on June 1, 3, and 7, 2021; Producer: Dance Oral History Project.
Imprint
2021
Playing Time
054200
Type of Content
spoken word
two-dimensional moving image
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
video
computer
Type of Carrier
online resource
volume
Digital File Characteristics
video file
Restricted Access
Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.
Event
Recorded for for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 2021, June 1, 3, and 7 New York (N.Y.).
Funding
The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation, 2021.
Connect to:
Added Author
Powell, Wendy Ann, Interviewer.
Research Call Number
*MGZMT 3-3506
*MGZDOH 3506
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