Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Asherie, Ephrat

Description

1. 3 streaming video files (5 hrs., 23 min., [total running time]) : sound, color. +

Summary

1. Streaming file 1 (approximately one hour and 32 minutes), July 20, 2021. Archie Burnett speaks with Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie about his family and childhood including where and when he was born (in Curaçao on January 3, 1959); his strict upbringing; his discovery of popular music such as James Brown's "Hot Pants" through radio and television; learning to dance from American Bandstand and Soul Train; an anecdote about winning the dance contest at his high school prom, with Donna Gorsline as his partner; his childhood home in Crown Heights, in Brooklyn, New York; being bussed to a newly-integrated school in Bayridge (Queens, New York) where he was the target of racist violence; how his participation in an extra-curricular arts program run by the Brooklyn Museum of Art changed his way of thinking; drawing since he was a child, in particular images of kaiju (Japanese monsters); his attending an after-school program while still in high school at New York Community College followed by his matriculation at City College [The City College of New York]; his reasons for leaving City College to study at the School of Visual Arts; his experience as a student in Sally Sommer's class on Black dance history; introducing her (in 1982) to the underground dance scene at the Loft at 99 Prince Street, which led to her documentary Check your body at the door (2011); discovering that the West Coast style he had learned from television was not viewed favorably in New York clubs; in 1980 going to the Loft for the first time and becoming a regular; his mother's disapproval of his club-going; regularly staying at the Loft from midnight on Saturday night to 1:00 p.m. the next day and continuing the party at the diner next door; David Mancuso, owner of the Loft (which was also his home) including his sound system and style of deejaying; the lasting influence the Loft had on Burnett; the music Mancuso played; the kind of dance seen at the Loft including so-called "Loft style"; the distinction between dance forms and dance styles; the spiritual element of getting down on the floor; his 30-year relationship with the Loft; his reminiscences of the Garage [Paradise Garage] including some of the deejays and the security staff; some of the other clubs he went to at the time including Electric Circus; his (social) life as revolving around the clubs; the hustle, which he first saw performed by Latinos on a handball court in 1975; the inauthenticity of the hustle as shown in the film Saturday night fever; the joy of seeing authentic New York hustle dancers Floyd Chisholm and Nellie Cotto win a dance competition on Star Search; his experience dancing the hustle himself and watching others, including his observations on leading and following; Roma Irrizari, who was his mentor for the hustle; reminiscences of dancing with the hustle star Arte Phillips; his feeling that he is a limited hustle dancer; Asherie states how much she enjoys dancing the hustle with Burnett; Burnett speaks about his accidental discovery of voguing in 1980, when he saw some kids voguing near Washington Square Park; his instant affinity for this dance form; in 1982, meeting Willi Ninja (Willie Roscoe Leake), also known as the Godfather of voguing; their friendship; the role of the [Christopher Street] pier in voguing including the fraught relationship of the gay community with the police; his first ball, at the Elks lounge [Imperial Lodge of Elks]; an anecdote about stripping at Paris Dupree's ball in 1985; significant life events between 1984 and 1986: being hired by the New York City Transit [Authority] in 1984, getting married to Debra [Proctor Burnett; Tyrone (the "Bone") Proctor's sister] in 1986, and moving to New Jersey; his life at this time going to work and to clubs.
2. Streaming file 2 (approximately one hour and 54 minutes), July 22, 2021. Archie Burnett speaks with Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie about how he began voguing in earnest in 1982; reasons he was attracted to voguing, beginning with its characteristic geometric shapes; more about Willi Ninja and their friendship; the enormous cultural influence of martial arts films on him and his peers; Willi Ninja's extensive collection of martial arts films and his use of Asian-influenced movement in his dancing; his view of clubs as classrooms where one could freely experiment; Video Pretenders, the group formed by him, Tyrone (the "Bone") Proctor, Steve Kaufmann, Willi Ninja, and others (all of whom he names), which performed recreations of other artists' music videos; their weekly practice sessions at [June] Laberta's Dance Studio; how he met Proctor through the hustle; first learning in 1986 that Proctor had been a Soul Train dancer; how he met some of the people who became members of the group including Steve Enrique and Dennis Rodriguez; Proctor's success as a music director for other artists including Livingston Taylor's television show This Week's Music; the group members' diverse backgrounds, which was reflected in their choreographic collaborations; their show Shmaa shmaa, which they performed at Don Hill's Cat Club including the role of Angel Ferreira in bringing this about; how Proctor got students to film them for free; performing their shows at smaller clubs in New York City in order to try out their material on audiences; some of the clubs where they performed including at the closing party of Paradise Garage, which was filmed; at Sally Sommer's suggestion, going to Europe with David Neumann to teach dance; having to teach himself how to teach; teaching at SNDO [School for New Dance Development, at Amsterdam University of the Arts] including reminiscences of the students; how music videos had evolved by the 1990s to reflect the dancing that was actually going on in the clubs; Now Explosion [televised in Atlanta, Georgia, on WATL-TV in 1970], a precursor to MTV; how he feels when dancing in clubs as compared with performing on stage; the central role of music in creating a nurturing environment for his dancing; how he continues to be able to dance while dealing with the physical changes wrought by aging; his thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic and (very briefly) on the AIDS crisis, including the effect of the COVID-19 shut-downs on young artists; learning from young people how to be spontaneous and take risks; how he continued to create during the pandemic including the production of music videos on his personal computer and his participation, with Asherie [and Ephrat Asherie Dance] in Kaatsban [the Kaatsban "bubble" residency sponsored by Works & Process at the Guggenheim and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts]; his mental state during the pandemic; Asherie speaks about how Burnett's energy inspired her and others during the residency; Burnett speaks about surprising himself by what he was able to accomplish at the residency; the resilience of artists as illustrated by his working (at times) three jobs and still finding time to dance and travel internationally; an anecdote about how two months before he retired (after about 30 years, in 2014), his colleagues at the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] discovered that he had another career as a dancer and teacher; his other jobs, at Peridance [Studio] and at Sears [Roebuck & Co.].
3. Streaming file 3 (approximately one hour and 55 minutes), July 24, 2021. Archie Burnett speaks with Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie about his transition to teaching including more about his two summers in Amsterdam; teaching at Christian Tamet's school in the south of France; finding himself in demand as a teacher in Europe; much-copied video cassette tapes as almost the only way young people in Europe could learn about "club dancing"; television and movies (such as Breakin' and Wild Style) as an additional way to see club dancing albeit in a less authentic form; teaching voguing and waacking at Peridance [Studio] in New York City; being open emotionally when he dances including why he thinks this is a key element of performance; an anecdote about being pelted with cans at a performance in Paris in 2002 where he was waacking and voguing to the song "Didn't I Bring You Up" [Romanthony's "Bring U Up"]; Appropriate behavior, a work he performed with David Neumann; the film Check your body at the door including why it took so long to complete and more on how it originated in his introduction of Sally Sommer to underground dancing at the Loft; the film's archival significance including the appearances of Willi Ninja, Marjory Smarth, and others who have since died; the challenges of teaching European students, including their tendency to focus on the visual forms rather than the rhythms; the inseparability of the dance forms he teaches from their cultural sources; his thoughts on racism, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and the Black lives matter movement; his personal response of "selective ignorance" and "showing up every day"; people who have been influential in his life beginning with his wife Debra [Burnett]; the unique nurturing atmosphere and sources of inspiration he finds in club culture; reminiscences of the Sound Factory club which was also patronized by a younger generation he and his peers called "grasshoppers"; what he looks for when he judges battles including his emphasis on emotional involvement; his three-year hiatus from dancing after his mother became gravely ill; his return to dancing, drawn by the music; some of his favorite tracks including Prince's "Sexy Dancer" and "The Work" ; Vjuan Allure including how they first met while Burnett was touring in Italy with Louis Vega in 2003 and became close friends after meeting again in 2010; the show for Levi's jeans, on January 11, 2000, at Webster Hall (in New York, N.Y.), put together by Willi Ninja and including hustle, breaking, voguing, and waacking; the knee injury he sustained that night; the injury to his other knee, in 2017, including his treatment by Dr. [Donald J.] Rose of the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries; how he feels about close friends, namely Tyrone Proctor and Willi Ninja, who have died including his tendency to focus on the joyous memories rather than his grief; his upcoming program Life Encounters [July 28-August 1, 2021] at Jacob's Pillow [Dance Festival]; being pushed by Asherie into working remotely with Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic; the people he dances with as his continuing source of joy.

Alternative title

1. Dance Oral History Project.
2. Dance Audio Archive.

Subject

1. Breaking
2. Oral histories
3. Video recordings
4. Dance > Competitions
5. COVID-19 (Disease) and the arts
6. Dance in motion pictures, television, etc
7. Black lives matter movement
8. Civil rights movements
9. Racism against Black people
10. Dance teachers
11. Hustle (Dance)
12. Voguing (Dance)
13. Disco dancing
14. Paradise Garage (Discotheque)
15. Neumann, David
16. Ninja, Willi
17. Mancuso, David, 1944-2016
18. Sommer, Sally R
19. Burnett, Archie (Dancer) > Interviews

Genre/Form

1. Video recordings.
2. Oral histories.

Call number

1. *MGZMT 3-3513

Note

1. Interview with Archie Burnett in New York, N.Y., conducted remotely by Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie in New Brunswick, N.Y. on July 20, 22, and 24, 2021, for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
2. Breaking is the preferred and self-identifying term of the community.
3. For transcript see *MGZMT 3-3513
4. 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.
5. Title supplied by cataloger.

Access (note)

1. Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Funding (note)

1. The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by funds from the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Source (note)

1. 0# Dance Oral History Project $c Created $d 20210720;
2. 0# Dance Oral History Project $c Created $d 20210722;
3. 0# Dance Oral History Project $c Created $d 20210724;

Author

1. Burnett, Archie (Dancer), Interviewee.

Title

1. Interview with Archie Burnett, 2021 / Conducted remotely by Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie on July 20, 22, and 24, 2021; Producer: Dance Oral History Project.

Imprint

1. 2021

Playing time

1. 052300

Type of content

1. spoken word
2. two-dimensional moving image
3. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated
2. video
3. computer

Type of carrier

1. online resource
2. volume

Digital file characteristics

1. video file

Restricted access

1. Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Event

1. Recorded for for the Dance Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 2021, July 20, 22, and 24 New York (N.Y.).

Funding

1. The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by funds from the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Connect to:

Local subject

1. Breaking

Added author

1. Asherie, Ephrat, Interviewer.

Research call number

1. *MGZMT 3-3513
2. *MGZDOH 3513