Interview with J. Moore Bannister, History 150 Spring 2022, Conducted by Ben Barnett, March 21, 2022

Overview

In this interview, I speak with J. Moore Bannister (my grandaunt) about how her life has intersected with social change. J. Moore details her experiences growing up in a small rural town in eastern Tennessee, to becoming a cheerleader for the University of Tennessee, and on to her path in the world of professional dance – as well as how these experiences intersected with race and diversity.

She founded her own dance company in 1982, serving as the Artistic Director for the company as they toured the Mid-Atlantic US and New York until 1997, and has organized events with talent including Chuck Davis [see Research section] and Ray Charles.

She also earned a MA in Liberal Studies/Documentary Studies from Duke University – highlighted in this interview by a potent story about racial attitudes in the Carolinas where she is (ironically) conducting an oral interview of her own. Throughout the interview, J. Moore discusses how, while being a white woman, she has always made it a point to include  underrepresented perspectives in her life and work. She talks about the injustices and discrimination that she has seen firsthand throughout the country and the steps she has personally taken towards creating a more inclusive and diverse community – both in dance and in general.

Topics from this interview have also been touched on in other related interviews which can be explored for added context. The experience of adapting from rural to urban life is highlighted in “A Woman’s Experience, Rural to Urban” by Gwenyth Cargile and the condition of racism in parts of rural Tennessee and Virginia is discussed in “Integration and Culture Difference In Rural Tennessee and Virginia” by Michael Wilcox.

Biography

J. Moore Bannister was born in 1951 in a small town in eastern Tennessee. She attended the University of Tennessee – Knoxville as an undergraduate (1969-73) where she obtained a BS in Dance and was a cheerleader and captain of the cheer squad. She then attended the University of Oregon (1974-75) where she obtained a MS in Dance/Kinesiology. She worked briefly as an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Kentucky, as well as a dance instructor at the Center for Music Drama and Dance in Lake Placid, NY. She traveled to study dance in many places throughout her life including New York City and even France in 1982-83. J. Moore founded the Wall St. DanceWorks Professional Dance Company in 1982 out of Asheville, NC and served as the Artistic Director for the company until 1997. The company toured many Mid-Atlantic states, as well as New York. During this time, J. Moore also served as the director of Beaucatcher Productions – Performing Arts Company (also in Asheville, NC) from 1983-89, helping the company to produce nationally known dance companies and artists. In 1997, J. Moore began working on an MA in Liberal Studies/Documentary Studies from Duke University and began the position of Liaison to the Chairman for BB&T Corporation in Winston Salem, NC, where she worked on public relations and special projects. She completed her MA from Duke University in 2001 and retired from her position at BB&T in 2015. J. Moore now lives happily with her husband in Winston Salem, NC.

Research

In 2019, 55% of dancers and choreographers in the US were White (Non-Hispanic) and 71% were female. Although these statistics are promising related to diversity, there are still many facets of dance where there is work to do to improve racial equity, inclusivity, and cultural appreciation. In higher education especially, classes tend to focus on Eurocentric dances like ballet or modern/contemporary dance and reserve other dance forms that stem from African, Hispanic, or African American origins to elective classes. Also, when these classes are taught, they can suffer from “whitewashing” where their origins, history, and forms are not properly acknowledged, or their true creators are not credited properly.

The discussion about and push for multiculturalism and diversity within dance has been ongoing in the US, gaining initial steam in the 1990s. One individual who has been at the forefront of this movement is Chuck Davis, founding artistic director of DanceAfrica, as well as the African American Dance Ensemble and Chuck Davis Dance Company. Davis has been the leading figure for traditional African dance in the US, teaching and choreographing many African dances throughout the country, especially in North Carolina. He traveled to Africa nearly 50 times throughout his life to learn about dance, as well as other countries. Davis died in 2017, but his legacy of peace, learning, and cultural appreciation through dance continues to thrive and inspire the dance community.

Bibliography (MLA 9^th edition)

A Woman’s Experience, Rural to Urban – Social Change Interviews. https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/sc-interviews/2019/03/25/a-womans-experience-rural-to-urban/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2022.

• This source was an interview conducted under the same class as this one that details a personal account of life in rural and urban environments. It provides context to this interview and it’s topics.

“Chuck Davis.” BAM.Org, http://www.bam.org/artists/chuck-davis. Accessed 4 Apr. 2022.

• This source gave a brief overview of Chuck Davis’s life and accomplishments. The website is from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and is a multi-arts center in Brooklyn, New York.

Dancers & Choreographers | Data USA. https://datausa.io/profile/soc/dancers-choreographers#demographics. Accessed 4 Apr. 2022.

• This source gave statistics about the community/career in the US, including demographics. This website shows public US Government data and statistics.

Integration and Culture Difference In Rural Tennessee and Virginia – Social Cange Interviews. https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/sc-interviews/2019/03/24/integration-and-culture-difference-in-rurl-tennessee-and-virginia-by-michael-wilcox/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2022.

• This source was an interview conducted under the same class as this one that details a personal account of life and racism in rural Tennessee and Virginia. It provides context to this interview and it’s topics.

Oliver, Wendy. “Race and Racism: A Call to Action.” Journal of Dance Education, vol. 20, no. 3, July 2020, pp. 109–11. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1080/15290824.2020.1793620.

• This source was a peer reviewed journal article about race and racism in the dance industry. This journal article appeared in the Journal of Dance Education and was written by Wendy Oliver, EdD, MFA.

WRAL. “Peaceful Founder of Durham African American Dance Group Dies :” WRAL.Com, 14 May 2017, https://www.wral.com/peaceful-founder-of-durham-african-american-dance-group-dies-/16701553/.

• This source was a news article put out shortly after Chuck Davis’s death and touched on his trips to Africa and legacy of peace through dance. This website was from the local news station in North Carolina, WRAL, from where Davis resided.

Transcript

Ben  0:00

My name is Ben Barnett. I’m doing an oral history interview with my grandaunt. If you want to introduce yourself…

J. Moore 0:07

And this is J. Moore Bannister and I am the sister to Ben’s mother.

Ben  0:15

Grandmother.

J. Moore 0:16

Oh, sorry, grandmother. Yeah. [Laugh] Exactly.

Ben  0:21

Alright, so I just wanted to ask a few questions about a few general topics, like your transition from […] rural to urban life, your experience with gender and dancing, and also education.

So to start off…

J. Moore 0:38

Okay.

Ben  0:39

I was just gonna ask, Oh, sorry… You wanted to say something?

J.  Moore 0:45

You want me to do the … the first one was what?

Ben  0:50

Yeah, sorry. So I was just going to ask, was there a major culture shock for you moving from rural Tennessee to New York City? And what stood out about this experience, if anything?

J.  Moore 1:02

Most definitely, yes. The first time I went to New York, I was fortunate enough to have a dance teacher that took me to New York City when I was 13. And I had been 15 miles beyond my hometown, and that [was] as far as I’d been until I was 13, and I go to New York City. So, I will tell you one quick story about it. We arrived in by train, we went to a hotel. The next morning, when I woke up, I was aware of this incredible noise and I couldn’t figure out what it was this – just it was loud and roaring. And I opened up the window because I was certain I was going to see one of those crashing demolition balls flying through the air knocking down buildings. That had to be the reason for all the noise. And the reality was, it was just New York City; there was no crashing, there was no ball. So that was the first thing. And the second thing was the astounding variety of people. I mean, every color, shade, length, height. Being on a subway, being next to people of all different looking, you know, histories and ethnic backgrounds. So all that was pretty phenomenal. And in the dance world, women in their high heels with fishnet hose on and their butts sticking out and all that. That was pretty much a shock. So that was the first time I went to New York.

Ben  2:32

Yeah. Oh, that’s really cool.

J. Moore 2:35

Well, and also realizing that if you sounded southern, that a huge portion of your education was wiped out, because there really was a bias towards sounding southern. Which we all know, if you go to the movies and somebody wants to be stupid then they’re going to sound southern.

Ben  2:55

Yeah.

J. Moore 2:57

The good thing about it, years later, I realized – not too many years, but years later, especially when I would go back and forth to New York and other places. I realized that if you spoke grammatically correct, of which my father – because he worked in the newspaper business – used to correct us, like if I said, “if it was going to rain, then I would go.” And my father would go “in a condition, contrary to fact, you’re not allowed to conjunct, da da da …” and he would correct us. [Laugh] So I started realizing I didn’t have to feel bad about sounding southern. But, as long as I had something, you know, important to say, or based on some kind of fact and it was grammatically correct, you know. So yeah, that changed the way I started seeing myself. So anyway, …

Ben  3:51

That’s very interesting. So did you like find yourself trying to change your accent then, from an early age?

J. Moore 3:56

I did to a point, yes. And part of that is, you really do get tired of some of the, um – and it can only be, it can only be termed as ridicule. And I also determined from that – I remember one time I had taught the history of dance, and I went to a dance concert. It was about medieval dance. And a friend of mine brought his friend who was the producer. And I said, you know that one aspect was really wonderful. And not many people showed up and he was kind of bummed out. And he goes, [mimicing a mocking tone] “wonderful, wonderful, J. Moore says wonderful.” And I just remember I lit into him and talked about, I said, “Well maybe something about your upbringing is missing because, you know, ridicule – I don’t find that that’s exactly the thing that people want to experience like me, when you decide that to ridicule me because of my accent.” And the fact is, and I remember his name was Paul, I said Paul, “I knew more about that dance than you do. I taught dance history.” [Laugh] Yeah, and I went on to say,  “Maybe you’re insecure? Maybe that’s why you feel you need to come down on me?” And I lit into him after that. And probably a month later, he called up and apologized. But no, it just made me realize that you don’t have to do that. I mean, you really, you know, people are different. And as I looked over this whole interview, one thing I was thinking, Ben, was how I came to realize that just who I am, not even so much as what I did, but who I am really made me aware [that] I wanted to affect social change and how people were discriminated against. Done that all my life. Examples of that, through my entire life: how I have forced others to deal with social inequities and bigotry and racism. So, and it started first [with] me experiencing that kind of discrimination because of what I sounded like.

Ben 5:59

Yeah. Oh, that’s really interesting.

J. Moore 6:01

Yeah. So anyway, you want me to go on or you got something else to say?

Ben  6:06

Um, sure. Yeah, we can move on to the next one. So, we know that you’re a professional dancer – or you were – and then also a cheerleader at the University of Tennessee. So I just wanted to know, how would you describe your experience as a cheerleader? And how was this influential with your dance career?

J. Moore 6:27

Well, um, it’s funny, going to a large university – and I really didn’t know anything coming from a very small town – about sororities and fraternities. And as I got down there, people were saying, “Well, you know, where did you pledge and what did you pledge,” and I was going “pledge what?” You know, [Laugh] and when I was told about sororities, you have to be picked and there’s this rush and all this. And at the time, my parents were putting your mother [sic – grandmother] and her twin through college, and I was the third one. And that was a big bite financially. So I didn’t, I didn’t feel I needed it. I knew that I made friends easily. And, so it’s funny, so the next year I got elected cheerleader and within a week, eight sororities called me up and asked me to join. [Laugh] I wasn’t okay before, but now that I’m a cheerleader, I’m in demand. And you know, I turned it down. I didn’t need it. I said, “I don’t need it.” But, let me just back up a little bit and tell you a bit about one of the things that influenced my feelings about… [Pause] Well, about racism, and people from different backgrounds is that… I was aware that coming from a hometown where there were no black people, zero zip. And I had not had experience with relationships with African Americans. And I remember the first time I really thought about racism was when my father, who was in India during the war – and that was India and Burma – and for some reason, something came up about the untouchables in India, you know, as a horrible class discrimination. And I remember saying to him – he’s talking about it – and I said, “Well, why are they untouchable?” And he said, “Well, because they’re just labeled untouchables.” And I went “what did they do to become untouchable?” “Well, they didn’t do anything.” And I said, “You mean they were born untouchable?” He said, “Well, not really. But that’s what society…” and I remember just being completely blown away by that kind of racism: you do nothing other than just being born, and you’re labeled. That again, influenced this whole thing about me being really intent on “I’m not gonna live that way, and I’m not gonna I’m not gonna let that rule how I interact with the world.” So anyway, I get to [The University of] Tennessee – the first year, I was just a cheerleader, the second year, and the third year, they elected me captain of the squad. There’s 14 of us. So I had to manage 14 people for two years. And the first year, one of my dearest dearest friends was an African American guy from Nashville [Tennessee]. And the second year we had a woman, an African American woman, from Chattanooga. And so anyway, we start out the first year, and I deliberately

Ben  9:26

Oh, sorry, the audio cut out. [Break in the connection – about a minute pause to fix the technical difficulties] There we go.

J. Moore 9:32

Did I talk about the first African American elected cheerleader the second year?

Ben  9:39

Yeah. You said your best friend was an African American man…

J. Moore 9:43

Yeah, so the second year, we elected another African American [to the cheerleading squad] and this was a woman. And I decided I was not going to put the African American man and the only African American woman together. So we were sponsored by the alumni affair, and they started getting hate mail from people whining to know why I was not putting the African American woman with African American man? Because some of them found it kind of offensive to have the African American man holding on and grabbing – I mean, you know, we used to laugh about, you know, some of the things, things that we do. The guy’s hand is right up in there. [Laugh] And they were offended by that, and I was not gonna change. I mean, I was not gonna bow down. And I told the alumni affairs “No, I’m not putting the two black people on, you know, as partners, it’s not going to happen.” So, you know, I had to defend that. And I just felt this is crazy, it’s crazy. Yeah. Anyway, that experience also taught me the art of small talk. And by that I mean, they would have big givers, donators to the university and we would be called in to come to dinners and affairs either before or after the games,  and sometimes just affairs anyway, we would wear our little outfits and go in. And we were like a little meet and greet with everybody and sit around the table. And I can remember the first time the head of Martha White Flour [American brand of flour and other baking mixes] sat beside of me. And that’s still going on today – I mean, it’s still a company.

Ben  11:14

Yeah.

J. Moore 11:16

And I learned that I could, I could hold my own and learn how to small talk. And you know, that bode well through my entire life learning how to do that. And then learning how to do it with some powerful people, because when I left university, I asked the Chancellor of the University [of Tennessee] if he would write me just a general letter of recommendation. So here I am this little, you know, small town cheerleader getting the head of the university to write a nice letter about me

Ben  11:45

Yeah that’s pretty cool!

J. Moore 11:45

Yeah. So, but also learning how to manage people for the first time, and deal with personalities and everything that goes on with that. And, and then you’re going on about the dance world, and, you know, in the dance world.. [Pause] Well, you know, I studied a lot… well let me just back up. So, I had the dance degree in Tennessee, then I went to graduate school in [the University of] Oregon. And this is another example of where I kind of thought, you know, this is how, once again, I can kind of affect some social change being a southern girl out in Oregon, in graduate school. First of all, I remember, one person said, “Oh, you’re from the south, the deep South.” And I said, “Well, it’s not too deep.” And the guy said, “Well, it’s probably pretty nice, because you’re on the mountains, and you’re on the coast,” And I went, “Well Tennessee’s landlocked, no, we’re not on the ocean.” [Laugh] “I don’t know what you made in geography.” But then later on, he made some comment about the fact that they were still separate bathrooms in the south – and this was 1975. And I said, “Well, where is that?” “Well, it’s just down there.” And I said, “Well, how do you know?” “Well, I mean, someone’s told me.” “And what did they tell you?” And it was just a parody. You know, it was just something to say, a bigoted thing to say. We didn’t have separate bathrooms in the south in 1975. Did we have bigotry and racism? Of course we did. But that wasn’t, you know, separate bathrooms in the south. [Why] I bring that up is, I kind of represented the whole south when I was up there. And what I got tired of was, you know, comments about racism or history and the Civil War, and whatever. And I realized, Ben, and this was really interesting, that their bigotry toward Native Americans, because there are several reservations even in Oregon – it astounded me. And then, also, they had this racism toward Asians. So I’m sitting here thinking, “Well, I don’t think we have the market cornered on bigotry in the south.” [Laugh] I can sense some of it up here. But the other thing is I taught dance history. And to teach dance history, it’s like teaching world history really because all cultures have dance. I mean all cultures have used movement. And so I thought about it, and I thought, well, how do I want to approach this? And then once again, I was thinking about change. So I started out with the Kung Bushmen, who were the tribe – they were a bit of a nomadic tribe in South Africa. You probably heard about apartheid in South Africa. You know, for aeons – and especially the Dutch and English – they all thought since people weren’t … at the time, people weren’t in that area permanently, because they were nomadic. And I read this book from James Michener and I’ll never forget one of the lines was, it was the comment that this Dutch paid a guy to go out and surveil around and see if there are any other populations around. And he came back and he said to […] the head of some of the establishments that they were putting in. And he says, you know, I’m not really sure that we should continue to kill the little bushmen because I spied on their village and they have families and friends, and they even make friends with dogs, so I’m not sure we should continue to kill them. I think they’re human.”

Ben  15:33

Yeah. Oh, wow.

**[NOTE: The rest of the transcript is an unedited transcription done by the AI service Otter.ai. It is a rough transcription and contains errors. Refer to the audio for clarity.]**

J. Moore 14:53

I’ll never forget that line! So when I got ready to teach the history of dance, I thought I will teach cultural and then I’ll go in from like western dance from the demanded cheese and Italy and on. But the first cultural group I taught was about dance with the Colin bushman. Yeah, people were just stunned at that. And then also ended up talking about the Kwaku in Indians up in, well, just a little bit north of Washington State in that area. So I wanted to make sure that they had that ethnic experience and not talk, but rather not the I’m in India, and I talk about Kabuki in Japan. So I gave them this real diverse look at the different cultures around the world, which was also very educational for me.

Ben  16:25

Yeah. Oh, that’s really cool. Yeah,

J. Moore 16:29

it turned out really interesting. So that was the Graduate School portion of teaching dance out there. Yeah. When I came into the University of Kentucky, where I taught dance, I was, and I also got to experience great students that wanted to dance and I had a little small touring Dance Company. And that was kind of my introduction to having my own dance company, even though there were students. And we toured a little bit. And then my first time that I decided to be a producer presenter of other dance performances, I did it there. And I brought in this company from New York, and I’m leaving one important thing out, I forgot. Every summer, I would go off and study with someone different dance. I mean, I would either be at Washington University in St. Louis, I would go to Oh, in DC, I went to the University of Maryland. I went, also who what else is there, Georgetown, I went to George Washington University. So you know, and then often on to New York, and just all the different places where there was a similar workshop where somebody was really interested in because I knew that to make myself better, obviously, I had to study with these other people. Yeah. So I would be doing that through the summers. And then I would come back and teach it Kentucky. But the reason for leaving was I realized I could stay in and probably name the studio after me eventually. But I knew that I just needed more gross. So that’s when I went back to New York and started studying again at New York. And and that was about the time that the what they called the gay disease was coming out, and the gay disease was actually AIDS. And I remember working in this, and this really young, delightful young guy started getting sick and was like dead in 10 days, and we’re all going what happened, then it started happening more now. To my friend can my great friend who was the dancer cheerleader, with me who majored in business, and he ends up working his way up to an executive vice president at Citibank. But he could not. He couldn’t reveal that he was gay. So I will be like the girlfriend, and he would get front row tickets to like, you know, some great ballet or some performance. And I would go and they would go kitty, she’s so sweet. And we want you guys are going to get married. And it was really fraught with stress for him because he could be who he was half the time, but they’ll have the time. He couldn’t be who he was at work. And he, when his mother, we would come today on she taught. She taught in the medical school at my Harry in Nashville, but he still couldn’t be who he was. So I started realizing. Well, I’ll take you back. One more steps. Yeah. degress. This is important.

When you’re in college, I wanted to just go off and do something funky for the summer. And a friend and I decided that we were working in amusement park, which was Cedar Point, which you probably know up and clean. Yeah. So we interviewed and the woman as she’s talking to me, she found out about my dance background. And she said, Well, are you interested in getting like using your dance now? And I was like, Sure, you know? And it turns out that I had gone to, by the way, anybody that live in a world where I hadn’t been before in school, I went home with them. I had when the gate was open, I went home. Yeah, somebody called her father built the holiday yams because they were from Memphis. And that’s where Holiday Inn started. And he was building one in the Bahamas. So I got to go to the Bahamas for two weeks, which is here in the two weeks, this woman decided that I would do better as a performer at this whole summer, this brand new theater they built in New Mexico. And so she called up and she said, instead of, sort of, you know, see the port, we’d like to look at you for a dancer, would you be willing to come into audition? And I was like, what? Sure, where is it? And she said, Well, it was going to be this weekend in Memphis. Wow. Okay, so get this. I went home, and I rehearsed a piece to audition with, and I’d never flown before. And I’d never been to Memphis before, you know? Yeah. Never auditioned before any of that. So I remember getting off the plane. And well, the whole time was on the plane. It’s like all of us. My head was stuck to the windshield. Me to the window because oh my god. Yeah, people. So yeah. And I never taken well, I had taken a cab in New York. So I take a cab, get to the place, get to the audition, I have on a nice little dress, my my unit, my costumes underneath it. And I’m looking around realizing at some point, they’re going to call me and I have to take my dress off. So I’m sitting there slowly coming out of my dress. And I got my do my piece. And then she said, Well, can you tap dance? And I went, Yeah, and I have own rubber ballroom shoes. So I’m just not making much noise. So the long and short of that is, I came back from the Bahamas. And she called and said, We want you to come out to New Mexico. And I said, Well, I have to call my parents. So I’ll call my parents. And by the way, this is one phone for 12 people on the hall number there’s no one tone. Yeah. The good news is because of that. My parents first says, well, they wanted to know more facts. And I was a little vague. I was so excited. I didn’t have everything quite answered. And they said, well, we just don’t know enough. We’re not sure that’s something you should do. And this is a big point that I need to make is my mother was the one that helped me evolve and broaden my world. She encouraged me always to go on to do more. I mean, yeah, that’s why I’m here is because of her. So two people got on the phone before I could get back. I mean, after I had been on the phone, two people got on the phone. During that time, my mother talked to my father again and said, when we need to let her do this. So my mother comes back about 15 minutes later and said, we’ve changed her mind you should go. So reason I say this, once again, flying for the first second time going to New Mexico. They hired there were people from 13 different colleges, and about 10 different states. We all live in an apartment complex. So this is the first time that I drank beer. I tried pot, there were gay people everywhere. There were Mexican people because of where we were. And it was just three and a half months of getting exposed to these incredible artistic people. And what what that did for me, it said for me, my world is gonna change because of the arts. Yeah, seeing different people, I’m seeing the world in a different way that if I hadn’t been in the arts, I wouldn’t have done this. So that was an incredible eye opening experience. So now, you want to talk about the dance company.

So I was in New York, and I decided I wanted to have my own dance company. By the way, I worked in Lake Placid, New York, one of the winters. It was another example of like, once again, the South is you know, we don’t have the the corner on racism and bigotry because yeah, I think New York, okay, there’s New York, and then there’s upstate New York, like blasted. And I just found myself God, I’m around. I’m just around bigots again, and racism. But anyway, so I decided to go on and do my own dance company. And I thought about wanting to be a little bit closer to home. And then I realized that North Carolina had a great state or states art State Arts Council. And then I thought about Asheville, which, for people that don’t know this that’s over the mountain for where we lived, and that was a very rural back road and people didn’t people really didn’t cross over to Asheville. Growing up, you just, you always went west, Johnson, Kingsport, Bristol, Knoxville, you just didn’t people just didn’t go to high school back then. Yeah, of course we have that huge interstate. But anyway, so I get there and started my own dance company. And I started teaching dance. And I kind of picked up this dance studio and then my class was got bigger and I got more popular. And then I had a friend that I said, and I met in upstate New York missive Ralph, if you’ll come help me retrofit and build a studio in this big open, it had been an old feed and seed and it had big iron trusses, it was very open. And I said, I’ll feed you feel, I’ll feed you in and buy you all the beer you can drink if you’ll go help me out. And he was he was, I mean, he was in college, but he also was an incredible builder. I mean, it was restored near. But anyway, we’ve maintained our friendship since then. So during that time, I started collecting dancers. I started teaching dance. And so I had the studio and then I helped build the studio. We built risers, receipts, driving 20, Penny nails, maybe building all the risers, we brought chairs in, we built an office we built changing rooms and this building connected to a restaurant that had a bathroom those Thank God, I didn’t have to pay for a bathroom. But then I started bringing in more every summer our bringing a nationally known dancer, choreographer. Yeah. Wow. I would I would do. We started geeky. I have to get Robert Kiki. We, whoa. Well, you realize if you’re going to be in the dance world, that the only way to survive and make money is you know, she’s got a tour. Okay. She’s she’s deaf, so she’s not hearing me. Okay. Maybe she’ll stop anyway. No, she won’t. Hold on. I know what I’m gonna do. Through the No, she’s dead. She can’t hear me. Robert, will you stop Kiki, she’s caught barking.

So anyway, then it was hard. It was hard. We did. The marketing was paying somebody $75 Just to typeset a poster, posters, mail, direct mail stamps, sitting on the studio floor, and trying to put you know, letters together packages together. I mean letters to get the word out. That’s just locally. And then as we started touring, to get the word out, we got these VCRs Well, we didn’t have a way of editing him. So I conned this one guy that I met on the Arts Council board of directors, of which I got my cell phone there to use the TV station to edit a video that we could send out. But the cost of sending a VCR was not cheap. Yes, we have any other way to communicate. There was no internet. Yeah. So your tours recruitments limited where you are, but we got more and more successful. And by the time and I would say about 10 years out. We were making decent money for a dance company. We were touring all the way up to like Marilyn and down to Atlanta and over Tennessee, Kentucky all around, you know, kind of the Atlantic, Middle East. But what was interesting about all this is once again, managing people, which I had to do, but managing people sometimes we’re together, seriously 24/7 If you out four or five days of touring, you’re there 24/7 And like, Marilyn wants to go on quickly to the to the place we’ll return to warm up. And no Marilyn. Built, say Larry wants to go on and go straight there and warm out before the performance Maryland names tampons. So we’re going to get tampons, you know, this is what you do. You have to get over some of your individualism goes overboard. Here’s a group. Yep. And at one point, I realized that I had to say to the two different people one time I said, I don’t care if you hate each other after the performance, but for the next 70 minutes, you’re going to love each other. Your attitudes towards each other, you know, affect affect everybody and in my contract. My contract headline is no pissy no moaning no kvetching, no black holes or darkness, and contagious. And I had to put that in my contract. And then at one point, I remember saying to people, I’m tired of this. I’m tired of you all. You know, if you don’t like each other, then pretend because I’m starting to censor what I do query off choreographically because YouTube came along, or my cell phone. Well down here is Larry and down and that’s Connie. But then, if a breakup no Connie and Larry don’t get along enough, start thinking, Wait a minute. I’m doing this because these people can’t get along. And then I felt validated later on because this man, Dan Wagner, and I took a summer workshop with him out in New York. You know, as with Martha Graham and a number of people really fantastic dancer choreography. And he won the the dance Magazine Award one year, and they usually need to get a full page in the New York Times. Wow, it’s a big deal. Big deal. Yeah. So they asked him about, somebody asked him how he picked his new dancers and how he auditioned. And he said, Well, you said in the 60s, I just looked for people that had some technique and could really dance in the 70s. In the 80s. I looked at people that were a little quirky, they could just maybe they were good dancers, but they had they brought something interesting. And he said, by the 90s, I just wanted people that dance reasonably well and could get along with. He said, You know, when you’re touring, and there’s all this tension, it’s just, you know, he said that I need people that aren’t into just being a prima donnas. He said, I didn’t want any room Adonis after that. So you’re dealing with that. But I will tell you that during those 16 years with a dance company, and once again, I would bring in people from New York famous, you know, choreographers and they would set a piece of choreography on us. And then we would always do, our new season would always be at the beginning of the fall, where we’re different members of the company would want to do choreography, or I would do a piece, but we always would bring in somebody, and I love that band, because somebody came in and got to tell me what to do, because I was tired of telling everybody else.

And, but anyway, I brought in one person who was the artistic director of North Carolina Dance Theater. And, and they always performed with the orchestra up into where it got too expensive. But then I brought, I met a man at the very famous summer workshop, over in Durham, and he was a incredible dancer. And I asked him, I hired him, I said, come in and set a piece of choreography all his name was Clarence teeter. And right before he got there, he says, I’m not, I’m not feeling too well. But I’m gonna go ahead and come into the choreography. And he said, a great piece of choreography on us. And about halfway through that week, I talked to a friend I said, Got this cochlear, it’s theater. He said, in New York, he’s really phenomenal mover. And he told me that Clarence had AIDS. And that’s probably why he was not feeling very well.

Ben  32:52

Oh, wow. And I remember, I had to,

J. Moore 32:57

I had to think long and hard about if I said something, is that going to make him kind of feel a little more relieved? Or is it going to make him more anxious, and I chose not to do that. And it wasn’t too long. He passed away after that. So the last piece of choreography did actually was my dance company. And a great piece of choreography. And the choreography that was done by the artistic director of North Carolina Dance Theatre. The name of that piece was the waiting room waiting. And and it had to do with the fact that he also was HIV positive and had AIDS then died within about less than a year. Oh, wow. What I’m saying is, there were so many times for my friend can to the exposure with these two guys, that I would come to the realization that I was speaking up for people not only because they were gay, my God because they were gay. And they had AIDS in the way people. I mean, it was horrible to be a gay person. Back then, especially with the AIDS epidemic. I mean, never Yeah, normally discriminated against. And like, I remember there was a there was a swimming pool in Philadelphia, where a gay man got in and they empty the whole pool made people get out because he got in the swimming pool. I mean, it was just awful. Yeah, the three inequities that these people suffered. But so then with the dance company, I’ll just tell you one piece of my choreography that that i

This is the only time I ever was brought to tears because of a piece of choreography that I had done, and it was called hitting home. And it was about domestic violence. And the dancers start lying down and if you’re, if you’re looking, they’re lying down up to your right upstage, their heads are facing you, and all the movement had to do with them lying down and that was kind of like this, the synchronized movement that kind of looks like headstones, and then they stand up and then we start just sliding our feet underneath us. And that was my impression of the, it’s kind of like, you know, people get in this kind of place, women where they just keep in it, they keep going back to the man. And down front was the character that we kept dancing towards this quarter of the stage which represented the man in the abuse. And so it was done to I said, it’s done starts out to shape note singing, APA, legit shape note singing. And then the music itself was done by a woman on a banjo. And, and the first time we did it, we did it at this high school and the principal’s before we started, he said, Look, this is a rowdy group. And we canceled all the assembly’s till now. But if they start acting up, I might have to step in. And I knew being that I had created a show that that had never happened before. And this was about probably 10 years. Yeah, and they weren’t going to do that. But I knew this was the time I wanted to try out this very, pretty hard hitting piece of choreography. So I stood there. And I told him, I said, No more women are injured or killed in domestic violence than anything, including accidents. I just want you to let that sink in. And I said, I have never done this at a school show. But we’re going to show it to you today. It’s done to shape not music, it’s done to someone with a banjo. And it’s long. So those are three things that I think are going to challenge you and we’ll see what happens. So when we finished it, it was amazing. I mean, kids were crying in the audience. And what happened. And what we learned from that is, especially young women, after that we’re going up to teachers or their parents, and telling them that they were feeling abused and had been abused. Yeah. Wow. Wow, it’s really powerful. Yeah, it was very, it was very powerful. And it continued to be a piece that we usually had one or two teachers, we would pick out and then have their students write a reaction to our show. And, and they were really, some of them are very funny, like, I like the one with the red hair, but she has big feet. I mean, we use that. But then that particular piece, the teachers took that and went with it. And so that was a, you know, again, the part of me that even created that, once again is is is looking at, you know, women and how women are victims of domestic violence so much and once again, me and social change trying to look at. And that’s why modern dance, as opposed to ballet is so different. And that’s why I gravitated to modern dance, because you know, you’re not going to see by somebody in a tutu upon toe shoes, talking about this balance. It’s not what ballet is about. It also made it harder marketing the dance company, because what I had to do is I had to really talk about the choreography that we’re going to see, because if you say, well, it’s ballet, well, they’re ready. It’s sad. But I would say no, it’s modern dance and this than the other. By the way, the last piece that we always entered the show was a piece of mine. And it was a tap piece. But my my problem to myself my choreographic problem I said, I’m going to create a dance piece for the dancers never stand up. So we start out tapping in director’s chairs, we tap on the chairs, we tap on each other sitting down, we slide off, we roll off. As we roll back in, we’re tap dancing, we’re rolling back and we tap dance all around each other. We do the Three Stooges thing where we swirl around on the floor, we handstand tap, and it brings the house down. So dance, tap dancing, where you never stand up to something like hitting home. And obviously the stress of all that.

It was worth it in many ways, but it also ended up affecting me. And I became this in a sea lion was severe chronic asthmatic. And I no part of that was the I would sign up, find myself going, I would wake up and go, Okay, see, where are we? Okay, okay, we’re in Cincinnati. And then I would have to go up early, and anybody else would sleep in and I would meet with my lighting director or the technical director, and we would set up and light and do the specials and all the effects. And then the dancers got to come in about noon, and they would bring me a sandwich and they had slept in and would either get in, get in the van and drive again or get up early and do another show. So we got to where we figured out the best way we could survive and we would do two weeks to four weeks a month. And when we used to do question and answer at the end of this school shows, people would ask us, you know how long we do it and how we tour And I used to say, plants, animals, husbands, wives, girlfriends boyfriends go away or die when you’re gone for long. So we try not to be gone for too long to two other really interesting aspects. Can I kind of get my Can I still go about these? Yeah, for sure. Okay. One was, we performed at the, it’s the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina up in the mountains. And the woman said, Well, let’s start out with the curtains closed, because these kids have never been to like a real performance. So if you do that, they’re gonna have the experience of coming into a theater and the curtains open up, and then they get to see your show. So I said, fine. So we get up there, I think this is this is in Cherokee County, I’m pretty sure. So we get up there. And we’re in the way the show usually starts as I just let the kids come in. And we’re just warming up on stage. But in this case, the curtain open, and I stepped out to talk and really, truly been, I was taken aback because I went probably set about, I’d say, probably said about 600 kids. And I looked around, I couldn’t find one blond headed human. I mean, they were all dark headed. I mean, these were Native American, these were Indians. And they’re all just, and I just really struck by, you know, I couldn’t recall having that happen before. That is we do the show. And they clapped. And I really liked it. And then after the show, we usually sit on the edge of the stage or 10, stand up all of us, and we do a question and answer. And if there’s a little bit of a hesitancy always pose a question and answer it myself just to get things going. And I say something like, well, a lot of times students wants to know, want to know, do we get paid to do this? And I go, Well, we do in you know, we’re professional dancers, blah, blah, blah. And, and so I did that, and nobody raised their hand. So I said, another question. I said, a lot of times people ask us, which one of our the dances you’ve seen is our favorite. And somebody’s like, well, like, you know, Constance, what’s yours? Okay, any other questions? Okay, no questions. So hold on. I’ve never had it before ever. Ask a question. And we were downtown. And so I did about four or five of those and thanked him at the end of it. So I walk up to the woman who’s the presenter, and she’s the principal of school. These were these were these are about these, maybe it was either maybe middle school or seventh graders. No, probably middle school. And I told her out dumbfounded I was and I said, you know, I carried on out there, I know. But I said, I’m just not used to not having people respond. And she said, Gemma, what you don’t realize about the culture of Indians is to ask a personal question of a stranger is consider highly rude. It’s very rude to do that. Really. Wow. And they were not going to ask you a question about your life. Because that’s not what you do, as Yeah. And I was like, wow, that was pretty interesting. I had no idea. And and then the only other time that happened somewhat similarly, was we did a performance at a very rich private school in Louisville, Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, and the door, you know, the curtain was closed. That’s what this is the teacher wanted. So the curtain opens up and it was the opposite. Every kid in there, those white kids, nothing but white kids. And so we do the performance and whatever. And so at the end of it, that woman said, is Bannister, that was so amazing. We loved it. The kids thought it was great. You know, I mean, do you do have other entertainers that that are kind of do school programs like you that we could bring in? Because, you know, they just loved it? And I said, Well, yeah, Chuck, Dave has stance ensemble. Chuck Davis is an African American dance ensemble. And I said, these kids need to see some pigment. I mean, find out. And she ended up she ended up bringing them in and told me later on how enjoyable it was, but there’s no way she would have done that if I hadn’t said yeah, you bring in you know, wow. Again, me pushing a boundary a little bit. Let’s let’s, let’s let’s look at all this again. Yeah, it’s really cool. Yeah. And one one other thing that has to do with when I was in Asheville, I didn’t mention, I had my dance company. I had the studio and then I started a nonprofit production company. Brought in other artists, and then you never make money on dance. So we decided as we’re bringing in other dance companies, maybe we should bring in people that we might be able to make money on. And this was my own production company. So I the dance company, the dance studio was touring. You know, I taught dance, and then I had the production company. So there’s a mountain over there in Nashville called bocchetta. Mountain. So I named it bocchetta Productions. So I’d never done a really big name before. And I’ll, I’ll save you everything other than I found out that Ray Charles was going to be performing nearby, or really wow, yeah. And this is so cool. And then I ended up using a never even fax before, this is the first history of fax, I got to fax, you know, contract to him in Las Vegas. I mean, Los Angeles. So we ended up getting

 

Ray Charles to come through perform. And we hoped we thought we would probably make some money, we could bring in other dance companies. So he comes in. And oh, before he came in, we produced it at the Civic Center there in Asheville. You know, where it is the big Civic Center? Yeah. The head of the Civic Center said, We know Jay Mohr, he says, I think you’ll probably get a, you know, a probably get a lot of people you might not, you probably won’t sell out. And I said, I’ll sell out. I don’t know. And so they print up the tickets in advance. And I said, Give me 250 tickets that I can take and sale and you can sell the rest at the box office. He said, What do you need so many tickets? And I said, well, the why am I Cultural Center. This was a cultural center that Cornelius Vanderbilt built, when he built the Vanderbilt mansion there. All the artists, whether they were African Americans, a lot of them were or immigrants. These are artisans that could carve and build and do amazing things. He built an area where they all lived small homes, and then this cultural center. So I knew that African Americans, by and large, had been so disenfranchised as far as it comes for, like, you know, the financial systems or just just participating and all in, you know, what would we call nowadays? You know, the Black Lives Matter brought out systemic racism, because there’s so many areas where they were always prevented for so long. So if you take it’s down to the, why am I’m and and this woman’s name was Wanda Henry komen. I said, Wanda, I know a lot of part of this population is not going to come up to the civic center to buy tickets. I’m going to give you 250 tickets and see how many you can sell. She sold them in four days. Oh, wow. It was a sellout. It was phenomenal. We made about $20,000. We brought in Martha Graham Dance Company and other things. But I’ll tell you a great Ray Charles story. So I used to just make a big deal when I would hire dancers to do stuff and performers always wanted to make them feel special. So I called up the person who taught at the School of the Deaf and I said, Would you in Braille? Take a couple of students and have them ride out what Ray Charles? I mean, blind. Sorry, school, the blind. What? Yeah, right. Charles, being a blind person means to them and the fact that he’s coming, and I’ll get you two tickets for those kids. I’ll get you for they can bring your parents. Yeah. And so they wrote out two little stories. And then I had one of them in Braille do a Star for his door. So he had a Braille star on his door and then I put the two stories on his dressing room. So after the performance, his manager said his Bannister was Bannister. He said, Mr. Charles wants to shoot he always called him Mr. Charge. It was a hoot introducing him to is really beyond cool. Yeah. He said, Mr. Charles wants to meet the producer lady. And I said, Well, that would be me. So I walk over, and we’re standing there. And he reaches out. And he said, Let me have your hand and I. And he took my hand and he took my hand and put it on his heart. And he said, I want you to know, I’ve been doing this most of my life. And no one has ever done something so gracious, like what you did? And he said, have you read the stories? And I said, Mr. Charles, I haven’t. I mean, I don’t speak Braille. I mean, I don’t I don’t know braille. Yeah. And he said, I can’t tell you how much that meant for me. So that was incredible. Forward about two months. The manager sent me a letter and said that Mr. Charles has framed and put those two stories up in his office in Los Angeles. Oh, that is so cool. And that was so cool. So you know, he died maybe four or five years ago, but I often thought if I could ever get there, I’d love to see if it was still on his office. up there. But yeah, that was pretty cool. That was, that’s amazing. Yeah. But then we brought in other people to Judy Collins and other people, a lot of other people. And that’s where I started booking other talents. But why I bring that up is

 

I’ve been the talent, so I really know what it means to be treated right as the talent. Yeah. So after that all the other people that we bring in, you know, I just made sure they really do feel special. And, you know, that’s, that’s the way that so that was really crazy. That’s super cool. And I don’t want to Oh, you were talking about how dance maybe has changed or like I say, and the internet and people can just reach the world now, with their promos, you know, and they don’t want videos, and they can sit and edit their own work and all of that. And, you know, I do know that had my dance company had the ability to use the internet, we would be much more far reaching, it would have just really made a difference in the audience’s that we could. Yeah, that we could find. But anyway, I didn’t even look at my notes. I don’t know if there’s something I thought unless you got another question. Oh, that was awesome. Well, let me just go to the last thing, which is okay. Which is talking about, you were asking me about nowadays, is there something how did you put that question about? What?

 

Ben  51:36

I said, Is there a social change happening now that you do agree or disagree with? And if so, what was it?

 

J. Moore 51:44

Well, the agree, obviously, is Black Lives Matter couldn’t be more supportive of that. And, and when you know, Solon, personally, and I, you know, you hear that that old adage that, you know, walk a mile into my shoes. And it’s so true if you’ve been around people that have suffered discrimination, and even slight discriminations day after day after day. Oh, which reminds me of a great one great story with Kenny. My father was a racist, and a bigot. He drew he grew up in upstate North South Carolina. And you have to understand he was he was older when he got married. And his his experience was his mother, my grandmother, her mother would have been alive at the end of the Civil War. So all that racism, discrimination. And in other words, you kind of hear about first person narratives, these people would have directly, you know, affected me, and I mean, affected. My grandmother, my father and me. And so my mother convinced him to quit using the N word which he used any he he some after that. But his sister married a guy from Boston, during the war, his voted, had stopped in Charleston, she met him she goes up marriage lives in Massachusetts, reached out to this story is every time they would come down to visit every summer, they would move around to the different siblings and spend probably a full week with us. And her husband Leo always brought up how big it did and the racism of the South. He always was bringing it up. And I was I was really tired of that. But he didn’t continue to bring it up. So I’m in New York, Katie’s in their member. He’s a dancer banker. So I said, Katie, there’s great workshop happening in Boston. I’m going to drive up there and go to it. Do you want to go? Sure. I want to go. So we get in the car driving up there. And then I have to realize that you know, my aunt Pete, that was her name Pete lived outside of Boston, and I thought, well, this would be cool. And then I thought more. I had a hidden hidden agenda and I thought, okay, won’t take kidney there. And we’re gonna go visit Uncle Leo. Get it? You already get it? Yeah. So called right before about an hour before? Yes, they’re home. We get there opened the door. And there was my Pete. And I could tell from Leo’s expression, it was like moved out of sight. So they invited us in. I think that offered some water. Nobody offered us to sit down. It was really uncomfortable. I could do it right off the bat. So we leave. The next day. My my aunt calls my mother and said, Well, you know that your daughter stopped off here on the way to Boston with a friend yesterday. And my mother said yes. She told me about it. She said that you got to meet Kenny and she says we you know she acts like he’s not even black. Wow.

 

Ben  54:57

That’s crazy.

 

J. Moore 55:01

My mother said, Well, I’m not sure what exactly that means, you know, but you know, so my mother calls to tell me that and I went, look what a big P he was. And that was, he didn’t he left the room, he wouldn’t even come in there. But he was chronically every visit, getting on us for racism, bigotry, and, you know, it was it was just too much. And one final thing about being an artist in North Carolina, toward the, through my work with a dance company and with my production company, I began very familiar with the people who were head of the Arts Council, the North Carolina State Arts Council. And believe in what they often brought me down to be on a juried panel to decide if some performing group or something was good enough to be on roster that they put out a roster and they mail it out to presenters to maybe bring in other people. So I’m gonna go down there sometimes urging, and at one point, I said to them, because they asked me, What do you think would most improve specially performing arts how they get picked up, can presented by other presenters, and I said, challenge them. And I said, when they write a grant, and they say they want to bring in other artists, don’t let him bring in the string orchestra string orchestra, the string orchestra, yeah, you know, challenged him to do something different. I said, the whole reason that you become a dancer, choreographer is you want to get or anybody you want to get your work out there. That’s what you want to do. And if it if no one wants to see it, it doesn’t go out there. And so they added that to the questionnaire in the grant is you had to show them how you were, you know, broadening and not using the same performance as every time. And they also said, how do you look at adding people of coral color to your board of directors and stuff? And this is, this is part of me bringing all this up again? Yeah. If you want to touch just quickly on the latest things, by the way, the reason I ended up in in Winston Salem is Robert went down there to do training, because, you know, he had done at part of a surgery residency, but it was a family thought, but he knew he didn’t. He wanted to really find out what’s going on in side of people. Because if you’re a good doc, and the guy comes in, he says, Well, I’ve got a migraine. I don’t know why. And you find out well, he’s, he’s lost his job. His kids acting up and his wife wants a divorce. He doesn’t know why he has migraines. Yeah. So the kind of mental health always interested him. So we move there. So he could do this residency in psychiatry. And that’s how I got down there. But going down there also meant leaving everything that I had done a damn stall my life. Yeah. So I found out about this program, and legal Liberal Studies at Duke went down interviewed, and we didn’t have the household income to go to Duke. But I got the scholarship and Liberal Studies, you also could have it an area of emphasis in mind was Documentary Studies, because they had started a Center for Documentary Studies. And a lot of my coursework was taken there. And if you want to know about I tell people about Duke in this was in graduate school.

 

I mean, I’m sure you could go there for undergraduate school obviously wanted to, but in graduate school, what I found is the most amazing professors mean these people. They’re either making the trend, they know about the trend. They’re, I mean, they just set a whole new standard for instruction, in my opinion. Yeah. And the course that that I was most affected by this course, taught, it was called land in the south Knight 1790 until 1970. So obviously, that went all the way through the Civil War. And it started with slavery, the Civil War reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and just everything all the way up. And I thought, God, it sounds fascinating. Okay, I’m gonna listen up. So there were seven of us there, and I get there, and the professor’s late. So we hear this Kalaam Kalaam Kalaam Kalaam kalaam, this heavy kind of shoe presence. And it turns out, the guy that taught the class two years ago had gotten the award For the top students had voted him the talk professor at Duke. That’s how good he was. So, you know, when you when you say 7090 1970 history, the land in the south, this was bias on mine, I’m asserting it was going to be an African American. But turns out, he’s a Jewish cowboy for Texas was like what? He taught an amazing class. And I had told him that we had just purchased this little cabin, on the Edisto Red River in South Carolina, that ends up playing a big role in my thesis, but he just, he just totally encouraged me to look more what that experience was all about being down there. So I decided to write my thesis on what it was like being down there. And, and I mean, South Carolina, is a different place. I mean, the the bigotry there is barely under the, under the surface. I mean, it’s, it’s on the surface in many cases. But I told him one story. And he said, You got to put that in your thesis. And the story is from driving through this small town. And I get pulled over by this local cop, and he said that I was doing 45 and a 30. And that, you know, they have a lot of little people around here. And I needed to watch it. And he gave me the ticket. So. So I show up a month later for the ticket in this little small town. It’s called it was Blackville, BlackField, South Carolina. And I got a little lost. And so I’m coming in late. And as I walked in, there was a door and I could see this table. And it was obvious, there was a woman sitting there taking notes, and there was a man who looks kind of judicial very August and what he’s wearing, and then kind of beat around, realized there was a, quote, roll of people. So I go all the way to the back. And I come in around the back. And I walked down, I realize I’m the only white person there. But I said to this guy, I said, Is this where you come when you’re, you know, you have to pay a ticket? And he said, Yes. And I said, I said, what he said, I said, Well, how does it go? Does it go by alphabet? Or how are you called? And he said, Well, it’s usually random. He said, I think because often it’s the white people that go first. Oh, but I looked at him. And I said, Well, I guess that would be me. And I, I understood it. And I just want him to know that. I’m sure that is the case. Yeah, it gets worse by this. Oh, no, you end up being so humiliated. Anyway, about the six or seven person I get called, and I go up, he’s looking at it and whatever, call my name, and I’m standing in front of him. I bet there’s probably 30 people in there. And they’re all facing him and I’m standing up there. And he goes, well, well, Does he miss Bannister? Oh, North Carolina. And he goes, Look here, people. Here’s somebody that came all the way from North Carolina to saddle up. They’re gonna settle up their debt, despite you all need to be aware of he started to make me being this rule, you know, and she’s here and whatever. Well, the irony was is after he finishes talking, he says, well, let’s reduce it from my 120 to I don’t know, I think it was $80.

And I got out my checkbook in my car. And I said, Do you want a checkbook or card and he said, we only take cash, oh, I left out a good part. The guy right in front of me, didn’t have any money. He couldn’t pay it. He just ripped into him and chastised him. And now what were you thinking you show up here and you don’t have any money and whatever. And, you know, just got rip this guy down the road. So I’m up there, the white woman that all he’s all thinking now drove off display, whatever. And then I go, Well, I don’t I don’t have cash. So see, now I can’t pay. But rather than chastise me, he says, Look, just go outside and go at the end of the block. And he says an ATM right there and you can get your cash. And I went, okay, but I mean, I’m telling you the back of my neck through all this. I was just like, Oh, please don’t do this to me. Yeah, me the serial typical white person now. Now I get to go get cash and the other guy doesn’t and so I go get the cash. And I come back in. And as I looked in the first door again, the woman is that woman sees me. She’s the recorder and she goes come in, come in and I’m like, okay, so I come in the door because I didn’t know if he wanted me to sell up right then because there’s somebody now up in front of him. Yeah, re chairs right there and the two chairs of those chairs. There’s two guys in orange jumpsuits, so we know what that is. And I said, I don’t know when I’m done. No, no, no choices. Don’t do this again. So she goes over and she picks up another chair and puts it beside her. Now I’m facing everybody at the table with the white people.

 

Ben  1:05:20

Oh, no. Oh, no,

 

J. Moore 1:05:22

oh my god, I’m so humiliated. So anyway, at that point, he finished us with this one guy. And then he finally ended, he did the same thing. And look, here she is, she’s back with the cache. And people, this is what you need to be doing. And I just thought, please, just give me you know, the receipt and let me leave. Yeah. So I told this professor that he said, You got to write that down. gotta write. Yeah. That’s just incredible. And, and I know this is going along, but you’re gonna want to hear this one. So he asked me to do oral histories of different people down there. So I did oral history of this guy. There are five cabins on the river. And the first one is built 1920 by this guy’s grandfather, another guy I’m talking about that I interviewed. He had been a a state legislator, he hit 132 times in Colombia, where the university is. So it’s much more of a liberal hub. And he was a Democrat. And so is the lawyer, Democrat. And this is his grandfather’s place. And he spent many too much time down there. So I asked him, I said, Would you be willing to do an oral history with me? Because at the time, you know, I’m at Duke, and I was in a class where we had to submit oral histories. So this is just an amazing story. He said, Well, sure, I’ll be there. And I said, Well, can you come down on Sunday? You know, what do you want to say about one o’clock? He says, Fine. So pretty, pretty well known person in Colombia. And he had told me that he had just decided not to run again, because all the Republicans were were running people against Him that had lots of money, and he was tired of fundraising. So but he’s finishing out, he’s finishing out his, you know, his term. So he shows up. And he comes about an hour early. And he says, Would it be possible to do the interview now? Because I have to get back to Colombia? And I said, Okay, I said, Yeah, we just finished eating. I said, Well, just give me a second. Now we’re scrambling around to get my tape recorder doing stuff. And I got Robert to get out and get the dogs and he comes in at sitting down. And it was, you know, I was, I was a little anxious, but I was trying to make him a little comfortable, too. So. So we sit down, and I did the introduction of about my tape player and turn it on. And, and we, we did a little bit about I mean, that was open ended questions, open ended question. The first thing was, you know, how, what, what were your parents or your grandparents? What, what was it that they did that influenced you? Or that you found remarkable, or you found difficult in, in growing up where you did lift it out? So he started off a little bit, but he was fidgeting and, you know, doing a lot of arms and and, and they call those meta sentences where you people will, you know, and I was trying to think about how to make him comfortable. And he starts talking about his grandfather had a business and everybody knew his grandfather in Bamberg, South Carolina. And he said, one of the things that my grandfather did after he built the little cabin, because I went to that thinking that would be a way to kind of, you know, just be kind of comfortable. You could talk about the cabin. Yeah. And he said, Well, my father had a gentleman pablor And the gentleman pablor Wood, he would fish down the river, the Edisto. And the paddler would paddling back. And at some point, I realized I instantly thought, Well, this was probably an African American that paddling and it wasn’t. So I was thinking, Well, you know, I was thinking that’s good. Yeah. So he still seemed a little nervous. And I said, well, and I said, well, so your father was well known? Yeah, it was well known all around the city and everything. And, you know, I mean, he fished and he hunted, you know, he had hunting dogs. And I thought, Okay, here’s a great way to like, also kind of maybe, you know, just make things a little more comfortable and more homey. And I said, Honey dogs, and I said, Well, did you have a favorite hunting dog? And he said, Yes. And I said, Well, tell me about his favorite tiny dog and he goes well, I realized he was getting uncomfortable, and I thought, well wonder what’s wrong with Heskey about a hunting dog? Yeah, so the story goes on. that, and he can. And I played the tape for my class. And I said at any point, this guy could have decided not to tell this story. But he did. And he had already talked about he set it up by having a preface of

 

how difficult it was at times for him to get along with his grandfather. And and because he was not of his grandfather’s generation, which means he didn’t have the kind of racism that his grandfather grew up with and still had. Yeah, so he said there was a conflict there. But when I asked him about the dog, he said, Well, you know, this is okay. He said, Well, you had this little black dog that ran around his house, and he had a big house in Bamberg, and everybody knew the dog because that was my friend, grandfather’s dog. I mean, dog, go here, go there. People would bring the dog back to my grandfather. So everybody knew the grandfather. And so I said, Without thinking, I said, Well, what was the dog’s name? And he goes, nigger, Oh, wow. See what you did? There was a pause there. When would Oh, shit. Yeah. And he said, people would go, Well, I saw a neighbor the other day, and there’s over there and come here. Nigar Nigar was in the back of the car. And then Excuse me. And after he says that, he goes, you could tell that was hard to tell. But yeah. But it was it was his life. And I have to respect the fact that he was willing to talk about that. And even use the language knowing, you know, how difficult that was, and, and how, how so much baggage goes along with that word, and how it’s just, you know, it’s just not used. I mean, this was, this was 12 years ago, I guess. But when I played it for my class, and when he said that, I mean, it was just, there’s a Paul that settled over everybody in there to African American women in there. And I just remember, you know, I’m gonna play it this. I mean, I did a couple other interviews, but that was the most powerful and, and, and the fact was that he wasn’t like that he really was an attorney, who fought for rights of all people. But it just showed you how, you know, what, what, what it was like, what South Carolina was like, and anyway, so there were more stories like that. And you know, that’s that was amazing one. Yeah, absolutely. Stop working at the bank had mean had meant to work as a bank. I tipped what tempt at the bank and answered the phone for bb&t. The guy in public relations, once ran across the hall, came over and talked to me. And as he talked to me, he started realizing I had a lot of experience in production and producing and all of this. So he says, So Jay, more. So you you have experience in special events. And I said Bill every day you tours a special event, but I’ve done a lot. So he took my resume and went up to the CEO and they had decided they wanted to like upgrade their meetings and events with the corporate board and all executive management. So they created a job just for me to do events that the corporate board and the executive management. Enjoy. So I would these were like four days long. Everything they see they do they eat, where they go their plane, how many people are in the plane, when it lands on the tarmac? What kind of awards do they get? You know, what are the spouses do all that was my baby. And I did that for six. I did that for 16 years. And but once again, the thing that I did was the person that had the job before me brought in this person from Las Vegas, he was kind of a Las Vegas crooner. And he croon show tunes. This is not interesting. So I started bringing in artists that in many ways, they never would go see these people and they they had an element that was going to be a little provocative. Like I brought in this guy that I had seen at a they have these area artists, shows where you can come and perform and people come in sign up and say they want to book you so they’re like these looking events. And I saw this guy for only five minutes. You I only had five minutes, he blew me away. I hired him to come. And he is he he’s called Faust works fast, you know, named after this character, and

 

who am I say, in Shakespeare, but anyway, so he wore all black and he would take a mask off a wall, he had him nailed up on this black pile. And he would put on a mask, and he would do this character. And sometimes he wouldn’t even talk with sometimes he would talk. And he just, it was just phenomenal. He did a workshop with the CEOs wife and different people. But the one thing that he did, and what like he would put one point, you know, he puts on an African American mask. And he did something that started out as what people typically think an African American does, the sound is going to sound like, and then we’ll know he had a white mask, and he talks like a black man, he takes the white mess off, and he puts the black mask on, and he talks like a white man. So once again, Jerry Moore, subjecting interesting stuff. And, but then also brought in check Chuck Davis, African American dance ensemble. And for the last part of the concert, I ordered these big dish chic ease, which is a garment that Africans wear, it has a round neck, and it’s cut. And they’ve got colors, colored band up around the neck and big sleeves. And some people come down to the knees, especially the way I’m I know the guys that would fit. And so at the end of it, I told Chuck, I said, I want you to get everybody up, I’m going to pass out and make everybody put on the Shiki. And they all get up, they all have to get up and move. So here’s got about your 60 People all putting on this shake he’s off and move in circles to the drummers that are drumming, and it blew them away. They just had such great positive experience. And Chuck Davis was amazing. He died recently. But I remember one of the board of directors came up to me and said to me, where do you get all these people? This? I mean, he said, I was broadening experience that I’ve had. So I’m going to eat it there and just tell you that that was once again, my way of using me to push social change with what I could do. Yeah. So

 

Ben  1:17:19

wow, that was awesome. Thank you so much.

 

J. Moore 1:17:22

And if you want to know today, Black Lives Matter. Oh my god, Trump. Oh, my God and green. The Ukrainian war is just it’s beyond heartbreaking. I just Yeah. It’s just heartbreaking. I just, you know, I’ve given money to Doctors Without Borders, which you might know that organization. Yeah, you probably know them. And so I do. Yeah. And but, you know, I’m just trying to think about how can I in there a number of times, and I won’t go into any of those though those have gone off to different groups, like community centers that say are all African American or community centers Oh, especially like retired communities. Given my choreography and, and my energy to tons of small, you know, organizations where I can do that for free and help change.

 

Ben  1:18:17

Yeah, that’s really cool. All right. Thank you so much. I think what I’m recording,

 

I’m waiting on bems cuz Oh,

no, this is perfect. That’s a lot of

J. Moore 1:18:27

dang words. That’s okay.

 

Technology

This interview was conducted over Zoom on March 21, 2022. There was minimal editing to the audio, just trimming out a roughly minute long section at 9:30 due to the Zoom breaking up. To record the interview, Zoom was installed on my and my interviewee’s laptops and Zoom’s built-in recording feature was used to capture the audio. The audio was then trimmed with Audacity and the rough transcript was created through the AI transcription process with Otter.ai.

Transcription Style

The interview transcript was created following the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) and INCITE’s Oral History Transcription Guide, however personal style choices were made at times to preserve the authenticity of the interview and its voice. One choice I made was in breaking up my interviewee’s sentences into separate sentences that weren’t technically grammatically correct since they began with “and.” This made the most sense for the flow of the way she spoke and made the transcript easier to read.