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Spotlight: Choreographer Natrea Blake brings "Breakthrough" to Orlando Ballet

Dancer and choreographer Natrea Blake
Natrea Blake
Dancer and choreographer Natrea Blake

Choreographer and dancer Natrea Blake will premiere her piece “Breakthrough” with Orlando Ballet next month. The piece comes to Central Florida through the prestigious Dance/USA Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) grant for its Female Choreographers in Ballet Initiative – Blake won it after her nomination by Orlando Ballet. Blake, a Juilliard and “Fame School” grad, talks about her experiences in the ballet world and what dance means to her.

Natrea Blake:
I just fell in love with dance. I fell in love with its ability to inspire people to be great. Most of my inspiration for choreography came from one of my best friends, Darrell Grand Moultrie, who I've assisted for probably over 20 years now at several ballet institutions. And he said, you know, you should give this thing a try. And I said okay, I got in the studio, started playing around a little bit, and different commissions started landing in my lap, and I'm like, Okay, God, is this your sign? Okay, I'm ready. And I decided to jump in that race and jump in that journey, and jump into that experience. And it's been a fantastic ride. I'm so happy I did it. There's still so much to learn. And here we are!

Nicole Darden Creston:
What inspired your piece “Breakthrough”?

Natrea Blake:
COVID did, actually. Well, there are a few things, but COVID is in there. But it's also…as humans, I feel at times we do feel alone. This is even before COVID, you know, and I do feel like everyone goes through times where it can be a low time, or it can be a high time. And what inspired me is to inspire others to find the joy and to find the love and to find the resilience and to find the push-through. Even when you're having a tough time. With this piece - with Breakthrough - I wanted to inspire others to just not give up on their dreams. And they say you fall down seven times, get up eight. When you see the piece you're going to see it's divided into three different sections. And the beginning section deals specifically with those things that may bother us, all the things that we don't like to necessarily deal with or talk to ourselves about. And then the second section, we come to the realization that, okay, I do have some stuff, and how am I going to deal with it. And the third section, we have now unpacked, we have opened up all suitcases, and we are ready to show the world the joy and show the world the breakthrough from whatever it is that may have been bogging you down. You have now seen the light at the end of the tunnel, you're traveling to that light at the end of the tunnel, and you're congratulating yourself along the way, because you're saying to yourself, you know, I did have the resilience, and I was able to break through and get through that stuff. I think that if we took more time to respect the process and value the process and value the journey, it would be more enjoyable.

Nicole Darden Creston:
Speaking of old “stuck” stuff that continues to sort of cyclically come up, have you had any experience in what is traditionally viewed as a very white space - classical ballet - have you run into any kind of issues in that regard?

Natrea Blake:
Thank God I have not. I mean, personally no. Have I seen it happen to other people? Yes. Have I maybe have felt a way? Not really. Because I'm in the room, you know, I'm in the room with you. Now, if I was outside, hoping to be in the room, you know, and feeling like I should have been in the room and wasn't given the opportunity because of some other reason, then yes, but I thank God that I have not. I think that all of my experiences, all of my teachers have all been welcoming. They've all been nurturing. I never had an experience where I felt ‘less than’ and I'm really grateful for that. Because that's not everyone's story. You may be in rooms where you may feel that it's a little…stuffy. But how are you going to now navigate through the stuffiness? And I think because it was never done to me personally, I've never had to like have a confrontation or anything like that. But you know, when you feel it or if you feel like a little bit of stuffiness and you approach the stuffiness with love, it's hard for the other side to still be stuffy.

Nicole Darden Creston:
I'm glad that that is your experience. Do you have any thoughts on continuing to bring more diverse people into the room?

Natrea Blake:
Oh, absolutely. I think that we have now cracked the door. But I think the door needs to be swung open. Like we need to open up several doors, because there's so many fantastic choreographers of all different nationalities, all different backgrounds, cultural backgrounds. And I think that the world needs to see that because guess what, that's the world! Right? We're not just one race. So other races need to see other races. I think that it's gotten better. But I feel like there's a ton more to be done. And, you know, I feel like we are moving in the right direction. I'm hopeful that we will continue to move in this direction. But there's definitely more work that needs to be done. Alvin Ailey always said, “Dance comes from the people, and it should always be given back to the people.” But if the people in the audience can't relate to the people on stage, or the people behind the camera, or the people who are part of the stage crew, or the people in the tech room…it's like, how can you see yourself as a stage manager, if no one looks like you? So, representation matters. And that's just as plain as I can put it. And I say that to say, let's not just open up the door and let anybody in, let's make sure that they're doing the work, let's make sure that they're ready to receive what it is they're about to receive. And let's make sure it's genuine. Like it's coming from a genuine place. But I definitely think that the world is filled with different people, so different people need to see themselves in those different positions, and then those different places. Absolutely. It may spark inspiration, we don't know what it'll do. And I feel like that's not even our place. But it needs to at least be seen. So just in case it does spark inspiration, then we did our job.

Nicole Darden Creston:
Do you feel that it kind of isn't your business, sometimes what people take away from what they see?

Natrea Blake:
That's a very good question. I do believe that choreographers, some of them have intentions when they choreograph. Some people do movement for movement’s sake, and they just get in the studio, they are inspired by the music, they're inspired by the bodies, and we're just moving - we don't know why we're moving, but we're moving. Then you have choreographers that are very specific. It could be about a story, it could be about a death, it could be about someone being born, it could be about joy. And I think that we'll never really know, because we don't know where people are in their lives. So if you're down and you're coming to see a show, and you leave inspired, or you leave happy, fantastic. But if you're in a place where you may have just lost a loved one, and you see the piece, and it brings up more sadness about the loved one, then I mean, I think both are right. You know, I think that's the beautiful thing about art, because it's going to do what it's going to do for different people. And it depends on what state the person is when they're watching it. And I think that's the beautiful thing about art, because you can have an audience filled with people, and maybe have a conversation with about five or four people. And some of them may have the same perspective. But some may have a completely different perspective and say, “Oh, that's what that meant. Oh, I thought that meant this.” “Oh, well, when I viewed it, it came across like this.” But to me those conversations and those differences, I love it, because we're all different, and we're all going to perceive things differently. And then to me, art does its job. You know, as long as you leave with something, you know, it's not going to always be joyous and we get that. But if you leave with something, I think that's fantastic. I think art still was able to succeed and do its job.

Nicole came to Central Florida to attend Rollins College and started working for Orlando’s ABC News Radio affiliate shortly after graduation. She joined WMFE in 2010. As a field reporter, news anchor and radio show host in the City Beautiful, she has covered everything from local arts to national elections, from extraordinary hurricanes to historic space flights, from the people and procedures of Florida’s justice system to the changing face of the state’s economy.
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