Transcript of Ejoe's Interview at House Dance Forever
Ejoe Wilson Interview from House Dance Forever
@1:45
Dance. Dance is in the most dynamic sense, is the truth. It is the
essence of what music makes you do without you thinking about it. It's
letting the feeling that a sound makes have control. And then doing
that. The free-est form of expression. Dance.
What it means to me personally, is...I don't know. When I was younger,
I was doing a lot of different things. I was sort of trying to fit in.
I was young, and my mom moved around a lot of different places. I
never really kept friends for too long. I was always one circle to
another circle to another circle. So I sort of picked up a lot of
different things on the way. Then I became more of a dancer when I was
in junior high school, when I had decided I really really wanted to
dance. What it meant to me, in my youth, it was a connection. It was a
way to speak without speaking. I could make myself understood without
explaining myself. When I was a kid, it was very important to me to
make myself understood. It's important for all children to make
themselves understood. Especially at a certain point, they're feeling
themselves out, and developing into what they will be like when they
get older.
And that's what I was using dance for. Dance was my developmental key.
It's a way that I can control my path through dance, because it's
something that after awhile I learned how to do it pretty well. I
don't know if I can call what I do dancing well, but I think I express
well. I think that I try to show people, or try to open the door to my
own mind. The way I'm moving is not necessarily the way I'm thinking.
It's not really me in control all the times. The music takes over
sometimes. So I let it. And for me, that makes dance a very special
thing. It's my incentive for living.
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@6:00
It's controlling the energy through the music. It's controlling...it's
control. When you think of control, it's something I meant to do. "I
meant to do that". But there's something that happens in every
movement, and if you meant to do that, then you truly have control.
If I did something, and it made you feel a certain way, and I knew
that I would make you feel that way, then I really have control.
That's me, having control of the movement.
Like a singer, say a gospel singer. There are gospel singers that can
sing one riff...one line...of vocal gymnastics that will shake you. It
will make your heart drop, almost like you want to cry. You don't even
know why you're crying. You may be crying because you'll never be able
to do that. Or you're crying because it made you feel a certain way,
whether it's special or scared... It made you feel a certain way. When
a person can do that at a moment's will..."let me make you cry", it's
manipulation. It's total control. It's building confidence, and that
can be overbearing at times, but there's a confidence that it spawns.
Having control of the moment, is something that I'm addicted to. I'm
addicted to taking control of that moment, at that sound, at that
time. Right on that time. That trumpet. That hit. That explosion.
Musically, you hear it. Rhythmically, you hear it. And then if there's
someone that's able to help you visualize it, then that's the ultimate
dance control, I feel. If I can tell you my story, in so many words,
or rather, in so many moves. If I can tell you how I feel, with a
combination of moves, that I just thought up, right now, on the spot.
Then I have control of myself. Then I know what the move can do...Or
what the spirit can do to the move, and what the move can do to your
spirit. And that's all in a moment, when the music takes over and it's
going... It's moving, and you have to catch it. So that's basically
what you're doing. We're all sort of catching up. And we're trying to
get to tha tpeak. That peak moment. There's something there, whether
it be a bell, or a gong, or an explosion, or a trumpet. There's
something there. In some way, you have to figure out a move that
expresses that. A move that makes that more vivid, more colorful.
That's what we are. We're the brush that paints the picture. We show
so much as dancers, that I don't think we're fully aware of how much
we have to show. We're so busy trying to show ourselves, sometimes
when we see another person on the outside, or see it and understand
it, is all the incentive you need to go further, and to get better, at
controlling more moments.
But, going back to your question, what dance means to me. Yeah, dance
is a very special thing to me. Because of all of those reasons. But
I'm really really really working on being in tune in being in control
with every aspect of my movement. It's something, I want to make you
feel a certain way. That's what I'm working on when I'm dancing. I'm
not really anyplace else.
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@11:57
The spirit moves. The spirit moves is this film from the late 30s,
pre-war 30s. It shows our father's fathers, the dancers before us,
shows we're all doing the same things. We're not really doing anything
original. All of this has been done before. We're just doing it in our
generation. But a lot of this is just history repeating itself.
Constant vibrations of the same combinations. Do it at the right time,
then you will never be forgotten.
I started as a hiphop dancer. I wasn't a very good breakdancer, I
wasn't good at all. I used to pop and lock and stuff like that. But
you know...nothing to write home mom about. I would say mediocre, I
won a couple contests, I won even more battles. But it didn't move me.
It didn't stir my creative juices. I felt that at a certain age,
especially after high school, I was looking for something different.
And a way to deal with my youth, my youth in revolt. I was trying to
figure out a way to live in this crazy world. And house just seemed
like the best thing to do at the time. I didn't know at the time that
it would be so special, that I would be so special to it. I didn't
know that it would take me this far. I did it because it felt good and
it made me feel good, and it made people feel good by doing it. Almost
to the point that a stranger would come up "do that thing, do that
thing you did again". Some people are amazed at the simplest things,
the things that you feel or might do very simply. I dance, because
it's just in me. So I feel like it's the best thing to do. So I just
dance. It wasn't a conceived notion, it wasn't planned. I didn't
plan to be a dancer.
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@15:38
So yeah, my great grandmother used to put me on her feet, and move me
and made me dance. While I was standing on her feet. Looking at her,
"what are you doing?" "Stand on my feet, stand on my feet" So I think
that's the earliest thing I remember about dancing. The first thing
that I remember about dancing, is how good it made me feel. You don't
really even know if you're doing it right. You don't even know if it's
making you feel good. The music makes you feel good, so it makes your
body do something. A baby will like a certain song or a certain sound,
and they start moving to it. So it's very natural. And that's what I
mean by "some people are amazed by the most simple things", because
it's a natural thing, movement and dance. I think people get caught up
in so many other things, that they miss it.
The thing about house that moves me, is that it stood out. It's very
different from hiphop. "In which way, please?" Well, in hiphop, in a
lot of dance, you have a lot of repetitive movement. We have the same
thing. But it doesn't have to be so neat. It doesn't have to be so
perfect. Sometimes you do a spin, and you want to just do a spin. You
don't want to do a pirouette, you want to do a spin. In here (ballet
studio), a spin is a pirouette...it has the same value. So you don't
have to conform your body in a certain way in order to look good. It
looks good if you're doing it with some love, and some strength, and
whatever you put into it is what we see out of it, if you're clear.
But house was a way that I could express that. House was a way that I
could make that movement mean something. Other than that, I was just
moving like everyone else. I wanted to move like me. It's hard to do
that when everyone is doing the same dance, and moving the same way.
So as a dancer, as a true dancer, to myself I felt that broadening the
spectrum of movement and soaking up as much as I can. And once I had
it, it was like: I have some of these things, and people are telling
me that I look good while I'm doing it. But there are people that want
to know how to do the same thing, and they can't seem to make it
connect. And that was where the teaching came in. And I knew that I
had a knack...well, my mother's a teacher. I had a knack for being
able to break down this movement.
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@20:13 in dance studio
It's soul, it's so inside you, that it wants to get out. You're just a
host, you're just a body. There's so much inside you, there's a spirit
inside you. That makes you jump, that makes you laugh, that keeps you
from being sad all the time. There's a spirit inside you, and music
talks to that spirit, if you let it. This all has to do with the
millions of ways that your body can move, and millions of ways that
you can move to any kind of music. House sorta fits in that way,
you're listening to old school classics. And later we'll be listening
to more up-to-date stuff. But the rhythm is still the same. And think
of that like your heartbeat. If it stops, then you die.
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@22:05
You ever hear disco, when you hear music from after the 60s, in the
70s, after the way. Rock and roll came. And people were experimenting
with different drugs. And growing their hair long. And stopped wearing
the suits. And started going out. And black people and white people
were going to clubs and meeting each other. It was still taboo, still
kind of weird, still kind of scary, but music and dance were these
social things that we all needed in order to get away from "hey that
guy's a different color, and her hair's different".
It's club music. And clubs and discos were social things. It's where
people went to meet each other. And music is what kept them from
fighting and killing each other "because you're different". That's how
we were outside the club. When we got inside the club, you get to
dancing, and you're looking around, and you don't know anybody, and
you're feeling kind of shy, but you have a couple drinks, and you feel
like raising your hands up, and get a bit more free. And through that
freedom, is where we found each other. And it is a peaceful nation. It
is a higher state of mind, because we are all on the same plane. We
are all in the same room, appreciating the same sound, together. But
we were all doing our own thing. it's togetherness.
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@26:25
There's so many things in this world, that people are going to tell
you or people are going to do and say, in order to seperate you from
what you feel and love. You follow your heart, and your heart is never
wrong. Your heart will tell you where to go. Even if it's for a short
time, even if it's for a moment, your heart will tell you where to go.
House, told me to be here. Something told me that this is more than
what it seems. So I had to make more of it. So I'm walking my road,
I'm still trying to make more of this dance. And one of these days,
they'll remember me. They'll be like "that guy was in it to win it."
He was there, and he wanted to make changes. That's what I want to do,
I want to make changes. I want people to look at the dancer, I want
them to see us and respect us as dancers, no matter whether we put
fifteen years into it, or five years into it. We do something that you
do too. We connect here. That's what we have to do, moving things
around, and start connecting with each other. It's about music
worship. It's church. We go, and we rejoice, and we worship the sound
that people have put together for us. It's appreciation. It's a way to
give and take at the same time. It's an exchange. But it's a beautiful
exchange. It's not something that makes you feel bad. You don't feel
bad, because you didn't really lose anything, you gained more than you
gave. And now that you gained so much, now you have to give more. So
it's sort of balanced.
