Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Like a long running theory I've been working on.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: No, these are my grease pants. These are from Greece.
What's up? What's up? I don't know. Come here, baby. Good start, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Dana. This is words that move me. I'm stoked about this episode. Number one, because I am wearing my new hokas. If you are an avid listener, a recent win of mine is that I have grown into a person who cares about the alignment of their spine and the comfort of their feet. So today we are celebrating that my croc flops are out and my hokas are in, and my dog seems to be very interested in them right now. And we're back. This episode with Philip Shabibdeh might be the most wrist roll interrupted episode ever.
I apologize for that. And I don't. Number one, because Philip Shabib is incredible, and number two, because wrist roll gave us a lot of great material to work with. I am so excited for you to enjoy this conversation. But first, some wins. My win today and yesterday, because yesterday was the women's breaking finals at the Olympics, and today was the men's breaking finals at the Olympics. The.
It was an incredible day for dance in general, but specifically an incredible day for breaking as the culture, the craft, the art, and, yes, the sport. We'll take that up another time, this whole sport versus art thing. But for today, I am celebrating, along with the breaking community for all medalists and participants. What an incredible introduction to the Olympic Games. And also as part of my win, shame on you, Los Angeles, for not voting to have breaking represented in the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Bummed. Bummed. Is anyone excited about that?
Crickets, even from Riz. So that's how, you know, thumbs down on Los Angeles Olympics 2028. Shall we shift the tone back to Philip Shabib and things that are incredible? Oh, no, no, no. Your win. You get to go. It's tradition on the podcast. I want you to say out loud what's going well in your world, even if it's that you took a cute, snoozy cue kind of a nap today. Or maybe you're celebrating also the Olympics. I don't know, my friend, but it is important. I do know that. Please say it out loud.
Yay.
Wow.
Congratulations, my friend. Riz and I are both cheering you on from the sideline. Oh, sorry. I woke her up. So congratulations to you and your win. And now let's get into this awesome conversation with Philip Shabib, a friend and now colleague of mine who I learned so much about today, and I'm just thrilled to share this conversation with the one and only Philip Shabib.
I thought Riz was gonna thread for me. She kind of threaded her little tongue into my arm.
I was threading. Welcome to words that move me. I'm Dana. This is Philip Shabib.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Hello. Hello.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Beer. Beer. I feel like Christopher Scott every time I bear. Beep, beep. Beer. Cause he does that.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Yeah, he does that all the time.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: He has his go to jokes.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yes. I love beer. Beer. Bear. Beer. Welcome to the podcast. All my guests start the same way, and that is by introducing themselves. Shoot.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: I know.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: I'm sorry, but that might be the hardest question.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: It might be, but wait, we're gonna get into the weeds?
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I don't know who I am, but I think to answer the question in a way that's actually useful, I guess I've done things, and that's probably more appropriate. Let's see. How do I answer this question? It was funny. Out of all the questions, who are you? Is tough.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: I know.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: So why am I here in this seat?
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Put it differently. I'll put it differently. What would you like the listeners to know about? You?
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Got it. Got it. Directly. In regards to dance, I've gotten very lucky and have had the chance to experience a really wide range of identities within the dance industry. I started as a battler in mostly popping and found myself getting into choreography on YouTube. So I visited the social media realm for a long time and created content, and then I moved into more mainstream film and television choreography, and then I worked on company work with, like, NDT and stuff. So I've kind of dabbled in a lot of things, and I've never found myself settled in any one place. But it's given me, like, a perspective where I've been able to kind of touch upon so many different parts of the dance world.
I'd imagine that would be the most relevant to the podcast.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: But, yeah, you've got your toe in many pools or hand in many. Is it pies? Thumb in pies? What's the thing with the thumb in the pies? Wherever we want our hands, we are doing a lot of wearing mini hats. That's one of the things I like to say. As far as the dance landscape goes, you don't inhabit just one little island, which I think so many choreographers wind up doing. You are an island hopper.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: I am. I am. I think I find exploring to be the most exciting part of the art world or being an artist. So I find myself right when I'm about to, like, really nail down a certain, like, aspect of the industry. I just dip, which is probably not financially the most lucrative way to move around the industry, but personally satisfying.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Do you say that because you think you would just be able to be charging more and really master that thing and then become, like, the God of that one island?
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Well, I think for the average person, if they were to commit to one thing and they love it for that long, I think it works. I think the fact that my love dwindles when I start to feel like my identity within that space has kind of already been defined enough for me.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Oh, interesting.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Produce work that are. That is less than attractive to me. And because of that, I probably wouldn't actually do that well. So it's probably the smartest decision for me to be like, all right, I've made somewhat of an impact here. Let me jump, and I'll come back to that when it's interesting again. So I follow where my heart feels the most invested, so that the work remains to a certain quality.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Cool. Or it, like, stimulating to you in a way that keeps it feeling new and challenging or not defining nothing limiting?
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: It's interesting because I think most people think of choreography. Well, most people don't know how to think about choreography and dance in general. I'm learning that more. The Olympics have been happening for the last couple days, breaking specifically in the Olympics. And it's so interesting to hear non dancers talking about it, even more lost when they're talking about choreography. So what I'm lighting up about when I hear you speak is that you're not much talking about choreography itself and how it confines you. But the, like, the distribution, is it being distributed by a tour? Is it being distributed on a screen, like on YouTube? Is it a film? Is it. You're talking more about your work in the context not of how the dance is, but of what the medium is.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I do think that the medium can limit you. Especially when you start to define an audience and the audience has certain expectations, then you're no longer producing work based on your human experience, like, trying to translate it honestly, you're trying to figure out how to translate other people's experience that you've never actually had yourself. And I think that can dry out the creative spirit a bit. So I sometimes switch mediums so that I can be bad at something and then have to pull from something honest again so that I don't have, like, a tactic or a formula to follow. Okay, this is. This might be a controversial statement. I think there's a certain amount of suffering that is necessary to make art for other people, and I think the only antidote to that suffering is to make it for yourself. And I think we ping pong as artists because we have to, like, okay, I have to make this for these other people, even if my aesthetic sensibilities.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Do not match theirs, especially if we're talking about commercial. Oh, 100%. You are literally making something for someone else on someone else's dime most of the time, and usually to sell a thing.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: So, yeah, to please the client, as it were, versus to please yourself. Have you ever found that you struck a happy match and did both?
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Huh? I think I'm always on the hunt for that. I feel like that's the holy grail of jobs, right?
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Like, that partnership that, like, I think.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: There'S versions of it that are definitely closer, but I find that, like, you have your own aesthetic taste because it's based on your values in your life and how you grew up, and it's very personal and any derivation of that, you're basically having to look past your own taste in order to accommodate and serve someone else. So I think the benefit that I've gotten from jobs, like, jobs that I've loved has been because of the social interaction was so positive, not necessarily because the creative output was so positive.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Like, if I'm just thinking about what I love about my craft, when I'm creating on my own, that's where I find the most love in the product. But the human to human interaction, a good work environment, makes up for all of the suffering creatively. I mean, it won't even matter if you really love the people you're working with. So I think that's what I look for in jobs more than, like, creative satisfaction. I'm like, ah, it's probably not gonna happen, but if I could just really enjoy the people I'm with, that's a great job.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: I hear that I cosign on almost everything you just said, except for the working alone part. Oh, yeah. I do not enjoy.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: You're a social collaborative. Yep.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: I almost require another person to volley off of, to watch for, to banter with. I'm so curious to hear more, actually, about your process, because it's hard for me to get past the first couple eights if I'm alone, if I have someone else. We are. We're moving. I say more, yes, when I'm with someone else, oddly, than when I'm by myself.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Oh, you shut yourself down.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: You find you? Yes. Yourself.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: I enjoy the process of isolation for ideation purposes only, but when it comes to actually actualizing the project, I like to be with people. It's mostly just because of the exact thing you just said is, yeah, I will overthink to no end. One eight count will take me an entire day, and it'll be mostly out of exhaustion that I decide, yeah, be like, I've actually gotten too. I'm just too tired to think of anything else this will have to do. And probably the problem was it would have been solved in the first ten minutes if I was with someone else who could just say, yeah, that's it. Or, like, that's the. My favorite is if you have the right hype person.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: In the room.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Sometimes it's just sales. Like, sell me the eight. Sell me the eight.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And a lot of times they'll just be like, whoa. And you register that. It's like, cool. Because it's a real human reaction. And I do think that that's a product of when you're making art for a project or a job. Like, it's for an audience.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: So you need an audience because they're the ones that are going to tell you in real time. Like, have I struck a chord? That's, like, generally across the board, a common denominator of humanity.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Anywhere close to a bullseye. Am I shooting off target completely when.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: It comes to actually showcasing pieces at a time without other people? I actually admire people who can just churn out an entire routine without ever questioning themselves. I think it's an incredible skill. I do not have that whatsoever, but I admire people that have that same.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Yeah, okay, this is good. I love talking process. I've been listening to a lot of people who are great at what they do, talk about what they do, and one of my favorite parts of listening to them do that is out about their heroes and their teachers. And I don't know much about you and where you got started with dance. So I would love to hear, who are the people that shaped you in your early dance days? And still now.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: So I was really into a lot of things, actually. As a kid, I was definitely like a jack of all trades. My parents put me in everything.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: They were like, see that about you.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Do this, do that, do this. And I enjoyed a lot.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Wait, like, sportsy things?
[00:12:01] Speaker A: It was sports. It could be like, I used to collect lizards. It really didn't matter what the. My brain would go from hobby to hobby, and my parents just indulged it. They were very kind they let like, I had like twelve reptiles at one point. They were like, yeah, sure, just keep it in your lean in.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: We're leaning into reptiles.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: They leaned into everywhere.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: I think it's a phase, but we're not.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: I'm sure they were dreading the possibility that that's the one I choose.
Turns out I still love lizards, actually, but I don't have them anymore, fortunately. But for Dan specifically, I think the reason why it caught my eye and why I think it lasted the longest out of all those things. Washington when you look at sports, there is a natural hierarchy of value that is based on other people's performance and not only your own. So, for instance, if I am the top ten baseball players, I'm only as good as I am in comparison to other people. So I can only run to first base the 10th fastest. And if someone else comes in and I'm the 11th fastest, I'm suddenly worth less to the sport. My value within the sport is based on other people's performance. And I did not feel that with dance. I felt like everything that I had built was so individual that it wasn't based on comparison. So, like, if, and this is definitely.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Dance being subjective to the point that you literally cannot compare certain elements.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Exactly. So it felt like, and I don't think, I mean, if I were being really real at that age, I probably just wanted to impress girls. Like, that was probably like the actual, like conscious reason.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Fair.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: I thought it was just a cool way to get attention and I wasn't the most socially interesting person. So I was like, I'll just do this.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: And then I was like, watch me fuse my two loves. Snakes and lizards and catching chicks.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah, luckily it only worked on like a very small portion of the high school population. But for that one girl, it worked.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: That's fabulous.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: So anyways, but you are not alone.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: In that, for the record, and we're grateful for that because so many, especially social dances are about. That is not bad. It's natural and it's okay. We're mammals.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: I mean, there's a million reasons. And eventually my love for dance expanded beyond that. But there is, it's a really powerful tool with which to express yourself. Especially when you're in an age where you're really vulnerable. You don't know who you are in the grand scheme of things. Not that I do now either.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: I do want to circle back to that, but keep going. That's who you artist.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Keep going. So anyway, so basically it was like, I think from the outside now I realize it's, like, the highest leverage activity, because I could build something that would serve me indefinitely, regardless of how good other people got around me. So it was something that I could continue to develop, and it was really fun, and I could express myself, and you can get better and better. So I started to get into popping, specifically one, because it felt like something that if you don't have a lot of space, like, I had a very tiny room with just, like, a single mirror, and I was like, okay, if I just focus on my hand for long enough, I'll get enough technique in my hand that I can do something interesting where, like, a lot of other dances required. It required other people to either look at you and be like, oh, that's cool, or. Or not. So I was like, okay, let me just focus on something small. Popping really allowed me to, like, utilize the little amount of space and time I had in my school life and create, like, a unique identity with myself. To finally get to your point, I think because I went into popping, the people that really inspired me early on were poppers. I think the first time I saw someone do head isolations or wave, they just felt like superheroes.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: With actual unique abilities. And I think this might be a particular characteristic of the hip hop world in general, where everyone's searching for that signature, where I know in the classical dance competitive world, you get a lot of people that are just trying to do perfect emulation or be the best technician. Yes. Which reminded. That reminded me too much of sports. So because of that, I found that the battle world, I was like, oh, this is cool. Cause when I saw Salah battle when way back in the day, I was like, nobody looks like him. And there's so much confidence in his, like, expression of himself that he could do it even in a competitive setting.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: And nobody questioned it. I looked, for me, it was an amazing thing. I was like, oh, you. You're not doing any of the same things your opponent are doing, but you're confident, and you can win something by being yourself, which I think, for a kid was a really, like, rare thing to put together. It's like I don't have to compete doing the same activity as somebody else. And I think that's when I fell in love. And I think a lot of those poppers back in the day, it was way at that time, it felt like everyone had their own, like, cartoon character like, movement.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: That inspired me more than anything else. So it was like a lot of those, those poppers from back in the day. Yeah.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Isn't that wild, by the way, that that's back in the day.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Oh, I know.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: We're getting older, Philip. It's crazy.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: It is an odd thing.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: When I was watching breaking on the Olympics, I was like, man, I don't recognize these names. I haven't really been paying attention since the k Mel crumbs kid David Luigi era, which is when I was really paying attention. It was so new and so cool to me. I would agree. Ps, about salah.
There is something very magical about his performance, Persona, and his confidence, which is, I mean, I don't know, actually where it comes from. If you could buy it, I'm sure he'd be a very rich man. But he is so technically sound and singular in mind that I can't imagine walking into a battle as him at anything less than 100% confident.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: I have philosophies about confidence, by the way, but I talk about them a lot on the podcast. I'll point you to one of those later.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: No, I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear it because I need some, actually.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Well, okay, fine. Here the somebody else is. My guest version is. I think there are two different kinds of confidence. One of them is task based confidence, like pouring a glass of milk when I was three or four. I would have to use both hands. They would shake. I would cry. If I spilt it, it took total concentration. Now I pour a glass of milk while I'm on the phone with one hand. I spill some. I wipe it with my elbow while I'm closing the fridge door, and we move on. I think the same.
Well, I think that's one sort of thing that people expect to have in their lives in all, automatically. And so they think, if I'm gonna be good at auditioning, I need to do it 10,000 times, or if I'm ever gonna book a tour, I need to have done one already. And you see how that is a problem.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's good point, too. Yeah.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: You can't do a thing that requires total confidence without having done it before if you believe in task based confidence. So enter self confidence, which is simply a willingness to feel any feeling as it comes, period. Like, if I walk into an audition willing to feel like a failure, willing to feel embarrassed, willing to feel like Beyonce, willing to feel like the envy of everyone, that looks a lot like task based confidence. It looks a whole lot like I've done this a thousand times. But what it actually is is simply the willingness to feel whatever comes up and know that I will be okay. Because at this point in my life, my friend, I can't say I've felt it all, but pretty damn close when it comes to rejection and the things that usually come up, along with auditions and the big uglies that kind of come with, you know, a day in the life of a dancer or artist in general. Yeah, I think I've felt a lot, but I know that I can. So that's where I get my confidence from, is just knowing that I can feel shit.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: No, it's smart. And I think it is that there is, like, a sense of if you relinquish your resistance or your attempt to control the outcome of anything, you then suddenly become really inquisitive, and you're like, yeah, exactly.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. This is self confidence.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: This is 305.
Can we get her a.
We're gonna pause for Bristol snack.
We're back. So that's confidence. And actually, that's a really beautiful segue. I'm wondering, because you and I have orbited each other before. Oh. Oh, yeah. Get up there to eat the snack. That's good. And I've been an admirer of your work for a really long time. We have orbited each other but never worked together until earlier this year.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Working for Miss Paula Abdul. My God. Little dog. Go ahead, just pick your spot.
There it is. There it is. You look great. This is great. This is great.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: This was actually worth the.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: So we hadn't gotten to work together until this year, and I'm curious about you talk about the islands of choreography and working like different mediums of doing work. Have you ever occupied the island that is creative directing a tour for a pop star?
[00:20:47] Speaker A: No, that was my first time.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: First time on the island?
[00:20:50] Speaker A: First time on that island.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Tell me about your confidence walking into it versus your confidence leaving the island. Or have you left the island? Are you still on the island?
[00:20:57] Speaker A: I find myself in that island more often than I thought, and I think that that started a snowball of different opportunities, which has been great, but it definitely was new. And there's some fear always when you're stepping onto a new island, but also excitement. I mean, you're suddenly in control of different layers of the entertainment voice than you normally would have. I don't find it specifically with Paula because she is obviously so well known as a dance legend. I think there was a natural segue there that didn't feel impossible to tackle. I mean, obviously, there's other departments. You have to start really focusing in on what your vision is for lighting, scenic content. There's a whole different element of. Of the creation process. But I think for her to be.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Working with a choreographer in the role or with choreographers. Mackenzie, right.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: In the role of creative director, that makes total sense. I hear what you're saying. Yeah.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: So it was an impossible segue. I actually. It went really well. And I think because I've dabbled in so many different places, I didn't find myself terrified in any way. And I think a lot of the tools, and I think I actually credit a lot of this to my time just creating for camera on social media, which I know that seems like an arbitrary thing, but it's actually managed to give me a lot of confidence, at least in what sort of tricks of the trade that I can implement into a performance that I've had time to calmly assess in my own personal set experiences. And because of that, when I went there, I already had some things in the pocket that I could be like, oh, you want this sort of thing? Well, this has worked for me in the past, so I think having had that, you know, personal experimentation time allowed it to be a relatively peaceful experience. I think what was less expected was how little of the creative director position is actually based on creativity. And.
Yeah, I mean, I.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: It's a management. It's a management.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: It is definitely. It's crisis management and it's group dynamics and maybe some psychology and counseling kind of, like, all wrapped in one. And then you have, like, a 20% dream phase at the beginning where you're like, oh, I'm doing creative work. I'm definitely. I'm mapping out, you know, how the stage is gonna work. We're gonna map out the story, the narrative. Like, we're doing creative work for the first 20% of the job. Yeah, most of the rest of the job, I was surprised and challenged in a really, like, healthy way to manage all of the other aspects of the job, which I could obviously get into. I mean, but, yeah, it's so wild.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: To find out no matter what tier you're at. Like, I remember feeling like, as a dancer, people don't understand that dancers don't just do one thing. Like, I have to go to the gym. I have to make sure my materials are on point. I have to be a PR person. I have to be a branding and marketing partner, and I have to do all the things, and I have to. I remember just feeling like I'm such people don't know how much dancers do. And then I got into choreography, and I was like, man, people have no idea that actually, the job of a choreographer, maybe 5% of it, is actually making up steps. And here you are on the next level of learning that same lesson, which is, yeah, you thought that being a creative director would mean directing creativity 100% of the time, or you probably. You probably did not expect for that.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: But we.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: But the actual number, how. How much actual time you spent being creative was sounds like much less than you thought it would be.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: And one of the things about, I mean, dance is actually funny now, having, like, tried a lot of the different positions or roles that might be on set or on a tour or whatnot, I actually find that the dancer position is one of the most satisfying in terms of lifestyle, even if obviously on the financial side. Like, dancers do not get paid as much as they should. I think there's definitely, like, a deficit there that's really clear, and everyone can see it. There's unspoken benefits that are built into the job, both in the physicality of it and the ability for a mental shut off at certain points in the day. So, like, when you get off rehearsal, your brain actually, you're done.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: You're done.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: That doesn't exist in the behind the camera creative fields at all.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: You still working.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: You're always still working. And actually, to a large degree, you choosing to stop and place a boundary could very well sacrifice your competitive edge in the job as well, compared to other people, because then you have the people that will stay up all night and the people who will be like, oh, yeah, you know what? I'll get it to you Monday. I want to take my weekend. Was like, well, the person who turned it in Saturday as a pitch gets the job because they're like, oh, well, this person can get something to me in 24 hours because it's a physical presence. As a dancer, you go and you show your work when you go home, you actually can shut the world out to some degree because they can't technically call on your job until you're physically present again. Yeah, I mean, for long term financial security, yeah, absolutely not. But for, like, in the moment lifestyle enjoyment, I'm like, wow, feel. It feels good to be a dancer, but then obviously, you suffer in the long term. So trying to play with that has been interesting. Like, as I move into these other positions, how much of my time is worth sacrificing in order to get a paycheck that I'll never have the time to use? And that has been a really difficult and an interesting value balancing that. I'm trying to constantly an important question.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: To answer for yourself.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: This is a beautiful segue. Philip did not do it intentionally. But you're talking about lifestyle for dancers, and, you know, the day to day, the quality of life, the values and pros and cons, maybe, of being a dancer. And I want to talk about fable because I'm going to relay some words of praise in your direction that I heard via a friend of a friend.
A friend of a friend? Wait, a friend? A friend of a. Well, she's also a friend of mine. Her name is Taya Lee. Hey, Taya. Shout out, Taya. And she gave Fable a really great review. She said that everybody is out there to try to create the space that dancers need, but fable is actually the space that dancers want. They want a plunge pool. They want an aesthetic. They want a bite to eat. They want to have a podcast. They want to like. And I think that that is such a very cool thing. So I applaud you and the team for having created a place that we want. I mean, what do dancers need? Better rates, better working conditions, a retirement plan, health plan? Like, we need. We have needs. But really, I want to feel peace. I want to feel good and strong in my body. I want to feel freedom. I want to find a place where I can use my voice. And so hats off to you for doing that.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: That is so nice. I mean, we've been in a bubble for almost eight months trying to build it. To know that anyone already is seeing value in it is amazing.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: And Riley, too, she loves it.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: That is. It's actually quite nice to hear. I mean, the original purpose, it was actually built in as a flotation device for art.
Should AI consume the industry of art in a way that's less than friendly to artists?
[00:27:59] Speaker B: Wow, that's a hell of a descriptor. It's a life raft.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: That was the hope, because at the end of the day, art isn't going to go anywhere from a human perspective. We want to express ourselves, and we want to create, and we want to create for ourselves, if not for everyone else. And for some reason, if AI were to consume the industry, and we would have very little personal expression left to sell to people, there is still going to be a necessity for people, even for their own self transformation, to create and to improve their skill in their own self creation so they can better understand themselves. And we thought, I was like, okay, if we can nurture that early, before any, and this is, I doubt there will be some catastrophic AI hostile takeover of the arts. But I think for us. We were like, well, no matter what, I want people to have a place to go where they can express themselves and also find that that can be integrated into their daily lives in a way that isn't based on their income or how much money they're making from it. Let's not commodify art at all for a second. Wouldn't you just do it because it's good for you? Wouldn't you just do it because your life is improved by it? It brings people together. It enhances your self awareness and all these things and that self confidence that you talk about. I think art is people's conduit to a lot of that, and you take that away simply because they can't sell it. People are gonna be like, well, I'm not gonna be an artist anymore because I can't sell it.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: And then little bits of us die.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Exactly. And we were like, well, at least if they were gonna stop selling their art, they'll still create it because there's a place where they can go and feel good doing that without there having to be a monetary purpose for it.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: So how does one create a business where there isn't that same kind of monetary structure? How do you keep the place open?
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we're figuring that out, so I'll be honest. We'll see if it actually works, because I think there is a sense where we're trying to avoid the Soho house system where we're, it's exclusionary and it's status driven. We've actually made it extremely affordable on purpose. So that way, if we can serve more people for less money and just get enough people interested, so if enough people join the club, they basically get to have all of these things at their disposal for very, very inexpensive. And from an economic model, all we have to do is prove to investors, like, hey, there's plenty of desire here. We'll just build another building, and we'll build one in New York. We'll build one here.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: So, like, it's keep the supply and demand and, but also just to allow.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: The price to be as low as it is. So it's a huge experiment. I mean, it's a huge risk because most especially with how beautiful it is. And Megan Mattoon, shout out to her, did a wonderful job creating it. She's amazing. It looks expensive, and the equipment is all super expensive. So to take the risk of being like, we could just exclude everybody, be like, all right, the top 5% of earners basically can come in and do it.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: Yeah, we're making our money back, and fast, please.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Out of pain.
But we just. I mean, it wasn't why we built it in the first place. So we're just taking a stab at. Let's just see if we have a large enough community that'll just be down to, like, gather, and we'll just get numbers over, you know, price. And now that's. That's our current approach.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: We're learning a lot. I mean, God, artists as entrepreneurs. There's definitely, like, a bridge that is very difficult to cross because all we care about is impact as artists. And you're like, wait, but I also need to keep the lights on, and there's people that will, like, eventually your bank is gonna get drained. So trying to find that has been a crazy journey for the last eight months, and we're like, okay, how do we make it so that way we're not just stealing money out of other people's pockets, but we're providing more value, but also capable of keeping ourselves functional. And that's the journey.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: What would you say is your biggest lesson learned? Like, ooh, shit. Wish I knew that a year ago.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: I wouldn't necessarily change anything, because I think they were. Certain lessons are meant to be felt so you don't make them again. The only skill that really matters is how quickly you adapt to being wrong. And I actually find that the longer it took for us to adapt to being wrong, the more in jeopardy our business was at that moment. And when we can just quickly flip.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Okay, we were wrong about that. Let's pivot.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: And I think that's with a lot of things in general. It's like, how quickly can you recover from something going, you know, unexpectedly?
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: That seems to be like, I don't know. If I were. If I'm gonna teach my kids something when he grows up, that would be the one skill I'd be like, let's see how quick your turnaround time is. Like, oh, you thought that that was like, a food you wanted to eat? It tasted bad. How quickly can you switch from being like, to the next thing? If I could just teach my kid that, I feel like he'd be successful at pretty much everything.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Hi. This is my son, quick pivot shabib.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Quick pivot.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Quick pivot might be my b girl name. Look out.
If I decide to take on breaking quick pivot, Shabib is hard, though, that stuff, that might be a setup for the kid.
Let's talk about parental excitement. What's our clock looking like right now?
[00:32:53] Speaker A: It's a month away. I don't know. It's like five, five weeks. Well, we don't really know. After it's starting to get to the point where we just have no idea.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Well, because it could be at any.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Point, but the baby's ready. Heads down. Just post it up.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Fully cooked.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: He's just like this, just waiting to dive out.
We don't fully understand it. I don't think we will. Probably long after the birth is happening.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Right, right, right.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: We're just constantly in, just in awe of the constant change. And I don't know.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: The human body is insane. The human body is insane.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: It's insane.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: Which we always knew because this is what we do. This is our instrument. But you don't really know until you're.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: Like, actually an almost might be weirder for dancers because you think you know yourself really well. You know your body really well.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: And then it's surprising. You're like, and I'm looking at Mackenzie, and obviously it's not my body necessarily. Although sometimes I get empathy pains. That is very weird. It has been really straight, and I know that's a thing, but I have actually gotten pains in the same places that she has at the same time.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: You're kidding me.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Without any logical reason.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: That's wild.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: And I don't know. And I, and sometimes she's make it funny because she'd be like, ah, my inner thigh. I was like, yeah, my inner thighs. And I'm like, what am I doing? This has nothing to do with me.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: But there's a real thing there.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: It happens. I think it's like a real pain for me. It feels like a real pain. Like, almost like I'm sore in an area, but I didn't work it out. It just incredible. Super weird. Yeah.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: I am the type of person who is crabby if I'm too hungry and if I'm too hot and if I ate too much, I don't think I would make for a very friendly pregnant lady just to say that outright. And working with Mackenzie on Paula, I had nothing but absolute respect and awe for her ability to manage multiple things at once. Herself first and foremost, and then be still moving and kind and wonderful. Being able to multitask, manage. Like you said, personalities, deadlines, different departments, still be dancing in the room. Dancing. And I just was so in awe, and I'm smitten by her, and I'm just so excited for you both.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: She's impressive. I mean, I've always, obviously, I find her impressive, and I love working with her. But during this process particularly, I've been in awe as well. I don't understand how she's handling pregnancy so well. And I think from the moment she got pregnant to now, yeah, she hasn't missed a beat. She thinks she could be doing more. So she's in her head about everything, but from the outside, I've never seen someone more even. And I do think that a large portion of that is, I think when you're having a child under the context of really wanting one, I do think that it can change the way you adapt to the stimuli. And I think that, like, she's adapt because she feels everything. It's not like she is not aware that she's pregnant, but she doesn't really allow it to infect the space in a negative. And I think a lot of it is just because she's really grateful it's happening.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: She's excited.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: And I think because of that excitement, she doesn't really allow herself to paint the room in anything other than gratefulness for that reason. And she's just really good at that, more than I can possibly fully understand. She's really talented at making sure that her discomfort does not affect the room.
Yeah, it's a gift. She has a gift.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: Whoa. I cannot wait to have you on the podcast, Mackenzie Shabib. I am stoked. And little micro shabib sab. Okay, let's segue. I do want to talk. You mentioned about creating for social media and how that gave you a competitive edge going into popstar tour realm. And I think a lot of dancer choreographer types wouldn't draw a connection between the two. But to be honest, I can't think of a space that you wouldn't have a competitive edge on after having created for yourself so much on a small scale. But let's be honest, social media is not a small scale. Its reach is wide. And because trying to make a point and because, I don't know, for several reasons, but probably mostly, first of which is the shareability of things, because it's so shareable, and because you can work fast and small, you wind up learning a lot in a short period of time and boring her to tears. But I did 420 consecutive days videos on Instagram. I learned how to.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: That's impressive.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: I learned how to dream up an idea, map it out, shop for what I would wear, find a location, set up a camera, actual camera shit that I had no idea about in the first place. Taught myself how to edit, learned how to deal with my, you know, perfectionist attitude about finally shipping stuff. Those are lessons that apply. No matter what medium you're working in, you must know how to do or at least talk about doing all of those things. So I'm curious, now that you are working at high levels on different islands, what is your relationship like to social media now?
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: And I know you're using it for a handful of different ways, right?
[00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah, a ton of different ways. I think you brought up a lot of really interesting points I can touch upon, but one of the most interesting ones is obviously, when you make content, you have to play a bunch of roles. So that was the first thing you brought up, and I think that's 100% true. You have to dabble in every role of any, like, production, at least to. Enough to have an opinion about it. Like, you may not be the best wardrobe designer, but you have to have.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: An opinion because I think the pants need a gusset. Yeah, she's gonna raise her arms.
She should probably have a short sleeve shirt on underneath that thing, or.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah, because you've experienced it, you put something on yourself and you're like, wow, that doesn't look as good as when I wore this thing. So you suddenly have an opinion about everything, which I think, in any situation, being able to communicate with a certain department, with an understanding of the basic rules that apply, is immensely helpful, because then the people you're working for, or hopefully distributing your vision to take you seriously, because you don't want to be the person in the room that's using all the wrong terminology and has no idea what they're talking about.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: And then, let's be honest, you will at some point. It's how you learn.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: And the thing I like about social media is that it gives you the opportunity to make a lot of those mistakes in a low risk environment.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: Yes, that's exactly what it does, is why I love it.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: And actually, one of the biggest things, and this is like a long running theory I've been working on.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: No, these are my grease pants. These are from Greece. You don't live along those. I am sorry. This is. It's an exciting, fantastic.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. The thing that I thought was interesting is obviously, with the advent of, like, Amazon shopping, the endless personalization of things, right. There's this sense that we have an ability to express ourselves more and more because there's more and more products, there's more and more ways to do things. We have access to more and more things. When that personalization options expand to infinity, you, then we were talking about how you start making decisions out of exhaustion, you start making, and you have to know. And the problem is that now, once you get fatigued, instead of trusting your own intuitions because you can't fully trust them because there's too many options, you just end up asking someone else, what do you like? And then you get that thing. What I did like about social media is that. And the reason why I think that's a problem, just to make it clear, is that I think if we don't have a sense of what we find beautiful ourselves outside of the influence of other people, we won't make choices that lead us towards a life surrounded by things that are beautiful. So if I don't know what's beautiful to me, I might be so exhausted with all the options that I'll be like, hey, Dana, what do you think is beautiful? Oh, you think that's beautiful? I'll get that, too. But then when I'm actually existing with that choice, I'm like, something's wrong with my life. I feel incomplete, like nothing around me feels actually valuable. But it's because you based your choices off of someone else's aesthetic taste.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: And I say aesthetic taste, but it just means, like, what's the results of their. Yeah, yeah.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: You know?
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Cause I think a beautiful life can be a life surrounded by things that you think are valuable, because I think beauty is just based on our perception of value. But I think with social media, the nice thing is the fact that you can develop a personal aesthetic taste. Hopefully now, this is tough, because the minute you start taking comments seriously, then suddenly it's swerved again.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: We're back to talking about audiences and art again. I am so curious. Who decides if the art is good? What do you think? Or who decides if it's art?
[00:41:11] Speaker A: First of all, no, that's a good point.
My personal definition of art is. Is, how do I put this? It's gonna be deeper than it needs to be, but maybe we can extrapolate it so that it can be more useful. But for me, I feel as though, let's say there's a certain piece of uncertainty in your life or something in which you can't quite make sense of whether it be yourself or something around you. I believe that art is a way to take the uncertainty and put it in real life and examine it so that way you can then be changed by it. So I see it as a self transformative act. So I think it's only as good, the art is only as good as it was useful to transform you. And, yes, sometimes you hit like archetypal format that applies to a lot of people. So a lot of people are going through a similar struggle because people are similar in that way. But I find that what makes a piece of art good is whether or not it changed the artist itself.
And I think to that, that's how I would gauge whether it was good. And to a large degree, I think most arthem is good simply because it has that value. Anything else is extra. Like, if it happens to be that you like it too, it's like, oh, that's fucking awesome.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: Bonus.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel similarly, but that's. To me, some people might be like, no, no, it's the best when it serves a bunch of people, and it doesn't really matter how it makes me feel.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: So I think people ping pong on what they think is valuable. For me, the self transformative part is, like, highest, and then everything else is like, well, this pays my bills. This is also great because it changed people in a positive way. Like, everything lives just slightly underneath that domain. I hear you, but I do think it's different for everybody.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Okay. When you feel like you've achieved it, like, wow, I just had a transformative experience with the creation of this thing.
How do you celebrate?
I look at your work a lot. You're two time Emmy nominated, subtle flex. You didn't mention that in the intro, but I'm curious. You did not win those two Emmys. Do you consider that a loss? Do you consider, like, okay, yeah, maybe that's my actual question. I do want to know how you celebrate because I think you win a lot of. But I also am curious on what makes a loss for you.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: There's two parts to that.
To answer the celebratory part, first, I find that any moment in life has the opportunity for celebration.
There's way too much to celebrate that I don't think we have enough time in our day to both survive and celebrate as much as we probably should for how many good things we have in our life. And so I pick arbitrarily when to celebrate. It's not really based on whether or not my expectations were met in a particular job or award. So I never expected to be nominated, and I definitely didn't expect to win. And neither of those things affected my ability to celebrate anything because I was already capable of celebrating so many things that it would be exhausting to celebrate everything. I think I pick a little bit more arbitrarily, and I don't think of those things as wins and losses. I think what I do like I'll beat on myself a little bit. For is having already had the lesson necessary to make a significant change that would have improved my life and not implementing it, those are losses. But if it's, like, a brand new experience that just, like, I've never been nominated before and also never expected to, and then, like, didn't get the win, it didn't feel like something that I had learned and then didn't implement, it was just like, wow, just good luck. And also, like, there's so many great choreographers and great pieces of choreography that aren't on television, and so I don't see the Emmys as necessarily a distinction of any actual value of choreography. I think it's a value of within a certain context, which is great because it is very difficult to do something well on tv, given the circumstances. It's incredibly hard to do, but I don't necessarily see it as, like, the end all, be all definition of choreographic value of any sort.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: It's probably one of the advantages to being an island hopper.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: Your whole entire world is not tv or.
[00:45:06] Speaker A: Exactly. And I actually think that might be why I can even say that so confidently, is that there is not any pressure on any one of my endeavors to fully define my identity around or.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Satisfy or claim some kind of greatness.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: And I think it also protects me so that way I can pivot quicker when things, quote unquote, go wrong in a certain category is that I have so many other things that I enjoy that that one thing doesn't take up as much real estate in my mind to be like, the world is ending. Because my world is dance, for instance. It's like, oh, no. My world is so much bigger than dance. This little thing is like something on the table that I need to examine and tinker with, because when it's your whole world, then you're like, I'm terrible. The world's terrible, everyone around me.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: And a loss can be the end when you can't.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: You can't work on that. It's just everything. I'm coded in it, and I don't. I've never found that to be a helpful way to approach any issues.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: Yeah, very well said. I'm going to step sideways from there, because I cannot imagine how we would move forward from that. We're going to do a rapid fire burnout round. Are you ready for this?
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Oh, God. I'm terrible at these.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: We call it a wrist roll with it.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: Coffee or tea?
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Tea.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Dogs or cats?
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Dogs.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Last song that you sang out loud.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: What was it? It actually might have been Hamilton. One of the Hamilton songs.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:46:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it was a room where it happens. I think I was belting that.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Yo, weird. Night before last, in my dream, I was doing. I was dancing that dance, but taught. Bye. Jo Lantieri, who did not choreograph it, but taught to me. Andy Blankenbuehler, who did choreograph it literally in my dream, night before last. Did I tell you about it? I told my mom. No, I told you.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: Tailed.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Crazy. I go my dreams, and I like it.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Is there a song that you cannot not dance to? Double negatives are hard. A song that, like, makes.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: A song that I must dance to.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: If we were, like, sitting here and a car drove by playing this song, you'd be like, dana, I'm so sorry. I understand that you're talking to me, but I have got to get up.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh.
I tend to be a big lover of, like, masego and Toby. Oh, my gosh.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: I know. I'd never been able to pronounce his last name in wig way.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: Do you know how.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: I just went for it? I apologize in advance.
[00:47:35] Speaker B: Never been able to pronounce it, but.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of that whole family's music.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: It gets me crazy.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: I can imagine that. I can see you there, and I like what I see. What is your favorite move? Philip Shabib move.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Dance move.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
Or chess move?
[00:47:53] Speaker A: Wrestling? It's just like. I know.
Dance move. My favorite dance move.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: What is your favorite?
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Why has that not been asked to me?
[00:48:02] Speaker B: Can I tell you what I think your favorite dance move?
[00:48:04] Speaker A: I would love to know.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: Threading in general all the time.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: Yeah. If there's a hole I'm going through. Yeah, that's. That's.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: That.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: That's.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: It's gonna happen.
[00:48:14] Speaker A: Honestly. I'll take that.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: Take that.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: That feels good.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: What is a move that you would delete from, like, the vocabulary in general? Like, get rid of it. We're not ever gonna wait.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: From dance vocabulary or mine.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. No, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: No, there's gonna be.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Someone's gotta do it.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: The last thing that you saw done, and you were like, oh, I wish you hadn't do that. Wish you hadn't done that.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: I don't know. Because I think the first thing that comes to mind for any dancer is gonna be a set of TikTok dances that have been overdone.
[00:48:46] Speaker B: A phrase.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: There's probably a number of them that are probably ready to retire?
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: For their sake?
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: For the dance's sake. I feel like they've all of ours. They've earned their keep. I think they're ready for retirement. I think there's a lot of them. My brain tries to. Like, there's. There's a couple that live in this area.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: And there's. There's a. There's. There's like a whole from here to here, different arrangements of the same choreography that could all probably get retired, at least for, like, 1010 years.
[00:49:19] Speaker B: Philip, I just want you to know that you just went from not wanting to get rid of a move to deleting a whole compartment of moves. Yeah.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Anything that exists from here, which includes all of my dancing. Yeah. A lot of my work also needs to go.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: I love that. I think we're all contrarian. It's wonderful.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Yes. Agree.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Okay. What is your favorite word?
[00:49:38] Speaker A: This is an old answer, but I haven't thought about it in a while. But tranquilizer is a nice move.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: Tranquilizer. It is rad that it is not what it seems to be. When you set out, you're like, tranquilizer. I gotcha. You thought I was your friend. You thought we were on a lazy river. You're electrocuted.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I like the contradiction of it.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Tranquilizer. Fantastic. That might be my favorite answer to this question ever.
[00:50:03] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a good word. It's strange. It also how I feel internally quite often.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Tranquilizing.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like it's both, like, penetrating, but also like, hey, calm down.
[00:50:12] Speaker B: It's gonna be interesting. Wow. And you think you don't know yourself, my friend. That was a. That was quite the self assessment.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: Least favorite word.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Least favorite word. So I don't have a problem with moist. I don't have a problem with.
It's funny. When I met Mackenzie, she had a problem with the word duffle. Love duffle. I have no problem with duffel, but something with a full part of duffel troubled her. She's gotten over it since.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: But that was so glad that I know that now.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: Duffle kerfuffle.
[00:50:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: I'll do a shuffle.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: I wonder how much of that she could handle.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: Sorry, girl. I will get it out now before she comes.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: I think she'd be fine now, but there was a period of time where I just cannot say the word duffle.
I don't. Do I have words that I dislike? I'm sure I do. There's gotta be something.
Niche.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Good one. Niche. I think is overused.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: I think it.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: And people don't exactly know how to say it. Is it niche?
[00:51:10] Speaker A: It's overly sexified. Like, everyone thinks it's sexified. Yeah.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: Yeah. To know about a niche market.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And I, like, you need to find your niche and fuck your niche.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: That's what I think.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. And I think that's why I think the amount of conversation. Conversations around. And I understand that, like, this is completely gonna sidebar. I don't want to take you away.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: That's why we're here. Yeah.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: Okay. Well, basically, the whole idea that you're supposed. Because obviously, on social media, you need. You're selling a product. It's not you. Nobody's on social media, by the way. None of us are on social media. Our Persona's on social media.
[00:51:41] Speaker B: Our avatar.
[00:51:41] Speaker A: Our niche is on social media.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Yeah. It's because we need. We need, like, a Persona. And we could try to complexify it, but it makes sense that, like, everyone's like, what's my what, product version of myself. But I find, like, that to be the least interesting part of life is to find your niche. So, anyways, that niche is a word I think I. I could do without.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Well said. Okay, that brings us to our final question. Are you ready for this? What are the words that move you the most?
Mantra poem. A guiding principle or actual words?
[00:52:10] Speaker A: God, I have. It's funny, I actually keep a list of personal mantras in a list on my phone, but I'm trying to think of one that you can go grab your phone.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: I will not think less of you.
I'm pulling up my quotes list.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: No, it's good.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: Oh, there it is.
[00:52:25] Speaker A: It's actually tough because I actually.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Holy shit.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: Talk to me.
[00:52:28] Speaker B: This is pertinent.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: To explore an issue and to use a medium to its utmost are the preconditions for becoming an artist.
That was Michael Rabigher. I have no idea why. I don't know who that is, but it got you. And per our conversation today, to explore an issue and to use a medium to its utmost are the preconditions for becoming an artist. Should that work be transformative? That is what makes a great artist. That's the Philip Shabib fascinating tagline on the end of that. But that is crazy. That is coupled alongside a t's Eliot quote that says, it is the function of all art to give us some perception of an order in life by imposing order on it.
Damn you, ts Eliot.
[00:53:13] Speaker A: That one's really good.
[00:53:14] Speaker B: It is the function of all art. To give us some perception of an order in life by imposing order on it.
Cool. So what were your words that move you again? Sorry.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: No, no, no. Honestly, it's actually funny. Cause most of my brain thinks in just concepts. So I don't have, like, these, like a nugget. I mean, I probably do somewhere. Cause I write all the time, and, I mean, I have, like, a whole part of my life that's just writing. But I think that it's interesting. That last quote just. It actually moved me in an interesting way because I do believe that a lot of our life is certainty and uncertainty. And I actually do. I can understand that definition of art so deeply. Wherever you have something. That's. That's why I even said earlier, the idea that something is uncertain within you, and then you put it out into the world in some sort of structure that you can analyze and be like, okay, that makes more sense of my problem is even why.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: Yeah, the disorder in my world, I had had to organize and then made it into this one thing.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: It's even like stories for movies. I mean, this. I'm getting off track. You can cut all this out, but the idea that, like, in movies, you have these characters that are, like your hero, but really, where there is, like, okay, I'm gonna show you. You go. You as an audience member going through this problem, and then I'm gonna show you your way out of it by, like, letting the character play out all of the conflicts that you're going through, and then you're gonna now adopt it and be like, okay, I can change in the same way the hero changed. And so that I can get out of the problem I'm currently stuck in, because I've now seen the whole pathway to the light. And I think that all art does that to some capacity. You just don't realize sometimes it's unconscious, the. The train of thought, how to get there. But it is like a pathway to escaping the boundaries you've put on yourself. And that ts Eliot one feels like it hits home in that regard.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: Yo, Philip, you just earned yourself one more rapid fire question. Oh, no. Because you had to mention superheroes. And now I'm curious. If you had a superpower, what would it be?
[00:55:04] Speaker A: Telepathy. But I'd like selective telepathy. I don't want that. Like, I hear 30 people. No, that seems. I mean, our real world feels like that with social media. I would actually prefer selective telepathy, but I think it might cut. I wouldn't mind if it worked. Both ways for this reason. This is actually the only reason a lot of people want it to be like, I just want to examine your brain, but I don't want you to hear mine.
[00:55:26] Speaker B: But you would. You would allow yourself.
[00:55:27] Speaker A: No, because imagine having nothing to hide at all. Now, obviously, people might think you're insane, but hopefully, if you're also hearing their brain, you're hearing all their weirdness and their darkness and stuff. So it cuts through everything that keeps us from being, like, truly connected as people. And then you're like, okay, I have nothing to hide. I can't imagine how much energy I expend trying to hide pieces of myself all day. So the reverse of the telepathy would be. I would love that, to be selective. So, like, every time I read your mind, you can also read mine.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: Interesting. I might be with you on that, but for a different reason. And that is because feeling misunderstood is one of my least favorite feelings. And if I could selectively just say, like, no, no, no. Just hear me and not have to use words that get confuddled. And sometimes I just choose the wrong one, like confuddled or kerduffled. I said that instead of kerfuffled.
Sorry, that was from again. Yeah.
[00:56:26] Speaker A: I'll make sure to give her that sound. Yeah.
[00:56:28] Speaker B: If it meant that you could just get it without me having to articulate it, man, that would be kind of nice.
[00:56:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And it's actually funny coming from you because you're a really good communicator.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: So I feel like it's probably really rare that you ever. Well, it's probably because of your fear of getting misunderstood.
[00:56:43] Speaker B: Exactly. You're so right.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Oh, no, no. But it's fine. If it's mental, it's okay. I was like, do we remove the fear and then we remove the ability that was born out of the fear?
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. No, no, no. We still have the ability.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: We still have the ability. We're still very aware in this alternate universe.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:56:56] Speaker A: Okay. Thank God.
[00:56:58] Speaker B: I do really get off on communication. It's one of my favorite qualities in a collaborator or in a partner. I really like talking stuff out. In fact, as I get older, there are times, like right this very second, that I would prefer to talk about dance than be dancing. Cause I love. Like, thinking about dance gives me endorphins. Like, I love. I get jacked by it. Woke up at 630 to be watching the Olympics today.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:57:25] Speaker B: But, man, things hurt. And it's not the same as it was when I was 18. Dude, it's not the same.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: Yeah, no, and it's interesting that we. I mean, that's. That's. I have two points on that. One is, when we work together on Paula, one of the things I admired so much about you was your ability to communicate with her and the team. Like. Like a surgeon. Like, I feel like you have the masterful precision. I mean, we didn't talk much about the Paula job, but one of the things that I did want to bring up was, like, obviously, with any celebrity, they got to the place that they're at because they go deep into their craft, and everything is bottomless. Like, you realize that about everything. It doesn't matter what skill you're trying to get into. It's bottomless. So if you go deep enough and you separate the nuance here, you're like, oh, I can. This shade is better than this shade, or this note is better than this note, or this move angle is better than this angle. You keep dissecting further and further. You realize it's bottomless. You become more and more insecure because you're aware that it never ends. So now the distance between you and the actual, like, pinnacle of your expertise is further than you ever imagined, and so you get more insecure, and the.
[00:58:26] Speaker B: Distance between you and making a decision is also far 100%, which is why.
[00:58:30] Speaker A: Like, from a choreographic standpoint and even creative directing standpoint, most of your job is to return this expert, who knows more than anyone about her own craft, to a place of confidence so that she can actually execute, because she's so deep and so aware of the technicalities of her craft that she can get lost in it. So, actually. And that's her job. Like, her job for years upon years.
[00:58:52] Speaker B: I'm not all that.
[00:58:53] Speaker A: Yeah. It is like, I am in the abyss of this bottomless pit of improvement, and the only way I can perform is if I forget all that. So part of the job for us is, like, how do we tell this person that's a legend and has way too much awareness to actually have less for a moment, so that way, she can actually enjoy performing. And you were able to do that so masterfully with little jokes, with little, like, reminders, little things that help.
[00:59:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Little cues, some questions.
[00:59:23] Speaker A: It is masterful. It is amazing. And I think it is a very important job because you're bringing so much joy to so many people, and that can get lost, obviously, because with Paula, she wants to put on the best show possible. The word best is such a dangerous word that there's no end to how far you can dissect it. So if you're with lay and I. And I was really happy with. With Paula's job, specifically, everyone on the team was dedicated to reminding her that she had all the tools available to her to just do a killer show. And most of our job was supporting her and reminding her, like, hey, you've got this. You don't have to worry about that little detail. I promise you. You've got it. And obviously, her job is to keep worrying about the details. And that weird conflict of, like, pulling someone back and then going deep into the abyss is the job. And I feel like you were able to do that with verbal precision in a way that I think most people, I think, would not be able to.
[01:00:21] Speaker B: So thank you. I received that. That's one of the skills of a choreographer that they don't teach you in dance class or composition class or that you just don't. You have to be learning in practice. And I'm so lucky. Kind of like you and I, having dabbled in many different islands. I've dabbled on different islands and also with very different leadership types and very different pop star types. Some cooler than cucumbers and some hot, like, white hots, some icy hot, some, like very different types. And I found in Paula both a kindred, like, sisterly vibe, but also a motherly nurturer thing. I saw in her very much, very many mirrors of my relationship with Tony Basil, who I've been assisting and working closely with since I was 19. So I think I was really well prepared for that project and for her. And we met each other in a great place, and you facilitated for us to meet each other there. So thank you for that and those kind words.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: Of course.
[01:01:21] Speaker B: I appreciate it. Yeah, it's one of those, like, for a lot of the day, making up steps was not my job, but navigating next steps was my job. Where do we go next? What's the temperature?
[01:01:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:35] Speaker B: I'm so grateful to you for giving us a moment of telepathy. I feel like you let us in on your mind and what's going on. I do want to shout out, because I think it's important. Not your Philip Shabib Instagram page, but the missing you. The missing self.
[01:01:50] Speaker A: The missing self.
[01:01:51] Speaker B: Missing self. Because you started this conversation by saying that you don't know yourself. But to me, it sounds like you're just.
You're simply in conversation with yourself often, and that is a place where you make those conversations public. I think that that is an admirable thing to do. So wanted to shout that out. And if you are curious about knowing Phillip, I will point you directly towards his work and to that social media account. Cause I think. Would you say that that work, you know, we talked a little bit about work that is transformative, being work that's successful. Do you hold that stuff in that place?
[01:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah, a hundred. I mean, I think.
I think in the political climate currently and just the cultural climate, with people being a little bit nervous to say thoughts simply because they're not complete, I really find that there's something liberating about that channel for me, because it's my ability to let things be wrong and incomplete and let those conversations be had. A and I do think more people, hopefully, if they see that, they'll allow themselves to have incomplete ideas about things, because we're constantly trying to evolve our understanding of each other and things, and we're always waiting to be like, okay, I know for sure I'm safe now. I can have this opinion because it's 100% not wrong. And I'm like, well, no, there's always going to be a chance it's wrong. Are you just going to stay silent forever, or are you going to just say where it's at currently and be like, oh, I was wrong, which I also think is fine. It's just as easy to be like, yeah, I had that thought yesterday, but then I was confronted with this new piece of information, and actually, my thoughts are this now. And that's how that is. And I think there's a fear of doing that that I think would actually. It would save a lot of people a lot of trouble if they could just be like, yeah, this is just what I believe now. And I'm okay to believe something else tomorrow that would free up a lot of people's stress if they could just accept that as an option.
[01:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:40] Speaker A: So that's what. That the missing self, for me, is an opportunity for me to constantly remind myself that it's okay to be where I'm at today and then just be something else tomorrow.
[01:03:49] Speaker B: Thank you for that permission. That's a really important reminder, actually.
Okay, I think we can wrap it up. Thank you so much for being here.
[01:03:58] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:03:58] Speaker B: You riveted. Always a treat to talk to you and work with you, and I hope that happens again very, very soon.
[01:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm also gonna. I'm gonna switch places with you at some point because I have so many questions. I'm gonna figure out who you are at some point.
[01:04:08] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I want to do it. We'll do it. We'll do it on another podcast. But I would love to done tune.
[01:04:15] Speaker B: In for that and smash the likes. Leave a review rating, subscribe, click the bell for notifications and get out into the world and keep it funky. I am so good at ending my podcast now.
This podcast was produced by me with the help of many big big love to our executive assistant and editor, Riley Higgins. Our communications manager is Ori Vajadares. Our music is by Max Winnie, logo and brand design by Brie Reid, thumbnails and marketing by fiona Small. You can make your tax deductible donations towards that. Move me. Thanks to our fiscal sponsor, the dance resource center, and also many thanks to you. I'm so glad you're here. And if you're digging the pod, please share it. Leave a review and rating. And if you want to coach with me and the many marvelous members of the words that move me community, visit wordsthatmoveme.com dot. If you're simply curious to know more about me and the work I do out there side of this podcast, visit thedanawilson.com.
