What It Takes to Make a New Dance Piece: A Documentary Follows Five Choreographers at the Joffrey Ballet

Every year, Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet chooses five choreographers from underrepresented backgrounds in dance to create new works with students from the Joffrey’s academy through an initiative called Winning Works. The choreographers receive a full theatrical work-up, with two weeks of rehearsal to develop the piece, costumes, and lighting design before a performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. In 2024, filmmaker and musician Cam Be followed the process to produce a documentary for Chicago-based Kartemquin Films that reveals the inspiration and challenges of artistic creation, the importance of familial support and representation of diverse people in the arts, and the toll of dance on the body, among other things. 

Joffrey Ballet: The Next Movement premieres on WTTW Friday, September 18 at 8:00 pm. We spoke to Be about the documentary and his own relation to art and dance.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What piqued your interest about this Joffrey program?

I was interested in people of color in the ballet world and how they navigate that space. I think that was what was most intriguing to me. I like human stories, something that I think people can relate to. [It was] a story that I was not really familiar with, or really familiar with the ballet world. The choreographers are all really quite inspiring individuals and it's just a pleasure to know them and be able to tell some of their story.  

How did you learn about the Winning Works initiative?

I was part of Kartemquin’s Diverse Voices in Docs in 2017, so I’ve been associated with them since that time, and I’ve done other projects through Kartemquin. They originally approached me with the idea [of covering the Joffrey’s Winning Works]. Part of the crew was other people that had been part of Diverse Voices in Docs. It helped make for a good family affair.

You’ve done music videos and made your own music, but what was it like to dive into the world of dance?

I've done some street dance stuff, too. I've never done ballet, though, so that world is new to me. I had never been to a ballet before working on this film. But the dedication to their bodies, to the art form; I learned a lot more about the history of ballet and the history of the Joffrey; that was all just very intriguing to me. I'm gonna continue to go to ballet and be a part of that world as an observer and a fan of the art form. 

Why do you want to tell stories about art?

I’m an artist myself, so I relate to it from that standpoint alone. Artists have different perspectives. When you encounter different artists, you learn different perspectives, and I've been blessed to have the opportunity in my career to have covered some really amazing artists, music artists, visual artists. I feel compelled to tell those stories. I feel I'm a bit of an archivist as well, in documenting the times, documenting people's lives and stories, for future generations to consume at some point. I feel like that's my place or my duty as an artist or as a storyteller.

Did any of the stories particularly resonate with you?

They all did. [Chicago native and Joffrey academy graduate] Houston, being a young Black kid in a predominantly white space and navigating that, was parallel to some things of mine. Xavi, who is a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet, was very interesting, with him living in Chicago and working with the company and trying to balance having to change and evolve in his career at some point, juggling him being in his prime as a dancer and still trying to look ahead. As opposed to Manoela, who was already done dancing, and Martha is more like a mentor who’s been doing it for so long. Jainil was early, early on and is this internet sensation and the youngest one. It’s like this life cycle of a dancer.

Did filming this and spending so much time around all these choreographers and dancers change how you think about dance or art?

It was an enlightening experience. You see the costumes and the level of theater and storytelling that that art form creates. I also feel like us being there as a film crew of predominantly people of color and women and coming into Joffrey Tower was a good part of filming. I feel like it was a good camaraderie and everybody really enjoyed us being there.

Both Kartemquin’s Diverse Voices in Docs and Joffrey’s Winning Works try to support underrepresented people in the arts. Why is representation important?

To bring those two initiatives together for a project was a pretty cool thing. We all have stories to tell. And everybody needs to be represented in that, because there’s somebody out there that needs to hear that story or watch that story who will be inspired by that story or feel changed by that story. Sometimes you need that voice to come from something that you’re familiar with.

What do you hope someone watching The Next Movement might take away from it?

I always want people to feel inspired by people's journeys and their stories and the challenges of overcoming the obstacles or the challenges pushing for a career or a goal in life and the dedication it takes to do that thing. We can bring up Houston again, being a Black man in ballet: it's very rare. For somebody who may be interested in dancing but doesn’t see a pathway to do it, to see somebody like them doing it [is important]. When I was younger, I didn't really see a pathway to becoming a filmmaker. I didn't know how you did that. How do you have movies out in the theater and all those things. So I hope that when people see this, they can connect to them and feel inspired by these stories to go and chase their dream.