Using Dance to Create Connection at events with Jordan Hayles
Get ready to move and groove with Jordan Hayles! In our chat with Jordan, she passionately shares her journey to becoming a dance ambassador, and the power she believes movement holds in connecting people. She gives us insight into how she incorporates movement into conferences, bringing energy, engagement, and excitement to the event. You'll learn about her unique ability to fill people's hearts with music and dance and how it helps bring out the best in everyone.
Guest Bio
Jordan Hayles is a multidisciplinary artist who works as a host & emcee of forward-thinking conferences online & across the globe through dance. She calls herself a Dance Ambassador to the World, and encourages movement in the most ordinary and extraordinary ways … in places where movement is easily forgotten or unexpected like work and conferences!
Find out more about Jordan's work at jordanhayles.com
Key Topics and Takeaways
09:15 - Movement Creating Connection
Jordan Hayles shares her philosophy that denying movement denies life. We discuss how movement unlocks something in the human spirit and how the collective energy of a group contributes to the overall event experience.
23:20 - Collective Expression
Jordan shares an epiphany about how the audience in an event can be part of a collective without without physical presence, and how the power of the music and choreography can be seen from a different perspective.
30:24 - Music and Connection
Jordan shares her experience as a musician and the spiritual connection she has with music. She speaks to the power of traveling with music, finding joy in different genres of music and fruits, and the importance of bringing humanity to events through music, movement, and storytelling. We explore how music, movement, and storytelling can create a deep connection between people and how Jordan facilitates exchange between people by helping them let their guard down and explore their own expression.
Additional Resources
Episode Transcript
0:00:07 - Isaac
Welcome to Make it Kick Ass, where we help leaders of growing communities bring their people together with purpose and lasting impact. Join us as we explore how to make events engaging, exciting, energizing and profitable so that you can build a healthy, sustainable community. I'm Isaac Watson, founder and lead strategist at Kick Ass Conferences.
0:00:29 - Nessa
And I'm Nessa Jimenez, operations Manager, at Kick Ass Conferences.
0:00:34 - Isaac
Now let's make it kick ass together. Welcome back everyone to another fabulous episode of Make it Kick Ass. I am Isaac Watson and I am joined, as always, almost always by Nessa Jimenez. Hi, nessa.
Hi Isaac, hi everyone All right, let me tell you a little bit about Jordan and then we will kick right into it. Jordan Hayles is a multidisciplinary artist who works as a host and emcee of forward-thinking conferences online and across the globe through dance. She calls herself a dance ambassador to the world and encourages movement in the most ordinary and extraordinary ways, in places where movement is easily forgotten or sometimes even prohibited Places like all day conferences, for example, and places like work. When was the last time you danced at work? We have known Jordan for a couple years now and have worked with her on a number of online conferences, in particular, to incorporate movement into the program. It's always been a wonderful experience, and I can also add that I am deeply, deeply envious of Jordan's incredible database of music and song that she uses to facilitate these movement exercises. We won't nerd out about that during this episode, but we will certainly talk about it a little bit. So, Jordan Hayles, welcome to Make it Kick, as we're really happy to have you here.
0:02:11 - Jordan
Thank you. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here with you all.
0:02:17 - Nessa
Yeah, we're really excited to have you. We've always loved working with you. We've had the privilege to work with you multiple times and we know what you do. We love what you do, but I think for the audience it would be good to explain that, as an artist, why do you pursue being an MC and being a dance ambassador? What does that mean and why do you do it?
0:02:40 - Jordan
Wow, there are so many parts of that question and so many stories behind all of it. Let's start at the beginning of the dance ambassadorship. I just moved to San Diego and I was like, okay, I know I got to volunteer and I know I got to go to a creative morning, so there's like top two things on my list. And so I get down to the creative mornings and for anyone who's ever been there, it's like 300 people gathered around coffee and donuts, talking and chilling, and then you're going to have a great speaker. It's a, you know, a breakfast lecture series. And so I go in and they've got the donuts, they've got all of it and they've got great music. And what do I do? I dance, because I have a movement agreement with the music. If the music is good, then Jordan dances. You know, it's like a computer program, that's how it works.
And I scan the room and there were only like two other people dancing out of the 300. And, yes, they were other black people. And so you know I was like what's going on here? What's going on? And so they had like a 30 second pitch thing that you could do. So I went up because I was new, I was going to introduce myself, but my heart and my mind were kind of fighting like, oh yeah, you need to introduce yourself, but wait, these people were not dancing to that good music, like what's going on? And I just decided, screw the pitch, I'm going to talk to the people.
And I got the mic and I was like yo, like the music was really good, why wasn't anybody dancing? And then everyone starts laughing. And then I was like, okay, this is how you do it, y'all. And then I start doing a dance move, like rolling my shoulders right now, and I dropped it real low and then they started laughing even more and we just had a moment of connection. And it was one of those once in a lifetime moments where you just remember, kind of like what we were talking about earlier, nessa, that the human connection is the priority overall of everything. And the organizer of that creative mornings came up to me afterwards and she was like you want to be our dance ambassador? Oh my God, yes, I do, yeah, so that's how it started. You had a lot of other questions in there, but I'll take a breather, yeah, so why.
0:05:17 - Nessa
I understand why you do it, but I would like you to explain to our audience why I keep doing it From that moment that it started until now. I know that it has evolved, but why? Why do you keep doing it?
0:05:32 - Jordan
You know I have always struggled with belonging in my life. I have never fully felt 100% like I belonged in one place, except for when I am with large groups of people and on a stage. And so, just from my own place of my little inner child, I just really love being with the people on the stage and I become like the best version of myself. They're both in heart and in mind and in body, and it tends to have a really good effect on other people, right? So it's just mutually nourishing work and I don't think it gets any better than that when your heart is filled and then other people's hearts are filled On the other side.
I just get tired of going to like boring events. It's like maddening to me, especially when you might be having an experience that's not that stimulating. Then you go and you talk to the organizers and you figure out, oh, these people are super interesting, they have a lot to offer. They just got so caught up in the logistics of things that that other part didn't come out. And so through my work as a dance ambassador, I get to hold the energy for the aspirational parts of the brand, like who they really are, who they really want to be, and I essentially take some work off of their plate that allows them to really shine, and by them. It's like it's not just the organizers. It helps the speakers to shine, it helps the audiences to shine. Everybody's just a better version of themselves. And there are a thousand other reasons, but I think that's the core. Yeah.
0:07:36 - Nessa
And now that you bring that up in the sense that like, yeah, the organizers are amazing and they have like a lot to say, I think that brings up a point for me where I think a lot of organizers and even audiences, they're almost waiting for permission to have fun Right, like they're waiting for somebody to come in like to say, yeah, you know, you can, it doesn't have to be like this awkward thing, like it's okay to enjoy yourself, like has that been your experience?
0:08:07 - Jordan
For sure the five, five thousand percent. And I think you know, at every moment when we're in spaces, people are actively asking questions that they may not even realize that they're asking. And so when you get 300 people in a room, a thousand people in a room, 10,000 people in the room, they're really asking subconsciously Okay, what are the rules in this space? How do I be, how am I supposed to show up, Like what's the best way for me to contribute? And an MC, whether they're a more traditional MC, which I love doing that type of stuff too or they're a dance ambassador, actually answers that question pretty quickly if they are holding the space in the beginning or throughout the event, and the dance ambassador doesn't necessarily tell you all of the rules for how to show up, but it makes one rule really clear you can move and you can feel free to be who you really are, you know okay, that brings up a lot of things for me.
0:09:15 - Isaac
First of all, I think what's interesting is that you are this very clearly this natural performer, but you're the anti-Diva, right, you love being on stage. But if you were on stage alone or it was purely top-down, I think you would totally shirk from that environment, at least from what I've seen. You are there to thrive with the other people, right? And I think that that's a really key thing. I am 100% a backstage, behind-the-scenes guy. That's why I'm an event producer.
I want to be the puppet master creating the experience, but I do not need to be out in the thick of it, and so I think what that leads me to is this question about what is it about movement in particular that connects you to people and that helps you create this? I mean, what you're creating is a relationship from the stage right With the audience and helping establish both those rules and giving them permission to express themselves and also to better assimilate the information. We've seen this through the events we've hired you to support, and so I'm just curious what is it about movement that is so special in these environments, and how do you use that to your advantage?
0:10:44 - Jordan
So there's so much to say here. What's special about movement is that the natural rhythm of life is movement. That's what you've got to know. Like, even when you're sitting, still, your body is moving like a mad person. That heart is still going, the lungs are going, the blood is pumping, and so it's like, why deny life by denying movement? Like, why do we do that? Right, and there's so many answers to that question, some that I could fill in others that will remain mysteries of the universe. Right, but when we're not moving, either if it's just breathing or if it's actual body movement, we're not living.
So that's why it's important what the part of me that is most activated, I think, is not even me as a dancer in those spaces, actually me as a choreographer in those spaces, because as a dancer I actually am a total diva. Like I'm a total diva, I will get on stage and I'll be down on the floor. Go for it, you know. But with the dance and the ambassador ship, the nicest, most collaborative, heart-centered part of myself shines and that's why I love it. But my choreographer brain, it only works in large groups of people, it only works in the collective.
And the question that it is asking constantly which I think is important for conferences is what could we do together that we could not do separately, right?
And so, you know, as a choreographer, you see these beautiful shapes that the human body can make when you're sitting next to each other. And it doesn't even have to be like tombe, parbouret, granger, tete, dah, dah, dah dah. It doesn't have to be that. It could simply be everybody raising their arms in the air or just like shaking their head in a cool way, and humans are gorgeous together, right, and the movement is like, if I'm really honest, dance for me is a spiritual practice, and so it unlocks something in the human spirit by not only helping you to move, but also helping you to emote and express emotions, but then also to like get into this, like rhythm with everybody else. So it's like it's something in the air that just takes people over, right, and I could literally talk about this for the next 45 minutes, so I'm going to shut up. But people need to know that music is magic, dance is magic, and it helps us to remember who we really are and why life exists in the first place.
0:13:47 - Nessa
And when you bring movement to an event, could you because I know you work with like, different types of audiences, right, and different types of events Tell us a little bit about the audience before they have the experience with you and then after, like, what are you seeing when that happens?
0:14:07 - Jordan
That's such a good question because and I wrote this down beforehand A while back I wrote a history book and one of the questions that emerged during that process was who do we become as a result of our history books? Right, and that same question is applicable to conferences, like who do we become as a result of our conferences? Right? So before the dance ambassador work, people are happy to be out because it's a new place and you know it's not like the normal thing. But they're asking those questions of belonging Do I belong here? What can I do here?
And they're shyer than they would be, they're more indecisive than they would be, and they're not as fully self-expressed, they're really more in a professional container, right? So I'm going to show up, I'm going to be, I'm good at what I do, here's what I do not, here's who I am. That tends to be where people are before, right, right. Afterwards they're like oh, it's that type of party, right, where the fullest version of me is perfectly okay here, right. And I'm like oh, my shoulders are a little bit more relaxed because you just you just got me to move my shoulders. My back is feeling a little bit better because I got a chance to like stand up. I have the permission slip to contribute for him from a more honest place and from a more dynamic place. I had one lady who came up to me and said that she now dances at like her family reunions and her family meetings, because she's been at conferences where I was dance ambassador. And I'm like, I'm so happy.
0:16:08 - Isaac
Wow.
0:16:09 - Nessa
That's awesome because, like she's spreading the message, she's spreading the permission right, like she got it from you and now she's giving it to others, and I think that that that's incredible. But at the same time and I wonder, does it drive you nuts, though that, like we as a society still need permission. Isn't that right? Like? What are your thoughts about that?
0:16:32 - Jordan
It really it really, really irks me. It not only does it irk me, it saddens me, because when I go into a space and I'm not different from anyone else I really want to connect with who people actually are. Like I honestly am not that interested in what's going on professionally with you, like I'm really not. What are you yearning for? Like, what would make you the happiest in the world? Like, even like what's making you sad? Like I want to know more.
But really, as a teacher I am an instructor not just of dance but of languages and of other things I know that if you've got restlessness in your body, if you've got any anxiety, any jitters, if you haven't really connected to your body, you can't connect to the fullness of your mind. Even though our society would have you believe that that's totally possible, it really isn't. Movement is a fundamental human need. So even with my people who, like they're like I don't want to dance, I don't want to do it, I don't want to go on stage, it's like that's fine, that's fine, you don't have to. But also I feel okay introducing it into the space, because I know that there is not a single human being who doesn't need this on some level.
0:18:02 - Isaac
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I mean I think, especially in a work environment, you know where, quote unquote professionalism dictates so much of how we are allowed to behave around colleagues. Any kind of professional conference instills that same thing. Right, you dress a certain way, you get business, casual or business. You comport yourself in a certain way.
There's an expected social contract, which we've been talking a lot about lately, but that social contract usually doesn't help define how we relate to each other as humans when we enter a space together, especially as we're consuming content and participating in, especially for something that's sharing ideas or trying to be used to derive solutions to problems.
Right, like that requires much more human interaction and I see the work that you do and this notion of movement being a form of self expression and unlocking your ability to your cognitive functions as really critical to that because, like, we can get further with what we're trying to achieve if we can do that. I'm specifically curious, like when you you've done both in person movement sessions and you've done online stuff, do you have different approaches to these two different, distinct formats? Cause, like online, people are locked behind their screens. It's very like you know they're in this very confined individual space, whereas when you're in a room full of people. We've been talking about this recently too. There's this like fourth dimension of energy and ambient noise and environment and vibe and whatever you want to call it that comes into play there. So does that influence the work that you do?
0:19:55 - Jordan
It does. It does. It's like it's the same but it's different. This is what I would say. You know, like the space is teaching us how to be. The space is always giving us instructions.
So the larger auditoriums that I've been in, right, some of them, everyone's on an even plane and so I don't have to walk upstairs or downstairs in order to go into the audience and have spatial proximity to an audience member and say hey, you want to dance, you want to move, you want to come up here with me. You know, like there's a lot of that in the in person space, like going down the aisles and me spotting somebody and saying, okay, how shy are they? Can I convince them to come up and do something interesting Right. Then, of course, when you do have a stage, if the stage isn't completely prohibitive in terms of the amount of stairs and how you navigate getting down, then the stairs can become a part of the show, like how you, how you walk down and you are coming into the audience and introducing yourself and bringing them back up with you Right In a larger platform in the in person space. That's where I think you need a team of dance ambassadors, really unique people, supporting you out in in the audience that are encouraging and representing movement, as well as dance ambassador or dance ambassadors that are on the stage right.
So that's that's in person, one of the things that I get to navigate, and the benefit being that I can I can get right next to someone so they feel my vibe right online. It's interesting because we have the camera feature and people can turn their camera off and they can turn their camera on, and that control is actually very beneficial because the dance ambassador is never there to force you to do something that's out of your comfort. So I'm literally like attracting you into something that is really good for you. So I can get people to turn off their cameras and be completely free, but I know they're dancing and moving in the way that works for them, so that's. That's a good thing, even though we might not be able to see it right. Also, online you have the chat right, and that adds an entirely different layer. You're shaking your head, you know what I'm talking about.
What was your experience with with the chat and what it gives to the online?
0:22:52 - Nessa
Yeah, it's funny because there's a lot of people that like feared that element as we got into the pandemic and that became a necessity. But honestly that adds, in my opinion, that adds such a level of participation and community that you can't necessarily have in person because, like, if there's a talk, you're not going to be sitting at your seat and like yelling stuff from receipt right and like you know that's disruptive. But in an online environment, that just adds to the conversation and people love it and they get more excited and they're more engaged and I think they even take away more from whatever is happening because they're seeing the reaction, the group reaction in the moment.
0:23:38 - Jordan
That's right. That's right. They're seeing the group reaction in a moment and I want to flip it on, flip that on its head in person, and what gets to happen is I get to see the collective choreography in person in a way that I can't see it online because I can guarantee that, with the music and the internet, that it's going to all work together for us to like do dance that is actually on beat. Together we might get acute still, right, I just want to say something.
0:24:08 - Isaac
I know I keep going because I have more to add that I just had an epiphany that I think you're going to love, so but I don't want to cut you off with it.
0:24:18 - Jordan
Well, so hold that thought. So I, I was doing some work down it for March for Black women, san Diego, and so it was in person and we were outdoors, and there's a whole bunch of different people. I did this thing that I call music is collective risk taking. So I taught them a couple of steps beforehand, and then we had no clues to what the music was going to be, that we're going to put the moves to right, and so we're literally practicing, working, working together. So I randomly choose this Miles Davis song that I had never heard myself. So this is a big risk. This could totally flop, right. I turn on the music and all of a sudden, with the most simple moves, this crowd just executes the most gorgeous choreography. They can't see it. I can. Now I'm getting the show. I'm like I should be paying y'all for the show because y'all look so good, right, and so that's what I look forward to in the, in person that I can't get online, you know, but I want to hear your epiphany.
0:25:21 - Isaac
Okay, this is so, this is so right.
I don't know why this had never occurred to me, but Ness and I have been talking a lot lately about the difference between online and in person events, especially as now we have the choice to do both, and I think what's interesting both with your this notion of being able to turn off your own camera, or prompting people to turn off the camera and give them their own safe space on their own to move I think what I hadn't thought about before was that in an in person, like if you're an audience watching a stage, you're looking at the back of everybody's heads you don't have to make eye contact, and I think that's very different than if you're looking at a virtual event, even where you can see everybody's video, because you're looking at each other in their face, and I think that changes the way that people are willing to interact.
And we saw this with a particular event that we did with you last year, I think, where you know some people. It was all via Zoom and we had the gallery view up for the movement and some people were super into moving and everything, but some people were really hesitant and it makes me wonder if it was because they could see everybody's face and so they felt like they were on display as opposed to being in person. When you're behind a sea of backs of heads, you are part of the group and it's kind of this disembodied experience that is a little different. I don't know that, just that clicked for me and I was like, yes, and I think that's similar to what you're talking about, like with you suddenly being the one spectator that can see all of the in-person choreography where everybody else can't.
0:27:01 - Jordan
I think you are spot on. I really do think you are spot on, because in person there is a stage and then there are the seats Right. So as long as you are in the seats, you are not on the stage, you're not the focus Right. So I'm going in. People might be dancing out there, but it's, you know, it's harmless to their ego, they're safe. But you're right, every everyone can see you from the zoom point of view If you've got your camera on, and I think that's why it's so important, as a dance ambassador, to invite self-expression and collective expression in a balanced way. Like I, I most of the time I don't really care what you're doing or that you're moving. I just care that you know that you can move and that you can take it up a notch if you'd like to. You can bring it down a notch if you want, but the space is there.
0:28:03 - Nessa
So let's let's turn to our one of our last topics that we want to touch on, and I want to start by saying there's such an intentionality to what you do that I find incredible, because you make it's fun and you make it look easy, but there's two. There's levels to what's happening, right, because there's dancing and there's having fun and yay, we're moving. But there's also, like, such a level of thought and insight and and instinct and because I mean, in this conversation right now, we haven't talked about like actual dance moves or actual music, right, this whole entire conversation that we're having is at this other level of all the thought that goes into it, and I think you're so incredibly observant and you have such good instinct. So I want to talk about the music now, because I don't know how you do it, but you always know the right moment to move to the next song. You always know how to pick like the perfect song and, like Isaac said earlier, he's like obsessed with your you know your.
0:29:08 - Isaac
You can read a vibe like nobody else that I know. Yeah, it is incredible.
0:29:14 - Nessa
So let's talk about that a little bit, and how, yeah, how do you do that?
0:29:23 - Isaac
You can just say it's a gift and move on.
0:29:25 - Jordan
You know, darling, it's a gift and I, just, I, just, you know, really, really it is a gift, but it's a gift from a humble place. Like I do. I've been trained a lot in improvisation, as an improvisational speaker, as an improvisational mover, even with improvising choreography, and so when you do that type of training, it's like you work the skill and the technique and you you can work that really heavily. But what you also work is like letting go and like really opening up your heart and your mind and your body to like whatever the moment is going to give you Right, and the music is muse for me, like I haven't looked up the etymology of music, but I wouldn't be surprised if muse and music were somehow connected. Like the music knows something, it has an intelligence to it and it is fundamentally connected to, to vibrance and to life. You know, and I think, what's special about the music for me? My mind is going in 50 different places. Okay, so I'm also a musician.
I didn't tell you all that. I played piano for 15 years. I was classically trained pianist and and I have this goal of liking every genre of music. That's my goal. I also have a goal of liking every fruit in the world, and what I really mean by that is that these are spaces where I experienced the least amount of judgment, both self judgment and other judgment, and so I just find that to be like so loving and so connective, so like I'm always like just hanging out with the music and asking it like, okay, well, what do you music? What do you want me to say music? What do you want me to embody music? What are you trying to tell the people? Right, and it always speaks to me, even if it's not like literally. And I think in practicing that type of, I mean, really it's a spiritual, it's a spiritual connection that I have to music like that. That's just that's. That's really what it is right In practicing that I can show up to an event and then ask of the event Okay, here are the values of the event, here's what's really important to these people.
What music have I met along the way? That wants to be in conversation with that. You know I also love, just like, traveling to music because, like music is the perfect way to do it. Music is the perfect gathering space for people because it just naturally calls people in and I can go everywhere. I go to India through music. Right, I could go to the 1960s through music. I could go to nostalgia through music, like it's really time travel at the same time as an in addition to, like, spatial travel, right. So all of those things and more, thank you for coming to my TED Talk. They all work together.
0:32:58 - Nessa
It's a wonderful talk.
0:33:01 - Jordan
No, I just okay. I want to give you all a shout out because I have such a difficult time telling people like okay, so I'm really like pulling from like seven different areas here for this one thing that I'm going to make. Look, I'm going to make it look really easy, but it's actually like really hard and you all get it. You all understand it even better than I do. So I like just I appreciate it because it's like it's as much heart and body as it is intellectual and it's hard good work that I really love doing for people.
0:33:36 - Isaac
I think I mean. What I see in it is I truly appreciate this, this cross disciplinary approach that you bring to it right, and I think it's. Yes, it's rooted in movement, but movement requires music, requires storytelling.
0:33:54 - Jordan
We haven't even touched on storytelling.
0:33:55 - Isaac
You haven't talked about my stories Also a thing, and it it's it binds and connects us as human beings in a really interesting way, and I think that that's just a really critical piece to any kind of gathering of people, and I think that's why, you know, the first opportunity I had to work with you was through another event that I was supporting as well, and so I got to see you in action and kind of experience the what you were bringing to it, and I was like, oh yeah, using this as much as possible in the future, because this is fantastic, right, like it's this multi-channel, multi-pronged way of helping people let their guard down and connect with each other and express themselves in a really interesting way, and I think that that's that's really, really valuable.
And I think, like, a lot of people are focused on just pure entertainment, which is usually through the form of performance, consumed performance is how I would distill it, and I think what you offer is this beautiful group shared experience where you are facilitating an exchange, but you are not. You are not performing, you are not the diva, right, because you are not performing from stage. You're not like doing this choreographed piece. You're working with the group to come up with something together and sharing it, and I think that's that's really special.
0:35:32 - Nessa
Yeah, I think when oh sorry, go ahead, now you go. Oh, I was just going to say that when you come in and what you do and the music you bring in, it brings humanity to something, even if the event like resists humanity.
I don't know if that makes sense, like you can't have music and you can't have dance without humanity. Right, you can do a workshop or a talk and just, you know, just robotic and completely disconnected from humanity and from reality. But when you come in and you bring in music, and you bring in body, movement, dance and all this that you do, it forces people to be people and people in a group of other people, right, and to have that experience. And I think that that's why what you do is so special and so unique and that's why I want you to be at every event that we do, because that is such an important element of everything and I think it gets forgotten, to be honest.
0:36:37 - Jordan
It does all the time. It's like I think life is kind of magical in this way, but it's like I'm teaching people how to be together, even though I'm not directly giving what looks like a class.
Exactly and what I'm really doing is like I am daring to just show them. Okay, like, here's me being myself. Okay, now you go, you go be yourself and we'll go be ourselves together, right? And what's Fascinating about that is that if you have 300 people in a room, if you have thousand people in a room, if you have 10,000 people in the room and they're only focusing on what they're doing, then we miss out on getting to know who they actually are and, like I can find out. I can find out what you do by reading your LinkedIn profile. I don't care, they don't care. I really want to know, like, what makes your heart sing, because in that way, I'm gonna know how to better connect to you, you're gonna better know how to connect to me. And when we decide to do something collectively that is, more explicitly, work All boats are gonna rise together.
0:37:56 - Isaac
Yeah, I'm curious to this Might be waiting into murky waters. I was thinking about what you said. To your comfort level, we can move on if you don't feel comfortable talking about this. You were talking about the experience that creative mornings in San Diego and walking into this room and you called out that you Saw that you were the only, or one of only a few, black women in the room. Yeah, I presume that means everybody else was non-black.
0:38:29 - Jordan
It was some level of diversity. It was sure it was. Yeah, not that many black people.
0:38:35 - Isaac
Do you see like is there? Do you draw influence from your experience as a black woman and cultural aspects of being raised into the work that you do, and is there an element of that that you're also trying to share With audiences as you facilitate with them?
0:38:55 - Jordan
It is, it, is it, you know, there's, there's. No, there's really no way to get around it. You know, I think, nessa, when we had our conversation about, like, how you saw dance ambassadorships, you know, you, you brought this up as as well, that just as a part of, like, latin culture, which is inherently tied to having huge influence from the African diaspora as well, movement is just, it's, it's standard. Dance is standard. Music is standard, like this. This idea that you would do anything really without those things is just odd. You know, and Even if you don't explicitly have the music, like the moment that it comes into the scene, like you'll just see the cloud Automatically and intuitively activated, because that's just how it's been. You know, all, all the time and it's.
I haven't done as much research on this, but I Know that there is some element of truth, that the colonial perspective on how a human being is supposed to show up both in personal life and in work, that perspective is just very different from what other people would say is standard. Right, it's, and it tends to really cut the body off from the neck up and and leave the rest of the body. You know, I don't know how to lunch somewhere, I don't know, you know. And so when you think about that, metaphorically and and physically, the heart is left out, the majority of the body is, is is left out, and it's just like you're like a walking head and like a talking head, but that's just, like, that's not what's most true for anybody including, you know, including people from the UK, you know, including white person like that's, it's just, it's not true, it is is not true.
And so when I, when I offered that definition of dance ambassadorship and I didn't talk about it here that it it brings us back, what did I say? I'm gonna bring it up on my screen and said it, it brings us back to memory, the Remembrance of the prioritization of basic human needs while we work, while we think, while we ideate, while we listen. That's what I'm pulling from. You know, the other thing that I'm pulling from, in addition to like, just being black and being connected to the African diaspora, I'm just pulling from being weird. I'm weird. I Love music and sound and rules be damned. I'm gonna move and I want to invite people to rethink the rules and the standards, not only from a cultural place and from a political place, which is those things are super important, but I also want them to just do it from their spirit, like Be who you are and liberate yourself, because if you can't move, you're not living.
0:42:43 - Isaac
Yeah, and and I think, I think you're absolutely right like it's not this is your experience is not isolated to being black. I think that there, like he's had a lot of Latin cultures, have cultures around the world. I would say even Pre-colonial Western European cultures were more open about movement and dance as self expression and, in a lot of ways, this I mean we could probably talk about this for a long time but this colonial notion of structure and control over oneself and you know, it's probably rooted in religion and is this like self containment and and holding oneself back from experiencing joy and expressing emotions, and and it it has Deeply embedded itself into our work culture in particular. I think that's part of why capitalism thrives in the quote-unquote Western world, because it it it is really about exerting control on the labor force and I think that we, through the work that you do and through movement, we can learn to Express ourselves and break those rules more and more often and better connect with our humans and and it leads to self understanding. Like it, there's something really special about it.
The last thing that I was gonna say is that, like I have experienced this myself, I joke a lot that I Am contractually bound when a client hires us to dance at their closing party. Yeah, because I love it. There's like the release of energy after a week of stress is so powerful to me. And I don't care who's looking, I don't care what I look like, I I don't even see myself as a good dancer, quote-unquote right Like I'm sure that that's right with all kinds of of Issues too, but like the that is. That is the way that I express the joy that I'm feeling Coming out of the success of what I have accomplished. Yes, and I think we need more of that for sure, for sure.
0:45:02 - Jordan
You know, like the, the celebration is really deserved at the beginning of the party because you managed to get this event started in the first place and that was like you know, like, like. As much as I complain about boring events, let me tell you something. I appreciate a boring event that got done Over an inspired event. That didn't you know. So I'm, I am, rooting for everyone. I am rooting for everyone despite, you know, all of my critiques.
But the dance ambassador, from the point of view of the human spirit, is supposed to be an embodiment of joy that it's placed in front of the people and and helps everyone to tune in, and so it automatically helps people to self-correct from any rules of disconnection and to release, like you said, because people, people are yearning for it, especially if you've been sitting down on the all day, especially if you've been listening to the news and the news was horrible times three. You know like people are yearning for out of this world soulful connection, in addition to out of this world intellectual stimulation, and we can't get to that by following the old guard Standards.
0:46:32 - Nessa
I'm like I could keep going, but we Before we go, please Just say that like.
0:46:43 - Isaac
I am, we've been. I've been sitting in my chair now as we've been on this Call for an hour recording this and I know I just I feel the need to like. It's gonna be noisy, but yes. So, so yeah, let's end on this. Then You've talked about movement. We've talked about music and how the two are intertwined. We haven't really talked about storytelling. I know that is also a big piece of what you do. How, how did the three of those things integrate with each other?
0:47:14 - Jordan
I Don't know is the true answer. That's the truest answer. I really don't know, but my goal, I think. So. Conferences are places of connection and they're also places of Knowledge and History. So this is this time when we all got together and we did this and we experienced that, and could you believe that that happened? Great.
And so I really want to feed Into each audience members and all the organizers ability to have a new story that they can take with them after the event is done, and a part of doing that is showing up as your foolish human self, and another part of that is Helping them to understand that there are stories that are happening at any given time.
So a speaker is going to talk and they're going to give a lot of information. They're going to give a lot of great stories, but what is this one thing that I can pull In front of them and give it a little bit of narrative and get it, give it a little bit of character such that they can Run with it, or what is this, this connection that I can make between what this speaker said over here and what that speaker said over there, right, storyfied a little bit to where it's memorialized, and I think that is important, because People don't tend to remember information, but they do remember story and they do remember how you made them feel. And so the dance ambassador work is is looking to Really Like Like Just see, like this trampoline in my mind, like jump all up on your feelings and your emotions and then like all in your story right, such that the information has a chance to, to walk into your heart as well as your mind.
0:49:48 - Nessa
Thanks for listening to this episode of make it kick ass. We hope you found it entertaining and helpful. If hosting a community event is on your radar, visit get event lab calm to take our free 30 minute training called community event mastery. That's, get event lab calm or use the link in the show notes. Make it kick ass is hosted by Isaac Watson and Nessa he man is post production audio by Chris Nelson at Mittens media. Our theme song is feel it by dojo for crooks. Make it kick ass is a production of kick ass conferences and event strategy and design agencies serving leaders of growing communities.