On this week’s 51%, we celebrate women in dance. We speak with a student at Julliard and take some lessons from a professional ballroom dancer, and we also speak with choreographer Helen Pickett about her creative process.

Guests: Nyoka Wotorson, dance student at Julliard; Natalia O'Connor, owner of Dance Fire Studio & Fitness; Helen Pickett, choreographer and co-director of the contemporary dance program at Jacob's Pillow

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You’re listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women’s issues and experiences. Thanks for joining us, I’m Jesse King. Today is all about women in dance. A lot of us may have taken dance classes as kids - or simply just danced to the radio like I did - but today we’re speaking with women who kept at it, and are working to make a living out of it. So grab some dance shoes and a partner if you can, because we’re taking a lesson as well. 

We’ll start down in New York City, with Nyoka Wotorson. Wotorson is an African American dancer who grew up in the city, and when we spoke to her she was settling into her first year at Julliard — but really, she’s been dancing since she was just three years old.  

“I used to walk around on my tippy toes when I was younger, and my mom always tells me that she just saw me and was like, ‘She needs to be in dance classes immediately. She clearly wants to pursue that,’" says Wotorson. "And so she did, she put me in dance classes and I’ve been dancing ever since. I went to LaGuardia for dance, which is the high school right across the street from Julliard, so I’ve been dancing my whole life.” 

Wotorson is trained in ballet, jazz, pop, and more - but she says the Graham technique is currently her favorite. 

“Graham is a technique created by Martha Graham. It really revolves around the contraction, which is like the hollowing out of your stomach. It’s a very physical technique that includes floor work. It’s been around for a long time — there’s a Graham school based in New York, and a Graham company," she explains. "Dance gives me the ability to be free and to say things with my physicality that I probably would not either be confident saying or be able to say with words. It just allows me to express myself in a way that I love. Someone said this the other day: ‘When you’re dancing, you’re doing it for yourself. Other people are just lucky enough to be able to see.’ And I think with that mentality, dance can be one of the most powerful things.” 

Wotorson lists Alicia Graf Mack and Misty Copeland as some of her biggest role models. She loves watching and studying confident Black dancers, because the field is still predominantly white. She says a lot of it comes down to representation and accessibility: becoming a professional dancer requires years of full-time, expensive training, and oftentimes the families who can afford it are wealthy and white. 

Growing up, Wotorson was often one of just a few Black dancers in her classes, and she never really registered the effect it had on her until she got to Julliard. In 2017, Juilliard tapped Graf Mack to lead its dance division, and Wotorson credits Graf Mack with increasing the diversity within the school’s student population. Wotorson believes her class is the program’s most diverse yet, with a third of its roughly 24 students being people of color. And in being among all those equally-talented dancers, who look more like her, Wotorson says she was forced to confront some of her past insecurities. 

“I found that in previous years, I didn’t always feel confident in my ballet. I mean, a large part of it probably was because I would see all these white faces at the front of the room, having perfect turnout, and all the ballet technique that they had. And I didn’t feel like I was as strong in that field," says Wotorson. "I remember in my interview for my Juilliard audition, Alicia told me, she said, ‘I love watching you at the ba