Dereque Whiturs



Dereque Whiturs

I was sitting in my Engineering Lab class when I received a call from Koryan ‘Nayrok’ Wright.  Normally I would not answer my phone in class but this was Nayrok… of course I was going to answer.  She proceeded to tell me that I absolutely had to enroll my girls in HappyNia Dance Theatre under the direction of Dereque Whiturs.  She told me he was doing some awesome stuff and her daughter was learning so much.  She invited me to the next show HappyNia was having at The Black Academy of Arts and Letters.

The Triple A-Bomb headed out to see what all of this was about, this was definitely going to be a really fun night out.  And it was.  HappyNia blew us away!  These children were delivering such powerful messages – through dance.  I had never seen children dance like this.  It was not hip-hop nor was it a bunch of children gyrating as if they were impersonating over-sexualized adults.  No this was different.  This was modern dance.  Yup, my girls were joining HappyNia Dance Theatre – thanks Koryan!  That was 2007 and the rest is history…

Fast forward to 2011, trying to nail down a time and place to interview Dereque was like pulling teeth.  We’d schedule an interview.  Things changed.  Interviews missed.  Our schedules conflicted big time.  Finally, on a Saturday afternoon after dance class and during the modeling rehearsals, I kidnapped him.  Snatched him right up from the theatre and took him in my car, no shoes and all, to my favorite place – the park. 

The first thing you notice about Dereque when you are in his presence is his beautiful chocolate skin.  It is amazing!  The deep dark, dark, dark chocolate variety… but I digress.  He stands with the gracefulness of a dancer with legs whose muscles have supported the weight of many of dancers.  His shoulders are broad.  Arms muscular.  Abs tight.  He IS a dancer.  A Passionate Dancer. 

Over the course of my years, I have seen many dancers however none of them have moved me such as Dereque has when he dances.  Sure others may have a technically perfect masterpiece, but they do not move me, nor do they invoke feelings.  When you see Dereque dance or a piece he has choreographed, you are going to feel something.  Deep down inside.  At first you are in awe of the movement.  Then the message hits you like a ton of bricks.  This is Dereque.  That is what he does.  Delivers a powerful message.  All up in your face!  Pow!

Who are you?  Who is Dereque Whiturs?

Passion

“Well that’s a loaded question; especially in the last couple of months, I’m kind of confused about who I am.  I’ve grown in some ways but to start off with who I am, I would say that I’m a 53 year old Black Man who has a desire and a love and a passion and compassion for the arts and education through the arts about HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and substance abuse.  All of which I’ve had some kind of part in at some point of my life; and it’s very important for me, Dereque, to be able give back in the community, help nurture and help to grow the things that I deal with on a daily basis.  And the understanding that they [the company] always have to put their best foot forward and always have to be aware of everything - their surroundings that comes into their atmosphere, the people that they allow in, the people that they hang out with.  So who I am is… my company.  I, unfortunately, don’t have a life [outside of the company].  I’m HIV positive.  I’ve been HIV positive for 32 years now and I’ve had an AIDS diagnosis for at least 15 to 20 of those years.  I can say that I have been blessed by God to say I have been able to move around and do a lot of stuff with the 18, 15, 14 and 13 year old dancers of my company.  My life is filled with everything I can do on a daily basis for them and trying to help them grow.  So who am I?  I don’t know.”

Sounds like a parent to me, that’s exactly what is sounds like.

“I’ve also been blessed to have these young men in my life and I say young men because we are very few in the dance world.  We are very few with the talents that we need that people recognize.  We have a lot of talented young black kids but everybody don’t recognize their talents because they’re not of the lighter skin persuasion or they’re not of the white complexion.  So even today, I see where a darker brother, like myself, or a black man has to always be 10 or 15 spaces ahead of the game in order for somebody to see them and recognize what their talents are.

The Dancer

I was born here in Dallas, Texas.  Grew up at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts, the first four year graduating class.  Danced with Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Principle Dancer.  Went on to dance with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre for 17 years and Deeply Rooted Productions.  But that is who I am as a dancer and where I am lost is who am I as a person.  I give so much of myself to these young kids and to this company that I go home at night - that’s all I have and that’s all I think about is the company.  So any little thing that goes array for the company I take personally because I, right now, that’s how I describe myself, that’s who I am.

I’ve been blessed to have this young man in my life and I never knew being a parent was so hard.  My Mama said ‘Baby, you did the same things that he’s doing.’  I said ‘No, Mama I didn’t.’  But to find that being a parent… having a company… being a parent… having a company parent… is really difficult, you know, it’s a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifices.

The Proud Father

Who I am is a young man that wants to still perform and dance myself but my health has kind of gotten in the way because I’ve been foolish not adhering to my medication. The many years that I was out there drinking and just partying and having a good time to ease the pain that I went through in my life when I was growing up, I never wanted to go back to that and I ended up back in Dallas - of all the places I never wanted to come back to.  And I don’t know why he put this little boy in my life because this little boy has given me hell in the last year.  He has been with me for two, but this last year has been hell.  Only because I love him so much and I want everything wonderful and positive for him but he is starting to grow up and go into his own.  And on top of that I didn’t have him when he was younger so there are some people that might say ‘Well he’s going to tell you at some point ‘You ain’t my daddy anyway.’’  You know?  And I dread that because I look at myself as being a parent to him and he’s pretty much the only one I feel right now that I am a father to because I will never be able to have my own natural child because of my disease.

So my life, and who I am, is all centered around me trying to bring about some awareness to HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, substance abuse.  Again all of which I’ve been a part and has played a part in either my growth as a person or my down fall as a person and certainly it is helping me understand how I need to be even more open minded.  Sometime I think that I’m open minded but I guess when I sit back on a daily basis and evaluate myself and reanalyze ‘Okay, what did I do today’ I see that there are some spots where my mind has not been open. You know?  And I have to find a way to grow in that because that is what the mission of this company is, that is what the mission of who I am in trying to engage the company.  

Who I am is a young black man who wants to have his own company travel and experience life and bring life to the stage and bring stage to the lives of ordinary people.  Giving everybody an opportunity, free will, to see in what role they have to play in helping our community to grow.  And helping us to nurture our children.  Going back to the old school, really the old school, ‘It takes a whole village’ because right now we say ‘It takes a whole village’ but everybody in the village is only taking it to where it benefits them.  If it takes a whole village then you are going to stay the course.



Dereque and HappyNia
Dance Theatre

My life is: I am the director and the parent at HappyNia Dance Theatre that sometimes curse the kids out.  Sometime they get mad.  Sometimes I cry.  Sometimes they cry.  It’s funny that’s what my life is about and in ways that’s more fulfilling then I’ve ever thought it would be but then it’s also sometimes stressful and disappointing because I have to let them leave when it’s time for them to leave.  I try to teach them about how they present themselves and how other people see them and I don’t give them any slack so sometimes that pushes them away.  And everybody tells me ‘Well, you got to wait.  They’ll understand.  They’ll come back.  They don’t understand it now but they’ll come back.’  And unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be around to see when they come back but my spirit will probably be somewhere that will recognize when they’ve come back and they understand.  But who I am I really don’t know.

But I can tell you who I want to be.”

Okay.

”Who I want to be is somebody that has this fabulous company that’s in the heart of Downtown Dallas and we have a big billboard that says ‘HappyNia Dance Theatre Productions Incorporated’.  Everybody that comes through Dallas will see this big sign that says ‘HappyNia Dance Theatre’ and this big picture and I would like to have a big billboard, moving billboard, that will show flashes of the things that we are doing and that we are so wonderful and fabulous in choreography and theatre that these people will say ‘Wow!  I got to stop in there and see what’s going on!’  I want the company to be marketed in the community that no one will ever miss [them].  Look at HappyNia now!  

HappyNia Dance Theatre
Productions

I want to be able to move and tour with my company and take my kids with me into the schools and teach and  people recognize us the way that they recognize Dallas Black, Booker T, Dancer’s Unlimited, all these other different companies we see at Dance for the Planet.  I, unfortunately, think right now because when they first saw us they saw us doing Gospel, when we get called to Dance for the Planet we are mostly expected to come and do Gospel, so I want to change the impressions of what people think they are going to get.  Always still doing a mission of having a message inside of our work when we go into the community, it’s just not gratifying to me unless we’ve reached somebody’s spirit.  And have touched them enough to where they want to dance.  Even if they can’t dance – they have three left feet – we can teach them how to do some type of movement.  One thing I can definitely say of who I am is I am a teacher who takes even the lowest on the totem pole who cannot dance and have no coordination and in a month’s time will make them look like they have been dancing for at least a year.”

Well I need to join!

“And I keep inviting you guys – parents and everybody – shoot, we can have an Evening of Dance somewhere, with everybody involved - parents.  You know?

I’m trying to find my way and it’s not easy and it’s not looking where I want it to look.  But on a daily basis I have to put on the right face to come in here and work with these kids because they’re not the reason why I’m feeling the way I am.  So I have to find some kind of strength to give them and not have everybody be in that place go ‘Oh poor Dereque!  Oh My God!’  And sometimes I want somebody to say ‘Poor Dereque!  Oh My God!’ because I don’t think that I’m understood.  I think more than anything, I’m misunderstood.  I think I’m that male teacher, gay male teacher, that parents look at and say ‘I don’t want my child around that man!’  If anybody knows me and they know my heart, they would know that’s not who I am.  I communicate with my parents on a daily basis.

And even my relationship…  [laughing hard]  I can say that I am blessed to have a relationship with all my parents that they go ‘Oh hell, there he go again!  What now?’ because they know at some point I’m going to go off about something.  But I think they stay the way they do because they recognize that ‘Oh he love our kids and he’s going to be questioning and asking about this and asking about that.’  So I think they know that their children’s outcome for their lives is something that’s very important for me and to me.  But I’ve had parents who want to go against the grain and tell me I’m the cause of their kids being gay.”

Letting fear go

I must admit, I had trepidations about my daughters enrolling in HappyNia at first.  They were very sheltered in their small African-Centered Elementary School.  Dereque is openly gay; however, he is not flamboyant by any stretch of the imagination.  My major concern was how would my children, ages 12 and 10 at the time, navigate amongst openly gay people for the very first times in their lives?  I was afraid.  However, I knew what Dereque offered with dance far outweighed any of my fears.  I watched him closely.  He did not allow his young male dancers to dance any other way but masculine and the young ladies – the epitome of femininity.  Over the years, my daughters have grown and they are the most loving, caring, non-judgmental children I have ever met.  This is due to their upbringing as well as my not allowing fear of something different keep my children from learning something new.

I don’t think that’s the case.  I don’t think an interaction with someone is going to change the sexuality of their child.  It’s either in them or it is not.

“And that’s the funny part about it is that… a lot of these… and it’s been the young men because young men… I have more young men in my company than any other company around Dallas right now.  And not all of them are as experienced as some of the kids in other places.  Even some of my kids… and not only kids from Dallas that I’ve talked with… but kids from DC, Atlanta, or over at Dallas Black Dance Theatre… and I believe that people think that because they are not in a structured environment that’s normal for dancers that these kids are not being nurtured about how to be young men.  More than anything that is my goal - to make sure that they know whatever choice they make in life for who they are sexually has nothing to do with who they are as a human being.  Until you start doing certain things that makes that more important than who you are and what your goal is for what your life is going to be – the direction in which you’re going.  And that’s my job as a director, a teacher, a choreographer, and a mentor is to try to give you a little bit of direction of where to go.  I have to find a purpose.”

Everybody has to find a purpose.

“It’s sad because I… don’t think… my health…  I’ve been HIV positive with an AIDS diagnosis for at least 32 years.”

To me that says you are a survivor and to me it doesn’t say anything other than that.  And I think that maybe that’s what you should attach to.

“As you can hear me talking all I’ve talked about is my child and the company.  Young men are very important to me.  They are important to me because we don’t have enough men standing up being men and being an example to these kids whether they’re gay, straight, or what have you.  And a person is a person.  And if you involve and engage these young people, particularly these young men, in a different way of living then they won’t have to be the statistic that society says they would be – they don’t end up in prison.  But they are still going to be teenagers trying to do what everybody else is doing so that they can fit in and every now and then as a parent you have to say ‘No, you are not doing that’. 

Dereque and Erykah Badu

We have had a lot of leaders to come and pave the way – died for us – died for the rights that we have today to be able get out there and go with the best of them.  But unfortunately we fall prey to not getting that and not moving in that spirit when we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity and when we allow someone - a group of people - to push us in to being in one category and don’t put any energy in to us.  My dilemma is that I have to teach them how to be young men, young women, young artists, young dancers, singers, actors, all of these and let that be them making a choice of who they want to be as a people inside of that or as a person inside of that.  It is difficult for me because I watch and I see them hurt and I have to keep a stern face.

A lot of the kids want to grow, they want to go where it’s popular and where it’s famous and I understand that – so did I – but I got to teach them about commitment and how you honor that commitment - and loyalty.  Because a lot of them they can go anywhere else they want to go, I want that to happen.  But not in the middle of a season that we’re dancing and somebody says ‘Oh, I love you and I think you should come over here’ and you go and you forget about the commitment you already made.”

That’s the life of a parent, you may not have physical, natural children but that’s the life of a parent.  That’s what it’s like, you sacrifice your entire life and anything and everything you want and desire is put way, way, way in the background.  I mean that’s the way it is.  What I would like to find out is what bought you to dance?  Where did that come from?

“Well… that’s funny… when I was younger I always liked looking at PBS Channel 13 and I saw dancing on the PBS Channel but I was, at one point, wanting to be a writer and an actor.  Was not good at writing but felt like I could do a pretty good job at acting.  Decided that when I went to Booker T that I was going to go for writing, found out they didn’t have any writing classes except for the classes you take as a student.  So they told me… they said well, maybe you should try the theatre department.  So I went to theatre learned everything about acting and the stage and backstage and how to hang a drop cloth and all that kind of stuff.  

Oh that energy

But I watched the kids at Booker T dancing and I was like…  [excitement and awe cross his face] and I would be there every morning at 7:30 because the kids came at 7:30 just to get their bodies warm.  This is when people would be gung-ho about dancing.  I would go every morning and as I was watching my best friend dance I said ‘I think I want to do that’ and so he started teaching me different little things.  So the next thing I know that next semester I had changed from theatre to dance.  I didn’t have a turned out leg, stretch or nothing, was tight with feet that wouldn’t point.  As matter-of-fact the teachers Ms. Weiss and Dr. Cox – being the coordinator at the time – was like ‘Oh them feet are never going to be good’ and I was fortunate enough to get into the dance department, have a lot of energy, and then start winning them over.  Although they still thought that there was never going to be any greatness in my feet.

After I graduated from high school, I went to Cal Arts – which was another wonderful, great experience in Dance Theatre.  Christine Lawson was a very good friend of Alvin’s [Ailey] and Tina Yuan, which was one of the teachers at the school, and Donald Byrd who’s had some relationships with Dallas Black and Alvin Ailey - these teachers told me when I got to school ‘Why are you in school?  You need to be somewhere dancing.  Go to the Ailey School and audition for the summer program and try to get your foot in the door.’  And that’s what I did but I had some good guidance from them for the year and a few months that I was in college.  

Warriors



After that I left [and] went to Florida were I was a part of Disney World and I was a World Dancer there at the Epcot Center.  I did the Russian More and the African and it’s so funny because I was a Black Russian that was dancing and wearing the dance step out.  This one guy, white guy, he was the Russian Sailor, they started throwing tomatoes at him when he did the evening.  When I did the evening, they were just…  [shocked and amazed] and that was the first time I got the impression that people where just like ‘Oh My God!’  So after that I said okay, well, maybe I need to go on to the Ailey School and I went there with this big notion in my head that I’m so fierce I’m going to get in to the Ailey Second Company.  I went right up to Sylvia Waters’ office and said ‘I’m coming to be part of the Second Company.’  She said ‘You are?  Well, you have to first of all get your foot in the door.’

Now mind you, three years in a row, this was the third time I had went to an audition but while I was in high school two years in a row I auditioned for the Summer Program.  I couldn’t afford go because the price of me going was so expensive my family couldn’t afford it.  And I got an opportunity to go and let them see what I knew again when I went for Presidential Scholars.  And Dr. Cox took me up, it was in Princeton, New Jersey, but we stopped in New York and I hung out, took classes at the Ailey School and one of my closest, dearest best friends in the whole world – Darryl Sneed – was there.  He was like ‘Come on.  Come on.  He can come stay with me Dr. Cox.’  She left me in New York and I stayed with him for another two weeks and it was the time of my life and I decided then ‘Okay, I definitely know that I’m going to be a dancer.’  And after I went and became a part of the Ailey Company, after I got into the Second Company, cause I was in school for a week and a half, they had auditions, we weren’t supposed to go.  I went anyway.

And he stayed

Of course there is Denise Jefferson sitting there, Walter Raines, Alvin Ailey, Mary Barnett and Sylvia Waters and Denise was getting ready to get on me and Alvin said [Dereque puts on his slow motion voice to simulate Alvin Ailey’s voice] ‘Oh that’s okay, let him stay.’  And I stayed and come to find out later on from that audition Alvin wanted me in the First Company but because I was new in the school I couldn’t go and then I got into the Second Company.  Sylvia called me over and said ‘You know, we can take you, you’re in the school, so we can take you from the school and let you be a part of the Second Company.’  So that’s how I started and really wanted to dance.  I knew that I had a lot of energy growing up at Booker T and I quickly also became one of the male dancers that they used all the time and very popular.  No technique in this world at all, just my energy and my passion and my desire - I guess they could see it all in me and they wanted to try to find out how they could nurture and help me with moving into where I wanted to be as an artist.  I was fortunate.

I started dancing and started finding new ways of being able to tell my story and present myself and maybe help tell the story of somebody else – of some kid who went through what I went through when I was 9, 10, 11, you know, 12 years old and trying to find where I am and who I am.  So that’s how I started dancing.”

Was there ever anything else other – well you said the theatre and the writing – so that was your initial what you wanted to do and then dance came about.

“I also wanted to be a Model.”

What would you say in your life was the highlight moment, that ‘Oh My God!  This is it!’ moment, have you ever experienced one of those?

“Yes!  The ‘Oh My God’ moment for me… there’s been three.  The first one was when I danced out of 200 - 300 people that came to the Ailey audition when I auditioned and I was the only male… no, one of two males… that got into the company out of 250 – 300 people – men.  The second one was when I was… no, the first one was when I was in the Ailey Second Company and all these guys from New York, they had been there all this time and da da da and this and that… and I had felt so much less than what they were cause they had all these legs, this technique, they’d been training in New York, they had more training then I did and I was like ‘Oh My God I’m not going to be able to do this!  Who am I?  Why am I standing here?  I need to go back to Dallas.’ 

And then come to find out I go to rehearsal one day and the director Keith Lee says to me ‘Come on get up here and do this dance.’  I said ‘Oh, I’m understudying this?’  And he looked at me and said ‘No, you’re the Soloist.’  So I’m like ‘Ah ha!’  So I had my first opportunity to be a Soloist with a major Dance Company like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.  And that excitement moved on to where afterwards, you know, the guys they didn’t like me, they were like ‘Uh, and here he is… and who is that?  He’s doing the Solo?’ you know, cause I didn’t have the technique that they had.  But Keith Lee loved me. 

So after that I moved on to the Ailey First Company.  You don’t get to do ‘Wade in the Water’ as the couple your first time when you first get into the company.  I had an opportunity to get into the company and do ‘Wade in the Water’ and to watch all the older and the other company members standing in the wings to see how I would do was a highlight of my life.  And to have Alvin come out and to hear the audience and feel the audience standing up while me and my partner are dancing was ‘Oh My God!  Unbelievable!’ 

He didn't come to play

So that day was the day everybody in the company was like ‘Uh Oh!  This little Black Boy he didn’t come to play!’  And then I impressed Alvin enough to where I became Alvin’s pet.  Everything I did he was like ‘De-re-que [voice in slow motion], can you show them what this step is?’  And I would have all my friends going ‘Get him out of the front!’  Cause every rehearsal process I would run and jump in the front and then do whatever he says do.  I would have all this energy and be trying to do it and everybody else be like ‘If you stop doing it we won’t have to do that move but if you keep doing It he gonna find a way for us to do that move.’  Fortunately for me I kept doing it because I wanted to do that move and I could do the move so ya’ll better get with it.”

I hear you!  That’s right!

“My best friend picked me up one day and said ‘Ah, Uh, Un, we are not going to the front today, we are going to the back!’  So there I stood in the back.  The funny part was that I was so intimidated by them and jealous that I didn’t have the technique that they had.  But the last impressive moment for me was, we were in Cannes, France.  We were there during the time that they had the film, all of that going on, and we were guest artists at a particular event.  And that night I had done ‘Sinnerman 3^rd Variation’ and I’m a turner and I have a back, you know, and legs that go up when I’m in my layout and stuff so I had did it that night.  And it was funny, when we came down to take our bow I got a standing ovation.”

Alright now!

“Just that whole energy afterwards moved into us going to dinner and people throwing digs at me going ‘Awww, you tried to show out… you tried to do this… uh huh… you know that’s called up-staging!’ and I’m young going ‘I wasn’t trying to up-stage.’  All my older friends were like ‘Boy, don’t listen to them… keep dancing!’  Then the next day we’re walking on the beach and I happened to see Paul Szilard, who was our European Producer, and Alvin sitting on the beach having conversation saying ‘Oh My God did you see Dereque last night?  Oh My God he did such a fabulous [job]…  Oh My God never see anybody do that many turns in Sinnerman.’  I’m listening at another table at him saying this then I realized maybe he’s saying that for my benefit.  And then Alvin calls me over and says ‘Dereque, wonderful job last night.  Wasn’t he brilliant Paul?’  Of course that’s when I realized that they were really being honest and really enjoyed my performance.  After that I did some of everything that Alvin needed me to do.”

I hear you!

“So those were the three most exciting moments of my life. 

Dereque Dances

And four…

When I came back home and was able to dance for my Mama and my sisters and my brother.  My Mama just looking so proud, she had never seen me dance except for commercials and videos that she seen me do from New York.  And then finally I’d come home and she got the opportunity to see me live cause when I was in high school she didn’t get the opportunity to see me dance – my father was not having it.  He did not like me dancing. 

So those were the highlights of my life. 

And becoming 501©3.”

So that’s official?

“We’ve been 501©3 for a year!”

Very good!  Congratulations!

“Thank you!”

No what are you going to do with that?  Since you have your 501©3 that opens up a lot of doors for you.  What do you think you will do now?

“We have to continue building our infrastructure and get that solid.  Fortunately, for me, through the Fashion Show, God has bought me all the people I need.  They come every week, they sit and we talk during the weekdays about what HappyNia wants as a company and they may have some resources.  I’m one of those people I don’t believe in wasting no time.  I can’t let grass grow under my feet because I feel like if we don’t strike while the iron is hot we are going to lose the fire that’s being sparked between other people in trying to help the company move to something different than any other company in Dallas, Texas.  We are a very different company.

Having the 501©3 has allowed us to apply for different grants.  We have written three and we are waiting to hear back with the response whether we have gotten the grant.  It’s a lot that we are able to do now.  But we can’t do anything even with a 501©3 if people don’t know who we are and if I don’t have people to work with the group and the organization to get information out about who we are.  We are not a company that is already well known like Dallas Black Dance Theatre.  I keep trying to tell my students and my dancers that ‘Ya’ll there is a lot of work we have to do because don’t nobody know who HappyNia Dance Theatre is.’  We’ve also been in search of our own place so that we can at least start producing some work of our own.”

But now that you have the 501©3 it does open the door for any individual or organization that has a facility, if they wanted to donate it, they could donate that to HappyNia since it’s under 501©3 and use that as a tax write off.  So now you’ve placed yourself in that position.  Hopefully someone steps up to plate then!

“Hopefully!” 

Is there any last words, any last thoughts?



HappyNia Stiletto
Fashion Show

“I just want so much for parents, particularly African-American Parents, to recognize the foot work that has to be done in order for their kids to have this career in the arts whether it be singing, dancing or acting.  And the fact that whenever you have an opportunity where you don’t have to spend a whole bunch of money then you still have to keep them structured.  You have to also look at where you are and look at how much of your own loyalties, as parents, that you have to your child and what they say they want but keep them structured in a place where they can understand it can easily be taken away from them.  I want parents to understand there always has to be a relationship between the director, the teacher and the child.  With our situation, the doors are always open. 

My final thoughts and final words for anybody would be that if there is a whole village that’s doing it, then be the whole village – the whole village get involved.  Don’t expect one person to do one side of it and then say you don’t have time to do your side of it, whether you be the teacher, the director, or the parent.  If you are going to commit yourself and be active in these young kids lives 100%, then we go back again to what I said in the beginning – your commitment has to be there.  You have to stay loyal to the process, and you have to have an open mind to things being done differently than what you are used to but also keep your structure around your child.  So that your child knows right from wrong, who to play with, who not to play with, when to play and when not to play and develop a sense of respect for who they are as a person inside the arts.  And that’s respected when the parent respects what they do as well.”

In doing my research about the ‘Village’ of Directors, Choreographers and Dancers who played an integral part in the shaping of Dereque as a dancer, I found that so many of them have passed away.  However, their knowledge, love and passion for dance are all within Dereque.  He carries them in his spirit and every time you see a Dereque piece know somewhere out there, they are smiling.  Dereque learned very well during his journey, his once lack of a turned out leg is now phenomenal, no longer is his body tight, and there is in fact greatness in his feet.  Just as Dereque was able to learn from the Masters, he gives his all to the children and adults of HappyNia Dance Theatre.  If you are so fortunate to sit in the audience to absorb a production by Dereque, you will find yourself in awe just as I was years ago.  And maybe, just maybe you will begin your journey to an unknown place without trepidation.  Now that is something for you to ponder while beginning your travels off the grid...

Be Strong… Stay Strong… Live Strong… Love Strong… Asuecion

For more information about Dereque Whiturs and HappyNia Dance Theatre Productions Inc. please visit http://www.happyniadance.com/ or on Facebook search for HappyNia Dance Theatre.