Testimony : ONE PERSON’S STORY ABOUT REACHING KIDS THROUGH DANCE : ‘I Can’t Afford to Turn Them Away’

Trena Johnson started dancing on tour with James Brown when she was 17 and performed professionally for the next 13 years. Now 45, she heads Pointe-PATH (Providing Alternatives That Heal), an organization aimed at improving the studies and job skills of young people through dance.

In 1987, I had a very serious accident where I subsequently had to have a fusion in my neck. I was paralyzed and in bed and later in a wheelchair. And during my recuperation, I wondered, “What will I do with my life?” Going back and forth to the hospital, I just started watching the youth, and my daughter would come home and tell me how kids had to carry knives, the girls, to protect themselves. At the time, she was 14. And I really started feeling bad about watching what was happening with our community because of the youth. I found that through sitting, and watching, and listening and talking to kids that they needed something to do with their time.

I thought about my own life and how learning to dance had saved me. I was born in Mississippi and I was raised in Indianapolis as the oldest of 10 children. I ran away from home really, because I wanted to be a star and because of some child abuse. I went to New York at 17 and I started dancing with James Brown’s Brownettes. And I did entertainment until 1973. After I married in 1973, my husband wasn’t really into entertainment, and you know the stories you hear about entertainment--sex and drugs. Which is true, it’s there. He wanted me to give up that type of business, so I stopped doing it and I went back to my schooling, which was business and computers and I went to work doing that.

During the 1984 Olympics I worked in the youth services department, helping to coordinate all of the relays and the different participation from the schools. And I saw then some of the problems that youth were having. So when I was told (after the accident) that I could not work again on a job where I would have to sit or stand, I didn’t know what I would be able to do.

But I know dance. So with the settlement from my accident, I opened up a dance studio on Crenshaw Boulevard (in Los Angeles), and decided that would be my tool to reach children. The music videos were all prominent. You know, rap is the big craze, so every child wanted to be on a music video or to meet a rap artist. So I started making the connection to the record companies, where people could call my studio to hire dancers. But the way I would entice the kids to come to the studio, and help them to bring their grades up in school, was to offer them the chance of being in a music video.

But within six weeks they would have to bring up their grades and their attendance in school. And they would be on the list in the next video project. And I saw that that was working. I started seeing children coming from an F to a D, from a D to a C. And I said, “OK, this will work.”

A lot of them were bringing up their grades. We started doing school tours in which we would put on dance. And some of our dancers would tell the kids what video they were in. And then the dancer would ask them if they would like to be in a music video, and of course everybody would say yes. And they told them how they had gotten into videos and that the youth had to bring up their grades, they had to bring up their attendance in school. It worked where a lot of their problem kids were straightening their lives out.

After the riots, I stopped having classes. So I wasn’t making money. I got maybe eight months behind in my rent, so I went and got a loan on my car. The landlord eventually put us out. He kept my (dance) floor. He kept my barres. He wouldn’t let me have a lot of my stuff that was in the studio. He changed the lock overnight. We looked for a place, we looked for donors. We didn’t find any help.

Finally, we were given space rent-free for four months, but after only two months the landlord changed. He said he needed money. We didn’t have it, so he told us to get out. Rebuild L.A. has been helping us. They gave us office furniture, got us our attorney to get our nonprofit status so we can qualify for grants. We can’t rebuild L.A. or rebuild any community or any city without starting with our youth. And that’s the problem. They’re still cutting things away from the kids. They’ve put a halt to all of the after-school curriculum. So that means even more kids out on the streets. The ones that stayed after school playing basketball, football or track or majorette or whatever, they don’t have that to do now. And that’s what I would like people to see.

We get a lot of kids’ parts, like movie extras, or some principal parts in films and commercials. If you’ve watched the Polaroid commercials on TV--”You Make Me Want to Shoot”--some of the kids from the Pointe are in them. Music videos--Bobbie Brown, Whitney Houston, the Good Girls, oh, my God, I could go on and on and on. Tupac, Ice T, Madonna, I can’t remember them all, so many music videos that I have kids in. Michael Jackson, “I Remember the Time,” I’ve got about five kids in that one.

But we can’t get support for finding a studio and running the program. It’s unfortunate, but the African-American community--and I don’t want to put a reason on it, but I can only give an explanation the best I know how--they have no trust in each other. They don’t help each other like most races do.

That’s just something that is a cultural thing that I see. I have contacted every single African-American celebrity that I know. Fifty-thousand dollars is change to them. I’m trying to think of all of the people that I’ve tried to contact. They say, “We can’t get involved with your organization at this time.” I sent them videos, letters from the parents, letters from the schools, letters from the students, to let them see that this is something that’s needed. I say, “I need your help. I need your help to keep it going.” If it’s only paying scholarships for the kids to continue. Most of the kids that come to the Pointe can’t afford to pay for classes. And I can’t afford to turn them away.

I don’t want these celebrities to send money to me. Send it to the owner of the building, pay the rent for us for the month or for a year or whatever. Keep the studio open. Donate a space for it.

You know the discipline of dance is similar to the military. It’s very structured. Once you get that discipline in dance, the discipline in the rest of your life is almost easier because you are expecting to be told to stand right, sit right, do this right, and it sort of helps with the other disciplines in peoples’ lives. And that’s why I figured through the art of dance I could reach the youth. And through the art of dance I did reach a lot of youth. And I don’t want to lose those kids.

To Get Involved, call Pointe-PATH: (310) 836-8822.