She’s staying a few steps ahead of the dancers
Kishaya Dudley
Choreographer
*
Current assignment: Gwen Stefani’s musical video “Hollaback Girl,” and the Bow Wow feature “Roll Bounce,” set for release in September.
Credits: Old Navy and Virgin Mobile commercials; music videos for Ashanti, Wyclef Jean, Destiny’s Child and P. Diddy.
Secret to success: “You have to be very versatile. If you want a career past music videos, you have to know your craft. Knowing your craft is not just hip-hop or just ballet -- I have been trained in everything.”
Crowd control: “ ‘Roll Bounce’ and Gwen Stefani were the first times I had to deal with over 100 people at once. With ‘Roll Bounce,’ I had 200 skaters in rehearsal at one time. You have to get a bullhorn.”
Who calls the shots?: “It depends on who hires me first. On ‘Hollaback Girls,’ the director Paul Hunter hired me. I work with him a lot. With Gwen, she gave me a phone call one or two days before rehearsals to tell me what she was looking for. You kind of have to incorporate those ideas with what the director tells you.”
Key word: imagination: “I do very well on the spot. I work very well under pressure. Nine times out of 10 I don’t come in with anything prepared because what I found in the past when I would come in with all this choreography and when you go into rehearsal you discover these people can’t do it so you have to re-create. It’s better for me to go in with no expectations and see what they can do and just work like that.”
Branching out: “I do help direct. Nine times out of 10, a director says what lens he wants to use and it’s pretty much on you from that time. For example, when I did the Old Navy Christmas campaign I pretty much directed those myself -- every wink, every brow raised, every finger, every shoulder shrug was choreographed. It didn’t look like it, but it was.”
The pace: “I do maybe eight or nine projects a year. It takes a lot out of you. I try not to work so much because I have a little girl. She’s 2. I took a break -- almost 2 1/2 years to stay home and be Mommy -- so I am just getting my momentum back.”
Born to dance: “My mom said since I was a little girl I always danced. My mom says she went into labor doing ‘The Hustle.’ She said when I was 1, “Ring My Bell” came out. That was my song and I would just swing my butt back and forth. So at 5 years old she put me in ballet and I didn’t like it. At 8, she put me in gymnastics and I loved it. It wasn’t until I was 12 that I started dancing again. I auditioned for this dance company -- the Repertory Dance Company of East Harlem. I got into that group and it took off from there.”
Jumping to video: “I always knew I wanted to be in the music scene. I was infatuated with Janet Jackson, Madonna, Prince and Michael [Jackson], so when I was about 16, there was an older girl in the company, she was like 20. She was already doing music videos and I asked her one day can I please just come to an audition on something -- direct me to somebody. Since she didn’t tell me [the location], I found out where this audition was. I came down and pulled the choreographer aside and said, ‘Please give me a chance. Just let me rehearse with these guys,’ and he said OK. I ended up being good enough that he put me in the video.”
Segue to choreography: “I always felt like I was supposed to be doing choreography. I would be in rehearsal and I would say, ‘I wouldn’t do it that way.’ When I started dancing with [singer] Foxy Brown, I was 18 or 19, and she let me choreograph her video for ‘Hot Spot.’ That was like my first job. Ever since then, I have been working on choreography.
“I stopped dancing five years ago. I have had so much exposure on camera and I just find it so much more fascinating behind the scenes. It is much more fulfilling to me.”
Guild: No.
Resides in: Los Angeles
Age: 26. “I’ll be 27 in July. I have done a lot for my age.”
-- Susan King
