Andrew Nemr and Adam Koplan

[00:10] ADAM KOPLAN: Hi. My name is Adam Koplan I am 48 years old. Today is Tuesday, April 26, 2022. We are in Atlanta, Georgia. I am here with Andrew Nemr Andrew is a colleague and a dear friend.

[00:29] ANDREW NEMR: Hi. My name is Andrew Nemr I'm 41 years old. Today's date is Tuesday, April 26, 2022. We're in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm with Adam Koplan and he is a colleague and a dear friend of mine.

[00:47] ADAM KOPLAN: Andrew, you are one of the world's most accomplished tap dancers. You also claim so many other interesting identities. You're a child of lebanese immigrants. You're an arabic speaker, your devoted son, teacher, mentor, a performer. The list goes on and on and on. I figure we should start talking about your life by talking about your wonderful parents, who I know Joseph and Marlene. Can you tell me a bit about them? How did they meet?

[01:19] ANDREW NEMR: So they were both born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. They met in a christian youth group. Notably, the name of the youth group was El Montalikun, which roughly translates as the front runners, which tells you a little bit about maybe the personality of the people in the group.

[01:38] ADAM KOPLAN: Right.

[01:40] ANDREW NEMR: Notably, the youth group wasn't affiliated with any institutional church in the area. It was a group of young people who saw the institutional churches nothing doing enough or kind of not working through the gospel in the way that the gospel is stated to work. So they got together, self funded, and would go out to areas of need and produce large work projects, water systems, sewer systems, safety trainings, like first aid trainings, and like medical. Not building a hospital, necessarily, but building areas where townspeople could tend to themselves with the training that they would give them.

[02:35] ADAM KOPLAN: And how old were they at this point?

[02:36] ANDREW NEMR: Oh, gosh. They were 17, 1819.

[02:39] ADAM KOPLAN: Gotcha. And they met and fell in love. And it was easy peasy.

[02:44] ANDREW NEMR: Well, not necessarily. The story goes that my mom, my dad had noticed my mom in the group, but my mom was. Daniel, the mic is dipping, so I'm cool to adjust. But just wanted to let you know we've got a slow burn. Awesome. Thank you.

[03:12] ADAM KOPLAN: Okay, just repeat. Take off your parent. Your dad. You were talking that your dad had noticed your mom.

[03:21] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, my dad noticed my mom first in the youth group. She was taken. So over the course of friendship and kind of my dad noticing her. And the story goes, my mom knew of my dad, and he was one of the, like, one of the good guys, somebody that you would notice. When my mom's relationship kind of ended, my dad, he says he swooped in and attempted to sweep my mom off her feet. And it worked. But neither of their families wanted that to happen, so they went through a process of courting that was very, very fraught with just pressure from their parents, who met together and mutually decided that my parents should not get married. So lots of tension, lots of kind of hiding behind bushes so that you can talk to each other while one walks. Bye. Things that you hear in fairy tales.

[04:41] ADAM KOPLAN: What do you think the, you know, I guess your grandparents. What was that about? Why not just approve right away?

[04:49] ANDREW NEMR: I don't know. My folks have not ever really divulged many of the details other than they were too young. Folks thought that, you know, they shouldn't get married for whatever reason they thought. And I'm sure there was probably some other things going on. I just don't know them.

[05:12] ADAM KOPLAN: And then were they mostly surrounded by other christian folks in Lebanon?

[05:19] ANDREW NEMR: So Lebanon's an interesting context. Lots of. Lots of varied religious sects, lots of overlapping in terms of geographical situations. Even though areas would have a known majority, they weren't, at least prior to the civil war. My understanding from my parents stories is that everybody would know what the majority of a particular town is, but it was not kind of an even informally segregated situation. So you would have Christians and Muslims, various sects of Christians, various sects of Muslims, kind of living side by side, even though a particular area was known to be majority, one or the other.

[06:09] ADAM KOPLAN: And when did your parents have an inkling that, you know, it was maybe time to leave?

[06:15] ANDREW NEMR: Well, the family story is that the lebanese civil war started on account of my parents eloping. Yeah, that's the line that they kind of hold to. But Lebanon's one of those countries that there, even since its independence post world War two, you know, there's underlying tensions, and people grow up in that. But all out civil war broke out in the early to mid seventies, and my folks lived through a significant enough portion of that to know that a future life, especially even thinking about starting a family, would not be something that they wanted to do if that was the context of their life.

[07:02] ADAM KOPLAN: So did they experience direct violence?

[07:06] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, they lived in the top floor of a four story apartment building in which happened to be in between two rival factions during the war. And they lived across the street from a church that had a high steeple, which one would use as a marker for the attack of the other. So they experienced mortar fire being lobbed overhead. My mom was hit by a ricocheted bullet that ended up coming through one of the windows in their homes. They're more graphic stories that I've heard, maybe once or twice from my dad in terms of having to go out and find friends who were casualties of the war, find friends of friends, like, go out with people to see if they could find a family member that didn't make it home that night. And, you know, you happen upon either a mass grave or a, you know, the fallout from a particular attack in a particular area, and you just. You bear witness to that and that sticks with you.

[08:22] ADAM KOPLAN: So how did they get out?

[08:24] ANDREW NEMR: They got out by bus. They. They found a poster advertising a tour bus trip from Beirut to Paris. And they had explored other options. They had heard stories of boats that would leave from Lebanon and try to make it to Cyprus and not make it. So they didn't want to go that way. And trying to leave by plane required the purchase of two tickets. One to get you into the airport and then one to get you on the plane. And that was after a trip to Damascus because the Beirut airport was closed like that.

[08:58] ADAM KOPLAN: Like graft, corruption. You mean to get into the airport?

[09:02] ANDREW NEMR: Totally, yeah. You buy the airplane ticket that gets you into the airport but doesn't get you a seat on the plane.

[09:08] ADAM KOPLAN: Okay. Okay.

[09:08] ANDREW NEMR: And then you have to buy another ticket, but that doesn't guarantee that you get on the plane that you want to get onto. Like, you just have to wait in the airport until that flight shows up. So. So those two options were out. And then they saw this poster and they went for it.

[09:26] ADAM KOPLAN: And it wasn't like, get on this bus, leave Lebanon. You know, escape the civil war. It was what it was.

[09:35] ANDREW NEMR: It was, here's, you know, here's a tour to Paris. Hotels and food and all these things kind of supplied. And if you get your ticket, you get on the bus and you go and you land in Paris. And they had friends that offered them a place to stay in Paris. So that kind of gave them some sort of stability that, okay, we land in Paris, we at least have a place to stay, and then we'll figure out the next step.

[10:01] ADAM KOPLAN: Do you think other people on the bus are like, I'm out of here, if I can get on this bus. Or do you think it was like they cooked up this idea?

[10:09] ANDREW NEMR: I think other people, like everybody who's on the bus wanted to leave at that moment. Whether they wanted to come back later or had a plan to do that was a different question. And I think from my hearing of my folk stories, there was some variance there. Like some people were, I'm leaving for a time. I'll come back when everything settles down.

[10:33] ADAM KOPLAN: So your parents ultimately ended up in the US. You came along and how did they make it into the US?

[10:47] ANDREW NEMR: So from Paris, you know, they go on this bus trip. It's a long time. There were no hotels. It was a debacle of magnificent proportion. But they land in Paris, they apply for just entry to the US, Canada. And they went to the catholic workers as well, just to find some way to navigate to the west. And the canadian consulate was the first place to call them in for an interview. And so they go in for the interview, they sit down, and over the course of the interview, the guy says, so if we allow you to come into Canada, where would you like to go? And my folks only knew Montreal. They're 23, 24 years old at the time. And the guy says, well, how about Edmonton? And they say, sure. And they had no idea where it was. And they landed in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They were hosted by an elderly ukrainian couple. They had a church connection from Beirut to Edmonton. For a church community that would eventually adopt them.

[12:05] ADAM KOPLAN: Didn'T that want to appeal its surprise from Beirut to Edmonton?

[12:09] ANDREW NEMR: Maybe.

[12:09] ADAM KOPLAN: Yeah.

[12:12] ANDREW NEMR: They. Yeah, they go through all the kind of culture shock of porridge which they had never eaten before a hockey game, which once the fight started, triggered all their PTSD, you know, a Bible dropping at a church service. And they were the couple that hit the floor.

[12:33] ADAM KOPLAN: Oh, you mean like the sound scared them and. Okay.

[12:37] ANDREW NEMR: Yep. You know, seeing curling the game for the first time in their lives.

[12:43] ADAM KOPLAN: Right. And you came along in Canada.

[12:45] ANDREW NEMR: And I came along in Canada.

[12:47] ADAM KOPLAN: Gotcha. And then they get to the US.

[12:50] ANDREW NEMR: They get to the US. My dad was selling campground lots at the time in Canada and got a work move to Minnesota.

[13:00] ADAM KOPLAN: Where does dance come in?

[13:03] ANDREW NEMR: So we moved around a bunch when I was little. By the time I was three years old ish, we were in Alexandria, Virginia. And as an only child, my mom had been a kindergarten teacher back in Lebanon, so she was homeschooling me through preschool, basically. I remember the Alphabet and numbers being kind of tacked to my wall in my room.

[13:24] ADAM KOPLAN: Was it Arabic or English?

[13:25] ANDREW NEMR: English, yeah. My folks spoke English to me for my first two years of life. They did not want me to be raised with any kind of accent so that I wouldn't be bullied in school on account of it. And they had known they had learned English in elementary school, so they knew the language from when they were young. They have a perceivable accent. It's not very strict or very noticeable, but it's there. You can tell that they're not. They're at least not from America. So I grew up an only child. My mom's homeschooling me, and they have a conversation with me about doing something with other kids. They were always very engaging with me, even as a young kid, in terms of making decisions and having me part of the conversation. So they say, we think you should do something with other kids. There's this dance school down the street. Do you want to try? And I say, sure. So we go down, and I watch. I think I watch the first class, and I meet mister Chris. It's Chris Collins dance studio. He had started it, I think, when he was 18 or something like that. His dad worked the shoe room and his mom worked the front desk. So it was a family vibe, which was really cool. I think that that made my folks comfortable, and he seemed like a really awesome teacher. So I bought. I signed up, I bought into it, my folks signed me up, and that was the start.

[15:08] ADAM KOPLAN: And smooth sailing at this point. You're dancing, you're at school, you're love and life kid.

[15:16] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, pretty much. I think, you know, my. My OCD kicked in. Like, the personality trait that's in me that it's like, well, if you're gonna do something, you may as well be good at it. Otherwise, why are you doing it? That triggered very early on. I was the kid in my three and a half year old recital. They send the kids out into this big stage, and everybody walks out. And I was the kid that was pointing to people as to where they should go and making sure they were in the right place before we started the dance.

[15:49] ADAM KOPLAN: Where does tap come in?

[15:51] ANDREW NEMR: So, three and a half years old. The class is 45 minutes. Part of it is tap dancing or some semblance of it. Part of it is ballet or some semblance of it, and part of it is gymnastics or tumbling at that point. So I started with it. There was a teacher in the dance school who was the ballet teacher, and every student loved her, but the only way to take her class was to become part of the performing troupe. And so I went to my parents, and I said, well, you know, if I'm going to keep doing this, I want to be with the best teachers. She's the best teacher. We should do that. They looked at each other and they said, all right, we'll sign you up. And so landed in the performing troupe, and that meant tap, jazz, and ballet, going to competitions, going to shows. This is still in the dance school. But that was, like, the next step, and then the step after that was seeing the movie tap in 1989 with Sammy Davis Junior, Gregory Hines, and Savion Glover.

[16:56] ADAM KOPLAN: Tell me about that.

[16:58] ANDREW NEMR: So Gregory Hines was a big deal in the 1980s for tap dancing. So if you're in the dance world, you kind of know a little bit about him. So he was on my radar. Fred Astaire was on my radar. Sammy Davis Junior was on my radar. And then this movie comes out, which, you know, it's called tap. It's about tap dancing. It's about tap dancers. And we learned somehow that there was an opening night at Union Station in Washington, DC. Union Station was a old train station that they had remodeled, and there were movie theaters inside the train station, and they were going to have this big kind of opening night premiere. Rumors were that Gregory and Savion might be there. And so I go, and I'm so excited that I take my tap dance shoes with me, but I'm still super nervous as a kid. So I leave them in the car and we go to the movie theater, and, you know, a gentleman comes down and he introduces the show. He says, ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sad to tell you that Gregory and Savan are not going to be here, but I'm very excited to share this film with you. How many of you have brought your shoes? And I jump up. I'm sitting in the. In the back of the theater. I jump up. There are, like 15 other people that raise their hands. And he calls on me. He says, you come down. I said, wait, what? Like, I was just. This was just a poll. This was not like a volunteer scenario in my mind. So I walk down, and he looks at me, and he says, well, where are your shoes? And I say, they're in the cardinal. He's like, oh, man. Okay, well, you stay here. And he tells the audience, he's like, all right, he had his shoes, but they're in the car. We're gonna do something anyway. And we end up doing a time step, which is a, you know, basic tap dance pattern together. And then he sends me back to the. Back to my seat and, you know, finishes his introduction, and the movie starts. And there's a scene in the movie called the challenge scene, in which Gregory's character gets schooled by Sammy and a host of old timers by Sammy's generation. And that was the first time watching this scene was the first time I had ever seen improvisation based tap dancing, and tap dancing that was or seemed to be rooted in the personality of the individuals who were dancing. So all these old guys are in a circle they're all egging each other on. They're laughing and cheering. And if somebody does a step, there's a reaction to it. I had never seen anything like this in my life, and I fell in love with that scene. The rest of the movie was great, but that scene captured my imagination. And I left the movie theater, and I told my parents, I said, I want to become a tap dancer. And in my head, I'm formulating this plan to meet Gregory Hines by the time I'm 40 years old, I've got 30 years to do it. I, you know, I have no idea what the next step is going to be, but I figure it's going to take me this long to kind of do all the things, become a tap dancer, have a career in the business, so that I can be next to Gregory Hines at some event, bump into him, and then have this moment where I share my whole story and how he, he was my inspiration, and I watched the film, and I fell in love and all these things. So that was. Yeah.

[20:38] ADAM KOPLAN: And then how long did it take you to meet Gregory Hines?

[20:42] ANDREW NEMR: It took me less than a year.

[20:44] ADAM KOPLAN: Wait, what?

[20:45] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, I went from, so I went from the dance school. I landed in a rhythm tap ensemble, which is like a step closer to what I saw in the film, but I. Not quite there. And the artistic director of the rhythm tap ensemble, it was called the national Tap Ensemble, Chris Belleau or Chris Baker now was the artistic director, and he handed me a flyer for workshops in New York City that Gregory was the headliner of, and Savian was going to be there. And I take this flyer, and I run to my parents because I'm like, wait a second. You can actually take class from these guys, run to my parents, and I say, can we do this? And they have one of those silent parental conversations that parents do where they look at each other and they go and they look at me and they say, yes, I think we can. And so my plan truncates from 30 years to, like, one year, and we're on the drive from Virginia to New York City to go to these workshops. And I literally break down in tears because I had this plan, and I had been building up all these kind of emotions about what that moment 30 years from now is going to be like. And part of it, I think, for me, was I want to meet Gregory on my own terms. I want to have some achievements behind me. I want him to admire the stuff that I've done on account of his inspiration of my life. And I'm coming to him as a ten year old, that has no clue what I'm getting into. So my mom offered to turn the car around and go back home. And I'm like, no, no, no, you keep driving, I'll deal with this.

[22:37] ADAM KOPLAN: And after you met them, was it just sort of like teacher of a one of class? Did you get into some sort of vibe beyond that?

[22:49] ANDREW NEMR: Two things happened that first time that are notable for me. One was I'm standing in line after my workshop with Gregory, waiting to change out of my sweaty clothes, basically, and my dad's sitting at the base of a staircase. Gregory walks past my dad, looks at me, walks halfway up the stairs, comes back down and has a conversation with my father that goes something like, is that your boy? And my dad says, yeah. And he says, good kid. And then he leaves and I'm sitting there seeing this happen and I'm like, that's my moment. Like, why is he talking to my dad?

[23:33] ADAM KOPLAN: Right?

[23:35] ANDREW NEMR: So I go up to my dad and I'm like, what happened? What happened? Tell me, tell me. And he recounts this conversation and the other thing that was notable for me was that in the middle of Savion's workshop, I was always told when I'm in a workshop scenario to stand front and center. Even if you can't learn everything, at least you have a good vision at the teacher. You can see what's going on. There are tons of people here taking class. It's like 40, 50 people in the room and everybody's on the same level, so there's no stage that you can look up and see the teacher. So if you're front and center, at least you get a line of sight of for what's going on. And in the middle of the class, Savion turns to me and says, hey, what time is it? And I had a wristwatch on. I'm like, it's here. Just look, it's this time because this is the guy that I wanted to meet in 30 years and he's asking me what time it is, which is at that moment like a very big deal for me. Within a few months, Savion held a series of auditions at the same studio that the rhythm tap ensemble that I was a part of was in residence in. So I come out of rehearsal with my ensemble and everybody looks at me. He's like, andrew, what are you doing? Go back into that room. And I say, why? Well, Saveon's coming. He's gonna have an audition. I'm like, great.

[25:02] ADAM KOPLAN: But before you even tell me about that remind me, who is Saeveon relative to Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis Junior and all those folks?

[25:13] ANDREW NEMR: So tap dance is an oral tradition you have in the craft. You can trace lineage to a certain degree, people who have poured into other people for the sake of the continuation of the craft work. This is. And the craft work is separate from, to a degree, career. Right. It's literally like how to think about the making of music with your feet and your body. And so one lineage that could be drawn is Sammy Davis Junior to Gregory Hines to Savion Glover. So Savion was kind of the heir apparent, both from a craft work standpoint and from a career standpoint to a degree of the arc that Gregory Hines was carrying on from Sammy.

[26:11] ADAM KOPLAN: So now you're in this class with him or in audition?

[26:14] ANDREW NEMR: Now I'm in an audition with him. I'm standing front and center. Savion turns around and says, hey, don't I know you? And I say, yes. You asked me what time it was in New York months ago, and you.

[26:34] ADAM KOPLAN: Must have made a real impression with your. It's 01:00.

[26:39] ANDREW NEMR: I have no idea. But that, you know, there was something that I learned, and this might be jumping ahead because I ended up in, I got through the audition, I got into that crew. Savion held a week long residence and kind of formed this group called the DC crew that he would recur, it would happen on an annual basis for three years. And I learned in my time with him during that period that he noticed things, like he would remember the person that he asked what time it was, especially if that person, you know, stood out from the crowd in some way. And I was the short, pudgy white kid in a workshop of 40, you know, pre professional adults in New York. So, yeah, there, there was something there.

[27:36] ADAM KOPLAN: So out of this audition, did you, you got into this troupe of some sort?

[27:41] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah. So there was this, there was this group that would form and then disband and then form and then disband around Saveon coming down to DC for these shows. So we would, he would set a piece, we would perform at the end of the week. It was a big, big deal. Bakari Wilder, Joseph Webb, Vincent Bingham, all who would later be in bringing the noise, bringing the funk. Chloe Arnold, who today is a very, very prominent tap dance artist, were all in this mix. And Maya Jenkins, the pop star, was also in this mix. So lots of people were kind of floating around Saveon at this time, by.

[28:25] ADAM KOPLAN: Being in this mix, did it give you sort of entree into the whole tap world.

[28:29] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, for sure. There were kind of progressions, right? So from this larger group, Saveon pulled out Joseph, Bakari, Vincent, and me to be part of an all male tap group called Real Tap Skills. My parents were one of only a handful of groups of parents that would hang out during the rehearsals, and Savion's mom would also be at the rehearsals. So they got to chatting with Savion's mom and became friends. So we started getting invited to tap dance events in New York. They're like, well, come up. Be a part of this. Like, this would be important to be a part of, whether it's Lakave and Laplace, tap jams that were hosted by Jimmy Slide, or the tap extravaganza, which was the annual celebration of National Tap Dance Day, which is May 25. Big, big show in New York City that would honor elderly tap dancers. And so you go and you're with all the people, but, you know, Saevian. And so you go and you hang out next to him, and then he starts introducing you to Henry Letang or Jimmy Slide or members of the copacetics. And that was my experience. And he could have easily. He could have easily not done that, but he did.

[29:55] ADAM KOPLAN: Did the racial element of your being a white dancer in this largely black world ever come up?

[30:03] ANDREW NEMR: It did. In the context of show business. There was definitely a cultural difference between my life experience in Savion's and some of the other dancers that I was around. I was evidently one of the few white tap dancers who was kind of being grafted in this closely to the inner circle. And so you notice kind of different. Different views about life, different kind of language, different attitudes, just generally speaking. And I'm third culture. So, like, I go home and I have a culture that's around my parents, I go to school. There's a different culture there, and I'm in the tap dance community, and there's a different culture there. And then bringing the noise, bringing the funk happens. And noise. Funk was the first time that the racial division that was there, but not kind of prominent in my relationship with Sevian prior to, literally prevented me from having any opportunity to even try to be in that show.

[31:18] ADAM KOPLAN: What is the show?

[31:19] ANDREW NEMR: So neuse funk was a telling a story of african american history in the US, from slavery to the present day. This is 1996, is when the show comes to Broadway or the show launches. It would later go to Broadway, and it's told through tap dance, spoken word and song. Savian is the co conceiver and choreographer and the other creative involved is George C. Wolft.

[31:49] ADAM KOPLAN: So you're not in the show. Are you chatting with everybody and getting kind of updates?

[31:57] ANDREW NEMR: It's weird. Like, the dancers who are in the show kind of ghost me in a, in a, in a. If I see them, they'll say hi, but there's no other interaction. Looking back, it's, you know, I love these guys. So it's like, I don't know if it was purposeful ghosting or it's just, okay, he's not in what we're doing, so we don't have a need to talk to him kind of thing. I'm still connected to Savion in ways because our families have developed a relationship. So I know his brothers, I know his mom. We still go to the house. But it's not. It's not the same relationship that was existing prior. So there's a fracture that at 16 years old, for me, I just don't know how to navigate. And coming from a lebanese background, there's a lot of language in the tap dance community when you're that far in, that's familial. You're a cousin, you're a brother, you're aunt and uncle. When the fracture happens in the lebanese context, there's no fracture that happens in a family. It's just there's no grid for it. There's either separation and you don't talk to each other or you're together and there's dissonance, but there's no grid for a division.

[33:38] ADAM KOPLAN: How did you end up resolving some.

[33:40] ANDREW NEMR: Of these tensions so time wise? I go to college, so I enter into the school of Visual Arts for a bachelor of fine arts in computer art. Oddly, noise funk ends, so it kind of finishes off. Saveon goes and starts other things. I'm not involved with those either, but I feel like I can talk to him a little bit during that time, and eventually he asks me to join another company. It's years later.

[34:19] ADAM KOPLAN: So you tap danced the whole way through. You kept your skills up?

[34:22] ANDREW NEMR: Yep. Tap danced the whole way through. Had to deal with what it meant to go into the studio dance. Very similarly to this guy who I'm now. Like, there's this weird thing in our relationship, but he's poured so much into me craft wise that I kind of can't get away from his process.

[34:41] ADAM KOPLAN: And does Gregory Hines teach you important stuff through this era as well?

[34:46] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah. Gregory is kind of like the chill uncle in the midst of all my teenage angst. So I go to him in the midst of some of the noise funk stuff. Ted Levy is also a very prominent person in my life during this time. I go to Greg when I break up with my first girlfriend. So he kind of guides me through.

[35:11] ADAM KOPLAN: What does he say?

[35:12] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, he kind of guides me through the idea that tap dancing can be a place of processing for all the stuff that's going on in my inner world.

[35:26] ADAM KOPLAN: Wait a second.

[35:27] ANDREW NEMR: You mean, like, so if I feel angry, I put the shoes on, I dance it out. If I feel sad, I put the shoes on, I dance it out. If I feel anxious, even for, like, a biology test or something, something as simple as that, I put the shoes on, I dance it out. I go back, I'm a little more chill. I can study.

[35:45] ADAM KOPLAN: Now, is that something that even now, that kind of, like, dance it out? Wisdom is. I mean, will you actually. Oh, I'm stressed out. I'm gonna put on my shoes and dance it out?

[35:58] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, I use it to a degree. It's shifted a lot. So now my context is more. I have an ongoing dialogue with Jesus Christ about what's going on in my life. And that space, the prayer, the practices of interruption, of the momentum of life that I find myself in, even as a tap dancer, that remind me of a much larger reality. Help me. I found not need to rely on dancing to kind of purge a lot of stuff. But let me see my dancing as, you know, a possible vehicle for celebration of the life that I've had and whatever life I'm going to have in the future.

[36:56] ADAM KOPLAN: Do you feel like the family thing that you saw in tap like that, whatever that moment was that looking back at? I mean, now you've been in that world for 30 years. Do you feel like it lived up to its promise or it was different than its promise? I mean, is that family the same thing?

[37:19] ANDREW NEMR: That's a really good question. I think the moment in the film was a beautiful image of what can be and what could be, but I've only experienced it in moments. I think there is a promise of that kind of experience in life that's maybe a little bit more available, but equally as challenging to achieve.

[37:48] ADAM KOPLAN: Yeah, I think sometimes we see things in youth, and it's kind of like they can exist, but not in the way you think that they're going to when you're a kid.

[38:01] ANDREW NEMR: It takes a lot of work to love people enough that in the midst of their differences. So even in that circle, it's personality differences, right. It's approach to a craft differences that we can celebrate those things and see them as good and also care for the formation of each other so that more good can come out of each of us as we move along.

[38:36] ADAM KOPLAN: Andrew, it's always so good to speak with you about tap. I love it, and I love hearing about your life story. Thank you.

[38:43] ANDREW NEMR: Thank you. Andrew.

[38:47] ADAM KOPLAN: I'm hesitating to ask this question because it may be way too abstract.

[38:50] ANDREW NEMR: No, go ahead.

[38:51] ADAM KOPLAN: I'm wondering if tap is an oral tradition of the african american story, then could that circle be one that you could see but never quite? That's an experience none of you don't have? None of us have. So there's a personal piece that, you.

[39:12] ANDREW NEMR: Know, it was beautiful to see, but, yeah. So then if that's the case, then.

[39:19] ADAM KOPLAN: What could you access?

[39:20] ANDREW NEMR: Like, what would be your piece of that? Right. Do I need to restate the question? Maybe just give us some context? Yeah. So I think. I think. I think there is. There is a lot of complexity when looking at a craft like tap dance through an oral tradition lens, because traditional oral traditions don't always happen in the context of the market. And so a tradition, a particular practice, will come up from a group of people in a particular time and place. So it's very isolated. Right. And they're poised. The practices are poised in their purest sense to the formation of the identity and the continuation of the identity of that people group. Right. So if tap dance is seen as an oral tradition that stems from the african american experience, anybody who doesn't come up in that experience would never be able to come in. Right. That's just logical. However, tap dance, very, very early on in its evolution, made the jump to the market. And once a practice jumps to the market, the distribution is wide. It widens much more dramatically than the initial people group from which the practice originates. And there's a feedback loop where people get to see this practice. Their imagination is captured. There might be training centers that are developed for the sake of the practice in the market, not necessarily tied to the oral tradition or that idea of it. And the idea of being grafted in becomes important that someone who's carrying the deepest sense of the craftwork now, not necessarily the identity of the people group, because there's variance. There's, like, complexity there. Somebody who's carrying the deepest sense of the craft work can pull somebody in. They can invite somebody to then be keepers of that work. In doing that, you're now talking about an apprenticeship or a mentorship in some way. And that transference normally has a transference not only of the skill, but of the personality of the mentor. And in that sense, you're taking on, as a mentee or as a learner, aspects of someone else's life. And if they're the ones who invited you in, they can also kick you out. And that has happened. And there are issues that come out of that because the market is still open, and the market really doesn't care, so long as you can do the thing that sells tickets, they'll buy, but the community cares.

[42:43] ADAM KOPLAN: So if I hear you right, are you saying that when somebody who's deep in the world invites you in, if you're a different race, there's still, by virtue of that invitation, you get a kind of. You can't understand everything, but you can understand something. Or what's the. I mean, is that.

[43:05] ANDREW NEMR: Yeah, you get inside. You'll never get inside the larger umbrella identity, but you get inside the individual identities. You get inside the individual personalities. So when. And this is an embodied craft, right. So you have that interesting feedback loop where, for the time that I spent around Gregory, there, when I come to dance, if anybody else has seen Gregory or has spent some time around him, they will notice things about the way that I carry myself, that are directly tied to the way Greg carries himself. And so that, for me, one of the quirks about my life is that I got invited in by a lot of people. So there are things literally in my body that are personality traits and expressions of a lot of people's personalities. And that gets me really close to their experience individually. But I'll never be able to say, and nor should I, really, that I've had the experience of the broader umbrella of an African American. Right. That's an impossibility. But I've had intimate experiences with these teachers of mine in a practice that is personality driven, that gets me very, very close to their individual experience.

[44:40] ADAM KOPLAN: That makes sense.