Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20141229

Carried charlie and you carried. Yes. Charlie Julianne Moore and Robert Battle when we continue. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Charlie Julianne Moore has always disappeared into her roles but perhaps neverore so than in her new film called still alice. She plays a linguistics professor confronted with early onset alzhemers disease. The magazine writes moore guides us through the tragic arc of how it must feel to disappear through ones own eyes patriciaing one of her most powerful performance also. The trail for still alice. Welcome, dr. Alice howland applause thank you. I hope to convince you that by observing these baby steps into the. Into where the hell were you . I hope you enjoyed that because you completely blew our dinner plans. I need to talk to you. I have something wrong with me. Whats going on . Oh boy. You going to break up or no. I have alzhemers disease. Early onset. What . I can see the words hanging in front of me, and i cant reach them and i dont know who i am and i dont know what im going to lose next. Scope. Millennium. Hedge hog. Id like to see you go to college. You cant use your situation to just get me to do anything you wasnt me to. Why cant ei . Its not fair. Dont have to be fair. Im your mother. I hate this is happening to me. But we have to keep the important things in our life going. Merry christmas. We have to try or were going to go crazy. Im going to get the last year out of myself. Please dont say that. I am not suffering. I am struggling. Struggling to be a part of things, stay connected to who i once was. To live in the moment i tell myself, is really all i can do. Live in the moment. I spoke with Julianne Moore earlier this year in new york. Here is that conversation. Theres a lot of buzz about this film. You went to toronto with the film and all of a sudden there was no distributor and now theres a distributor because there was a sense of that this was a really special role. Oh, thank you. Charlie and that it was the right actress at the right time for the right character. Well, we felt so fortunate. I mean, when you go to a Film Festival without a distributor you never know whats going to happen. We had a 4 30 screening on a monday which was not particularly auspicious. So you go hoping people will see the movie and respond to it. When we all walked out afterwards and heard the response from the audience, we were so delighted. Charlie we have a chance. Yeah, we felt like we had a chance. Charlie tell me about the film and your character. Well, the characters name is Alice Howland and she is a 50yearold professor of linguistics at Columbia University and shes been married since she was quite young in her early 20s and has three adult children. She started having children very young as well. She starts noticing little slips in her memory and doesnt mention it to her husband or anyone. Gradually begins to realize something serious is going on. She goes to a neurologist and is diagnosed with earl early onset at 50. Charlie that means what . When youre diagnosed with alzheimers under age 65, its considered early onset whats another word for it too ill say early onset alzheimers. Its generally a different, more potent form of the disease, sometimes faster acting so she is completely compromised at thatponent in her life. She ends up having to quit her teaching position, spends time with her husband dealing with her children and she is in cognitive decline pretty rapidly. Charlie so you have there the arc of a character. Yeah. And about, you know, who she, is what her essential self is, you know who are we when we lose how we define ourselves. This is someone whos primarily been defined by her intellect and shes questioning about who she is when thats no longer her strong point. Charlie and what do i do when i can no longer do what i used to do. Yes how does she present herself, fight the decline and preserve her relationships. When i was a little girl second grade my teacher told me butterflies dont live a very long time they live like, a month or something. I was so upset and i went home and told my mother. She says, yeah but, you know, they have a nice life. They have a really beautiful life. Charlie and how did you prepare . It was pretty expensive. I was so struck by the generosity of everyone i spoke to. I spoke with the National Alzheimers Association and they put me in touch with three women i skyped with across the nation and i talked with them about their experience. One is a woman who was diagnosed at 45. She looks like me. She ran an o. R. She started noticing when having difficulty learning a computer program. Charlie diagnosed at 45 . 45. I spoke to them and went to mount sinai and talked to researchers and clinicians. I took the memory test they give to people when they come in wondering whats going on. My results were normal, thankfully. Then i went to the new york Alzheimers Association and talked to people in support groups there some women who were unbelievably helpful. When i asked them what they wanted to see depicted what wouldnt i know charlie what did they say . They talked about the isolation, how difficult it was to find people who understood what was happening the feeling of people not knowing who they were because people who didnt know them when they were socalled normal functioning didnt feel like they understood how to communicate. There was one woman who said she had always been so defined by her ability with language and her intellect, once it was gone, it was difficult for her to speak to people when they didnt treat her as someone who had possessed that intellect. So what i came away with was how hard people worked to communicate and to kind of maintain where they were. Its not that sense of fading away. People dont fade away. They continue to kind of move forward, i think. Charlie and then there are terrible moments when someone living with alzheimers cant even recognize a child. Yes. Charlie friends of mine said it was the worst moment of their life. Its really awful. I dont think theres anything people fear more than the lack of recognition. The interesting thing to me is its not just about memory loss. There is a different kind of neurological reaction. People have spatial issues. They may not understand which way a doorknob turns. A sense of dislocation. There are many symptoms we really dont know a lot about. Charlie requires a sense of empathy doesnt it . Yeah. Charlie someone once said you have empathy. I think it was your husband. Did he . Charlie yes. He said, shes got empty. I think thats whats great about acting is that you have it forces you all the time to put yourself in someone elses shoes and say, you know what is most universal . What do i understand that i know this other person understands . So how do i enter into that life and try to understand it . I went to a longterm care facility and i was sitting outside a singing circle and the window was open next to me and the woman in front of me turned around, was a patient there, and she said you better get out of the draft. I said no, im okay. Because she moved out of the draft. I ran into her daughter and told her and she said thats my mom, shes always worrying about other people. What was interesting was seeing how much that woman was like herself, she was worried about people getting out of the draft. Charlie its a bit of action, too. Yes. Charlie you watch the film and understand what its like living with alzheimers and at the same time one of the executive producers Maria Shriver yes, she has quite a bit of experience with alzheimers in her family and i think has made it a mission to educate people about it and raise awareness and hopefully money to fight the disease. Charlie also playing your husband alec baldwin. Charlie im told that was your idea. It was my idea. Charlie casting director. We had worked together on 30 rock and i adored working with him. I would get offered comedies and i would email him and say would you do these with me . He would read the script and politely decloin. Then he would read them and say, do you have a part with me . And i would let him read it and say its small part and he said ill do it. I felt so fortunate to have him there. He has such a huge passion for life. So much vitality so much masculinity to see somebody like that in that kind of a in a real marriage and in a relationship of where people have depended on each other to see a man try to hold on to that and deal with that loss, i think its beautiful what he does. Really beautiful. Charlie the interesting thing about you as well is that people say you have chosen roles well. Oh, thanks. Charlie here you are getting to star in costar, whatever the word is, in the new hungry games. Two of them coming out. Mockingjay. Part one and two. Charlie which is a huge film. But you have chosen films like this throughout your career, almost as if you said, this is a role i want to play. Yeah. Charlie you know, this is something that i can really add value to. I never know what i want to play until i see it on the page, though. Thats whats interesting. Sometimes people will say in your ideal world what do you want to play . Im, like, if i havent read it, i dont know. But when i read something i want to do that next. Charlie what was it here . That was when i saw disease from the inside from the perspective of theperson whos offering. So often we see it from the point of view of the care take. Charlie its impact on the care taker. Yes and this was about what it means to experience this loss, how do you represent who that person is throughout all the stages of the disease. Charlie have you chosen well 90 of the time . Yeah, 90 is right. Theres maybe 10 or 15 where maybe i didnt choose well. Charlie because what happens if it doesnt work . If it doesnt work for example if im on the set and its not working, i might be miserable and grumpy because there wasnt an experience i wanted to have. Charlie if you were grumpy on set we know whats happening. Yes and sometimes im disappointed because its not become what i wanted it to. Charlie do you blame yourself or the director . I blame myself. I feel like im responsible for all my choices, my work, every situation, i think that ultimately im the only one who can control whether i do something or not. Its not the directors fault. Charlie someone said to me most of the time someone said to me that you are a literalist, that you really like the script. Yeah. Charlie you know people who look for the Supreme Court and look for the original interpretation of the founders. Yeah. Charlie but you are a literalist in the sense that you like the script as written. Yes, i do. Charlie because you unless it can be better. Charlie yeah. There might be times ive worked with magnificent, really great writers, and then youre like, oh no, no im not touching this. There might be times where you work with something where the script is not fully formed and then you say lets figure out the language. But im someone whos language specific. I feel every word you use means something theres power to that and shape and meaning. But i want to give the language that authority. Its really important to me, i think the words that People Choose to express themselves. Charlie have you been aggressive about your career or simply let it come to you . I dont know that i well theres not a lot that we can do in terms of control. I always say the only control an actor has is to say yes or no because you cant make someone offer you something. Charlie its such a collaborative meeting. Yes, they offer it or they dont. However, it is okay, i think to say you want to play something. That ive done several times in my career. Charlie tell me the story. Its because of your children you ended up in hunger games. My son whos 16 now he will be 17 in december, had, you know, read hunger games. Charlie hell appreciate you saying that. I know, right . So he read the hunger games books when they first came out and i bought him the third one mockingjay. I said, heres the third book in the series you like. A couple of years later my daughter who started reading the hunger games, we were on vacation, i had nothing to read, they were playing pingpong and i looked around and picked up my daughters book and tore through it. I downloaded the others on my ipad. I thought these are great. Theyre phenomenal political al allegory. I called my manager and told him to cast me. Charlie you were nominated for Academy Award four times, many expect five at the end of this. Oh, thanks. Charlie would you test for it if they asked you . Sure. Charlie did they . They didnt. They gave me the part which is nice. Charlie they said yes. Yeah. Francis is so great generous and so prepared and articulate. We had a meeting and i said, this is how i see her and how id like to see her develop because shes on the page, shes a little little bit of a cipher and i said i want to see a real political evolution with the character. He agreed with me and i got the job. My kids were so happy. She wont be able to handle it. The games destroyed her. We need to unite these people. Shes not facing this rebellion. Theyll follow her. Charlie your character and tims are flu shot the main characters. No, theyre ancillary. Charlie to the young stars. Young, wonderful actors. Theres Something Interesting about that, too. When i read the bach, i felt this is political allegory with adolescent overtones. It comes down to idea of whether or not you have free will. Do we, in the world, have free will. Charlie which is what teenagers are about. Its the first time theyre going to be, like im going to make my own choices. Charlie whats going to happen to me. Am i in control and am i a moral person. Charlie these are all the questions. These are all the questions in mockingjay. Charlie yeah. So i think as an actor, a person, a parent, its interesting to be in that kind of situation and to be ancillary and to know that youre representing the adult world in a sense. And that that was really fun compelling. Charlie you actually performed with phillip see more seymore hoffman. Yes in magnolia. Charlie its hard to take the loss of someone with so much talent. You cant necessarily understand their pain. No. Charlie but you can understand the loss of such an enormous talent. I think we were all devastated. I think everybody was completely devastated by his passing. He was to tremendously talented and so empathetic and so really special and clearly i mean in retrospect clearly in pain which is heartbreaking. I felt we all wished there was something that could have been done. Charlie or you could have reached out and made a difference. Yeah. Charlie when you look at your life why did you become an actress . Because i like to read. Because i love to read. Charlie the curiosity coming from books led you to film or acting . You know, i think i was i love roading because i like stories about people. I like the feeling of being inside the book. I like the transformative thing that literature does. When i started acting i felt when its working, when its the best it can be you feel like youre inside the book. Youre like im in the story, in this little bubble, and youre telling stories of who we are as human beings, what we can accomplish, how how we can help each other and damage each other. Behavior is fascinating. Charlie ill tell you a story about me. Okay. Charlie its something about you that makes you think you may have gone through the same thing. Yeah. Charlie my parents had a Country Store and i had to work there. But it was a world of adults. So you had to understand their world, tuck to them about their world and the most important thing you could do is ask Smart Questions because you didnt have experience they cared a lot about. But they cared about politics and sports and goes pip and whats going on in the community. Like you tell me whats important. Charlie yes. It seems to me, someone your dad was in the military a judge . Uhhuh. My mother was a psychiatric social worker. Charlie they moved around 20something times. So you have to adjust to different circumstances . Different people different cultures, different whatever. So, yeah, i think youre always thinking, like, who are you . You know what do you like . You learn that that behavior is not character. Charlie and you become observational too. You observe with a keen eye. Yeah. But i like to know like you were talking to people in the store, i was, like whats going on with you . Where are you from . Whats that accent . Are you married . Charlie you never become unpopular by asking people questions about themselves. Thats true right . Charlie i learned that early on. Thats great. Charlie even true about teenagers. People when youre moving from place to place. Yeah. Charlie once you decided was it instant love once you had a chance to go on stage and hear your voice and react to another character and say words and hear applause . Right. It was pretty much you know, i couldnt do sports. I wasnt athletic. I didnt play an instrument. There werent any clubs that i was in. Like i said, i read, pretty much. So, you know, you end up trying out for the school play. So then i did that and it was also something for some reason i could do. Because i was, like, oh, other than school, seemed to be the one thing i could do, and people tend to be drawn toward the things that come easily to them. Charlie exactly right. Because it came easily, i was, its just, like reading. I can do this. It was sort of one step after another and suddenly im, like, oh, i think i want to be an actor. Just because i liked it. Charlie whats the best advice you ever got about acting . Im trying to think, whats the best advice . Just be persistent. Its not like what i heard. Its what i saw. Charlie be persistent in terms of learning more, getting the right roles, inhabiting more characters . Just working. Work, work, work. You know take opportunities, just keep moving forward, because i notice the actors i admired were always working and working in different genres and different places and nothing seemed to bother them and they just worked. Charlie i assumed meryl streep. Who else . Oh gosh. Well, i mean, meryl, meryl was on the cover of Time Magazine when i was a teenager. I held it up because i had a subscription. I showed my father. I said, you see this . I said, i want to be like her. Shes an actress and on the cover of Time Magazine. Charlie yeah. So, my gosh, meryl, i think vanessa redgrave. Charlie whats great about her and meryl too shes still doing it thats what i mean theres an example of someone like that whos worked from the time they were young and continues to work in tons of different venues. Oh my gosh, its a great thing you know. Charlie do you consider yourself a late bloomer at all either in terms of not so much the skills but being appreciated for the range because most people will say as one director said about you, you know she brings intelligence, gravidas and an inner self. Thats the kind of thing they say about meryl streep too. Thats nice, thank you. Charlie but you also seem to have a wider range, a bigger canvas now. I think my career has always been incremental. I was talking to somebody the other day about when i did my first movie, which was 29. Charlie a soap opera. A soap opera. I did a lot of off off broadway, a lot of televisions movies of the week pilots. I dont care how cheap a psychology i still hate these stupid cry flowers. It was a big surge. Charlie in some ways thats great. Its like a mouse chewing through a wall one tiny bite at a time but eventually youve eaten the whole wall. Charlie it not only buis experience it builds talent because you continue to learn and continue to be exposed to new ideas new people. Yep. Charlie all of that becomes a part of who you are. And theres nowhere to go. I mean, i always say that its interesting about life and death and were always in such a hurry, like, lets get to this part and that part. But if your hurry through it all charlie you dont appreciate it. And you dont want to get to the very end. I think everything you have to do has to be something youre enjoying doing at the time. Charlie thats been true for you. It has been. Just try to be in the place youre in. Charlie any direct regrets about it all . I sometimes regret that i didnt go to graduate school for acting. Reporter like yale. Like yale. I didnt go to juilliard or something. Because i think, like wow, that could have been i had a terrific undergrad education, and i thought that might be interesting to have a graduate education and have that more breadth of knowledge. Charlie but you look at this as something you will do for the rest of your life. Yeah. Charlie theres no end point. Its a sense that its fulfilling for you. Right. Charlie and you continue to do it. Yeah. Charlie hunger games markingmockingjay and still alice. I just cant take it anymore jacob, im so tired and its so pathetic. Charlie the director hes a lovely person, very family oriented, highly intelligent amazingly prepared and incredibly precise about everything he does but so soft spoken and really easy days and sometimes one or two takes. Charlie what i think would be great about being a director is if youve read a script you love is to see what an actor adds to your own sense of character because they had to whatever the says with their own interpretation. My husband said something really interesting to me the other day. He says when an actor surprises you and youve written something and they start doing it he said, you get so excited and you feel like theyre holding dynamite. Which i thought was a really wonderful way to put it. Charlie i heard mike nichols say what do you want from an actor and he answered the question by saying i want them to surprise me the same way i want my architect to surprise me. Thats great. I think its about creativity and you want to have the shock of creativity. I have it when i work with another actor. Theyll start doing a scene and maybe you dont know them and you walk in and they do something and you get all excited and youre like, oh my gosh you know watching what they do. Charlie nominated for an oscar four times. Do you feel good about this film . Yeah, i feel great. I feel really grad fide that people are so moved by it. Thats whats been wonderful because thats what we wanted. You know, its very human. We wanted people to feel its humanity. We wanted people to connect and understand and have seans of what this disease was like. Charlie let me do a round robin. Say what comes out of your mind. Self image. Good. laughter charlie obsessions. Furniture. Charlie what are the earliest moments you remember . The first thing i remember is my mother told me i wasnt supposed to take off my shoes and go down this hill, we were living in panama and i took off my shoes and ran down the hill and got a big sticker, like a big, you know thorn in it or something and i came running back up and asked to take it out of my foot. Charlie achievement. Whats been the biggest achievement for you . I assume family. Yeah beyond family, i think my career. My family has been i cant believe im so lucky that i have this Wonderful Group of people around me. My husband and my two beautiful children. So yeah, i think my i thank my stars for that every day. Charlie but career because its something you made and created yourself . Yeah. I have gone from being a kid who liked to read, who tried out for the school play and got parts felt lucky to get parts in a school motherdaughter bond, what were trying to communicate and how we miscommunicate early in the film, even though both are so well intentioned and youre watching them just miss each other. So its not about them having a combative relationship. Its just about them somehow not seeing things the same way. But its not for a lack of love and thats what you see, you watch these two people who are kind of like this, manage to come, you know, meet attend of the movie. Charlie if you werent doing what you do, what would you do . Can you imagine what profession might serve the same kind of creative well, thats the thing, being an actor. Theres so much we get to experience. Sometimes i think, well, what if i were a librarian, you know would that be enough . It might be because of all the stories. We have access to all these stories. Sometimes i think, you know i love furniture, i love interior design, would have i liked that . I always thought i would have liked to be a doctor, the mystery of medicine, trying to figure something out. And then people, you talk to so many people. Charlie and you go to interesting places. Yeah. Charlie you dont like to cook, though. No, bart does the cooking. Hes cooking right now and im going to go home and eat. Charlie is he, really . Yeah. But i clean. I do the cleaning. Charlie you do the laundry. The organizing. Reporter the family schedules and all that . Yes the doctors appointments and this and that and the other thing, yeah. Charlie so if a young actress comes up to you and says suppose you were giving a last lecture, what would you you want to say about acting this profession thats been so interesting . Well, i mean charlie proceed with caution . Yeah. Charlie youve got to love it to do it. Actually i always say to people, if you dont like the process of sitting down and doing the scenes and being on the set or being on stage or whatever, if you dont like the doing, dont do it, because theres nothing snells thats exactly right. Somebody once said dont tell me that you want to be a writer. Tell me you want to write. Exactly charlie you want to be somebody. You want to do something. I know you can get so wrapped up in making stuff that you dont even know its not even like you like the people watching, though we want people to watch you just like the actual doing. I used to to have being in acting class. I loved rehearsal and that. I loved going to the film set in the morning and seeing everybody and saying hello and having everybody kind of come together and bring their own expertise to something and figuring out and shooting the scene. I like all of it. I like that. Afterwards, i sometimes dont even want to see it, because i just like doing it. Charlie how many times do you watch your best performances . Twice at most. Charlie is that right . Yeah. Charlie so if you know its going to be on television or netflix, youre not going to say, i just want to see it one more time . No, and sometimes my family will see it and go, look, look and im, like, turn it off although every once in a while ill see something, because im much older than when i started, i went to see a document riabout Andre Gregory and they had clips from 42nd street and there was a scene with me and wally shaw and i was, like, who was that . That was a long time ago. So just seeing how physically changed i was, that was interesting. Reporter thank you for doing this. Thank you for having me. Fun to talk to you. Thank you. Charlie Robert Battle is here, the artistic director of alvin ailey dance theater. The late alvin ailey founded the company in 1958. He was posthumously awarded the president ial medal of freedom last month. Alvin ailey was born during the depression in a small town in texas and by the time he was 27 he had founded a Dance Company of his own in new york city. It became a place where artists of all races had a home, all that mattered was talent. The dances he choreographed were a blend of ballet, modern jazz and used blues as well and africanamerican history was told in a way it never had been before. The passionate performances that transfixed audiencens worldwide. Charlie performances in more than 70 countries. U. S. Congress declared him cultural ambassador to the world and will present 39 performances in its new season beginning december 23rd. technical difficulty charlie something that there is something in the restrictions. I always say people, if theyre shy they end up being a great public speaker. I think movement started with me as something urgent and necessary. But i have to say, though, it was through singing soprano when i was little, and my mother played piano for church. Thats where i learned to speak in front of people. Which had to do poems on Easter Charlie i like this my first poem actually was a lie. I was about this tiny, really tiny, and i had to stand up in my white suit and say my name is Robert Battle and i stand 6 feet tall and i just came to say happy easter day. laughter so there was something in that charlie and you were about four feet or something. Yeah right. I was lying then. And then i studied martial arts because i grew up in a somewhat tough neighborhood, liberty city in miami florida. And so, i needed to learn how to defend myself. So i started taking martial arts which gave me a certain physical confidence. And then i found dance through imitating michael jackson. My mother would watch old fred astaire and Ginger Rogers movies and i would imitate that. I always wanted to please my mother so part of the dancing came out of that and eventually found its way to my heart after i saw the alvin ailey American Dance theater. Charlie what happened when you say that . I saw them when we were all bussed there. Charlie before juilliard . Before. Im still in miami going to high school and we were bussed there the same way as now we do outreach where if were in a different city and young people are bussed from there, their schools to see a mini performance in the morning. And i sat in this darkened theater and my whole world was luminated when i saw revolutions. Alvin aileys masterpiece created. Charlie well see some of that later. Yeah and i saw that and i just knew that i had to follow this. I didnt know id follow it all the way to new york and now to the helm of the company but so be it. Charlie you said you knew you had to follow it. Did you instantly try to set yourself on that course . Partly by instinct, i think. I was already taking dance classes but it made me take it a little more seriously when i saw people on the stage who looked like me, a dance that had to do with my upbringing in the church and realized in movement a dance that had to do with the history i was learning about my people. My mother had a group called the afro americans where they did poetry and song relating to the black experience so when i saw revelations, i felt like my life up till now was realized in that dance. So i think something about that drove me and, so, juilliard came to do auditions and i auditioned. I got a full scholarship and went on to juilliard, and juilliard, which is on 65th i believe, the Ailey Company at that time was rehearsing on 61st street in amsterdam. So in the summer i would go and study at the ailey school in the summer program. So i was getting closer and closer to this vision that i had and then it just continued to grow that way. I ended up dancing with a Smaller Company after that, and called the parsons Dance Company. I started to choreograph for the Second Company ailey two. Judith jamison saw my work and asked me to do something for the First Company and brought me back again and again and eventually asked me to take the company after she charlie was what year when you first came in contact with them when you were at juilliard . This was 1990, 90, 91. Charlie so ailey had been dead about a year. Yes. I just missed him literally. Charlie but because of Judith Jamison and so much and thethe president ial medal of freedom which you received posthumously you get to know about the work and the man. What was it about him lease emerged a sensational definer . I think he personified this notion of what we think of as the good of humanity. You know, he was a humanitarian. He was completely open, open to different languages, different sounds, different music, poetry and open to the poetry in each individual. He was all about giving an opportunity to express themselves and there was something valid and freeing in that. He made ate Repertory Company when he first started. These days its not just the choreography and one person, but he had that as a vision early on i think because he was all about opportunity. This company when we think about arts and education, before it became somewhat of a buzzward to raise funds, it was a mission for alvin ailey that everybody had a seat at the table. He wanted this to connect with all peoples that it wasnt a highbrow art form. He believed in that and i believe that spirit Judith Jamison carried. Charlie and you carry. Yes. Charlie there have been only three. Alvin, judith and you. Amazing. Charlie this is Judith Jamison talking about alvin ailey and revolutions. This is back in 2008 at this very table. Here it is. It was to celebrate the africanamerican culture. Experienced in the modern day of this country. That rolls off my tongue very easily but thats exactly what it is. He was specific about what we were supposed to be about that it became universal and we see a work like revelations which i know youve seen one of our classic works, butio i so it and realize revelations is about all of us, not just the africanamerican experience but all of us. Its about childhood relations, life, death hope spirit joy, all of that and alvin ailey encompassed the fact that dance should be something more than just the performance, but that it should be inclusive. So we include you. But we should be responsible to the people whom we serve. To the communities we serve around the world. Charlie tell us about revelations, and why it is such a huge piece of work. I think so much i think that is in great art is this notion of trying to express a personal experience that through this masterpiece turned out to be a universal expression that had to do with hope. I think it was very significant that he used spirituals, you know, that was called negro spirituals. Of course, we dont always say that, but thats the truth. But those songs were more than just songs. I think they were political. They were, of course social. They spoke of triumph over despair. But also i think there was something important in that because you think about the Civil Rights Movement or before the Civil Rights Movement, to identify with these songs, some of the people who committed some of the atrocities of oppression would call themselves christian. So i think there was something about these spirituals and seeing these people who were africanamerican identify with their own christianity or spirituality that had to do with recognizing that im human, too. Charlie its interesting that the president ial medal of freedom was awarded to alvin ailey and, at the same time, to the three civil rights workers who had been killed so brutally in mississippi posthumously as well. Yes. And how significant was that for me that moment. I think about revelations. I think i had my own revelation standing there, receiving this award on mr. Aileys behalf. Of course, looking at president obama, who is africanamerican the first black president. I thought of the man who raised me my great uncle willie horn, born 1904, died my second year of juilliard, i think of segregation, some of the things he experienced i looked out and looked at Judith Jamison who meant so much to little black girls who wanted to dance, there was something so significant about that moment it was overwhelming. Charlie like take a look at this. This is revelations. You dont need the say anything. You feel it all. Here it is. Charlie you have said that seeing revelations is as important as knowing who Martin Luther king was. Mmhmm. Charlie these are two essential things. Yes. Charlie to understand america. Absolutely. I think about Martin Luther king, i think about his i have a dream speech. I think about what he was really doing in that speech was holding, as mr. Ailey said and what he tried to do with his own work is hold up a mirror to our society so people could see how beautiful they are. I think theres something in revelations that does that. When i specially became artistic director, we were on tour in russia, and i had never been to russia and certainly not with the American Dance theater. And there we are in one of these wonderful old theaters, and you feel so far away from home and then the curtain goes up on revelations, and by the time we hit rock my soul in the bosom of abraham, you see russian people in the aisles dancing and fraying to and froe and on beat too, i might add, theres something about that that lets us know were more alike than unalike. Charlie you said about revelations its really about everything that the human being endures. Yes, yes absolutely. You know, it starts with i have been rebuked and scorned. Who wasnt felt that in some way . We have something called in our arts and education program, we have something called the revelations curriculum where we use revelations as a way to look at, you know, english and social studies and humanities. So sometimes we have using i have been buked i have been scorned we use somebody whos never studied dance and they use their own words, i have been dissed. So no matter what your religion, your color or street across the ocean, people connect to that humanity. Charlie this is odetteta. This little light of mine im going to let it shine charlie you took over three years ago. Yes. Charlie is it Mission Different or does it simply build on the tradition thats been created . It builds on the tradition, the tradition of always discovering new voices. Celebrating our history, celebrating the history of modern dance, and then giving opportunity to these marvelous dancers to do their stuff, if you will. So mr. Ailey sort of laid it out in the beginning and it still works. You know, so and that way, for Judith Jamison and myself she always says were standing on shoulders and it feels that way. Charlie how is she . She is great. She is divine. Charlie all that. Absolutely. We do revelations live, having it sung live for a few of the performances. So she was just at city center rehearsing with the musicians and singers. Charlie youve said im interested in your conversations around how we view these dancers and their abilities. Yes. Charlie you know looking at people who come to the theater. Yes, absolutely. And i think i try that with certain choices that i make for the repertory. For instance, this season it starts tomorrow. Charlie yes. This season bringing in european choreographer schecter his work will be new to the company, and it will sort of shed a different light on what these dancers are capable of. I love things that are outside of the box, unexpected. You dont have the last name battle and not have something unexpected every now and then. Charlie yeah. Thats been fun for me because these dancers can do almost anything. I watch them in the studio when the audience doesnt get to see the amount of rigor it takes to do what they do to produce that amount of grace so im driven by these magnificent dancers. Charlie this is something you choreographed yourself. Mmhmm. Charlie where did that come from in your head . Imcame from a lack of space not in my head, but i made it in a living room in queens many, many years ago and so thats why most of the dance doesnt travel and now it traveled all over the world because of the alvin ailey American Dance theater. Gosh, somebody handed me this music, a cassette tape of this music by sheila shandra and i just thought it was so incredible. Of course, ive always admired indian dance. Its so complex and communicative, and, so, thats what it reminded me of. Listening to this also reminded me of ella fitzgerald. I love jazz and ella and scatting. Its a different version of scatting syllables. I can hear words in these syllables that seemed to not say anything. I could hear it, you know, so i was trying to interpret that. But in this dance, i see all of those things i talked about. I see the martial arts. I see the influence of michael jackson. You know, i see the influence of singing. Sometimes the mouth is moving or the eyes. So that was the inspiration for that dance. Charlie much success to you. Thank you very much. Charlie weve had on this program a Long Association with alvin ailey and the Theater Company in terms of shows weve done and judith being here. Its a great pleasure. Im sorry alvin ailey didnt live to see the idea that the president of the United States an africanamerican would put around his neck the highest honor that this country can give. Yes. Charlie so thank you. Thank you. Charlie thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org narrator a baby elephant, whose bond with one woman inspired a lifetime of devotion. Woman there were many years when i refused to talk about aisha. I loved her like my child. Narrator the american ape challenging what it really means to be human. Second woman he told us he was an orangutan person. Narrator and one mans lifelong quest for the truth about the rhino who joined his human family. Oh, i cant believe it, guys. This is actually extremely emotional for me. Announcer my wild affair was made possible in part by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Narrator every so often a wild animal enters the world of