A good choreographer is one that's going to collaborate, teach, guide - everything. The wonderful thing on 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' was that we had Philip Kwok - he choreographed John Woo's 'Hard Boiled,' and in the '70s, he was a martial arts actor, stunt man, fighter, choreographer in Hong Kong.
I didn't grow up on dance class. I was always natural. I've been in the industry since I was eight and I've always had a choreographer since then. But I never really took ballet or anything like that.
A choreographer deals with the movement that you create, and with a creative director it's about the story, the stage, the lighting, the costuming, executing someone's idea, choosing how far to go or how little to go, and blending it so that you feel it, you're emotionally effected.
You open a section of 'The New York Times,' and there's a review or a story on a choreographer or a dancer, and there's an informative, clear image of a dancer. This is, in my view, not an interesting photograph.
It's called the Ailey American Dance Theatre, not the Alvin Ailey African-American Dance Theatre. One thing also that Alvin wanted people to recognize, he had to wake up black every day. That's not an issue. His culture is an issue, not his color, his culture. So he really negated the fact that there was such a thing as a black choreographer.