Polishing A Jewel: Roscoe Reddix’s Legacy with YALA and Louisiana Wolf Trap
Roscoe Reddix has a stillness about him. He thinks carefully before he speaks. And he speaks from a deep well of New Orleans culture, art, history, self determination and expertise. An HBCU-educated theater and dance professional, and current Director of Arts Integration at YACS Kate Middleton, Roscoe was among the first Louisiana Wolf Trap trained Teaching Artists. In many ways, his story also offers an essential piece of understanding YALA’s development as an organization. We wouldn’t be who we are without him.
Director of Marketing and Communications Virginia Hampton sat down with Roscoe outside the Rook Cafe on Freret St. a couple of weeks ago to find out more about YALA’s favorite singing storyteller. Roscoe grew up in New Orleans in a middle class family. Growing up, Roscoe’s father was a visual artist and his mother an entrepreneur, both graduates of HBCUs. His grandfather was a preacher who, 20 years following emancipation, purchased the building that now houses Haven United Methodist Church. His family has been doing work in their community for as long as they have been in New Orleans.
Black History and Story was Interwoven with Everything We Did
Surrounded by stories and art growing up in church and music all around, young Roscoe was built for the doors that YALA and Louisiana Wolf Trap eventually opened for him as a teaching artist and culture bearer. Roscoe credits his early educational experiences as a Protestant educated in the Black Catholic tradition with his deep appreciation of Black culture.
At the recently shuttered St. Joan of Arc School, young Roscoe found “information in the environment that could guide [him], breadcrumbs [to] follow. A trail that could lead you to appreciate self: proverbs, stories, songs, encouragement” like mantras he was hearing constantly. There he says, “Our history and story was interwoven with everything he did. And we were encouraged to be critical.” Perhaps it was this rich cultural tradition that helped him make the educational choices that led him to become a Teaching Artist.
Over a Biscuit and a Chicken Leg
In his high school years Roscoe attended New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) where he rarely saw himself reflected in the curriculum. During this time he had a stint as a student usher for the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. There he met a woman who was a graduate of the theater arts department at Howard University.
As he remembers it, “She shared her dinner with me–a Popeyes’ two piece and over a biscuit and a chicken leg she told me about Howard. They had a program that aligned with the things I had so much exposure to from being [in New Orleans] and working with community folks who had been doing theater here like Dashiki and Junebug,” both of which came out of the Free Southern Theater. Since his parents were insistent that he attend an HBCU, he chose Howard and its theater program. It seemed like a natural fit for someone interested in theater for community and young people.
The Long Route Home
Four years later, Roscoe finished his program at Howard University, but returned to New Orleans to discover that finding a job would not be so simple. “There were jobs in the schools that artists had, but there was a small tiny clique of people who were doing it and they wouldn’t tell you how they got it. So, it was a closed clique.”
Fortunately, “YALA was the big employer of artists and paid well, but it was only in the summertime. So in the summer time you were fat. And if you didn’t have a school gig you were done.”
So, with few other options for full time artist employment, Roscoe left New Orleans for two seasons with the African American Dance Ensemble out of Durham, North Carolina. Returning again to New Orleans, Roscoe got a residency with the Cultural Resources Program and it turned out that YALA employed all the artists. In a turning point, “One day, Richard [Bates] from YALA approached me and asked if I wanted to be on their roster.”
As he said of his early working years, “I ended up taking the long route, but I ended up back home.”
Plant That Seed
As a teaching artist, Roscoe quickly became an indispensable part of YALA’s ongoing development. He helped to develop YALA’s Arts for Learning curriculum, which YA National had created from across the network. YALA had evolved from an organization that brought chamber music to children in schools to an arts education program. Roscoe explained this new curriculum as, “an attempt to re-brand YALA and say this is what we do. This is our signature approach. There were some great things in it,” especially the four elements which he still integrates in his teaching artist approach: Experience, Understand, Create, Connect.
For Roscoe, the development of this initiative offers a way to understand YALA’s constant desire to say “who we are again, reinventing themselves in an ebb and flow, which is the nature of what the organization is.”
In addition to innovative curriculum development, YALA’s dedication to finding excellent teaching artists was clear to Roscoe from the beginning.
“Richard Bates [one of YALA’s executive directors] will tell you that they went into the community and found people there already doing the work. These people have at various points been YALA teaching artists but made a commitment to their communities and to work with the youth. Plant that seed. So YALA in a lot of ways grew up alongside and with lots of other people who made the thing happen. We all have a legacy and a lineage.”
A Natural Fit for Louisiana Wolf Trap
After years as a classroom Teaching Artist, in 2015, Roscoe began his Louisiana Wolf Trap training, learning about developmentally appropriate practice. “It was really very powerful and just opened the door in terms of what we’re doing…it’s like growing another limb. The feedback you get creates that growing edge.”
During the training, Roscoe realized that Louisiana Wolf Trap is about human development: “How can I bring this energy, this love and my experience of it into the room with these older kids with battle scars who had the armor? How do I get them to put down the armor and play? The training helped because it is about learning about people. Little people. How do you make space for them? So I love it. I love an opportunity to do it because something shifts. I’ve got a chant and I don't do a theater class in fifth grade without it.”
As for being a Louisiana Wolf Trap trained Teaching Artist, Roscoe notes, “I’m a natural fit. Music and movement. Songs. I mean I get to sit on the floor and basically act a fool. Who wouldn’t like that? I’m rolling around and laughing with the kids. I mean you know, I'm built for that. I’m built for it.”
Polishing a Jewel
Roscoe notes his experience with Louisiana Wolf Trap as extraordinary, “YALA exists to provide arts experiences for children and to provide opportunities for people who would like to do art with children to make a living. I think it’s a really powerful thing. Doing the work of Louisiana Wolf Trap can help you to hone what you're doing, hone your craft. Like polishing a jewel. It’s a beautiful opportunity.”
As a Louisiana Trained Teaching artist, Roscoe appreciates Ja’nese Brooks-Galathe and “certain others who view me as a conduit or a door. Because I know that there were so many other people who opened that door for me. I think it's like a river. The work we do is important. We focus on the students. Acknowledging the assets in them. Giving them shine. It’s important that we do that for each other.”