LIFT: An Interview With Oscar Nominated Director David Petersen

Introduction

Award-winning documentary LIFT, directed by Academy Award Nominee David Petersen, is a moving documentary that shines a spotlight on the transformative power of dance and the invisible story of homelessness in America through young home-insecure ballet dancers and their mentor who inspires them at New York Theatre Ballet.

Over a decade in the making, LIFT follows children impacted by homelessness as they discover the magic of self-expression through dance. Guided by New York Theater Ballet’s Principal Artist & Artistic Director Steven Melendez, whose journey leads back to his childhood shelter, their path within a remarkable ballet program becomes a celebration of joy and triumph in the face of adversity. The LIFT Community Service Program provides scholarships for talented at-risk and underserved children at the School of NYTB, as well as programs that champion dance for the greater good. LIFT includes a year-round Study Program for children at risk and homeless.

Steven Melendez, an international ballet star who was himself from a Bronx homeless shelter and started dancing at age 7 through the LIFT program. Using his own personal experiences to connect with the kids, Steven’s guidance inspires them to reach for bigger dreams than they ever thought possible. Victor Abreu, one of the teenagers featured in the film, is now a principal dancer for NYTB, and Steven was just named the Artistic Director.

LIFT World-premiered at the Tribeca Festival, where it won an Audience Award, was the winner of Best Documentary at The San Francisco Dance Film Festival, was featured as Best of Fest at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and won the Shine Global “Children’s Resilience in Film Award.” The film was an official selection of numerous international festivals domestically and abroad, including Hamptons, Miami, and the 62nd Cartagena De Indias International Film Festival – FICCI, the oldest film festival in Latin America.

Cinema Scholars’ Glen Dower recently sat down with the director of LIFT, David Petersen. They spoke about the eleven-year odyssey of bringing Lift to the screen, the journey of its star Steven Melendez, and the numerous obstacles that David had to overcome in order to bring his vision to fruition, among other topics.

Interview

Glen Dower:

Mr. David Peterson. How are you, Sir?

David Petersen:

Glad to participate. Great, great.

Glen Dower:

Director of Lift, all the marketing and advertising have been built around the idea that your film was over ten years in the making. When you set out covering Lift, the original outreach program, and met Steven way back then, was it always the plan to have these intervals? Or was it a case of, okay, I found this kid, he’s amazing, let’s stay with him. What was the idea behind that journey?

David Petersen:

The journey certainly was not eleven years pre-planned as it never is with the documentary and the reason. But my documentaries tend to take a while. They’re sort of seated in staying with people, small communities. My training and film training really came from visual anthropology at the Smithsonian where I edited some of the films there, especially for the Folk Life Film Festival or for the Folk Life office. So that kind of always got me connected to ritual, to small cultures that are somehow beautiful. And that has always been kind of my focus from the first diner film I made, even though my background actually is in experimental film. So I’m very strongly influenced by Maya Darren and a lot of these, sort of very interesting plays with cinematic language. But ultimately where my heart is, is with human beings doing very small things.

So in this case, I was approached by a guy who was a New York Times photographer in the dog park where all my films begin! I’ve had two films started in a dog park. But anyway, this guy named Richard Termini came to me and he said, Hey, I know this great film. He’d seen a film I’d made about another small world, which was about opera. It was about the making of a contemporary opera. So a very tiny world in many ways. And he said, oh, there’s this ballet company. They train homeless kids, or some of the kids have been homeless, and many of the kids have been homeless. They go into shelters and one of them has danced all over the world. And I said, of course. I put a little hook in my neck and I said, oh, well, where is this company? And he said, it’s Midtown. And I said, oh, I got a camera. I was thinking and the wheels started turning. I said, is there any money? And he said, oh, there’s no money. Of course, that’s why it took eleven years.

And also it took eleven years because I didn’t really know what the story was. So I went down there. At that time in 2011, it was very hard to get into shelters. In fact, the company, the school, Diana Byer, who founded the Lift program, had a very hard time getting into shelters at that time because they got a lot of bad press as shelters always do. Anytime the media comes in there, it’s only bad news. It took me basically five years to get into a shelter at all. I worked on it quite a lot, but, and the only shelter we got into was the one where Steven lived as a child, which is really astonishing. And the only reason we got in there is that the director of the shelter remembered Steven and thought of him as a star because he had gotten out of the shelter and he danced all over the world and he was then returning to give something back.

He had danced all over the world, he sustained some injuries. And so he said, maybe I’ll come back to the company. And then Diana decided to make him the director of Lift, the program that helped these kids and first helped him. So that’s why it took so long. So then it was 2016, and I had been following this one kid named Victor, who was living in public housing, not in a shelter, public housing. Of course, you’re very home-insecure, but he wasn’t. I thought, oh man, what I want is to capture these kids from the beginning of an audition all the way to the end. And so that’s how I found Yolanssi and Sharia. And there were a couple of other kids I found and followed. So that all just took a long time.

And again, we were also trying to raise money and doing all this work to do that. So that’s kind of why it took eleven years, and ultimately eight years to shoot it and three years to edit it. I have a great story about editing in that I started editing first, always a big mistake even though I’ve edited a lot of my films. And then I, of course, wisely hired an editor. She got COVID, but we had to call emergency services to find out. She just disappeared for three days and she had been hallucinating and feverish. So then we got the EMTs to come to her apartment. She was not at death’s door, but she was certainly not revived and she really fell out of the editing process shortly after that. So then I started taking over again, and then it went to Mickey Millmore.

Anyway, the long story of this is finally we said, oh, well, we’re done. We’re locked, and I’m about to hit the send button to Sundance. I got a call from Janet Gargy, who’s the wonderful EP on the film, and she said, ‘I don’t think you’re done.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘Well, you might want to look at blah blah and blah, blah, and how it sort of unfolds in the first twenty minutes. And I always say that criticism, if it’s really out of the range of what I’ve ever thought, I ignore it. But if it pricks something that you’ve put under the rug for years, then I look back at it and I said, okay, we’re going to stop. We’re going to stop the mix and we’re going to stop the color correct. We’re going to stop all the engines that go in the direction of finishing. And we edited for another six months. That’s funny. That’s why it took eleven years.

Glen Dower:

I’ve had the privilege of interviewing a number of documentary directors on behalf of Cinema Scholars. David, I just want to ask when you know you have enough. When do you know you are done and I have the perfect way to end, and the story is complete?

David Petersen:

That’s a good question. Well, we knew that the film was going to somehow end with a dance. And the way I direct is that I really work with the subjects. I never lie to them. I’m always transparent about my motivations. Why I’d want to do a scene or why we’d want to go here to say, capture Yolanssi, who seems to be dropping out. Those kinds of things. But I don’t tell them to do anything. I just know that the situation is such that it will produce some kind of important story point. And so then I knew that we wanted to end the film with some kind of dance, and that was the hardest three days of my life because we thought we were going – this was 2019, November 2019 – we thought, okay, well, we’ll just tag one dance that will be part of the gala. It’ll be connected to the company, whatever presentation. But that was just too difficult to work out in terms of venue place and timing. So they said, it’s going to have to wait till the spring of 2020.

And I said, oh, I don’t want to wait till then. Maybe we just kind of find a beautiful theater that has some meaning and try to do it there. And also we don’t want to have people from the shelter community have to pay. So it seemed like a better idea. But that involved us having to put on not just the final dance but also put on a show that you don’t see in the film. So it’s an hour-and-a-half show of different ballet performances, all New York Theater Ballet Company members. But we and one guest, had to bring in an audience. They were really coming to a show. So then I said, well, what do you do for that? So shit, you need a stage manager. Oh my God, you need a lighting person. Oh, you need people to hang the lights. Just like a feature. And then you said, oh, and you need ushers! Oh, you need tickets! Oh, you need an audience!

So we were freaking out! I was directing, I think it was five different camera people including me. So not only was I directing, but I was shooting because I was the only one who really knew all these children for this length of time. And so I knew I had to be right in the wings, right on the side where Sharia is waiting for that curtain to rise up. I knew that that was the most important moment, and I had to be right there. And I was the one, but how am I going to direct Gary Griffin on the other side, or how am I going to…it was nuts. Yeah, it was just crazy. And I made sure that people coming in were captured. So what I would do, typical of me, is try to do everything. So I ran out to get some of the people who were coming in. Then I ran in to get all the dressing room footage. Then I ran to the side of the wings and tried to make sure to get all that.

And then Yolanssi’s parents didn’t show up because there was some big altercation going on with the police. So we were worried they weren’t even going to be there. And then they did show up and it was drama, but we did it. So there, once that was finished, and once we did some pickup shots with Alan Jacobson, the DP who was overseeing it, we thought, oh, well, we’re pretty much done. But then we weren’t really done because I realized there were some gaps and some things that we needed from Sharia. There were some interviews and little things, but at least I knew that the story arc was there. And I had already been editing in some way to see the story. So in that way, because I had eleven years, I could do that.

Glen Dower:

Your leading man, so to speak, is Steven Melendez, of course. The company you’re speaking of, of course, is the New York Theater Ballet. There must have been moments where you’re looking over his shoulder and he’s showing extreme pride at the kids that are performing. You must look over his shoulder and think the same pride for him. You found his journey from that little seven-year-old who was picked up by Diana through the program and then became a pro at fourteen. Wow. And now he has taken over her role as the artistic director. You must be so proud of him.

David Petersen:

Well, Steven has taken on this amazing role now because he’s the artistic director, but also he’s somehow managed to embrace his past. When I started with him, he wanted no part of it, he really didn’t want to go to the shelter, even though it was his new job, he didn’t want to go to the shelter where he grew up. That was not something that he wanted to do. He didn’t know why, but he was reluctant. He felt that it was on paper important. It felt like that’s what he should do and he should give back and all of these things that made sense, but emotional, it didn’t make any emotional sense. And that first day, there’s a scene that’s not in the film, but he gave a presentation to the staff and everything seemed to be good. They were all very excited.

And then when he goes and checks on where he lived, he just was curious. And he disappears behind a door. We said, what happened to Steven? Where’s Steven? And that’s when we find him on the ground, collapsed in a dead faint. And that was the one scene I wasn’t shooting myself. Because I knew that it would be a very dramatic and difficult experience, and I just knew that if anything did happen, I wouldn’t be able to film it. I couldn’t be a vulture in that. But I hired Gary Griffin who shoots all of Barbara Koppel’s films, and he could be an easy vulture. He could just go in and film anything because that’s what he does. He’s hired to do that. So in that way, that set the film goes on many levels. And I felt guilty about, in a way, about this trauma that he was feeling.

But I also felt that he told me, he was telling me what the film was, that it was somehow about this long-suppressed trauma that in the next six years he was going to live through these children because all these children were about his age when he entered ballet. And so, he didn’t really have a childhood in the way we consider it and certainly didn’t have a childhood that he reflected on. In fact, he had no toys. No, he had one piece of art that was a print from the velvet teen rabbit. And that was a story, of course, about a kid that has this rabbit that gets worn out and sort of almost destroyed and then thrown away. And I think in some ways there was a metaphor for him about his childhood.

But what’s remarkable now and why I am proud of him is that he’s not only come to terms with his background but used it as a source of strength and to really reach out to not only these kids but to a ballet audience who wouldn’t normally ever be seen at performances of what’s an aristocratic art form. And he’s made it into another art form. Our executive producer, who’s been sort of a longtime advisor since 2017, Misty Copeland, came from, not the same background, but from a background where she lived. She was very home-insecure and obviously fine art. And she has made a film too. It’s remarkably about the same thing, getting released about the same time and It’s not long-form. It’s a short called Flower, which is about homelessness in ballet. So it’s very interesting that there’s a changing face for the arts through Steven and Misty. And they once gave a Q and A at the Hamptons Film Festival. And it was great. We didn’t talk at all. The filmmakers didn’t talk. And they were the ones that were really demonstrating that this is the changing face of an aristocratic art form.

Glen Dower:

Indeed, I read about Steven before, and he was the subject of a piece in The New York Times this time last year, and he said, “Dance is Dying.” But do you think films like Lift and guys like Steven can rehabilitate dance and bring it back?

David Petersen:

Well, it’s a good question. Dance is dying. I mean, another advisor of the film is Lourdes Lopez, who is the artistic director of Miami City Ballet. And she’s changed, and she used to dance with New York City Ballet. She was a principal. She studied, I believe in Balanchine’s later days. And she’s also the one who I was having dinner with while we were at the film festival. I was saying, I just think if we get the Ford Foundation to come up with some kind of grant for every ballet company to give, let’s say 20% of the seats pay for 20% of the seats so that other ballet people who wouldn’t normally get to go to the ballet could go. And she said that’s great. We would welcome that. But no one’s doing that. And we got to put butts in the seats. And it’s kind of the same thing as filmmakers, we as independent filmmakers, and this is truly an independent film at every level, even though Paramount is distributing, it truly, we started out as me and my student with a microphone, and for six years we did it that way.

But independent filmmakers, are artists too. And they have the same problems. A, they’ve got to get money for their projects. B, they have to get people to see them. C, they have to get it distributed to an audience, a wider audience. We don’t want just people from film festivals to see our films. We don’t. Yes, we want our parents, but we also want people who just show up and they cry or they laugh or they’re moved in some way by the work. And so ballet companies, independent filmmakers, exhibitors of independent films, film forums, all the independent film review houses that would have all the foreign films, all the independent films that come out.

Look at how many films are at Sundance. There are one hundred twenty-five of them. How many of those get distributed widely? Five, ten, maybe? There are some that get it, a handful. But what I’m trying to say is, so if there are ways to change the face of that audience to say, Hey, we’re going to make it accessible. Steven is the one. Misty is the one, but there are more Misty and more Stevens out there. And I think all these ballet companies have their outreach programs. So what Steven is trying to do is kind of connect each other and say, Hey, everyone is equal on the dance floor. Let’s get them into the audience because it starts there.

Glen Dower:

Let’s quickly talk about your three young supporting players; little Victor, Yolanssi, and Sharia. So Victor turned out to be Steven’s Mini-Me if you like. And has gone on to be a star. And Yolanssi, I became really invested in her and her family. Her teacher got in the way of her punch and she got suspended. And you think, oh no, Yolanssi, what are you doing? Those little moments in the film, you cannot have been expecting those.

David Petersen:

In Puerto Rico, you get popped. I don’t have a gun, but I’ve got my two fists. I love her, I mean, I love her. She said one great thing at the premiere, at Tribeca, one of the screenings, there was a woman about her age who came from the Bronx. And she said, ‘I’m facing some of the same problems you’re dealing with, and I’m scared. I really don’t know how to get out of this situation. And she said, ‘You know what? You just keep opening doors. You open one door and then you open another. And I opened a lot of bad doors, but I shut them. That last door was where Steven was and where Diana was.

And that sort of opened up her world. And this woman was very grateful for just that simple metaphor. Sharia. I’m trying to help her get into La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts. I told her a million times that I was going to help her. Also with Yolanssi, I’m trying to get her into law school. She graduated high school, so that’s great. And Victor, yeah. I mean, he’s like Steven and didn’t want to talk about his background.

There’s a scene that I cut out where they’re talking, how do we reckon with our background? How do we deal with that? And both of them said, well, as children, we didn’t know that we were poor. We didn’t think that way. You don’t think that way, especially when you’re in ballet class, because in a ballet class, no one talks about the background, especially in Lift. They just don’t say, Hey, you’re just not even marked as having a scholarship. So you’re in the same classes. You got a chance that’s a little bit better than the middle-class or upper-middle-class families that obviously have the means to pay for a class. So you’re thought of as equal.

But Nikko said you’re not born to dance like Victor. You just have to want it more than anyone else. And I think for children from this background, if they can step somewhere to a new place, be it a stage or a law degree or teaching or whatever they do, that is a step from where they begin and I think that’s really what Steven’s goal is. And Diana’s goal too.

Glen Dower:

Perfect. Mr. Peterson, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. And hopefully, my readers will be reading this article and go, wow, I need to check Lift out. I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the arc. In the last moments, I had chills when they were all backstage. It’s okay. You got this, and then the countdown. And then it’s all you think about, that they did it. It’s always great.

David Petersen:

Thank you so much, Glen. Thank you for having us, and I hope your readers go out to see it. It’s a film that comes from the heart, a true work of love.

Glen Dower:

That comes through in every cell. Thank you.

David Petersen:

Bye-bye!

Paramount will be releasing LIFT in Theaters on September 15th and On Demand on September 22nd.

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