Apple TV+ has made it’s own unique splash into the holiday season with their newest movie, “Spirited.” The film stars the hilarious duo, Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell.

Each Christmas Eve, the Ghost of Christmas Present, selects one dark soul to be reformed by a visit from three spirits. But this season, he picked the wrong Scrooge. Clint Briggs turns the tables on his ghostly host until Present finds himself reexamining his own past, present and future. For the first time, ‘A Christmas Carol’ is told from the perspective of the ghosts in this hilarious musical twist on the classic Dickens tale. 

The movie is even more special in it’s own right because it’s the first time the Dickens film is a musical! “Spirited”‘s choreography was lead by Debbie Allen trained, Chloe Arnold. 21Ninety caught up with Arnold to discuss her choreographic feature film debut as the lead choreographer on “Spirited,” her business, Syncopated Ladies, and more! Check it out.

 

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Zayna Allen: Congratulations! How did this opportunity come about for you? 

Chloe Arnold: I was nominated for an Emmy with my work on “The Late Late Show with James Corden” and that puts you in certain lists of choreographers that people consider for things. So I got this interview, and it was funny, the director was stepping off my interview to go interview Octavia Spencer. So he was kind of rushing, but not rude. But I was like, I wonder if that means like he enjoyed that or not. So the next day I got a call saying, the director loved me and I was surprised! Then he calls me the next day to tell me that he binge watched all of Syncopated Ladies on YouTube and he said he has been waiting to find a unique voice in this film. He really wanted it to be that.

ZA: I do want to touch on Syncopated Ladies. You all were featured on Beyoncé’s new “Break My Soul” fan video. You guys were also on “The Late Late Show” recently. I want to talk about the growth of this business that you’ve had. You’ve mentioned before that for about 10 years you guys weren’t getting paid. You know the hustle and you never gave up.

CA: I knew coming into this that it would be a challenging journey. Debbie Allen  is the symbol of success for a dancer, especially a Black woman. There’s no one with her degree of accolades and success in the world of dance. She is that pinnacle. As my mentor, I grew up seeing this and watching how hard she works. So I was trying to figure out, well how am I gonna follow in her footsteps but also have my own voice, right? 

When I think about the journey with Syncopated Ladies, Debbie Allen opened that door, gave us studio space to create it for free in 2003. The first 10 years those girls were young. There wasn’t any money flow at that point, but we were building the skill. Then in 2012 they all grew up so we said okay, we gotta elevate. My mom and I were investing our money to make videos, but we still weren’t getting hired to work. We just decided to make our own work and if we show the world our Black girl magic enough, somebody’s going to feel that and it’s going to spread. Beyoncé obviously was the catalyst for that because she shared our work in 2013 and 2016 and our views skyrocketed.

So Sean Anders, director of “Spirited,” had this belief that we could do something different; that we could bring the sauce. All the Syncopated Ladies are in the movie and we wanted to translate this to the world that he was creating. 

I say that to say, people trust you when you trust yourself. So by way of us putting money into our dream and it having its own wings and starting to fly, it makes others say, “well you know what? Let me add to that. Let me help make the world bigger. Because they already believed that their world could be bigger.”  think that’s really important for any creator with a dream. That you can’t wait for other people to see the vision. You gotta have that vision for yourself. 

 

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ZA: Let’s talk about inclusivity. You did tap in two other Black female choreographers to help you out with the choreography for the film. How did you go about choosing them? What is the importance of having black women specifically at the forefront of creative teams when it comes to these larger films?

CA: I grew up in DC. My guy friends, they’re a little tougher. They’re writing me saying they loved the movie. That they’re so hype off “Spirited.” The reality is maybe they wouldn’t have watched if I wasn’t involved. That’s why inclusivity matters because then it makes the world feel connected. I was very conscientious of that in my casting of dancers. You see a beautiful array of talent that makes people feel more included than ever in a Christmas movie. And I really feel like it’s working because like I said, so many of my hometown homies are so hype off the movie without me telling them to watch it. They did it on their own and were blown away. 

What’s amazing is that when I got hired, Diana, our executive producer, she said I would be able to bring on two assistant choreographers. There were a couple things I was thinking. One of them being that I would like for them to be called associate choreographers, not assistants. I knew the value of the people I would be bringing on would be high. Also, to compensate as such. 

So the first person I picked was Ava Bernstein Mitchell, because Ava and I are friends of 20 years through Debbie Allen. She worked with me on basically the majority of my time with James Corden. She was my assistant choreographer on that and she would dance in all the episodes. Then we were trying to think, who’s this third right? I was thinking, they have given me no stipulations except bring people you trust and you believe in. So, I want to go with the people I trust and believe in and those are my sisters. Ava had asked Martha Nichols. Ava and Martha are good friends from touring life. Martha and I used to work on a dance convention together. I knew her style, I knew how she worked with dancers and treated everyone. And I was very, always very inspired by her work. 

When I presented my team to my higher ups, no one questioned it. They  were like, if you love them, we love them. That’s that. That is the way things should be. I am so thankful because they were the perfect choice and they, they just, they brought all their flavor, their personality and the teamwork. We had so much fun and  I think fun is a really important thing. It was so magical and it is something I will always cherish.

ZA: Lastly, I do want to ask, what’s next for Chloe? 

CA: We are going to be creating a Synced Ladies album! We’re making a tap album and we’re gonna have original music. The James Corden appearance was kind of the launch of this idea that we can be a musical act. I have a very clear message that we want to get out to the world and we want to get that out through our dancing and just inspire people again that there’s just not one way to do things. 

We are also working on, um, we’re working on television show that my sister and I would executive produce. We’re in the process right now of that development and it’s going very well. Then our tour is next year, so we continue our Syncopated Ladies tour.