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Spoiler alert: This summary contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 3 “Blind spotnow streaming on Starz.
Starz’s latest episode, “Blindspotting,” forces Ashley (Jasmine Cephas Jones) and Miles (Rafael Casal) into parenting mode when their young son Sean (played by Atticus Woodward) uses the N-word.
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Ashley, known as “N*ggaz and Jesus,” takes Sean to visit Miles (Rafael Casal), who is serving a five-year sentence at San Quentin State Prison. It was a difficult but necessary conversation as they taught Sean why it was wrong to use the word.
The moment occurs during a conversation, which Sean unexpectedly blurts out, but Sean pressures them and they are forced to discuss it with the boy.
Producer Jess Wu Calder stepped in to make her directorial debut and said it was “the scariest thing I’ve ever done.” In the script, Calder explains, “Sean learned the history of the N-word through dancing.”
Choreographer Jon Boogz was brought in to create the story with dreamy dance sequences. Says Boogz, “We came up with the idea of doing this representation through three different generations: slavery, civil rights and modern times.”
Calder explained that the genetic emotional trauma caused by the word over the decades was significant for both parties. But it’s also necessary to see the world from the way it is, to have a 7-year-old being told all this information, while insisting that it’s from the child’s perspective and learning history. “It can only be information overload,” Calder said. “It’s like his brain is trying to process as much as he’s hearing.” They used magical moving beds and walls that moved around the stage to take Sean through different histories period.
Cinematographer Tarin Anderson deliberately used light to make blinks come and go. “It was about mirroring Sean’s brain synapses,” says Calder, who worked closely with the DP. By the end, red and blue are used as bold colors, not only to make the scenery pop, but to show the intensity that the word stands for.
Dancers sway in sync as the shot evolves to workers picking cotton. “It’s about matching the sadness they have to live in that situation.” Boogz explained, “The dancers out there need to fit in with what’s going on. You’re going to be betrayed, really. Their sport has this egotistical, arrogant, privileged demeanor.” So he crafts sharp moves with arrogance, and every character tells a story.
For Boogz, it’s not just about attracting the right group of dancers. “I want dancers who can understand the storyline, the intent, the emotion,” he said.
Boogz explained that there are no blank moves. He said, “For something as important as this, if you don’t have the emotion behind it, it’s just choreography.”
To portray the mood of the modern day, Burgez thought of George Floyd and Eric Garner. “Hands up, Lil Buck (dancer and fellow choreographer) is suffocating. We take the modern issues we’ve seen in our lifetime and put them into dance.”
Watch the scene below.
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