FRENCHMEN & BOURBON:

An interview with Dominique McClellan

Dominique McClellan is a multidisciplinary artist from Mississippi who has been working in New Orleans as a director, actor, writer and performer for the past eight years. Although his primary focus has been on acting and filmmaking, this series of photographs was inspired by his love of performing on stage. the blue horizontal line: the vision of Dominiquie McClellan is a documentation of one man’s relationship with New Orleans, during a critical time in the city's history. 

 The dialogue above is a weaving of conversations from a series of interviews between Lillian Hanan Al-Bilali and Dominique McClellan starting in mid July through early August. 

Lillian Hanan Al-Bilali: I had an opportunity to look at some of your work as an actor as well as some interviews that discuss your journey as a writer and director. I am really interested to hear more about what drives you as an artist?

Dominique McClellan: As an artist, I like to capture life as I see it. I use all of those disciplines that you just named writing, filmmaking as well as photography to tell a story. As an artist being able to create a platform to be able to speak, I feel like that's something that's important. As well as use that platform to speak for those who can’t speak up for themselves. As a filmmaker, I can make a movie and say whatever it is I'm going to say, that's a platform. As a photographer, I can go out and capture life as I see it and put it back out into the world. 

LHA: What brought you to this project?

DM: I've lived in New Orleans for eight years and traveled to I think forty states, and most of the major cities I have seen twice. But I don't know, there is something about New Orleans that is just different, It moves by its own beat. And it's really unapologetic in that it doesn't try to be like anywhere else.

You know, I go to Chicago and I go to Dallas and I see a lot of similarities, just infrastructure wise. But New Orleans is just it’s own thing. So it's really grown on me. When I moved here I really became immersed in the city and culture, the second lines, Congo Square and so many performing opportunities and what not. So walking through the city during this time felt so surreal, and I'm walking through downtown and just feeling that absence of energy that drives the city. It’s not just the people or the music but there is a different kind of energy that exists in this city.

LHA: Just hearing you talk about it is so powerful.  I'm actually working from New York right now. But when I was there, I felt the spirit of the city very strongly. It's like its own entity. So to imagine that not existing, I could feel it as you were speaking. I'm wondering how did it FEEL in your body as you were taking these photographs?

DM: It definitely felt very eerie because a lot of the places that I took the photographs I have been to or performed in. So I already originally had an extra connection to those places. It was also a little sad because as an artist, I used to make a living, performing on Frenchmen. I used to sit on the side of the street with my little microphone and speaker box and be singing songs for tips just so I could try to pay the rent.

It just made me feel for them because I understand how important those venues are to the artists here as well as for the artists that perform on the street. The kids tap dancing with the coke cans on the bottom of their shoes, the kids that be out drumming the magicians that be out there, the tarot card readers. It worried me because there's a high probability that these artists can't get unemployment because you got to provide all this documentation about your work history. When I took the pictures and started looking at them and it just brought up all these emotions thinking about the people that are not there right now. 

LHA: Listening to you speak I am reminded of something you spoke in a prior interview about your love of writing and storytelling. As you touched on your personal experience as a performer I'm wondering how does your identity as a man, a man from the South, as someone who served in the military, an artist,  how do all those things inform your work?

DM: That's a really good question.

LHA: Did I say black man

DM: you didn't say black man. 

LHA: As a black man too.

DM: I definitely feel like being from the south, life was really slow, so it gives us a lot of time to really think and be introspective. I literally grew up on a farm. I was a lumberjack at like four, five years old, I helped my father cut down trees so we can have firewood. We were picking peas and corn so it was real slow. You really had to stop and pay attention to everything. 

As it relates to the art, it's about humanity, and really paying attention to the person. That's something that I feel like has influenced my art and how I approach things and influence the stories that I want to tell. These photos that I took downtown image wise, they don't necessarily deal with people but if you understand what's going on, you can see visually how people have been affected by everything being shut down. 

LHA: Looking at your photographs, your relationship with the landscape is very apparent. I definitely saw some themes I wanted to ask about during our conversation. I felt like many of the photos had this blue hue to them, which I found very striking, it resonated with me. So I was just wondering, was that intentional or is that just what you captured?

DM: It is definitely what was captured, but also like being like performing in those days. That's the main light that you see from the stage as an artist. So on stage, the blue is the light that are in many clubs on Frenchmen, I guess to set the mood for the artists. Although I wasn't capturing the inside of the venues, I was just capturing the outside. I still felt like that was just kind of cool to capture the feeling, that resonated on the inside. (Laughs) 

LHA: That was actually going to be my follow up question, what do those lights mean to you? Can you tell me, what sort of feeling seeing those lights bring up for you?

DM: I moved to New Orleans in 2012 to be an artist, but before film and acting, I wanted to give singing one more shot. I missed performing, it has always been a way for me to release and just express myself. So I go to Frenchman and I’m just observing and I’m seeing all these live bands, and I’m thinking I could do this. So one night I went down to Frenchmen Street and I was just like, I'm going to every single club and ask them, what do I need to do to be a performer? I hit about three clubs and I was on my way to the fourth club. I met a guy who was actually looking for a front man. I gave them a sample of a few songs and he brought me into the band. After that I started performing on Frenchmen and Bourbon, and I did that for about a year. It really gave me a lot of exposure and experience to what a lot of performing artists here in New Orleans go through, especially singers and musicians on that scene. And it's also unfortunate, you know, it doesn't pay a lot, which I think this kind of like just the way it is everywhere, but it doesn't pay a lot and it's a lot of work. And you really have to love it to try to make a living. It's a lot of singing, especially for vocalists singing night after night after night. No chance to recover. But you still got to go out there and perform at whatever club that you that the band is playing that night.

LHA: when did you first start singing? What was your entry point into performance? 

DM:  I'm from a small town into Mississippi, so singing was just a way of passing time. I sang a little bit in church choir as a child, but I was always really, really shy. My parents didn't even know that I could sing it. But I knew from early I wanted to sing with a band and have my own show and perform in lights and things like that. Thinking about it right now, wow, this was a dream that I had and was able to do it. And I got a lot of dreams, you know. Many people don't get a chance to pursue them. I'm glad that I can say that that was something that I was able to do. That's why I like that area of New Orleans, it really means so much to just walk through and just hear the music. I would stand outside the window and watch the bands and reminisce on my time. I was on that same stage, singing a lot of those same songs.  And there's certain songs that just really resonate with the audience, like she's a bad Mama JAMA. You know, you're going to get the audience no matter where they are. So, it was a good time.

LHA: You have spoken about the importance of following your dreams. That makes me think about what does it mean for an artist to not be creating at this time? What are some other ways you have found to be creative? 

DM: I don’t know man there is definitely a void. Artists speak differently than just, say, regular people.We speak through the art. That's how we get out our thoughts. That's how we express how we feel. So it's like a regular person walking around with a muzzle on the face, not being able to speak. But we’ll always find a way to create, it’s just in us.

At home is cool, but I do so much better when I'm out in public and I'm writing and I can see so many different faces and just have so much different stimulation, like writing in a coffee shop. All that energy, stimulates creativity. I can only imagine what it's like for those who perform like for a living and those who play instruments for a living.  I need a communal type of situation to be able to really create and make art, although it's possible now you can distance yourself and wear the mask, but it takes away from the true essence of what it's supposed to be.

I sometimes have to force my creativity. Like, putting myself in a tough spot. I am going to the French Quarter at night and taking these photos. So that was the first creative thing that I did. And that kind of like, opened me up to do more things, even editing photos and things like that, I'm like, OK, If I could do this, if I could take these photos with this phone. And get them to come out the way they came out. I know I could shoot a movie with this Phone. My next film project, I'm shooting with an Iphone. So I've been doing research on how to make that happen. Which has been consuming a lot of my time and now I started writing a script that can be done with social distancing in mind or didn't have a lot of characters. Which has been consuming a lot of my time and now I started writing a script that can be done with social distancing in mind or didn't have a lot of characters. So it’s like this chain of events that led me to where I am now creatively.

LHA: I was really curious about your use of the IPhone, so, my last question, I think, is more of a technical question and inspired by you bringing up regarding filmmaking. Were there anything special techniques you used during the shoot?

DM: So I actually took those photos on my iPhone. I wanted to challenge myself, I mean, I have a traditional photography camera, but I wanted to do something a little different. I just got this phone and wanted to see what I can make it do. And that's why I chose that particular device to take these photos at night, which is difficult. Photography with an Iphone is not easy because the sensor is not as big and pictures don’t always come out right. Something that I tried to do was play around with the lighting and a lot of them as well as different angles. I was kind of shooting up to make the figure look more imposing and kind of make it look a lot grander than it probably actually is. That's something that I tried to capture as much as possible. So I wanted to use this as an opportunity to just kind of play around with different angles that I usually use with people. 

Shooting with the iPhone is not as flexible as a traditional camera, so you don't have the depth of field where something like the foreground is in focus and the background is blurred out. You have to frame your subject differently because everything is going to be in focus. A lot of my ideas came from my favorite filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut. Everything is symmetrical, and I've always loved his composition, even in The Shining when that little boy riding his bike down the hallway and those two girls are standing there and everything is just the symmetry is beautiful. So I kind of took a little bit of his technique to apply to these photos.

LHA: Can I ask one more question? 

DM: Of course 

LHA: Absolutely last one. I wanted to ask you this earlier, you spoke in the beginning about the importance of having a platform. Why is this important to you as an artist? 

DM: For me, it's a no brainer because I understand, what's going on today in our communities, the racism, the police brutality, things of that nature and how people can justify those things, a lot of it, you know, has to do with perception because, you know, children are not born with that type of bias. This is something that's taught. 

That's what I'm talking about, and that's what they see and that's what they use as a reference to justify their way of thinking. And so I just feel like changing that narrative, giving a broader perspective of who we are, a wider range of perspective of who we are and have that to be more dominant or just as dominant in the media as like those negative stereotypes. Which gives people an opportunity to see not just one side of us, but to see more of a well-rounded view of which is our community as a whole. I think about the music that is dominating the charts these days and a lot of the music that comes from our community is not so positive, music about killing each other, excessive drug use, degrading women in our community, even putting women against women with colorism. And I know that's somebody's truth. But we just need some more of the opposite. We don't have balance, and I want to provide that balance. I want to build a platform that provides that balance, that puts us in a more realistic light, even if it's you don't have to be all positive because it ain't always positive, but just be one hundred percent real. We go through the things, we go through bad things. We make great decisions and we make poor decisions. Well, let's talk about all that and not just focus so much on those negative stereotypes and that negative information. 

LHA: Dominique I'm so thankful for all the time that you've given me over the last several weeks. It has been an honor and a deep, deep privilege. I am really looking forward to your upcoming projects.

DM: Absolutely. Definitely a pleasure for me as well. Thank you.