THE SHADOW BETWEEN US
A documentary film about taking action in the wake of George FloydExploring solutions to racial disparity
for Cleveland’s Tender Heart Crusades
Nehemiah Spencer grew up in an underserved inner city neighborhood of Cleveland, infamous for the the Glenville shootout of 1968. Seeking to overcome the perils of his environment, he discovered dance and movement. His passion led him to Juilliard and a prestigious dance company. When the Covid-19 pandemic started, he lost his profession overnight. He took a job working for the post office and his creative ambitions began to slip away. One day a friend asked him to help create a project showing how to stop the killing after George Floyd and a summer of racial unrest. Nehemiah travels to Colorado and joins with a troupe of silhouette dancers. Together they create a performance that will change them all in unexpected ways.
Client: Cleveland’s Tender Heart Crusades
On a trip to New York, Tender Heart Crusades president Obadiah Baker spotted a mural with a simple message: “No one is above or below. That’s why we all have the same color shadow.” In the wake of George Floyd, Baker wondered how he could make white people understand what it means to be Black. He was drawn to shadows and silhouettes, and was inspired to create a performance about solutions to racial disparity through silhouettes and dance. This led him to the inspiring work of The Silhouettes and founder Lynne Waggoner-Patton, winners of the Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent.
Storyfinding: From Idea to Screen
Obadiah Baker approached us about filming a dance performance that he was creating in Colorado. As our work is based in story, we initiated a conversation about how to turn this from a simple recording of a dance performance into a compelling story. Our conversation led to Cleveland dancer Nehemiah Spencer, a dancer who worked with Tender Heart Crusades. A series of in-depth interviews with Spencer helped shape the narrative and we traveled to Cleveland to film Nehemiah’s backstory and journey as he formed his own ideas to bring to the performance.
Takeaway: Feature Length Documentary
What started as a commission to film a dance performance turned into a storytelling partnership between The Story Speaks and Cleveland’s nonprofit Tender Heart Crusades. As the narrative took shape, the seed of a short film blossomed into a feature length documentary exploring the creative process behind the creative process. The resulting film, The Shadow Between Us, is a record of searching for creative solutions to systemic racism during a worldwide pandemic lockdown. The film is currently on the festival circuit with release expected sometime in late 2022.