Artistry Unveiled: André Mazelin on Nurturing Creativity and Community

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Truth In This Art
Only a couple months down. I think I recognize.

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Rob Lee
The welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee, today. I had the privilege of being in conversation with the executive director of Dance Place. In their role, they oversee the development and growth, including strategic direction, operational oversight, talent acquisition and retention, as well as legal responsibilities. Please welcome Andre Mazlin. Welcome to the podcast.

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Andre Mazelin
Hey, Rob Lee, thank you so much for having me. And it's an honor. I have scrolled through your files. I've seen the people you've talked to. So I'm happy to be in there in that company. And if no one has told you to this point, I just want to thank you for what you're doing for the art scene in Baltimore.

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Andre Mazelin
It's great.

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Rob Lee
I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for checking it out. It's it's important stuff. And I'm really happy and privileged to really get anybody to come on. It's it's really, truly a pleasure that people will share the time with me going through this.

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Andre Mazelin
Absolutely.

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Rob Lee
So as we we start off, I got to do I got to do the sort of customary question. But I like to ask things really weirdly. I was like, so what's the the Andrew Maslin story? You know, I'd go right to that. So it's a Where'd you grow up? And what is it about arts, arts leadership that really resonated with you?

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Rob Lee
Because and looking over your background, it's a lot of those touch points.

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Andre Mazelin
All right. So I was born and Montego Bay, Jamaica, West Indies. I'm a Jamaican yard man and came to this country.

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Speaker 4
And I came to.

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Andre Mazelin
This country at the tender age of eight years old as an immigrant child and grew up in South Florida, actually. So partly in Miami, partly in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood Beach area, and stayed there throughout high school, two years of art school and then left and moved up to New York. So I've kind of bopped around after New York did a small stint in L.A. and then I found my way to Baltimore, where I lived now in D.C..

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Andre Mazelin
I lived in Baltimore for 16 years, 16 years.

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Rob Lee
Baltimore for 16 years. I want to know what the metric is like. If once you get over ten years, is it like you kind of you have enough obeying your blood and enough? I was going to say something very inappropriate, but I think Obey is the better they get enough of that in your blood. Just like I it's like it's like what is it?

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Rob Lee
The Cub Scouts. The Boy Scouts is like, all right, you got this patch? Yeah, this crab colored patch is kind of that.

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Andre Mazelin
You know, what I thought about Baltimore is the longest place I've lived in my life because I've bopped around so much. So Jamaica was only, you know, eight years then. Florida wasn't as long as Baltimore. So Baltimore actually is for right now the place I've lived the longest. So I have I have allegiance and love for that city.

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Andre Mazelin
Might as well be home.

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Rob Lee
I mean, that's what we like to hear. I mean, you know, when people think about Baltimore, you have some people are coming here for that sort of they're moving to the next thing. And it's kind of a launching pad despite not getting that sort of credit of being one of those spaces or it's like and I ended up in Baltimore, you know, it's kind of that.

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Andre Mazelin
Yeah, I think to be real when, when the other cities the Phillies, the New York they don't they don't understand Baltimore not even really understand it until I moved there, honestly. But it is it is a gritty city. But the art scene, I can't compare it to anywhere or anywhere else. And like I said, I've lived in the major air quotes the mayor city around the country that are known for the arts and entertainment in Baltimore is like no other best.

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Rob Lee
That's great to hear. And I think people just need to be need to be more aware of it. I think it's one of those things where when people talk about, you know, sort of comparison thing, like what you're doing is just like this and it's like the real people now it's got it's kind of like the real people get it.

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Rob Lee
It's like you come there and it's like you'll get that real sort of love here. People are doing real work here, boots on the ground, and it's so yeah, very unpretentious and it's not really contrived. It's just like, no, this is that real? A real work is happening. And when I ask people on occasion of like, where's the good art happening?

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Rob Lee
I'm looking for a very specific answer. And it's not necessarily a place, but it's a part of a place like is in those grittier areas, is in those sort of like I don't have a lot, but I'm making good stuff. My imagination and so on is really driving this sort of stuff.

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Speaker 4
Yeah, totally.

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Rob Lee
So you know, you mentioned art school, I believe a little bit, so. Yes. So what was there that that point where you were like, I want to pursue art. I want to pursue the sort of like art leadership as a career path, as a as an interest. What was that experience like? Was there something seminal that hit you?

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Rob Lee
You're like, You know what creativity that's for me?

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Speaker 4
Well, I.

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Andre Mazelin
Kind of stumbled into it, to be honest with you. I was in a in a group with my friends out of high school and then into art school, a hip hop group. And I was the absolute worst member of that group circle. So if you're not good at it, you know, you've got to step out of it. I was I was honest with myself enough to step out of it.

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Andre Mazelin
What I was good at, Rob, is is being organized and, you know, being able to help them get to where they needed to go, meaning, hey, you got a photo shoot on Friday this time getting them there, arranging things, being behind the scene. So I kind of fell in love with the organizational side of it and not even consciously thinking of it.

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Andre Mazelin
I really did start out thinking I was going to be an artist and be, you know, the next coming of of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest back at that time, because that's kind of who we were built like. Yeah, but yeah, kind of stumbled, stumbled into the profession and got behind the scenes and once that group split up, just kept going arrange shows independently for folks in bars and nightclubs, restaurants, then started getting people noticed and contracted me to do one offs, you know, kind of small festivals.

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Andre Mazelin
They were calling them festivals, but it was like, you know, in the ballroom of a holiday Inn. So it's not really a festival. But it gave me it gave me some experience in arranging venues and getting bands on stage, on time and and managing contracts and all that stuff, which I also learned in art school. So that was a stumble into it really.

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Andre Mazelin
It wasn't definitely not a deliberate thing.

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Rob Lee
That's that's that's really that's really interesting. Where I go back to that first episode, I remember the truth and as art, I remember when it was one thing to James and asked he said he's like, you know, some of these artists had the things in order. And what you're describing now, however many episodes down the whole path is.

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Rob Lee
So I kind of went into this organizational thing.

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Andre Mazelin
Yeah. And do you mean, you know, if they if artists are real with themselves to the help if you have a good friend somebody that you trust that'll that'll help you out and get you where you need to be and manage it. The admin side of things. Take that help for sure.

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Rob Lee
So you know, I don't want to bury the lead too much. Just let's talk about like dance plays a little bit. We're going to go back into a bit more about your background, but I at least want to talk about dance place because I think that that's because it's so such it's such a current situation in such a recent situation that be remiss not to talk about it early on.

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Andre Mazelin
Yeah, Dance Place has been around since 1978, so it's been around for over 40 years. Started as a dance presenting organization by a wonderful woman named Carla Perlow. She's a dancer herself, so she wanted to bring dance into the schools in D.C. So that's really how it started. And then, much like Creative Alliance, it's funny how like Creative Alliance dance places, although it's a dance focused organization, people just gravitated towards it, you know, grassroots, hey, I'm going to help my heart, my friend Carla do this thing and before you know it, you're bought in to that system.

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Andre Mazelin
You bought into that to the to that environment. You bought into what she's doing. And you get behind her because she is she's a force of nature herself. So it's really grassroots. Before we got to the building that we got to now are really just about presenting in schools, small organizations started much like Creative Alliance, which started in a very similar way.

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Rob Lee
So how did let's let's talk about how you became interested in dance plays, how what brought you there? Was it something within the mission? Because in looking over your background, I see motor house in there. I see creative lives as you touched on. I see the center of performing arts at Prince George's Community College. It's like this nice sort of like track record of being any sort of like leadership in arts focused roles that are really filling this sort of gap that a lot of people, you know, don't get.

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Rob Lee
Like, you know, artists as as we touched on earlier, it's just like I know how to art. But when it comes to like some of the sort of structural some of this organizational stuff, people don't have that a lot of times. And they are looking at people like you or the roles that you've been in to can you help organize?

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Rob Lee
This can be put on the vent here. They may talk to someone like you to help get things organized and things set up. So what is it about like dance plays and maybe the stops you've had leading up to it that it resonated with you? And what did you bring from those other stops into this role?

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Andre Mazelin
You know, really what I came with was a tool kit, right? Because as you mentioned, Creative Alliance, Motor House, PCC, I just came with came back with a lot of experience, honestly, and I break it down like that. So Creative Alliance was my first foray where I started as a house manager and did that for a little bit, right?

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Andre Mazelin
So I, I learned that and eventually got promoted up to operations director and gained all that experience over eight, nine years. Then I went on to Motor House and stepped up into a more leadership role. Right now, funding is fundraising is kind of on my plate running. The whole organization stayed there for a little bit and went to a college now and I'm dealing with six bigger budgets.

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Andre Mazelin
So, you know, I've never booked a art event for six figures plus before. So when coming back to dance Place, what attracted me to answer your question was getting back to that grassroots because as I said, Creative Alliance was was very much like a family. Everybody that worked there became really good friends. The people that came to see the shows or hang the shows also became friends of ours.

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Andre Mazelin
The staff and dance place seemed like that kind of environment, although it was great to be in a college and have the big budget and have that security of, you know, a college. You know, you're not worrying about going out of business at a college necessarily. As is true, it was good to realize that this place was such a long legacy in history.

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Andre Mazelin
40 years of doing community B work was available at that level, you know, because I'd been thinking about art. So what's what's next? Do I want to go to a bigger college? I'm at a community college. Do I want to go to university? But no, I was really about getting back to the to the grass roots of it.

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Andre Mazelin
And that word is kind of cliche. Now, what I mean by that is where with the community, you know, we have community artists. We just had D.C. Dance Festival, which stands for district choreographer dance festivals. And those are all emerging and mid-career artists who are assembling work. It might be work in progress, might be something that they just assemble to, maybe something that they had for a while.

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Andre Mazelin
But there's no real criteria to it. Just bring your work and we'll show it over a weekend. So to over two days, the same show across four sites on our campus. So that's that's what feels good to me about being back in an organization like this. I have presented, as I said, larger, larger dance companies, bands, etc. But I love being with the people.

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Andre Mazelin
I love being able to to have conversations with folks who have an idea. And like you said, maybe I can help you with that idea. You know, it's not as polished. Doesn't need to be that polished. We can get you there. Maybe you've never read a contract before, like a three, four page contract. Let's talk about it. Here's what to look out for.

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Andre Mazelin
Here's how to respond. Here's how to ask questions. So not to say that everyone is a novice at dance place, but it starts at a different level. You know, it's a different level. You deal with more emerging and mid-career folks than being back at the college with large folks and that's what I love. I feel more effective in that way.

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Rob Lee
That's that's great. And thank you for that. And I would imagine people are very appreciative of that sort of relationship about a house that's very similar is like, hey, man, I have no idea how to go through fundraisers and art ese. I just know how to make what I make. Can you help me move that thing along? Yeah, sure.

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Rob Lee
And, you know, being around people that can can really help and get an idea of where you're coming from and being able to get to in that sort of accessible way. You know, I work in higher ed, so I definitely kind of relate to the notion of security and the notion of.

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Speaker 4
I'm.

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Rob Lee
Kind of good here, right? But you're looking for something else that makes you feel more effective is like, I could probably do better at this place. I could probably do more at this place. And there's something outside of the the work, maybe the environment, the I'll say in the job that I'm doing so in in the day job and that's where the college comparison comes at is this is cool, but this is a school within the college and the school is run very much like a science lab, whereas maybe I need a more undergrad feel because it feels like people have a broader, more liberal arts thing and that can satisfy some of the creative

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Rob Lee
energy that I'm always craving.

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Andre Mazelin
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I tell you, when I came to this organization and people were just I don't I don't know if it was me necessarily, but there's an energy in the building that I just didn't get at the college. I had nothing against the college. It was it was well, it's it's set up, you know, very hierarchical.

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Andre Mazelin
And it's can be a bureaucracy. At times. Things get stuck. I always tell folks it moves. It's a steamship, it's not a speedboat. And the way we're able to move ideas in a smaller organization is Waterman Boat. I just don't like getting bogged down. If you have an idea, let's try it. If we have the funding, let's try it.

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Andre Mazelin
If we don't have the funding here, some ways we could find some funding to get it done. So it's it's just much more nimble and it definitely feels like home.

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Rob Lee
Well, essentially, since we're talking about that piece, I'd be remiss if I don't go into the Segway is it's feels like it's a natural Segway. So could you like you know and I know you have been in the dance place role super long, but you know, if there is one that comes to mind, feel free. But could you describe a project where you kind of, you know, pushed your vision or working with someone to help them really realize their vision as far as it could go?

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Rob Lee
Like, what was that like? What was the project and things of the sort.

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Speaker 4
Of.

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Andre Mazelin
The project that comes to mind, honestly, has nothing to do with art. It has to do with my step away from the art scene for a little bit. When I opened a coffee shop in Mount Vernon called The Room, and that took every.

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Speaker 4
Bit.

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Andre Mazelin
Out of me. And the idea was just to create a space, right? Because and I love Creative Alliance and started this coffee shop so much like the community feel a creative alliance. I wanted to do that just in my own space, which was an 800 square foot coffee shop. So not very big at all. And we crammed them in.

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Andre Mazelin
We had holiday bazaars, we had yoga classes, we had some important discussions. We had full bands performing there, 800 square feet of space. But Poppy shopped. And you and I spoke about coffee shops before. There are different beast or restaurant. We spoke about restaurants. They're a different beast. And that's the early mornings, the running out of supplies, the running for supplies, the people not showing up for work, the stress of, you know, payroll and acquisitions.

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Andre Mazelin
It took every bit of lobbying it took to make that even happen. It took every bit out of me. So I.

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Speaker 4
Have it's probably.

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Andre Mazelin
Not what you were asking.

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Speaker 4
Me. No, no, no, no.

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Andre Mazelin
About art projects. I'd have to give that some consideration because it's been a lot. But that project, kudos to everyone that ever wants to open a restaurant or has opened a restaurant, because let me tell you, that is some hard, hard work. I'll stay over here in the arts.

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Rob Lee
Yeah. I mean, I talk to folks that are in that, that lane and I think that it's what's behind it, right? Like you know, a lot of times I would talk to chef owner. So you're wearing both hats. It's like, man, I got into this to be creative with my food. And that's the that's my thing. And, you know, some people who are in the arts, they're like, I don't know, culinary arts is part of it.

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Rob Lee
It's like, but I am, it's like your commerce and it's like, Look, this is really stressful, guys, come on, don't take don't take my art thing from, you know, take my art thing from me.

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Andre Mazelin
Yeah, you got to love it to do it. You got to love it. I used to see Damian from Black Sauce Kitchen in the restaurant store like six in the morning. He just, like, happy.

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Speaker 4
Eat up and walk.

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Andre Mazelin
Away. Like why he seems so happy. Why am I not that happy? I'm miserable at this face.

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Rob Lee
It's the biscuits. It's the biscuits. It's just. That's just what it is. It's all about the biscuits. I got it. I got to get over it. I get some biscuits. I like those biscuits a lot. So I got I want to ask I want to ask this question about traits because I think, you know, I think sometimes there's the podcast when people listen to it, they maybe get something that they may not be looking for.

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Rob Lee
It's like, Oh my, to learn about this person's career, learn about their work, glossy blah by I like to like kind of pepper in at times like some of those gems. So like what, what are those traits? Maybe three traits that you relied on most in your career and what would you say was the hardest one of those three for you to master or to feel like you're even in that conversation of mastery?

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Andre Mazelin
I think I'm really good at multitasking. I don't tend to need to manage my schedule or what I what's on my plate intensively. Somehow I think I'm kind of a natural at multitasking. So spinning many plates, you know, keeping an eye on what's happening today, what's coming next week and what's coming down in a few months. I tend to do well after I've been told them come under pressure, which is good.

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Andre Mazelin
I've had a few hairy incidents, actually, a creative alliance with fires next door. And I had one person have a stroke on stage. That's a whole other story as well. But calm under pressure would be the would be the second one and the third, some people call it code switching, but I don't call it code switching in the sense that I'm, you know, shifting my voice in my demeanor and how I walk when I walk in a different room.

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Andre Mazelin
So, I mean, that I can hold conversation with different people where they are, you know, so wherever they are, whether it be in the boardroom or outside in front of the building or, you know, down the street in the immigrant neighborhood, I feel pretty comfortable in a lot of environments, and I think that partly has to do with the fact that I was thrown into this this melting pot of the United States of America at such a young age and had to figure it out.

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Andre Mazelin
It wasn't it wasn't always easy. I got teased a lot as the Jamaican kid with the broken accent and not the freshest gear. But you figure it out, right? Yeah, you figure it out over time. You learn how to adapt, how to make friends, how to how to shift. So I would say that my gear shifting I prefer gear shifting over code switching because like I said, I could just I feel good around if I'm the only brown person in a room or a room full of brown people.

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Andre Mazelin
Brown and black people. I'm just as good.

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Rob Lee
Yeah. So one of those. What do you feel is the hardest to kind of master? Get a hold.

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Speaker 4
On.

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Andre Mazelin
Oh, let's see. I can't say I've mastered any. I can't say I've mastered any. I feel like multitasking is easy, and that's why I think I'm good. And these kinds of roles in multi-disciplinary, we're putting out a lot of products constantly type of jobs, and I guess that's over time, right? Because I started in college a long time ago working on managing multiple projects.

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Andre Mazelin
So I think I've built that over time. I wouldn't say I've mastered that. I'm still I'm still a student. I'm humble enough to say I'm still I'm still learning every day. Right. Every role is different challenges. This executive director role is different than the senior manager role. And I take what I've learned in that position and other positions and I bring it here, but they're all super different and they're things I need to learn right now that I maybe don't know.

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Andre Mazelin
And I could be honest with myself and always say, I don't know what I don't know, but I'm going to find out and try and learn that.

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Rob Lee
And I like that where when we get into a spot like, you know, been, as I was saying, doing it for a long time, but I always go into sort of like each interview, like what I'm gonna screw up on and just kind of giving myself that sort of like, you may know this, you're not it, you're not, you're never a master and you're always learning.

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Rob Lee
And sometimes I like to put the sort of impediments in there just to kind of jog loose the thinking, because you get on autopilot, you're like, Oh, yeah, I got this is a you feel like you've nailed it in a little bit and I don't like that feeling. I was like, Nah, we got the interview, let's redo it, you know, because it's just like, I know there could have been more there.

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Rob Lee
I like to wrap up and feel like I've satisfied what I was trying to do and I think feeling that necessarily like a novice but feeling like a person that's always a student, a student of what I'm doing and the a student of trying to get to have a conversation with someone. It's almost an invitation for a longer conversation or an invitation for people.

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Rob Lee
Checking this out to dove more into your story, warning to a guest story to learn more about that word versus this is the exhaustive sort of thing. But I think going into it with that sort of curiosity is closely aligned with wanting to be a student in that area.

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Andre Mazelin
Well, absolutely. And you asked me, you know, what drew me to Dan's place was part of it. Right. So I've never been the sole head of an organization before. So this is it. So here are some things. I have a toolbox, as I said before, that I'm bringing to this organization, but with a lot in there. I have a lot of tools because I've been doing this for minute, but there are things that I don't know and new things that I need to need to navigate.

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Andre Mazelin
And that's part of the thrill for me, is the challenge of, Oh yeah, so I'm stepping into this new role. It may be intimidating and sometimes it is and it feels that way, but also I feel like I can handle it. You know, I can. I can grow into it. There are things I can learn. There are people I have a large network of folks who are doing similar work who I can rely on and call on for counsel.

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Andre Mazelin
So it's always that I've never I've never there. I feel like I'm close, but I'm never there. And if I if I ever feel like I get there, I'm going to look for the next thing. That's also going to be challenging because I want to be challenged in life.

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Rob Lee
Is what.

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Andre Mazelin
Is it? Is that.

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Rob Lee
Saying like when a who's the smartest person in the room, that sort of thing is like if you're the smartest person, go to another room.

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Speaker 4
Right? Yeah.

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Andre Mazelin
I love that. Yeah, exactly.

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Rob Lee
So it's really two arts leadership and it's intersection with the business. Describe maybe a business lesson that you had to unlearn to be successful in like the work that you're doing now.

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Andre Mazelin
The art came first for me. I said, you know, I stepped into a kind of not planning to step in it. So business actually added it happened in reverse where I had the art and all the all of the lack of business knowledge. But I still made my way through it and got some things done, but then went back to school and got a business degree.

00;24;16;11 - 00;24;28;26
Andre Mazelin
So the business added to the art, you know, contracts and negotiation and and spreadsheets and all of that. All of the things you learn in business school sheets.

00;24;29;03 - 00;24;30;08
Rob Lee
Oh, those spreadsheets.

00;24;30;16 - 00;24;54;27
Andre Mazelin
Formulas, yeah. Coming up with all these, these crazy formulas. So business really added to the art. I didn't have to unlearn anything. But what what I've realized and what we all realize recently with COVID is that it's not business as usual. And even though we're in creative fields, you can't expect people just to, you know, get back into the building happily.

00;24;54;28 - 00;25;27;04
Andre Mazelin
People are still dealing with stuff. So what I what I check myself on is realizing that the people who work with me and are on my team need space to do their work. They're not always going to show up and be gleaming versions of themselves. So taking a step back, I think is important. Letting folks function how they need to function for a day or two while they're going through some things is something that I think we all would be better off as leaders in doing and supporting our people.

00;25;27;04 - 00;25;44;11
Andre Mazelin
So if I had to unlearn, let's take a step back since COVID hit is that we can just be grinding through it the way we once did. And we have to give people space to kind of deal with their emotions and deal with their mental health and deal with themselves. The work will always be there, but we've got to provide that space for them to get back to it.

00;25;45;08 - 00;25;57;16
Rob Lee
When I present. So I got one last real question. I can always call them real questions because, you know, some people like one of these these goofy questions about, you know, ice cream and peanut butter. It's like because.

00;25;58;04 - 00;25;58;21
Speaker 4
It's a character.

00;25;58;21 - 00;26;09;25
Rob Lee
Question. So appealing the onion bag. What is a secret from your vantage point? It could be complete, you know, bunk. But what is the secret or trait that you feel most creative people share?

00;26;10;10 - 00;26;39;28
Andre Mazelin
They're like a lot of creative people have that can do spirit you know, they could see the possible and the impossible, willing to dream big and not shut things down in the immediate. That would be a through line thread because you know, a lot of people that are struggling to make work and to make make it in art, whatever kind of art it is, they have to believe in themselves and they probably set some goals for themselves that at times no one else believes in it.

00;26;39;28 - 00;26;59;26
Andre Mazelin
So if they're not believing in themselves, they're probably going to quit and stop and, you know, go do something else. So I think a through line that a lot of artists have is that just that belief and not only in themselves, but in the possibility possibilities of the world, the possibilities of their communities, the possibilities in their fellow humans.

00;27;00;14 - 00;27;04;16
Andre Mazelin
So yeah, and I feel the same way. I side with artists on that. I thought.

00;27;05;18 - 00;27;24;25
Rob Lee
That's great. I find myself all the time saying, You got to have better vision. You're like and vision and people like you chill out. I was like, I'm real serious about this. Like, I know I'm sound like a cartoon character, but I think when people don't have that vision, sometimes it really definitely rubs me the wrong way. It's just like, why not?

00;27;24;29 - 00;27;43;25
Rob Lee
You know, it's I'm a why person, not a hollow person. I'm always why. And I know that the house is important, but the why is probably the most important part. Why are we doing this? Why are we spending our time here? Resources, money. And I find that the how at times is it doesn't really care about the why.

00;27;44;07 - 00;27;52;27
Rob Lee
And I think that leads to procrastination and things just not happening. So yeah, yeah. And I think that's a yeah.

00;27;52;27 - 00;27;56;25
Andre Mazelin
You should have an answer for that. Why. Let's get that. Why answer answered. And that's very important.

00;27;58;06 - 00;28;21;24
Rob Lee
So with that I want to be able to dove in to these, these rapid fire questions. So I got four before you. Now, remember, brevity is key here because this is all right. What is your most treasured possession? Why plants how do you how do you make work feel like play?

00;28;22;12 - 00;28;27;02
Andre Mazelin
I take lots of breaks. I don't get burnt out. I step away from.

00;28;27;02 - 00;28;27;13
Speaker 4
Work.

00;28;28;12 - 00;28;48;18
Andre Mazelin
And even at work. I think you got it. You have to go stand around the watercooler, just chat it up with folks, you know, and not be so, so rigid all of the time. And but to go back to a really cliche saying if you love what you do and you never work a day in your life, that's fair.

00;28;48;18 - 00;28;48;29
Rob Lee
That's fair.

00;28;49;17 - 00;28;51;03
Speaker 4
So I know what I'm doing.

00;28;51;03 - 00;29;03;02
Andre Mazelin
Rob So I don't really, I don't really feel like work and I get to put on events for a living. So I'm, I'm playing, I'm playing with lights, I'm playing with sound, I'm playing with seating arrangements, I'm playing with a color.

00;29;04;07 - 00;29;17;13
Rob Lee
I'm playing it keep that keeps it fresh. Yes, that's so someone described the podcast the other day when I did this talk and they were like, so you podcast is this like speed dating, right? And I was like, wow, that's like I never thought about it that way, but you might be right.

00;29;17;20 - 00;29;18;01
Speaker 4
It's just.

00;29;18;05 - 00;29;32;05
Rob Lee
You know, they just enough. Let's see what's gotten you further. Street smarts, the book smarts and smarts. It's only been one person that's picked book smarts. I'm I'm I'm happy about this thing continuing.

00;29;32;25 - 00;29;33;04
Speaker 4
That.

00;29;35;28 - 00;29;52;26
Rob Lee
Someone did the cop out I said I'm a little bit of both I was like nah that's one of the other let's let's not say I make the rules here. So here's the last one I got for you. Which celebrity do people compare you to all the time? Like who's your celebrity look alike? Your doppelganger?

00;29;53;12 - 00;29;58;04
Speaker 4
Oh, I'm a guy from L.A., Reid.

00;29;58;13 - 00;29;59;21
Andre Mazelin
I hear a lot with the bar.

00;29;59;24 - 00;30;00;01
Rob Lee
Oh.

00;30;01;20 - 00;30;03;28
Speaker 4
Yeah, we see it.

00;30;03;28 - 00;30;06;19
Rob Lee
I do. I was thinking Anderson Silva.

00;30;07;10 - 00;30;08;03
Speaker 4
Was the second.

00;30;08;03 - 00;30;21;24
Andre Mazelin
One. I didn't want to say the name of Anderson Silva I've heard a few times. So between L.A. Reid, I heard I heard much more than Anderson Silva, but I've heard Anderson Silva as well. Yes, yes, indeed.

00;30;21;24 - 00;30;38;27
Rob Lee
That's great. I like I don't know if this is why people can't know it, but I've heard, you know, you look like Randy Jackson. I was like, I don't go on talking. I've heard Donald Glover. I was like, again, I don't I don't know. I've heard Hannibal Burress as.

00;30;39;09 - 00;30;40;05
Speaker 4
Against.

00;30;40;23 - 00;31;05;15
Rob Lee
Because like these are vastly different. Look at black dudes I know. Like, just a black guy. Put glasses on and boom, that's you. These like you host a podcast. So with that, I want to thank you for for being on the podcast and shopping it out with me. And I want to invite and encourage you to share with the fine folks where they could check you out where to get check out, dance place, social media website.

00;31;05;21 - 00;31;06;26
Rob Lee
The floor is yours.

00;31;07;11 - 00;31;27;13
Andre Mazelin
Yes, sure. So check us out at dance Place DC on all your socials. Follow us like what we do. If you're in D.C. or you're listening to this from D.C. or in the area, please come by and check us out. We are taking a slow walk into this season. There's been a lot of transition and organization, me being just one piece of that.

00;31;27;24 - 00;31;40;14
Andre Mazelin
So, you know, keep checking us out. There's more coming. We're planning season 24, 2024, 23, 24. So just stay tuned. More to come from Dance Place. It's going to be great.

00;31;41;01 - 00;32;02;07
Rob Lee
And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Andre Maslin from Dance Place for coming on and chopping it up with me. And I'm Rob Lee saying that there's art, creativity and organizations pushing that forward in and around your neighborhood. You have to look forward.