Debbie Allen speaks to Yahoo Entertainment about her storied career. (Illustration: Aisha Yousaf/Photos: Getty Images)
When Debbie Allen — the six-time Emmy-winning actress, producer, director and choreographer known for Fame and That’s So Raven, and the founder of a dance academy dedicated to helping communities transform their lives through movement — is asked what makes her feel most like a superhero, she laughs.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt like a superhero,” she tells Yahoo Entertainment. “Maybe because I don’t sleep. Maybe that’s the part. I’ve never thought of myself as a superhero.”
The Kennedy Center honoree’s dance-academy students, who range in age from 3 to 95, are a different story.
“Oh, my dancers have self-confidence and they’re determined to make the world better,” says Allen, who notably taught choreography to a young Paula Abdul. “They know that the dance brings a lot of light and joy, and that they are changing people’s lives every time. We bring that, we talk about that and they know that they’re special, that they’re in this world and that they’re privileged.”
Why all the superhero talk? Because Allen’s academy has partnered with the new Disney Junior show Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes, an animated series that follows the adventures of Kiya, a 7-year-old fan of both dance and martial arts who lives in the southern-African inspired Kimoja City. Along with her friends Motsie and Jay, Kiya and her friends need only put on magical crystal headbands to activate their superpowers, which enable them to overcome setbacks in their mission to bring peace and joy to the world around them.
The partnership means that the Debbie Allen Dance Academy will lead lectures, inspired by Kiya, demonstrating how dance builds community, at Los Angeles elementary schools.
So, in a way, dance is Allen’s version of a magic crystal headband.
“It’s through dancing I’ve connected with thousands and millions of people,” she explains.
Her school, which was started in 2001, provides classes for kids, yes, but also elders and cancer patients, in many cases filling a void of the arts.
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“I just feel like I could solve some of the problems in this world [if I could] make them take a dance class,” Allen says with a laugh. “Get over here, Putin. You do a kick ball change. Let’s go.”
Debbie Allen celebrates Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy’s Free Community Block Party in February in Los Angeles. (Photo: Alberto Rodriguez)
Dancing is just part of Allen’s career, though. She’s also been an executive producer, director and actress on Shonda Rhimes‘s longtime ABC hit Grey’s Anatomy for the better part of a decade. On the series, she plays Catherine Fox, the urologist married to James Pickens Jr’s character, Dr. Richard Webber, the former chief of surgery at what’s now known as Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. In all, the show has been going for a stunning 19 seasons; long enough that Ellen Pompeo, who played the “Grey,” left her full-time role last fall. The show is forging ahead without her.
Allen has a simple theory about why viewers have stuck with the series for so long.
“I think people like the show because it’s real and we’re dealing with real-life issues,” she says. “And in the middle of that we’ll make you laugh, but we will take your heart. We will. And twist it up.”
She points out the characters that people love — doctors Grey and Webber, Miranda Bailey and Owen Hunt — and the fact that the medical drama features real-life situations, like the COVID-19 pandemic and reproductive rights.
The show’s legacy, she says, has already been determined.
“Different people carry away different things, but I think it will be loved and be watched and rewatched for a long time as a show that gave a portrayal of reality in the medical world — and it just happens to be in the medical world — but it’s about the relationships; you know, competitiveness, love, betrayal, people falling off their bike and have to get back on,” Allen says. ” I just know from the letters that I get and the people I talk to on [Instagram] that they see themselves in this show. And we’ve inspired millions of people to go into the medical profession, especially young women. Especially. Which is so great. That’s amazing.”
Many would say the same about her.
Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes premieres March 22 at 4 p.m. on Disney Junior and Disney+.
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