We get it. The world is reopening and you’re probably sick of reading about television and movie productions that persevered during the COVID pandemic. Everyone’s memory is clearly fleeting because, from an industry perspective, the modifications put in over the past 12 months will be one of the major entertainment stories of the decade if not century. How studios, networks, filmmakers, and producers pulled this off with almost no confirmed guidance was a tense affair. One award-winning professional who was smack dab in the middle of this unprecedented challenge was choreographer Jamal Sims.
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You may not recognize his name, but Sims’ credits include Guy Ritchie’s “Aladdin,” the “Footloose” remake, “17 Again,” “Vanilla Sky,” “Get Smart” and Madonna’s “Sticky & Sweet” Tour. He’s also been a major contributor to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” as a choreographer for the past two seasons and co-directed “RuPaul’s Drag Race Revue” which got less than a month of performances in at the Flamingo Hotel before the pandemic hit.
Under a cloud of secrecy, “Drag Race” was one of the first reality competition programs or television series to return to production in June of 2020 (to be fair, the show is always under wraps to try to avoid spoilers with its rabid fan base). As you’d expect, there were rigorous testing and safety protocols, but when your job is to teach up to 12 nervous contestants a complicated dance number in 24 hours (or less), that makes things even more difficult than usual.
“I’m very hands-on. And sometimes I have to bend [the contestants] arms or being closer to them to actually get them to do the moves,” Sims says. “But the distance really kind of created a barrier of like, ‘How do I get this information to you without being so close?’ That’s really hard. And dance is physical. There’s a lot of physicality that we have to have. But then too, again, they have the shield. I have to do it in a mask and all this kind of stuff. It was tough. Everybody took a chance, everybody took a risk, and it all worked out. And thank God, but yeah, it was a scary time.”
Sims jumped on the phone earlier this month to discuss the challenges in choreographing the seasonal musical challenge (referred to as a “Rusical”) and the finale four contestant number. Additionally, he teased a little bit about his current project, “13: The Musical,” the Tamra Davis-directed adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s Broadway musical that’s currently filming in Toronto.
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The Playlist: Thanks so much for taking the time. I know you are very busy shooting at the moment.
Jamal Simms: Anytime. Thanks for having me.
Before we talk about “Drag Race,” I want to ask about “13” first. Tell me if I’m wrong. Just based on what I read about it, this involves a lot of kids’ choreography? Are you having to deal with more kids than you’ve ever dealt with before on any project?
Oh, yeah. [Laughs.] It’s wall-to-wall 13-year-olds. Absolutely. It is a madhouse.
What is the biggest challenge in that respect?
You know what the biggest challenge right now is because we’re shooting in Toronto, and we’re still on lockdown. So on top of working with kids and trying to get them to take your direction, they’re dealing with masks and shields. There are COVID protocols. We can’t be too close to the kids. And so, I think that’s probably been the hardest challenge. Because on top of just working with them on a regular level, there’s protection gear, that’s even another layer. If that makes sense. But that’s been the hardest thing because the kids are actually really professional. And a lot of these kids have been trained since they were two or three years old. So they’re pretty skilled and talented dancers and singers and actors, but I think the COVID thing, the precautions really take a toll after a while.
That must feel very familiar, because “Drag Race” season 13, was one of the first productions in LA that went back into production during the stay-at-home orders. Can you talk about that experience for those first early two episodes, having to shoot in those COVID protocols?
Yeah, because it was a scary time, even them saying they were going back. I was nervous to even go back, because I was like, “Are we sure we’re going to be okay?” I just wasn’t sure what I was walking into, and I didn’t want to put myself at risk. And I’m sure everyone else didn’t want to put themselves at risk either. But then we’re like, “We have to. This is ‘Drag Race.’ We have to do it.” So, I feel like everybody was still on edge, and we didn’t know how this thing spread. So for me, it was even like a real decision, like, “O.K., do I really want to do this? Or should I just stay at home and protect myself?” But like I said, we’re like family over there. I was like, “Well, if Ru’s there, everybody’s there, we’re probably doing everything they can to keep everybody safe.” So I went back. Then when I get there, now I can’t work with the Queens on stage, I have to stay down off the stage. I’m very hands-on. And sometimes I have to bend their arms or being closer to them to actually get them to do the moves. But the distance really kind of created a barrier of like, ‘How do I get this information to you without being so close?’ That’s really hard. And dance is physical. There’s a lot of physicality that we have to have. But then too, again, they have the shield. I have to do it in a mask and all this kind of stuff. It was tough. Everybody took a chance, everybody took a risk, and it all worked out. And thank God, but yeah, it was a scary time.
Did it help that so many of the Queens were experienced dancers? I mean, I feel like, every season, there’s always a bunch of Queens who went dance school or were professional dancers. But this season, it seemed like there were a bit more than I remember.
Sometimes it can be the best thing ever that they have experienced and they have the dance background. But sometimes when they have that, they’re so trained to do something one way, that it prevents them from thinking outside the box. And so, they’re locked into a certain song. As you know, on “Drag Race,” we want to push the Queens outside the box, so they can grow. So, sometimes it kind of works against you. You know what I mean? Like [season finalist] Rose is a technical dancer, but to get her to be street, or do something that felt, for lack of a better word, hip hop, it was hard for Rose to really like break [free from that] technical background she has. But the idea that you can catch on to the choreography definitely puts you at an advantage.
Many Emmy voters and viewers don’t realize the contestants only have 24-48 hours to learn this choreography. How much time do you even get to come up with the choreography before they even start working on it?
Let me tell you, it really depends. Honestly, sometimes I get the music a couple of days ahead of time. Some days, it’s like, I want to say with “Lucky,” the performance, I don’t think till I got on set. I got an idea, like a demo the day before, but we didn’t know who was going to be in the final episode if that makes sense. I would have to prepare for five lip syncs. Five, just in case, and then I have to wait to get the lyrics that they wrote. So I have an idea in my head of what the choruses are like, but I don’t know what the verses are like. So on top of teaching them something that I already know, which is the chorus. I don’t know what the verses [are]. So that’s something that I have to come up with in my trailer before we go on to shoot sometimes. But then other times, like the “Rusical” this season, I have a bit more time because at least we know the structure of the rubrical and the lyrics.
Simms continues: But I will say that they don’t have a lot of time. In the “Rusical’ there’s 12 Queens. The time that I’m given with each queen, when I’m on camera, is usually 10 minutes. It may be less sometimes, but if there’s a lot of Queens, like two or three per queen, that I get to be on camera teaching. Then after we’re done shooting, then I have an hour to put together the whole thing. And then they go home, they practice their parts. And then in the morning, we come in, and we run it, and then they’re off to get wardrobe and hair and makeup. But I mean, they’re getting done. So it’s really not even 24 hours.
For “Lucky,” which was filmed for the last episode, it’s not only the Queens you have to choreograph. You recruited other dancers to be in those scenes. So it would seem even more inherently difficult, because you don’t want to have the dancers in the back, just hanging out, doing nothing. It seems like a lot when you’re getting the final track that day.
Oh, baby. It’s a lot. [Laughs.] I’m glad you brought that up because this is something that I don’t even think that I’ve got to say before. Working during COVID, especially for the “Lucky” performance, because if you noticed, in the “Rusical,” we didn’t have dancers at all, because they were afraid to bring in any extras. That [was] early on in the season. There were no dancers in the “Rusical.” When I did the “Madonna Rusical” [the previous season,] I had dancers. It always helps to have support, right? So when a dancer is there, you feel supported. If you do a lift or if you do any kind of anything, it’s just good to have that strong foundation around you. With the queens, I always find that they flourish when they have dancers around. But so for this one they were like, “Do you want dancers?” We could have dancers, but they have to be masked. And they can’t be around the queens. And so, a part of it was like, “Ooh, should I? I mean, if they can’t be around the Queens if they can’t be near them, then what’s the point of having them?” Then I also thought, “But aesthetically, it creates a whole other thing. Let’s have the dancers. Let’s bring them,” because this is the first time dancers were coming back to the show. And then we had to think of a way to mask them and without it looking like surgical masks. It was my idea to do these fencing masks that would cover their face but might look like an artistic decision.
The performance has one of the more interesting production sets the show has used in a while. Did you pitch them? Was that part of a group decision?
Absolutely. Yeah. I got on with the producers, and we just started to snowball on ideas of how this number should go down. We knew we had to keep the queens apart from the dancers. And then we knew that it couldn’t be everybody on stage together, because then that would be a whole thing. One idea grew into another idea but it happened really fast, almost like in a day or so. We didn’t have that much time.
At this point in the pandemic, not a lot of people were working. Granted, we can’t see their faces, but were you able to get, for lack of a better term, the pick of the litter of dancers? Or were some people skeptical about coming back to work?
No. Dancers were ready to work. I was a dancer first. So, when you have to perform, you’re just ready to go. People were ready to risk everything, just to be able to do it. I actually called the dancers that I had in the Vegas show because [it had temporarily closed because of the pandemic]. And so, they were out of work, and I really felt bad for them, because they got the job, and they were planning on this certain amount of income coming in, and then it just stopped. So I was like, “No, let’s get the Vegas dancers. They deserve to be here.”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” season 13 is available on VH1.com and iTunes.
