02-25-2024 Harford Mag - Flipbook - Page 74
Monique Watson (center, in green pants) joined a dance team in Washington, D.C. called Culture Shock while she was a student at the University of
Maryland. She went into D.C. and Maryland schools to teach and perform with the nonprofit hip hop organization. COURTESY OF WATSON
Shock, a nonprofit hip hop organization that
brought Watson into D.C. and Maryland
schools to teach and perform, she served as a
deputy artistic director. She was also working
at the Dance Institute of Washington after
college — but wanted to set an even bigger
example for her students, she said.
“I could not be telling them that they
could do and achieve all these things … but
I wasn’t taking my own advice and doing it
for myself,” Watson recalled thinking.
So she took a leap that catapulted her into
“The Color Purple,” an adaptation of the
eponymous Broadway musical and Alice
Walker book with Oprah Winfrey among
its producers.
Watson got a call in the fall of 2021 to
audition for a crew that would workshop
the movement for the movie. The audition,
she said, was set to a gospel song.
“It was kind of like putting everything
that I grew up on, on the floor,” she said.
Eventually, she headed to Atlanta for more
rehearsals and to film, learning the lyrics
to the film’s songs and partaking in vocal
rehearsals, she said.
Watson recalled persevering through
overnight shoots and Georgia heat, in
addition to donning uncomfortable heels.
But she felt the excitement of her family
when she returned to Harford County for
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Watson performed with more than 100 dancers during the halftime show at Super Bowl LVI in 2022, appearing
on top of a car at the 50-yard line while Mary J. Blige sang. Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and
Mary J. Blige perform during halftime of Super Bowl LVI NFL football game at SoFi Stadium on Feb. 13, 2022.
PHOTO BY DAVID CRANE, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS/SCNG
“I have done — in three years, insanely —
all the things that I wanted.”
— Monique Watson