Chloé Arnold Spreads Holiday Cheer As Lead Choreographer For Apple TV+ ‘Spirited’

Sometimes exclusion from certain arenas propels a person to create opportunities for themselves that otherwise would not be given to them; such is the case of Emmy-nominated choreographer Chloé Arnold. She took a chance to bet on herself and her talent, which led her to produce a fruitful career earning credits from The Late Late Show with James Corden, So You Think You Can Dance, and Good Morning America.

For the new holiday movie, Spirited by Apple TV+, Arnold served as the lead choreographer, guided an all-Black female choreography team for the film, and designed the production's dance numbers that incorporated tap dancing, aerialists, ballet sequences, and other forms of movement.

While she does have a distinguished career, her artistic origin story helped to influence the success she has today. Originally from Washington, D.C., Arnold entered the world of dance at the tender age of six. However, when she saw the 1989 movie Tap, starring Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis Jr., she realized the trajectory she wanted her life to follow. Arnold worked towards becoming a tap dancer and included dance in film. She cites the late Gregory Hines as being a source of inspiration. Within a year of viewing his film, Arnold had the opportunity to meet him when he traveled to Washington, D.C., to do community programming through teaching workshops. Interacting with Hines and seeing him perform, the experience helped to evolve Arnold's vision of what could be achieved with dance and through the medium of film. From there, she took classes instructed by the famed Nicholas Brothers and Diane Walker.

"My whole childhood, so many incredible Black artists, were coming to D.C. My sister is six years younger than me, so she followed in my footsteps in terms of joining the dance programs. She was always in the room where it happens, and she has a very wonderfully large personality," Arnold excitedly reminisces of her sibling Maud, who is six years younger. "No matter where I was dancing, whether she was in the program or not, she was always in the program."

When Arnold was sixteen, Debbie Allen held dance auditions for performers well versed in jazz, swing and who could act and sing for a musical Allen was spearheading, set at the Kennedy Center.

"I ended up getting a role of the tap feature, but then she stretched me in all of the other genres and showed me that there are no limits. She challenged me to expand my language of communication. So tap would always be like my first language, but I would be able to communicate and have infinite possibilities within the realm of dance and art. I'm so thankful because that expansiveness is what prepared me to be able to do a film like [Spirited]," she says.

Allen continues to serve as Arnold's mentor to this day, and she made it a point to engage with her as much as possible through volunteering and other capacities. When she entered Columbia University in New York to pursue dance, she praised Allen for encouraging her to study film because it would help her shape her own stories.

"If you have the skill set and the the-know-how to do that, then you will never be waiting on someone else to approve and to green light you. It was an important and empowering message because Debbie Allen had been there and done all of this. I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be as a curvy Black woman in the art of tap dance and how I would have to truly become an entrepreneur, create and utilize this skill that I had to curate and produce my own work," she says, adding she was thankful when her sister also studied dance and film at Columbia. "When she graduated, we tag teamed and created, and executive produced all of our projects."

The sisters decided to combine their education and artistry, "Broadway is not hiring people like us right now, that's fine. We're going to create Syncopated Ladies and make our own way, Debbie Allen was the motivator behind that, and she also took me in after I graduated from college. I lived with her until I was able to get the next steps going."

During her college summer breaks, she and her sister lived with Allen in L.A. and performed at dance camps offered by Allen's school while living at her home. "Her generosity is on another level. Thanks to her, I was introduced to the mega land of Hollywood, understanding and navigating it, and Syncopated Ladies was born in one of her studios. She gave me free space to create, and her thing was if it doesn't exist, create it, and that's what we did," she describes, bearing in mind that all her television work and other projects she's worked on stems from watching and shadowing Allen on production sets. Arnold armed herself with pen and paper, spending copious amounts of time with Allen as she directed, observing, and learning.

"I'm thankful because that got me into choreographing television, and the experience I had on television was phenomenal. I've been working on The Late Late Show with James Corden for six years. So it's intense, late-night TV moves very quickly with a lot of A-listers. Some may dance, some may not, and it also brings on professionals," she says.

Arnold acknowledged her time spent on the small screen adequately prepared her to instruct the actors from Spirited who were novices with commanding step sequences to eventually making them into masters of the craft of movement.

"These are gifted humans and then also bringing in phenomenal dancers and making sure that they're shining as well. So it's been very rewarding to have this moment," she adds.

Early in her career, Arnold's commitment to her work caught the eye of mega-star Beyoncé, who shared the dance composition of Syncopated Ladies on her website and later invited them to perform with her. Arnold lists her dance teacher Tony Landry, Allen and Beyoncé, who were two key Black women in her life, as the three individuals who helped to catapult her career and opened many doors of opportunity.

In 2012, Arnold and her sister created Chloe and Maud Productions to produce their work and showcase it to the world. Their first notable video saluted the "Get Me Bodied" artist, and though they had worked with her before, although not in the sphere of tap, they applauded her accomplishments for her status as a dancing icon.

"She inspired us so much. I left that experience, saying the way I feel when dancing with her is how I want to feel in tap shoes. So we had to create that confident and empowering work. In 2013, we saluted her, just a thank you from a distance. I didn't think she'd ever see it. She ended up seeing it, shared it on her Facebook page, and wrote, "they killed it," she says in retrospect. Subsequently, Beyoncé's recommendation caused the video to go viral, and Arnold and her dance troupe performed for the show So You Think You Can Dance, thanks to Paula Abdul, Arnold's band would go on to win the crew battle. The exposure enabled Arnold to create tours, and when Beyoncé released her popular "Formation" video; Arnold followed it with another dance tribute to the track.

"I didn't expect anything from her because, at that point, she had already done so much to inspire and support us. But she went further, and this time she took our "Formation" video and made it the homepage of Beyonce.com for several weeks. So when you went there, you saw our photo and video Syncopated Ladies press play, which shifted everything. I think that reached no less, from the numbers I saw, at least 30 million people," she recalls how the introduction led her team to perform in London to L.A. for the launch of Ivy Park.

A stage was built in the storefront and placed speakers to amplify into the Oxford Circus in London, and the ladies performed "Formation" throughout the day as adorned in Ivy Park gear. Arnold praises Blue Ivy's mother for being a steadfast supporter who utilizes her platform to boost the dreams and art of other creators.

"Her kindness has been unparalleled; from that moment in 2016 till now, we didn't stop working. The opportunities have been endless thanks to her; I call it the Beyoncé effect," she gushes.

The mentorship and opportunity provided by Allen and Beyoncé inspired the Arnold sisters to create the Chloe and Maud Foundation to reach back and help other aspiring performers with unnumbered possibilities and educational programming in dance and entrepreneurship.

Understanding the assignment, Arnold's experience and exuberance for tap helped her to deliver rich kinesthetic instruction to Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, all of whom expressed concern about their dancing abilities.

"I looked into their dance abilities, and the first thing I did was hire a team to work with them before we would get to what we call Basecamp, which is our headquarters, an awesome, massive building with dance floors and studios. But before we even got there, I wanted them to get some private lessons to get them familiar with movement, dance, and the language," she said of molding the actors to conquer a tap number.

For the first step, Reynolds, Ferrell, and Spencer each took private lessons with teachers that Arnold had hand-picked who she thought would be kind but assertive and were not starstruck. Then she devised a game plan when they assembled in Boston; she contemplated the duality of how the music inspires movement, how the story inspired their dialogue, and what the artists will bring to their characters to make it all come alive.

"We can all do the same steps, and it can be felt in a different way. My mission with all of them was to find vocabulary that they could relate to, that felt organic, and that they could embody and become one with the movement. Thankfully, we had a workshop period where together, I could give them the ideas I thought. But then, if I see that's not the right move for him, let me adjust it, or when you say turn to someone who doesn't dance, it's daunting and can feel wobbly. But if I say to him do a superhero jump to Ryan Reynolds, he knows what that means, boom, superhero turn, executed, strong, firm, and it's exactly what we want," she says, speaking of her instruction. Arnold's understanding of how to lean into the strengths of each actor and her ability to pivot quickly, a skill she said she cultivated at the Late Late Show, Arnold maintained people's morale and joy during the learning process. She also reinforced their confidence by communicating with the actors that when she modified a dance move, it was not due to the actor's incapability but instead creating a movement that enhanced and fit their character.

"The particular numbers that we got to do with them, for example, "Good Afternoon," that one is so fun and burly, and it's tough, that speaks to them very well. Marching through those streets, that's more in their natural wheelhouse of persona and being able to perform that, but again it was a journey," she says of the course of action she took to dissect the lyrics and the story for Reynolds and Ferrell to know how to push through the streets of London.

Including the unique movement of tap dancing into jargon the actors could recognize was challenging for Arnold. She had to find gestures that felt organic for them to execute. When they engaged in a dance battle during the film, Arnold wanted the moment to come across as Reynold's character "Clint Briggs" bonding with "Ebenezer Scrooge," played by Ferrell. Finding the balance for the actors to connect took some time. Still, they were all dedicated to the same mission, resulting in Reynolds and Ferrell giving an entertaining performance in the holiday-themed film.

Spirited is nuanced and touches on silliness, somber introspection, and the consequences of choices, all wrapped up in a crimson bow with holiday cheer and sprinkles of comedy. Considering that Reynolds and Ferrell are both known for their droll starring roles in previous movies, Arnold took into account the jocose premise of the film when crafting the choreography for the sequences.

Bringing her background in comedy and her relationship with the art of tap, she wanted to heighten the respect for the dance style. Arnold recalls that Ferrell held such an appreciation for tap that when he heard there was a U.S. National Tap Dance Day on May 25, he merrily circulated the fact throughout the entire campus. When Reynolds says the line that tap "is a very expressive medium," it made Arnold thankful that the tap was seen and received with sincerity by the actors who used the skill of tap to convey their comedic prowess without diminishing the art form.

For "Bringing Back Christmas," the humor came from Reynold's character charm and his ability to rile up the crowd, which displayed the magnitude of his manipulation and power, "The laugh would come from Ferrell saying 'he's a great mix of Ryan Seacrest and Mussolini."

The article "Tap Dance in America: A Short History" delves into the history of tap, stating that the dance is a fusion of British and West African culture and "step-dance traditions in America" which gained prominence during the 1700s in the south of the United States. The Irish jig and the West African gioube evolved into American jig and juba, and it proved germane for Arnold to cast a diverse group of dancers from all backgrounds and ages.

"I started Syncopated Ladies because I didn't see any black women tap dancing in positions of power, on tours, in the lead roles, or in mainstream [media]. I know what it feels like to be marginalized," says Arnold, who made it to a point to show a high level of diversity because holiday films tend to skew one way. "Holiday films are amazing because they come every year, [they] can become a classic part of the culture for years to come."

Apple, the director, and producers gave her the green light to build a world that represents everyone. The director wanted the dancers to play a vital part in telling the story and not just appear for a dance arrangement.

"They let me cast all of my dancers. I cast dancers from age seven to 74, all kinds of body types, ranging from all ethnicities. When the holidays come around, I want people to feel included and part of the celebration, not a spectator. Our foundation bought out theaters in L.A., New York, and D.C., and we invited our community partners from each city. Dancers, kids [came out] to watch the movie, and the response was so rewarding because they felt a part of it," she retells. "I wanted people to feel when they see this film, [to feel] a part of the culture and not on the periphery."

Arnold is excited that people today are expressing themselves through song and dance, which in African culture is the norm. Dance creates community and is a unifying factor that brings everyone together. Social media platforms like TikTok have made this generation incorporate dance into their everyday lives, and viewers of the app will undoubtedly immerse themselves in the story of Spirited.

"Dance is having this renaissance back into normal life so that we as a culture can feel the joy, freedom, and hope when we dance together. I do a dance challenge on my social media, I see a kid doing it in Washington, D.C., and then a kid doing it in Brazil, Croatia, and South Africa. Now, all of a sudden, we have a global connection. We are now united in a way we would never have been before," Arnold says, pointing out she taught dance in thirty countries and was well received because of the connection that dance brings. "When I looked at my TikTok stats and the countries participating on my page, it was so rewarding. I saw the U.S., of course, but I saw Mexico, Egypt, South Africa, all across Europe, Brazil, and the UK."

For her work on Spirited, she believes that audiences will feel the same level of rapport with the film whether or not they value musicals. Arnold commends the holiday movie for showcasing the arts and coupling it with a message of understanding one's impact, the concept of redemption, and the effects of cyberbullying.

Arnold shared an anecdote when one of her friends sent a screenshot of his conversation with his father that read, "Maybe I'm not unredeemable after all. That's the kind of work we want in the world."

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Spirited is available for streaming on Apple TV+.