Robbin Ebb Interview, June 24, 2023

And today is June 24th, we're at Columbia Heights Festival, and it's 2023. I'm Dan Kerr, could you tell us your name?

My name is Robin Ebb, lead instructor with DC Retro Jumpers, Double Dutch for Fun.

Oh, that's wonderful. Okay, and could you tell us a little bit about how long you've lived in the city and your connection to Columbia Heights?

I am a native Washingtonian. I've come up into this area, even when I was a youngster I used to come up in this area. So I've been here all my life.

That's terrific. And can you tell us maybe some of your earliest memories of this area of Columbia Heights?

This area kind of has changed. It wasn't Hispanic mostly, but it has grown to that and I love to see it because that's their own community which, sometimes that's what we need is our own community to feel like we're at home. So that's what I've seen it grow into, which is a fabulous thing.

I see, I see. So you had— when you came here as a— when you were young, where, what would you do in the neighborhood or where would you go?

It didn't have a lot of activity, you just would be walking. Didn't have a lot of stores, it just was places to go whether I was coming from a friend's house or an event. But it's never been, like, festival type events. They just kind of started that over probably the last 10 years probably and it has grown. So that's what I'm enjoying. And then me being a part of a Columbia Heights program, this is our third year actually doing it. So we've been bringing double dutch in this community for a minute. And they participate, that's what I love to see, that they will participate. They look and say, "what is that?" but then when they see the other kids doing it then they say, "oh, it's not that hard so let me try it," so that that gives me a lot of joy.

And could you tell me a little bit about double dutch and how you got into that?

Double dutch. Double dutch, I have done this all my life. I mean, I didn't get into the competition of it, but when I saw it in the streets I felt like I could do what they were doing and I pretty much did, and it was so much fun, so I continued to do it. One of the things was a young lady had came and asked me, do you want to jump double dutch for our own fitness? It was eight of us. And we did it for like a year. And then the recreation center that we were using, which is Turkey Thicket, asked us if we would do community events. So we started doing community events, we did schools, we did all kinds of things. And I'm in five after school programs. We just did the— we're getting ready to do the Cherry Blossom, we just did the Cherry Blossom Parade. I took my kids that were in the schools, and I took maybe four from each school, and came up with this performance team. So now we're performing all over the city, Tidal Basin, like I said the Cherry Blossom Parade, going to be in the 4th of July Independence Parade down on Constitution Avenue. So I go into my different schools or my different recreation centers, teach my kids the double dutch, they love it to death, and I take them and make a team, a performance team, and we go out and do performances all over the place. It's amazing to watch.

And you said as a kid, what neighborhood were you raised in?

I was raised in Lincoln Heights in Northeast Washington. Yeah.

And that's where you started doing the double dutch?

That's where I started.

Excellent. And who did you learn from?

I just— one of the things is I'm an acrobatic, former acrobatic, I'm a contortionist that did flips, and did bends and all that. So my dad was an acrobatic instructor. His name was Russell Nesbitt. He had a team called the Flying Nesbitts. And he did the same thing, it's so ironic, I'm doing what he did. He took the neighborhood kids, taught them this— taught them these skills. And then he took them— I did Atlantic City with Gladys Knight and the Pips, and the Spinners, and show you how old I am Billy Eckstine. So, but, he took the kids in the neighborhood, taught them how to do the acrobatics, and then we toured all over the city. So now I'm doing that with the double dutch, which is so cool. It's really really cool.

That's wonderful. And how did your dad get into all of this?

My dad liked Grizzly, he liked to see somebody flip somebody, and turn over, so he stayed under the circus— under the big top. So he would He would get into the circus, and watch the Fernandez, and watch them do their thing. And then he took it and did his own thing with it. They did acrobatics with those apparatuses that keep them up. He did it without them. He did it with his body. And so that by itself was just a totally different, something new, and odd, and just different, because nobody else was doing it. They was using those apparatuses that kept their feet up or whatever. So he, and I did it, didn't know what I was doing, but I'd follow his instructions. And it was just what he wanted. Like I said, I was a contortionist. I could do a lot of bending and stuff. So he would have me up in the air doing those type of things. So yeah, I mean, I just enjoy seeing that when I go to the circuses. So I go to every circus just to see what their acrobatic things are, so yeah.

Oh, that's wonderful. And so going to the festivals is just kind of this long tradition for you?

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

And so you've gone to quite a few different festivals around the city.

I try to make a lot of them, especially during the summertime.

And do you have a— What are some of the comparisons you might make between the different festivals?

The music. [laughs]

OK.

The music, but I'm a universal type of person. I love all genres of music, but it's the music, maybe the activities a little bit, you know. Kids are kids, so it don't matter what you do with kids, whether it's hands-on or whether it's something they're drawing or anything like that, but in different areas like over in Northeast we like go-go. They could play here but they won't appreciate it as if they were over in the Northeast area. Here up here the Hispanic music— like I said, I think I'm a universal culture type person because I love all different type of music. So this is what they enjoy. So that's what they play.

That's great. And so you said you've been doing this three years now.

You mean—?

The festival itself.

The festival, mm-hmm.

And can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved and what it's been like across these three different years?

Well, I'll tell you, your contact person saw us every year. I'm sure we did this 10 years now, Anacostia Park Festival. So someone from there saw us down there doing it, and then they invited us to your festival, and I'm telling you we've been here every year, and it's been amazing. Even last summer they had several different events up here. I mean, it must have been twelve. And we were here from October— might have been September to October, November. We was into the winter months. And we were still doing double dutch and the kids were still wanting to jump.

Oh, that's fantastic.

It's amazing. I love to see the guys. So what I do is I incorporate guy movements, you know, jumping jack, knees up, and once they see, even the guys have taught me, there's a dance move that the children do, which is the floss. So they incorporate those moves, and they see their friends doing it, and they want to see who can do it the longest or who can do it the best. And that makes the guys realize that this is not a girl's sport, this is an anybody's sport. And that's what I want to bring all the kids, not just the girls, the guys too. And I have them jumping together as teams, so they come up with team ethics. And it just blows my mind, because they take my little template and just blow it up and do something. You know, they're so creative. And once it's fun to them, they do so many other different things. Guys flipping, some of them flip over my shoulders, but that's what I'm saying. They're so inspired by what they see, and they want to take it to a whole other level. I personally want to take a— I want to develop a performance team of five guys and two girls. Because the guys do stuff that girls just wouldn't even think of. So when I say flipping over each other, the girls would do it, but the guys, they're a little bit more athletic. So it's easier sometimes. And for me as a turner, I have to see your rhythm and I can pick it up. And if you keep doing the same thing, we're gonna keep going longer. So that's the part that I love about dealing with guys. Guys just go take this thing to a whole nother level. But the girls in there with them though, sometimes.

So you've been involved in festivals in the city for a while now.

All my life.

Where would you like to see the future of these festivals in 10 years or so?

Wow, that's a good question because I just like to see them in areas that don't have festivals. They have to go out of their neighborhood to go to the festivals. And I'm not sure exactly what neighborhoods those are, because they're really getting good at being in different places. But there are still little areas that they— I'm even going to try and find them out, because I'm in different areas anyway. I deal with the library, so you know, they have, what, 20 libraries all over the city and they're asking me to come more often. But then I notice they don't have a whole lot of activity, and then maybe I could ask District Bridges to come into that little area. Because I see that they're in Mount Pleasant. That's one of my libraries that I perform at, or do exhibitions at. But there are areas like Southeast, there's a little teeny library called Southeast. And even though that's on Capitol Hill, Capitol Hill is very [air quotes] up and coming. So to bring something like that in there, they would love it. So those little areas that have a library, which would also bring more people. You already have people because they're going to the library. So that area, Capitol Hill, Eastern Market is— I went to Heinz up there. They done re-turned that thing into a whole other world up there. So, but I'm enjoying it because you get to see different things, you get to experience different vendors that you probably wouldn't see in that area. So it's just opening up the world.

The world is like a melting pot of just so many cultures. So that's a wonderful thing. And I love seeing that mixture. I don't like seeing one over here and one over here. I like to see all of us intertwined, because we'll get a little more understanding of what you're dealing with and how you deal with what you're dealing with. And maybe I can still understand what you're going through and then we can understand what each other's going through. That empathy thing is big and it's real. It's real. I'm big on that, so anything I can help change, I like to resolve things and make them better than what they were in the beginning. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't, but when it does work, it makes everybody so much more passionate about what it is that they're doing. And when you got that big passion in the room, oh my gosh, it's like you're walking on air. And sometimes people have never felt that. I've felt that a lot, I feel that when I get involved with my kids and to see them grow from just being afraid of jumping double dutch to wanting to do more and flipping in, I'm like, oh my gosh where did this come from? So just to feel that level of hype, I mean it goes from scared to confidence, and that's what I'm looking for. Just to see the change, the transition from one thing to another. It's always better than what it started out. I think that's what, for me, that's what I want to leave here. I want my world to be better than what I started out with. And it's big, it's so big.

I keep thinking about when I was at the Tidal Basin. So the Tidal Basin, they had performances, but they come from all over the world. When I did this double dutch, the announcer had each jumper say where they was from. These people were from Lithuania. These people wer from, you know, they were from continents, not countries, not Chicago, not Detroit. They was from Afghanistan. I mean, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm touching these— One family, I say, "you gotta get in touch with me and stay involved so we can keep this double dutch going with your family," because he had the mother, the father, and two kids, and I had them jumping together and you could see the whole bonding thing. They hugged a little more, you know, and he picked the kid up a little heart stronger, and was so proud of him, and put him up [mimics lifting a kid into the air]. So I said, "you got to follow me!" He was from somewhere like China or Japan, somewhere that wasn't even in the States and they was just visiting. So just for them to experience that, and they could take that back home and say what they experienced, and it was a good experience, and not so much as, you know, the crime, all that. But that was a good experience. And when I leave them, when they can leave my circle feeling that way I'm excited. I'm excited, I'm excited.

Thank you so much,

No, thank you.

I appreciate your time that's wonderful.

I greatly appreciate you doing this, because it needs to be documented.