Interview: Unique Derique of FOOL LA LA: HOLIDAY GIFT! at The Marsh Berkeley Is All About Joy & Gratitude

Dubbed the "Clown Prince of Fools," longtime Bay Area favorite Unique Derique is returning to The Marsh Berkeley with Fool La La: Holiday Gift! Wrapped in goofy goodies and full of circus surprises, this annual holiday show invites audiences (recommended for ages 5 and up) to dive into the imagination of Unique Derique as he embarks on a whimsical adventure. After the family-friendly show, Unique Derique welcomes audiences to join in the circus fun with a COVID-19 safe workshop on juggling and the art of hambone.

Unique Derique is the performing alter ego of Lance McGee, whose dual careers merge the performing arts and healing with the belief that the world can be a brighter place, one breath - and one laugh - at a time. As a performer, he has appeared all over the world, sharing the stage with an eclectic list of entertainers such as Bobby McFerrin, The Temptations, Laura Nyro, Jim Nabors, Lou Rawls and Sammy Davis, Jr. When not entertaining audiences as Unique Derique, McGee is a Trauma-Informed Wellness Consultant and Mindfulness Coach providing support to school educators, administrators, staff and students.

I caught up with McGee by phone earlier this week while he was at The Marsh Berkeley already hard at work fine-tuning this latest version of his show. We had a fun and fascinating chat about his childhood idols like the Nicholas Brothers and Buster Keaton, how he developed his character of Unique Derique, the creation of hambone by enslaved Africans, and his own family's legacy as performers. McGee is one of those individuals who is just naturally easy to talk to - warm and engaging, and his joy in performing is evident throughout. The following conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Your work is pretty unusual in the way its combines clowning and movement. How would you describe Fool La La: Holiday Gift!?

Fun-ny. High energetic entertainment. Family engaging. I've been inspired by so many different things that I'm trying to put it all in a show. I grew up watching the Nicholas Brothers' acrobatic tap dance. I grew up watching Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and Bert Williams and Sammy Davis, Jr. So my show and my interest in material has always had a combination of the energy of dance and movement and finding ways to be funny with it through the clown.

You've performed versions of this show for many years now. Has it changed much over time?

I change it every year and try and create a new story. In this one, Fool-la-la: Holiday Gift!, I don't want to give away too much of the what the "gift" is, but the story is different. I spent so many years perfecting the hat juggling trick, the hambone body percussion and riding the unicycle that those pretty much stay the same, but I try to reinvent them in a new way where I get to use production, lighting, black light, make it glow in the dark, put a twist on presenting the trick. That's what's beautiful about doing the show in a theater where I really get to enhance what I might do at an outdoor gig or at a festival.

How is it that you came to create your performing alter ego of Unique Derique?

When I was working with the Pickle Family Circus back in '84 in San Francisco, I didn't use the name Derique. My middle name is Derrick, and I wanted something that sounded unique and different, so I started playing with the idea. Taking my middle name which is Derrick and adding an "ique" eventually it all came together as "Unique Derique." I think because I loved vaudeville, I loved variety entertainment, I loved watching a lot of the performers that I mentioned, that I tried to embody those qualities of what they did which was very inspiring to me. And over the years I just kind of found my character, recognizing that they're laughing at this bit, they're laughing at that gag, keep it. You know?

You move really well. Do you have training in dance?

Yeah. My mother went to UC Berkeley, she was getting her Bachelor's in Dramatic Arts and she taught theatre games and my [siblings and I], we were all participating in my mother's classes. She was taking dance classes, so we were taking dance classes. When I got into college when I was 18, I was taking tap dance, modern, jazz, African dance.

My grandfather was a pretty well-known artist/tapdancer/songwriter, but he was touring and traveling so I didn't really grow up around him. But knowing that he was out there dancing and writing songs - I think that was part of the family influence.

Who was your grandfather?

Jack Hammer was his performing name, Earl Burroughs was his birth name. He co-wrote "Great Balls of Fire" that Jerry Lee Lewis sang. In my early 20s, he would talk to me a lot about "the biz." We'd have great conversations and he was always very supportive of the work I was doing.

I'm not really that familiar with hambone. Can you talk about its origins and how it does or doesn't relate to tap dance?

Yeah, absolutely. They are cousins. Hambone is an African American artform that grew out of enslaved Africans who were not allowed to play drums - not only to strip away their cultural practices, but also because they knew how to communicate and talk through the drumming and send signals. So in our country during slavery times, the drum was outlawed. When you think about why somebody does something, it's because it's something they feel connected to. Those enslaved African warrior drummers felt music inside them and it got expressed through the drum. Well, even in absence of the drum, you can't take away something that you feel. What those drummers did is they started patting their chests, slapping their thighs, pounding their feet into the earth, clapping their hands. They were finding a way to connect in a horrible, horrific time of slavery. It was also part of their resilience, finding a way to have a joyful experience when trying to navigate all this trauma, a way to express how they were feeling through movement.

A rhythmic dance called Pattin' Juba was the origin of where hambone grew out of. Tap dance grew out of the mixture of that and Irish stepdance. Dancers would take something that they were already doing figuring out rhythmic patterns, then by seeing the Irish jig and taking that step and making it their own that would have a whole different feel and a whole different way of using their feet.

There's something about rhythm that is a universal language. Every culture expresses rhythm. Whether you're playing an instrument, whether you have a certain way that you walk or a way that you move around the house, everything is tied to rhythm. But when we express it with sound and movement, we're taking it to another level to be expressed differently than how you might brush your teeth, how you might walk into the bathroom every day, grab certain things. There's a pattern to it. If you were to videotape somebody doing those things for a week you'd go "That's a rhythmic pattern." It has the same kind of cadence in the way that they're doing it repeated over and over and over and they're not even recognizing that they're doing it, this kind of long form of a rhythmic pattern.

You've shared the stage with a super eclectic list of famous performers like Sammy Davis Jr., Laura Nyro, Jim Nabors and the Temptations. Which one was the most fun just to be around?

Well, it was a great honor to work with all of them, but I got to hang out with Lou Rawls in Las Vegas backstage because I was opening act for him for two weeks, so he was probably the most fun. One of his famous lines that he'd always say backstage was "Ain't nuttin' to it but to do it."

When I was opening for Sammy Davis, Jr., I was one of a couple of acts honoring him, and we didn't get to really hang out. He came up to me and complimented my act, and told me he'd really enjoyed it. That meant a lot to me because I read his autobiography called Why Me? and he talked about you know being three years old performing with his father and uncle, the Will Mastin Trio, and the racism he had to deal with. One of his first performances onstage at three years old he's wearing blackface. I can only imagine what he was thinking about when I did my hambone act at this event that was honoring him, because he knows how far back hambone goes. He shook my hand and said, "Hey, man, you were one cool dude, you dig?" Well, he didn't really say it like that, [laughs] but he told me how much he enjoyed my act and shook my hand, and that was a great compliment.

A lot of people will be coming to your show as part of their holiday celebrations - so how do you plan to celebrate the holidays this year?

Through joy. You know a holiday for me is every day. There's always something to be grateful for. I wake up having this idea of gratitude and just being grateful for what I do have, and when I think about that, I feel joyful. So when the holidays come around, I'm in a zone to bring that joy to the stage and hope the audience meets me halfway, that we connect in that space of joy and laughter, having a moment to not be thinking about things that are challenging. We've gone through a lot in these last few years, so it's just an honor to be able to, with the support of The Marsh Theatre, be here and share the stage in this fashion. I'm just very grateful. I have this sense of humor and playfulness and I love bringing that to the stage as Unique Derique.

(All photos by Eric Carmichael)

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Fool La La: Holiday Gift! will be presented live on stage, December 21-30, 2022, with performances at 2:00pm at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. For more information or to purchase tickets visit themarsh.org. NOTE: Strobe lights are used briefly during a portion of the performance.

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