Founding father
By Casey Gillis on Sep. 20, 2007
The wheels in Keith Lee’s mind are always turning.
Dance Theatre of Lynchburg’s founder and artistic director says he’s always coming up with new choreography.
He’ll wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, or something will hit him when he’s watching his 10-year-old son Ean play soccer.
Most of all, Lee enjoys setting his pieces to nontraditional music.
“I love the masters, I love the classics,” he says. “But at the same time, I really like a composer that’s going to keep me bubbling up there in my mind. (There are a lot of) heavy hitters who are outside of the loop.”
In addition to creating elaborate pieces for Dance Theatre’s Repertory Ensemble (see below for details on their latest show), Lee has recently been getting out more to choreograph works for other groups, like the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, the Maryland Ballet Theatre and the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.
Through it all, though, one of his most rewarding roles is as a teacher.
At Dance Theatre, Lee presides over modern, jazz, ballet, Pointe and Afro-Caribbean dance classes.
He was also recently named an artist-in-residence at T.C. Miller Elementary School.
“He’s delightful,” says Karyn Barra, principal of T.C. Miller. “He’s always enthusiastic, and he loves working with the children. He brings out the best in all of them. They respond very well to him.”
Lee has taught an after-school dance program there for about 11 years, but now his classes will be part of the students’ daily curriculum.
He says it can be hard to get the younger ones to focus at times, but “I like the challenge. It keeps my skills sharp to be able to work with (children) who don’t have any experience.
“When you train someone from scratch, it has to be very basic, and once they take flight, you just let them roll.”
Quite a few of the kids he’s taught at T.C. Miller over the years have gone on to become principal dancers in Dance Theatre’s Repertory Ensemble.
“It’s really like a machine because T.C. Miller has really fed us, for years, some of their students,” he says. “It’s only right that I’m around there to nurture (young dancers).”
Lee, too, started young.
Growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, he began dancing when he was 3 years old at his grandmother’s urging.
“She really wanted me to be an entertainer,” Lee says, so she enrolled him in singing, tapping and acting classes.
As a teen, he attended New York’s High School for the Performing Arts, where he got into ballet, thanks to his instructors there.
“Basically, they were so incredible because I started out as a tap dancer,” he says. “I didn’t really know ballet or modern, and they got me in the studio. They wanted me to put tights on.”
After that, “I was a dance fanatic,” he says. “I couldn’t get enough. I was in so many different dance classes.”
Lee was 16 when he performed his first solo concert at the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in New York, and he later debuted with the American Ballet Theatre at 19.
After spending seven years there as a soloist — during which time he was often a guest artist for legend Alvin Ailey’s company — Lee left to be a freelance choreographer, which took him all over the world.
First, he went to Oakland, Calif. Then Geneva, Switzerland, and Frankfurt, Germany. He later came back to New York to teach at a school in the Village, and eventually put together his own company, Keith Lee Ballet of Contemporary Art.
As the years went by, Lee added more titles and employers to his resume.
He taught at Shenandoah University in Winchester, was artistic director at Capitol Ballet in Washington, D.C., and acted as ballet master at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Nanette Bearden’s Contemporary Chamber Dance Company, among others.
Then he found himself in Kentucky, where he was artistic director of a company, and taught dance and yoga classes. It’s also where he met his wife Charlotte who, along with the couple’s three children — Ean, Eliana, 8, and Beniah, 4 — are also a big presence at Dance Theatre.
“They’re the nucleus of me,” Lee says. “No matter where I go — at home, in the studio — they’re always with me.”
After Kentucky, Lynchburg was Lee’s next stop. He was offered a teaching position at Virginia School of the Arts (VSA) in 1994, and during his year and a half there, he started the school’s community dance program.
He founded Dance Theatre in 1999 when he began holding classes in the basement of Trinity United Methodist Church.
Numbers grew, and they moved locations a couple times before setting up shop in their current downtown location, 722 Commerce St. That was in 2000, right around the time when the downtown revitalization efforts were beginning to take hold.
“We really liked this place,” Lee says. “We just wanted to see everyone successful.”
As the programs and classes have grown, so have space needs.
Lee and company started out with a lobby and a downstairs studio with a couple dressing rooms. Now, there are two dance studios, a library, a Pilates studio, the space next door at the Mezzanine Café and plans are in place to renovate the top floor into a space where local artists can display their work.
The most recent upgrade was adding seats salvaged from the old Fine Arts Center into the main studio.
“I just feel a direct link to the old Fine Arts Center,” Lee says. “I felt (it) meant a lot to a lot of people in this town. … I just really wanted to have a vestige of that around still.”
Looking back, Lee says he’s proud of all he’s accomplished.
“I feel as though we’ve changed a lot of things (here),” he says. “We opened a lot of people’s eyes about what’s possible, that this is the right way to do things.
“All I know is I care about this a lot because when you make something from nothing, then it’s yours,” he adds. “That’s what art is: making something from nothing. That’s why I love this place.”
The show goes on
Dance Theatre of Lynchburg’s latest show is its annual Inside Out Performance, scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 28 and 29 and 3 p.m. Sept. 30.
This year, the show features a variety of pieces performed by the Repertory Ensemble, as well as two guest artists, Karen Nicely and Brandy Lee (no relation to Keith Lee).
The Repertory Ensemble’s two pieces are “Coming Home,” which was choreographed by 15-year-old mem-ber Stuart Coleman to Cirque de Soleil music, and “String Quartet in G,” choreographed by Lee to the music of Claude Debussy.
Nicely will perform her own “Cultural Changes,” as well as Keith Lee’s “Mama Rose.”
Brandy Lee, who is joining the Dance Theatre faculty next year, is also doing one of her own pieces, “My Favorite Things,” as well as one of Keith Lee’s, called “House of Blue.”
Dance Theatre tap instructor Kim Sheppard will also be performing “You Two Four One,” a piece set to the music of U2.
Tickets are $10 for adults, and $7.50 for students and children. For more information, call (434) 846-6272 or visit http://www.dancelynchburg.org.
COMMENTS
I used to dance for keith at syncopated in lex ky many years ago and just wanted to let him know how happy i am that he is doing so well, I always admired his dedicated and talent and wished we could have done more together thanks
I met Keith at Goucher College in the late 70s when he was an instructor. He was an extraordinary talent then and I often wondered where he landed. Nice to know it’s in a good, giving place!