Kristen Fiore
Audio By Carbonatix
Leni Wylliams was one of Cleo Parker Robinson’s earliest students. He started dancing with her when he was at Thomas Jefferson High School in the ’70s, after another one of her students spotted him dancing at a party.
“He was talented,” Parker Robinson recalls. “He didn’t understand why he should take a dance class. Men and boys in the community didn’t take dance class then, and not all parents were encouraging them to take dance as a future career.” But there was something special about Wylliams.
“Leni had such a strength and a fluidity in his body,” she says. “I mean, most of the time you’re either going to have lines or you’re going to have a flow, but he had both.”
He became a muse for several international choreographers Parker Robinson brought in, including Colombian-American modern dancer Eleo Pomare and Russian dancer Mieczyslaw (Misha) Morawski.
Pomare encouraged Wylliams to leave Denver and dance in New York, which he did. He went on to work with Leonard Bernstein, win an MTV Award for his choreography of a Janet Jackson video, and become a celebrated teacher himself at his own dance company in Kansas City.
But before that, Parker Robinson remembers, she and Wylliams used to laugh so hard they cried; Wylliams also started each class by singing Ella Fitzgerald’s “Summertime.”
In September 1996, Wylliams was found beaten to death and set on fire in his Kansas City home. He was 35. His assailant also burned many of Wylliams’s artistic records, leaving little original documentation of his work.
Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Archives
But this weekend, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance is putting one of those works, the solo “Sweet in the Morning,” on stage as part of the company’s spring Legacy concert. Other companies have performed the piece, but “it’s now almost thirty years later that I would choose to do this solo, because his life ended so tragically, and that was a hard thing for me to really attach to that piece,” Parker Robinson says.
Now she’s in a place — literally — where she can face the work.
It will be the company’s first public performance under its new roof in the Cleo Parker Robinson Center for Healing Arts, which opened earlier this year after the dance company’s space in Five Points underwent a massive, state-of-the-art renovation.
In addition to the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance premiere of “Sweet in the Morning,” Legacy will include a world premiere of “The Open Door” by Charles “Lil Buck” Riley that will bring Memphis Jookin’ — a freestyle-based street dance rooted in Memphis culture — to a Denver stage, as well as several of the company’s other dances.
“There’s a lot of ancestral work that’s going on,” Parker Robinson says. “There’s acknowledging the loss, but claiming the love and the joy.”
“Sweet in the Morning”
“Sweet in the Morning” was a solo Wylliams choreographed and performed; it was inspired by Talley Beatty’s “Mourner’s Bench,” in which Beatty, dancing in a controlled yet graceful manner on a bench, portrayed a spiritual struggle referring to racial discrimination and lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan.
Wylliams choreographed “Sweet in the Morning” during the AIDS epidemic. “You can know that what he was experiencing was a loss of so many people all the time, and the fear of your own death,” Parker Robinson says. “This is just the context, but not the literal story.”
The dance represents the grief and resilience of a Black man and the community coming together during mortal challenges, but Parker Robinson says it will be up to the audience to interpret the dance and its message.
“Leni was brave,” Parker Robinson says. “He was beautiful, but he was so human. And I think the solo brings in the humanity that we are needing at this time.”
The solo has to be performed by a superbly trained and athletic dancer, she notes. A different Cleo Parker Robinson ensemble member will be featured in each performance of “Sweet in the Morning”: Michael Battle on Friday, May 8; Lamar D. Rogers on Saturday, May 9; and Corey Jamel on Sunday, May 10.
“It takes emotional maturity to be able to carry a work like that, and so I believe that any male who does it is transformed,” Parker Robinson says. “It’s a transformative piece. Dancers are trained anymore to think quickly, do a combination, and hit it and be done, boom, like that. This is absolutely the opposite. This takes a kind of mental stamina and physical prowess and strength, almost like a gymnast, but very different because it’s an emotional journey.”
As in “Mourner’s Bench,” the dancer dances on a bench during “Sweet in the Morning”; Parker Robinson says she had trouble locating Wylliams’s original bench in New York, so she had one built for Legacy. Germaul Barnes, also a former CPRD dancer, is the interpreteur of the work and the keeper of its authenticity. Dancers’ bodies are so different that Barnes’s job as interpreteur is to make sure they perform “Sweet in the Morning” in a way that is accurate to how Wylliams did.
“[Wylliams] saved a lot of lives, because every time he taught, he took that student, whether they were a child or an adult, on a path of renewal. And that’s why I call this the Center for Healing Arts, because I’ve seen it over and over and over again,” Parker Robinson says. “I was able to do that with him and for him, with the choreographers I brought in, and the dancers that he danced with. …It’s part of what we do as a company, as a village, and I think that’s what this Legacy concert is for me; it’s celebrating the community of dancers and artists and musicians, and technicians and administrators.”
Kristen Fiore
“The Open Door”
While “Sweet in the Morning” honors the legacy of a CPRD dancer, Lil Buck’s “The Open Door” continues CPRD’s legacy by putting a dance onstage unlike anything Denver audiences have seen before.
Lil Buck, a world-renowned movement artist who captured worldwide attention in 2011 after a performance of “The Swan” with Yo-Yo Ma, in which he wore sneakers and brought his signature Jookin’ style to the classical ballet piece, spent a few weeks working with the CPRD ensemble to teach the dancers about Jookin’.
Memphis Jookin’ is known for its intricate footwork, fluidity and illusion-like glides. It’s not only a dance, but a culture. “If I were to describe it to somebody who’s watching it, I’d say, ‘It’s a dance style that consists of a lot of rhythms and cadences that are attached to music,'” Lil Buck explains.
Lil Buck, who grew up in Memphis, discovered Jookin’ at 13, rose quickly through the ranks, and earned a scholarship to study ballet for two years, giving his style a rare blend of street-dance and classical dance that feels viscerally freeing and innate. He has performed all over the world.
“It’s about letting the heart and the mind lead the movement,” Lil Buck says. “It’s bringing to life the innate feeling of movement and using that and creating structure around that.”
He adds that working with CPRD dancers was like “a breath of fresh air,” because they were open and perceptive to the style while maintaining a sense of freedom with their own movements.
“I get fascinated watching how he works with the dancers, because it looks so natural, and then all of a sudden it’s a technique he has developed,” Parker Robinson says. “He’s soulful but so down to earth.”
Lil Buck knows that most Denver audiences won’t be familiar with Jookin’, so he hopes they’ll approach it with an open mind and be inspired by the beauty of street dance.
“I want this to inspire the street dance community in Denver as well,” he says. “I want Denver to come out and see this and see where they can take what they’re doing and see what’s possible…What I’m teaching came from the parking lots and garages of Memphis, Tennessee. It came from that social community that came together to create joy out of pain. To be able to take it to establishments like this and show people the art of Memphis Jookin’ and how street dance is an art and has no bounds is a full-circle moment for me.”
Kristen Fiore
Other Works
In addition to “Sweet in the Morning” and “The Open Door,” Legacy includes:
- “Move,” a dance choreographed by Ray Mercer, a longtime cast member in The Lion King on Broadway
- Cleo Parker Robinson’s “With You I’m Born Again,” a dance that currently has its costumes on display at Denver International Airport Concourse C
- “Uprooted; Pero Replantado,” a social justice work related to immigration at the southern border of the U.S. by Donald McKayle
- “Timber” by CPRD Associate Artistic Director Winifred Harris
- “Catharsis,” a dance by Garfield Lemonius that had its world premiere in 2017 at the Newman Center before going on to the 2019 American Dance Festival, 2023 Jacob’s Pillow and 2024 Vail Dance Festival
“Don’t take any of this for granted,” Parker Robinson concludes. “We have all worked to create this array and range of work. This community, being the audience, has helped develop people who have become sponsors to create a way to pay the artists to be here, the staff, the board, everybody. I hope everybody leaves and realizes everyone has a little piece of this legacy.”
Legacy: Sweet in the Morning runs Friday, May 8, through Sunday, May 10, at the Cleo Parker Robinson Center for Healing Arts, 2025 Washington Street. Get tickets here.
