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Lawrence dancer's work is love of his life
Bv IERRI NIEBAUM
Willie Lenoir came to Lawrence in 1964 to study math and French at the University of Kansas.
He received his degrees and since has lost track of his diplomas
Lenoir found something at college that became much more important to him than a degree. Lenoir found a way for creating and performing dance.
When he came to KU, Lenoir lived in a basement apartment below a French graduate student who danced with Tau Sigma, then the KU dance club and performing company. He also quickly learned to waltz. But the dancer saw that Lenoir had potential to dance more than just the waltz.
Tau Sigma needed men to dance in its spring concert, and Lenoir liked pies. SoLenoir's friend convinced him to dance in the show for a peach pie.
"I have yet to see that peach pie." Lemoir said, laughing.
"I instantly at it," he said.
Dance became an outlet for Lenoir. "I would go in there for two or three hours at night and just dance, and just dance," he said.
But once he got his toes wet, Lenoir never again would be without dance. "I instantly became addicted to it," he said.
Kristin Benjamin, director of Lawrence School of Ballet, 205 1/2 W. Eighth St., was a dancer with Tau Sigma when Lenoir joined. She remembered watching Lenoir as he watched her and the other dancers in their way after it was watched for a semester before he stepped up to the barre.
"I was always afraid to walk in," he said.
But he finally did, and he stayed.
"Once he was bitten, he just lived the rest of his life."
The two dancers soon became friends on and off the dance floor.
"We would be the last two in the building and just sort of waltz out," Beniamin said.
Elizabeth Sherbon, dance department director at KU from 1961 to 1975, was Lenoir's first teacher. She said Lenoir had a gift for dance that she learned while playing. She was pie-bribed into dancing. So she encouraged him to develop his gift.
"She just put her claws into me and sait. "I'll see you next fall," the Lenoir said.
Sherbon did see Lenoir in class that next fall and every fall after that until she retired. She said that Lenoir rarely made the same mistake twice and that he constantly was developing his style.
"He seemed to have a style of his
didn't need to try to copy me."
Sherbon salsa.
Lenoir started choreographing as soon as he started dancing. His ideas came from pictures, people's movements, anything with a shape.
"A lot of times I can see music itself," he said. "I cannot listen to
music without dancing to it in my mind. I'll go to a symphony and just sit there and choreograph the whole time."
Lenoir's work can be lyrical, melancholic, sometimes melancholy, 'mall-sack' 'Wille'.
With a short torso, long legs and "arms that go on for a year," Lenoir said he choreographed for his body, creating moves that sometimes weren't possible for more petite dancers.
Cheryl Wagner-Bodle, Lawrence resident, has performed about 10 of Lenoir's pieces as a member of Kaw Valley Dance Theater and has taken his jazz classes at Lawrence School of Ballet.
She said Lenoir's dances had a fluidity and a momentum that was compelling. And working with Lenoir didn't matter, it didn't seem like work, she said.
"he genuinely loves to dance," she said. "It's not work. It's more like a hobby."
Willie Lenoir dances "Sorceress" from the 1985 Kaw Valley Dance Theater production of "Willie, Won't You Dance With Me?"
Lenoir is known by dancers of all ages for his playfulness and his painty.
When the dance is done and the dancers meet for notes on their performances, Lenoir adds levity to the scene by dancing a little soft shoe as he enters the studio. Then he usually cracks cumps during the notes.
Lenoir tried to contain his giggles by covering his mouth with his hands at a recent rehearsal for "Pops on Pointe," for which Lenoir choreographed a duet called "Serenade A'Deaux." Everyone knew he was laughing because his shoulders were shaking.
It didn't matter why he was laughing. The dancers would sooner wonder why he wasn't laughing.
Benjamin directed the show and was giving notes while Lenoir and his small band of followers giggled together.
"Willie, leave the room," Benjamin ioked to quiet the laughter.
With a sparkle in his eye, Lenoir
wrote, "is that another word for black out."
Benjamin laughed with the rest of the company, and Lenoir did not leave the
Lenior's sense of humor is more subtle, but sometimes more obvious. George
"You can see the glint in his eye," Beniamin said.
She remembered one performance in which she was partnered with Lenoir and almost fell. She went into an extended movement on pointe, expecting Lenoir to catch her, and he wasn't there.
"I heard 'whoops,' and there he was," she said, spilling
"Frankly, I've even started laughing onstage," he said.
Lenoir said he talked onstage because he was nervous.
Benjamin, director of the recently defunct Kaw Valley Dance Theater
pany to "Willie, Won't You Dance With Me?" in the fall of 1895.
"I thought a retrospective was due," she said. "The company has grown up on a lot of his work."
Kaw Valley has grown up with Lenoir, but while he was growing up in Kansas City, Kan., he never imagined becoming a dancer.
"Culturally, it just wasn't there," he said.
His father, who still lives in Kansas City, has never seen Lenoir dance. But his mother, who died in 1974, to see him perform several times
"One of the last things she said to me before she died was, 'I won't be able to see you dance this year,' " Lenoir said.
When he was a child, Lenoir thought he probably would become a teacher. He liked school. He liked it so well that he didn't like summer vacation.
"I wasn't hyperactive, but I was
always wanting to do something,
he said."
Now Lenoir thrives on the atmosphere of the University, where he has access to academics and the arts.
He is a principal dancer with the Scott Morrow Dance Theatre, in performance at KU, and also takes Morrow's advanced modern dance class
"He wouldn't settle for anything else," he said.
Morrow said he encouraged Lenoir to work beyond his limits.
Krodinger said she and Lenoir both had grown as dancers while working on the piece. But they don't discuss the emotional and technical depth that they continue to add to the piece.
"Every time that we go onstage, it like we're meeting for the first time as they're here."
Morrow plans to choreograph a three-part song for Lenoir titled, "A Man Ain't Supposed to Cry." The man is also portray the stages of a man's life.
"Once I get home, I want to be by myself." he said.
Friends don't visit Lenoir at home. Benjamin said she had been to his apartment about 10 times in all the years she had known him.
"He won't let you in very often," she said.
When he's home, he says he likes to relax, listen to music and choreograph.
Besides choreographed, dancing with Morrow's company and teaching jazz at Lawrence School of Ballet, Lenoir teaches jazz at the Granada School of Performing Arts in Kansas City, Kan. And he works at McDonald's, 1309 W. Sixth St., about 30 hours a week. He has worked there about as long as he's lived in his little apartment.
"I find myself dancing in the living room," he said.
"That is really sad," he said, and it doesn't plan to work there indefinitely.
He said he had seen many dancers and actors come and go from the
hamburger business.
"Quite a few of them have left and gone professional." he said.
But he's glad to see McDonald's offer healthier food on its menu, he said.
"I eat a lot of salads now," he said.
A fast food employee, a teacher, a punster, a friend — Lenoir has many
roles. But most of all he is a dancer and a choreographer. He is happiest when he is listening to classical music, with the steps he achieves to dance.
"At times, I have insomnia because I'm lying there choreographing," he said, "and I cannot get it out of my mind."
Laura Krodinger, Desoto, Mo., junior, is the 1987 Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Scholarship Award winner.
KU dancer wins scholarship
By JERRI NIEBAUM
Staff writer
After eight years of dance training, a University of Kansas student has earned a pat on the back that she says is like an approval to stay on stage.
Laura Krodinger, Desoto, Mo.
juniur, has been awarded the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Scholarship Award.
The $170 scholarship is awarded annually to a junior dance major who has shown outstanding achievement academically and artistically. Krodinger's name will be listed on a plaque in the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Theatre in Robinson Center.
Krodinger, 21, is a principal dancer with the five-member Scott Morrow Dance Theatre, which is in residence at the University.
Morrow, assistant professor of dance, choreographed "Masculin/Feminin," a modern dance that Krodinger has performed for about a year with Willie Lenoir, Lawrence special student.
Krodinger said Morrow and his dance were the greatest contributing factors to her winning the award.
"The dance demanded a technical and artistic maturity that was beyond my range." Krodinger said.
"Scott taught me a craft, a process, which enabled me to grow as a performer, and in turn made it possible for me to give a depth of expression to my dancing that I had not felt before."
Morrow said Krodinger had trained for long hours with an enthusiasm and devotion that put
her ahead as a dancer at the University.
"She applied herself," he said, adding that she had a natural talent that he was helping her shape.
Krodinger started dancing when she was 13. She said that she had always enjoyed athletics, especially track and volleyball but that she wanted a form of exercise that used creativity as well as physical prowess. Dance provided her with that exercise.
Krodinger plans to continue dancing with Morrow next year and after she graduates in the spring of 1988. She said that dancing in his company had been her most exciting dance experience and that she looked forward to dancing in it full time.
For 14 years I dreamed of dancing in Mihikh Baryshnikov's arms.
For 14 years I mutilated my body for him. After years of plies, I developed such abnormal hip rotation that I walked like a duck. I stretched my leg muscles until they were as flexible as rubber bands, and I missed out on those great hardies like "the Shag," because the Sugar Palm Fairy had to have a bun.
Patricia Feeny Arts editor
I began dancing when I was 4 and living in Houston. I was decked out in pink tights and a black leopard I wore. I walked down the street, but, boy, I thought I looked cool.
I remember my first public performance. It was the dance school's
spring recital and I played a little white duck. I wore tape shoes that had pennies in the hollowed-out soles so she would walk me. I walked or shook my feathered tail.
I explored every dance form. I danced jazz and tap for many years. I took up gymnastics when I was 9; I had the Olga Korbut Syndrome. That was about the same time that I started breaking lamps around my mother's living room with a baton.
I went on to play a bumblebee, a mouse, a frog, a jar of mustard and a moon beam. My career had been launched.
When I turned 12, I became a serious ballet dancer. I got my first pair of toe shoes and first bra all in the same month. I am certain that I did the shoes than the bra. I did the manufacturer's dubbed "the little stretch."
But ballet was my first love.
But I didn't care. Long hair, a
My family moved to Albuquerque, N.M., and I began taking classes every day. During the summer, I attended workshops at the North Carolina School for the Arts in Winston-Salem, N.C. and Ballet West in Aspen, Colo. I became a member of the Albuquerque Junior Ballet Company and began performing regularly.
small chest and blistered feet were all part of the romantic ballerina package. (Can you see Dolly Parton or toe shoes and a little pink tutu?)
I danced in "The Nutcracker," "Pippin," "Music Man," "Orpheus in the Underworld," "Giselle," and "Carousel." It was a step up from my portrayal of a mustard jar.
I continued taking classes and attending workshops. I knew I was going to need a coach who received great thrills from pounding my $21 toe shoes with a hammer to
make them wearable: running home from school to wash a pair of tights and wearing them wet because there wasn't enough time for them to dry; and sacrificing pizzas, icecream and anything chocolate. I was convinced that I was the only seventh grader in the United States who drank Tab.
At about this time, I started to launch another career. I began competing in debate and forensics. Someone else would juggle my tutus with my orations.
For a while everything ran smoothly. I continued performing with the junior company and began working on their ballet Ballet Company during the summer.
By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was debating on a national circuit, carrying a full course load and taking theater classes. I was fortunate to learn from life. The first thing that went was the junior company. The next thing was
me
The human body can only take so much. After a while baseball players are forced to put down their bats, and gymnasts start to fall from their beams. Ballerinas with big dreams have to step away from the barre and let someone else twirl in the spotlight.
At 14, my right knee began to disintegrate slowly. I developed some type of cartilage infection. In the next four years, the knee was drained four times. I reached a desperate state and tried anything to relieve the pain so that I could continue dancing.
My mother, a born-again health enthusiast, decided that a solid diet
Lathering myself with Ben Gay brought only temporary relief and made me smell like somebody's grandmother. I tried ice packs, acupuncture and whirlpool baths. Nothing seemed to help.
of wheat germ on peanut butter sandwiches and 47 vitamins a day would shoot the infection out of my body.
Eventually, I danced only a few nights a week. I put all my energy into debating. At 18, I gave my last performance.
Some of the memories are painful.
I will always wonder what could have been, but I'm handling my loss. Sure,
remarks about thunder shingles do not help, and I can't say that my breasts have had any drastic growth spurts during the last four years, but that's okay. I'm a journalist now.
The toe shoes that I wore in that last performance hang on a nail in my bedroom. They are stained with champagne and tears, and the toes are filled with rose petals from a bouquet of roses from my greatest fan, my mom. She once shook hands with Mihkail Baryshnikov.