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Kathleen Hill Sheldon
Dance Teacher in Denver, CO
2010-03-27
By Donald K. Atwood
The following is an interview of Kathy Hill Sheldon with World Dance Reviews Editor Don Atwood on March 27 of 2010. Kathy is a graduate of the Colorado Women's College Theatre Program, and was Owner and Director of "Hill Academy of Dance and Dramatics" for tweny-four years. Kathy served two terms as president of the Colorado Dance Alliance - one as co-president with Lisa Woods, and one as the sole president. Her last term ended in 2008. Kathy still teaches dance in the Denver area.
Don: I would like to start with the "beginnings" of Kathy Sheldon, like where were you born. Were you born in Denver?
Kathy Sheldon: I was. I am a third generation Colorado Native.
Don: Third generation Colorado Native. And how many generations lived in Denver?
Kathy: Well ... my Grandmother was born in Lyons, Colorado.
Don: Lyons right North of Boulder?
Kathy: Uh Huh ... and my Dad was born in Lyons Colorado, and my Grandmother's parents emigrated from Sweden.
Don: Oh!!! I met your Mother. I met her at David Taylor's "Zikr" dance performance at Most Precious Blood Church.
And there were how many siblings?
Kathy: I have ... living, I have one brother and one sister, and I have an older brother who passed away.
Don: And you all grew up in Catholic Schools and the Catholic Church?
Kathy: Catholic Church. My older brother and sister went to Catholic School, and my younger brother and I did Public School.
Don: And did you decide you were going to dance?
Kathy: No my Mother kind of decided my career for me in utero. She always told me that when she was pregnant with me she prayed for a little girl that would love to dance. And she predestined me to that career (Laughter).
Don: That is so interesting, because she told me that all of your dance was your own motivation ...
Kathy: Right!!!
Don: ... that you started dancing when you were a little kid, and just knew you were going to be a dance teacher. What is your version of that story?
Kathy: Well ... basically I ended up taking lessons because I had some physical issues when I was little. I walked on my toes. I could not put my heels on floor.
Don: Because of short Achilles tendons?
Kathy: Short tendons. In those days they called them the chords, and the orthopedic doctors would say, "Well the chords in her legs are too short." So I endured a year of physical therapy at Children's Hospital. And my Mother would take me every week to Children's for physical therapy, and we had these horrible exercises that we would have to do at home that I hated. I was four years old. And so my Mother went to the Orthopedic doctor one day and asked, "Is there any reason I can't get her dance lessons?" And he said, "Well no, that might be great for her." So she found a dance school for me when I was five, and put me in classes.
Don: Where was that dance school?
Kathy: It was actually Florence Ruston's. In those days it was called Florence Kessler's School of Dance, and Hope Moore was my first dance teacher.
Don: Hope Moore Waggoner?
Kathy: Hope Moore Waggoner. Right!!!
Don: Interesting!! So tell me where it went on from there. Your dance.
Kathy: Well, I got hooked at a young age. I remember my first big job. I was seven years old and my little dance class was hired for some telethon on television, and we appeared with Amanda Blake - Miss Kitty from "Gunsmoke" - and Milburn Stone - Doc from the same show. So I was actually on TV at seven doing my little tap dance. And I was hooked.
Don: Hooked on performance?
Kathy: Hooked on performing!!! Loved the stage!!! Loved everything about performing.
Don: And you went to High School where?
Kathy: At South. South High School in Denver.
Don: And did they have dance classes? ... or were you taking them outside?
Kathy: We had a dance "class" that was taught by the gym teacher, so it was not a dance class. It was ... I don't know what it was. But, I got heavily involved in the theatre department at South ... and was a "Southern Masquerader" and a "Thespian." My senior year I was the choreographer of the all school musical, "Carnival." And then the choir department had me do the choreography for our jazz swing choir. So ... I was doing choreography in high school.
Don: And did you continue taking classes outside of the high school?
Kathy: I did.
Don: Still at Florence Kessler's?
Kathy: No. Ms. Kessler sold her school when I was real little. Probably when I was seven, and Hope broke away then and started her own school. So I stayed with Hope and did tap, ballet, jazz, flamenco Spanish, acrobatics ...
Don: Did they have what they now call "lyrical" then?
Kathy: No, they didn't. And there was no modern. It was "basic dance studio training."
Don: So how do you define lyrical that they teach now.
Kathy: Well - the kids are now calling it "contemporary."
Don: So is it really kind of a mixture of modern, jazz ...
Kathy: Yes. Modern, jazz and ballet.
Don: Tell me about growing up in Denver in those days. You were a Catholic girl in a public school ... were you the youngest sibling?
Kathy: No. My brother is eleven months younger than I am.
Don: OK.
Kathy: You know it was great. I grew up in the Cherry Creek neighborhood before it was Cherry Creek as we know it now.
Don: So was it the rich neighborhood we now know it as?
Kathy: No, there was kind of a dividing line. Like University divided the "country club" neighborhood from the "blue color" neighborhood. I grew up in the "blue color" neighborhood.
Don: That is the north side?
Kathy: The east side of University. And the west side was Denver Country Club.
Don: As a matter of fact this house is barely on the east side of University today.
Kathy: Right! But it was great. It was good.
Don: Was Most Precious Blood Parish part of this area then?
Kathy: You know I think it was built in the sixties, but I grew up in what is now known as Good Shepard, but at that time was St. Johns.
Don: And what Catholic School did your siblings go to?
Kathy: My brother and sister went to St. Johns.
Don: And then you somehow ended up at Colorado Women's College
Kathy: I did. When I was in high school I wanted desperately to go to Brigham Young University, because they had one of the most outstanding theatre departments in the country at that time. And I had a Grandmother who was a staunch Catholic, and a Mother who was a staunch Catholic, and they informed me flatly that they were not putting a penny into a Mormon University.
Don: Brigham Young by the way is still like that. Their dance program is amazing. And their theatre program.
Kathy: Yes, their dance and theatre programs were just tremendous, and I desperately wanted to go there. But being told they were not going to give me a penny to go there, the backup plan became Colorado Women's College. In part, because I had a friend who I had grown up with in dance who was there.
Don: Who was that friend?
Kathy: Janice Bartholomew was her name, and she graduated from their theatre department. And then another friend of mine, Barb Gandy, was a year ahead of me in school, and she was there.
Don: Was Cleo (Cleo Parker Robinson) there?
Kathy: Cleo had already graduated. I think Cleo is at least ten years older than I am. And she was graduated and gone by that time.
Don: Should we take that out of the transcript?
Kathy: (Laughing) - I don't think Cleo is scared of that. But anyway, I ended up at Colorado Women's College and loved it there.
Don: And one of your teachers was Cleo's Dad?
Kathy: He was the Technical Director for the school and the Theatre Department tech. teacher.
Don: And that theater and all of the arts were in what is now the Denver School of the Arts at Montview ...
Kathy: Montview and Quebec. At that time that side of the street was called the "Houston Fine Arts Center." And there was a theater in there called the "Corkin Theater." And that metal painted mural that wraps around the theater now was what was around the back side of the "Corkin Theater."
Don: Are the theaters different now?
Kathy: Well we had a round theatre next door to the "Corkin" that was called "The Grout" "The Homer Grout Theater," and that was set up for theatre in the round. And across the hall from the "Corkin" was the "Foote Music Hall." And both of those have been demolished. So all that is left of what I grew up with at the College, is the dance studio in the basement - which is the same studio I danced in - and the "Corkin Theater," which has been changed slightly, but is primarily still the "Corkin."
Don: I am utterly amazed when I go in that theater, in that it is maybe one of the best equipped theaters in the whole of Denver, as far as lighting, sound, and everything else goes.
Kathy: That was state-of-the art when I was in school there. It was absolute state-of-the-art.
Don: And you were the techie that pulled all of those big levers and did the lights?
Kathy: And moved the Grand Piano!!!
Don: You worked for Cleo's Dad?
Kathy: I did. His name was "JP" and he had many of the female students that became techies for all the road shows that came in. And at that time there was no Newman Center - there was no DCPA - Bonfils was at the stage where it was on its way out, and all there was in Front Range Colorado was the Paramount - which was still primarily a movie theater - and the "Auditorium Theater," and Colorado Women's College.
Don: Tell me some of the touring shows that you lighted. Who went through that theater? I know Martha Graham did.
Kathy: Yes. Martha Graham, Pilobolus ...
Don: Pilobolus - they had already started touring?
Kathy: Pilobolus had started touring at that time. I can remember running lights for them. I remember Joffery Ballet II.
Don: Joffery when they were still in New York? Before they moved to Chicago.
Kathy: Yes, I believe when they were still in New York, because this was in the 70's. In the late 70's that I was running the light board, and it was the "old fashioned" light board. You had to pull all the dimmers, use every finger you had, and your elbows - and nose if you needed to. Before computer boards.
Don: And now you just push "Next."
Kathy: Yeah!!!
Don: And all the dimmers are solid state. In fact, that is all I ever knew and thought that was the way it always was.
Kathy: Nope!!!
Don: Pilobolus. Who were some others. Did Paul Taylor come in there?
Kathy: I'm pretty sure we did Paul Taylor. I just remember we would do three to four major dance companies a year.
Don: What about people like Limon? I think Doris Humphrey was not doing anything at that time.
Kathy: I don't think Jose Limon was one.
Don: Hawkins?
Kathy: That does not ring a bell.
Don: Tell me about the dance program at Colorado Women's College.
Kathy: Well they didn't have a major. The only thing you could do was minor in dance. And what I ended up doing was getting a degree - at that time they called it a "Correlated Arts degree." And it was art, music, theatre, and dance, with a minor in education.A basic Arts Education Degree.
Don: Not unlike Naropa's InterArts degree.
Kathy: InterArts. Correct. And it had a minor in education. K through 12. So when you got done with the program you could go to kindergarten through twelfth grade schools and teach in the arts - mostly in your intensive. You chose an intensive, and mine was actually in theatre instead of in dance. Rita Berger ran the dance program at the time. She was head of the dance department. But when I was - I believe - a sophomore - either my sophomore or junior year - she decided to go on "Campus Afloat," so she left the department for a year and we had Gerry McAndrews, Nancy Spanier and her husband, Paul Ortel. So we had primarily guest artists running our dance department that year, so I was able to be exposed to a lot of the CU/Boulder teachers that way. And that - really college was my first experience with Modern. I had never had a Modern class until I went to college.
Don: Let me back up to the beginning. That first dance class at Florence Kessler's. Do you remember that class. Did you walk in there scared, or did you walk in there with an attitude of "show me what to do."
Kathy; You know I don't remember my first class. Probably that whole year - that first year I was with Florence Kessler - I was probably too little to remember very much. I know there were "combination" classes of tap, ballet, and tumbling - acrobatics. I think what I remember the most is that by typical attrition - as most dance studios go through now - I would be in a class of like ten kids, and at the end of the year there would be about three of us left - or four of us left. So over the years ...
Don: And you were always there at the end?
Kathy: I was always there at the end. So year after year I kept getting pushed into the older kids classes. Sooo ... by the time I was fourteen my teacher said, "You need to tell people you're sixteen." Because I was literally working in dance lines. So when I was sixteen I was told to tell everyone I was eighteen, and when I was eighteen to tell everyone I was twenty-one, because I was always the "baby." Ummm ... the teacher was the choreographer for the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders and I remember being fourteen years old and being put on the Denver Broncos Cheerleading Team, with these other girls that were seniors in high school and in college. Of course I was told to lie about my age. And I made the mistake in rehearsal one day of saying I was a sophomore in high school. And those girls heads flipped and they said, "You're a sophomore in high school?" And I had to say, "Oh I flunked and they had to hold me back." (Laughter.) Because I had to cover up for the fact that I was supposed to be a lot older than I was.
Don: We're going to get to competitions later, because I know you did a lot of that ...
Kathy: Not as a kid, No ... Not until later. We ...
Don: We'll save those questions until later. I know Cleo went to Colorado Women's College, but who else were your classmates?
Kathy: Cleo was the only "name" person there was. Janice Hall ended up with the Metropolitan Opera. She was a vocalist. But as far as people who ended up as "names" ...
Don: Well ... "names?" Who was there that is still here in Colorado.
Kathy: Well ... Kevin Durkin. Kevin I believe is a dance therapist - like chiropractic type therapy work. Kevin was one of the male scholarship students at CWC at the time.
Don: As CWC you mean Colorado Women's College.
Kathy: Yes.
Don: Did your techie work stop after you stopped being a student?
Kathy: No. I worked the full four years when I was in school, and an additional four years after I graduated.
Don: And did you do the designs as well as run the lights?
Kathy: No. They were all brought in by the companies.
Don: So you were handed a light design.
Kathy: I was handed a light plot.
Don: So you had to know your plot and dimmer capacities enough to implement that design.
Kathy: Well ... we hung all our own lights.
Don: And you had to hang lights for each design?
Kathy: Hang the lights and everything.
Don: And there were no Genies in those days.
Kathy: Nope.
Don: You just crawled up the ladder, or the scaffold. And after Colorado Women's College?
Kathy: Sort of - During my time at Colorado Women's College - when I was a senior - my dance teacher decided she was going to retire. And I begged her to wait a year until I graduated and she flat would not. So I took over her school in October of my senior year of college. So my senior year I slept very little. I ran a dance school. I went to school full-time. I had a part time job at Cathedral High School teaching dance. I was doing the choreography for Englewood High School for their shows ... and sleeping very little. Plus, student teaching and getting done with my degree.
Don: Do you still not sleep.
Kathy: I still don't sleep. No (chuckle).
Don: So you started teaching (separate from student teaching) while you were still at CWC?
Kathy: I had my first class of kids that were my very own when I was sixteen. I was a junior in high school and my teacher turned over a class of five year olds to me.
Don: Was that at Hope's school?
Kathy: Yes.
Don: It was Hope who retired and whose school ...
Kathy: ... that I ended up taking over. Right.
Don: And did you eventually own and run that school? Did it become -
Kathy: I did. After the first year I changed the name of it from "Hope Moore School of Dance" to "Hill Academy of Dance and Dramatics." And I ran that business for 24 years.
Don: And did you teach all modalities of dance, or did you pretty much restrict yourself to -
Kathy: Our school included tap, ballet, jazz, lyrical, modern, contemporary ... we had tumbling classes ... we had Flamenco Spanish classes ... we had hip-ho... a little bit of everything.
Don: How many of those did you teach?
Kathy: I would teach primarily the combination classes of tap-ballet-tumbling, because I was the teacher who was really best with the little bitty ones. And I did all the company tap and musical theatre classes. That was the high school girl level classes.
Don: Tell me about some of the students that came out of your program. I've seen many pictures of them downstairs in your conference room.
Kathy: I'm actually very proud of the kids I trained. I typically had about 300 students a year. Not obviously the first years I was in business - it took time to build clientele, but, I was blessed to have about 300 students a year and out of that I ... One of my students, Alana Niehoff , is a Rockette. She had actually gone to American Ballet Theatre first, in a Junior Company position, and has ended up as a Rockette for the last five years.
Don: She studied at SAB? At ABT? At the School of American Ballet?
Kathy: She did the summer programs every year when she was a kid growing up, and then American Ballet Theatre took her into their apprentice program. So she is a Rockette. I have another dancer, Tiffany Johnson, who has now worked for ten years in Las Vegas with "Jubilee." Nina McNeely I raised her from about when she was six or seven years old until high school graduation - she is a teacher at "The Edge."
Don: In Los Angeles?
Kathy: In Los Angeles. I have two or three more girls - Celina Nightingale and Maggie Chapman are both working in Los Angeles and New York and Canada. So I was lucky. I had some kids that went on and did something.
Don: Who were some of your teachers. I know one was Jenny Schiff, who studied with Tremaine in Los Angeles, and who now runs the Schiff Dance Collective. Who were some of your others?
Kathy: I had some absolutely marvelous people who worked for me. Besides Jenny Schiff I had Mia Backlin - she and Jenny were two of my most recent teachers. Way back when Joyce Schuylar was one of our first ballet instructors - she was a Principle with Colorado Ballet - Cleo's sister, Sue Parker, did most of my jazz when I first started, and basically helped me get the business going. Sue and I were very close. And a lot of Cleo's dancers worked for me - Curtis Fraiser and Ron Whittaker. I was always blessed to get dynamite teachers to work for me. My oldest dearest friends Maureen Ten Eyck and Ginny Hulburt worked for me for some 20 plus years. I had a great team of teachers.
Don: If you had Ronnie Whittaker you had one of the best.
Kathy: Yes, Yes!
Don: That is so interesting to me. You have told me some luscious stories about dance competitions your students were involved in. I wonder if you would share some of those.
Kathy: Competitions were just getting started in the United States in maybe the early to mid 1980's. I was training in New York City every year. I would get myself to New York. I started out basically with the kind of dance convention type training. Then I started attending the Tremaine conventions in New York City. And they would have competitions - dance competitions - in the evenings. We were taking classes in the daytime. And I would watch these kids from all over the United States, and I would think, "Why are these kids so dynamite?" I mean this one particular school from some small town in Minnesota just knocked my socks off.
Don: What town?
Kathy: I can't even think of the name of the school now. But, they were just phenomenal. So I would talk to these school's teachers, and I would say, "You know what, why are your kids so good?" And they would say, "Well, they have to be. They're competing. Every nose has to point the same direction. Every finger has to be in the same place. Every foot has to be pointed in the same corner of the room." And I would look at these groups of fifteen or twenty kids that were absolutely perfect. And I thought, "I want this for my kids." So I came home and started training my more advanced dancers to be competitive dancers. And they were excited, because it was way more than just waiting all year for dance recital to come around. They had another opportunity to perform. They also had a reason to get better. And so that part of the competition I loved. I loved that it made my students want to strive to get better - made them work harder. I loved that it gave me an edge in my choreography - that I had an opportunity to really shine. I got lots and lots of awards, particularly for tap choreography over the years, and that was a nice pat on the back. What I HATED about it was the same ugliness among dance teachers that I learned had existed since before I was born. I mean when I was young my teacher - Florence Kessler - there were basically two schools in Colorado - or in the Denver area. It was Lillian Cushing, or Florence Kessler. If you were going to be a ballerina you went to Lillian Cushing. If you were going to be a tapper, musical theatre kind of kid you went to Florence Kessler. Obviously they "hated" each other. HATED each other. Very competitive.
Don: Like Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham?
Kathy: Oh Gosh Yes! And over the years there were the "Cushing Kids," and the "Kessler Kids." You could not be friends. They were scared one school would "steal" kids from the other school. Florence Kessler became Florence Ruston . And she was one of the biggest contributors - financially - to the arts in Colorado there ever was. And Lillian Cushing is the one who produced Friedann Parker and Lillian Covillo, and Gwen Bowen. So you either came from the Kessler School, or you came from the Cushing School. And I can remember growing up in Denver when my teacher and Gwen Bowen could not speak to each other. They could not even be in the same room together and be friends.
So when I started my school I was determined that I was NOT going to be that kind of school. And that is what I absolutely loved about Colorado Dance Alliance. I was probably one of the first dance studio people who would even talk to the Colorado Dance Alliance. Because most of the people who owned dance studios thought the Colorado Dance Alliance was kind of this stuck up group of higher-education, modern people who looked down their noses at the dance schools.
Don: Do you think that has changed?
Kathy: No, it absolutely hasn't, and it is sad. But I strove within my own school to interact with other dance teachers, and interacting with other schools created a sense of respect among teachers. I didn't have the same fear that other dance teachers do of someone stealing my students. I wasn't afraid to take my kids to Cleo's in the summer for classes. I wasn't afraid - if my kids got really good in ballet and I did not have the classes for them I didn't fear sending them to David Taylor for ballet. Or send them to Colorado Ballet for classes. A lot of schools then - and probably still now have these rules that if you're in their school you cannot take a dance class from any other school in Denver. If you're a teacher in their school you cannot go teach at any other school in Denver. It was a competitive issue that I did not want a part of.
Don: It is not only here.
Kathy: No!! And to me I think it is insane. Think it is insane. I think teachers should want their students to be the absolute best they can be. And if a studio cannot provide every tiny bit of training that a dancer needs, they should allow that dancer to go somewhere else and get it ...
Don: Maybe encourage them to.
Kathy: Yes!!! Encourage them to go take a better ballet class somewhere. Or a better jazz class. Or a better modern class. And so my kids - growing up in competition - the positive parts that came out of that were that they got lots and lots of training all over the United States - I'd drag them to Las Vegas every year for conventions - I'd drag them to New York for conventions - I'd drag them to Palm Springs for conventions - I took them to every convention I could, I hired every excellent teacher I could hire, because I wanted my kids better than me. I wanted dance - which obviously had just - if you look at kids that were being trained in dance studios in the 60's and compare them to students coming out of studios in 2010, it knocks your socks off. Turns, and leaps, and jumps and stuff that were exclusively for men in the 60's - girls are doing that now!!! No one would have ever known that dance could go to the heights that it has gone to.
Don: Just watch Ballet Nouveau.
Kathy: Awesome. And to me that is exciting. That's what it is about.
Don: Now correct me of I am wrong, but I think you told me some amazing stories about going to these dance competitions, and it took you awhile to learn that some of those were totally rigged.
Kathy: Oh absolutely. I think perhaps the best story I have to tell about that is we had gone to a competition in Palm Springs one summer.
Don: Palm Springs in California?
Kathy: Palm Springs, California. And we had taken top honors here at the Regional Convention here in Denver. And we were quite cocky, and thought we were better than better. Of course you do that when you come away from a regional competition with all the high points and all the high scores. One of my students, Tiffany Johnson, had been selected as "Miss -" for that competition. But anyways I packed my kids all up and we went out to Palm Springs, and it became apparent to one particular mother who sat out in the audience and watched every single, solitary number performed over a period of five days, that certain numbers had strobe lights run during the number, and the other numbers did not. And after she began keeping track she discovered that the numbers with the strobe lights were the numbers placing in the top five, or top ten in these categories, and we ended up not doing well. And it was ...
Don: And you got no strobe lights?
Kathy: And we had no strobe lights. But, the main thing was that I went to the director of this particular competition and I called him on it. And I said, "This is absurd." The judging was not fair and some of the stuff that was being done literally brought me up out of my seat. There was a routine done by two young boys about 13 or 14 years old and this was, I think, the early 90's and these boys literally practically stripped onstage, and then went up and grabbed their crotches in the faces of the judges, and those two boys won first place!!! And there I was in the audience coming out of my seat and thinking this is the most inappropriate thing for those two 14 year old boys to be doing at a family oriented dance competition. But anyways, when I called the director of this particular competition on it he said, "Kathleen, I told you to take your kids to Kansas City. If you had taken your kids to our Kansas City Nationals they would have done really well. But you brought them to Palm Springs against my Phoenix people, and you can't hold a candle." And I was livid. (Laughter)
Don: Why did he feel you could "not hold a candle?"
Kathy: I don't know. Those were huge schools and I did come to find that the bigger the school and the more numbers that were entered in a competition typically the better that particular group would do, because they were bringing in huge bucks. And you know, this particular competition was not just about us. There were two or three schools from Southern California that absolutely, flawlessly dynamite, dynamite, dynamite. Dynamite dancers. Dynamite numbers. And they were not winning either. And I looked back over the five years prior to that year and the same school had taken top honors five years in a row at the Palm Springs Nationals!!!
Don: Do you think it is changing?
Kathy: I don't know. I have not had my finger in the competition circuit for the last ten years now - other than judging. I did judge off and on over the last twenty years, but as far as taking students to competitions, I have not done that since I closed my school.
Don: Why and when did you shut the school down?
Kathy: After twenty four years and raising my oldest boy in a dance school, with me teaching 18 to 20 classes a week, working 50 to 60 hours a week, I was exhausted.
Don: So you closed it about four years before Jack was born.
Kathy: No I closed it the year before Jack was born. But, I was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. I was working 60 hours a week.
Don: So you closed it in the late 90's?
Kathy: I closed it in the year 2000.
Don: Ever look back with regrets?
Kathy: No. I love what I do now.
Don: And you loved what you did then?
Kathy: I loved what I did then. I mean I lived the dream. You know I look back over my life and I think I was blessed. I lived the dream. I decided when I was little that I wanted to grow up and be a teacher. I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was 7 or 8 years old.
Don: That is what your Mom told me.
Kathy: And how many kids in a dance school actually get to grow up and do anything with their dance? You know probably one in a thousand kids grows up an actually does something with their dance.
Don: That is true at the level you worked. I'd say one in ten overall ever dance after they graduate from any school.
Kathy: Do you think it is that high?
Don: I'm looking at my experience of watching people coming out of places like CU (University of Colorado/Boulder) and UNCG (University of North Carolina in Greensboro). Out of Naropa, maybe one in twenty. Usually they have huge student loans to pay off.
Kathy: Yes!!!
Don: And they're not going to get that done dancing.
Kathy: Right!!
Don: And so they take a "day job" and pretty soon the "day job" takes them over. A good example I think is J. Darden Longenecker. Her degrees are in the Marine Sciences, but she is an amazing circus performer and dancer, and quite a good choreographer. But, she went to work for CPB Group and it turns out she knows a heck of a lot about building websites. And they just moved her up so fast it was really easy for her to leave all of her dance behind.
Kathy: Yup. Still - unfortunately - it is very hard to make a living in dance.
Don: It's important to remember that people like David Dorfman and Doug Varone, who were very successful in dance, probably walked around with something like $50K credit card debts, while trying to keep their companies going. Ralph Lemon one time told me that he was never a happy man until he got rid of his dance company. (Laughter)
You were pretty much part of the Colorado Front Range dance generation of the 80's. 90's and early 2000's. Are there some things you can tell us about that time and what was happening here? I know about Colorado Contemporary Dance, and that they were pretty much THE dance presenters of that time. That was true for some time, and now that happens somewhat at the Lakewood Cultural Center, and certainly at the Newman Center and at DCPA (Denver Center for the Performing Arts). And Union Colony Square and the Lincoln Center up in Greeley and Fort Collins.
Kathy: Yup. There are many more venues that are bringing in dance companies now than there were then.
Don: I think a lot of current dance people - I mean people here in Front Range Colorado right now - see the Colorado Dance Festival as the historically major presenter of dance, and they maybe do not realize that a lot happened before that. And a lot is happening "after" if they will look carefully, but that was a major part of dance here. It certainly was a part my life. The real joy that I had was that I was at Naropa and CU when that was happening. It even came back summers when I was at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and I just grazed on that wonderful festival.
Kathy: Well the Denver/Boulder Colorado area - in between New York City and Los Angeles - we were really a big hot spot. People like Marda Kirn started the Colorado Dance Festival and I believe Colorado was a hot spot for dance, especially if you look at the surrounding states. Santa Fe always had the Santa Fe Ballet (Now Aspen Santa Fe Ballet), but there was not much going on in Kansas or Utah - well Ballet West was in Utah - but, Colorado was a hot spot between New York and LA for a long time. (Editor's note: The Kansas City Ballet is recognized as one of the better regional ballet companies and there are very strong dance programs at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah, in Provost and Salt Lake City, Utah respectively, and both Arizona State and the University of Arizona in Tempe and Tucson, Arizona have very strong dance programs.)
Don: It is also important to note who some of the dance greats are/were that came out of Denver, like Ted Shawn - and I think there were many, many more.
Kathy: Yes there have been a lot of people, and they include Cleo Parker Robinson.
Don: When did you get involved with the Colorado Dance Alliance (CDA)? You indicated you were one of the first active CDA people from a competition school.
Kathy: Yes. When the CDA was starting up in the late 1970's or early 1980's I immediately became a member. (Editor's note: The Colorado Dance Alliance was founded in 1980.)
Don: So you were a member when ...
Kathy: From the beginning.
Don: ... Cleo Parker Robinson, Nancy Spanier, David Taylor were involved in its start up?
Kathy: Well the first CDA board was pretty much put together by Marda Kirn. Marda Kirn was one of the first people involved. But, I can't remember if it was Marda, or Nancy McElroy that called and asked me to be on the board. At that time Joan Brown was on the board, and Eli Henry, and David Taylor. I don't remember if Cleo was on the board at that time. They asked me to be on the board, and they wanted me on the board because they wanted someone who would represent the 80 plus dance studios, that were "non-academic" type venues. And so I came on the board then.
Don: Did you have any success getting any other people from those organizations involved? Or did they feel kind of dissed and shunned.
Kathy: You know to this day I really don't quite understand it. There were very, very few dance studios involved at any given time. When I was in business there were 85 to 100 dance studios in the Denver Metro area - a half a dozen of which were members of the CDA.
Don: So less than 10%.
Kathy: Oh, way less than 10%. And the words that I would usually get in my ear were, "Oh, those are those stuck up Modern people." (Laughter) And they didn't relate. Either they couldn't relate to CDA, or CDA wasn't relating to them. But, there was always kind of a river that ran between CDA and the dance studios.
Don: There is an interesting anecdote that relates to that. I won't use the name, but it's a very successful dance presenter person who has worked all over the United States and who has graduate degrees in dance. He asked me who were the major companies working around here. He knew about "3rd Law" and he knew about Hannah Kahn. I told him he needed to take a look at Jacob Mora and Ballet Nouveau, but the company that was selling lots of tickets was "Breakefx." He asked, "Who is that." And I told him that is a Breaking and Hip-hop group out of "Streetside" in Boulder, and that they would sell out a 500 seat theater in a heartbeat. As a matter of fact people will show up at 6:00 for an 8;00 PM show to make sure they get a seat. And he said, "We don't do Hip-Hop." And I said, "Well you asked who the major companies are in Front Range Colorado, and they are a major company. In fact, they are the only company in Front Range Colorado that has been on National TV." And he said, "We don't do Hip-Hop."
Kathy: (Chuckle)
Don: And that spoke volumes to me.
Kathy: It does.
Don: It doesn't speak for a lot of people about how that speaks volumes.
Did you first become co-president of CDA, and then president. Were you co-president with Lisa Wood?
Kathy: Correct.
Don: And then you were president in 2007?
Kathy: 2007 and 2008.
Don: Can you tell me about those days? How you felt. How you felt the organization was serving dance, etc?
Kathy: My heart has always had a soft place for the Colorado Dance Alliance. I think it's an organization that really was formed for a very important reason, and that was to get Colorado dance people together - to talk to each other - to communicate. Something that had not ever been done. Like I said earlier, back in the time when I was growing up, dance teachers did not speak to each other. They were terrified of being friends with each other. For fear that they would steal each other's students. It was a highly competitive mentality. And I saw CDA as coming into Colorado to bridge that. To say, "Yeah!! Lets get together, lets talk to each other, lets be friends, lets share advice, lets share teachers, lets - you know - give each other help. Lets support each other." And I think that was vital for dance people at that time. And many of them became very good, and close friends. The friends that I have known like Nancy McElroy, Lisa Wood, and Joan Brown that I would have never met had I not gotten involved in CDA. And there became a sense of mutual respect among the dance people because of CDA They started to respect each other.
Don: I think I "grew up in dance" in a Miami, Florida environment. And when I moved into the Boulder, Colorado environment in the late 1990's and early 2000's I was told by Alison Moore (Editor's note: Alison Moore was then Executive Director of the Boulder County Arts Alliance) that the one group of artists that had its act together was the dancers. And that was because they talked to each other and they shared.
Kathy: Hmm Hmm.
Don: And as I look at it now, that is really true. It is not universal. There are some real cranks and real egotists there. But, for the most part you can walk up to almost anyone and ask for a favor and get it.
Kathy: Hmm Hmm.
Don: And they share dancers. Of course you were talking about the dance schools and not the dance companies.
Kathy: I'm not talking about the companies so much. I come from two diverse backgrounds, because of being part of what was considered the dance schools, but also being involved with people from dance companies. I believe the dance company people were more open to sharing and kindness toward each other than the schools were. I grew up in Denver being told New Yorkers were these horrible rude people. And I started traveling back and forth to New York City in 1982 and I could not have asked for better, warmer, more generous, more wonderful people than the dance people in New York City.
Don: Well - I guess we both have a reasonably small sample, but I got a similar impression in that people who helped me incredibly were people like David Dorfman and Doug Varone out of New York, and Elizabeth Zimmer at the Village Voice. They were all incredibly generous in what they would share.
Kathy: Just the kindest people in the world I think. For all the years I have judged dance competitions - for about twenty years - I have met dance teachers from all over the United States - and found the same thing about them. If you are from not their city, not their town, and not their neighborhood you could not find nicer, more generous, more wonderful people. Competition arises when you're scared to death someone is going to take your students. That is when it comes into play. And that is why CDA was able to kind of bridge that and started to get dance people to respect each other and talk to each other.
Don: There was a wonderful quote in the Sun Magazine published in Chapel Hill, NC - it said, "Anger is that little hole where your own feelings of inadequacy sneak out."
Kathy: Yeah!!!!
Don: A loaded question. What does the Colorado Dance Alliance have to do to save itself? - to keep going?
Kathy: Well it's got to provide a reason to be a member. We as an organization have gotten to where we give less and less and less and less for that membership fee. And I admired you at the time you stood up in a board meeting and said it is every single dancer in this state's responsibility to join CDA. That they owe CDA their membership, if for no other reason than - I don't remember the words you used.
Don: I called it "good citizenship," but I must say that concept did not work!!!
Kathy: Because the average dancer - average anybody in this world - is always looking for what they are going to get back for their thirty bucks.
Don: I saw the same thing with the North Carolina Dance Alliance.
Kathy: Yes.
Don: It only prospered when they offered services.
Kathy: Right!!
Don: Nobody joined out of a feeling of "citizenship."
Kathy: That is exactly right, and that is the problem with CDA now. Lisa Wood and "Tish" Williams worked themselves to death in conjunction with people like Richard Denny to get these Colorado Dance Awards going. They poured in their hearts, their souls, and money out of their own pockets to get them going, and in large measure, the dance community did not even buy tickets to attend.
Don: You and I did.
Kathy: You and I did. We were there.
That is part of why CDA is going down the tubes. It doesn't have the members, to generate the funds, to generate activities, and without activities you cannot generate membership.
Don: So let me paraphrase a little bit of what you said. You're saying it is just as much the fault of the Colorado Dance Community, as of the Colorado Dance Alliance, that the Colorado Dance Alliance is in trouble. That the dancers themselves are really not stepping up to the plate, doing their citizenship duties, and supporting it.
Kathy: It is like a circle. The dancers have to support the organization, that can then in turn create events, and create support that gives back to the dancers. It is like a circle. If the dancers are not supporting it then the organization cannot give back to the dancers.
Don: Jacob Mora says that to you and me - and Jacob as well I think - that thirty or forty bucks to join CDA is not a big deal, but to the average dancer it is a tank of gas.
Kathy: Yeah!!! (Laughter)
Don: And they really can't afford it.
Kathy: That is right.
Don: So I think there is that also. I think the dancer "in the trenches," whose backstage in the middle of a costume change so she can get back out there, because she is in three consecutive pieces for Hannah Kahn's dance company, cannot figure out why she should give thirty bucks to CDA.
Kathy. No!!! Back in the 80's - 70's or 80's - organizations like the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities were lush with funds, and CDA was almost completely funded by the Colorado Council on the Arts, which allowed us to hire an Executive Director ...
Don: Which is where Roseanne came from.
Kathy: Which is where Roseanne Stern came from, and CDA was able to apply for grants that created funding allowing CDA to do amazing things - when it had that support, but, as we all know, the funding for dance got smaller and smaller - drier and drier and drier - and now there are all these huge companies, like Colorado Ballet and Cleo Parker Robinson that are vying for these tiny amounts of money.
Don: So you now no longer have the dance school.
Kathy: Nope.
Don: And you still don't sleep, and you have some three jobs teaching dance. Can you tell me about that?
Kathy: I love it! Love what I do!!
Don: What are those jobs?
Kathy: I work for Denver Parks and Recreation, teaching kids who cannot afford to go to dance schools, because their parents can't afford $60/month for four 45 minute classes.
Don: And $100's more.
Kathy: And $100's in costume costs and recital fees. I absolutely love it. And I have been teaching for Windsor Gardens - which is a retirement community - for ten years. So currently I have students who range in age from 4 to 84.
Don: And you're teaching at DSA (Denver School of the Arts) as well.
Kathy: I got a Guest Artist position at DSA this spring. I'm setting a tap piece on their 8 and 9 grade girls. Loving that. (Editor's note: Kathy's tap piece was performed as part of DSA's spring 2010 concert "Splash.") And after I closed my school I kept a handful of students I had at the time and have continued to teach them. I am now teaching what I call my "grandchildren." I'm teaching kids of children that I taught.
Don: Where do you teach those classes? Are they privates?
Kathy: Yeah! Private lessons. I sublet space from an Irish dance school that sublet from me when I had my school. And I love what I do. I don't have the hassle of the overhead. I don't have to hassle with landlords, and parents, and rent, and public service company bills, and insurance. I come in, I teach my class, and I get an hourly fee, and I go home. It is great.
Don: You one time helped a dancer I was working with, Melissa Rumsey. You helped her with a specific piece, and I can say honestly that in 30 or 40 minutes you created a drastic change in how she looked at that piece, and how she looked at herself. And I think she carried some of that into other things. She is very fortunate that she studies with Jenny Schiff so that helps.
Kathy: Thank you.
Don: Any thoughts about the future of Front Range Colorado Dance - assuming this recession ends.
Kathy: I think there is so much available for kids now a days in dance. So many schools to study at. So many terrific teachers, like you mentioned in Jenny Schiff. There is just so much available.
Don: Other teachers I know are of course Katie Elliott - I mean "younger" ones - I think Hannah's (Kahn) and Cleo's (Cleo Parker Robinson) studios are givens - but the teachers at Cleo's studio are not givens although they are most apt to be very good - but Katie Elliott teaches amazing classes and so does Jenny and Jacob Mora. And there are some hidden things like Streetside Studios where there are amazing Hip-Hop and Jazz classes. And a sort of "sleeper" is Pat Connelly who teaches swing and other contemporary forms.
Kathy: Right. And dance in general has so much more exposure than it ever has had. Because we have TV programs now like "Dancing With The Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance."
Don: Oh, that is certainly true. And "America's Best Dance Crew," which Breakefex was on.
Kathy: Yes. To me that is absolutely dynamite!! Dancers now have venues that they did not used to have.
Don: That is true, and I think a major part of that "venue creation" in Front Range Colorado is SCFD (the Scientific and Cultural Funding District, which is a taxing district for seven Front Range Colorado counties that raises about $40M per year). Unfortunately part of the SCFD effect is that the funding has created almost a plethora of dance companies . If you have a 501( c )3, and can get through their gatekeepers, you can get $1000 to $3000 per year from Tier III funding and that will help you get a major concert up. Unfortunately dance audience has not developed at the same pace dance companies have.
Kathy: Right.
Don: So even though we cry about funding, and the disappearance of the Colorado Arts Council funding, we are very fortunate in Front Range Colorado. That SCFD funding has probably dropped drastically per result of the recession, but it is still substantial.
Kathy: Not just dance is struggling. Look at how many small theatre companies are going out of business.
Don: Perhaps many of which should never have been formed.
Kathy: True. I have watched something like ten new dance companies form every year, while in that same year ten went out of business. And anyone can open a dance studio, Which is another reason I was interested in CDA. Because at the time I got interested, there were a number of us dance teachers who actually had college educations and teaching degrees that were running dance schools. And it was at times insulting to watch Susie Cheerleader open a dance studio, when the rest of us had put in our time to learn how to teach dance - and just anyone could open a dance studio. There was no licensing required. You had to have a license to open a beauty shop, you had to have a license to cut someone's hair, you had to have a license to give a manicure, but anybody could open a dance studio and pretend to teach people's young children.
Don: I think there is hope. If I look at the Denver Public School System and the people they have hired. People Like Mark Haase and William Starn and Teri Diaz and Alicia Karczewski and Michael O'Bannion it makes me feel really good that -
Kathy: Yes.
Don: - that the Denver Public School system has a good vision of dance education.
Kathy: They are starting to write dance education standards now, and to say, "Hey, we need to define better how these kids are trained, because sadly a poorly trained teacher can really literally ruin a kid."
Don: Which brings us back to the "tag line" for the Colorado Dance Alliance - "The most important decision you will make about your child's dance career is in choosing their first teacher."
Kathy: That is right.
Don: What about the future of Kathy Hill Sheldon?
Kathy: I hope I can keep dancing until I'm 107!!!
Don: How is your knee doing?
Kathy: It has its good days and its bad days, but at the time I had knee surgery I thought I had not gone more than a few weeks without dancing since I was five years old. And I cannot imagine a life without my tap shoes on my feet. So I hope I can be like my Windsor Gardens ladies. They inspire me every Saturday morning. To put my tap shoes on and keep going. (Chuckle)
Don: Can you tell me about your interest in sacred dance?
Kathy: I am a huge supporter of what David Taylor is doing. I am so proud of him and so amazed at how he is taking old, old, old, ancient, ancient sacred dances and recreating them, and setting them on dancers. And putting sacred dance out for the general public to look at.
Don: Do you know of Roseanna Frechette and "The Sacred Dance Guild?"
Kathy; I do not. No.
Don: It actually exists in the Denver area. I think maybe it is important that they get together with David Taylor.
Kathy: Whose name did you use?
Don: Roseanna Frechette is her name.
Kathy: Oh really. I believe Anne Blessing used to "run" that group.
Don: That might be true. Then there is a group - not sacred dance per se - up in Boulder that is a Eurythmy group that is loosely connected to the Tara High School. And they have developed the skills of Eurythmy to a really fine art form, and they are really trying to educate people. But, Eurythmy, for maybe the average person, is a little hard to watch. But, I think it is almost sacred in its approach. The way it works with music and words.
Don: Anything else we need to cover?
Kathy: I think not.
Don: Then we will stop here and thank you very much.
Kathy: Thank you.
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