Cleo Parker Robinson Dance broke ground Wednesday on a 25,000-square-foot, three-level modern expansion adjacent to its historic headquarters.
A crowd of cultural and civic leaders, philanthropic and community supporters and a family of current and former dancers joined the organization's iconic namesake at the Center for the Healing Arts groundbreaking.
Dressed in a black, white and royal purple custom-made Senegalese garb with white babouche slippers, Malik Robinson, president and CEO of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, thanked a long list of donors from a podium outside of the historic Shorter AME Church.
“Their spirits run heavy here,” Robinson said, holding back tears for CPRD elders and predecessors who made this day possible. “We are here because we have an inspired vision.”
A new space for 'more than just a dance company'
The Center for the Healing Arts is expected to be completed after 17 months.
The $20 million construction cost is funded by public and private grants, donor investments, New Market Tax Credits and bridge financing, according to a CPRD news release.
A two-story glass atrium will link the center to its historic Shorter AME Church predecessor, a space they first moved into 35 years ago, and will function as an education and performing arts expansion featuring:
- A 240-seat performance venue with collapsible seating for rehearsal space
- Four new dance studios
- New facility upgrades for dancers including dressing rooms
- A north-facing outdoor deck
“CPRD is more than just a dance company,” said Marisa Hollingsworth, founder of Presenting Denver and a CPRD alumna. “It is an institution of higher being and purpose. This project is an exclamation point on dance in Denver.”
The facility will also feature operating solar panels on the East-wall facade that will exhibit a Labanotation transcription of Cleo Parker Robinson’s choreography for “Mary Don’t You Weep,” a piece Robinson created in response to the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and her younger brother.
“This is a woman that is in our history books,” said Rachel Harding, a CPRD dancer from 2000 to 2005. “Her impact on the dance world globally is mind-blowing. She’s just a remarkable human being.”
Robinson was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2021 from President Joe Biden, the Kennedy Center Medal for the Arts in 2005 and four honorary PhDs from Colorado institutions over the years. The Denver dance pioneer built a long legacy of connecting movement and culture with the social justice of the Civil Rights Movement in Colorado.
“I am so proud of Cleo,” said Joan Myers Brown, founder of Philadanco. “I’m from a city where only the ballet get supported. Our black institutions don’t get supported.”
Brown, the 92-year-old Philadelphia dance pioneer founded the International Association of Blacks in Dance in 1988 with the vision to uplift America’s Black dance community. At the groundbreaking, Brown sang her praises for Cleo Parker Robinson, crediting her with being the first person to help Brown see her vision come to life.
“Cleo was right there with me. I can’t help but cry. This is amazing,” Brown said.
Dr. Shale Wong is a pediatrician and Executive Director of the CU Anschutz Medical Campus Farley Health Policy Center.
“I was a dancer before I was a doctor,” Wong said. “I gave it up. Then one day I learned there was a dance studio not too far from the hospital.”
After encountering CPRD almost 30 years ago, Wong is now a part of the CPRD Board of Directors and a mother of two CPRD youth ensemble dancers.
“[My hope is] that people recognize the healing power of the arts,” Wong said. “That it functions to bring everybody together and experience that.”
After leaders were done wielding ceremonial shovels in, Cleo herself led a dance circle around the Five Points plot of land that will soon be transformed into a state-of-the-art facility for Denver’s dancers.
“I just hope that they come in with open minds and just ready to let their imaginations run wild,” Malik Robinson said about the next generation of dancers. “Ready to be open, to be inspired because they’ll get it. All they have to do is walk through the doors.”
