When Cleo Parker Robinson, arguably the most significant dance figure ever to come out of the state of Colorado, was asked to perform a nearly 10-minute solo piece at this weekend’s upcoming Presenting Denver Dance Festival, “I thought that they had lost their minds,” she said with a laugh.

“They” were festival Artistic Director Marisa Hollingsworth and prominent Denver choreographer Christopher Page-Sanders, who developed a new piece called “The Love We Carry” for Parker Robinson to perform in honor of her late husband, Tom Robinson. He was an adoring spouse and logical math teacher who helped his wife to establish the dance company that since 1970 has been an anchor of Black culture in the Rocky Mountain region.

But Cleo Parker Robinson is 77 years old. And while she has played an angel character in the holiday staple “Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum” for the past 34 years, she hasn’t performed a solo dance piece in four decades. Why? Because it just isn’t done. By anyone (over 30).

“When dancers are 20, they think about adventure,” Parker Robinson said. “That’s how I started the company. But when they get to be about 30, their mind changes. Their minds begin to think about security.”

And if you get near 40? “You think your life is over,” she said with another laugh. Remember: For her, 40 was 37 years ago.

Her resume is filled with soaring singular dance triumphs. There were solos by modern icons Eleo Pomare and Rod Rodgers. Another favorite was Donald McKayle’s “Saturday’s Child.”

“But these were all in the 1980s,” she said.

“People know I love to dance, but to really have your mind focused on what you’re doing with the body, and focused on making a message that really is coming from you and through you? That becomes a much more difficult thing as you get older.”

Getting Parker Robinson to “yes,” Page-Sanders said, “would be a process of trust.”

“I looked in the mirror and said, ‘That’s not a dancer’s body anymore. How dare you go out there?’” Parker Robinson said. “I mean, the respect I have for dancers? It was almost like I had to negate myself.”

Then she turned her gaze away from the mirror and inside herself. She thought about Tom. Then she gave her body over to her former mentee and now colleague.

“I told Chris: ‘I know you have some great ideas, but this body doesn’t do what it used to do. You better not hurt me,’” she said. “And then I had to trust him. I kept saying, ’If I could just find my body, that would be great.’ But I think the greatest thing is that you also have to find your mind. As a dancer, I know this is about mind, body, spirit and emotion. And I couldn’t allow my mind to be selfish about my body, so I had to let it all go. And I let Chris in.

“I’m a process person, and Chris has allowed me to be where I am right now. And he has been beside me, helping me to get me to another place in my journey. I think this is a full-circle moment for all of us, because I did that with him when he was my student. I think he’s teaching me what I first learned when I was his age. It’s just a great moment for everyone.”

The historic journey they have taken together has been grounded in one soaring, unknowable question: What happens to love when someone we love dies?

Two love stories

“The Love We Carry” contains two love stories: Cleo and Tom. And Cleo and Chris.

Officially, the latter began in 2008. Sanders was a sophomore at the University of Missouri-Kansas City attending the International Association of Blacks and Dance Conference in Dallas. There he saw Marceline Freeman, a beloved member of Parker Robinson’s company who had gone blind three years earlier, dance with choreographer Christopher Huggins in excerpts from his seminal work, “Nine Ninas.” “It was so inspiring that we all cried with joy,” Parker Robinson said.

Page-Sanders asked Cleo if he could take a photo with her. “So for me, I guess the origin of our love story started there,” he said. “But really there are so many people who have come through Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble who also touched my life while I was growing up in both St. Louis and Kansas City that I think our love story starts way before 2008, just by proxy of those other people.”

Page-Sanders joined Parker Robinson’s company in 2009 and was a member for seven years. He then became her choreographic assistant. In 2015, Chris asked Cleo to be the officiant at his wedding to Bashir Page-Sanders, which was held at her dance theater. Why Cleo?

“Because she was the right person,” he said. “I think our souls are so deeply connected through the art form of dance, but also through love for each other, love for humanity, love for the community. … And also, I met my husband in her company. So it had to be her.”

Over the past 55 years, Cleo has uplifted thousands of Christophers. But there are some that you just know from the start will be unforgettable.

“I’ve had so many dancers over all these years,” she said. “But there was something about Christopher. I would have a thought, and he would finish it, every time. It was almost like we had one mind. And that doesn’t happen very often. There was something like DNA between us. There was this kind of soul connection.”

And then there was the love story of Cleo and Tom, the shy athletic champion who swept the dancing queen right off her feet back in high school. The two were Regis’ prom king and queen in 1964, and married in 1970.

“Tom has been the love of my life for over 60 years,” said Parker Robinson. “The journey he and I have shared was destined to be. We were devoted to one another in all things, to our family, our dreams and our community.”

Tom Robinson was a big deal, both in Denver and in a larger world that probably never realized he was also the co-founder of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. He was a longtime high-school athletics administrator, college referee and math teacher at Regis High School who died in 2022 at age 76. “He was an exceptionally talented athlete, teacher, coach, husband, father and grandfather,” said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. “He was known for his counsel, his compassion and quiet positivity.”

That he taught math proved to be a Cupid’s arrow that connected his classroom to his wife’s rehearsal room like a bullseye. After all, math is the fundamental building block of dance. Counting beats, synchronizing movements, creating formations and dancers forming geometric shapes with their bodies – it’s all math.

“Math is absolutely crucial in understanding dance,” Page-Sanders said. “Math is in the music. Math is in the choreography. Math is in the calculating and the understanding of the steps. Cleo talks about that a lot.”

And math is both honored and evident in “The Love We Carry.” Because math is practical. It is pragmatic. It is logical. It is the human expression of critical thinking. Just like Tom Robinson.

“Whenever things with the company were in total disarray and changing every second,” Parker Robinson said, “Tom wouldn’t say a lot, but whatever he said was useful.”

Because Tom, as Cleo often told Page-Sanders, was the rock, and she was the butterfly. “That means Tom was the stable one, which allowed Cleo this beautiful landing place,” he said. “And that allowed Cleo the feeling of freedom and home and security.”

Which again begs the question of the day, and of the dance: What DOES happen to love when someone we love dies?

“Deeply rooted love does not die,” Page-Sanders said. “It does not end. It expands, it carries. It lives on in movement and in memory and in legacy.” It also lives on in the couple’s son, Malik Robinson, now the company’s president and CEO.

Page-Sanders calls the piece he and Parker Robinson have created together “a meditation, a celebration, and an affirmation of the love that Cleo shares with Tom. And, in parallel, how that love ripples into the family, the community, the company and the world.”

Dance your life through

When it came time for Parker Robinson to decide whether to go forward with this unprecedented, unthinkable solo piece, she was in Brazil, preparing for a huge cross-collaboration that would encompass diverse aspects of Brazilian culture.

“I looked around and I saw that people in Brazil dance every day, at every age,” said the woman of 77 who looked again in the mirror – and this time saw the butterfly.

“I thought about Tom, and I realized: I have a new life,” she said. “And I have a new message.”

That message: “I know people can dance until it’s their last breath.”

Sanders, while decades younger, found himself coming to a similar awakening.

“I’m in a place where now I’m in the middle of my life,” he said. “And I realize that, much like Cleo, much like Carmen de Lavallade, much like Gus Solomons Jr. and Dianne McIntyre and Judith Jamison – the dance doesn’t stop. Never. And I think for me, there’s a very human element of dance that allows our elders to continue dancing.

“I think it became important for us to show that as artists, your prime is not necessarily 25 to 30. You become more aware of your body and the power of your artistry and the power of your humanity as you continue to live. I think that’s where the ‘OK, let’s do this’ happened.”

Parker Robinson will perform “The Love We Carry” as part of the Presenting Denver festival’s Saturday and Sunday programs. The piece will be set to the music of Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, Miriam Makeba and jazz vocalist Somi Kakoma.  

At 77, Parker Robinson isn’t actually showing any signs of slowing down. Instead, her company stands at the precipice of the most significant moment of its existence. In October, the company will christen its new Center for the Healing Arts, a multi-million-dollar expansion that will add 23,000 square feet to the company’s headquarters in the historic Shorter AME Church in Five Points. The expansion will include an additional 240-seat underground performance venue, four new dance studios, new dressing rooms, a reception area, café, office facilities and more.

Parker Robinson says none of it happens without Tom, whom she more than believes – she knows – remains present in the daily dance. And in the dance this weekend, which she says will be more of a duet.

“I think this piece, for me, verifies that he’s really here, and that I can really hear him,” she said. “And that whatever he gave us belongs not just to me, but it belongs to Malik, and it belongs to our company. And it belongs to Chris and Bashir.

“So, yes, I can hear Tom, absolutely. And he’s thrilled that Chris and I can work together in such a loving way. He’s telling us to keep moving forward, even in the face of the unknown.”

ABOUT CHRISTOPHER PAGE-SANDERS

Page-Sanders, originally from St. Louis, is the founding co-artistic director of NU-World Contemporary Danse Theatre. He has appeared with renowned dance companies such as the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dianne McIntyre Group, Hannah Kahn Dance Company, and the OwenCox Dance Group, as well as notable theater companies such as the Fulton Theatre, Mastervoices, Maine State Music Theatre, The MUNY, and the St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre Company. Locally, he has directed or choreographed theatrical works including “Once Upon A Mattress” and “Cinderella” (Arvada Center), “Dreamgirls” (Lone Tree Arts Center), and “Raisin: The Musical” (Town Hall Arts Center). Next up: He is directing “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” at the Arvada Center (Sept. 26-Nov. 2), and he is choreographing “Nice Work if You Can Get It” (Oct. 9-26) at Lone Tree.

ABOUT CLEO PARKER ROBINSON

Cleo Parker Robinson began teaching dance at age 15 and graduated from the Colorado Women’s College (now Denver University). She is the founder and artistic director of the 55-year-old Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. She is a master teacher and cultural ambassador whose company has performed nationwide and throughout Europe, the Caribbean, Asia, and the African continent. Her awards and honors include the Colorado Governor’s Award for Excellence (1974), Denver Mayor’s Award (1979), induction into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame (1989) and the Blacks in Colorado Hall of Fame (1994). In 1991, she served on the task force that created a permanent location for the Denver School of the Arts and in 2011 was voted an honorary lifetime Trustee of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.