October 2019, Leeds UK
I think I gave her a paltry three days notice that I would be in Leeds for 36 hours and would love to see her. Leonora made time to fetch me from the farmer’s market on my day off and take me on a tour of the area before landing us at lunch. Understand that as was the case with everything else she did – superlative dancing only one - Leonora did not half step. To tell you where the bathroom is means to walk you there herself with joy, all while excusing you for not being able to find it because the original design of the building was counterintuitive, you see. I knew few people this thorough in their kindness. So a tour of this section of Leeds was a full history lesson.
During our catch-up, which included several laughs about our concert dance traumas, she noticed my hair out and listened to my cornrow maintenance touring dramas.
“I’ll braid it. I can braid it.”
“Wait, you can do that?”
She just laughed.
Of course she could. I’m not sure why I hesitated. She could do anything. In fact, Leonora Stapleton was one of the fiercest creatures I’d ever seen on the stage. Years before I auditioned for Donald Byrd/the Group, I saw a studio showing at APAP, a huge booking conference where artistic directors auditioned their companies. Mostly these were in-studio showings with no lights or special effects—just dancing happening a few feet away.
I watched this sinewy, dark woman with sprinter musculature and a line that will make you give up fly intensely through a duet that I didn’t know was possible for two bodies to achieve. Between excerpts, while Donald spoke, she would go “backstage,” which in this case was a curtain slid in front of the studio mirror wall, and cough and hack.
Clips of Leonora in Donald Byrd work
She was a superhero of some sort, I decided. Sure, dancers push through illness all the time, but not to succeed nevertheless at these steps for five minutes straight. She could probably grind asphalt with her arches. So, of course she could braid my hair.
But should she?
“Oh I can’t ask you to do that love,” I told her. “Don’t you live a while away?”
“It’s no problem. I’ll come back later this evening.”
This is the kind of kindness she wielded.
I didn’t resist, probably because I knew she would put all kinds of energy – the discipline of finish, black girl magic, well wishes, laughter, love of art, love—into each braid. There is an articulation of these things that took place in spades for her on and off the marley, every ounce of it laced with positivity and hope.
When I finally to auditioned for Donald Byrd, someone advised me to talk to her about what it was like dancing there. After I got past the fact that this superhero was willing to take my call, I interviewed her about how dancers manage the work.
“Well, some of us cross train…”
She said it with all the help of those bathroom directions, followed by details about her regimen that I did not quite hear.
“Cross train?” I asked, stuck. “In order to make it through, you all train beyond the rehearsals?”
This was frightening in every way. Where was there energy to train more after doing all of this in rehearsal? Train across what? But somehow, Leonora made it so cursory, achievable, maybe even a bit practical.
Six months later, when I was having a particularly rough time in the company—Donald had fired and re-hired us newbies all in the same weekend (the fun black dance story we were laughing about in the picture above)—Leonora came in to cover her old track in Jazz Train. I remember feeling particularly morose one day about my future in dance here in New York.
She caught me in the funk and touched my back.
“You’re going to be fine,” she said. “It will work out.”
It was such a simple affirmation, but it mattered so much in the moment. Because as Chris, one of her Lion King family members, said to me recently, when she sees you on the street and her eyes light up, she means it. Every time. What a blessing.
If there is a heaven, there are few people who will need no negotiation with whatever life recap bouncer is waiting at its door. Leonora is one of them, and probably has solid luxury real estate on the other side. But since she loved even those of us with problematic receipts, she will likely be right there to vouch for us.
Beaming.