Mark Lanham and Stephanie Parker-Lanham

00:01 All right. I am Mark Lanham. I am 66 years old. Today is Friday November 20th 2020 and we are having a conversation in our home in Amarillo, Texas and this is

00:20 Hi, I'm Mark's wife. My name is Stephanie Lanham. I am 50 years old and today is Friday, November 20th, 2020 in Amarillo, Texas, and we are going to have a conversation today about Classical Ballet and everything. It means to us and everything in the panhandle of Texas in regards to Classical Ballet.

00:47 Right. Well, I'm I just kind of wanted to start by asking you Stephanie and allow these things. I know and this will be a great.

01:02 Although we both been involved in Classical Ballet for quite a long time. Stephanie is more of a I guess your color is a normal ballerina Studio ballet students because she started as at a very young age. Whereas I started very late considerably late for most professional dancers. So I just want you to tell me, you know, like your earliest memories of a ballet and why why your mom and dad got you into it quite interested. You know, what what what got you going in, Philadelphia?

01:49 My family had no background in Classical Ballet.

01:54 However, my one of my aunts she married my uncle my mother's brother. She trained in Classical Ballet, and she she was too tall to be a ballerina. So she became a nurse and she saw when I was three years old my energy and also how I moved and interacted with other children and she suggested to my parents that I enroll in a ballet class and they took me to a little teeny tiny little local.

02:30 Studio right by our house and I immediately fell in love with at the age of 3 and 1/2. I fell in love with the discipline, which is very rare at such a young age and also try other forms of dance. I remember you telling me that you may be tap or something and you just yeah. Yeah. I cried I cried with one tap class and so my parents realize they had someone very serious after a year and they enrolled me the oldest ballet school in the country. It was Philadelphia Civic ballet was the first ballet school in the country started in the late 1890s. And after three years there I switched over to the original School of Pennsylvania Ballet school of the Pennsylvania Ballet.

03:27 At the age of eight and I worked my butt off. Hopefully hopefully that's okay to say I joined Pennsylvania Ballet professional big Classical Ballet company at the age of 16 in 1986. It was because I know there was some of your teachers who you know what we as teachers know also when we work with someone for a long. Of time.

04:00 We just

04:01 We just want to claim them, you know, there are kids and they almost feel like your own children and you had a teacher that that was really kind of against you joining the company so early right but you but the directors wanted you and you were under sudden you were ready to go and

04:21 16 is very young to be in a pan. Full full-blown agmet company Corps de ballet roles with this company when I was fifteen and they asked me for their summer season in Philadelphia to understudy a ballet called Carmina Burana choreography by John Butler and it was a huge honour. So I understood he but part of being an understudy was being back in the studio behind the other dance not getting in the way but being ready to jump in at any time and I learned all the choreography and they noticed and they watched me.

05:21 And then in

05:25 In about September, I got called into the office and they said well, we're I just turned 16. We're not going to hire you yet. We want your little too young and not that Ricky and Dish Robert White Lane and Richard Tanner.

05:50 They they wanted me to just not have the responsibility at such a young age to take on all of this big stuff. They still wanted me to just be in the school and then use me in Corte belly rolls when needed and cuz that that's a huge responsibility to join such a professional Ballet company and I'm two things happened that September and October one was we were doing a ballet Coppelia with a three-week run and one of The Soloist in the company. A severe back injury and the two girls under studying the soloists were doing the rolls are six of them doing the roles of friends of friends of US1 and

06:47 The understudies. They fixed the Robert Weiss Entertainer felt the understudies were not capable of going in. So in a nutshell, they called me in. I had also been learning it and I went in and for almost 3 weeks. I was doing a solo sprawl at 16 and not even in the company. They did pay me for show very little but they paid me so we finished the run and there was a big Gala coming up and Rudolf Nureyev was going to be in the care of a Natalia Makarova was going to be in the colour and the opening in the Scala was the first movement of Western Symphony choreographed by George Balanchine. Well, I wasn't involved with the Gullah. I was actually taking morning class at the school of Pennsylvania Ballet and the director boast as off you still still now runs. The schools now called The Rock he runs into

07:47 Klassen says I need to drive you over to the Academy of Music.

07:52 One of the dancers just sprained her ankle. You need to learn this choreography and go in I had to run they drove me over. I had to have an extra pair of pointe shoes to dye black for the costume. I went to the stage. I learn the choreography and that night Robert Weiss before the performance walked over to me right before curtain and said you have a contract you are now a quarter Valley member of Pennsylvania Ballet. So I was in the roof and the rest is history and started you on your career with Pennsylvania Ballet and how many years were you with them?

08:37 And after that I wanted to get out of my own explore the world and recently I moved to Canada and danced with a contemporary Ballet company called Sing ballet theater. And also I was there token North American Girl and their Chinese classical Chinese Dance Company. I dyed my hair black and learn cultural appropriation.

09:08 Choreographer he was from Beijing. He had just checked it and he felt that I had the ability to learn classical Chinese dance, which is very intricate according to their region and he was very careful on how he coached me what roles he put me in and I danced with people from mainland China Hong Kong Taiwan and Japan. It was a beautiful wonderful experience. They welcomed her.

09:44 I know what the time when people talk about later, but for me having learn belly so so late in the game when I finally got that under my belt. I had a real hard time with any other style for a long time, but that's just incredible. I know I know that was a great experience. I felt like I needed to I really wanted to stay at he was such a good measures name is sing Bang Sue still in Toronto still choreographing and Toronto has a beautiful Asian community and I learned so much from them and miss them terribly and I felt like I needed to come back to the States and he's very sad about that and I will end up joining.

10:37 Ballet, Idaho for short. Of time and there's a history with that because there's a connection with you will get a Idaho with that because it had three or four names. Yes. And yeah before I will get to that because our our paths crossed so many times before we actually met each other via other dancers and it was a very short season. So I wound up going back to Canada to dance for sing and I went back again to Valley, Idaho, and that's when it was announced that they would merge with Eugene ballet under the direction of Tony pimple.

11:30 So two years of training with Philadelphia Civic ballet. I was training r e d with a dancer from Royal Ballet Classical Ballet. Syllabus. I've had teachers from r a d bacanovic priva, So really really just interesting my background in the versatility. So not just Valentin and so I wound up joining Eugene ballet and that's how I wound up meeting you but it's just interesting will get into that house.

12:18 We know some of the same people even though we're kind of like 16 years apart in our generations, and now that I've talked so much about me. I wanted to ask you.

12:37 How you got into Dance? I mean you weren't a dancer and you started so late and you're from Amarillo Texas doesn't seem like any ballet dancer out of Amarillo, Texas, but how did that all happen?

12:55 Really a pivotal person and in the area and in Amarillo was which everyone who's ever been here knows about his Neil Hess and his wife Camille has who are both have both passed away pretty recently and just in a nutshell Amarillo was kind of the last outpost I guess to be settled because it was up on the Yano estacado here in the Panhandle, Texas, which was the home of the Comanche and Kiowa and some Northern Cheyenne, but mostly mostly Comanche.

13:41 And Kiowa Indians and

13:44 Just a forbidding area and in talking with just the other day in a little sound check with Eunice Lee mentioned. There's a actually a historical marker out on the highway to Pampa that says something like the first tree in the Panhandle trees but not really large deciduous trees. You know, now there are a lot of cops back in that I will not have all these dates correctly my head.

14:24 But at a certain point Neil has he was also from lice from Utah. I'm not from Utah to Garland, Utah and he was in the Air Force and then just be an Air Force Base in Amarillo and he was stationed here and very well-known balletmet Master name Misha slow or Michael. Cuz I'm not sure how to say mrs. Slaw funeral ski

14:53 He was actually a prisoner of war in Poland and when he left and finally got out of The Fray ended up in Amarillo, Texas. I don't I don't know the story that's another story in and of itself and apparently Camille followed him. I think in Boston and then this terrible that I can't remember but I will someone will know the answers to these questions. But anyway, he he ends up in Amarillo probably in the

15:31 Late 50s or early sixties and course. I was a little kid then and then kneel and Camille Matt and got married and the rest of that was really destroyed because they started a ballet school here and there were a couple of other there was a query Art Van Studio that pretty much everybody has heard about around here, but Neil Hess was probably here for

16:01 Almost four I think 45 years. If you tell it up, you know, three daughters and thousands of students and training students who have ended up. Well known in ballet companies all over the the country certainly end and the world one in particular Joseph Clark is in South Africa now and he's you know, we know he become a superstar doing the queen experience. He's a phenomenal singer and he doesn't Freddie Mercury and I mean, it's big-time tours in Germany and his voice is for the untrained completely untrained.

16:52 Great dancer and he is he and I were buddies and got involved with that my local high school tascosa high school its name named after an old town here in the Panhandle that looks like a rough and tumble west Texas town. He was the Drama teacher so

17:22 His daughters were all involved in dance and I literally did not think that guys did ballet. I thought it was only girl my sister had taken, you know dance when she was young but not from the houses and so he was doing a high school musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown and I had some friends who are actors and my friend Steve me said hey, they need guys in the show. Why don't you come audition and that really got started me and it just introduced me to a whole new group of friends and people because I was

18:08 Isole e a sports person night baseball was my favorite basketball is very not really tall enough for basketball, but I do have if I don't if I do say so myself. I have a or had a phenomenal job. I used to be able to

18:26 From a stand kick a basketball in that just jumped up and kick it talk about Duncan back. If I could kick an 8-foot ceilings, you know that well in my Valley Career so so I got into the show and then he just said well, why don't you start taking class and so I start taking class in jeans and socks no, no dance clothes just walked in blue jeans and a t-shirt and by-and-by. I learned, you know, what a dance belt was are all the types and everything. Well, I was 18 or 19 going on 19 and I audition for the school of American Ballet when I've been taking Valley for 3-month. Why didn't get I didn't get it didn't get in.

19:16 But in a little bit later the Ford Foundation sponsored a tour and we're Ballet West in San Francisco Ballet. Really San Francisco Ballet and a minute, babe.

19:30 I got a scholarship to Ford, you know Ford Foundation scholarship to San Francisco Ballet and my mom was kind of excited. My dad was like Archie Bunker. No valet date. They told me that my grandfather used to say whenever I have a grandson. I hope he doesn't turn out to be a ballet dancer. I don't know, but I just I just know that led me to

20:02 I couldn't accept it. So I did the outdoor musical Texas, which a lot of fine dancers have gone through and done that that show and that's it's been running for almost sixty years. Now. Let me know what is a great great opportunity to continue studying and to get some stage experience at again meet different people and then the next summer I did go again. I got another scholarship and went to San Francisco Ballet school and that that just was the beginning really is everything and

20:45 Didn't you you're one of your roommates at San Francisco Ballet school wasn't he from Amarillo? Of course. I was just in the school and then it's kind of a circuitous route I went there but then I ended up going to El Paso and studying studying with a very famous lady ingeborg Heuser who she's kind of like the Neil Hess of El Paso very very professional dancers all over the world. One of her dancers is now directing smuin ballet and in San Francisco just really fine teacher and that's another story in and of itself to she's a remarkable lady ingeborg Weiser. She

21:36 Like she's a war bride really came to the United States in the night ended up back in Utah with Valley West. I had some friends who were awful Neil has students Matt Walker and derryl Yeager you we were in touch and they were like, hey, why don't you come and try you know Valley West so I got a scholarship for a summer up there and then I was taken into the company of Ali

22:13 And within five years really within three years. I was a principal dancer.

22:26 I just didn't have time. You know why I had so little background. It was hard for me to understand really what I was doing most of the ballets that I performed and I had never heard of or seen so as opposed to you who been you know steeped in the tradition of a lady you grew up watching that weighs. I didn't even know a guy did during that time at Valley West. I had the opportunity to do a couple of international ballet competition in Japan won one of which I want a bronze medal one. Another of which I was eliminated with my partner in the second round. That's another story.

23:16 So I I stated in Valley West for 5 years and then went back to San Francisco Ballet and got back into the company was take it. They actually they actually came to me after the bout. One of the ballet Masters came to set of ballet on a partnership see the brothers. We will talk again about the directors.

23:50 There was just such a coordination between San Francisco Ballet and Valley West because the Christensen Brothers Willem Lou Willem actually Willem is the oldest am in Harold and then Lou Christensen. We're just ballet Pioneers. They worked Lou worked with Balanchine. He was in New York City Ballet Raleigh Master. Did Valley Caravan train from a very young age by Miss Patterson and William dollar would come in and watch us in Coches and there they are and

24:37 ATMs with Dale Caravan, and now your mentors Francisco Ballet and then

24:52 I didn't stay very long. I just stayed about a year and a half or two seasons. And then I just kind of took a break. I got a little burned out and I went came back to Texas but then, you know ended up again dancing with angry Erik wiser. And then I did another International ballet competition in Jackson in 1982 and won the bronze medal. There's a third place bronze.

25:27 And that let you know a lot of a lot of great experiences getting to travel a great thing about what this has done but a little bit you know about the the Christensen Brothers. They were they were all raised in Utah they were

25:49 In a very art-centric family and they did Father Bill they did. That's a great a great story. There's a book about them written by Deborah Soul. That's a great book. It's just there's so much that you know, but then I got married and had seven children.

26:21 I went I went in after I left San Francisco Ballet. I went to Royal Winnipeg ballet in Canada. It was amazing year. I was only there for one season and in that year. We went to Egypt and Greece. I got the flight to Brussels just to learn a ballet from Murray Fraser. It was Incredibles went to Oliver Canada all over the northern United States.

26:57 China eventually China and Japan and just all over the place.

27:04 And

27:06 Then I didn't know dick get married and Rich brilliant and I still pretty young. I was 31. So I hadn't actually have been dancing that long but I always want to have a family and I wanted to have a lot of kids and I did so Kim Smith former America's Junior Miss and a phenomenal jazz dancer. Probably the best jazz dancer I've ever seen her. She was trained in ballet at Lehman studios in North Carolina, and I have all these wonderful children now. Unfortunately, the marriage was a little Rocky and it didn't last.

27:56 I have

27:58 Twelve grandchildren now, but you also my oldest daughter is a Dancer. She's a mother of three. She's mail certified yoga and a certain style and she's teaching yoga happily married. My oldest son is a fighter pilot F-16 fighter pilot in Japan. He's these amazing to me. He's a God, you know how beautiful is life is beautiful and he has three children and then I have twins Michael and Christopher and they're both in Utah working one is a high school shop teacher. He was a former gymnast very very fine gymnast on my son Chris.

28:55 After my heart, he's the fisherman of family cuz I'm also an avid fly fisherman, although there in Texas here. There's not very

29:09 And then I ate there's a Braden who is a business. He's a businessman. He's probably going to make a full scholarship to Juilliard and just graduated in a couple years ago principally by Jacqueline college. And so then then I have a little little Marquis named after me and he was a preemie he wait about three three towns, and he's now a musician that just amazing guitarist and singer and they're all doing their thing.

30:05 So after the marriage dissolved, I kind of floated around for a little while and then as you know, we first met when I took a friend of a friend of mine, too.

30:19 Boise to audition for height and everything here at never forget the first time I saw you you were in the doorway the studio and nights. I just stopped and you said hi. And I said hi and I hope you say your name we didn't really meet because I know this time is time.

31:02 Okay.

31:04 And so

31:08 Anyway, yes our paths crossed and you know when you were at San Francisco Ballet.

31:24 I recalled wasn't one of your roommates call dress.

31:36 I saw Paul Russell perform with Dance Theatre of Harlem. And I remember I was a child I would just like a company was amazing and hears this and I distinctly remember Paul Russell. Well, when I did my little stint with Valley, Idaho, he had just passed away of AIDS, which is really sad and back then it was American Festival ballet. So I went to Boise and they kept talking about Russell Paul Russell and I thought I saw this guy and when we first met you talking about your great roommate call Russell and I just find how incredibly interesting are Classical Ballet world in the United States. It's all so interconnected, we work with different people. We see people perform and you wind up meeting each other somehow. I'm same I saw the hess's.

32:36 Lisa has an Alexia has when I was 9 years old and 10 years old two summers in a row performance Saratoga New York City Ballet would be if I remember watching them. I probably still have their program somewhere and I just find it. I knew who they were and so when we met and so like I guess how did how did you

33:17 How should I say this who contacted you cuz I know they are the powers that be in Amarillo Texas contact Discord among boards and artistic Direction at certain times. And so there they had actually fired which was very strange. You know me and that's when they called and asked if we would come and run the school.

34:07 Amarillo and Walla Walla, Washington, and we got together and she was single and I was single away just never were apart after that. So

34:28 Yes, so I wanted to save you know a question that you may have asked me while I go just about

34:38 Why I stuck stuck with ballet and I really the main thing the main reason I think that I stud stuck with it.

34:46 Besides the fact that there was lots of cute girls. The ranch was that it was so challenging so challenging and so rewarding to be able to move and jump and learn about you know, my body and

35:03 Want it just doesn't last very long and so as we came together, you know when later later on and that's if we now been in Amarillo for like 15 16 years almost 16 and a half years. We've been here we started we try to kind of recover the company that mr. Has had started but it just didn't work out for us. Yeah. We had a good year was Lonestar. You did a great hope that there was a gold mine of children. He really were like they just had a little spark and I thought wow we could give that passion and build that spark of Classical Ballet to these children in the Panhandle because there was kind of like it seemed like there was a time where it wasn't developing a

36:03 There's a big gap and it was and then after our year was Lone Star ballet, which was open for 14 years and with all our connections high school and I would never teach little children and she's such a great many of them. And what's what I found in all our years with our school and dance Conservatory. We've reached out to the community and we've built other

37:02 Venues for our students we've collaborated with chamber music Amarillo. We've collaborated with Amarillo Museum of so we've been in collaboration since 2007 till now with Tim Pacific Ballet Nutcracker made 67 or 6.

37:35 Snow Queen and sugar plum but I have to say that I never thought I would be teaching my my Papa he was from Dublin Ireland when I was early twenties. He said you know what you should come back to Philadelphia. You can start a little school in our basement. I said pop pop. I don't want to teach little kids and he laughed like he went in his eye and it's like he had a premonition that I be teaching little kids and now it's 3 years old all the way up to 18 11:20 something and I just love instilling the passion and the history of bout Classical Ballet and in this area and hopefully we're developing something that can continue. And right now we have it a student who we trained and now she's teaching and it's just beautiful on

38:35 We've also I just love the fact that we were able to merge with another dance studio hear something even bigger and that's you just called The Edge Amarillo and we're teaching students who are not ballet students. We have our own ballet tracking and we're instilling Classical Ballet training and discipline history to these now hip-hop dancers and I never thought that you know this journey we would be doing that. It's it's really interesting and sometimes it's tough when things don't work out but

39:27 We've never

39:30 Expected really or

39:35 We should never expected our students. We don't we don't expect them to become ballet dancers. We love would love it if they continue but we just want them to come to class regularly and you know get be educated and understand how great this is for the started when she was 14 and what was her name like a vivid and nominal jump and beautiful lady young lady and she wound up.

40:19 Quitting in her senior year like the second semester and we were sad but we we understood we got it and when she graduated her father came to us and said when I saw her walk across that stage to get her diploma. I saw what ballet did for her and it and she's a doctor nail and she is said if it wasn't for that Dolly training.

40:47 I don't think I would have would be a doctor today and I really hope all the students that we teach here in panhandle of Texas say whatever they do in their lives. They take away this beautiful wonderful Classical Ballet training the discipline the history and the passion that passion can go to so many other different things with what they do in their lives. I just I just love it. I just love what we're doing here in Amarillo, Texas. We are quite a bit different and

41:27 Just for those out there who are listening in our passion isn't just Classical Ballet. We both love wildlife and nature and we are bergner. Yeah, we are big time speed lovebirds not right now, but when I was a little girl, I actually before I got into ballet I want I love dinosaurs and I always looked out the window and I kept thinking dinosaurs look like birds and all the scientists who pooted and now that it's been proven birds are descended from dinosaurs, and there's lots of birding here in the Panhandle, Texas. So

42:21 It's a great place to come to see.

42:29 And that we get sometimes a lot of flak from

42:33 Different people, you know and do in the country, but it's pretty pretty laid-back really had teachers that go back so far and our world world class world-renowned teachers he is

43:08 We've been able to learn from and that's a hard thing to pass on to your kids their understanding wise because they just don't understand time that well yet but we both have had we have teachers that are free by gamma Phi rush in one of my favorite teachers was

43:28 NFL sack who graduated from the Imperial Valley School in 1915. We just left. I'm glad that I don't know what I would have ever done if I did something side ballet. I probably be selling cars because my granddad dealership here in Texas so we might have a bigger house.

43:58 Proceed it. I actually getting back to me. I don't know if I ever told you I love playing soccer. I was very athletic. I I can really run fast and kick and jump and

44:11 I'm back. Then there were no female soccer teams and at the age of 10, I got into Nutcracker doing this little children's roll and all of a sudden I realized well, there's lots of female ballet dancers ballerinas. There's no there's no soccer team and I was really good at soccer. I loved it and I was just like I don't have a future in soccer. I was only 10 so I gave up soccer soccer coaches very sad that you're and I probably would have been in a museum looking at dinosaur bones or something. So I just

45:02 What do you like to do? Are you and I and I and I can't take that away from me. It's so I can't think of my life ever without so i q.