A tap dancer at 5

Lewis grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and started tap dancing at 5 as therapy for a club foot. By junior high, he was dancing on television. His idol was hoofer Ray Bolger, most famous for playing the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. But instead of heading to Broadway, he went to the High School of Performing Arts (the Fame school) and discovered modern dance. “I met artists rather than showmen, ” Lewis remembers. From there he went to Juilliard, where he began dancing with Limon. One of the important figures in modern dance, Limon created a significant body of work and a technique which, along with Martha Graham’s, is regarded as one of the basic systems of modern dance training. Lewis trained with Limon from 1962 until his death in 1974, then directed and choreographed for his own New York-based company for 12 years. In his office are mementos from that phase of his life: a certificate of knighthood on the wall that he received after performing for Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia (the prince fled the country the next day), African drums that almost didn’t make it through Customs (“they wanted to know what kind of antelope skin it was”). Lewis then taught at Juilliard, eventually becoming assistant director. His career seemed clear: He would help run Juilliard and carry on Limon’s legacy. But in 1987 he was invited to take a look at the just-forming New World School of the Arts. He saw opportunity. “Juilliard was pure establishment, ” Lewis says. “Here I could do anything I wanted. How many times in your life are you offered that opportunity?” But his relationship with Limon and Juilliard has remained important to his work. “I always felt I had a connection with the history of modern dance because of who Danny is in the dance world, ” says Robert Battle, 24, who studied at New World and now dances with the David Parsons company, a well-known modern dance troupe.

Traditional artist

Though Lewis eschewed the “establishment” of Juilliard and traditional dance, artistically he allied himself with them, rather than with more experimental form. At New World, for example, Lewis wanted to create dancers equally versed in modern, ballet and jazz (they also study Spanish, African, tap and other ethnic styles) who could switch techniques and styles as easily as they changed costumes. Perhaps because of his training and experience, Lewis and the school possess a certain conservatism. While students receive excellent traditional training, they have little contact with newer styles prevalent in contemporary dance. For instance, says New World teacher Gerri Houlihan, “I think there’s a huge interest in contact improvisation and release work [new modern dance techniques]. I do think students are coming out with a really solid base. It’s just that it could go further.” Lewis defends his system. “When it comes to technique, I stick to the ones that we know well, ” he explains. “It’s a better base in terms of our kids getting work.” But if his ideas about technique are traditional, Lewis also has an open-minded, bedrock belief in the creative individual. Students take choreography every year, and participate in numerous student concerts. Lewis also produces annual concerts with established local choreographers, partly through his nonprofit organization, Miami Dance Futures, which he started in 1988; he is planning a showcase for new choreographers in May. Married to Maureen O’Rourke, a massage therapist and anatomy teacher at New World, Lewis — who has no children — talks almost paternally about his New World “kids.” “Our kids are everywhere, ” he says proudly. “They’re getting picked first because they can do it all. And they’re good at it.” “He always has time to see a student, even if he’s meeting with the provost, ” says Roberta Kjelgaard, his assistant. “He knows you must reach kids’ souls, and he really tries to do that.” Lewis’ larger ambition for New World is that it be the source for a new generation of dance artists. “The next generation is going to make a difference here, not what’s going on now, ” Lewis says. He believes wholeheartedly in them, and in Miami. “They’re coming to me and saying [that] they don’t want to leave. They see a future here. They have visions. And hopefully they’re taking whatever I’m giving them and taking that next step.”

Photos: Jeffery A. Salter /Hearld Staff