Flawless technique ... the best male dancer around ... a joy to work with ... enormously thoughtful ... a natural teacher ... an inspiration to his students." These phrases are not the fabrication of some hyperimaginative public-relations person, but the assessment of dancers, choreographers, directors, and administrators with whom the new artistic director of Juilliard's Dance Division has worked in the course of his career.

Lawrence Rhodes Photo by Krystyna Sanderson

For Lawrence Rhodes comes to Juilliard with a lengthy, varied, and successful professional track record. He seems to have had the intuition and luck to have been in place after place at pivotal moments, when his ability and judgment were a felicitous match for the needs of that particular situation. He himself likes to say he has had a "fortunate career." However healthy a measure of good fortune entered into his success, there had to have been a certain proportion of conscious pursuit. You might anticipate, then, that on meeting Larry you would be struck by intensity of purpose, a sharp tone of voice, and emanating rays of disciplinary fervor. You would be incorrect, for the demeanor of Larry Rhodes is laid-back, casual, assuming self-discipline already exists within the student rather than walking about with a symbolic whip of stern encouragement. But concluding that this is a complete picture of Larry Rhodes would also be erroneous. It is surely difficult to pin down any human being's nature, but if you are around our division chief for any amount of time, you realize that here is a man with an abiding commitment to excellent dancing, who takes as givens the serious pursuit of artistry, professional behavior in class and rehearsal, and singularity in performance. Here is a man who doesn't waste too much time coaxing a student to adopt this approach; he seems to suggest it is a self-evident way to proceed. This assured, Larry Rhodes is free to relax, indulging us all with his droll sense of humor. Once his efficiency has dispensed with the 5,000 details that cross his desk daily, he may just leave this building to enjoy one of his favorite pastimes, such as Bikram Yoga, cooking, listening to music, and watching movies. Join him and wife, former ballerina Lone Isaksen, any New Year's Eve for some Fred and Ginger. Whence sprang this Larry Rhodes?

The Early Days

Rhodes' Detroit childhood certainly fostered an interest in performing. His father, an amateur musician on the banjo and mandolin, filled the house with country-and-western tunes; his mother loved to sing and dance and taught young Larry to jitterbug and Lindy. There were Saturday afternoons at the movies, soaking up all those great 1940s musicals. His fourth-grade friend, Glenda Ann Bush, knew how to tap dance. When their teacher asked for volunteers for a Valentine's Day assembly, Larry—9 at the time, but already sold on dance—raised his hand. He and Glenda Ann rehearsed in her garage, and there was no stopping them; the following year, the pair enrolled in Ruth Miltimore's Capitol School of the Dance. There were semi-private classes and even costumes, and they began performing in schools all over Detroit. Their act included acrobatics, personality singing (this entailed illustrating a song with gestures), and energetic dance routines. They went on local TV and were celebrities by age 12. Then the families moved farther apart, and Glenda stopped dancing. Larry, however, stayed on course. He was mesmerized by the film The Red Shoes and, at 14, "blown away" by American Ballet Theatre. "I want to jump like that," said he. He remembers the program vividly to this day: Swan Lake, Act II, William Dollar's The Combat with Melissa Hayden and John Kriza, and Tudor's Gala Performance.

After two more years of study (and with what was to become customary insouciance), he took himself, on his own, to Chicago to audition for Dorothy Hild, who ran four companies that toured central and western U.S.A. on a state fair circuit, with shows of song-and-dance production numbers. At 16, Larry was earning $87.50 a week. There was no per diem, but he could find a hotel room for two or three dollars a night in towns like Great Falls, Mont. and Centreville, Mich. By the end of the tour, the young Rhodes had fallen in love with performing. His father said he would support his son in college—"but dance you do on your own." Unfazed, Larry finished high school six months early, went to work for the Chicago Theatrical Shoe Company, and salted away his earnings. On July 4, 1957, he landed in New York City in order to study ballet, living at the 63rd Street Y. Perhaps with the echo of his father's words in his ear, he gave himself a year to succeed; if he didn't, he would go to college.

Larry Rhodes, the Dancer

The Robert Joffrey Ballet at the 1962 summer workshop on Rebekah Harkness’s estate in Watch Hill, R.I., where guest choreographers Alvin Ailey, Brian Macdonald, Fernand Nault, and Donald Saddler worked with the dancers. Among those pictured are Dance Division administrative assistant Suzanne (Hammons) Daone (second from left), Rhodes (third from left), Helgi Tomasson (fifth from left), and Rhodes’s wife Lone Isaksen (third from right). Photo by Jack Mitchell

Larry enrolled in the school of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo; nine months later, he was in the company. "It was immediately apparent he was an outstanding newcomer, already much stronger and better trained than most male dancers of this time," recalls Eleanor D'Antuono, former principal with Ballet Russe, the Joffrey Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. After a year, he was given solos to dance and subsequently principal roles. Larry was encouraged; no need for college just yet, apparently. Opportunities continued to roll his way: four years with the Joffrey, then the Harkness Ballet as principal dancer and artistic director (a position he opted to share with Benjamin Harkarvy, his predecessor here at Juilliard); guest artist with Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, then a return to the States for two years as dancer and artistic director of the Milwaukee Ballet. The next six years he was a principal dancer both with the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Eliot Feld Ballet, in addition to freelance guest artist elsewhere (notably with the luminous Italian ballerina, Carla Fracci). "Why did I want Larry to perform with my company?" Eliot Feld asks. "He was the best male dancer around in terms of technique, proportions, and sensibility. He did not separate himself from the work, he served it."

"Larry had the ability to create magic. He was kind, a natural teacher. What I learned from him about being 'in the moment' I continue to pass on to my students," says former Joffrey principal Ann Marie De Angelo, who danced as a guest partner with Rhodes in various venues. Naomi Sorkin, another of Rhodes' guest partners and former soloist with American Ballet Theatre, concurs: "Larry was a suberb partner--so musical, so subtle, and extremely sensitive to his fellow dancers."

"Larry was an enormous gift to the company," notes Barbara Weisberger, founding artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet. "He was simply one of the greatest dancers of his time. Modest, kind, and hard working, he brought weight and integrity to every role he danced. His dancing was organic, honest and came from a deep source."

Fast forward 20 years. By now Rhodes has danced most of the classical ballets, including Swan Lake, Giselle, and The Nutcracker. He has appeared in major works by Balanchine, Limón, Tudor, and Béjart, and participated in creations by Ailey, Arpino, Joffrey, van Danzig, Lubovitch, and Butler, among others. During these two decades, his working philosophy came in the form of three questions: "Does it make sense to continue? Is it rewarding? Is what you're doing nourishing to body, soul, and psyche?" It is the kind of questioning he will share with his future students, for his is a practical mind in a world fueled by imagination. Rhodes understands firsthand both the preparation and the performance—the stress, the challenge, and the joy. He sees easily into the heart of the young dancer, for he has been there himself.

Lawrence Rhodes dancing George Skibine’s Sarabande in 1965 during a Harkness Ballet tour in Barcelona.

At 38, Lawrence Rhodes decided to hang up his dancing shoes. True to his essential nature, he looked for a way to combine personal growth with the need to support himself, his wife, Lone, and their young son, Mark. Twenty-two years after his father's admonition, Rhodes wanted to return to school. Long having been the master of his own fate, he decided to become a social worker so as to help others solve their problems. He took a position teaching ballet in the dance department of N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts, all the better to take advantage of N.Y.U.'s Gallatin division and pursue his degree, beginning with classes in philosophy, physiology, and physics. But fate would steer him in another direction.

N.Y.U. Dance Department Chairman

After three years as a teacher at N.Y.U., Rhodes was asked to become chair of its dance department. He remained for another eight years, bringing about important changes in curriculum, repertory, and faculty.

"Larry was enormously thoughtful in how he restructured the program," observes Kay Cummings, who was his assistant and later suceeded Rhodes as chair. "In consultation with the faculty, he looked at the students' whole training and made it into a logical progression, not just a bunch of courses. The sum became greater than its parts. He brought in a higher caliber of guest choreographers for the seniors' Second Avenue Company, making it a more pertinent bridge to the professional world."

'Les Grands' Artistic Director

In 1989 Rhodes was invited to sign on as artistic director of Les Grand Ballets Canadiens in Montreal. As he had done at Tisch (and before that, at the Harkness Ballet, where he had had to assemble almost overnight a completely new repetoire for the company), Larry analyzed the situation and saw that Canada's five national companies all had similar ballets in their repertories; therefore, he set out to create an separate identity for "Les Grands" (as the company is referred to) by selecting ballets that would be unique to it alone. He then learned to juggle the needs of a board of directors, the public, and the dancers themselves. Larry stayed with Les Grands for 10 years, during which time he introduced both the company and Canada to works by Jirí Kylián, Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, and Ohad Naharin, and commissioned dances from the likes of Mark Morris and James Kudelka, among many others.

"Larry brought us a vast luggage of information," notes Michelle Proulx, artistic coordinator at Les Grands during Rhodes' tenure. "With the [new] repertoire, he opened up doors for us to the States and to Europe. As a teacher, he brought us a new way of sculpting the body. He gave our company a new level of visibility just by his presence. People came to audition because of his artistry."

An Unexpected Opportunity

Larry returned to New York in 1999. For three years, he made frequent forays out of town to freelance as master ballet teacher with many of the world's top companies, including American Ballet Theatre, Le Ballet de l'Opéra de Lyon, Ballett Frankfurt, and Nederlands Dans Theater. On March 31, 2002, the Juilliard community was shocked by the sudden and untimely death of the artistic director of its Dance Division, Benjamin Harkarvy. There was now an empty space in our hearts, and a position to be filled.

Ben's and Larry's paths had criss-crossed many times over the years: as co-directors of the Harkness Ballet, at the Het Nationale Ballet, and later at the Pennsylvania Ballet, where, at Larry's recommendation as premier danseur, Ben had become assistant to Barbara Weisberger and later, artistic director himself. Larry says that they shared many things in common: "There was mutual respect, a similarity of taste (to a large degree), and a passionate commitment to rehearsing that reflected our endless talk about making it all better." A further intertwining of their careers ensued with Larry's subsequent appointment to the position at Juilliard that his friend and colleague had held for 10 remarkable years. Rhodes admits that, at first, he was somewhat diffident about taking on another directorship, but his lukewarm attitude changed rapidly when he saw videos of recent student performances. Immediately, he responded to the work ethic and quality of the students, sensing that they "lived in present time, were engaged in what they were doing, and had a high degree of talent and ability." He concluded that Juilliard was "what a school was supposed to be about," and he was greatly appreciative of its supportive administration.

The wealth of experience as dancer, teacher, artistic director, and parent that Rhodes brings to this new phase in his life is quite astounding. Larry's father had instilled in him a very practical work ethic, along with a trust in his son's independence and ability to make his own decisions. Larry and his wife fashioned their own extension of this atmosphere by electing to home-school their son until he was 9. Looking upon the youngster as a tabula rasa, they wanted his first ventures into the world of learning to be "a wonderful experiment" that left his imagination undampened. They encouraged him to find his own solutions to challenges and, in the process, to attain a humane approach to living—one not based on the fear that can stifle brain function.

It seems as if our new director wishes no less for the dancers who are chosen and choose to take on the Juilliard dance initiative. Involvement on the deepest level is expected along with the joy that makes it all worthwhile. Lawrence Rhodes may appear laid-back—but don't overlook the gleam of impish humor that darts from a deceptively quiet facial expression. If you think him uninterested, you are missing a near-obsessive, supremely attentive dedication to the best that can be found in our creative, dancing selves. Perhaps this is camouflaged by his certitude that, with nurturing and adequate preparation, good results are ensured—that is, if you begin with a major dose of talent and aspiration.

Facing the Future

What will this man pack into his next 20 years? As Larry, ever the problem-solver, defines his latest challenge, it is "how to make a great school even better." He has reordered the current class schedule, with most academic classes beginning the day rather than coming in the mid-afternoon. (This will help erase the current awkward sequence of warming up for dancing in the studio, cooling down in the classroom, and then jumping up to rehearse again.) All ballet classes will occur in the same time slot, to be followed by all modern classes—allowing each student to be in the right technical level for each style, something not always previously possible. He has changed acting and anatomy from electives to requirements. Modern duets have been added to the modern solos class, and additional choreography workshops are being considered for the third- and fourth-year students. In the fall term, students from each year will participate in a new creation with an emerging choreographer; these works will be presented on the December stage performance series. For this purpose, he has drawn on his wide contacts with contemporary choreographers. Zvi Gotheiner, Dwight Rhoden, Jacqulyn Buglisi, and Thaddeus Davis will choreograph in the fall; additionally, Lar Lubovitch, Paul Taylor, and Nacho Duato have been called upon to provide repertory for the Juilliard Dance Ensemble's major spring season. Rhodes hopes to add performances to this series, so that school children can be bussed in and treated to the same kind of dazzlement he experienced as a teenager. (Will some of them also say, as he once did, "I want to do that"?)

Rhodes says that his goal for the Juilliard dancers is that they develop as complete artists. The technically well-equipped dancer who is concerned only with "getting the counts" is decidedly not for him. He wants an even greater development of choreographic skills, and for the creative imagination to flourish, both directly in choreographic efforts and indirectly via participating in new work, whether by student choreographers or those more established. He wants to send department graduates into a world where, as he did, they can earn a living not only with the American companies into which Juilliard traditionally has been feeding dancers (Taylor, Parsons, Limón, Graham, Ailey, Varone, Cunningham, Lubovitch, Feld, the Met Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet), but also with European contemporary companies—those into which Juilliard is already injecting its energetic graduates, such as Frankfurt, Nacho Duato's Compañia Nacional de Danza, Mannheim, Netherlands I and II, and Gulbenkian, as well as others not yet broached, such as the ballet companies of Lyons and Hamburg, and Sweden's Cullberg Ballet.

Jirí; Kylián, the renowned choreographer long associated with the Nederlands Dans Theater, had this to say of the Larry he has known: "As a dancer, he was extremely charismatic, a natural mover who was able to captivate audiences. Whatever he achieved in his dancing, he was able to transpose into his classes. As a teacher, he never intimidated a student, but found individual ways to reach each one. As an artistic director, he took as great a care with the repertory as he had with his dancing roles. He is an inspiring human being."

A former N.Y.U. colleague has quipped, "Larry likes to change ... and to keep on changing." So how will the Rhodes of the past connect with the future? Here at Juilliard, one can predict that "on your toes" will come to have more than literal meaning. Rhodes has recently spent time with the Cincinnati Ballet restaging John Butler's Carmina Burana, a work that begins with the declamation: "O Fortuna!" May good fortune continue to smile on Lawrence Rhodes.

Elizabeth Keen, who teaches dance composition, has been a member of the faculty since 1986. She was assisted in research for this article by fellow faculty member Carolyn Adams.