Dance instructor leaves legacy of lives shaped
For more than 30 years, Paul Coates was credited with playing a role in developing Shreveport’s ballet scene.
A founder of the Shreveport Ballet Theatre, Coates, a New Jersey native, passed away in April at 86 years old. A memorial service will be held for him this summer in Mill Valley, Calif.
Being close to New York, Coates was able to study with some of the stars of classical ballet.
He served in the US Navy in World War II and discovered a love of Japanese tradition while in the Paci c.
After the war, he continued the dance with Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and the School of American Ballet Theatre, where he made his debut and toured with the company.
Coates moved to Shreveport in 1954 and began teaching. In 1978, he founded Shreveport Ballet Theatre.
He also began teaching yoga in the 1970s and spent his summers in the San Francisco area continuing his education in the practice. Coates was also a devout Buddhist.
After he retired in the mid-80s, he moved to Saledo, Texas, where he continued to teach yoga to seniors. He then moved to La Mesa, Calif., to be close to family.
Throughout his 30 years as a loved dance instructor and an advocate of area arts, Coates touched several lives.
“I remember being a little girl, I was probably 3 years old, and I saw ‘Swan Lake’ at the Civic Theatre he had choreographed. I decided that that was what I wanted to do.”
That’s how local attorney Anna Maria Sparke Keele describes her introduction to dance and to Coates.
Keele said Coates wanted his female dancers to be strong, to be able to jump as high and spin as many times as the male dancers.
“He would always joke with us,” she said.
“In many of the ballets, you have to do 32 pirouettes.
And he would say, ‘You do 32 pirouettes on a ruble.’ And he would be yelling while you were dancing. ‘Bosheviks come down the aisles if you keep dancing.’ I guess that’s what he heard from one of his many teachers in New York. What a character.”
Coates taught her how to handle the business side of art, Keele said.
“He wanted his dancers to go out and do things, but he also knew the business very well. And he helped me realize that dancing doesn’t come from your body – it comes from inside, your soul.”
“He was the kind of man who could shape your life just by seeing him a couple of times a week,” said Melanie Bacon, executive director of Downtown Shreveport Unlimited and a former Coates student.
“He was someone who was kind but strict. You wanted to perform for him. You knew he would be disappointed in you if you didn’t do your best.
“No matter how many students he had, he made you feel special,” Bacon said. “I was always going the wrong direction, so he would say, ‘Your other left, Melanie.’ He was just so special.”
Holly Hawkins, a California psychologist and another of Coates’ former Shreveport dance students, studied with him in hopes of becoming a professional dancer.
Hawkins eventually went to New York to make that dream a reality. Although injuries and circumstances changed her plan, she never forgot Coates.
“He was an incredible in uence on my life in all sorts of ways besides dance,” Hawkins said.
“Dancing with him the way I did, even though I did not become a professional dancer, was one of the most meaningful, the most important things for me.”
“You’re not just learning steps, but there’s a cultural transmission that goes along with it,” she said.
“That’s one of the things that made his productions more rich.
– local attorney, Anna Maria Sparke Keele
“He was a very unique individual, and particularly so for Shreveport. He was interested in the arts, in ideas that were a little different,” she said.
He had a way about him that he could incorporate these ideas from a lot of different areas and work it into dance. You ended up learning a lot of other things.”
Joe Todaro may be reached at [email protected].