Dance company builds local talent
Shreveport native Luther Cox has devoted his professional life to developing and promoting dance in this market, and everything he does is aimed at making the dream of a professional dance company a reality in Shreveport.
“I guess I have to think we are one of Shreveport’s best-kept secrets, and it is certainly time to let the secret out,” Cox said.
Cox graduated from Booker T. Washington High School before heading to Florida A&M to pursue a degree in marketing management. In his sophomore year, he got involved in dance classes, where he was exposed to African dance and modern dance. From then on out, he was hooked on dance.
Cox moved back to Shreveport in 1975 to work with Gloria Christopher Gibson, who had founded the Theater of the Performing Arts. Cox served as dance director of the company there for six years.
In 1982, he set out on his own and founded Inter City Row Dance Company as nonprofit, first locating at Princess Park in the historic Blue Goose district just south of downtown. In 1989, the company relocated to 215 Wall Street, where they remained until 2005.
“Despite an inexplicable lack of support from the area’s black community, what keeps me moving forward is simply the sense of being here so that no one can say, ‘We didn’t have a dance company and school here.’ People who move away to larger markets can never say now that they had to leave Shreveport to find a dance school or dance company. We have one right here,” Cox said.
“When I first went away to college in Florida and was exposed to professional dance companies, I was surprised to know that kind of operation existed. I wanted everyone here to know that such a company did exist in Shreveport,” Cox said. “We got some initial funding from Booker T. Washington High School, but the community at large simply has not supported the company as we were hoping it would.”
The company’s first major performances were at the historic Strand Theatre but audience size just would not continue to justify the cost of renting such a facility. The company then moved its performances.
“We are still only getting 100 to 125 persons per show, and that just does not allow us to spend the money on such a grand venue as the Strand,” Cox said.
The company has a teaching component, which Cox devotes much of his time to. Hopefully, as dancers are developed in the community, it will broaden the community interest in modern dance.
Cox also spent time with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company in New York City. About a year after starting Inter City Row Dance Company, he took a year off to attend the University of Houston, where he earned a master’s degree in dance and choreography.
Students at Inter City Row come from all areas of the city such as Lakeside, Queensboro, Allendale, Cedar Grove, south Shreveport and even Benton and Blanchard and even as far away as Arkansas.
Since the company moved its base to 2021 Martin Luther King Drive in 2005, the high volume of traffic on that roadway has to some degree helped the school in attracting student interest in the community.
“We are in the process of building an outdoor performance pavilion. The framing is completed, but the stage itself remains unfinished due to lack of funding. Donors like to see growth, so it is often a Catch-22 situation in moving the project forward,” Cox said.
Certainly, there are other companies in the market, but Cox feels one thing that distinguishes Inter City Row from the others is that the school’s teaching methods are more discipline-based, with no coddling of students.
“Our students definitely leave with a sharp sense of technique,” Cox said. “My dream has always been, and remains, to have a quality professional touring company based in Shreveport with well-trained dancers that can proudly promote Shreveport as a respected center of modern dance.”
–Karl Hasten
