2025 DENVER GAZETTE TRUE WEST AWARDS: DAY 5

Denver dance trailblazer’s historic year included first solo dance performance in four decades

Cleo Parker Robinson is a trailblazer – and the fire that fuels her was smoking hot throughout her historic 77th rotation around the sun.

Just today, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals announced that Parker Robinson will receive its prestigious Award of Merit for her lifetime of achievements at its national conference on Jan. 12 in New York City. The announcement calls Parker Robinson, arguably the most significant dance figure ever to come out of the state of Colorado, “a visionary choreographer, cultural leader and institution-builder.”

No argument here, there or anywhere.

Parker Robinson is preparing to play Shakti, guardian angel to the title character in “Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum,” for the 34th time when her Cleo Parker Robinson Dance company presents its annual homegrown holiday gift to the community from Dec. 6-21 – and for the final time in the former Shorter Community AME Church in Five Points.

That’s because, on Jan. 17, Parker Robinson and a whole host of adulating politicos, dignitaries, friends and neighbors will cut the ribbon on the new $25 million Cleo Parker Robinson Center for the Healing Arts – a 25,000-square-foot, four-level expansion that will connect to the company’s historic dance theater at 119 Park Avenue West and ensure the company’s presence in Denver’s Five Points for decades to come.

President and CEO Malik Robinson just wrapped a bow on the company’s six-year, $25 million capital campaign by raising the final $3 million in 2025. That ensures the company will begin its new era debt-free. The campaign breaks down pretty evenly, he said, between government, individual and foundation support.

There were lots of other highlights in 2025, including company performances in New York and New Orleans, plus enticing Dancin’ Denver Mayor Mike Johnston to participate in the company’s annual “Dancing with the Denver Stars” fundraiser. (“The mayor really was a standout,” Malik contends.)

But what made the year truly monumental was Cleo agreeing to perform a historic, 10-minute solo piece in September at the Presenting Denver Dance Festival on the University of Denver campus. It was one for the ages.

What made it such a big deal? First, because she performed “The Love We Carry” in honor of her late husband, Tom Robinson. He was a quiet math teacher and sports official who helped Cleo launch the dance company that since 1970 has been an anchor of Black culture in the Rocky Mountain region.

Second, because … are you kidding? She’s 77. Parker Robinson hasn’t performed a solo dance piece in four decades. Why? Because it just isn’t done – by anyone over 30. “And when you get near 40, you think your life is over,” she said with a laugh. (And, remember: For her, 40 was 37 years ago.)

Watch the curtain-call video here

“So, when they asked me to do this,” she said of this unprecedented, unthinkable solo piece: “I thought they had lost their minds.”

“They” were festival Artistic Director Marisa Hollingsworth and prominent Denver choreographer Christopher Page-Sanders, who helped Parker Robinson face her fear.

“I looked in the mirror and said, ‘That’s not a dancer’s body anymore. How dare you go out there?’” she said. “I mean, the respect I have for dancers? It was almost like I had to negate myself.” 

But Page-Sanders helped Parker Robinson to develop a piece that both celebrated her husband and the body she is wearing right now, at age 77.

“I told Chris: ‘I know you have some great ideas, but this body doesn’t do what it used to do. You better not hurt me,’” she said. “And then I had to trust him. So, I let it all go. And I let Chris in.”

Page-Sanders calls the piece the two created together “a meditation, a celebration, and an affirmation of the love that Cleo shares with Tom. And, in parallel, how that love ripples into the family, the community, the company and the world.”

For Malik Robinson, seeing his mother dance alone in tribute to his father before a packed audience urging her on every step of the way, was deeply emotional.

“But she’s also inspirational, just the way she is every day of life,” he said. “I think the raw feeling I had was that it warmed my heart to see it. It put a big smile on my face. The lessons that my mom teaches me are always about how art translates into our lives, and how do we be our best selves? For her to be well into her 70s and continuing to push herself and push her own boundaries; that’s just a tremendous lesson for me.”

She received a standing ovation that lasted nearly as long as her performance.

Malik rattled off a number of other company business and creative successes in 2025. But he’s perhaps most excited about the very near future – as in, next month, when the Cleo Parker Robinson Center for the Healing Arts finally opens. And, with it, the expansion of the company’s ability to make a real difference in the lives of its neighbors, students, dancers and audiences by essentially opening a town center dedicated to creativity, restoration, social justice and community.

“We have always talked about Cleo Parker Robinson Dance being about much more than dance,” Malik said. “We really do work at the intersection of wellness and healing.

“For example, we expanded our mental health and wellness program last summer. We had 20 paid interns who worked eight weeks. They got their arts and their behavioral health training here with us, but we also had them placed with several different business partners. So that was all major, and they had their culminating ceremony on the 16th Street Mall.

“Now we are focused on the opening, because we’re really going to ramp up programming in the new space.”

The surprise cherry on the year was today’s word of Parker Robinson’s two awards – The True West locally, and APAP nationally.

“It is such an honor knowing that I stand on the shoulders of those iconic artists and visionaries who have made such significant contributions to the arts and social awareness, not only in our own country but around the world.” Parker Robinson said of the APAP honor. “As artists, we always seek to uplift community, to build bridges of respect and courage, peace and understanding. Let us continue to do so now and always.”

Parker Robinson has been going through a kind of grief-fueled metamorphosis since Tom Robinson died back in April 2022. But he’s remained foremost in the company’s mindset ever since. This year, it launched the Tom Robinson Innovation Fund, which commissioned a new work by former company member Lisa Johnson-Willingham, now Director of the Ailey Experience in New York. Her piece was a duet homage to Tom and Cleo.

And Tom was top of Cleo’s mind (and moves) when she finally said yes to her historic solo in September. 

“I thought about Tom, and I realized: I have a new life,” she said. “And I have a new message.”

That message: “I know people can dance until it’s their last breath.”

I did ask Malik whether his mother might actually, you know – retire after the new wing opens on Jan. 17. It’s a natural question – after all, she will turn 78 in July.

Not likely. Instead, Malik spoke of an energy the woman possesses that is so vibrant, it makes me feel I should go see a doctor, stat.

“So I don’t know about retirement, man,” he said. “I just don’t see her pulling back.”

Note: The Denver Gazette True West Awards, now in their 25th and final year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community throughout December by revisiting 30 good stories from the past year without categories or nominations.

About Cleo Parker Robinson

(As compiled by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals)

Cleo Parker Robinson is a visionary choreographer, cultural leader and founder whose five-decade devotion to the healing power of dance has shaped generations of artists and audiences. As founder and artistic director of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, she has built a world-renowned institution rooted in African American traditions and committed to movement as a unifying force, creating and commissioning more than 100 original works in collaboration with major figures in American modern dance. With her ensemble touring to more than 40 countries and reaching more than 1 million people, she has cultivated a dynamic ecosystem that includes the professional company, Cleo II, a Youth Ensemble, an Academy of Dance, an International Summer Dance Institute, community development programs, and a 240-seat theatre in the heart of Denver’s Five Points. Recognized globally as an arts ambassador and activist, she continues to honor the legacy of the African Diaspora while inspiring new generations through her enduring philosophy of “One Spirit, Many Voices.”

More True West Awards coverage:

• At 77, legend Cleo Parker Robinson will fly solo

• Mayor, councilman on Dancing with the Denver Stars

• 2025 True West Awards, Day 1: Matt Zambrano

• Day 2: Rattlebrain is tying up ‘Santa’s Big Red Sack’

• Day 3: Mission Possible: Phamaly alumni make national impact

• Day 4: Jeff Campbell invites you to join him on the dark side