Beyond Performance: Krissy Richmond, Actor and Dance for Parkinson's Instructor
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Richmond leads movement class w/ program coordinator Kathleen Crist (in red). (by Amitava Sarkar, courtesy Houston Ballet)
Dancing in Ben Stevenson’s Peer Gynt gave Krissy Richmond a glimpse of her future. “I always loved the acting part of dancing,” says the former Houston Ballet principal. Richmond now has a dual post-dance life: one deeply immersed in Houston’s burgeoning theater scene, the other as Houston’s only teacher of movement for people with Parkinson’s disease.
The theater transition flowed effortlessly. “Ben was always supportive; he steered me toward theater. When Gwen Verdon came to teach at Houston Ballet, I really got the musical theater itch,” she says. Singing lessons proved the largest hurdle. “Singing requires the exact opposite of dance, you have to let go of your center. It’s tricky.” After retiring from Houston Ballet in 1993, Richmond went directly on tour with The Phantom of the Opera. “I had no downtime at all,” she remembers.
Richmond made her Broadway debut as the queen in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. She toured with Chicago in several roles, including Roxie Hart, danced with Leslie Uggams in Call Me Madam, workshopped the early version of Fosse, and appeared in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You. She continues to be in demand as an actor and choreographer, serving as movement consultant for shows at Houston’s regional Alley Theatre. She just wrapped up a lead in Tracy Letts’ Man from Nebraska, and Charles Mee’s Big Love at the University of Houston.
While musical theater seemed a natural move, teaching movement for people with Parkinson’s disease was not. But when retiring principal dancer Barbara Bears e-mailed about the possibility of starting a Houston satellite of the Mark Morris program, Richmond headed off to Morris’ studio to watch a class. “I met with the teachers and fell in love with the program,” she remembers. Now, Richmond is entering her second year of teaching in Houston Ballet’s Dance for Parkinson’s Program. “The class is all about music and movement and having a good time,” she says. “No one talks about the disease.”
Originally published in Beyond Performance, a supplement to Dance Magazine and Dance Teacher, September 2010
