C.C. Conner helped transform Houston Ballet, serving as its managing director as the company boosted its financial endowment and built its downtown home. Karen Stokes led the University of Houston’s dance program for more than 20 years, all the while creating an impressive stream of works for her own company, Karen Stokes Dance. Both remain forces in Houston’s dance community—Conner as a board member of many groups and a general guiding light, Stokes as leader of the company that bears her name.
“Karen and C.C. have dedicated so much to dance, both through their positions of power in the institutions they ran, and as individual members of the dance community, connecting with other people,” says Mollie Haven Miller, Dance Source Houston’s executive director.
SPARK will also commemorate Dance Source’s own 20th anniversary. Since Christina Giannelli founded it, the nonprofit has grown into a many-sided booster of dance in Houston. It provides grants and professional-development opportunities; stages the annual Barnstorm Dance Fest; and offers health support to dancers. Its website spreads the word about performances, jobs and classes.
The name SPARK, she notes, is not an acronym but a tip of the hat to Giannelli’s professional work as a lighting designer: That was the vantage point from which Giannelli, a designer for Houston Ballet, Houston Grand Opera and many others, saw the need for a group to promote dance in Houston, Miller says. Gianelli supplied “that spark, that light,” Miller adds. “The folks we honor (with the awards) are a spark in the community.”
The selection of this year’s honorees began last summer, when Dance Source solicited nominations from the community. A screening panel that also included community voices winnowed the names down to a short list for each award, Miller says, and Dance Source Houston’s board chose Conner and Stokes.
Conner, trained as a lawyer, spent three years as executive director of The Joffrey Ballet before he came to Houston Ballet in 1995. His 17 years as managing director marked “a transformational period for that organization, growing their endowment and building the Margaret Alkek Williams Center for Dance. Those were two really remarkable milestones for Houston Ballet,” Miller says.
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Karen Stokes; Photo courtesy of the artist.
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C.C. Conner. Photo by Danny Turner.
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Dance Source Houston's SPARK; Photo by Pin Lim.
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Dance Source Houston's SPARK; Photo by Pin Lim.
In that last role, Conner’s beneficiaries include Miller herself. When she took “the really big step” of moving up from program manager to executive director at Dance Source, she recalls, he “provided a lot of support. … C.C. is very generous with his experience, with his knowledge.” Former dancer Lauren Anderson, a member of Houston Ballet during Conner’s time, echoes that.
“Mr. C.C. Conner is a gem,” Anderson says via email, adding: “Today, we sit on boards together, and I’ve learned so much by observing him as a leader and mentor. Regardless of the size of the dance organization, he is always generous with his time and expertise, offering invaluable support to ensure their success.”
Stokes,who grew up in Houston’s High School for the Visual and Performing Arts—and later studied at Ohio State University and UCLA—served as professor and director of the dance program at the University of Houston from 1998 until 2022, when she retired from the school. Along the way, she established a Houston offshoot of a dance company she had co-founded in Cleveland, Ohio, before she came to Texas. Now known as Karen Stokes Dance, it has been her vehicle for evening-length creations as well as mixed bills. Dance Source Houston’s award celebrates both sides of her work, Miller says.
“Through her time at U of H … she has developed the next generation of dancers, dance educators and dance leaders,” Miller says. And with her own company, Stokes “has developed a substantial body of work, and has provided a lot of dance artists with an opportunity to perform.”
As a choreographer, Stokes brings a combination of “research, artistry, culture, and unique style to every work,” says Toni Valle, a former dancer in Stokes’ company who now works as company manager, in addition to teaching at UH. “I wish people could see what I see—each gesture and design element onstage is nuanced with years of fact checking, discussions with experts, folklore, and historical references, mixed with her own brand of humor.”
UH assistant professor Teresa Chapman, who has worked alongside both Stokes and Valle at the school and Stokes’ company, points to one of Stokes’ favorite expressions: “Stay the course.”
“When I heard this, I knew I was doing the right thing,” Chapman says via email. “If I felt tired, it reminded me to continue to ‘fight the good fight’ and confirmed that what I was doing was valuable, even if unseen. Hearing those three words made me feel valued and inspired me to persevere when things got difficult.”
“Now that she is retired” from the university, Chapman adds, “Toni and I say, ‘WWKD’— ‘What would Karen do’”?
-STEVEN BROWN
