Broadway
of dance with South Mississippians
T
TEXT BY VALERIE WELLS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BOB HUBBARD
Percell Rivere St. Thomass
moves constantly. He stands tall,
walks with purpose and uses his
arms to punctuate his speech.
He’s a peripatetic teacher who
travels from town to town in the
South teaching want-to-be
dancers how to glide gracefully
across a ballroom floor.
The joy of dancing can belong
to anyone open to the experience,
he insists. He brings that poten-
tial experience to as many
Mississippians as he can find.
This isn’t about training competi-
tors for the Olympics or making
a fortune quick. It’s about bring-
ing the general public into the
fold.
St. Thomass shrugs at his cos-
mopolitan history. Neither being
born in Paris, France, nor danc-
ing in Broadway hit shows seems
that impressive to him now. His
passion is teaching dance to
average folks.
“Dance is not the steps - it’s
38 a cc e n t s o u t h m i s s i s s i p p i
veteran shares love
what happens in between. It’s the
feeling,” he said. “It’s a shame 80
percent of ballroom dancers and
competitors will dance the rest of
their lives not knowing what it
feels like.”
He empathizes with pioneers,
like his grandfather David
“Showboat” Thomas, the first
black player to try out for Major
League Baseball. By comparison,
St. Thomass contends his grand-
father was the more fascinating
person.
SHARING PASSION
St. Thomass moved to the
Hattiesburg area four years ago,
studios and clubs already exist-
right before Hurricane Katrina
ed, he saw a larger community
turned South Mississippi upside
yearning to dance and curious
down. He initially came to work
about getting caught up in the
with a studio that has since
romance, the physical exertion
closed.
and the expressive routines.
“Other places wanted me - a
Helping to rebuild a communi-
school in West Palm Beach, Fla.,
ty for ballroom dancing follow-
wanted me. But I was needed
ing Katrina has become his mis-
here,” he said. Although a few
sion. It’s not been without its
frustrations. One of the largest
challenges St. Thomass faces is a
notion that ballroom dancing is a
methodical science boiled to down
to a straightforward syllabus.
Another aspect that bugs him is
what he sees as an overemphasis
on competitions. Seeing newcomers
dance with confidence and laugh
on the floor thrills him.
Yet the technical aspects of his
exacting art don’t escape him. The
National Dance Council of America
lists St. Thomass as a professional
competitor and an adjudicator as
well as a teacher. He’s a choreogra-
pher, a performer, a coach, a judge
and a world traveler.
He also was a successful actor
and dancer. After spending years
in Paris and New York performing
in shows like “West Side Story,”
“Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Cats,”
he realized he wanted something
different. He had some good roles,
too - Simon in “Jesus Christ
Superstar” and the Scarecrow in
“The Wiz.” It just wasn’t what he
wanted in life.
“I was having fun performing,
but I wasn’t really excelling,” he
said.
He was one of the first blacks to
win ballroom competitions in the
early 1980s. He felt pulled during
that time to become a coach and a
teacher of dance teachers.
“At the time, people said to me,
‘You don’t win and quit. Blacks
aren’t making it in this business.
You are. Don’t quit.’”
Despite that pressure, St.
Thomass felt compelled to go to
new lands to learn and to teach.
He traveled to Argentina and
studied tango and Latin dance.
He visited a relative in Alaska in
the early 1990s and discovered the
huge state had practically no ball-
room dance community. He helped
create and nurture one. Some of it
was a business decision, some of it
was a personal desire to share his personally confronted the produc-
love of dance. Then, he and his ers of the film and asked why they
business partner started another ignored “Showboat,” the response
studio in Hawaii and nurtured was pretty simple. No information
another community of dancers. about him could be found.
He sees the same opportunities St. Thomass has spent time with
now in the Gulf South. While he’s cousins asking about pictures,
not interested in owning another newspaper clippings, mementoes
studio, he wants to spread the mes- of his grandfather’s contribution to
sage of dance to as many communi- civil rights and to baseball. For
ties as possible. He divides his time years, nothing was found. Then a
between Hattiesburg, Gulfport, cousin was doing some remodeling
Covington, La.; Baton Rouge, La.; in his Mobile home and discovered
and Fairhope, Ala. He stays in a treasure trove of documents long
motion. forgotten. “Showboat”’s brother
Jesse had kept the papers and the
‘SHOWBOAT’ ROOTS memories. The family wants Ken
While St. Thomass sees this Burns to do a follow up film about
region as new land for ballroom the baseball player from Mobile.
dancing, his roots run deep in the St. Thomass doesn’t know what
South. his next step will be. He still feels
His mother’s family is from needed in South Mississippi but
Mobile. He shrugs about being an can’t deny the desire to travel
international man of dance because again, to make new discoveries and
he feels the really fascinating fig- dance with the world.
ure in his family was his grandfa-
ther, David.
While sports fans and historians
remember Jackie Robinson as the
first black to join Major League
Baseball, his grandson wishes they
would remember David
“Showboat” Thomas. A baseball
player from Mobile, “Showboat”
played in the Negro League and in
1945 was the first black chosen for
the major leagues. He tried out for
the Dodgers one year before Jackie
Robinson made the majors.
“Showboat” went as far as training
camp before getting cut. St.
Thomass said it was because his
grandfather was ill. A 1977
Associated Press story suggests it
was “Showboat”’s age and not his
race that led to the end of his major
league career before it started.
St. Thomass was outraged when
award-winning documentary film
maker Ken Burns ignored his
grandfather’s existence in the PBS
series “Baseball: A Film.” When he