Dancing Into Dreamland finds its footing with Davis

Matt McCoy, director of Friends of Dreamland, and his mother, Kerry McCoy, who owns Taborian Hall, stand with longtime volunteer Richard Davis. They collaborate each year for Dancing Into Dreamland, which raises money for the restoration of the Dreamland Ballroom, on the third floor of Taborian Hall.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)
Matt McCoy, director of Friends of Dreamland, and his mother, Kerry McCoy, who owns Taborian Hall, stand with longtime volunteer Richard Davis. They collaborate each year for Dancing Into Dreamland, which raises money for the restoration of the Dreamland Ballroom, on the third floor of Taborian Hall. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)


Richard Davis danced his way into Dreamland. Then he started taking extra steps to find the best dancers for Dancing Into Dreamland every year.

Davis happened upon the event, which aims to raise money to restore the grandeur of the Dreamland Ballroom on the third floor of Little Rock's Taborian Hall, through friends after he started ballroom dancing at the age of 62.

"I figured it was good to get off the sofa and do something," Davis says.

He enjoyed watching the dancers, and the following year he was Dancing Into Dreamland's volunteer photographer.

"I've done photography for 11 of the 12 years that the show has been going," says Davis, a photographer who retired early in the covid-19 pandemic. "I've always been involved in finding dancers, but it became more -- I pretty much find all the dancers. I put the show together."

Dancing Into Dreamland, set for 7-10 p.m. Feb. 11, is a fundraiser for Friends of Dreamland, a nonprofit that supports the Dreamland Ballroom. General admission tickets are $98.50. The event will take place in the ballroom.

Taborian Hall, 800 W. Ninth St., was built between 1916 and 1918 in what at the time was a thriving Black business corridor. It was home, first, to the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, a Black fraternal insurance organization.

Over the years, Taborian Hall housed various Black-owned businesses and the Dreamland Ballroom saw the likes of greats like Ray Charles, B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. During World War II, it served as an Officers Club for the Black men who were training at Camp Robinson. It was later the site of parties and bands hosted by Philander Smith College, and even that institution's basketball games.

Dancing Into Dreamland judges Brian Earles, Christen Burke Pitts and Joey Lauren Adams will choose one dance number to award a $500 prize, though that is sure to be a challenge with the variety of footwork Davis has secured for the evening. The lineup includes salsa, East Indian dance, Argentine tango, Irish dance, Arkansas street swing, a theatrical circus routine, a cabaret, fusion line dance and American Indian dance.

The first two Dancing Into Dreamland events were held in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion because the Dreamland Ballroom lacked a floor at that point.

"Then Arkansas Flag and Banner spent a bunch of money and we got this floor secured and put down and painted blue and we decided we would have the first one here in 2012," says Kerry McCoy, who owns Flag and Banner, on the first floor of Taborian Hall, as well as the building itself.

McCoy bought Taborian Hall in 1991. She hopes to make the ballroom available as an event venue soon. To that end, they used a grant from the National Park Service to add an elevator so that the ballroom will be accessible to all. Without an elevator, guests would need to climb three windy flights of stairs. Handicapped-accessible restrooms were also added. More updates are in the works.

"The last piece is some historic restoration," says Matt McCoy, son of Kerry McCoy and director of Friends of Dreamland. "We are adding on the stage apron, doing some plaster work around the stage, adding a bunch of tin tiles back and putting in some of the historic pendant lighting."

He hopes those projects will be completed by the end of 2023, making the ballroom ready for private reservations.

McCoy and Davis talk through most of the dance acts who will perform at Dancing Into Dreamland.

Many of the performers who will appear travel the country -- some travel internationally -- for competitions or for paid performances.

"I got them for free, for this," Davis says. "That's because I know them, or because I know people who know them."

Davis has made numerous connections among dancing talent through his participation. He begins the process of planning Dancing Into Dreamland by thinking through the kinds of acts he wants to see and then networks to find dancers who are up to the standards of the event to perform.

Some of it, too, is made up on the fly.

For example, he once found a guy who does hip-hop dancing and hula hoops through a professional dancer he knows. This year, he invited a young man from Hawaii who has performed at the event before and who has Arkansas connections to perform again.

"Our lineup for this year -- we have Asian Indian dancers. And I have a Filipino and a Russian doing the Argentine tango," he says. "I have an American Indian group that I think is going to knock the socks off everyone with their outfits."

Davis cannot quantify the amount of time he dedicates to Dancing Into Dreamland each year. He enjoys the effort and says he thinks about it "all the time."

"It has taken on a life of its own," Davis says. "I'm already working on next year. I enjoy organizing this and seeing people enjoy it much more than I would as a spectator."

More information is available at dreamlandballroom.org/dancing-into-dreamland-2023.


  photo  Richard Davis has taken photos at Dancing Into Dreamland, a fundraiser geared toward the restoration of the historic Dreamland Ballroom in Taborian Hall, for 11 years. His bigger role involves finding dancers to perform for the event. “Dreamland is always on my brain because people are always asking me to speak about it,” Davis says. “I sometimes sleep thinking about Dreamland.” (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)

 
 


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