Courtesy of Big Muddy Dance Company
The Lemps continue to fascinate, and this weekend, their story comes to the Edison Theatre at Washington University when the Big Muddy Dance Company performs Lemp Legends: A Ghost Story. The performance is the opening show of the 2018–2019 “Gateway Season,” and is also the first full-length production with a unified theme focusing on the impact of the Lemp family on the history of St. Louis. Continuing that theme for the season, the performance in January will feature local choreographers, and finally in April, the focus will be on St. Louis music.
The initial idea for Big Muddy came back in 2010, when founder Paula David, recently relocated from Chicago, saw similarities from her former home in the 1980s and St. Louis a decade ago. That similarity: the need but also the necessary building blocks for a professional dance company. Initially, she, along with Executive Director Erin Warner Prange and less than a dozen others, began with humble quarters inside of an old clothing store in Crestwood Mall back when it was in the last few years of operation. They hung mirrors on the walls and used the old dressing rooms to change clothes. But they laid down a workable business plan, and now, in 2018, they boast 16 full-time salaried dancers for a 33-week season, and the company is even opening a second studio in two weeks. As part of their outreach, dancers work with senior citizens, and are involved with a study to research the positive effects of dance on Alzheimer’s patients.
The idea for an entire evening’s performance revolving around the Lemps came partly out of Prange living with her family in a restored row house in Benton Park. “I just love the history of the neighborhood," she says. "A lot of the homes originally were owned by Anheuser-Busch and Lemp brewery employees. It speaks to me on a personal level.”
Chris Naffziger
The Lemp Mansion
Prange’s own home even still bears the markings of now-vanished walls from its former use as an apartment building. And of course, also located in Benton Park is the Feickert-Lemp Mansion—nowadays usually just known as the Lemp Mansion—which offers ghost tours and functions as a restaurant and bed and breakfast. The Big Muddy crew took tours of the mansion, learning from the employees and consulting from Lemp historian David Mullgardt.
Inspired by those tours, the performance will unfold in the present day, with a spoken word performance by the Tour Guide character, who will lead the audience around the Lemp Mansion. As she enters different parts of the house associated with a member of the family, that character’s suite of dances will be performed in a vignette flashback to 100 years ago. The production emphasizes that the Lemps were real people, and not salacious tabloid characters.
Without revealing too much of the narrative of Lemp Legends, the vignettes start just after the funeral of Frederick Lemp, the favorite son of William Lemp Sr., who is the subject of the first biographical “sketch.” William Sr. was the son of brewery founder Adam Lemp and began construction of the massive plant on Cherokee Street that we are all familiar with today. His life ended tragically in suicide.
Elsa Lemp Wright follows, and her life has become the subject of a documentary that will be coming out soon. Long thought to be another victim of suicide, recent research has cast major doubt on that conclusion, with instead foul play being suspected.
The Lavender Lady, Lillian Handlan, comes next, and Prange explains how original dresses at the Missouri History Museum helped inspire hers and other garments in the production. In collaboration with the Muny, they were able to produce period costumes that were both faithful to the time but also functional for modern dance (no whale bones were used).
Lillian was married to Billy Lemp, and their marriage ended in acrimony. His vignette comes after his wife. The brewery closed under his tenure, and the weight of this failure led to his suicide in the mansion.
Finally, Charles rounds out the vignettes. He had worked for the brewery for a time, but like his siblings, lived in obscurity after the family business had closed. His suicide, or as some suspect, suspicious death in 1949, ended the Lemp occupancy in the storied mansion in Benton Park.
The approximately hour and a half performance is curated by artistic director Brian Enos. Unlike most productions, Lemp Legends has six in-house choreographers, all presided over by Enos, who is focusing on the overarching storyline. Prange explains, “That has been a unique challenge with six different voices.”
Upcoming Big Muddy projects, particularly what Enos has envisioned artistically, must be kept under wraps for the time being, but are exciting. In the present, Lemp Legends: A Ghost Story is taking a new and inventive look at both history and dance in St. Louis.
If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255.
