Today, Bill Evans is a well-known contemporary dancer, choreographer, and teacher who has traveled a long way from his origins in 1940’s Lehi, Utah, a small and conservative Mormon community that didn’t have room for his whole self. Now he’s back with the company where he got his start, the Repertory Dance Theatre in Salt Lake City, where he’s preparing a retrospective of his life’s work. To say that there might be conflicting emotions at play is an understatement, but Evans himself is nothing but the picture of generosity and understanding.
Stéphane Glynn and Jared Ruga’s documentary Barefoot Boy offers an insider’s look (Evans himself is their primary source) at Evans’ life and career, beginning when he was a small boy in Utah captivated by a Fred Astaire film. Soon he was imitating what he saw on screen, improvising tap shoes by holding marbles between his toes. His parents hoped it was a phase when he didn’t grow out of it his father allowed him to attend a tap dancing class—as long as the instructor and at least some of the other students were male.
Knowing he was different and not able to say how, Evans poured his imagination and his energy into dance. He got teased for having taps on his shoes (his parents were too poor to afford a separate pair of tap shoes), and he got called names like “Girl-Boy” and “Fairy Feet.” But not seeing another way forward, so he concentrated on his dancing and was soon getting offers to perform locally and to teach.
Those gigs helped pay for the University of Utah, where he encountered a much wider world awaited and left the Church of Latter-Day Saints in which he was raised. There was no room for LGBTQ+ behavior (he recalls the atmosphere of the University’s Dance Department as “homophobic”) so he suppressed that part of himself and got on with the work. Due to being “desperately lonely,” Evans married a fellow dancer, Sharon Lindberg, but the experience of being married just underlined that he was definitely not straight.
A spell in the military left to a career-threatening injury, but the long recovery period only reconfirmed Evans’ belief that dance was his life. He and Lindberg separated and he worked with several companies, nothing that he “had opportunities handed to me because I was a tall white male.” Then, wanting to be close to his daughter (born to Lindberg), Evans enrolled in the MFA program at Utah, where he met his first male partner, Greg Lizenberry. Both joined a new company, the Repertory Dance Theatre, and his career followed, including founding and leading The Bill Evans Company for many years.
Barefoot Boy cuts between Evans’ past (told mostly through interviews and archival materials) and preset (dominated by dance rehearsals and interviews with current dancers, Evans, and others who knew him). There are some archival clips of dance performances, but otherwise this film is focused more on the process than on the final result, which may disappoint some viewers. There’s also an interesting contradiction in this film: Evans may present a sunny version of his life, but those who worked for him use other descriptors, like authoritarian, manipulative, nasty, and patriarchal. In response to these charges, Evans recounts tales of his own abuse, but you can decide for yourself if that’s sufficient, particular in view of Evans’ self-acknowledged privileges in the dance world and ability to justify and forgive himself. | Sarah Boslaugh
Barefoot Boy will screen on June 14 at 7:30 pm as part of QFest St. Louis at the Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis 63117; 314-644-1100). Individual tickets are $15, or $12 for students and Cinema St.Louis members. More information about QFest is available from the festival web site.
