Gillian is a dancer

The Gillian Lynne Theatre. Formerly the New London Theatre, it was officially renamed in 2018 and became the first theatre in the West End of London to be named after a non-royal woman.

In London’s West End, there are 40 theatres. It’s the equivalent of Broadway, which has 41.

On Drury Lane, you’ll find the oldest. The first show at Theatre Royal was 358 years ago in 1663.

And if you walk a few blocks up Drury Lane, past the Lebanese Bakery, you’ll arrive at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, the first in the West End of London named after a commoner (not a royal).

Gillian Lynne was born Gillian Barbara Pyrke in 1926, the only child of Barbara and Leslie.

Sir Ken Robinson, the British author and international advisor on education and the arts, tells a story about Gillian in the most viewed TED Talk of all time, Do Schools Kill Creativity.

When Gillian was 7, she had a hard time in school.

She couldn’t sit still or follow lessons. Her teachers punished her, scolded her, and tried to reward her on the rare occasion she paid attention.

It happened at home too. She never sat still.

The school asked Gillian’s mom for a meeting. Her teacher did her best to tactfully suggest Gillian might have a disorder. Maybe she needed medication.

Gillian was at the meeting too, but she wasn’t paying much attention.

After a few minutes, an older teacher interrupted. He asked Gillian if it was okay for the adults to leave her alone for a few minutes.

She nodded.

The older teacher turned on an old radio for her, and the adults got up. He invited his colleagues to an adjoining room with a window so they could observe Gillian.

They watched.

As the radio played, Gillian chased the music. Moving across and around the room, she leapt and twirled. With clear eyes and a full heart.

The older teacher smiled.

His colleagues looked confused.

Gillian’s mother looked at him with compassion, and he met her eyes.

“See, Gillian is not sick. Gillian is a dancer.”

The meeting adjourned in consensus that Gillian should enroll in dance classes. When she got home from her first lesson, Gillian told her mother, “Everyone is like me, no one can sit there!”

Gillian’s iconic career as a dancer, director, and choreographer spanned the globe and four decades. She’s best known for designing the choreography for Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.

Some of us are good at hitting targets others can’t hit. Well known targets. Targets most agree are worth focused aim.

That’s talent.

But a few of us can find and reach targets others can’t see. New targets that nudge the world in a new direction.

That’s creative genius.

Humanity needs both talent and creative genius to thrive. Talent can be molded. But genius and creativity often don’t respond to molding.

They require unfolding.

And an understanding that sometimes creativity can’t sit still.