Star Profile Lee Lumpkin of the Columbia Classical Ballet
By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Lee Lumpkin Photo by John Temple Ligon

Lee Lumpkin was born in Louisville, Kentucky, because there was a lack of adequate medical facilities in Bardstown, her parents' home. Bardstown, however, never lacked for heritage. In the heart of Bluegrass Country, it's the home of the original Old Kentucky Home. It's a stone's throw from the likes of Jim Beam, Barton Brands Ltd., and Maker's Mark. It's home to Heaven Hill. Every mid-September, it's the headquarters for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.

Lumpkin's father was a lawyer with a real estate development bent. Her mother is a pianist.

Lumpkin graduated from Bardstown High with all of the 60 in her senior class. She left Kentucky for Missouri, where she spent her first two college years at Christian College and her second two at Stephens College, both all-girls schools in Columbia.

Immediately following graduation, she began her career in Atlanta, where she could juggle multiple jobs downtown and graduate from Georgia State. After earning her master's and taking employment stints in Texas, she moved to South Carolina. She went on her own with a dress shop in 1977 near Dutch Square. Named The Ivory Tower, her dress shop continues to flourish at 2614 Devine Street, about a block from Non(e)such and directly across from Daniel Rickenmann's Yo Burrito.

According to Lumpkin, her sartorial offerings come across with confidence for women with confidence - people of power and style, never afraid of femininity.

In late 1985, Lumpkin married lawyer Mike Lumpkin, and daughter Morgan was soon to arrive. Son Doug came along a few years later. The four stayed put in the home owned by the Lumpkin family since 1931.

Through daughter Morgan, Lumpkin took an interest in local ballet. In 1996, Artistic Director Radenko Pavlovich and Chairman-and-Chief-Fund-Raiser Lumpkin put together the Columbia Classical Ballet, a professional company.

The ballet company has 10 professionals on the payroll, and another six dancers participate. Last Friday night, October 20, the Columbia Classical Ballet's 16 performed Carmina Burana and Jekyll & Hyde.

The big event of the year is coming up: Nutcracker . It's easily the most popular draw. Columbia Classical Ballet will perform Nutcracker five times at the Koger Center over the first weekend in December: Friday, 10 am and 7:30 pm; Saturday, 3 pm and 7:30 pm; Sunday, 3 pm.

Missing between the front row and the stage is the open orchestra pit, replete with the full philharmonic. A symphony accompaniment costs a fortune, as the Columbia Classical Ballet has learned from past performances. As tough as it is to meet the financial obligations of a grand and glorious Nutcracker , adding large orchestra costs kills the feasibility. So the Columbia Classical Ballet's performances are accompanied by digital music, which is the case with the Atlanta Ballet, too.

The Atlanta Ballet had to drop the orchestra for at least two years to gain some financial relief. Out of last year's annual performance budget of $2,500,000, some $500,000 could be saved this year by dropping the orchestra and picking up digital music.

With the outrageous expense and the local market pressures exacerbated by two other popular ballet companies, the Columbia Classical Ballet does all right to break even this year. But the Columbia Classical Ballet is just that, classical. The Columbia Classical Ballet meets a demand that's been there since ballet fully formed in France over 300 years ago.

Lumpkin knows that, obviously, and she's been telling Columbia that for 10 years. Let's make it 20.