The Treme Recreation Community Center needs to install spotlights over the swimming pool and maybe a mirror ball too, because the water aerobics classes there aren’t just workouts, they’re chlorine-scented disco dance shows.
At a recent 6 p.m. class, The O’Jays boomed from a poolside speaker. One lifeguard played air guitar as he surveyed the dozens of heads bobbing in blue water. Another lifeguard go-go’d in place.
At center stage grooved Lucious Dunham, the class leader. Sure, Dunham demonstrated aquatic calisthenics to people in the pool like any other water aerobics instructor. But that was just the warmup.
With supreme skill and suppleness, the 54-year-old exploded into motion. Dunham gazed at the rafters as if entranced, sweeping his arms through the air as he slid his feet on the cement floor.
With gravity-defying grace, he fell to his knees then fluidly sprang upright, as sweat appeared on his brow. Dunham always puts on a masterful physical performance, made all the more marvelous by a touch of silliness.
Despite the challenge of ceaselessly sloshing through their exercises, it was difficult for Dunham’s instructees not to smile and guffaw from time to time at his antics.
“I try to add humor,” he said. “I try to make it an experience.” In the end, he said, he thinks he helps folks, “burn a few more calories” than in the usual water aerobics instruction.
Forced to grow up fast
It’s hard to imagine Dunham as a shy kid, but he says that was the case. He had rough childhood, being raised by his grandmother after his mom was killed. He only met his father once. When his grandmother passed away, Dunham lived with his aunt.
“I was forced to grow up fast,” he said.
According to family lore, he is a distant descendant of the legendary dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham. But his inspiration was moonwalking Michael Jackson. At Carver Middle School, Dunham said, he didn’t need an audience. He was content to dance by himself, in his own world.
But when a teacher spotted him, she signed him up for the class talent show. Dunham said he hoped his aunt would intercede to spare him of having to perform in front of an audience. Instead, she sewed a costume and egged him on.
To his amazement, Dunham said, he possessed an inner confidence on stage. Dance, he said, helped “open me up.”
Old rival becomes new boss
Warren Matthews, the Treme center’s aquatics manager, said he met Dunham way back when they were both at G.W. Carver High School. In fact, Matthews said, they were rivals. They both played in the marching band and danced. They got into a fight one time, Matthews said laughing. He still remembers that Dunham had “a ‘Karate Kid’ stance.”
Matthews said Dunham is the same now as he was back then. “He thought he was Michael Jackson. He was funny and full of energy. Everybody liked him.”
Fast forward four decades, and Dunham showed up at the Treme Center to take lifeguard lessons. By that time, he was a master barber and part owner of a salon/barber shop in New Orleans East, married, with two boys.
Right away, Matthews imagined his old classmate would be perfect to lead water aerobics in Treme, where there was already a history of amphibious flamboyance.
“We have acts,” Matthews said. Everybody has a role.
A star is born
At first, Dunham was just a sideman, cutting up while Matthews led classes and did a little dancing of his own. Matthews is a much more methodical instructor than Dunham, and soon their roles reversed, with Dunham peacocking around the pool while Matthews took more of a background role.
“We complement each other,” Matthews said. “He took a lot of weight off of me.”
The Treme Center pool is probably the only place where the water aerobics instructions are preceded by an opening act. One of the younger lifeguards usually warms up the class with preliminary stretching and a few rudimentary exercises, before Dunham struts onto his stage.
Imagine Stevie Wonder echoing off the walls, and a lifeguard conducting with an invisible baton as if they were an underwater orchestra. He tells the class to pinwheel in place, as Dunham jogs buoyantly around the perimeter, with 50 sets of eyes fixed on his every move, discoing like John Travolta in trunks and a T-shirt.
At his absolute most theatric, Dunham displays plastic superhero action figures and superhero posters as poolside props. Then he pantomimes the poses of Superman, Batman and others. The Incredible Hulk is his favorite.
Dunham says he’s been into comic book characters as long as he’s been dancing. Matthews laughingly says his old friend owns something like 10,000 action figures. No, make that 50,000.
“My superpower is dance and to make anybody think they can do whatever they want,” Dunham said.
The healing power of water
Truth is, the whole Treme Center pool has superpowers. At 6:50 a.m. on a recent morning, bathers clustered at the doors and on the benches outside. Asked what they thought of Dunham’s style of instruction, there was an eruption of praise and appreciation.
“Lucious is the best thing that ever came across this pool,” Justin Hill said. The pool is an especially important place for him, after a bad accident 15 years ago. Burning some debris in his backyard left burn scars wrapping his head and torso. After two years in the hospital, Hill said, he needed to find some kind of recovery regimen he could stick to.
Matthews and his pool crew took Hill in and helped him back to health and fitness. Matthews is a big believer in the healing power of water. “They saved my life,” he said.
And three years ago, Dunham joined the cast, lending his frenetic magic to the mix, “He came along with his really fast dancing, and now I could outrun a horse,” Hill said.
Hill says Dunham belongs on Broadway. Maybe so. But in the meantime, all would agree he definitely belongs on the edge of the Treme pool.
Water aerobics classes, for people 16 years old and older, take place at the Treme Recreation Community Center, from 7 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. and from 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. Monday-Friday , and from 9 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. Saturdays. Classes are free.