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Annual of Contemporary Dance Editor: Marian Van Tuyl

Editorial Board: Doris Dennison, Joanna Gewertz, Eleanor Lauer, Dorrill Shadwell, Dorothy Weston, Adele Wenig, Susan Snodgrass, Elizabeth Harris, Ann Halprin, Rhoda Kellogg, Bernice Peterson, Rhoda Slanger, Rebecca Fuller-Walton, Nik Krevitsky.

Production Supervision: Lilly Weil Jaffe

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Cover design by Lilly Weil Jaffe

Editorial assistance by Carroll Russell, Shirley Genther, David Grier and Julie Isaacs Photographs by courtesy of: Lionel Rudko, New York 3 Carroll Russell, Chicago 7 Marvin Silver, New York 17 Editions Girsberger, Zurich; George Wittenborn, Inc. , New York 18 Ann Halprin, Kent Woodlands, California 19 Steve Allen, NBC,TV, Hollywood 20 Jack Mitchell, New York 20 Carolyn Mason Jones, San Francisco 23 Daniel Kramer, New York 24 A. John Geraci, New York 24 William John Hanna, Lansing, Michigan 49, 51, 53 Unless otherwise noted, photographs, charts and drawings are included by courtesy of the authors.

Published by Impulse Publications, Inc. , 160 Palo Alto Avenue, San Francisco, California 94114. $2.50 per copy (California residents add 10£ state tax per copy). Make checks payable to Impulse Publications, Inc. Printed by Chapman Press, San Francisco. No part of the material herein may be reproduced without the consent of Impulse Publications, Inc. , with the exception of short quotations used for reviews . Copyright 1965 by Impulse Publications, Inc. Library of Congress Catalogue Number:

THE FIRST FRONTIER: The story of Louis Horst and the American Dance, written and published by Ernestine Stodelle, with photographs of Louis Horst, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, etc. , by Barbara Morgan, aims to place in historical perspective the inspiring influence of Louis Horst on the choreographic efforts of the pioneer dancers. Available from the author, 840 Brookvale Road, Cheshire, Connecticut. $2. Index

Esther Pease EPmLOGHr/E — A Conversation with Louis Horst 4

Gertrude Lippincott ffiEF<0)mT <0>F TfflF AffiTffi 8 In Government, Education, Community — 1965

Bonnie Bird TfflK MICBE'S MffiW ffiESFSDBTffiimilLITY 11

Peter Yates MffiffiCffi ClTlSnsnilSKKfflAlMI 1IST©1IS THE MICI 13

Carroll Russell and Shirley Genther EJIAIHOXGUIUE ©M THE IIW MICI 17 In Relation to Other Contemporary Arts

COMPUTER DANCE Paul Le Vasseur TTfflE m©]LE F TfflE BAWCE 27

Sumio Kam'bayashi BTOHBEmM HBAISriEE IM JIAFABr 29

Judith Lynne Hanna AFMCAI MICE AS ffiUDWCATTnOW 48

TWO LETTERS FROM ENGLAND Lilian Harmel FOSTEMWG Tfflffi CffllEB'S OTMATE FEEMKKG 56 F©m MOVEMEMT Violet Bruce "SPM1E IM WOTTEffi" 58

Joanna Gewertz COMIMFISITS ©BT ©AWCE OT FBUFfirATIOmi 61 In the United States — Now report of the parallel development of the art about Preface which many American students know very little.

The "profile" of the Merce Cunningham Company Announcement of the Aspen Award of $30,000 to presents a critical evaluation of his work. Itis fol­ Martha Graham to honor "the individual anywhere lowed by a photographic essay reporting a new form in the world judged to have made the greatest con­ of education for audiences. "Dialogue on the New tribution to the advancement of the humanities" is Dance," which is proving to be successful in its made just as we go to press. This award is well stimulation of both acceptance and understanding and long deserved. All of us concerned with dance of dance by the public. are aware of its importance in the recognition of the art as well as of the person. "Computer Dance "describes the experimental work done at the University of Pittsburgh by the Dance In dedicating IMPULSE 1965 to the memory of Department in conjunction with the Data Processing Louis Horst, we are honoring a great teacher, who Center. It is an example of use of scientific tech­ made a significant and recognized contribution to nique to broaden the frame of reference of students the artistic development of Martha Graham as well of "the oldestarf'and to "aggravate"young choreo­ as many other dance artists. graphers to abandon personal mannerisms and stereotyped systems of compositions. Inthe early years of his teaching, Louis Horst felt that academic training stifled creativity, and he Alfred Frankenstein, in a critical article published was very outspoken about it. If one of his students in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE , has referred made a "bad" dance, college education was usually to 1964 as "The Year When the Art Gabfest Started." blamed for it. If it was a "good" dance, college He foresees the possibility that the arts may be was never mentioned. But, as time went on, edu­ "talked to death" during the next decade through the cation became respectable for the choreographer. activities of a variety of councils, commissions Louis Horst taught in many colleges and universi­ and associations at the national, state and local ties, and he was rewarded with an honorary doctor's levels that have yet "to come up with something other degree from Wayne State University in the last year than mimeographed releases." Although we are of his life. He was scheduled to receive a similar aware of this danger, we believe that the work de­ degree from Mills College the following spring. scribed in "Reports — 1965" and "The Dancer's He taught actively and brilliantly up to the time of New Responsibility" can serve a most important his death at 80 years of age. He used to say, "I function in furthering dance of fine quality through­ only hope that I never get so old that I stop telling out the country. the dance students to quit being old-fashioned." A psychiatrist, visitinga class in Pre-Classic Forms We apologize for talking about a non-verbal form of in the fall of 1963 at Juilliard School, remarked, art, thereby adding to the "gabfest," but rationalize "He is not just teaching composition, he is teaching our continued publishing about subjects relating to life." The flavor of his thinking is evident in "Con­ dance by stating that we hope the varied viewpoints versation with Louis Horst." expressed will stimulate teachers, students, dan­ cers and others to work more intensely toward For IMPULSE 1965 we again select the subject of making dance an integral part of the cultural milieu "Dance and Education." Now, education has moved as well as an exciting and significant segment of beyond the limitations of the "academy" to empha­ size "continued learning from cradle to grave" as each person's life. Dance experience of excellence one of the techniques of individual "Self-Renewal" whether as participant or audience, is the objective. to use John Gardner's term. Whatever research projects, teacher training, con­ ferences , publications or programs can contribute "The community" has important personal and there­ to this end are accepted by us as important and valid. fore local aspects, but, in fact, the nation and the Change, as the one certainty, has been considered in world have become the community. What used to IMPULSE time after time. Predictions are precar­ be "Notes from Abroad" in IMPULSE is an integral ious; flexibility is the goal. Dance in education can part of this issue. The fascinating differences in work toward this as a personal aim for each individ­ educational philosophy as set forth in articles from ual — atonce observative andaggressive in sensing Africa, England and Japan are to be compared with the values of the past and responding to the changing the theoretical bases for dance in education in the conditions of the present. Action and invention are United States. We have included the extended essay essential in Dance and Education — Now. "Modern Dance in Japan" as a factual and intricate (LA Jn){U*r*? 1965 is dedicated to the memory of LOUIS HORST (1884 - 1964)

LOUIS HORST with sculpture by Elena Kepalaites Photo: Lionel Rudko Epilogue — A Conversation with Louis Horst ESTHER E. PEASE

Betty: Tell us, Louis, what were the rewards of the fruitful years?

Louis: The greatest reward was that in all those years I was doing just what I wanted to do, and realizing it all the time — not merely in retrospect. At the time things happened I felt "This is it! This is it." My enthusiasm for the work has been endless, and I still have it. I still must instigate young dancers to do this and do that. Working creatively you get very close to people. And the young all need guidance —especially the talented ones. They do it themselves, really, but they need a tail to their kite. And they get a feeling that without me they wouldn't have done what they have. It would have happened, but it might have been different. These children, as I think of them, are my satisfaction.

Betty: What of your contribution to music written for dance? How do you regard this part of your life?

Louis: I'm proud of having written FRONTIER for Martha, and PRIMITIVE MYSTERIES, CELEBRATION, EL PENITENTE. Not as music that stands by itself, but as music that was right for the dances it accom­ panied. And conducting for the dance concerts —I realize that I enjoyed that, too. I've even enjoyed getting out the DANCE OBSERVER all these years. It may be a funny little sheet, but it keeps going.

Betty: How would you describe your world today?

Louis: I'm in the period where my work has crystallized, especially in my teaching. And teaching has been my main concern these past fifteen years. I try to add new things to it as I see it happening, but today I don't see painters and musicians doing very much of any thing that is new. Nor the dancers — except maybe this kind of cerebral Dadaism. That » can't be taught. Some of the wacky things the young dancers are doing may just be a sort of rash that will disappear. But we always need the Avant-garde in the arts to help us from being complacent. New things don't belong just totheyoung, either, although the tendency as we become older is for the creative fires to burn less brilliantly. But I don't feel old! I still look for things to happen. I still feel so young possibly because things started late with me. I joined Miss Ruth when I was thirty-one, went to Vienna to study music composition when I was forty-one, played Martha's first concert when I was forty-two, and only began to teach when I was forty-four.

Betty: Are the students you teach today any different from those of earlier years?

Louis: Oh yes — vastly different. The entire attitude of the young is different. Today there is less dedication, less eagerness to learn, less willingness to work hard at the tools of their craft. Years ago if I had twenty dancers inthe class and I called on twenty names, twenty people got up and gave their dances. And this was true when I was a boy, studying piano. I never would have thought of going to my teacher without preparing the Esther E. Pease, Associate Professor and Chairman for Dance Activities at the University of Michigan, has just returned from the "maiden voyage" of the University of Michigan Theater Dance Touring Company. She received her Ph. D. from the University of Michigan; was editor of a compilation of Dance Research 1903-1964, AAHPER; is co-author with Aileene Lockhart of the text book MODERN DANCE; Building and Teaching Lessons: and is Chairman-elect, National Dance Division, AAHPER. assignment. It was a foregone conclusion that I would be ready. But nowadays, though, I call fifteen names and get no more than seven or eight responses. The others say, "I'm not ready. I didn't get a chance to work." And I say, "Why?" And they all answer, "Oh, I don't know, I just didn't do it." In the old days I'd get an occasional sluggard, but today the earnest hard working student is the occasional one.

Betty: Are today's students in some ways better prepared than those of yesterday?

Louis: Yes — technically, they are better—but not intellectually. The student of the nineteen thirties would go to art museums and look at modern art, and when I brought a book on modern painting to class they would look at it. Today, when I pass around postcards of reproductions of modern art, they don't even glance at them. There is little or no interest in the related things of contemporary art. These students are ambitious, they want to get places — but they don't want to work for it. We know that the attitude of the juvenile delinquent toward the law is one of re­ sentment, and it is this same attitude that has pervaded the academies. Formal teaching is the law, and our young dancers of today don't like it.

Betty: What are they seeking?

Louis: They want a chance to emote, to be on the stage. They are always ask­ ing me, "When can we give a concert?" Years ago that didn't happen because the study of dance composition was recognized as a period of discipline and students were willing to learn these disciplines before accepting the challenge of a performance. But this wanting of something for nothing seems to be in the air now, generally — not only in the dance world.

Betty: What are they dancing about? Are they expressing different ideas today?

Louis: Yes, for the times are different. In the thirties, when most artists were a little "pink," when we had organized groups such as the Workers' Dance League, students were dancing about things such as "Poor Spain," "Poor China," or the "Naughty Capitalist." They scorned the ballet be­ cause it had connotations of imperialist Russia. This was a time of revolution. But the dancers weren't pretentious — Martha and Doris weren't pretentious. They would do things on a bare stage; costuming and lighting were at a minimum; the accompaniment was kept simple, too, never being more than a piano or a small ensemble of instruments. In those days they were thinking more in terms of the importance of the movement —of its design, of the enthusiasm it could engender —without the theatricality we seem to have so much of now. Dancing made its own theater.

Young dancers always imitate the mature artists, and today so much of what we see in modern dance is being smothered by props, Baroque de­ cor, complicated lighting plots, speakers, narrators, sound tracks, mobiles, cocktail gadgets — everything, sometimes, except a good dance. Students are working this way, too. They are being what I call pretentious. They should be influenced by these things, only they shouldn't go over to this entirely. In the early days of contemporary dance they danced more about the myths than they do today, and they used more ethnic material. Today everything seems to be either psychological or wacky use of props in a cerebral way. Everyone wants to be avant-garde. They are thinking more about music than about dance movement — using sound scores, noise scores, percussion scores, and a lot of pretty raucous material. This should be used some of the time, but not all of the time. We shouldn't be restricted to the classics or even what we might term the "traditional modern." But these young people have become too enamored of it and find it an easy way out — an escape from the disciplines of choreography. Musique Concrete and the like is all right when people like Doris and Merce have used it, for they have the background to go out from. Young dancers don't. They do crazy things and believe they can do for themselves without studying with someone who knows some­ thing. Well, they can —up to a point; but they soon run into a dead alley with it. They just can't go on doing one spooky -wooky number after another without ever having to meet the problem of the simple stage, and dancers moving around on it.

Betty: Are they more interested in learning technique rather than composition?

Louis: Yes, they like to work on technique to some extent, at least. And today they are all studying ballet. Almost the first thing you hear when they talk with each other is, "Oh, where are you studying ballet?" They are all talking about it.

Betty: Do you see some advantage in this ?

Louis: Yes, I suppose so — only I'm sorry that modern dance hasn't the thing within it that would take the place of what the ballet contributes. Modern dance can be cleanly articulate just as much as ballet is. It can contain these things they seek from ballet — only today so many of the modern dancers want to spill over with too much emotion. On the other hand, ballet remains too cold. It becomes ridiculous when it gets emotional, because of its stock pantomime. There seems to be a turning towards ballet even amongst the critics. Even some of them are turning against modern dance and finding fault with everything about it.

Betty: Is the present picture a dark one? Is modern dance on the wane?

Louis: No — things are still going on. We have a lot of good modern dancers and they give concerts when they can — some of them. The American Dance Festival up at Connecticut still brings forth fresh things, new things that are quite good. Occasionally, a real masterpiece such as Mary Anthony's marvelously beautiful THRENODY comes forth. But economically the professional modern dancer is caught. This is the biggest problem. The cost of putting on a concert today is beyond the means of the artistunless he canfind a wealthy sponsor. And companies no longer stay together as they used to. From concert to concert the group changes — never remains the same. Today's young dancer goes to all Broadway auditions, performs in two or three different companies — and doesn't want to work very hard. Betty: What would you prescribe? What direction should be taken?

Louis: I hesitate to say it but I feel that now it has become necessary for us to go back to some of the early principles of modern dance and not be going on into the theater too much where we could be swallowed up. I also feel we should not be incorporated with the ballet. We have need of going back and taking a look at the statements that were made by such great compositions as PRIMITIVE MYSTERIES and NEW DANCE. These contained beautiful dancing, buoyant dancing. The gesture of raising an arm was made exciting in and of itself without having to mean some specific thing. I'm not suggesting that we return to the period of the "long woolens " as Martha has called it — the time of the dead pan face and the flat foot — but we need to go back to some of the simple state­ ments characteristic of the compositions up until the time of World War II and add to them a few of the things we have learned since then. Modern dance now has a past it can examine. It can have a future.

Louis Horst conducting a demonstration Report Of The ArtS |n Governmentr Education, Community 1965

GERTRUDE LIPPINCOTT

I. Statement on Dance grounds and persuasions. Because current national planning and organization in dance exists on a pri­ At what is now wittily referred to as the "Ecumeni­ mitive level when compared to other arts-in-edu­ cal Council of the Dance" (National Council of the cation organizations, it is of great importance that Arts in Education, Conference HI, Oberlin, Ohio, the "umbrella" of the NCAIE give shelter to such September 1964), a "Statement on Dance " was signed gatherings. by seventeen members of the dance profession — educators, performers, and editors. * It read as H. The National Council of the Arts in Education follows: The Council, incorporated in 1959, is made up of "The Dance Section of the Third Conference of thirteen constituent arts-in-education groups (mu­ the Arts in Education affirms that dance is an independent art and should be recognized as sic, dance, theatre, design, architecture, musico- such. While dance can contribute to music, logy, painting, sculpture, graphic arts, cinema - theater, and physical education, to function tology, theatre technology), plus four affiliates. most effectively at the several educational le­ Its individual membership totals about 150,000. vels in today's expanding program of the arts With such a membership it can become a tremen­ in education, dance needs to be free from ad­ dous force for action in the field of arts education ministrative subordination to the other pro­ as well as for dissemination and exchange of ideas fessional fields." and information. The NCAIE represents the first attempt in the history of American education to The statement is highly significant because it marks bring the arts in education together in a formal, the first time that dance educators, whether they permanent organization. were attached to dance in physical education, fine arts, or in separate departments, have agreed as HI. The Cultural Explosion to the place of dance in education. And the state­ ment is of further significance because it shows The great upsurge of interest inthe arts in educa­ clearly that the time is ripe for such a pronounce­ tion is the result of the tremendous cultural explo­ ment. Fifteen years ago there were a few voices sion which has taken place in the United States since testifying to the need for dance to affirm its place the end of World War II. Why and how the explosion as an independent art in education. Now there is has occurred is the subject of numerous books and general agreement that dance has a vital and self- articles. 2 determining role in the educative process. Opponents of mass culture, men like Dwight Mac- The seventeen dancers and educators who signed Donald, view the hundreds of people streaming into the statement represented four dance organizations museums, taking "Sunday" painting, dancing and — National Section on Dance (American Association music, attending concerts in greater numbers than for Health, Physical Education and Recreation). baseball games, as dismal evidence that American National Dance Teachers Guild, Dance Notation democracy has debased art with a tasteless "Mid- Bureau, Dance Films, plus Impulse Publications. Cult." Alvin Toffler, on the other hand, points out They represented all parts of the country as well that millions of people are being exposed to the arts as dance in secondary schools, colleges and uni­ in their best forms and affirms that some good is versities. bound to come of it all. Between MacDonald's bleak pessimism and Toffler's rather uncritical In making possible a meeting of various dance edu­ optimism, one realizes that the problems of the arts cators , the National Council of the Arts in Education in our society and in education have hardly begun is discharging one of its main functions, i.e., that to be understood, much less probed in depth. And of providing a forum for discussion and exchange of thus far, most solutions have been generally im­ ideas by persons of diverse professional back­ provisatory and sketchy.

Gertrude Lippincott, dancer, choreographer and teacher, is a director of the National Council on Arts in Education and a leader of the National Section on Dance as well as chairman of the Executive Associa­ tion of the National Dance Teachers Guild. At present she is also on the faculty of the Drama Depart­ ment at the University of Minnesota. IV. The Arts and Government Notwithstanding W. McNeil Lowry's crusty view that the arts do not belong in the educational insti­ The bill which established the Arts Advisory Council tutions ,4 they are ensconced on the campus and must was passed by the Senate, the House, and President be dealt with as components in the total American Johnson by the end of the summer of 1964. Although educational system.5 Clark Kerr, President of the considerably emasculated by the House from the ori­ University of California, has stated in his book, ginal Senate bill (which also established a National THE USES OF THE UNIVERSITY, "Another field Arts Foundation similar to the National Science ready to bloom is that of the creative arts, hitherto Foundation) and created, with extremely limited the ugly duckling of the Cinderellas of the aca­ funds, the Arts Council of twenty-five members demic world. . . the universities need to find ways hopefully can set the tone for country-wide artistic also to accommodate pure creative effort if they activities. In January 1965, Senator Claiborne Pell are to have places on the stage as well as in the of Rhode Island introduced a bill for the establish­ wings and the audience in the great drama of cul­ ment of a National Arts and Humanities Foundation tural growth now playing the American stage." " (S#316) with the support of over a third of other Senators. Representative William Moorehead of VI. Dance in Education Pennsylvania introduced a similar bill inthe House (HR#334) with about one hundred supporters. When one glances through the DANCE DIRECTORY issued by the National Section on Dance, one sees President Johnson spoke specifically of the need for lists of many institutions with numerous programs support of the arts in his State-of-the-Union mes­ and courses in dance. It would look as though dance sage on January 4, 1965, although he did not spell in education was "booming." But the quantitative out any details as to what form his support might picture is somewhat deceptive. Often the courses take. Roger Stevens, Arts Advisor to the Presi­ listedare notadequate; in some cases teachers are dent, attended Conference III of the NCAIE in Ohio not well trained; frequently there are few funds for in September 1964. research; facilities for teaching are woefully lack­ ing; classes are over-crowded; new technics in V. The Arts on the Campus teaching are not utilized; and teacher-training is surfeited with "methods" courses. In many cases It is a mere twenty-five years since the artist-in- there is an over-emphasis on technic with too little residence invaded the college campus in any sub­ time given to choreography. Little has been done in stantial numbers. The job of presenting the arts in basic research, and too frequentiy dance has little their creative rather than their historical aspects contact with the other arts and academic disciplines. began shortly before the second World War. But, since 1945, the problems of integrating the creative It is difficult to discover what, exactly, is goingon arts into educational institutions have mushroomed in all parts of the country in dance education and re­ enormously. search. The Cultural Affairs Branch of the Office of Education (U.S. Department of Health, Educa­ Art courses are given in every available closetand tion and Welfare) in Washington is just over two basement. Artists in unconventional garb roam the years old. Although it may appoint a dance special­ campus, upsetting some deans and academicians ist in the near future in addition to its Theater Arts with their lack of interest in heirarchies, commit­ Specialist, it is just beginning its work. It is cur­ tees, grades, accreditations. Fine arts centers rently making its first dance grant through the Co­ pop up on the plains of Illinois, in the forests of operative Research Act for a "Dance Dictionary" New Hampshire, and on the shores of the Pacific. study to be sponsored through Barnard College of Extension divisions of universities are doing an New York City. A second study on Dance Films in important job of making the arts available to the conjunction with the Dance Division of the New York surrounding country-sides. Students are going to Public Library is under way. concerts, lectures, exhibits, programs and dis­ cussions of the arts. Artists are busily engaged It is hoped that the Proceedings of the Dance as a in justifying their work in the academic community, Discipline Conference will offer numerous guide­ securing tenure, academic freedom and all the lines for the introduction and assimilation of the other rituals of academic life. 3 Administrators dance art into the academic community in a system­ are trying to solve the problems of incorporating atic fashion. The aims of the Conference contain artists and their courses into the university cur­ stimuli for a number of research projects: ricula. 10

1. To clarify the status of dance as an area The National Dance Teachers Guild has created a of learning in the academic environment. Projects Committee to investigate research ideas 2. To support the premise that the arts, and in areas of dance hitherto untouched. The Louis therefore dance, are significant in the de­ Horst Memorial Fund of the Guild will divert its velopment of the individual in society. present limited funds to various dance projects. 3. To prepare the case for dance as a full partner in the academic enterprise. The National Council of the Arts in Government has given dance a place on its roster. The New York VII. Dance and the Community Council for the Arts includes dance as one of its activities. It sponsored a series of modern dance The role of the school in the community and its in­ programs at the New York State Theater of Lincoln fluence on the taste and appreciation of the layman Center in November 1964 and also in March 1965. should be studied. The cultural inter-change be­ tween educational institutions and civic organiza­ The monolithic Ford Foundation Grant to the New tions is undergoing great changes. For example, York City Center Ballet Company and School and to the Kennedy Cultural Center for the Performing George Balanchine and his associates throughout Arts in Washington, D.C. will open its doors in the country will probably have little direct effect 1967. A three months'period each summer will on dance in education, but will undoubtedly change be given over to presentations of the performing the face of ballet performing and teaching in the arts from various educational institutions. The United States. The recent appointment of composer American Educational Theatre Association, in co­ Norman Lloyd as director of the Arts Program of operation with the American National Theatre and the Rockefeller Foundation is heartening. Academy, already has an actively functioning com­ mittee to screen and present educational theater The problems now originating on campuses go far productions. The dance profession, as yet, has no beyond the ivory towers. Dance educators have such committee, although plans are being discussed much to learn about other areas. For example, they must present their projects and plans in terms The professional dancer should become more aware which are understandable to administrators, par­ of the activities and opportunities through govern­ ents, and laymen. They must cooperate with each ment, civic, and private support. The Cultural other and with other artists to insure a creative Affairs Branch (U.S. Office of Education) is seri­ cross-fertilization. They must raise their stand­ ously interested in finding projects in basic and ards in teaching, in performing, and in teaching applied research, developmental programs, con­ their students that dance is a serious art form. ferences , etc. A Committee for Research in Dance has been setup ih New York to sift through possible The hope of dance, of the arts, and of the humanities, research topics. is expressed in the eloquent statement of the late President Kennedy upon the occasion of the ground­ The American Council on Education (Commission breaking ceremonies for the Robert Frost Library on Academic Affairs) sponsored an informal con­ at Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1963: ference in Washington in February 1965, attended "I shall look forward to an America which will by representatives of the arts in education, to con­ reward accomplishment in the arts as we reward sider the role of the creative arts in the colleges. achievement in business or statecraft. I shall The Association of Land Grant Colleges, at its look forward to an America which will steadily annual meeting in November 1964 in Washington, raise the standards of artistic accomplishment stressed the importance of graduate grants in hu­ and which will steadily enlarge our cultural op­ manities and the arts from the Office of Education. portunities for all of our citizens. And I will It also supported legislation to authorize grants to look forward to an America which commands individual artists and scholars and to colleges and respect throughout the world not only for its universities for research and instruction in the arts strength but for its civilization as well. And I and humanities. The National Defense Education look forward to a world which will be safe not Actwas extended on September 30,1964 for another only for democracy and diversity, but also for three years, and provides for educational institutes personal distinction." for educational media specialists and teachers of disadvantaged children and youth. 11 NOTES 1. JeanneBeaman, Susan Braun, Francis Dougherty, Eugenie Dozier, Mary Fee, Joseph Gifford, Elizabeth Hayes, Mary Rae Josephson, BillieKirpich, Gertrude Lippincott, Mary Ella Montague, Dorothy Madden, Lucile Nathanson, Esther Pease, Bessie Shoenberg, Marian Van Tuyl, Lucy Venable. 2. Guerard, Albert Leon, ART FOR ART'S SAKE (Boston, New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Co., 1936). Larrabee, Eric and Meyerson, Rolf, MASS LEISURE (Glencoe: Free Press, 1958). Bell, Bernard L. , CROWD CULTURE (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co. , 1956). Heckscher, August, THE PUBLIC HAPPINESS (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1962). Grana, Cesar, BOHEMIAN vs. BOURGEOIS (New York: Basic Books, 1963). MacDonald, Dwight, AGAINST THE AMERICAN GRAIN (New York: Random House, 1962). Toffler, Alvin, THE CULTURE CONSUMERS (New York: Macmillan, 1964). Williams, Raymond, CULTURE AND SOCIETY 1780-1950 (New York: Doubleday, 1960). 3. PROCEEDINGS, DANCE AS A DISCIPLINE CONFERENCE, National Section on Dance (AAHPER-NEA), University of Colorado, Boulder, June 20-26, 1965. The purpose of the Conference was to "consider the academic implications of dance as an artistic discipline, a performing art, anda non-verbal form of learning." 4. Address to Deans of Graduate Schools, Tulane University, New Orleans, May 1962. 5. Address, PROCEEDINGS, CONFERENCE I, NCAIE, 1962, entitled "The Artist and the Scholar." 6. Kerr, Clark, THE USES OF THE UNIVERSITY (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963).

The Dancer's New Responsibility BONNIE BIRD

At last, dancers will have somewhere to turn for of all kinds as well as the chance to participate ac­ tangible aid and support. The coming subsidy is tively. In my opinion, the central problem is to no gift. It is a responsibility, a serious responsi­ integrate dance in the fabric of community life in bility with enormous implications. very much the way music or the sciences have permeated the lives of our people. Dance, like On whom does this responsibility fall? It certainly music and science, should be made a part of the falls on dancers (students and professionals), on cultural experience of every child. choreographers and teachers, and also on school administrators and department heads, theatre Dance must become part and parcel of every child's directors and technicians, costumers and design­ elementary education, including daily experience in ers, composers and accompanists, critics and the expressive use of his body, but co-relatedquite aestheticians, recreation leaders, photographers specifically with those studies in illuminating and and historians, librarians and film makers, and on meaningful ways. Such a program would mean the the wide audiences who love dance. These people development of a totally new approach to dance in do not, at present, form a cohesive group march­ elementary education (at the moment a virtually ing shoulder to shoulder to "keep dance alive." non-existent area for dance in this country, which Dancers are insular, perhaps due to long condi­ is in sharp contrast to the growing role it has in tioning in having to "go-it-alone." They are "anti- the English elementary schools). organization " and not practiced in working together. Small numbers canbe rallied around an issue which The study of dance as an art must continue through directly affects them, but once the issue is settled high school and college. The ideal would be dance they drift apart again. fully accredited as a vital art form, housed in its own quarters, with artist-teachers preparing young Dance as a major art form and as an intrinsic part people for the profession of Dance, not just dancing. of the culture of the society is broader in scope than You may wonder why I make such a distinction. I one particular aspect. It includes ballet,modern, believe Dance encompasses everything to do with ethnic, tap, social and folk dance. It involves the the art —its history, its practices, its applications training of dancers toward the achievement of pro­ and its development, not just its physical tech­ fessional performing skills, but (almost more im­ niques . This implies that the profession of dance in­ portant from the standpoint of a National Foundation cludes the training of its performers, its choreo­ for the Arts) it involves the growth and enrichment graphers, its teachers and its special craftsmen, of the public, adults and children, through programs and should also imply a serious commitment tothe

Bonnie Bird, dancer, choreographer, teacher, has been, for 12 years, the director of the Dance Depart­ ment of the 92nd Street "Y" in New York City. She was founder and artistic director of the Merry-Go- Rounders (professional dance-theatre company that specializes in performing for children) and is chair­ man-elect of the National Dance Teachers Guild as well as chairman of the Committee on Research in Dance. 12

development of its articulators and explorers. central, is not enough. Dancers, either individual­ Articulators would include notators, historians, ly or through the affiliation of their local groups, critics, aestheticians and administrators. Ex­ must participate inthe activities of the regional and plorers would devote their efforts to dance research national organizations. It is of great importance in its application in many areas outside that of that they consider the kind of organization they join. performing, such as recreation, physiotherapy, An organization in which dance is dealt with as a psychotherapy and education. commodity rather than as an art will be unable to provide the kind of leadership and vision that dance Is it not time to recognize that just as the main­ needs at this critical threshold in its growth. The stream of scientific activity is kept moving only if dancer must ask: does the organization, in practice it is able to draw and build on the findings of its as well as purpose, strive to further dance as an research workers, so in dance, experimentation art? (even that which seems "far-out"), is essential to keep the art fresh and vital? It is wholly conceiv­ In the last ten years a number of dance organizations able that an Institute for Research in Dance en­ have emerged which have in common a dedication to compassing a multi-faceted program of supports supporting and pursuing the highest standards for for serious study and experimentation can become dance in both performing and teaching. The Region­ a reality in the not too distant future. al Ballet Associations now active in nearly every section of the country are providing a kind of ex­ The government, the foundations, the arts councils change that has already enhanced, among its mem­ preparing now to support the arts are vastly puzzled bers, the quality of programming and teaching. about what to do for dance. They know from exper­ The National Dance Teachers Guild was formed ience that piece-meal supports contribute little of eleven years ago as a spontaneous outgrowth of the lasting value. But they are not equipped, nor is it First Conference on the Creative Teaching of Dance, their responsibility to impose programs on the field. sponsored by the 92nd Street Y. M. H. A. in New It is the dancers themselves who must voice their York City. It has grown into a national organization needs, not as complaints but in the form of well- with chapters continuing to form in major cities structured workable projects which in their total throughout the country. Dance Councils, many with impactaddup to a solid program designed to move remarkable programs, exist in a number of our dance forward. larger cities. The Dance Section of the American Association for Health, Physical Education and It will take the unselfish devotion of many persons Recreation includes dance teachers in educational in the field of dance to give mature attention to institutions throughout the United States. Its con­ solving problems, many of which will not seem to ference on "Dance as a Discipline" (Boulder, Colo­ offer any immediate personal benefit. Performers rado, June 1965) should help to clarify means and and educators alike must be willing to give precious goals for these numerous and active organizations. time to function on committees, to attend confer­ ences, to become participating members of pro­ The meeting in October 1964 of a small group of fessional organizations and willingly tackle un- dance educators to discuss the need for research glamorous jobs. Dance has too rarely concerned in dance has led to the issuing of invitations to about itself with charting its own future. If such a "head- 100 of the leading dance educators from all parts in-the-sand" attitude continues, then dance and of the nation to help in establishing a permanent dancers will have to accept a permanent secondary Committee for Research in Dance. position amongst the arts. The development of these organizations gives some If dance is to come of age, dancers must also. indication that dance is on the move. There is evi­ Beyond performing and teaching they have a new dence of a keen awareness amongst increasing responsibility, for it is their task to shape the future numbers of dancers of the extraordinary dimension of dance. It can be done if dancers seek each other of the opportunities opening for the whole field. It out and begin an exchange of ideas and experiences is quite clear that these opportunities will only be directed toward what they, together, can contribute fully utilized if every dancer will shoulder some toward raising their own standards of teaching and part of the task by joining forces with his or her increasing the public's awareness of the rich con­ colleagues to find a voice thatcan speak outclearly tribution dance can make at many levels in the life and concisely for what is needed in shaping the around them. Work at the community level, though future of dance. 13 Merce Cunningham Restores the Dance PETER YATES to Dance

Grimness, social protest, psychological drama Agnes De Mille successfully mingled the conven­ portentously wrestling with symbolic narrative, tionally realistic—Hollywood, musical comedy, the a playing-card angularity of tension-relaxation, short story—with the ballet tradition, to make a whelmed in heavy seriousness and seldom capable pleasurable action at a high popular level of good of release in comedy: that had been Modern Dance taste. Carmelita Maracci from time to time brought from the mid-thirties through the forties into the to New York from Los Angeles her unique composite fifties. of intensely personal drama and abstract free move­ ment, with a Spanish slant, over a solid foundation Beauty had been an unwilling word through all the of ballet. Maracci's intricate art of movement, arts of this period. One could suffer with, one could circlingthe entire stage area, kept free of the static admire, but one could seldom let go to enjoy this diagonal axes, the St. Andrews cross of Modern playless art. Modern Dance had become a dedica­ Dance. She could move in a single unit between tion, on a higher plane of unrelenting emotion, tragedy and playfulness, needing no scenario or from which audiences fled to relax by viewing the mythic reference to explain the agon of an art that classical ballet. turned often to the music of Domenico Scarlatti.

Modern Dance wrenched backs, pulled muscles, I had seen Merce Cunningham's work, a couple of tore ligaments, as if defying any natural movement times, as late as 1955, appreciating the individual­ of the body; it would not be less disciplined than the ity of his approach, his manner—clown, Pierrot, ballet in requiring the body to subserve its purposes. fantasist—still anchored to the diagonal axes and So while the ballet pirouetted its inherited technique, the expressive exaggeration of gesture which had delivering its annual routine of Tchaikovsky, its made him for several years a leading dancer of the perennially vacuous GISELLE, or bent its derivative Graham company, though already freed, as I now habits to accommodate a newer music, Modern realize in retrospect, of the mythic, monumental Dance symbolically labored to convey its darker formality. He was aiming at release, an art that, overload of spiritual chaos. speaking with itself, does not express, does not convey, but tosses its flight of feeling before the Granted that seldom did Modern Dance decline to public, without effort to persuade. Yet there was the blatant theatricality of the Broadway stage. It in his work a confusion of means which I disliked, held its sexuality high and symbolical, however even resented. writhing; its imaging might lack variety but would not condescend. Solemn as a ritual, it explored all Already in his movement the curve, the rounding meanings conveyable by movements of the body. gesture, the weaving path were imparting new di­ mensions to the expressionistic repertoire. While Between the emotionalized prettiness of conven­ with Graham, from 1940 to 1945, he taught Modern tional ballet and the Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, Dance at the American School of Ballet. In 1949 he Lester Horton symbolic emotional extremes (artists danced with Tanaquil LeClerq of the New York Ballet who would not evade the years they lived in), indi­ his own AMORES and GAMES. vidual choreographers created a variety of distinc­ tive styles. GAMES points a direction. AMORES is danced to one of the earlier John Cage compositions for pre - The art of Martha Graham remains for the admirers pared piano (bolts, washers, fruit jar rings inserted the concentrated epitome of its thirty-year reign. in the piano strings, altering the sound and pitch). George Balanchine blended Russian ballet tradition Cage and Cunningham met at the Cornish School in into sophisticated union with a native American Seattle, where Cage came to play for the dance experimentalism, each of his compositions a re­ classes and started the percussion orchestra. In newed effort to find a balance between the tou-tou 1947 they were commissioned by the Ballet Society abstract and the veristic. Jerome Robbins and (now the New York City Ballet) to do THE SEASONS.

Peter Yates, writer, lecturer and critic, is currently the recipient of a Ford Foundation travel award to meet composers and poets. He is the author of AN AMATEUR AT THE KEYBOARD. This essay is reprinted from ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE (Nov. 1963) by permission of the author, who is music critic for that publication. 14

During 1948, 1949, and 1951 they toured together. Between 1955 and 1963 Merce Cunningham had ac­ Since 1951 Cunningham has been gambling his future quired and trained a troupe of seven dancers, three on the underlying esthetic consistency, within ap­ men, four women, with Cage still musical director, parently extreme divergence, of Cage's composition assisted by David Tudor, and the painter andgraphic by chance. Together they broke entirely with the artist Robert Rauschenberg in charge of costume idea that art should present, say, express, com­ and lighting. Traveling cheerfully by Volkswagen municate anything, of whatever seeming impor­ bus in many parts of the country they had given a tance, not intrinsic with itself. In the field of large number of performances, particularly at uni­ chance — which Cage in more recent years has versities, learning as they went, steadily adding to preferred to call Indeterminacy — what are the their repertory. advantages? One fact is obvious: composing by chance you cannot tell a story. Forthe University of California at Los Angeles this last summer they scheduled two programs with two Great showman though he is, Cage had not been able, first performances. As dance teacher for the uni­ before this association, to command a public. His versity summer session Merce Cunningham found appearances, however exciting, had been occa­ himself swamped with students, as many as sev­ sional. With Cunningham he was able to bring his enty-five in a class, teaching three times a day. No inventions before audiences, which although not un­ longer a missionary to the unreconstructed, he has aware of his presence and influence, need not com­ become a central figure of contemporary dance. mit themselves to accept or reject him. This con­ tinuity of appearances, supplemented by his indivi­ Visiting them at theMalibu Beach home where they dual work as composer, lecturer, and, often with stayed, I found them as cheerful, unpretentious, pianist David Tudor, as performer, turned back the non-egotistic a group of artists as I have ever en­ repeated rejections, the mockery, which might have countered. Cage as cook turned out a splendid overcome him. simple dinner. Rauschenberg, helped by the dan­ cers, was building a sand castle, reinforcing it with Cage's influence helped free Cunningham of the seaweed against the heavy tide. There were no clinging and—in my experience—somewhat cloying cripples, no complainers, no apologies, no ex­ symbolic vestiges of Modern Dance. If art, parti­ planations . Let me find out for myself what I might cularly dance, need not present, say, express, think they were doing. communicate anything, then it is free to be only So we come to the two concerts. gesture, color, motion, a field—turning to the dictionary: ". . . .a sphere of activity or oppor­ The dances were shown on the program without date tunity. .; a region or space traversed by lines of of composition. The opening workwas a first per­ force. .; all the competitors in a sporting contest formance. FIELD DANCES, the title symbolic of . . ." Or one thinks of a playing field or a field as its new technique. Cage had composed it to eliminate an open, unobstructed space. the one element that he had previously thought in­ dispensable to music: time. The composition was So the agon returns to its source, the Greek com­ laid out as a field. At certain points on the field munal enjoyment of the body in an athletic dance the dancers choose, according to chance factors, contest, combining beauty, skill, and strength. The from a repertory of dance actions; other points are associations of such art are in the mind of the be­ answered by sounds. The idea of the sound was holder, and if they are not nothing depends on it. something in the neighborhood; that it would not be There is pleasure in merely watching and, when always heard, and that the loudness and softness self-consciousness has turned aside or lost itself, would change greatly. Flat voices of announcers pleasure in free imagining. The need to verbalize, describing athletic events, news broadcasts, never to conceptualize or explain, established in habit as quite clear enough to be imderstood, came through the normative response to art, however presented, may feel frustrate. What a release when one be­ *How closely Cage and Cunningham now work together canbe realized by reading the correction each sent me to the original comes aware that one need not! After hearing John drafting of this paragraph. Cunningham's note began: "My Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra, awork of idea for the sound for FIELD DANCES ..." Cage wrote "I indeterminacy, I wrote: "Listening to the Concert designed only the music. Merce had made the dance thinking is like walking out in the mountains under a night of my story in DIE REIHE about travelingup to Boston & hear­ full of stars, a lazy enormousness and nothing in ing the jukebox while seeing the swimmers and noticing they went well together. So I made the music so that most of the the way of anything else." sounds would come from 'other' places." 15 the hall loudspeakers as through open windows. In the costumes are "by chance," selected the most the hallway outside the auditorium Cage wheeled a playful. There was, above all, Carolyn Brown, cart, loaded with a portable speaker, producing a wife of the composer Earle Brown, a figure of tech­ variety of noises, to the bafflement of some persons nique, as impersonal as beautiful, who would be in the audience who asked him to be quiet. There outstanding as the premiere danseuse of any ballet was no other music—what had they to lose? Outside company, capable by movement and gesture of every a balcony door, several times angrily shut by mem­ species of emotion, yet never failing of that ex­ bers of the audience, Tudor periodically stirred up quisite linear control, tothe least flutter of em­ a similar confusion. The field was therefore all- phasis companioning a larger movement, which is pervasive. The order of events (time) was indeter­ the ultimate gift of the traditional ballet soloist. minate. You would wonder how the dancers were You can describe mannerism or the virtuoso but not able, in the circumstances, to present acoordinate the fully conceived melody, the authority of mind aspect, yet they did; and watching them one began through body in the completely revealed sequence to appreciate the great variety of motion and gesture of movements in a dance. Cunningham had been adding to the dance. The two men, Steve Paxton and William Davis, and Modern dance was starved of variety; that was its Barbara Lloyd, newest member of the troupe, per­ chief impediment. You felt sometimes as if, formed their roles with flair and a complete compe­ having seen one dance, you had seen all there was; tence. the succeeding dances became repetitious. In Cunningham's dance the variety of movement ex­ Merce Cunningham has retained what appears to be ceeds that of traditional ballet. the natural basis of his dancing, the figure of the Pierrot, the clown, but with an infinitely increased Each dancer is to a degree characterized by talent, subtlety and variety of invention since I last saw as for Viola Farber the grotesque, and out of that him. True, also, that my own capacity of re­ the tragic; but, whereas in Modern Dance a tragic sponding may have improved, or that in the setting action was expressed by contrasting tension-relaxa­ of his own self-trained company, he has increased tion throughout the entire body, here distortion of the responses to his art by extending it through these one limb, one quarter of the torso, a single type of others. He moves through the troupe, playing lead exaggerated motion, is set against a larger relaxa­ and respondent, while the two other men, apart from tion. Instead of posturing, there is a continual flow­ occasional solos, derive their more conventional ing of the physical emphasis, so that one follows it responses in relation to him. to the slightest gesture. The oddest fact is the disparity between Cunning­ But what is there to be tragic, in a dance which has, ham's natural manner of dance and the style he has apart from visible movement, no intended content? developed among the group, especially the very dis­ Here we are at the heart of it. Instead of concep­ tinct art of Carolyn Brown; these two furnishing the tualizing the intent you begin reacting in sympathy extremes around which all rotate in an unceasing with the movement, as if following a melody, adap­ diversity, as if each were thinking up something a ting to it, without conscious realization, your own little different, all of which Happens to balance and content of emotion. Thus there was often ambiguity, agree. This makes the action by chance only a raising prose to poetry. What was for me tragic seeming accidental extension of the freedom by di­ might be for another comic—and Farber excelled versity. in both—but resolution between any two onlookers would not be necessary. That drab face under the How is the dance choreographed ? There is still the shabby hat above the raincoat, the empty face of closed, sequential type of dance, like the second "mass-man" which haunts the outside-looking-in work of the first program, SEPTET, in seven parts, philosopher: is it the face of a lost soul or a saint? to Erik Satie's grateful and not so elementary as So we watch our companions of the theater, the they may seem TROIS MORCEAUX EN FORME DE street, the subway, formulating interpretations, POIRE (Pear-shaped Pieces) for piano four- decisions, conclusions. Why should not this living hands. In this every combination and conjunction in the constant indeterminate moment be given back has been planned. to us, enlightened, irradiated by dance? After this and continuing for fifty minutes, though And there was Shareen Blair, figure of play, child, the length can vary radically with the occasion, as adolescent, trim coquette, who, in STORY, where in all the indeterminate works, depending on the 16 place, the space, the number of dancers, the equip­ ment? I think of the walking, but then my memory ment, and other factors, there was AEON. It began goes back to FIELD DANCES, where the dancers with miniature atomic bombs exploding up the back sometimes walked to their points of action: and of transparency; thus it contained and in some scenes the running, but AEON was full of it. Cunningham's gave evidence of message, moments of terror and running especially, the quick, light varieties of agony so intense that the interludes of less relevant footwork, alternating with walk, with limp, all types dance several times seemed overlong. Here I more casual and less precise than formal ballet, might have preferred a more decisive order, as in yet each a gift of imagination in its pattern. And SEPTET or the SUITE FOR FIVE that began the there are the innumerable positions, in which one second program. I think that when such concentrate dancer comes to rest or stays slowly moving or of agony is in question as — in this version — the turning, the inimitable individuality of technique final solo by Viola Farber, there can be too much slightly differing for each dancer. And the group running about, however variedly affecting. movements, drawing to focus in intaglios of two or Cunningham's art has the improvisation of com- three combined, poised, slowly moving bodies, each media dell'arte or the Sicilian improvised drama. precisely and intricately shaped. Such conventionalized art stops short of ultimate Considering the points of rest, one marvels at their tragedy; even death is a little playful, because one exactitude, and with this at the continuing play of knows well the actor will rise again. But the sec­ individualities in motion, so many solos, so many tions of great power in AEON do not suppose resur­ combinations, at the control and contriving which rection of so immediate simplicity, nor can these hold them together contrapuntally and in unison, sections be described as in any way conventional. without reference to any musical accompaniment. The order of the sections is indeterminate but each I asked, and itwas explained to me that this is done scene a separately composed event. Given the hint by very exact counting in the preparation and then of subject and the force of its severest scenes, I by sight. That is to say, in indeterminacy, one would prefer more formality and concentration. movement sets off another, and that detonates a Yet there is the challenge, as I remarked to a friend group movement; here and there the individual may immediately after the performance, in allowing the select from a prepared repertory of actions, and extreme length of a work to convey the sense of that in turn will again set off a flight of solos, or timelessness or time long extended. Compressed a poised grouping, another intaglio. Difficult for to its essentials, AEON would carry a placard the dancers but fun, too, instead of performing al­ against warfare; freely ordered in extension it ways in the same pattern, the same order and time- conduces to renewal, to meditation, to a feeling of sequence, the same beaten steps. One never knows the very reality of a resurrection — the continuity what will eventuate. of fear, release, terror, joy, agony, revival, the The second dance, STORY, a first performance to a humane aeon. score for amplified piano by the young Japanese The accompaniment, played by Cage and Tudor on composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, punctuated by manually two pianos, both amplified by contact microphones, produced sounds, among them Cage smashing with was Cage's WINTER MUSIC, in the electronic ver­ a sledgehammer such objects as a five-gallon water- sion. During the intermissions between dances a bottle, enjoyed the added nuance of costuming by small crowd regularly gathered to watch David chance. But I weary and cannot tell you of this won­ Tudor expertly assemble and disassemble the derful dance, all comedy, play, and lightness of equipment. spirit. Given your opportunity, you must see it. The second program was all lighter, on the side of The final work was ANTIC MEET, to Cage's SOLO comedy. It was danced with an even more complete FOR PIANO (from Concert for Piano and Orchestra) assurance than the first, a triumphant technical plus taped segments from the Town Hall album of his finesse, which deserved the balletomane ovation it compositions. Even more than STORY it invites the received at the end. audience to a game of imagining. One heard of it beforehand as the dance in which Cunningham car­ The opening SUITE FOR FIVE, to Cage's MUSIC ries a chair strapped to his back. He does and FOR PIANO (single tones on keyboard and harp of Carolyn Brown, wearing an antique bridal night­ the piano plus noises on the frame construction), gown, steps through a curtained frame to dance a was a series of delicate, lovely, witty miniatures duo with him, atone point sitting in the chair One for solo, duet, trio and quintet, featuring particu­ dancer and then another appears in black sunglass­ larly Cunningham and Carolyn Brown. But now in es, until there is a scene in which all the dancers, what way can I describe the free elegance of move­ wrapping darkness about them with gestures, do not 17 quite grope but rather feel their blindness, I do not language an art that makes no effort to present it­ know whether it is a blindness of sight, or of spirit, self in distinct shapes which can be described. It or of not seeing within darkness; each of these is is an art entirely fluent, poised, inventive. Merce conveyed. Cunningham has gone back, as it were, to the ori­ I believe that the chief distinction of this dancing is gins of ballet, to the natural movements of the body the sensation of release, the prevailing relaxation before these were stiffened and formalized by a however elaborate or difficult the movement. No­ technique of positions. But it is the whole body he thing is made to appear difficult. Watching these uses, not the extremities and bending at the waist — dancers one never strains, though one marvels at the complete torso outwards; and he brings to this the technical dexterity, the floating turns on one skillfulness of the entire body all that has been learned by passing through the severities, the dis­ foot, the high gliding which avoids the mere athlet­ tortions , the angularities of Modern Dance. icism of a leap, the complete flexibility of each as - pect of the body. Traditional ballet is no more dif­ A group of 70 painters and sculptors, fortunate in ficult. Here the sense of ease robs difficulty of the discovery that their work is ripe for market, pretentiousness. has contributed paintings and sculpture to a Found­ ation for Contemporary Performing Arts, to pre­ The simplicity of costume, which reveals the body sent like-minded work by composers and dancers. but does not expose it, naturalizes the artifice. A They hope, among other accomplishments, to pre­ change of costume may add only a sleeve, a leg­ sent Merce Cunningham and his troupe on Broadway ging, a jacket. All colors were grateful but incon­ for a week this autumn — I mean Broadway, New spicuous, like the lighting. I compliment Robert York. Then, perhaps, this art, which had its ori­ Rauschenberg most highly by saying that one is gins in New York but has found its strength and its never aware of his presence by any virtuosity of admirers across the continent, will be received by costume design or lighting imposed on the dance. the fashioners of public interest with the respectful I have no more than hinted at, embellished with attention, the admiration, it deserves.

In Relation to Other Dialogue on the New Dance Contemporary Arts CARROLL RUSSELL and SHIRLEY GENTHER

America's new dance beats with the pulse of our time — so it's apt to be off-beat. Filling space with human gesture is a first concern. Space is something to design with not in. The emphasis is on the doing the going — not the getting there.

Merce Cunningham and Company in SUITE FOR FIVE Photo: Marvin Silver Viola Farber, Carolyn Brown, Merce Cunningham, Barbara Lloyd 18

When they perform abroad our avant-garde dancers are greeted by wildly partisan crowds and sur­ rounded by a critical free-for-all. At the Venice Biennale Ann Halprin and the Dancers' Workshop caused one critic to cry, "It's all the fault of Christopher Columbus ! " Another countered with, "It is total theatre, using all the objective elements of the stage, but refusing its limits." Alwin Nikolais is the hit of Spoleto, Paul Taylor the toast of Paris, Merce Cunningham is held over for two weeks in London, yet few Americans realize that this coun­ try has become the center of the dance world. DIALOGUE is an attempt to speed up the time lag between creation and communication here at home.

The individual approach and vision of these dancers is rather like Ronchamp Chapel, where shafts of light, varying in color and intensity, penetrate the The Chapel of Roncham darkness through openings that vary in size, shape Perspective and depth. axonometrique

The Chapel of Ronchamp — Interior view of the south facade Le Corbusier Dancers' Workshop Company in PARADES AND CHANGES

The avant-garde represents a radical break with our cultural convictions and so forces us to re­ examine some fundamental ideas. H. Stuckenschmidt of Stuttgardt wrote, "Halprin, Graham, and Leath continue the Sur-realist tradi­ tion in a controlled Sur - naturalism." Repeated everyday actions take on a quality of ritual in rela­ tion to a collage of light, sound and oddly juxtaposed common objects. 20

Murray Louis and Gladys Bailin in PAVANNE (choreographed for TV) Photo courtesy of Steve Allen

The designs seem to come from the act of dancing itself

Analogies between dance and the other contemporary arts are reinforced with visual and auditory illustrations. Merce Cunningham's AEON is seen in relation to Giacometti's CITY SQUARE. The use of everyday movement is compared with found object constructions. Stockhausen's interstellar-space- music, Cage's and Pollock's experiments with chance, organic architecture and nature forms, and Henry Moore's sculptural voids are used to point up what Sybil Shearer, Murray Louis, Erick Hawkins and others are doing choreographically.

Don Redlich 21

Alwin Nikolais uses masks and extensions of the body to bring back the archetype, restoring the dancer to heroic proportions.

His lighting may initiate or continue movement, even when the dancers are motionless.

Alwin Nikolais Dance Company in IMAGO 22

A moment of lyric intensity is celebrated not because it is fleeting but because it IS.

Paul Taylor and Elizabeth Walton in "Duo" from AUREOLE 23

"We are in one of the great formative periods right now. It began about 1900 and may last for the rest of the century. The ground rules and the general direction have been set, but there is still much to be done before the form of our time emerges." — Eero Saarinen

Musical and movement boundaries have expanded with the expanding universe. "Space becomes a visual element equivalent to the actual material of which the sculpture (or dance) is made." — Naum Gabo

Elizabeth Harris in SEVEN PASSAGES Photo: Carolyn Mason Jones 24 Editor's Note: Erick Hawkins in they snowing from 8 CLEAR PLACES Photo: Daniel Kramer Shirley Genther (former member of the Dance Department of the University of Wisconsin) and Carroll Russell (co-author with Louis Horst of MODERN DANCE FORMS In Relation to the Other Modern Arts) have created a pro­ gram designed to bring the news of some present trends in the dance to laymen and dancers all over this country. During the DIALOGUE the development of the modern dance and the other contemporary arts unfolds through 200 projected pictures, movement demon­ stration and musical examples. They report especially on the work of a half dozen "avant-garde" choreograph­ ers who have discussed with them their own new works and their working methods. THE DIALOGUE ON THE NEW DANCE has been presented to school and college audiences, in artmuseums, and before groups of specialists as well as gatherings of the much wider "general public." In each situation it has served to stimulate discussion and increase understanding; the dancer views his art from the broader perspective of trends and developments in other arts; artists in other fields increase their knowledge of dance and its con­ temporary manifestations; the interested observer gains insight into the nature of dance and the inter-relationship of all the arts. DIALOGUE ON THE NEW DANCE is a most effective instrument in Education for Audiences.

Erick Hawkins and Barbara Tucker in HERE AND NOW WITH WATCHERS Photo: A. John Geraci 25 Computer Dance The Role of the Computer PAUL LE VASSEUR

When computers begin to disgorge themselves of future approaches to this technique is not to be "dances" by the hundreds we may fly off into fits denied. But it must be stated at the outset that of hysterical indignation or we may stand our ground the computer is neither discerning nor creative long enough to examine some possibilities. In this in its generation of a random dance; it is merely a article we undertake to stand our ground. convenient tool which, by virtue of its ability to handle data at enormous speeds, can provide the Dance, like any art, provides a concrete symbolic user with a means of manipulating large quantities form to the flow of human feeling. That a machine of data in a very short period of time. Thus, it has might enter into any such negotiations strikes many been possible to obtain "recipes" for fifty random people as a repulsive proposal at best. We are dances, all different, in less than four minutes. suspicious enough already that a machine will make How, then, are these dances generated? us obsolete on our jobs without happily enduring any further suggestion that it may also take over our Before examining the actual manner in which the function as artists. dance commands are treated internally by the com­ puter, it may be well to consider why it is natural At the University of Pittsburgh, following the old to turn to the computer in this effort. Initially, of adage that "if you cannot lick them, join them," we course, one must feel that the introduction of ran­ have undertaken to find out what help a machine may domness into an art form is of some concrete value. actually be in choreography. It was the coin tossing Having agreed that it might be of value, the next device of Merce Cunningham which prompted inter­ question which arises is how randomness is to be est in using the computer for choreography. His achieved. This is a question which has long fasci­ method was to make a series of charts, some with nated scientists, and in recent years, extensive body movements and others with space and time efforts have been made by mathematicians to de­ orientations listed. These would be made out for a velop a way of generating sequences of "perfectly particular dance quite purposefully to explore cer­ random" numbers. Without discussing the mathe­ tain kinetic possibilities. Once the charts were matical complexities inherent in these efforts, completed, however, there still remained the pro­ which are certainly beyond the scope of an article blem of sequence, of continuity, and it was this such as this, suffice it to say that even the defini­ factor which he determined by making all his de­ tion of "perfectly random" poses problems, and a cisions by tossing a coin rather than by conscious more commonly used term among mathematicians choices. Instead of tossing coins we have used the is "pseudo-random." computer to the same effect because it can quickly juggle a great complexity of variables from the Consider the numbers from 1 to 20, (any numbers wiggle of one's little toe to the bat of an eye. can be used). The random number generator will generate one of these numbers in such a way that GENERATION OF THE DANCE there is an equal probability that any number be­ tween 1 and 20 may be generated and also that the Because computers are a relatively new phenomenon number generated will not in any way depend upon in a culture which sees science advancing at an un­ which numbers have already been generated. This precedented rate, it is only natural that the capabili­ procedure is very much like one with which we are ties of computers are often exaggerated and the role all familiar, namely, the roulette wheel. of the computer generally misunderstood by those outside this field of specialization. For this reason, The question of what constitutes a meaningful it is perhaps worthwhile to clarify the part the choreographic instruction is the next problem upon computer plays in the generation of random dances. which we must focus our attention. In order for a That the computer has been mostuseful in generat­ computer-generated instruction to be meaningful to ing such dances and may be of even more value in a dancer, it must be of such a nature that it canbe Paul M. Le Vasseur received his Bachelor of Science degree from Brown University in 1959. He was a National Defense Fellow in "The Theory and Practice of Digital Computers" at the University of North Carolina from 1959 to 1961. He earned his Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Paris in 1963 and is now Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. 26

performed and does notcontain contradictory com­ computer to select three numbers atrandom. Three mands. Thus, we do not want a dancer to receive commands, one from each list corresponding tothe an instruction which involves moving forward and three numbers selected, are then printed to form a backward at the same time. (We must keep in choreographic instruction similar to that shown in mind that the computer doesn't know that this is the above example. As many instructions may be impossible!). Likewise, we do not wish to provide printed as desired, to form a dance. the dancer with instructions which are so explicit as to prevent personal interpretation. On the other Since computers are normally constructed in such hand, we do wish to use the properties of random­ a way as to make the handling of alphabetic informa­ ness in such a way as to present the dancer with an tion somewhat complex, the computer program can occasional problematic situation, inthe sense that pose some difficulties not normally encountered in it may not seem logical in the traditional way of mathematical problems. The process was simpli­ thinking, but can perhaps be overcome, and even be fied, however, by using a special programming used advantageously, by the creative dancer. Bear­ language developed at the University of Pittsburgh ing these things in mind, we construct a choreogra­ for the IBM 7070 computer.1 phic instruction by grouping together certain types of "commands " which are related to certain specific In the above brief description, the computer has aspects of choreography. For the dances generated played a very unsophisticated role inthe generation thus far, we have chosen to limit ourselves to three of a computer dance. It may be worthwhile to dis­ specific types of commands; the tempo command, cuss possible extensions of this work which lie very the movement command, and the direction com­ much within the range of the computer capabilities. mand. Examples of these are as follows: One obvious extension is simply to provide the com­ puter with longer lists of commands, an approach Tempo Commands - TWO SLOW BEATS, which has already been tested. Another possibility FOUR FAST BEATS, FIVE MEDIUM BEATS, is to include more types of commands, such as re­ FIFTEEN BEATS INCREASING FROM SLOW placing the movement command by two commands, TO FAST, FOUR MEDIUM TRIPLETS, etc. one for arm movement and one for foot movement. Movement Commands — FULL TURN CLOCK­ As more complexity is introduced into the dances, WISE, KICK RIGHT LEG, BEND FROM WAIST, one must continually guard against generating NO MOVEMENT, etc. meaningless choreographic instruction. Such pro­ Direction Commands — FORWARD, SIDE RIGHT, blems canbe overcome without too much difficulty, ZIG-ZAG DIAGONALLY LEFT, DIAGONALLY however. In the example described above, the LEFT BACKWARD, etc. computer was told that if the NO MOVEMENT had been picked, itwas unnecessary to pick a direction command, since this would have little meaning. Any of these three types of commands can then be grouped together to form a choreographic instruc­ tion; for example: In pursuing future possibilities one step further, it should be noted that it is also possible to vary the FOUR FAST BEATS, BEND FROM WAIST probabilities that certain commands will be picked. FORWARD. This would result in some commands being picked more often than others and could therefore be used The role of the computer is to randomly choose such in such a way as to generate dances possessing cer­ combinations from three lists of commands stored tain desired characteristics. This would not mean, internally. The manner in which this process is however, that the dances would cease tobe random carried out is as follows: — their random nature could, in fact, be retained. Three different lists of commands are constructed. In the original dances generated, twenty different Finally, there remains the possibility of experi­ commands were included in the three lists repre­ menting with dances which involve several dancers, senting tempo, movement, and direction. The each one obtaining a set of choreographic instruc­ commands in each list are numbered from 1 to 20, tions which would in some parts be carried out in and these three lists of commands are stored inthe unison, in other parts utilize mirror effects, and computer. Also included in the computer is a ran­ also include each dancer performing individually dom generator. The computer program, which is in a random way. a set of instructions which tells the computer what 1. The PITT NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSOR - devel­ to do, is constructed in such a way as to cause the oped by Mr. Dalelsner at the Computation and Data Process­ ing Center, University of Pittsburgh. 27

It should not now be difficult to obtain proper per­ thought out in advance by someone knowledgeable spective of the computer's role in the generation in the art; however, the instructions obtained ran­ of random dances. The computer is certainly not domly may surprise even those involved in the creative in any real sense. Rather, it presents the preparation of the computer data. The conclusion dancer witha set of instructions which, when taken that can be drawn from past experience is that together, may provide opportunities for creativity. combining man and machine can yield interesting The types of instructions obtainable are carefully experimental results — even in dance.

Implications of the Dance JEANNE BEAMAN

Movement directions come spilling out of a com­ make associations withmemories, hopes or fears. puter very much like so many beads without any The surrealists and others tried to exploit this by string to hold them in line. If the dancer responds deliberately painting objects which do not normally in a mechanical way, the result is an aggregation of belong together, or by distorting familiar objects. separate movements lacking what musicians call Dali's drooping watches in his "Persistence of "the long line," lacking all sense of phrasing. The Memory" come to mind at once in this connection. question of how to relate the movements or to em­ This method was formalized under the label, dyna­ phasize their separateness remains an area of de­ mic iconography. The dynamic image tends to tease cision forthe dancer and not forthe machine. Two the mind, to provoke it into action until it can arrive dancers, therefore, working from the same com­ at other ideas which "make sense." puter directions, may end up with dances which differ quite radically not only in skill but in the whole Computer directions are cases in point. They are emotional import. Beginners who suppose that the "dynamic" because the unexpected juxtapositions computer is going to make them good dancers soon stimulate the dancer to relate them into a larger change their whole course of thought. wholeness, the final dance itself in which the strange parts finally "make sense." As a dancer I can only For group choreography one can use several com­ report that the unusual combinations of space-time puter "dances" at once, letting the overlaps, the movement sometimes expand the imagination and surprises and even the collisions happen as they reveal layers of feeling which the conscious mind, may. One can also go further than this and program deep in its habitual ruts, might have ignored for the computer for a group. We plan to grid our stage years or forever. My article of faith here is that to establish locations more accurately so the ma­ we have emotional resources richer than those en­ chine will not command the same space for two or countered in the routines of our usual thought-feel­ more dancers at once unless we want to deliberately ing experience. This idea, by now a commonplace, program a collision. We will at the same time seems to be confirmed in the performances of the program the machine with variables calling for dances. opposition, for parallel actions, mirror images and other similar devices. The computer really only extends by its greater efficiency the role of chance in composition in all Artists and scientists alike often complain of being the arts. The use of accident in the arts is not at "stuck" with fixed habits of thought, clich£ reactions all new except perhaps in emphasis. Even da Vinci just when their situation begs for afresh approach. noted that cracks in the wall are worth considering The random character of the computer directions for whatever forms they may suggest. Mozart is blasts habits to pieces even if dancers drill for said to have assigned musical values to the numbers years in neuromuscular habit patterns and the in­ on dice which he would cast to see what the fall stinctive movement responses follow in these es­ might bring. Some media like watercolor are re­ tablished patterns from almost any stimulus. plete with accidental effects of which some are, as they say, "happy." Scientists have also put chance Not the least of the values of computer "dances" toexcellentuse. Had Dr.Galvani not been intrigued relates to layers of consciousness impossible to to investigate the kick of a certain dead frog on his describe. Our minds, when seriously engaged, are bench, we might have waited alongtime for the de­ forever trying to relate elements of experience, to velopment of ideas which led to the construction of

Jeanne Beaman, dancer, choreographer and teacher has collaborated with WQED Educational Television, Pittsburgh on many programs, one of which was concerned with Computer Dance. She teaches dance at the University of Pittsburgh and has been president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Dance Teachers Guild. 28

batteries. In more recent times the discovery of effect. He could get a forthright splash by drop­ certain atomic particles has been attributed to ping a lot of paint at once, he could get a nervous chance ashasthatof the effectiveness of penicillin. wiggle of a line by holding all but a little back, but these results he willed into being. More recently, Rauschenberg has come a step closer to chance by I should like to suggest that a great deal of what using paint from cans bought cheaply because the passes for chance inthe arts and sciences often has labels have long since fallen off. What comes forth a high degree of control as well. The computer is is anybody's guess. not going to order the dancer to fall slowly upwards because we see to it that the program forbids the I should like to go a little further, however, and impossible. When Jackson Pollock dripped paint suggest that art by chance is subjected to a final on his canvas from a ladder he was dripping colors control by the artist when he decides to discard, which he had selected, thus controlling his whole to develop or to keep his work. Even if all the harmonic scheme as tightly as any "old master." variables are structured by sheer accidentals, if Even the dripping followed the swing of his arm in he accepts the result by conscious decision, the rhythmic patterns unless he willed a more random work is now his and not just chance.

O-A-N-C-E N-U-M-B-E-R E - 15

FOUR SLOW TEMP 0 TRIP LETS, PLIE IN SEC GND PUS IT ION AND RISE, SIOE RIGHT. FOUR FAST BEAT S, HAL F TURN COU NTERCLO CKWISE, OIAG RT FORWD THEN RETURN THEN DIAG LEFT FORWD. FOUR FAST BEAT S, ROT ATE BCTH H IPS CLO CKWISE, ARC D IAGONALLY FROM RIGHT TO LEFT. FIVE FAST BEAT S, FLE X LEFT KNE E AND R OTATE LOWER L EG CCW, SIDE LEFT. FIVE SLOW TEMP C TRIP LETS, FALL AND DO NOT RISE UNT IL NEXT LINE, ALTERNATE OIAG RT FORWD AND DIAG LEFT BKWO. TWO M EOIUM TEM PO TRI PLETS, HOP AS MAN Y AS DESIRED, FORWARD. SIX M EOIUH BEA TS, FA LL AND DO NOT RIS E FOR THREE L INES, CHOOSE YOUR MOVEMENT DIRECTION. THREE MEDIUM B EATS, KICK LEFT LEG, L\ G ZAG RIGHT. TWO M EOIUM BEA TS, WA LK FLAT FG OTED, A RC FORWARD. EIGHT BEATS F TO S T 0 F, JUMP, FORWAR D. THREE FAST TEM PO TRI PLETS, WAL K ON HE ELS, CHOOSE Y OUR MOVEMENT DIRECTION. EIGHT BEATS FA ST TO SLOW, ROTA TE RIGH T SHOULDER CO UNTERCLOCKWISE, ALTERNATE ARC FORWARD AND BACKWARD. TWO M EOIUM TEM PC TRI PLETS, ROT ATE RIG HT HIP COUNTE RCLOCKWTSE, DIAG RT BKWQ THEN RETURN THEN DIAG LEFT BKWD. SIX s LOW BtATS , MCVE RIGHT HAN D ONLY, ALTERNATE DI AG LFFT FORWD AND DIAG RT 8KWD. FIVE FAST BEAT S, ROT ATE RIGHT SHOULDE R CLOCKWISE, ARC SIOE RIGHT. SIX M EOIUM BEA TS, CL ENCH FIST, DIAGON ALLY RIGHT FO RWARD. THREE MEDIUM B EATS, STAND ON R IGHT LE G, DIAGONALLY RIGHT FORWARD. TEN 6 EATS S TC F TO S, RUN THE N LEAP, MAKE A PENTA GON. NINE MEDIUM BE ATS, W ALK WIIH L EGS BEN T, SIDE RIGHT THREE MEDIUM T EMPC T RIPLETS, L EAP THE N RUN, ALTERN ATE ARC SIDE RIGHT AND SIDE LEFT. SEVEN MEDIUM B EATS, FULL TURN CLOCKWI SE, ALTERNATE ARC FORWARD AND BACKWARD. FIVE SLOW TEMP 0 TRIP LETS, LEAP THEN R UN, ALTERNATE FORWARD AND BACKWARD. EIGHT BEATS S \0 F T 0 S, MOVE MOUTH 0 NLY, NO CHANG E IN SPACE. SEVEN FAST BEA TS, RO TATE BOTH HIPS CO UNTERCLOCKWIS E, FORWARD. SIX s LOW TEMPC TRIfL EIS, CUART ER TURN CLOCKWISE, Z IG ZAG LEFT. THREE SLOW TEM PO TRI PLETS, MOV E EYES ONLY, ALTERNA TE OIAG LEFT FORWD AND DIAG RT BKWD. TWO F AST •TEMPO TRIPL ETS, WALK WITH UN E LEG BENT AN 0 ONE STRAIGHT, MAKE A PARALLELOGRAM. TEN S LOW BEATS , WALK HEEL TOE, ARC SI DE RIGHT. TWO F AST BEATS , WALK WITH ONE LEG BEN T AND ONE STR AIGHT, ARC FORWARD. THREE FAST BEA TS, FL EX RIGHT K NEE AND ROTATE LOWER LEG CW, BACKWARD. FIVE MST BEAT S, fOV E HEAD ONL Y, ARC SIDE LEFT. FIFTE EN BEATS S TC F 10 S, LUN E AND RECOVER, NO C HANGE IN SPACE. EIGHT FAST BEA TS, SK IP, ALTERN ATE DIA G LEFT FORWD AND DIAG RT BKWD. FIVE MEDIUM BE ATS, M OVE HEAD U NLY, CH OOSE YOUR MOV EMENT DIRECTION. ONE M EOIUM 8EA T, HAL F TURN COU NTERCLO CKWISE, SIOE RIGHT. SIX M EOIUM BEA TS, BE NO FROM WA 1ST AND STRAIGHTEN, ALTERNATE ARC SIDE RIGHT AND SIOE LEFT. FIVE FAST TEMP a TRIP LETS, ROTA TE RIGH T SHOULDER CO UNTERCLOCKWISE, FORWARD. TWO M EOIUM TEM PO TRI PLETS, S T AN D ON 0 NE LEG, ALTER NATE SIOE RIGHT AND SIDE LEFT. SEVEN FAST BEA TS, CL ENCH FIST, ARC 01 AGONALLY FROM RIGHT TO LEFT. SEVEN FAST BEA TS, CL ENCH FIST, DIAG R T FOK'wD THEN RETURN THEN DIAG LEFT FCRWD. EIGHT BEATS SL CW TO FAST, HALF TURN C LOCKWISE, ARC SIDE LEFT. FOUR MtDIUM TE MPO TR IPLETS, HA LF TURN COUNTERCLOCK WISE, ALTERNATE SIDt RIGHT AND SIDE LEFT. SIX M tOIUM TEM PO TRI PLETS, MOV E HEAD ONLY, MOVE IN SEMI CIRCLE AND RETURN. FUUR FAST TEMP 0 TRIP LETS, KICK RIGHT LEG, DIAGONAL LY LEFT BACKWARD. AS MANY AS TWO F AST BEATS , HCP OESIRE D, ALTERNATE ZIG ZAG FORWD AND ZIC ZAG BKWD. 0 S, MOVE EIGHT BEATS S TO F T RIGHT A RM ONLY, CHOO SE YOUR MOVEMENT DIRECTION. FOUR SLOW BEAT L AND DO l\ OT RISE FOR FIVE LIN ES, SIDE LEFT. S, FAL LL AND DO SEVEN SLOW BEA TS, FA NOT RIS E FOR FOUR LI NESi SIDE LEFT. FIVE FAST BEAT K FLAT FOG TED, MA KE A HEXAGON. S, WAL PLtTS, HAL SIX M EOIUM TEM PO TRI F TURN COUNTbRCLOCKW ISE, ALTERNATE ZIG ZAG RIGHT AND ZIG ZAG LEFT. 29

Modern Dance in Japan SUMIO KAM'BAYASHI

In Japan everybody dances. ballet, and a half dozen schools for Spanish and Hindu dance. These schools give recitals and At the Bon Festival in mid-summer, the entire concerts, and major school companies present neighborhood all over the country is supposed to elaborate productions. There are, at present, participate in communal dancing around a tem­ nine performing companies in modern dance; elev­ porarily erected turret on the city street, town en ballet companies; two companies for Spanish square, or village green. Also gentlemen dance at dance; and one for Asian dance. Modern dance parties with geishas in the tea-house; farmers and has many more schools and practitioners than fishermen dance their own folk dances. The island ballet; the latter is more active in performing nation in the farthest Far East, situated on the peri­ activities. phery of the Eurasian and Pacific culture circles, has accumulated ethnic dances of multifarious ori­ What strikes a foreign visitor (who does not know gins through tens of centuries. There was no fur­ that Western dance in Japan has a history of a half- ther place to go for these dance importations, and century) on attending modern dance performances Japan came to be a precious depository of prehis­ here, would probably be the lavish modes of presen­ toric and ancient dance forms. tation, diversity of styles, and a certain technical proficiency of dancers. The stage arts and use of Notonly primitive ethnological dances, butalso an­ music are quite up-to-date and sophisticated — so cient artistic dances have been preserved. Japan much so that sometimes they threaten to eclipse the is the only country in the world where one can wit­ dancing itself. Subject matter is serious and pro­ ness Indian, Indo-Chinese, Chinese, and other East found — to the extent of becoming abstruse and ob­ Asian Art dances of 1,300 years ago with the ac­ scure. Mastery of different techniques has been companiment of the most ancient orchestral music pursued with such perfectionist diligence that there that survives. exists a tendency for bravura, and many difficult cliche's —such as landing with a split, sliding on the No less outstanding is a tradition of the dance thea­ knees, jumping into the arms of a partner, etc. — ter in Japan. In noh dramas and kabuki plays actors have been formulated through dancers' competitive, are, more than anything else, dancers. The living "I-can-do-it-as-well" motivation. theater of kabuki is an institution here, as the opera is in Italy. And the kabuki dance, or Japanese The multiplicity of modern dance forms is about as Classic Dance, is still popular with an appalling rich as in the United States. There are many dan­ array of thousands of "dance-masters" — or those cers who still believe in the old dicta of der Neue who have passed the examination and received a Tanz; there are some who aspire after American license for teaching from their respective grand­ Modern Dance; and there are a few who try to in­ masters throughout the country. Classic Dance is corporate in creative dance the heritages of Japan­ regarded as part of pre-nuptial accomplishments; ese theater, or folk dancing, or Asian dances, or ladies must be able to dance gracefully. all the dance forms of the world. In other words, there are the Germanizers, and the Americanizers, Nor is it traditional dancing alone (ethnic and ar­ the Japanizers, the Internationalists, and the tistic) that is universally in practice among the Ja­ Eclectics. panese, who have gone in for all-out Westernization for almost a century. Every major form of the One cannot butsense, however, that there is some­ world's dance is pursued with utmost zeal. In Tokyo thing wrong, something missing in all that surface there are nearly 100 independent schools for modern luster. But it is not easy to locate. What ails dance —not including innumerable classes affiliated Japanese modern dance, which apparently looks so with the respective schools; about forty schools of rich, colorful, and proficient?

Sumio Kam'bayashi is a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University Department of Letters and its Post-gradu­ ate school. He is a member of the Japanese Society for Aesthetics as well as aprize-winning haiku poet. He was a novelist and an opera director and has lectured extensively in the United States. Mr. Kam'bayashi has written more than 100 articles on various aspects of the humanities. 30

We know that, without knowledge of the present con­ first time the elementary but ineffably powerful joy ditions and past experiences of a patient, no psychi­ of dancing in tune with music (it must be noted here atrist can make an adequate diagnosis. For identi­ that Japanese music is essentially senza misura fication of an ailment we need to analyze the case's and all Japanese art dances are senza tempo, albeit constitution and medical history as well. Hence a work songs and folk group dances are strictly in history of modern dance in Japan is anecessary mi­ tempo for obvious reasons) — and with the refined nimum for a classification of its styles and trends, music of the West at that (Western music, which a clarification of its problems and missions, based had for centuries been freed from polyrhythm and on that anamnesis. microtones, and imbued with the persistent plugging of simple beats and chords, naturally struck the Japanese ear as something entirely new; and new fflIST©ffiI

From My Diary," a solo with original music, de­ theory of dancing was Dalcrozean eurhythmies. Vo­ scribing a youth who "silently prays in the beatitude cabulary was borrowed from character-dancing and of final enlightenment attained after pilgrimage mime in traditional ballet. Beyond that, there was through worlds of yearning"; the other was a duo, little specific technique. to Mendelssohn's music, on the legendary romance between the stars Cowhand and Weaver. As for form, content, and subject matter of indivi-r dual work, Ishii's pieces can be divided into two The outcome? There were only 29 paid admissions. types (as the bill for his tour performances would Reviews were hostile: "we need," a critic declared, indicate). The one was dances based on religious "none of those jejune tidbits concocted after the or philosophical ideas, set to music composed on fashion of the West"; another deplored the absence commission, in the form of a meditative solo or a of national character and advised the dancer to re­ dramatic composition for two or more characters. alize the truth that calisthenics make no dance. The other was eurhythmic dancing, usually duets, The New Theater gave two more performances in inspired by and rendered to existing Western music. which Ishii presented more new pieces. They in­ cluded a "dance-poem drama: Light and Dark, "with It was the former — dances serious in intent and commissioned music and a gorgeous setting in kabu­ intellectual in content — that provincial critics ki style, concerning a good blind itinerant flutist- praised and metropolitan reporters dismissed as monk who recovers his sight only to fall a victim to snobbishly highbrow and presumptuous. But the worldly lures, while, on the other hand, a bad monk latter — eurhythmic dancing to Western music — becomes blind and spiritually awakened. Other was soon to gain the ascendency in popular taste pieces were short numbers set to Western music causing the former to be shunned by professionals such as a duet to "Humoresque." Audience reaction as the anathema in audience value for more than one grew worse, and the New Theater was disbanded. and a half decades.

The "modern dance grand show" in Osaka presented Ishii's forte was in serious dramatic pieces, for he by the dauntless Father of Japanese modern dance was favored with a massive physique, a wild and added two more works to his repertory: a solo, fiery temperament, and a determined will for what "Silent Prayer," and a duo, "Young Pan and Nymph," he believed transcendent ideals. But he was too both to music on commission. He played also in ponderous to be lyrical, too hulky to be poetic or Kyoto. The tour performances were a great suc­ elegant, too loutish to be debonair. Yet he knew on cess , probably because anything from the capital which side his bread was buttered. He decided: city was welcome in the provinces where the public no highbrow stuff for a while, and musical dancing is extremely sophisticated and art-conscious (a above all things. traditional peculiarity of Japan, where the arts have been worshipped as a faith and a kind of universal 2. Dance for Exotic Entertainment: education in liberal arts enforced with a religious Divertissement and the Gypsy (1917-1924) zeal). Tokyo, on the other hand, had been so Wes - ternized as to become, Ishii must have bemoaned, In competition with comic operas produced in an too vulgar and snobbish, superficial and flippant, uptown theater by Rossi, who had created his own jaded and mass-minded tobe able to appreciate his company there upon the closure of the Imperial great art in the welter of attractions with cut-throat Theater Opera in 1916, Ishii took it upon himself to competitions. He thought his dance was too ad­ be the Italian's counterpart at a new theater in vanced, intellectually and artistically, for the taste Asakusa — The Bowery and Broadway of Tokyo - of bustling metropolitan audiences, which his natur­ producing what was soon to be termed "Asakusa al rustic and wild heart would never be able to Operas." They were, far from being Grand Opera, conciliate. He hated and yet loved the monstrous in fact operettas, or cheap musical plays, some­ cultural cynosure of Japan, and returned there to times akin to mere variety shows. For this reason, produce operettas which were beginning to catch the name is better translated as "Asakusa Musicals." the fancy of newfangled Tokyoites. The bill usually divided the show into three clearly- defined parts: anew Japanese light opera or musi­ Thus came the first period of Japanese modern cal comedy; some Western opera, operetta or ballet dance to an abrupt end. in a generally abridged and often rearranged ver­ sion; and one or more creative dance-poems. The characteristics of modern dance in its begin­ nings may be summarized as follows. The basic The fare proved tobe unprecedented box-office. It 32

was 1917; and the next year saw, while all Tokyo Not only did everything European look alike to them, was gaily whistling a Japanese rendition of an Asa- there was also an established tradition of Japanese kusa-Opera hitsuchas "LaDonna e Mobile," Rossi classic dance in which one dancer impersonates leave the fickle and ungrateful city for the U.S. , several different roles, including heterosexual where he would meet a reception worthy of his talent. ones, in quick succession (!). Also in kabuki dra­ maturgy it is rule rather than exception to have a The triumphant operetta director came before long contemporary protagonist turn out to be one of the to head his own operetta and dance company and centuries-old legendary heroes in disguise, or, ac­ toured throughout Japan with his 70-member troupe.. cording to the Buddhist doctrine of metempsychosis, Money came pouring in. Many of Rossi's former in his reincarnated self(!!). students of ballet classes and company members followed Ishii's suit and got on the operetta band­ To make the situation worse, the popular name for wagon of the day. Among them Masao Takada the new or Western dances was Yohbu (literally (1895-1929) was most gifted and remarkable with "overseas-dancing" or "foreign dancing," denoting his svelte build, delicate sensibilities and refined "Occidental dance") connoting "superior, advanced, imagination. refined, cultivated, ideal dancing," with we've-got- to-catch-up-with-them overtones. (The cult of for­ Modern dance in the second period was performed eigners is endemic to the Japanese mind since its as an independent unit usually between, sometimes prehistoric Shintoism through the long years of before or after, or even in the middle of, operettas. apprenticeship under Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Before long its subject matter and content, locale, Spanish, Dutch, French, German, British, and music — in short, everything had to become en­ American tutors.) The practitioners of Western tirely alien. Audiences expected nothing Japanese dance enjoyed status and license, and since the no­ from the "new" dancers (for people were convinced tion of the West had been a very ambiguous one in of the superiority of Japan's own Classic Dance which axiologic valuation and geographic orientation which was supposed to be so perfect as to obviate were closely interwoven, there was little difference any attempts for renovations by those believers in between modern Europe and ancient Africa or Judea, Western dance theory and music). Iberia or Arabia, Iran or India. The Prince Charm - ing merged with Sheik or Sinbad. To Mademoiselle It was EUROPEANA, anything from that highly cul­ and Madchen a languishing legion of Odalisques and tured Never-Never-Land of Idealized Europe that Maharanis was reinforced, with the torpid accom­ Tokyoites had been craving for with renewed zest paniment of "Oriental" music made in Europe by since the vogue of Western styles of dress and food composers who could not tell Near from Far East, in early 1870's. And, far more than the nimbus of not to speak of China from Japan, to further confuse Isadora's pseudo-Greek, the quasi-European halo the already confused picture of Wondrous Countries of Japanese free dancers appeared valid and per­ Overseas. And that was precisely what the audi­ suasive. The dancing characters that sailed in and ences loved and wanted at that time. out of the stage were, as indicated in the program, invariably Beauteous Irish Girl or Passionate Span­ It was inevitable that most Yohbu dancers went in ish Muchacha, Parisian Soubrette and Alpine Shep­ for exotic value for its own sake. herd, Medieval Knight or Contemporary Cossack, and, above all, Nymphs and Pierrots and Gypsies. The danger was in the very embryo of initial mod­ ern dance: inspiration from Character Dancing. They all looked indistinguishable from each other By definition, the purpose and purport of character for spectators — and oft-times for dancers, too. dancing is enhancement of the characteristic traits The same music, costume, or backdrop was used of foreign dance material such as folk, national, or again and again for different dance numbers. But exotic dance forms. The more outlandish the ma­ it did not constitute the sole source of confusion; terial is, the more characteristic and effective its one stage character actually fused with another in a balletic modifications become. double, triple, or multiple exposure, as a Scandi­ navian village belle decked up in the toga of Cleopatra From the visit of the first Western dancer, Boris with Carmen's mantilla would dance a tarantella Romanoff, on his way to the U.S. with his "Gypsy with a feathered fan to Gluck's "Melody" from Life" in 1916, through the Denishawn's tours with ORFEO — the props were readily available. But their ornamental internationalism in 1925 and 1926, audiences did not care a bit. They liked it better. what Yohbu dancers saw in the original could be 33

boiled down to one massive, variegated, yet pretty cultural climate of their home country. The seven- much the same, body of dancing by the Bohemian — year craze for the Asakusa Musical had justpassed the exotic race of unknown nationality. That is, away with the close of the last operetta theater in THE GYPSY played the lead. the year the Takada dancing couple arrived in Tokyo. The period of early modern dance as divertisse­ In this love of exotic flavor by both dancers and ment was terminated. customers, successful new dances resembled the dance numbers in a bill, of the first quarter of this 3. Dance Poems in the Face of Modernism: century, for what the French called le music hall. The Pierrot Languide, the Die-Hard Swan, Costumes became briefer and thinner. Some female and the Prisoner (1925-1929) dancers — loyal to the long-standing tradition of In addition to the anarchist and Dadaist radicals of the decadent Dance of Seven.Veils amongAmerican the late 1910's who supported the Asakusa Opera and European dancers such as Maude Allen whose and its decadent risque dances, the early 1920's solo debut in Vienna, 1903, was "The Vision of saw belated arrivals of Futurism and Cubism, quite Salome" — approached the strip-tease and got up-to-date importations of German Expressionism arrested. Exotic and erotic values coexisted. and Russian Constructivism, and the birth of an active Japanese Communist Party. ThencameSur- It was, on an international level, the era when top- realism, Neue Sachlichkeit and Abstraction in the notch Russian Emigre ballet figures, Spanish dan­ few years preceding 1930. cers , experts of jazz, tango, and other types of dancing, were performing extensively in London, The third and last period of early modern dance New York, and Paris in featured portions of the opened inthe height of the ideological and intellec­ revue a. grand spectacle produced by various Follies. tual turmoil of modern Japan. The arts were in Their contributions formed a short, diverting in­ throe: the death agony of the old and the labor pains gredient in the concoction aptly named Variety. And for the new. Young would-be artists staged nega- in Japan, it was the time when creative dance was tivist productions, which looked exactly like today's presented as an entr'acte or divertissement be­ super-experimental anti-dance, neo-Dada-antics, tween operettas. or Theater of the Absurd, for evident reasons. Those who tried to be high-brow and progressive The word divertissement very well characterizes felt cheap unless they could believe wholeheartedly, the second stage of modern dance. Divertissement in the matter of arts, in the evangelism of avant- means, usually, an unessential and inconsequential garde paintings, literature and films; they had to supplement of character-dances to the main body of espouse the doctrine of Dialectical Materialism as a ballet, or a similar addition of interlude ballet in the last word in politics and philosophy, in science the grand opera. And Japanese modern dance in and even ethics. this age of Asakusa Operettas was nothing more or less than short diverting pieces of exotic character- The general public, on the other hand, seemed to dancing, fragments of ballet devoid of both its tra­ favor merchandise of an Age variously named with ditional steps and academic discipline. such epithets as Jazz, Aspirin, Machine (these American products, however, arrived in Japan for Under these circumstances, Japanese Western dan­ the most part via Paris; sometimes, the circuitous cers gradually became unhappy in spite of their grapevine proved faster than the direct line as was bulging purses. They longed for dancing divorced the case with William Faulkner, whose repute got from and independent of the atmosphere of light to Japan before itwas established in the U.S.). Jazz operas; but there was no popular demand for that. was invading dance-halls, variety shows, and the Frustrated but rich Yohbu dancers began to plan an phonograph industry. The former patrons of Asa­ exodus for the Divine Occident where they believed kusa Operas found new jazzy shows and fleshy re­ they most appropriately belonged. vues more moderne, speedy, and straightforward in erotic appeal (with dancers in sequin bras and Thus in 1922, Takada and his partner wife, Madame spangled panties). Takada (present president of the Japanese modern dancers association) left for Europe and America, The first "dance without music," accompanied only and Ishii and his partner sister quickly followed on by a few percussions, appeared on Ishii's programs their heels. The Takadas returned in 1924, the upon his homecoming. It tried to compensate for Ishiis in 1925, to find a sea-change wrought in the the lack of music with the angular, percussive 34

movements of machines. In 1923 he had seen Mary capism on the part of the traditional customers of Wigman dance her "Totentanz," "Triangles," and dance, the upper classes, facing the proletarian other pieces with geometric figures as their titles. offensive. Also the middle class bourgeoisie with Also he had inchoate abstract dances inhis newre- Victorian good taste was horrified at the onslaught pertory. The absence of storyline was made up for of barbaric modernist arts, jazz and fleshy attrac­ with grotesqueries, which relied mainly on bizarre tions. Thus the eye was closed to reality for the costume with or without weird masks, and on un­ fond bitter-sweet recollections of their irrevocable canny movements sometimes employing isolation past glory. technique. The international success of the "Dying Swan" danced However, side by side with these Wigman novelties, by Anna Pavlova, who played extensively through the Ishii added more pieces which prolonged the eu­ world for twenty years since 1909, is symptomatic rhythmic and exotic charactere tradition of the in­ of the view of the world in the epoch under dis­ cipient Yohbu. The stage was again populated by cussion. It symbolized the death of Nineteenth- Goblins and Gnomes, Minstrels and Pierrots, Gol­ Century Empires, of Tsarist Russia and Victorian liwogs and Delphic Oracles; music was furnished by England, of Paris and the Small Paris, Vienna Liszt for Czardas, Albeniz and Lalo for Tango, during the Belle Epoque, and of Merry Old Europe Bruch and Ravel for Hebrews, Debussy and the and Good Old Days in general. The Swan was dying Russian Five for Near and Far East. Tchaikovsky's because of the Machine, the Red Flag, and the Re­ international divertissements for the "Nutcracker" vue, with the ascending Soviet Bear of ideological and the global pilgrimage of Grieg's tramp, "Peer materialism and the approaching American Bull of Gynt" — these two dances were presented by Ishii pecuniary pragmatism on both sides. So itwas nos­ in a balletic pageantry in 1927 —were found especi­ talgia, a defeatist kind of retrospection, that took ally useful and effective. hold of the heart of those who could afford time and money for a theater. Noteworthy here is the fact that theater dance lagged far behind the other arts in modern history of taste The international exoticism of colorful divertisse­ and style. The earliest manifestation of abstract ment of the preceding period gradually lost its gay constructivism or functional purism — the Crystal animation: a wistful, languorous melancholy mood Palace in the mid-19th century — was followed (a descended upon it. Exoticism turned into nostalgia long time before the Cubists, Supremists, Purists, of time and space, pining for the irrevocable, long­ DeStijl, Immaculates and other geometrical ab­ ing for what exists not, languishing for languishing's stract schools of visual arts appropriated it for their sake. own conscious and articulate uses), by the struc­ tural imagery in some poetry (by Rimbaud) or the The Japanese weather also had been covered with tectonic conceptualism of Paul Valery's first essay the same Post-Romantic clouds of longing and lassi­ before 1900. It was furthered by the Russian and tude in the face of Rice Riots, increasing sabotage German Constructivist stage directors and the andstrikes, speed and Modernist "isms "and Marx­ composers of serial music. The very mode of living ism. Dancers missed no opportunities in striking and the outlook of the world among people in gene­ the chichi pose holding out the arm aloft with a ral were adapted to the new vision and views re­ minikin twist of the wrist and fingers as prelimi­ vealed convincingly by the industrialized surround­ nary to inevitable throwing of the eyes with a far­ ings . Yet the dancer remained deaf to this message, away mien upon an indefinite spot in mid-air, inthe blind to the very landscape in which he lived, dead direction of Erewhon — i.e. Nowhere —of the lost to the modern world itself. Even in the face of glory and aging ideal of Europe whose decline changing fashion in the Twenties when women's seemed imminent with the encroachment of Materi­ clothes were shrinking to the shortest minimum alism from East and West — the ideological one ever reached in Western civilized societies, crea­ from Russia, and the no less formidable economic tive dancers were dominated by the mildewed men­ one from America. Japanese Western dancers tality of the silken petticoat with lacy frills and tried hard to make every movement poetical with velvet ribbons, embracing a firm belief in the tenet noble affectation of European languor, which was of the fin-du-siecle Symbolists, 1'art-pour-1'art presumed to reveal the more their own delicate Decadents, and Neo-romantic esthetes. sensibilities and sensitiveness tothe prosaic mod­ ern times. Free movement changed into precious One important reason for this cultural lag was es­ poses andmannered attitudes. Lyricism was con- 35 verted into sentimentality, which was further trans - spired by Western music and became totally depen­ figured into lackadaisical and mawkish namby- dent on it. I have mentioned earlier the bliss the pambies . first Japanese ballet students experienced in danc­ ing to foreign, curious music. The regular beat of Certainly they must, at the same time, have known measured music was a never-heard-of revelation that was foolish and they were stultifying themselves and never-failing inspiration. The monomaniacal by playing the rose-water prig, striving for affecta­ drive of eternally simple um-pah um-pah rhythm tion of that which was nothing but Europeans'Affec­ thatunderlies the whole music structure and texture tation in its essential and original substance — if sounded so civilized to the ear attuned in its own there was any substance in it. Hence their peren­ polyrhythmic dance music without meter, rhyme nial subject, THE PIERROT IN LANGUISHMENT. or reason. Even the ancient unimaginative Alberti A ditty titled "Song of a Pierrot" was all the rage in bass with its unsyncopated rhythmic persistence 1922, and Ishii presented the "Pierrot in Grief" to constituted a constant source of delight. Compared the tune of Weber's "Invitation to the Dance" as with the rationalist consistency of Western music, late as 1929. domestic music seemed too primitive, superficial, and devoid of logical form. It would be easy there­ But I am not trying to put any slight on the subject fore, to see reasons for early modern dancers' en­ matter of the Pierrot in art. To the contrary, it thusiasm for eurhythmies, or for that calisthenic is, like any other frequent theme of art, one of rather than balletic tendency in Ishii's initial dances the significant themes for artistic creation. The at which the harsh criticism we quoted earlier was Pierrot, who understands himself, not only as a hurled. tragi-comical anachronism and social misfit, but also as a prototype of the artist who must do his best The priority of music in dance, however, did not in spite of—or because of-his doomed profession produce any true "visualizations of music," which or existence, impersonating and personifying the Miss St. Denis and Doris Humphrey were attempting fate of Art itself, or at least, to borrow the defini­ to create at that time (originally suggested by Louis tion by a German hermeneutic phenomenologist, the Horst); instead, mere illustrations of lyrical inci­ Fragility of the Beautiful as the sole mode of being dents or descriptions of poetic episodes were the for pure art in this mundane sphere of the Philistine. result. Neither conative-emotive import, nor the Some of the dances on the Pierrot-in-Languishment structural pattern or form of music was projected theme did cast a fleeting glance at the deep signifi­ in dance form. It was always literary or pictorial cance of the subject; but most dancers were either associations incidental and adventitious tothe form too arty and affected, too prone to follow the rage or content of music that Japanese dance poems blindly without due intelligent reflection, or too dead occupied themselves with. The basic vocabulary of serious and naively sincere, to draw freely on the Yohbu constituted that of traditional ballet minus profound irony and humor of this great motif of toe-shoes and difficult school exercise technique. artist-pierrot identification, which calls for a de­ Some academic postures and steps were freely used tached eye that pierces through the unromantic for airy elegance and mawkish grace. facts of our times. There were, to be sure, some good solo and duo It was asking too much, indeed, to expect of them numbers. The Takada husband and wife team was much sense of naked realities. Itwas the time when outstanding in their delicate short pieces, both be­ in America Miss Martha Graham, who had left the ing gifted with far more urbane sensibility and at­ Denishawn of ornamental exotic languor, had just tenuated constitution than vigorous and voluminous entered in her pre-Raphaelite "Blessed Damosel" Ishii. But the creative dancers were getting more period (1926-1930) with the "Danse Languide." money by teaching small angels their cute little free From Pavlova's Japan debut, made between her dance of sweet eurhythmic nothingness. numerous appearances all over the U.S. , with her eternally Dying Swan in 1922, through Sakaroff's The public, in the meantime, had run out on these visits in 1930 and 1935, what the Yohbu dancers saw dainty dancers and their fusty estheticism to wel­ inthe dances of their spiritual masters was nothing come the bold and spectacular arrival of the Taka- but the confirmation and reconfirmation of their be­ razuka All Girls Revue (which had been producing lief in lyrical, if not sentimental, dance poems. the Asakusa-Opera type of operettas for thirteen years when they produced the first revue a grand There were to be few changes in the esthetics of spectacle, "Mon Paris," in 1927, and other quick- early modern dance in Japan. It was originally in­ paced whirly - girly leg shows, which had been 36

mushrooming to fill the gap left by the demise of 1. Modernist Dances: popular operettas. The elegant dancer of poetic The Mad Prisoner vs TheRockettes (1930-1933) duos, Masao Takada, died in 1929, and Japan's early modern dance was dying with the Dying Swan. The Japanese Western Dance called Yohbu had to reorganize itself to catch up to the general taste in Although the last phase of early modern dance was modernism by producing Modan Dansu. A total much behind the time with its dance poems and ly­ change came out. The reign of Music and Lyre ricism, there was a slow but steady change of dra­ with the borrowed vocabulary of ballet divertisse­ matis personae. After the Gypsy and the Pierrot ment was finally abolished. came the PRISONER, for Europe and the past cen­ First of all, Baku Ishii started employing machine - tury were definitely and irrevocably lost, and people like movements — one of his principal findings who thought they belonged to them felt like captives brought back from his global tour — notably in his in the cramped confines of twentieth-century Japan. "Dance M^canique" (1927) and the "Machine and Man" (1933). These dances were mostly accompa­ The Prisoner symbolized not only the captivity of nied by a few percussions only. post-Romantic souls in the Jazz Age, but it also reflected the political turmoils of the period. Since With the metallic gleam and harsh sound of machine, the Rice Riot in 1918, more and more political pri­ the dear old subjectmatter and locale of delightfully soners had been added in Japanese jails. In 1922 exotic Nowhere or lackadaisical bygone Europe Baku Ishii gave a "dance drama: the Invisible were completely dispersed. The landscape for Aureole," in which prisoners were identified with dance now represented CONTEMPORARY BIG the martyr for social justice or the saint to be CITY, HERE AND NOW, as was exemplified in canonized when Kingdom comes. The same piece Ishii's "Melancholy Street" (1929) and "Tokyo in was remounted in 1929 under the new title of "Out­ Tails" (1932). And, inkeeping with the tone of mo­ cry of Life." Also there were two solos with similar dernist styles of art and literature, titles changed titles by two representative dancers of the period from poetic to prosaic ("one's appetite gets pro­ under discussion on a — implicitly political — half moted...", Ishii, 1925) with Surrealist imagery naked hero in bonds: Ishii's "The Captive" in 1923 (Ishii's "Human Railways" in 1925, or "Tokyo in and Masao Takada's "The Imprisoned" in 1924. Tails") or Abstract scientific terms (Ishii's "The Just like Russian intelligentsia before the Revolu­ Two Poles of No Perfect Combustion" and "The tion, the number of revolutionary intellectuals was Moment Compressed," both in 1932). on a rapid ascent, and the number of jailbirds on the dance stage continued to multiply. The protagonists were changed, too. The interna­ tional Gypsy of Divertissements and the languishing II. MODERN DANCE - Pierrot, and the Prisoner of Lyrical Dance-Poems LABAN AND ABSTRACT PURISM had been dehumanized during the period of Modern­ At long last the main stream of Japanese creative ist Dancing. The lead turned into THE MACHINE. dance became fully conscious of its own times. But the Machine was too simple a novelty to last In 1927, one year before the skirt reached its short­ long. It needed integration with the Prisoner. The est in fashion history, modan became the word on wholesale arrests of Communists in 1928 and the everybody's lips. The Japanese equivalent for following year were throwing numerous intellectual "modern" meant anything contemporary: the last party-members and young fellow-travelling stu­ splendor of silent movies, the Streamline with me­ dents in jail. The sinister presence of the Secret tallic glitter of swift machines, the precision line Service "Thought Police," organized in 1932, was dancing of chorus girls, and the iconoclast pragma­ intimidating students and artists, who became tism of both Wall Street mongers and Kremlin agi­ depressed or desperate. The Prisoner now dis­ tators — Speed and Sex, Revue and Revolution, integrated into THE MAD MAN — a man with his Thrill and Jazz. It also meant, on higher planes, wholesome character destroyed by the physical and the flash-back montage technique of Soviet films, political machines. the papiers-colics syntax of Futurist-Expression­ ist-Surrealist poems and novels, the powerful We know that the readiest gimmick for getting away skeleton of Constructivist mise-en-scene, the pro­ with an incoherent product of art has always been to saic factuality of Neue Sachlichkeit, or its parallel attribute it to a vision of insanity, and the easiest in France, Neoclassicisme. pretext for immature works of experimental art is 37 to credit them tothe divine frenzy of a genius. Just of scenes and dancers in a dance concerned with as the early phase of German Expressionism teemed modern machine-like, urban life was ever increas- with Dr. Caligari and other assorted psychotics, ing. The flourishing companies of Ishii and Mme. Ishii, with his inclinations for the grotesque, began Takada presented many big-scale productions with hatchinga "Vision of Modern Beasts," who are mad hordes of dancers. The era of Elegant Duos, of geniuses or artistic furies, in 1930; the "Demented lyrical Dance Poems, had gone forever. Movements" and "Moments Compressed," both on life in a psychotic ward, in 1932. The first period of dance truly modern in its orien­ tation was thus born. In form and content, subject Dancers as Madman could now move as shockingly and treatment, it was essentially different from as they wished in the musty nightmare of the Teu­ early modern dance. However, there was one thing tonic bedlam of Expressionism. The public shared lacking in all these modernist reforms: the theore­ the deliration. It was the moment when the liberal tical basis for movement. Eurhythmic theory had trend of the Twenties was about to be turned by the been relegated to where it most properly belonged — rising tide of totalitarian nationalism in the second kindergarten playgrounds. half of the Thirties. These were truly maddening days withEro-Guro-Nangsensu (Erotic-Grotesque- 2. High Noon, Fall and Rise: DerNeue Tanz, and-Nonsensical), the Jobless Intelligentsia, and Ikosaeder, and Expressionists (1934-1954) the Famine Amidst the Bumper Year being the tri­ nomial catchwords of 1930. 1932 was the time of the A second wave of study abroad by Japanese creative Militarists'Assassination of Cabinet members, and dancers began around 1930. Different from the first the vogue of double-suicides —the latter occasioned exodus in the early Twenties, they headed this time by one committed by a virgin pair, glorified by a for one single spot: Mary Wigman's school. It co­ hit tune, and dishonored (in a series of events re­ incided with the time when she was visiting the miniscent of a nightmarish blood-and-thunder scene United States for the first time. And the year that in the latter-day kabuki dramaturgy) by a necrophile Wigman's School was opened in New York, 1931, cremator. There was also the record-breaking Mr. TakayaEguchiand his partner wife entered the number of suicides in the crator of scenic Mt. Gelbesaal in Dresden to study under the Priestess Mihara, as well as the Tokyo Dance Song craze in of Rudolf von Laban. The year they returned to which people danced on the streets interrupting Japan, 1934, marks an entirelynew era. Incident­ traffic in a mass hysteria, in 1933. Tokyo looked ally, the same year welcomed, beside Gertrude like a huge bughouse; with assassins and erotoma­ Rosenwieser's touring company, another graduate niacs , would-be tyrants and suicidal maniacs, all of the Laban-Wigman school, Harald Kreutzberg in a schizophrenia torn between the happy past and (with Ruth Page, who danced "Variations on Euclid." the horrid future, agoraphobic in anticipation of the and other geometrically oriented abstract dances, imminent gendarme regime and, at the same time, contrary to the expectations of audiences who had claustrophobic because of impending national iso­ seen her dance elegant ballets with Mr. Edwin lation. But the forebodings belonged to deeper sub­ Strawbridge only five short years before in the same consciousness only; on the surface, the gay Twen­ theater). ties seemed to be prolonged ad infinitum with more jazz and revues to culminate in a total American­ Eguchi's "EtudeNo.l," adueton a motif of theopen ization of major revue companies around 1937. hand with two closed fingers, presented at his home­ coming concert, signalized the advent of a new dance It was the revue that taught Japanese creative dan­ based solely on its own logic of bodily movement cers the spell of group compositions. Before 1930 and emphatically freed from poetry or music. (The there were few if any group pieces except Ishii's long-standing myth of Dance Poems with balletic "dance-dramas" and "ballet-pantomimes," which mime and character-dancing vocabulary dominated were not so much modern dance as imitations of by Romantic music, as well as the magic of the traditional ballet without academic form or disci­ Modernist Dance with the line-dancing idiom of the pline. But the mechanical precision of military revue controlled by percussive noise or jazzy sound, drill and parade adopted by line dancers offered in­ were both broken. Dalcroze with his Eurhythmies stead, a main choreographic basis for group com­ was dethroned, the Mad Modernist with barbaric positions . In a dance preoccupied with the modern Cacorhythm was deposed.) Laban now ruled with city and machine, revue-inspired group treatment his Bewegungslehre. seemed inevitable and indispensable. The number 38

The modern dance in Japan had found its rationale. tive than ever with increasing numbers of dancers Dance ceased to be an applied art and became an au­ and students in their companies. The world's big­ tonomous art independent from any other art forms. gest girls' revue companies had been entirely The discovery was so impressive that many dances Americanized with the Rockettes and swing music. had to be titled "Study" with opus number, after the example of Eguchi's "Etude No.l." Some dancers Michio Ito returned and choreographed "Prince began to regard their sister arts as so many un­ Igor" for one of the revue companies. Its group necessary ornaments or unwieldy shackles, thus scenes were quite new tothe audiences who had not eliminating them one by one. Before long, their seen the Ballet Russe or any contemporary ballets dance became dehydrated, decorticated, and evis­ that followed its examples. But in the age of Neuer cerated. And Laban's favorite Ikosaeder — the Tanz his solo recital seemed to offer nothing special. icosahedron, or a skeleton of all possible move­ He returned to the United States. ments of the human body — remained bare and for­ lorn on the naked stage. (As a matter of fact, the Modern dance was about to flower around this time veteran dancer, Eguchi, in 1948 exhibited a dance — as it did in America since 1930. Unfortunately, called an "Ikosaeder.") the war broke out and the military clamped down on everything alien, including British music, and Also prominent in Eguchi's works was the arrival American jazz, above all. of what I might call "thorough-composed" group compositions. His CITY, a fifty-minute medley of The noon of modern dance passed away. Dancers the Rotary Press and Cabaret, Stock Exchange and had to cooperate in war-time efforts by furnishing Labor Exchange, Paved Way and Subway, each su­ wholesome entertainment for workers and soldiers. perimposed on others after the fashion of Walter There followedno progress, but general deteriora­ Ruttman's machinal film montage - reportage, tion in dance as art. The only good thing that came BERLIN, THE SYMPHONY OF A CITY - contained out of Government control of the art was the col­ less of the revue-like group treatment of precise lection and reproduction by revue companies of unison and more of the group choreography follow­ ethnic dance ranging from Okinawa to Hokkaido in ing the logic of movements in space. Compared to an effort to create a National Revue. this work by his junior, Ishii's "DanceDrama, The Black Sun" in 1934, was too much cluttered with Defeated Japan thatrenounced war forever and de­ dancers and spoken words, unfolding his "Contrast­ termined to become a "Cultural Nation" recovered ing Reflections Upon Rural and Urban Life," which quickly from the post-war daze. There erupted a were quite akin to one of SergeiEisenstein's mas­ great boom of Classic Ballet — and of striptease, terpieces , The General Line, or the Old and the too — already in the very next year of the Defeat. New, in its antithetical conception of subject mat­ Modern dancers also got busy with renewed strength ter, but the essential trait of the latter's choc- — they revived the same old German modern dance d'images montage technique was not consciously with more sophistication and elaboration, more pursued. differentiations and variations, which we shall dis­ cuss in the following paragraphs. Inthe United States about this time, Doris Humphrey had firmly established a logic of group choreogra­ The younger generations in the early phase of phy, which started with the "Life of the Bee" (1929) Japanese Neuer Tanz had been educated in experi- and was perfected in her "New Dance" (1938). To mentalism through the silent avant-garde movies — these excellent works Japanese group dances could which constituted one of the most effective object­ be compared very unfavorably; for, as I have ob­ ive lessons, on an international scale, in a dynamic served earlier, the tectonic logic of Western mu­ temporal form of visual arts. The films were pro­ sic was still foreign to the choreographers. In duced in Europe during the period between 1925 and addition, Japanese creative dancers in this period 1929, which exactly corresponded with our Modern­ had cast away music for an absolute and pure dance ist Dance period, and they were modified by the divorced from any other sister arts. adjective pur in France and absolut in Germany. The avant-garde meant the pure with the French, The year Hanya Holm presented her "Trend," 1937, because their traditional rationalism and contem­ probably the most titanic work in modern dance porary intellectualism were being consolidated in history, marked a peak of modern dance in Japan. a cult of conceptual purism at that time. The pure Ishii, Mme Takada and Mr. Eguchi were more ac­ with the Germans had to be termed the Absolute, 39 since their age-old subjective idealism and apothe­ cing needed abstruse ideas and recondite thoughts. osis of Geist and Categorical Imperative had always Thus, probably in spite of himself, Tsuda began to been fused in their Absolute Identity or in their adulterate his pure dance for dance with extra-dance Dialectical Synthesis. So in Japan pure and abso­ factors such as literature and philosophy. And when lute dance were to be deified, at the sacrifice of the he realized it he was against technique for tech­ integral unity of arts — from which none of their nique's sake. It is not technique, he opined, but constituent parts can be separated without undoing artistic conception and inspiration alone that make itself — exactly as the successors to "absolute dance dance. And his dancing neared the esoteric music" in Germany had been, and the painters of shrivel and drivel of early German Expressionists. pure lines (and/or colors) were in France. Just as absolute music tended to deteriorate into cerebral Tsuda danced with many deep ideas and the firmest compositions of dodecaphonic and serial music, and belief in them. There were an infinite number of pure arts into draftman's drawings or a child's doo­ new possibilities in his works, but there was no dle, or general splotches or junk, so absolute and definite shape. They were possessed of all the re­ pure dancers began to peel off layer after layer the quisites of art — except the essential: form. skins of dance, hopeful of arriving at its supreme quiddity in the end. All the meat of dance was cut But he was not tobe blamed. The predominance of and thrown away as superficies. The plain fact that artistic conception or content over form is a mark essence is not a distilled residuum or strained lees of subjective Romantic style. The cult of substance or dregs, but a consolidated condensation, seldom at the expense of formal perfection has been char­ occurred to them. Finally, the Absolute Pure dance acteristic of all subjective experimental art such for Dance's Own Sake came to exist only in the holy as that by Futurists, Dadaists and Expressionists. inward vacuum of pedantic dancers. They could The pioneer in abstraction in painting, Vladimir find few audiences. One got suffocated in the Kandinsky, was in earnest pursuit of das Geistliche, solipsist cave. or the Absolute, as its ultimate substance.

Thus a strange form of dance exclusively for studio Another exponent of Expressionist abstraction of performances and workshop recitals — not for the German absolute purism was Mr. Masami Kuni. theater where the general public gathers — was He left Japan in 1934 for Germany to study with born. Even when these dances were performed in Mary Wigman and returned in the year of the a theater, they were bereft of most theatrical arts. Defeat. The stage looked dark, bleak, and miserable. Different from Tsuda, his belief in absolute dance But it was the way life itself looked during the long was so literal and perfect that he never had recourse and hard years of war preparation, war, and the to literary ideas. The dance for him was shaping subsequent overthrow. The lack of heat, electricity, of space through the instrument of human body and materials, and money naturally caused the scenes nothing else. He was so preoccupied with his "space in the theater, the view of life, and the very outlook construction" that his sense of music — the art of of and attitude for the world tobe extremely gloomy purely temporal construction without any spatial and desolate. objects whatever — remained quite rudimentary. The music he used for his dances was almost in­ Mr. Nobutoshi Tsuda, who had come back to Japan variably in simple duple or quadruple meters. The in 1938 after three years' studies in Germany, was total effect was a persistent monotony with a fine the representative figure of the Dismal Dance-for- sophistication and differentiation in movements. To Dance Absolute Abstractionists. However, he was fill the void that inevitably appears in any uncom­ anything but an abstractionist in the vein of French promising pursuit for abstraction by absolute pur­ purism, which is characterized by an aerial, ethe­ ists, in which they confuse elimination with distilla­ real lucidity of Logos. The oppressive mist of tion, Kuni depended heavily on high -sounding philo­ Teutonic profundity and mystification hung heavily sophic terms in his choice of dance titles and the over his thinking and dancing, growing deeper and notions they might suggest. I hate to remember the thicker, never lighter or purer. And as German titles of his major pieces, but they were not very Expressionism always looked for something Geist- far from something like Axiomatic Ambivalence in lich —which cannot be translated simply as "Spirit­ Categorical Proto-Strata — in short, sophomoric ual" but connotes everything metaphysically or poppycock. Again, he mightnot be accused, either. mythically ponderous and cumbersome — his dan­ This cerebral type of mystification has often accom- 40

panted good abstractionist arts. For example, Piet Also reproductions of Japanese ethnic dances by Mondrian honestly believed that his eternal snippets modern dancers, such as Eguchi's "Drums of Japan" of the horizontal and vertical were the very embodi­ in 1951, and uses of folk materials for creative ments of the ultimate ontological essence of the dance started around 1950. They are indebted to Universe (!). the war-time contributions by major revue com­ panies in this line and to a new awakening of na- Ishii presented his "Wandering Figures" in 1948. tional pride following the recovery of Japan's Itwas a dance depicting the contemporary Japanese national sovereignty. milling aimlessly around in a daze at the ravage of war and the subsequent bankruptcy of all past norms During the years of economic recovery classic bal­ and values. Many idealistic anti-war protests and let in Japan prospered with unprecedented vigor. emotional anti-A Bomb accusations were made on The number of eager ballet students increased after the stage. They corresponded, somehow, to the 1946 to reach a maximal point when the new tele­ dances of Social Consciousness or Significance — vision industry was producing ballets on the air. of righteously indignant Miss Tamiris, of the defiant Also need for ballerinas in background dance for New Dance Group, and of blood-curdling Van der TV musical shows meant another sizable source of Lubbe's Head — in the Thirties in the U.S. These income for ballet dancers. There was almost no dances on both sides of the Pacific, though with a demand for demure modern dancers, who were so lag of a decade, had a powerful message and subject Teutonically oriented, pedantic and dead serious. matter. As it had been the case with the Sturm und They frowned upon their colleagues' participation Drang before the French Revolution or the Express - in this unspiritual medium of mass communications ionism around the Weimar Republic, the force of as sacrilege upon the supreme art of Neuer Tanz. the material undid the form of rendition; gushing marred the message; emotion impaired motion; III. CONTEMPORARY DANCE SCENES - socio-political theses deformed art. Graham, Jazz, Anti-Dance (1954-1964)

But these poorly-shaped, content-he avy, and com­ The long-suppressed anti-Americanism broke out munication-happy pieces of dance did not last long. when the Occupation ended in 1952. It gradually Japan's economy recovered in big strides after the lost its vehemence to flare up again in 1960, when Korean War; the dollars poured in, for U.S. mili­ the Security Pact between the two nations was pro­ tary material supports were invested to form a basis longed for ten more years, and finally exhausted for subsequent expanding productivity. itself.

Modern dance became theatricalized. Ishii had been 1. American Modern Dance Arrives (1954—) theater-conscious from the very beginning with his In 1954 a United States Government information cen­ "dance-dramas" and had been multiplying the num­ ter, Tokyo American Cultural Center, presented ber of dancers and scenes since 1927. His eyesight for the first time in Japan a demonstration of con­ began to fail gradually and his mental sight became temporary American modern dance for the public. less introspective andmore extrovert with a mega­ lomaniac love of big-scale productions. Inthe year It impressed the audience; a young critic was en­ the Korean War broke out, he presented a "Lyrical thusiastic and donated a big bouquet for thanks. The Ballet: The God and Bayaderes " ("bayadere " here press welcomed the arrival of the new dance, al­ does not mean a fabric or design, it means Hindu though the rolling on the stage floor, disregarding dancing girls), a 3-act-4-scene dreadnaught with the sight-lines of ground-floor viewers, and the seventy dancers and an orchestra, to be followed inevitable sticking up of soiled bare soles from in the next year by a super-dreadnaught, "Human Buddha," for more than a hundred dancers with hidden bodies lying supine on the stage, naturally a symphonic orchestra and a chorus. Mr.Eguchi struck the uninitiated critics as some inscrutable also came up with his huge "Prometheus' Fire" in American dance ritual. 1950 — which has a record of 98 performances as Following the successful demonstration a modern of now — and a rhapsodizing description of urban dance class was opened at the Center with Miss life of speed and cacophony with masses after mas­ Beth Osgood as leader, and Japanese professional ses of dancers, "Composition No.7," in 1953. The dancers were enrolled after screening. The Center days of studio recitals by absolute purists for know­ also .gave a recital and workshop by Miss Jean ing insiders only seemed to have been ended. Erdman in 1955. A joint concert of its class mem- 41 bers and leader, Joyce Malm, was given in 1957. climatizing American modern dance, as did Hanya Holm in sublimating German New Dance into a more Epoch-making performances by the Martha Graham lyrical, outgoing form of the American Modern company were given in 1955. The Center presented Dance. her lecture -demonstration and a few workshops with her company members. The impressions left on 2. Arrival of the Broadway Musical and local dancers were tremendous. They saw a true American Popular Idioms (1955 -) dance theater with a perfect structural logic, a completely homogenized system of technique, and One year after the Hagerty Incident, the tradition a vehement drama of emotive contents. of Japanese newspapers to be always anti-govern­ ment — against the status-quo — except for the The urge for theater dance, which is intrinsic and period of military censorship during the Pacific unremitting in any old culture, was given further War was finally broken. momentum. But the cogent logic of choreography in her dance was not, somehow, consciously felt by With the disappearance of the insistence of the press Japanese dancers, who were blinded by the fantas­ on anti-Americanism, it became no longer unfash­ tic mastery of spectacular movement techniques. ionable for the intellectuals to openly enjoy or ad­ mire Americana. They had been witnessing the The unity of technique and expressive content in a supremacy of America, not only in material spheres sort of strict codification of possible movements in but also in cultural aspects. (It must be noted here her work was at first admired, but later, probably that Europe always has been foremost in the minds out of "sour-grape" psychology, itwas attributed of intellectuals in Japan, as it was in the United to an extremely narrow range of Miss Graham's States, say, until about a generation ago. idiosyncratic language. Some even maintained that her method could be astraightjacket for all dancers Since jazz had been the most popular product of other than herself. Nevertheless, young dancers America in other countries of the world since the were overwhelmed by the dramatic force of Twenties, it was naturally welcomed here. But Martha's technique. Many of them managed to get jazz had been abhorred by local creative dancers to New York to study at her school, and some be­ during the days of Neuer Tanz. It wasn't until 1953 came its featured artists. that a creative dancer dared to employ jazz for music at an annual modern dance contest. It was Miss Eleanor King visited Japan in 1958 and gave a taken by the judge as a serious blasphemy to the workshop at the Center. Dancers from the nor­ lofty art of modern dance. thernmost island and other parts of Japan came to participate in it. In 1960 she toured local cities The firstdance that successfully incorporated jazz for the U.S. Information Service in Japan to give into artistic choreography was shown in Japan in similar workshops. In Tokyo she also gave a 1958 when the New York City Ballet presented some "Movement in Theater" workshop at an International of Mr. Jerome Robbins' works. Its angular, per­ Dance Institute, providing a new insight into the cussive, disjunctive movements, as well as the wealth of bodily movements which are not disfigured athletic youthful energy of American urban folk by Expressionist preoccupations with over-intel­ dances, caused a sensation for both the public and lectual systematization (as was the case with Mr. dancers alike, as they did in European countries. Kuni) or with emotional mystification (as with Mr. (Many French and German ballet companies are still Tsuda). Its syllabus is still read here. adding to their repertories new numbers which jive a la Robbins.) The seeds of American modern dance were sown on the soil of German Neuer Tanz. Its flower­ Also the unprecedented long runs of "West Side ing is yet to be seen. Much of the vocabulary in Story" in the movie version, premiered here in American modern dance has been in use by many 1961, convinced the Japanese of the superiority of Japanese dancers. It is generally employed, how­ the jazz idiom. The finger-snapping, jazz-happy ever, as another addition of clever steps without lads in blue jeans seem to be the indispensable ac­ being very well integrated into the whole organiza­ companiment to most Japanese TV musical shows tion of a piece; it has seldom been adopted as a which have been mushrooming in recent years. choreographic principle or system. Inseparably related to the present cult of jazz No Japanese dancers have as yet succeeded in ac­ dancing are the newly found charms of Broadway 42

musicals. Major revue and musical show compan­ free American jazz cats, and to whom it was only ies had been producing unsuccessfully what they dance numbers that mattered. titled "musicals " in an attempt to exploit the popular demand for the genuinely American type of light At present, more and more Broadway musicals are opera with mass -appeal and topical reference, when being produced here, including "West Side Story" the Tokyo American Cultural Center gave a public with the entire cast from Broadway and its dance- performance of "On the Town" in 1955 with its mod­ maker, Jerome Robbins. ern dance class members supplying dance scenes to the main body of production by the U.S. Central All this frenzy about the American folk idiom was Command Entertainment Workshop talents. The further consolidated by the visit of Alvin Ailey and first authentic presentation of the Broadway musical Carmen De Lavallade Dance Company in 1962 on a was hailed by both audience and critics, for whom the U.S. Government project. Their pieces utilizing language barrier seemed to vanish during the show. Negro jazz dance materials proved tobe exactly the thing young dancers, critics, and audiences were The next year saw "Kiss Me Kate," with the Center hoping to see. Press reactions, especially among ballet class staff and its talented leader, Vitaly the young critics, were more enthusiastic than ever Osins, furnishing dance sequences to the Camp before. They thought they could find the very foun- Zama Entertainment Workshop production. tainhead of Robbins' inspiration in its original form as rendered by its genuine practitioners. There arose a sudden demand for modern dancers to appear in musical shows on the air, which had Although the visits only a fewyears ago of Mr. Jean been monopolized by ballet dancers until a little Leon Destine or of Miss Katherine Dunham received time before. For more than five years now, it has little attention, suddenly Afro-American ethnic been the rule that modern dancers, not ballet dan­ dances came to be much in demand, which Miss cers, must be the jazz-inspired hoofers for all the Carmencita Romero met only partially by her work­ TV musicals. shop at the International Artist Center.

There came from the United States many specialists 3. Further Developments in Modern Dance: (1963 -) in jazz and Broadway Musical dancing. The first Limon, Erdman, Neo-Dada, and Cunningham one, Mr. Shuny Palmisano, taught at Ito Michio School for Modern Dance. The famous Japanese In the field of modern dance proper, which is, of dancer in New York had returned to Japan in the course, neither exclusively jazz nor Negro-influ­ year of the Defeat, and became director of musical enced, the Jose Limcm Company's tour of Japan in productions at the Ernie Pyle Theater for the Oc­ 1963 was important in several ways. cupation . , While young critics wanted to pretend that they found Other Americans who came and worked for Japan­ it a little too classical, the majority of critics and ese musical productions and gave workshops at the mature dancers were deeply moved by its whole­ International Dance Institute — which is now re­ some conception of dance as a theater art, in which named the International Artists Center — were music and conceptual or otherwise meaningful ideas Messeurs Thomas Molinaro, Rod Alexander, John happily conspired with each other to enhance the Avinia, and Miss Jean Hooloose. Their lessons human warmth of dancing. were very popular not only with creative dancers but also with classic ballet dancers, who realized, The company brought to Japan new things. Doris no less than their French colleagues, the need for Humphrey's works were shown for the first time. harnessing the new danse de caractere. Her dances to Bach and Vivaldi music were found superior, not only to eurhythmic translation of mu­ James Rogers and Jay Norman appeared here in sic, but also to Balanchine's visualization of music, 1963 in an American-Japanese musical, "Thirteen which is so exact and abstract, running parallel — Dancers from Broadway." The show was corny and almost note by note, sometimes — to the texture slipshod, but dancing sequences —which formed the and structure of music. There were human feelings only meat of the entire show, whose plot was noth­ and organic life to the natural rise and fall of phras - ing but a pretext to show American dancers dance ings in her dances. Also, Limon exhibited real — wowed audiences who wanted to see more of vi­ dance-dramas with simple but universal, profound gorous, larky, breezy, syncopated shindigs of care- meanings: an example to be followed by Japanese 43 dancers whose forefathers viewed artistic dance as observed and patiently sat out all the tortures that a story-telling with the development of action on included the gurgling sounds amplified to the nth de­ the kabuki stage. gree through a contact mike attached to his throat, or the notorious 6-minute-and-30-second perform­ All these qualities as well as classical simplicity and ance of absolute nothingness. somewhat conservative theatricalization in Limon's dance-making, which was just what has been lacking In 1964, Miss Jean Erdman presented her musical among the unbridled experimentalists, could be fully play or dance drama, the "Coach With The Six appreciated only by mature audiences and critics, Insides." who were found, fortunately, in considerable num­ bers. Her choreographic idea, which she also revealed at a lecture-demonstration held during her sojourn, For, again, the Japanese dance world is suffering was an intelligent universal eclecticism. She be­ from the perennial disease of artistic youth — re­ lieves that the styles of major classical dance forms volts for negativist freedom with little if any crea­ of the world are so many reflections in visible tive inspiration. terms of the various outlooks of life of the repre­ sentative nations, which cover the whole range of We have mentioned the ultra-modern would-be ar­ human world-views and run the gamut of all emotive tists' chaotic and outrageous theater presentations conative experiences possible to mankind. We have in the third phase of Early Modern Dance, which to select, each time in the process of making a were strictly along the lines of the wild sessions dance, a particular form of traditional dancing for given by the Futurists before, and by the Dadaists adequately expressing a particular phase of our during, World War I. Then the thread was taken emotion. up by young dancers in the Modernist Dance period inTsuda's emotional expressionism and Kuni's in­ This choreographic principle seems to be a vital tellectual purism. one especially for Japanese modern dancers, who depend too much on Western dance styles, and gene­ In response to the expansive demand for instruction rally slight or even ignore their own precious dance in the Americas, Kuni has been out of Japan for heritage. several years, and Tsuda became the mentor of a Female Avant-Gardists Society. Its members as Also Miss Eleanor Lauer gave a workshop in the well as young male dancers have presented daring same year. The emphasis was on the constructive pieces with concrete or electronic music. Very principles in choreography. The developmental often the contents concerned either Nothing or no­ logic and structural composition in the creative thing but naked eroticism. Unabashed sex appeared methods of Western temporal and dynamic organi­ on the stage with phallic symbols adnauseum (there zation are in general still somewhat foreign to Ja­ has been little inhibition on sexual matters in agri­ panese dancers, whose native music and dance are cultural Japan with general fertility worship). additive in construction; the workshop made the par­ ticipant dancers reflect on their common weakness. To cap them all, Miss Yoko Ono, who is one of the inveterate believers in, and practitioners of, Mr. Merce Cunningham and his Company with John Greenwich Village dadaism, recently presented a Cage and Robert Rauschenberg performed their program titled "Striptease," in which she let audi­ works in late 1964. They were guided by two incom­ ences cutout her clothing as they pleased until her patible principles: the movement-for-movement's American husband rushed up in a fluster and put sake purism and a pluralism based on juxtaposition out the lighting and brought down the curtain. In of heterogeneous elements. Neither of which is by 1962 she had presented what she aptly titled "An any means new in modern art. Evening of Anti-Dance and Anti-Poem" as an "anti- dancer"and "anti-poet." Few people had ever heard The ineradicable survival of the Western dance of her except in the publicity that says she was a idiom of ballet in his dancing must have made Japan­ poet in the Bohemian circles in Boston and New York ese dancers become aware of the force and worth Certainly she was an anti-dancer, for apparently of traditional dance form that is indigenous to the she had never danced before and never would again. culture to which a dancer belongs. Also the gene­ In the same year John Cage offered his neo-dada rally slow tempi of his dances, the occasional mon­ antics. The gullible young intellectuals reverently tage-like assemblage of a series of tableau-vivant 44

type of individual group poses, and other character­ 1. Theatrical Dance istics in common with the kabuki choreography, might have shown some alert dancers the necessity From the very beginnings in which the Father of of looking backward to their own cultural heritage. Japanese modern dance presented dance-dramas, whenever a dance company has prospered with many Despite many and varied attempts for "far-out" ex­ students and audiences it has always entered upon perimental dancing among young people, which are big-scale theatricalized productions. This seems no less ancient than eternal youthful fling and follies, to be the case anywhere in the world. Theatrical the slow but steady general trend of modern dance dancing is the alpha and omega of creative dance. in Japan seems toward maturity, as itwas in the A dance theater must be the constant goal and ideal United States with Doris, Hanya, Martha, and Jose. that beckons dancers and makes them advance. Modern dance is heading for a dance theater. The trouble is, however, the ideal is apt tobe pur­ Art dance as a whole has been theater dance in any sued in an unconscious reversion to the past, though culture. Japanese modern dance started as a "dance not a sheer retrogression to the primitive, without drama" by Ishii. The long tradition of Japanese purposive efforts for incorporation of newly emer­ classic dance as the kabuki theater dance will not gent resources into it, thus failing to consolidate perish. The love of Japanese for theatricalized and materialize the very ideal. dance as evidenced in the popularity of Kabuki, of past Asakusa Operas, of All-Girl Operettas, and The general trend is wholesome. But it is not e- of recent Broadway Musicals, will force creative nough. It must be made conscious and articulate. dancers away from esoteric studio recitals for the It must be realized that a great deal of intentional advanced appreciation of the "selected few" in the effort is needed to make this trend for theater, know and back to the Theater forthe theater-loving which is only a foundation, into a rich and colorful populace. Without the support of the ticket-buying procession toward the ideal theater. public no performing arts can thrive. 2. Educational Dance, The Japanese tradition of dance theater with its or Survival of Character Dancing native muses and genuine national inspirations will be gradually found to be vital in effecting a truly "Educational Dance" is one Japanese name for dan­ Japanese Modern Dance. The art forms can reach cing devoted to "cultivation of sentiments" in the into the sphere of authenticity and cease to be mere sense of education sentimentale or Gesinnungsun- imitation of foreign importations. terricht. Children learn it at kindergartens or at dance schools. Also, girl students learn it in their COmTTffilMIPflRffiLAffiY PI1SPICTI¥I: school athletic courses. HOW TO UNITE EAST AND WEST Children's dance is an important segment of Edu­ I. PRESENT STATUS: cational Dance. It forms a specialized field in One Current and Many Trends Japanese creative dance. Since dancing is regarded We have thus far seen divergent strains and trends as one of the indispensable arts for personal and developing in about a half-century of Japanese mod­ communal cultivation in Japan, as it is in any re­ ern dance history. It is possible to view them as fined cultures, dance instruction for the public has a whole movement that started from the national been a major function as well as source of income matrix of kabuki classical dance theater, catalyzed for professional dancers. Innumerable semi-pro­ by the Western classical dance theater of ballet. fessionals in Japanese classic dance have been It is true that the techniques and theories for indi­ teaching to meet the vast demand for elegant ac­ vidual body movements were furnished by Western complishment. And when Western dancingbecame modern dance; yet the rationale and the guiding popular in the period of Modernist Dance, many principle of the enterprise as a whole seems, un­ practitioners of Japanese classic dance, who had fortunately, chiefly dependent upon the century-old been renovating the traditional idiom into a move­ heritage of theater dancing through unconscious ment for Shinbuyo, or New Japanese Dance, force of habit on the part of dancers. With this undertook teaching children in a kind of dancing main current in mind, the various trends of the which looked just like one that Japanese Western present Japanese creative dance may be classified dancers had contrived for the same purpose. It as follows: was simple eurhythmic dancing accompanied by 45 children's songs — sometimes borrowed from West­ There is money for the practitioners in this line of ern counterparts (such as "Mary Had A Little expressive, poetic, balletic mollycoddling. Lamb") or folksongs (such as "Auld Lang Syne"), but mostly those produced by Japanese composers 3. Serious Introspective Modern Dancers in Western music idiom. Its choreography was, and still is, a curious combination of Japanese Just as Baku Ishii's first theater performance in­ mime vocabulary, kindergarten dance games, and cluded a meditative, content-heavy and form-poor the worst type of affected cuteness carried over piece, our modern dancers tend to take dance as from the balletic attitudinizations during the early philosophical art — and they take art as something Modern Dance Period. metaphysical, or almost mythical or religious. Their dances lack dramatic action and development. The namby-pamby Children's Dance proved to be Everything occurs in a timeless space, in the inner­ much in demand. The record industry commis­ most world of Geist, or soul. There are no events sioned composers of children's songs and choreo­ but amorphous images of the mind. Some dancer graphers of Children's Dance to produce series even defined dance as "representation of one's state after series of records with illustrations of dance of mind." Hence, the stage seldom represents the sequences. actual world in daylight. It is almost always twi­ light — the crepuscular landscape of introspective As the other name for Children's Dance, Expressive ego. The introvert dancers, who became more con­ Dance, suggests, it was supposed to enrich child­ firmed in their belief by the German Expressionist ren's emotional experience and expressive charm. dance teachings, occupy the central position in Children usually do not go for expressive grace, Japanese modern dance. They are dead-set against but their mothers do. And a dance with saccharine theatricalized dance. gestures and facial expressions resulted. 4. Afro-American and Jazz Dance Children brought up in Children's Expressive Dance are apt to form a taste for sweetand pretty dancing. Dances utilizing the American jazz and Afro-Latin And worse still, since neither dance audiences for American folk idioms are now in the ascendency the most part, nor many teachers in athletics and with the ever-increasing demand for them in night­ their students in the Japanese educational system club entertainment, television, revues and musical for girls (in which dancing is a part of athletic shows. But the elderly leaders and their following, courses) have had any opportunities to take adult who form the majority of our dance world,frown modern dance lessons, the sleeve-worn esthetic of upon it as vulgar and commercialized. the sweet eurhythmies and diluted character dancing of the early modern dance period was enabled to Jazz and Negro idioms per se are, of course, bet­ persist through the years. It still rules the Dance ter fitted to cabarets and vaudeville than to the in Education as a whole. dance theater proper. But they are capable of fur­ nishing new materials for further enriching dance The remains of Early Modern Dance are not only vocabulary which is vital to the advancement of alive in Educational Dance, but they can be detected modern dance. among the second-rate modern dancers. They are those who live in the provinces — geographic and 5. Experimental Renovators mental — or those modern dancers who title their metier as "modern ballet" in an attempt to give All modern dance is, to some degree or other, an more prestige to their dancing and to attract more experiment. But a total experiment is not art; it customers. Also, most creative dance produced belongs to a laboratory or workshop. On the other by the New Japanese Classic Dancers, unfortu­ hand, art stagnates without experiments. There is nately, belongs to this anachronistic style. need for constant renovations. The majority of re­ novators have a good sense of the theater; yet, their It is deplorable but this style of affected prettiness work has not reached the status of repertory items still appeals to the general public, who seem al­ — probably because of the workshop nature of their ways to love to see their children dance like so many renovation which is apt to fall into the trap of mere Rococo cherubs, and their daughters like so many experimentation without lay audiences' presence. sentimental picture-card ingenues, and to live eter­ Many dancers who have started adopting American nally inthe never-never-land of their past dreams. Modern Dance still remain in this grouping. But 46

there are a few good dancers arising among them. 2. Modern Dance and Japanese Classical Dance AkikoKanda and MarikoSanjo, to mention only two, have built up reputations both in the U.S. and in The Classic Dance of Japan, or Kabuki Dance, has Japan, and their future is promising, and there are been alert to Western dances. The fame of the more imaginative and active young male dancers Russian Ballet was reflected as early as 1917 in such as Bonjin Atsugiand Akira Egawa, the latter Madame Shizue Fujikage's productions, which possibly the future leader of modern dance in Japan. drew heavily upon decorative stage arts. In 1921 Ennosuke Ichikawa II, upon his return from a Euro­ 6. Neo-Dada Non-Dances pean tour, presented the "Insects,"aneloquent tes­ timony to the spell of the Ballet Russe he saw. Experiment for the sake of experiment in dance is Following Anna Pavlova's performances in 1922, headed for this impasse. The proponents of this most kabuki actors and many professional dance- avant-garde experimentation have no sense of the masters set out to participate in the New Japanese theater at all. Their antics have aptly been called Classic Dance movement. by them themselves, anti - dance, super - dance, or non-dance. Such dancing can never be part of In the period of Modernist Dances the younger gene­ the theater. It does not even belong to workshop or ration of dance-masters competed with each other studio. It most properly belongs — to junk. to make new works. The stage was made more gorgeous; on occasion, even Western orchestral II. FUTURE PROBLEMS music was used. There was much group dancing, in which dancers ran to and fro on the stage with We have thus far been treating Japanese Modern mincing steps breaking the time-honored tradition Dance as if it were a discrete entity existing in a of kabuki dance that rejects a continuous rhythmic vacuum apart from any commerce with other forms flow in favor of disjunctive free tempi. of dance. But, in fact, it has been in a close inter­ action with folk, art, and other dances. The most This New Dance movement is still going on. But important is its interplay with Classic Dance — none of its products has been comparable to the both native Japanese Classic Dance and imported beauty and power of the traditional Kabuki Dance. Western Classic Dance. By using Western rhythmics, the dancer loses the very beauty of Japanese asymmetry, poly-rhythm, or irregular and prolonged pauses, in which he may 1. Ballet and Modern Dance find an endless freedom in the strictly conventional­ The relationship between Classic Ballet and Modern ized form in spite of — or because of — its rigid Dance in Japan has been similar to that in the United limitations. The creative stylization and challeng­ States. While the pre-modern ballet is responsible ing restraints were discarded for the graceful, for the 19th-century estheticism of Early Modern conjunct, fluid, continual movements of Western Dance and for present Educational Dance, a salutary Ballet whose esthetic knows only symmetrical influence of ballet can be found in its essentially order and rational harmony. theatrical character. Also, ballet choreographers and dancers have employed much modern dance Nothing will come out of the renovating attempts of idiom thus far — especially since Mr. Robbins' ex­ Japanese Classic Dancers but the destruction of amples, so that the distance between ballet and their own invaluable heritage — just as the New creative dance has been shrinking. Theoretically Kabuki is undoing the true kabuki traditions. They and ideally speaking, modern dance is obliged to have been blinded by the outward brilliance of the incorporate all the forms of dance into itself. And ballet and too anxious to imitate it without due recog­ the ballet represents the major objective for that nition of the intrinsic worth of their own speciality. purpose. The old enmity of modern dance against ballet is fortunately on the wane. Many Japanese It is about time Japanese modern dancers began to ballet dancers are learning American jazz and Afro- draw extensively on the resources of the Japanese American dances, and some of them — male dancers Classic Dance, as their American colleagues have especially — are being trained both in ballet and done on those of Western Classic Dance. It is the modern dance. On the other hand, it is still a mi­ only way left for them to raise the status of their nority of modern dancers who recognize the need products from mere imitations to authentic creative for enlarging their dance language by embracing works. ballet idiom into it. 47

No modern dancers have yet made full use of the 4. Experimental Dance and the Japanese Tradition basic and eminent principle of Japanese art — an esthetic of asymmetry which shuns static order and Most tenets and techniques of today's avant-garde unity to plump for dynamic balance, which lies not arts, in the last analysis, are conscious or uncon­ in harmonious equipoise of outward symmetrical scious employment of elements in Japanese tradi­ forms but in the potential counterbalance of shape­ tional esthetics. (The use of chance has been the less inner movements or intrinsic meanings. central theme of calligraphy and brush painting — their exploitation of exquisite but unpredictable (For an illustration, the fundamental step that re­ pattern of diluted ink running on an absorptive silk curs most often at the end of a composition, a sec­ or paper. The utilization of Nothingness is the key­ tion, or a phrase, with an effect of a cadence in note of Japanese arts: it is there in unpainted space Western music, consists of three movements of the in visual arts, in pause and silence in music, in head: namely, turn the head right; tilt the turned pose and arrested moment in dancing; the shortest head left; aftd turn it back right but upwards. There verse form in the world was possible only owing is no symmetry in the movements, yet it gives a to a belief in unstated implications. The coexist­ peculiar sense of completion and harmony as does ence of heterogeneous elements in a choc-d'images the chord progression in the authentic cadence, montage, or in disjunctive juxtaposition, is a sequel IV-V-I. Most of the steps in Japanese Classic Dance to the philosophy of non-entity in which everything similarly consist of three-movement units. The exists in a vacuum without any connecting fluid, odd number cannot be divided in two symmetrical logical sequence, or divine providence.. . parts; the form of each movement in the unit is gen­ erally patterned asymmetrically except, naturally, There are, certainly, more things tobe said in this when there is some specific need not to do so as in connection. But the subject seems to belong to an miming symmetrical objects or gestures, etc.) esthetic inquiry. Suffice it for the moment to say this: True experimentation in arts is rediscovery The Western esthetics of Greco-Roman static har­ of traditions, remembrance of things forgotten for mony were such a revelation to traditional Japanese some length of time — including things of a decade minds that most dancers have forgotten their own ago — things our ancestors experienced in historical inborn fine sense of dynamic balance when they have or prehistorical past, things we felt when we were tried to be new, free, and creative. They have not a child or in the womb — not only of our mothers realized, it- seems to me, that Western esthetic but also of Mother Earth. orthodoxy is, as all locally or temporarily circum­ scribed ones are, not free from its own intrinsic With that I may conclude my discussion. Modern limitations or from the inescapable superannuation dance, whether in Japan or in the United States, that is the fate of every man-made system. needs to fuse New and Old, West and East. The world has shrunk; and our knowledge of the past 3. Modern dance and Japanese Ethnic Dance — whether of an individual, race, or entire human­ ity — is also becoming deeper, richer, and more 'In this field there has been progress. But folk definite. Our sensitivities cannot be adequately dances are easy to incorporate into modern dance. met by Western or Oriental esthetics alone. We Different from the art dances of a culture, whose need a new belief based on the meeting of the two. style is very particularized and unique, folk dances are similar all over the world, because their non- In the fields of fine arts and music, there have artistic functions involving human elemental needs emerged many Japanese painters and composers are universal. who have succeeded in incorporating their Western art media into Japanese sensabilities. Inthe realm The pre - eminently artistic portions of Japanese of modern dance, unfortunately, this has notyet ethnic dancing, which seem to lie in the especial been the case. But there is no reason why this charm of rather complicated asymmetrical arm cannot be done in the near future. movements, have been extracted by, and embodied in, Japanese Classic Dance. And this makes an The goal for modern dance must be a recovery of attempt to consolidate modern dance with Japanese the totality of man before the separation of East and traditional Classic Dance — the topic of the pre­ West, and beyond the distinction of Old and New. ceding section — all the more important. The task is most fitted to the modern practitioner of the most ancient of all arts. 48 African Dance as Education JUDITH LYNNE HANNA.1

Dance is an important medium of education in the includes dance, accompaniment, song, and ritual. traditional societies of Black Africa — one of the Among some Ibo groups, for example, the concept ways by which culture is disseminated within a "nkwa" necessarily includes dance, song, and drum generation and transmitted from generation to gene­ accompaniment: the vital elements are rarely per­ ration. This was true before European intervention, formed apart. An analogous situation in Western when tradition was the pervasive orientation, and societies would exist if the concept "opera" could it has been true since then tothe extent that tradi­ not be broken down into its song, accompaniment, tional orientations remain operative. Dance helps and dance components. to assimilate members of a society to its prevail­ ing knowledge, role differentiation, institutional­ Movements and gestures in dance become stan­ ized expressions of emotion, goals, and appropri­ dardized and patterned symbolic means, understood ate means to goals; and it reinforces earlier by members of a society, to express experiences educational experiences. Dance both transmits inthe external and psychic worlds and to communi­ cognitive messages and induces conation; it is in­ cate to others.^ Thus, dance is quasi-language, strumental in exciting the motivational require­ sometimes able to communicate as effectively, or ments of "proper" behavior and attitudes. In other more so, than verbal language itself. It creates words, dance helps African societies to perpetuate an abstraction or illusion of reality, and in so doing themselves. reveals a congruence of form with the theme it sym­ bolizes . The movements and gestures of dance may Traditional African societies were disrupted by have specific meanings or they may communicate European interventions, the most intense disrup­ through a diffuse impact. tions taking place during the period of imperial oc­ cupation, roughly 1885-1960. Far-reaching forces Although in all known contemporary societies a rel­ of change were unleashed by these interventions, atively we 11-developed language exists, minimizing and they have had varying effects upon the traditional the need to rely upon such quasi-languages as dance, dances of Africa. In some societies the functions the efficacy of dance as a medium of communication of dance have remained relatively unchanged, while in a specific culture appears to vary. This variation in others dance has virtually ceased to be a medi­ appears to be associated with the proportionate re­ um for education. Differences can be explained in liance upon non-verbal behavior in communication, terms of the traditional functions of dance, and the and upon the frequency, circumstances, and milieux quantity and type of European intervention. (In many of dance performances. The development of a areas Europeans interdicted "native dancing," while child's social communication — first the expression introducing their own educational system; but in of needs in physical form and later using verbal ab­ some areas the two were allowed to coexist.) By stractions to communicate — suggests that prior to far the most common development, however, has the elaboration of language, dance may have been been moderate change rather than total continuity a basic method of communication. When this pos­ or transmogrification. Hence, the study of African sibility is considered along with current develop­ dance as a medium of education can be justified in ments in dance therapy (a technique used with the past and present terms. mentally disturbed to facilitate realistic communi­ cation and introspection), the potential of dance The concept "dance," as herein used, refers to a becomes apparent. purposefully, rhythmically, and culturally pat­ terned sequence of non-verbal body movement and Dance developed differently in Europe and in Anglo- gesture which elaborates ordinary (as defined by the America than it did in Black Africa. In the former, relevant society) motor activities. Of course, this dance has mainly emerged as a relatively segmented is the conceptualization of the analyst, not neces­ aspect of human behavior. Although Western dance sarily the participant. In many societies dance is is a setting for such activities as boy-meets-girl, conceived to be part of the fusion of a whole which it is primarily for aesthetic, entertainment, or

Judith Lynne Hanna lectures, writes, and teaches courses on dance and African affairs. During 1963 field research in Tropical Africa, she studied indigenous dances and filmed examples of them. She is currently offering a lecture-practicum course on African dance at Michigan State University. 49 recreational purposes. In traditional Black African cultures, by contrast, dance is less an "art" than a "craft" functionally entwined with multiple com­ ponents of vitae curriculum. What we perceive as aesthetic factors are inter­ mingled and designed for practical ap­ plication in the economic, political, social, and religious spheres of life. Thus, for example, the dance was often thought to be a magical, efficacious prayer or means of communication with the supernatural. Nor, as noted above, is dance usually a separate "art form," since it is commonly fused with drama and accompanied by music (a quasi- language which inspires and enhances the dance) and song or rhythmically spoken words (which make the dance's meaning more referentially precise). Therefore we can say that traditional African dance, as a quasi-language strongly embedded in the lives of most Africans, was potentially an important medium for education. This leads to a consideration of the ways by which this potential was realized.

Dance as a Medium for Education in Traditional Africa

The members of most African societies begin learning to dance at an early age. Infants still unable to stand may be held upright by older children or adults and moved appropriately tothe accompany­ ing rhythms. Or they may be exposed Dance lessons during compound recreation Photo: William John Hanna to dance and "learn a plastic adaptation, to take later strengthened and elaborated. During their cognizance of. . . movement"5 while carried on the leisure hours, women encourage infants to dance. backs of older children or women who are dancing. By the time the children are three years old, most As soon as children can stand, they may be set have down and encouraged to dance on their own. Bells learnt, in a sketchy and diagrammatic but might be tied to the toddlers to heighten the pleasur­ specifically recognizable way, the rhythms able experience of rhythmic movement, such as and the main steps of the festival dances. The among the Baganda of Uganda, and praise is often six-year-old has advanced so far that he or used as encouragement as with the old Fulani she can sometimes join the real dancing of WoDaaBe women of Niger, who, after placing a girl the adolescents. His sense of rhythm is ac­ in the middle of a circle of women dancers, "clap curate, he learns the songs quickly, and he their hands and admire her for being so grown-up has the pattern of the dance clearly. But his if her chubby little body manages to keep in time dancing is extremely crude still. It tends to with the rhythm while she maintains a precarious be mechanical and monotonous, completely balance."6 lacking the improvisations and variations, A common pattern in learning dance is illustrated the delicate tracery of step and gesture with by the Tallensi of northern Ghana. Dance know­ which the skilled adult fills out the formal ledge is first present as a "schema" which is then pattern. Every year improves the child's 50 style, but even the adolescent has not yet domba is perfected his or her technique. Yet from babyhood to maturity dancing ability grows a general preparation for marriage, where continuously. 7 boys and girls, who are usually separated, are brought together, and by means of sym­ In addition to learning how to dance at an early age, bols and metaphors, are together taught to a dance may be the earliest occasion for an indivi­ understand the true significance of marriage dual's introduction into groupings beyond his imme­ and child-birth, and by the same means are diate family.8 Here his socialization to accepted warned of the pitfalls and dangers that they behavior patterns takes place both in the observa­ are likely to encounter during the course of tion and in the performance of dance. Malinowski their lives.12 describes the dance as an early stimulus to learning: Both sexes are constant spectators in the tri­ The central incident throughout the domba is the bal life of elders and acquire early a good deal python dance in which the slow gliding movements of diffused folk-lore; dancing and public cere­ of the python are simulated by the dancers in a long monies at first fascinate them and excite their line, boys in front and girls behind, with the hands imitative interest; they rouse their curiosity; of each dancer placed on the shoulders or waist of explanation is asked for and given as to their the one in front. 13 Bavenda believe that the snake meaning; and finally, the children are drawn lives inside every woman and plays a dominant role into them. ^ in building up the foetus in the womb.14 Further­ more, the python, often found lurking around river African traditional dance as a medium of education banks, has become associated with rain and the is concerned witha wide range of subject matters. fertility of crops: "without rain, nothing can grow However, four themes (they overlap) tend to pre­ or live."15 Through the dance, the youths are made dominate: the importance of fertility, the proper aware of the vital significance of the python in re­ roles of specific members of the social system, ligious beliefs. In the chisungu, a girl's initiation conformity to traditional patterns, and politics ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia, a girl must (broadly defined to include leadership, government, be "danced." Through ritual, of which the dance is and war). Space limitations permit only brief illus - an integral part, a girl is believed to be magically trations of these. changed, protected against malevolence and given the promise of fertility. "The women in charge of Perhaps the dominant theme in traditional African this ceremony were convinced that they were caus­ education is fertility. It became the key goal of ing supernatural changes to take place in the girls most societies in the fight for survival: big fam­ under their care, as well as marking those ilies were necessary for work, protection, and a changes."16 Throughout, the girls are socialized manpower pool to replace the victims of infant mor­ to the institution of marriage, which is believed to tality, war, and'disease; efforts were made to ob­ be sacred and to contribute to a man's ability to tain an adequate food supply in spite of the vagaries gain supernatural power. I7 of the natural environment. As an example, Chaga children learn, through the dance, of man's depen­ dence upon plant fertility. The birth of a child and the death of an adult provide central occasions for the glorification of fertility. Children used to take part in agricultural The Owerri Ibo of Nigeria have an omugwo, acere- rites and special ceremonies accentuating the monial period of time in which to welcome a newly phases of the growth of plants. A month be­ born child. During this omugwo, dances performed fore the harvest, dances were held throughout by the female relatives of the new parents commu­ the country in which pantomimic representa­ nicate and reinforce the goal and joy of fertility by tions of farming activities were enacted .10 praising and honoring all women who have given The theme of fertility is woven through dances for birth. Thus the prestige of marriage and parent­ both young and old. In groups which practice initi­ hood (the means to large families) is enhanced. ation rites when sexual maturity is reached (i.e., Because periodic performances by women stress when the individual is physically able to contribute the importance of the woman's role in society in to the society's goal and become a central link in achieving its key goal, it is likely that they compen­ the social structure), emphasis on fertility is sate for her relatively subordinate role in a male- heightened at the time of these rites.H For in­ dominated patrilineal and patrilocal society. stance, in the initiation school of the Bavenda of Rhodesia and the Republic of South Africa, the The funeral dance of the Nyakyusa in Tanganyika be- 51 gins with a passionate expression of anger and grief In Dim le Dim le ("My husband, whether or not I against the causes of death and sorrows of life, have good manners, have patience and look after gradually changing to a fertility dance. Pointing us") the proper role of father and husband is speci­ out that the ritual at death is the most elaborate of fied as one who provides for his family despite the family rituals, Monica Wilson goes onto explain vicissitudes of family life. The dance called Nna the Nyakyusa beliefs: NwanyiBudi, meaning "A woman's beauty is appre­ All through the rituals the connection of the ciated as long as her husband lives; it is absent shades (ancestor spirits) with potency and when he dies," communicates the goals of being a fertility is emphasized. The shades cause wife and caring well for a husband. Paradigms of menstruation and sexual desire; they are pre­ behavior for a role are often presented in dance. sent in the intercourse and ejected as semen; One such is about a young married woman who is they control conception; they control fertility confronted by a bold young man. She bids him leave in the fields.*-° her and threatens to report him to her husband, in fact speaking with the authority of her husband. The In this case we see that concern with death and re­ assumption of this dance is that young women will spect for the dead tend to reinforce tradition. remember its performance and consequently act accordingly in such a situation. The Ubakala Clan Individual members of a society must be socialized edere (upper torso shimmy) dance socializes girls to functionally important roles for the society to at the age of puberty to their future roles as physi­ maintain itself. Among the most important roles cally and emotionally mature mothers and main­ are parent, husband, and wife. The Ibo provide stays of the household economy. Illustrative dances several relevant examples. In their dance entitled are Ogbede turime, which means "When a small Iyoakpu (performed during the omugwo), which girl is in a womanly state, she doesn't know if she'll means "The food they prepared for their daughter be able to deliver and she begins to be afraid." And was not prepared in vain; it helped her give birth," Onye koji meaning "Tell me the names of the differ­ the obligation of being a good parent is stressed. ent yams your father has produced," focuses upon

Socialization to roles in the EDERE dance Photo: William John Hanna 52 a socio-economic prestige and wealth factor. In the cooperative hoeing parties the ngoma lessons are operative and the ngoma movements of stamping Reference to traditional Africa explicitly directs with highly lifted knees and song are used ,23 perhaps attention to the importance of tradition and, as a to make the work less tiresome. Relationships a- corollary, thethreatof deviance or lack of cooper­ mong the Bemba are traditionally structured in ation. Many dances communicate this. The child­ terms of a hierarchy of age and fame; the dances, ren of the Chaga tribe perform a night-time dance according to Audrey Richards, are given for res­ called shiganu, which is "used to intensify the oral pect. 24 This lesson is first given to the youngsters instructions concerning the tribal standards of con­ who observe the dances, then emphasized during the duct. For instance, the lazy are spurned in this chisungu. initiation, and later reinforced for adults. dance: ' where were you when we broke the field with Commoners will dance for their chief; a young the digging stick ?' "19 man will dance for an older woman or man; a senior man may dance for a senior woman The Chaga's Iringidances, performed for jollifica­ of his wife's family. In such dances of res­ tion after harvest, circumcision, and initiation pect it is common for the soloist to dance in are used as negative sanctions of deviance. The front of the person he wants to honour, and process is described by Otto Raum: to sing definitely to him or her. It is parti­ The skill with which the offence is gradually cularly respectful to dance with vitality and revealed can hardly be surpassed. How in­ dash.25 delible the impression must be on those who Many of the Oboro Clan women's dances illustrate with gyrating arms, clapping hands, and the Ibo emphasis upon their traditions of caring for jumping feet emphasize every phrase! But kin and developing the community. Ibo funeral how utterly unspeakable the agony of the child dances for an aged, praiseworthy man portray the must be at whom the words are levelled!20 deeds of the deceased through dramatic mime. Thus The Ngoni of Malawi use ingoma dances, the main they communicate the traditionally esteemed values village recreation for everyone, to stress respon­ considered important to the society. sibility and self-restraint. Margaret Read reports that young dancers were All societies are concerned with leadership, inter­ nal order, and security against external threats. continuously being told to dance strongly, us In Africa the approaches to these problems are often inana'mandla, and their leaping and stamping taught through the dance. The Ibo of Nigeria are and singing all combined to make the dancing strongly oriented towards democracy and achieve­ a strenuous pastime. The older Ngoni men ment; they desire self and group improvement. A in describing this cult of hard work and physi­ popular teen-age dance among the Ubakala Clan is cal exercise affirm that it made ayoungman Zik Meme Ka Odi Uma, meaning "Zik tries to make obedient (wamvera) and self-restrained(wad- things good." Thepointof the dance is to emphasize ziletsa). They seem to have realized that cooperation with a praiseworthy leader: Zik (the sitting about with no fixed occupation tended President of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe, who led to make a man sexually uncontrolled. 21 his nation to independence) is praised for his ac­ complishments, and the uncooperative people who Group cooperation and harmony, believed tobe es­ prevent him from bringing improvements are deni­ sential to a strong society, are also learned in these grated. The prestigious role of dance leader is dances which are characterized by awarded to the individual recognized as the best dancer; this dance leadership pattern mirrors the swift follow-my-leader manoeuvres, turning, leadership structure in the political sphere. The twisting, lifting sticks, knocking knobberries Chaga rosi dance trains youths for war and incul­ together, stamping, whistling. .. the Ngoni cates patriotism. This can be seen in one of the had no drums, and all the precision and songs which accompanies the dance: rhythm in any dances or concerted move­ ments depended upon exact timing and follow­ Even if all the cattle of our country be stolen ing the leader. The accuracy and precision by the enemy, we shall not leave this country reached was remarkable, and represented a of ours. Even if Chief Orombo carries off high degree of intense concentration and co­ one and all, we shall not leave this country operation among the dancers... who develop­ of ours. If we have no other food to eat, let ed an almost intuitive knowledge of what the us nibble the trunks of the banana plants in leader was going to do next, 22 this land of ours. 26 53

Among the Kikuyu of Kenya, initiation was the only tellectual and social qualities of a particular period of formal instruction. During this training, individual, for in dancing he must submit to personal satisfaction and physical fitness were ob­ the concerted actions and feelings of the whole tained by constant war dance practice in which sword group or community, while at the same time and spear fighting skills were learned. 27 This cur­ he is given an opportunity to excel and to ex­ riculum of education was designed to prepare young hibit qualities of social leadership and sexual men to meet confidently such exigencies as raids attractiveness. 29 by neighboring tribes. The laws and regulations of Among the Ibo, an individual's sexual attractiveness the tribe were also learned through the performance and dance skills are interrelated: personal worth of the war dances, for these were, according to is believed tobe revealed inthe dance which, as in Jomo Kenyatta (Kikuyu anthropologist and now Pre­ many parts of the world, is a milieu for selecting sident of Kenya) the only way that these norms, life partners. The Ngoni people, according to Read, which are embodied inthe words and movements of "think that their dances show their personality, the dance and its accompaniment, "could be intro­ their manhood, that which was born in them."30 duced effectively into the life of the community."28 For the Bomvana of the Republic of South Africa, Needless to say, during Kenya's Independence Cele­ the kweta dance gives the performer a chance to brations warrior dances of the various ethnic groups achieve fame which "lasts his lifetime and ensures were performed, continuing this tradition. him respect from his fellows."31 And among the Kikuyu, dance competitions are held in various Dance not only educates; it also provides a test of stages of life for members of the different age- natural endowment and the results of education, at groups. These are designed "to test their ability least in a limited sphere. Inthe case of the Chaga, to recall and relate in song and dance the stories dances and events which have been told to them." Parents provide an instrument for measuring the in- and other members of the tribe observe "to judge WARRIOR DANCE marking the change of government Photo: William John Hanna 54

and correct the competitors.'^2 sense wasted. Instead of the imposition of foreign curricula with foreign instructional methods and Dance as an Educational Mechanism techniques, the incorporation of dance (an indigen­ in Transitional Africa ous "audio-visual" tool) would have eased the tran­ sition from traditional to modern education. The first Europeans to come into contact with Black Africa were explorers, traders, and missionaries. But traditional dance was not incorporated into the For them, dance was seen broadly as spectacle or European education system which was introduced to narrowly as something bizarre and pejorative. The the African for the purpose of spreading the gos­ missionaries, who were especially sensitive tothe pel and filling the European need for administrative deep intertwining of "native dance" and pagan reli­ and economic manpower. Only an occasional schol­ gion, believed that the dance was a barrier to the ar advocated the use of African traditional dance successful propagation of Christianity. Ignoring in modern education and attempted to call its social the universal themes and functions of African dan­ importance to the attention of the missionary and ces and the origins which were similar to those of government officials involved in the educational European folk dances, many of the missionaries politics and programs for Africans. At the Inter­ attempted to suppress all African dance. national Conference on African Children held in Geneva, one linguist expressed the hope that African Morality also entered into the European conception dancing and singing games would not be superceded of African dance. The "civilized" prudery of Vic­ by European recreations, giving as a reason the torian morality which existed during the nineteenth educational value of these folk activities. But the and early twentieth centuries dictated the condem­ wall made of religiosity, morality, and ethnocen- nation of African dance (which was generally ex­ trism remains an imposing barrier. When he asked pressive and uninhibited) as licentious and bestial why African children were not permitted to dance display. The emotional intensity with which the their social dances in mission stations, a mission dance was condemned suggests that the Europeans' teacher, surprised by a question which challenged superegos were threatened. As Malinowski has colonialists' traditions, displayed a widespread written, attitude by replying, "But our boys play football; what more can they want ? "34 The truth of the matter is that the early mis­ sionary was frightened of the dances without ever coming near them. He believed, for In the countries of Black Africa which have gained reasons which need not be given here but political independence, the educational system in­ which were spurious, that all dancing must troduced by imperial rulers continues with but slight lead to fornication. This is as untrue and modifications; thus African dance is rarely used as wrong about African dancing and beer-drink­ a medium of modern education. Used instead are ing as it is partly true about modern cock­ European song and dance games, fairy tales, soc­ tail parties and that degeneration of dancing cer, and so forth. African leaders have-taken on which we practice in our own ballrooms.33 many of the values of Europeans and so provide a continuity with the imperial regime. Modern edu­ "Fornication" was not the only evil. Europeans also cation, in the European fashion, has proven to be had an "efficiency" reason for banning African dan­ the means to high status and material benefits ces. With their dynamic musical accompaniment within the modern system of stratification and and shouts of joy, the dances sometimes disturbed satisfaction. And it is modernity to which the the sleep or work of a European, or distracted the "emergent" African aspires. attention of Africans on the job (who might be en­ ticed away from their work to join the dances.) And yet there are indications in many of the coun­ tries of Black Africa that the "mental emancipa­ For the stated religious, moral and efficiency rea­ tion" for which Dr. Azikiwe called many years sons, African dance was successfully suppressed ago may slowly be developing. In the cultural or forced underground in many areas during the sphere, a notable development has been the resus­ period of imperial occupation. From an educational citation of African dance as "the new traditional point of view, this was unfortunate. A traditional African dance." 35 National dance companies medium of education, potentially useful to provide are being formed, dance competitions are being stability for the communication of modernity while held both at the local and national levels, and there preserving selected elements of tradition, was in a are even television programs featuring African 55

dance. Recently, African dance has been intro­ expressed by Geoffrey Gorer, who argues: "Dances duced into a few modern schools, primarily for re­ which emphasize tribal beliefs, affiliations and loy­ creational purposes. However, as John Hanson alties are retrospective and symbolic of segmenta­ 37 points out, "both by training and inclination, mem­ tion." But it may also be that learning the dances bers of most institutes and faculties of education in of others is a medium for cross-cultural education, Africa are strongly constrained to think within the the basis of understanding which is the foundation of customary patterns of formal Western-type school­ a unified nation. This is difficult, of course, be­ ing. n36 cause the specific meanings of dance exist prima­ rily for those within the dance's culture of origin. Another barrier to the introduction of traditional African dance into the alien Western educational Although African dance remains largely outside the system stems from the traditions and rivalries of mainstream of formal modern education, this edu­ ethnic groups. The best dance from an educational cation is neither universal nor widespread. Dance point of view may not be appropriate to perform continues to assimilate individuals to an ethnic so­ given the traditions of a particular ethnic group. ciety's knowledge, roles, emotions, goals, and When several ethnic groups are represented in one means. Mirroring changes in society, it incorpo­ school, the choice of dances may be a highly emo­ rates some of the new values and knowledge and tional issue because the prestige or profanation of transmits these along with elements of tradition. an ethnic group may be at stake. The latter con­ Thus dance as education in contemporary Africa siderations raise the larger question of the rela­ sometimes helps to preserve aparticular society's tionship between the traditions of individual ethnic traditional culture, but more often it tends to change groups and the building of a nation which coincides knowledge, diffusing culture from one society to with the new political state. One point of view is another. 38

Footnotes: 1. I wish to thank Dr. William John Hanna for contributing to 8. E.E.Evans-Pritchard, "The Dance,"AFRICA, 1:436-462, this article in a variety of ways, and Dr. Gene Bluestein 1928, p.45. and Dr. Seymour Parker for their helpful comments on an 9. B. Malinowski, "Native Education and Culture Contact," earlier draft. INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSIONS, 25:480-515, 2. See George de Vos, "Symbolic Analysis in the Cross Cul­ 1936, p. 511. tural Study of Personality," in Bert Kaplan (ed.), STUDYING 10. Raum, op. cit. , p. 209. PERSONALITY CROSS-CULTURALLY (Evanston: Row, 11. Bruno Bettelheim, SYMBOLIC WOUNDS: Puberty Rites and Peterson, and Co., 1961), pp. 599-633; and Douglas Gordon Campbell, "Posture: a Gesture Toward Life," IMPULSE The Envious Male, (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1954), p. 106 1951, pp. 25-29. et passim. 3. Elizabeth Rosen, DANCE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY (New York: 12. Hugh Stayt, THE BAVENDA, (London: Oxford University Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia Uni­ Press, 1931), p. 112. versity, 1957) p. 47; see also C. M. Bowra, PRIMITIVE 13. Ibid. , p. 115. SONG (NewYork; The WorldPublishingCo., 1962), pp.29, 14. Ibid. , p. 124. 261-262, on the development of song from the dance. 15. Ibid., p.309 4. For example, see Rosen, ibid., Marian Chase, "Dance as 14. Ibid. , p. 124. an Adjunctive Therapy with Hospitalized Mental Patients," IMPULSE Dance as Communication, 1954, pp. 14-18; and 15. Ibid. , p. 309 Varda Razy, "The Value of Dance and Percussion in the 16. Audrey I. Richards, CHISUNGU: A Girls' Initiation Cere­ Treatment of Emotionally Disturbed Children," SOCIAL mony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia (New York: CASEWORK, 42:501-505, 1961. Grove Press, 1956), p. 125.. 5. MargaretMead, "Children and Ritual in Bali," in Margaret 17. Ibid. , p. 141. Mead and Martha Wolfenstein (eds.), CHILDHOOD IN CON­ TEMPORARY CULTURES (Chicago: University of Chicago 18. Monica Wilson, "Nyakyusa Ritual and Symbolism," Press, 1955), pp. 40-51 at p. 43. AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, 56:228-241, 1954. The 6. Marguerite Dupire, "The Position of Women in a Pastoral quotation is from pp. 234-235. Society: The Fulani WoDaabe, Nomads of the Niger," in 19. Raum, op. cit. , p. 223. Denlse Paulme (ed.), WOMEN OF TROPICAL AFRICA, 20. Ibid. (trans.), H. M. Wright(London: Routledge and KeganPaul, 21. Margaret Read, "The Moral Code of the Ngoni and their 1963), pp. 47-92 at p. 54. Former Military State," AFRICA, 11:1-24, 1938, p. 10. 7. M. Fortes, "Social and Psychological Aspects of Education 22. Margaret Read, CHILDREN OF THEIR FATHERS: inTaleland,"SUPPLEMENTTOAFRICA, ll(4):6-64,1938, Growing up Among the Ngoni of Nyasaland, (New Haven: p. 43; OttoRaum, CHAGA CHILDHOOD (London: Oxford Yale'University Press, 1960), p. 98. University Press, 1940), p. 197. 56

23. Ibid., p. 137. 33. Malinowski, op. cit., p. 500. 24. Richards, op. cit. , p. 131. 34. Evelyn Sharp, THE AFRICAN CHILD: An Account of the International Conference on African Children, Geneva 25. ftid., p. 59. (London: Longmans, Green and Co. , 1931), p. 65. 26. Raum, op. cit., p.223. 35. Judith Lynne Hanna, "Africa's New Traditional Dance," 27. Jomo Kenyatta, FACING MT. KENYA (New York: Vintage ETHNOMUSICOLOGY, 9:13-21, 1965. Books, 1962), p. 197; Neil McGlashan, "Indigenous Kikiyu 36. John W. Hanson, "Imagination and Hallucination in African Education," AFRICAN AFFAIRS, 63 (250): 47-57, 1954, Education,"unpublishedmanuscript, December 1964, p. 17. pp. 54-56. 37 Geoffrey Gorer, AFRICA DANCES (New York: W. W. Norton 28. Kenyatta, ibid. , p. 186. and Co. , 1962), p. vi. 29. Raum, op. cit. , p. 224. 38 Jean Floud and H. H. Halsey, "Introduction," in Halsey, 30. Read, CHILDREN OF THEIR FATHERS, op. cit., p. 146. Floud, and C. Arnold Anderson (eds.), EDUCATION, 31. P.A.W. Cook, SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND CEREMO­ ECONOMY, AND SOCIETY (Glencoe: Free Press, 1961), NIAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE BOMVANA (Cape Town: pp. 1-12 at p. 3, point out that this is the case in the edu­ Juta and Co. , n.d.), pp. 58-62. cation of more technologically advanced societies. 32. Kenyatta, op. cit. , p. xvi.

Two Letters from England

Fostering the Child's Innate Feeling LILIAN HARMEL for Movement

Often an adult's stiff, clumsy movements make it had been long forgotten; Paul Valery's dialogue in hard to imagine him as a young child moving eagerly the Socratic manner "Dance and the Soul," in par­ about, or even as a baby enjoying kicking his legs ticular, brought it back to us in an evocative poetic and stirring his fingers in the air. To an infant way. movement is like food and sleep, and the very stuff of life, so, the hustle and bustle of street crowds The repression of movement as an expression of moving indifferently along make one sorry for all the whole individuality can of course be traced and that has been lost, and one cannot help wondering explained, but not in a short article. So let us leap what has gone wrong in the education of all these tothe end of the last century when a new interestin people — what has gone wrong in our civilization? expression through natural movement began to ap­ pear. Here the name of Delsarte stands out, an In our part of the world the inner meaning of move­ actor and teacher of drama who based his theories ment, which is as old as mankind, has only been on very detailed research and exerted a profound rediscovered in this century. It is strange that influence on dramatic art and movement education whilst many of the educative ideas of ancient Greece in both hemispheres. I quote from John Martin's continued to exert so tremendous an -influence in book, THE MODERN DANCE (New York, 1933): many spheres of our thought, their idea of dance Lilian Harmel, dancer and choreographer, has had extensive teaching experience with children and adults at colleges, drama schools, and her own dance studios in Austria and England. This essay is reprinted from NEW ERA IN HOME AND SCHOOL (London, March 1956, Vol. 37) by permission of the author. 57 "In order to find out how meaning externalizes the children. All this is done not by movement itself physically in gesture and carriage, he specialists, but by the ordinary class teachers who (Delsarte) studied human beings in every pos­ naturally know their children best. sible state of physical and emotional strain, and made minute records of the position of their Movement in these schools is not pigeon-holed. It hands, the droop of their mouths, the eleva­ comes in from all sides, and the spirit of move­ tion of their eyebrows, etc. He went to hos - ment will pervade all subjects with a teacher who pitals, to morgues, to insane asylums. As an really understands its potentialities. How easy and example of his patience it is related of him that enjoyable is it for a young child to learn, for in­ he went day after day to a park where nurses stance, the shape of letters and figures by drawing from the country took the children of their em­ them in the air with large movements before having ployers for the daily airing. He watched every to tackle the more difficult task of writing them detail of the relation that existed between the down on paper! nurses and their charges when they were new on the job, and the change that came about in Here I may mention writing as a form of moving. this relation as an affection grew between Graphology is based on the fact that character traits them. He saw a difference develop in the po­ show up in certain ways of moving and thereby in sition of the thumb when the nurse handled a handwriting. Graphology is a form of indirect strange child and when she handled a child for movement observation. Direct movement observa­ whom she had acquired an attachment." tion, which forms an integral part of Laban Art of Movement training, has proved its value not only In Europe, the main inspiring force inthe realm of in vocational guidance and in improving industrial movement in this century has come from Rudolf skill, but also in detecting emotional disturbances; Laban, who has devoted his life to research into the it has led to the exploration of movement as a means basic principles of movement as a skill, movement of therapy. in education, and movement as an art. The extent of Laban's influence will be adequately assessed We come increasingly to the conclusion that the ob­ only in the years to come; for his work is steadily servation and analysis of movement forms the right growing, and with the help of enlightened admini­ approach to the child's movement education. Our strators his teaching is being introduced into our goal is clear; let spontaneity and the truth of the general education. child's expression be our aim. This involves shedding our own standards of beauty as far as Recently I had the opportunity of watching some possible, and being ready to accept new and even movement classes in London County Council Pri­ puzzling shapes that spring from the child's imagi­ mary Schools, and I was very thrilled with what I nation. We have to beware, in these early years, saw. Here were the conditions that quite a number of any stylized form of dancing that requires set of schools still sadly lack; a large, well-propor­ steps and movement patterns. To make children tioned room with homely apparatus that can easily copy steps and repeat them in set ways that have no be cleared away by the children themselves; a spot­ immediate meaning for them can only stifle their lessly clean floor; and occasionally, eveninaschool imagination and inhibit natural expression and joy in a poor district, walls are so delightfully coloured of movement. This is not yet realized widely enough that one thinks one is in a new building. One such in movement education, whereas in art teaching it infant school runs eight classes of about forty chil­ has long been accepted that it is wrong to start by dren in each. When the five-year-olds came run­ making children draw or paint in an academic way. ning in, gently on tip-toes, with bare chests and feet, free and happy, it was a most exhilerating How can a child's innate feeling for movement be moment. The physique of these children, as well stimulated and developed? There are many differ­ as of the older ones, is really excellent and they ent ways, according to the teacher's personality are surprisingly alike in sturdiness and firmness. and special ability. The right atmosphere will be found in a friendly, informal environment where the The apparatus work is free and varied, and the chil­ children's imagination can be stimulated by rhythm, dren are allowed to gain confidence gradually and music, the telling and acting out of stories. Just on their own. Body awareness is fostered, sensi­ as we can work from the child's imagination towards tivity to touch and sound is practiced, and free his visible movement-expression, so we can foster movement patterns are encouraged and invented by his sensitivity for movement by guiding him through 58

movement elements; by letting him explore move­ Some Books Recommended: ment in space, vary those movements in time and THE DANCE AS EDUCATION, Diana Jordan (O.U.P., 1938). change their weight, their dynamics. It is here THE MODERN DANCE , John Martin (A. S. Barnes, New York, that the movement-trained teacher will come into 1933). his own, and the more experience he or she has, MOVING AND GROWING, Physical Education in the Primary School, Ministry of Education's handbook (H. M.S.O.). the better. DANCE AND THE SOUL, Paul ValeYy (John Lehmann, London, 1951). Ideally the approach through imagination and DISCOVERING DANCE, Rachel Percival (University of through exploration should go together; for we are London Press, Ltd., Warwick Square, E.C.4). not body or mind, but mind-body or body-mind, MUSIC, MOVEMENT, AND MIME FOR CHILDREN, and whatever one does with one affects the other. Vera Gray and Rachel Percival (Oxford University Press, That is why, I feel, it matters so much that children London, New York, Toronto). should be given freedom to move and the kind of The following are obtainable from Macdonald & Evans, 8 John Street, Bedford Row, London W. C. 1. movement which develops the whole individual. MODERN EDUCATIONAL DANCE, Rudolph Laban. Then we shall probably meet with Krishnamurti EFFORT, Rudolph Laban in collaboration with when he says: F. C. Lawrence, M. C. THE MASTERY OF MOVEMENT ON THE STAGE, "And when you do something with your whole Rudolph Laban MODERN DANCE IN EDUCATION, Joan Russell being, if you can come to that state, when you A HANDBOOK FOR MODERN EDUCATIONAL DANCE, are yourself in action, then you will find out Valerie Preston. the ecstasy of reality, God."

"Spring in Winter" VIOLET BRUCE

I have come only gradually to my present stage of My own professional work is in the dance depart­ intense interest in the process of solving teaching ment of a College of Teacher Training in Leicester. problems for staff in schools for educationally sub­ Some of my students are inevitably going to teach normal children and in departments for these chil­ the less able children, but children in special dren in ordinary schools. classes and in special schools are taught as far as possible by experienced teachers with further train­ More and more clearly it became obvious to me ing. We have in College what is called a Supple­ that the expressive arts are very important for less mentary Course for experienced teachers who are able children as ways in which they can compensate specializing in the teaching of educationally sub­ to some extent for their difficulties in communica­ normal and other handicapped children. tion. Among the arts dance is prominent as an activity in which these children are very success­ My College work keeps me very occupied, but I do ful and which they enjoy tremendously. all my work with children at present with these so- called educationally sub-normal children. (I do not I should explain that the children with whom I am much like this term, and prefer the term you use, concerned are those who, in England, have failed "children in special education," or "exceptional to succeed in the classes of the ordinary state children.") My students are very interested in this schools and are being taught in special classes in work and are a great help and a source of inspira­ the ordinary schools or in special day or boarding tion to me. I have worked in a residential school schools. Often children who are in the latter schools for educationally sub-normal boys; in a residential are those who it is considered might do better if school for educationally sub-normal younger chil­ living away from their homes. dren (7-13 approximately) for short periods only;

Violet Bruce has been concerned, for a long time, with teaching educationally subnormal children. In addition, she is engaged in the teacher training program of the Dance Department at the City of Leicester Training College, England. 59 and most of all with children in the special classes express their ideas. They do not use word language of a local senior school in a deprived area of this well, and find writing difficult or impossible as a town. In this latter school I have the close coopera­ means of expression. They can, however, dance tion of the teachers and can so keep in touch with their ideas, communicating and coming to terms the everyday activity. with their experiences. It is important to feed their imagination, however. So often a Head Teacher has I am concerned to use for these children all the said to me, "These children have no imagination." ways in which they can most easily communicate: To have imagination there must be a stimulating en­ painting, modeling, dancing, acting, making music vironment and a means by which one can express and percussion, and of course talking. As I am a imaginative ideas. It is important to make the en­ teacher of dance, however, and a lover of music, vironment for these children as rich as possible, it is in these areas that I can most help. to read stories, show pictures, go for walks, to listen to music. Everything is important that en­ First, and Very important, it is possible and very livens and enriches the everyday life and feeds into likely that all members of the class can achieve experience. Then we can hope that imaginative success through movement, dance and dance drama. growth can take place. Everyone can take part; there is no competition and each one can contribute. One must remember that Dance helps in the process of socialization. Some­ these children have experienced failure to a quite times these classes are difficult to teach, the chil­ marked degree, and it is very important that they dren tend to quarrel, do not share easily, and their succeed, or at least do not suffer more acute fail­ surface behavior is sometimes anti-social, even ure. A teacher must be ready to guide clearly and though they are fundamentally very generous, like­ simply, and be ready to help their ideas to take able people. There are many reasons for their shape, however unlike her own preconceived ideas difficult behavior. I often wonder when a usually they may be. gentle child is harsh and rude, what kind of evening or morning it has been at home. They need to learn Movement is an art which children can use from group relationship, to fit into a group dance, to the very beginning. We need no materials, no mix­ share the floor space, to fit in with someone else's ing of colour, only a body, some space and a teacher ideas. to guide. We are always grateful for some per­ cussion instruments and some music, but the needs Physically, dance helps a great deal. When a child are small. Technique, expressive and creative is not happy the head is not lifted, the body is not work can develop alongside one another so that alert and radiating. Dance gives reason for body enjoyment and personal development are gained awareness, for tension, activity and aliveness. whilst the body becomes more supple, controlled These children often have poor posture and stature, and coordinated. These children are sometimes and they do not need remedial physiotherapy to very well coordinated and rhythmically aware, but stretch and strengthen their bodies, but joy and often they have difficulty with bodily action, with success to bring light into their eyes and liveliness rhythm. Movement training does give them in­ into their bodies. creased confidence anda sense of achievement, and a good teacher will see that the balance of guidance The arts of dance and music are very closely con­ and freedom given is such that the children are not nected. I am concerned that music, too, can help worried or frustrated by failure to conform. In these children to succeed and to communicate. Its dance it is possible for these children to work at language is more difficult to acquire at the earliest their own level and not to be relegated to an in­ levels than that of early dance, and there are many ferior group or to stand out prominently as failures. ways in which dance can help the children musically. We use percussive sound as stimulus and as accom­ Enjoyment is a very important factor. One who fails paniment to movement. The children learn about so much does not know muchjoy. Many of theless sounds as they make them, and come to understand successful children are so because their environ­ how the qualities of movement, strength, lightness, ment has been, and is, a deprived one in some way. quickness, sustainment, free.dom of flow, control, Therefore, to give these children joy, to make their measured bounding, roundaboutness and directness eyes shine, in an extremely important thing. Dance are also in sound and music. They learn through can do this. their bodies about musical rhythm and phrasing. Through dance and dance drama these children can They come to know and to love music which we might 60

call "good" music, some of which has stood the time, and I believe that it was necessary to compen­ test of time. sate for the fact that I was a relative stranger and my visits were, at most, only at weekly intervals. We learn in dance to relax, to be still. These chil­ dren are often excitable, emotionally stirred and In a school for educationally sub-normal senior boys physically restless, and stillness is very important. I found much more immediate success. The atmos - phere in this school is such that the boys are very Most important of.all, I think, is the experience of friendly and eager to please, joyous in doing some­ living which they get through dance and dance drama. thing in which they find success. These boys have The world becomes alive and they become part of it. no real movement training, and, because they are Then they have something of their experience to from 13 to 17 years of age, I found myself moving talk about. Words come to mean something, they very quickly into drama. have experienced their meaning. There is some­ thing which they wish to paint, to model, something On one occasion, when a group of students came to to write about, even something to read about. observe, I was concerned that the boys should not This world is a very hard place for a person who be embarrassed by an audience and decided to work has to admit that he cannot read. Is what we are in the large garden with its many alcoves and path­ trying to do going to help some children to use word ways, trees and bushes. I must confess that I won­ language, not simply to acquire a halting, transient dered if I would ever get the group back together skill, but really to use words? This is what I be­ again. lieve. We did the calling of the tribes by Gitche Manito of Here is a letter written in a very spidery pencil to "Hiawatha." .In our version one tribe lived over the me: mountain, one along the river, and one through the "Daceing is wonderful. We only have one forest. Gitche Manito strode out with enormous lesson a week but its the only lesson I love... dignity to the middle of the lawn. He smoked his All so your free in dacing. Miss Bruce Im pipe, sending the smoke in his mime high into the really happy when I am dacing, it has got a air. The Indians at the far end of the path, long feelinglike spring even if lam dacing in winter. disappeared from my sight, "came in their canoe." Yours sincerely It took them a long time but the boys were absorbed 4 F (class) and it did not matter. The Indians came through the rhododendron bushes, straightened up and with These children need essentially the security of a great dignity paid reverence to their Chief. The teacher they know really well and a certain conti­ third group mounted the slope and leapt down on to nuity of pattern in the work. For instance, when the lawn. To my great relief all were then gathered. working with a very large and restless group of The scene continued as the boys and I discussed it. juniors with a variety of individual difficulties, I They broke into speech, the Chief admonishing, had to establish a pattern so secure that the chil­ taking the words I had used when telling them the dren relaxed somewhat and became teachable. We story. Then we had a dance of friendship around sat around on chairs; I looked at the shoe laces the drum in the centre of the lawn. The drum was to be sure they were tied and the shoes on the right played by a boy who had amazing sense of the con­ feet. Each child so passed went and lay quietly on sistency of pulse. After the dance the Indians re­ the floor. I then played music of a restful kind, turned home, as they had come. This time I had no usually string music, whilst the children lay relaxed fear, the boys were really "inside" their work. with eyes shut. We then did what the children called their "dancing." This was movement language. We Watching this absorbed, well timed; sincere drama, moved softly, quickly, strongly, high up, low down one would not, except for the obvious physical dif­ leading with different parts of our bodies, jumping, ficulties of one or two boys who had brain damage, creeping, going forwards and backwards. We used really know that these were not a group of com­ rhythmic patterns on the tambour and responded pletely normal senior boys. freely. Such was to the children "our dancing." We then went on to do "our acting," which was, in In this school we are now doing some dance drama fact, often dancing, but for them it was the making in relation to religious education. Two weeks ago of a dance or dramatic sequence, a simple but we "acted" David and Goliath, andsome of the epi­ created thing. This pattern was unvaried for some sodes of the journeying of Paul. The boys quite 61 naturally, because their movement language is limi­ and unstable, went quietly straight through into per­ ted, come to speech to make up for this. In any case formance. I am sure that members of the staff of we are anxious that speech should be used freely this large secondary school, who think of these because itis so important for them, and movement girls as troublesome and difficult, would, as were is a way in which the confidence and freedom can the two teachers present, have been amazed by the be gained which allow the speech to come more beauty, absorption and responsible attitude in this imaginatively and fully. work.

The senior girls who are in the special department These girls needverymuchto succeed. I cannever of a secondary school come mostly from deprived get much technique and movement language done as backgrounds. They have a dedicated teacher, but preparation. They cannot yet see the necessity to one who is not confident enough to teach movement, prepare and wish to embark immediately upon the dance and drama. thing in hand. At present it is the "Wraggle Taggle Gypsies" which I hope will bring them in touch with These girls were our guests at College at Christmas strong rhythm and counter tension in movement as when we did a dance drama which we called "Gold, well as with excitement and dramatic experience. Frankincense and Myrrh." We used the story of the birth of Christ including the foretelling through the As you see, story is often very important for these Kings of Christ's future on earth. We took the entry children. They enter in and give freely. They be­ of Christ into Jerusalem in triumph, the healing come something other than the rather unsuccessful of the blind man, and the betrayal of Christ in the persons they know as themselves. garden. These events were linked with the gifts brought by the Kings. I think the girls understood I am so much at the beginning of this work. It is more because of their dancing and acting. I pro­ necessary that teachers who really know these chil­ duced the outline and they played the individual parts. dren day by day, learn how to deal with expressive things, so that dance, drama, art, music and all An interesting thing happened. We needed to go into the other activities which educate feelings and emo­ the hall to rehearse with the proper space, but, on tions as well as intellect become part of the every­ entering, found a student audience already waiting. day teaching of the child who has not succeeded in I was disturbed, but the girls, usually so excitable the ordinary class in the ordinary school.

Comments on Dance in Education

JOANNA GEWERTZ In the United States—Now

Discussions concerning "dance in education—now" him more aware of himself and his own capacity in are focused on expanding support for dance from movement. The degree to which this may be ac­ wider sources and evaluating what has been ac­ complished is dependent not only upon the calibre complished and the integration of new ideas in con­ of teaching, butalso upon the situation in which the tinuing currents. In the course of big plans and teaching-learning process is occurring. In this large scale predictions, we sometimes fail to lis­ regard such elements as physical facilities, teacher ten to the "still small voices "which speak directly preparation, curricular organization, and commu­ from their contact with dance as on-going activity nity attitudes become of utmost importance. in their everyday life, i.e., high school and college teachers, students, parents, interested partici­ The following excerpts are taken from two sources: pants and performers. Experience in dance is of tapes of discussions presented by WGBH — Boston value to the individual participant in so far as it in cooperation with the Dance Circle of Boston, and leads him to a greater understanding of dance and informal questionnaires and letters from various the other arts as media of communication and makes teachers. We feel they speak for themselves and

Joanna Gewertz, Bay Area dance teacher and choreographer, is an IMPULSE board member. We wish to thank Virginia Bullard for making the tapes of the Boston Dance Circle Symposium available to us for this article. 62

dance in the United States — now. was some of the most valuable leisure time that I had, these hours I had to spend on dance. Gus Solomons, Jr. Performer Mrs. Irene Bickelman Chairman of Creative Concert dance and chamber dance are developing Arts Committee, Newton PTA Council; mother of rapidly, now in the past few years, more so than three teen-age girls. before. Previously dance was concerned with thea­ ter, theatrical dancing; now people are getting more I can tell you about dance as a spectator. For the concerned with dance as movement for its own sake last two years I have come to observe the dance and what it can do in relationship to time and space classes at the New England Conservatory. I have and in relationship to sound — which may or may never danced and could never dream of myself going not be music — and color — which may or may not out on the floor and doing exercises. There are be in the form of costumes or lighting. We are be­ many people here who do take those classes for hind the other arts, in terms of thinking. There two and a half hours. I am always completely a- are so many practicalities that have to be con­ mazed and come away thinking, "How truly creative sidered in dance, so many disciplines that detract these people are." Watching their expression, from the thing itself — the movement. Just learn­ their movement, their intensity ... it is the most ing how to do it is a big problem. Maybe I can only exciting two and a half hours I ever spend. I bring speak for niyself, but we're behind, in the sense books and never read them because I'm watching of the kind of philosophical thinking that makes us all the time. As a result I find myself going to put dances together. We aren't as advanced as, say, performances that Dance Circle has put on and the pop artists or artists of the ilk of Rauschenberg other performing groups in the area — my daughter and Jasper Johns or composers who are doing music takes us to them. The first few times we saw mod­ concrete. We are just now creeping into that area, ern dance, we could hardly sit through the per­ getting away from so-called interpretive or ab­ formance, but after a while we began to enjoy and stract dancing into the realm of non-objective danc­ to understand something that was so completely ing. Dancing is concerned with human beings who different than anything we had ever known. It has have personalities, who have emotions. But we been quite a wonderful experience for our family are realizing that these emotions, and personalities to have a dancer in it. don't have to be used for their own sake. Sonya Hamlin Dance Teacher Edward S. Klima Assistant Professor of Linguistics One of the saddest things about dance in this coun­ try is that it gets stuck in New York. It takes many In the course of the years, when I had lost enough years to develop the concept that in another city you bashfulness to -think about taking a dance class, I can have excellent dance teaching. There are not finally decided to try one. It happened at that time enough people who have liberal arts training who that Merce Cunningham was here in Boston and I could qualify as dance teachers and come to the took one of his classes. I guess I decided that since public school program and say, "I am a teacher I enjoyed watching dance it might be wise to learn of dance!" and could start dance in the curriculum. alittle something about it. This seems to represent There aren't enough of them, even here, and Boston some kind of a trend now. It's not enough to watch is a large city. The problem of teacher quality is something, you want to sample it yourself. I got true. a lot of attention from Mr. Cunningham. (I'mnot "in" enough to call him Merce.) I discovered that Another problem of our culture is the education of I liked dancing very much, for some strange rea­ boys in dance. It was quite a shock to visit the son, so I took some more classes. The thing I Moiseyev Studios in Moscow and see 48 men at the liked most about it was not that it allowed me to ap­ barre and realize there was another class of simi­ preciate dance more, which it did also, but it did lar size waiting. It is a tremendous honor and a allow me to spend an hour and a half or two hours great goal for men to be dancers in that country. several times a week completely concentrating, Here the problem is a hard one to fight. We are both physically and mentally on some particular beginning to fight it with programs in the schools. activity — that is, dance. Furthermore it gave me Boys respond to dance performances. They jump a chance to experiment a little with my own body. up and down and ask lots of questions. Boys are I discovered things about balance, about expressive marvelously responsive to movement — that's why movement. It was really well worth the time. It they are such great dancers. 63

Dance should be taught differently to boys. After asked "What's the matter with you? Anybody else 8 years of age, the topics they want to dance about can take it! " They just have no conception that make them not very compatible with girls. Be­ once you are used to moving in a different way, you sides , at that age they can run and leap a lot harder can't go into this kind of exercise. For the first and longer than girls and want to dance about more 16 jumps I would plie and they would say, "Jump!" bloody things! The teachers don't seem to have a conception of what dance is. Shannon De Voe Dance Therapist Kids then will go outside the school for dance. That The necessity for dance inthe classroom has been gets around and anyone who is a dancer or is con­ demonstrated by research into learning problems nected with dance is very much looked on as some­ of all kinds. Children atvery young ages who don't one off-beat or kooky. You can always tell the learn to use their bodies properly are hindered in dancers in my school, they all come out the same. later learning of subjects seemingly as removed It's not that when they get out of class they are the from movement as logarithms. As children de­ same as the non-dancers at school. I don't mean velop, their first way of exploring and knowing is that they go back to being like everyone else. In through motor activity. That is why we can say dance class they argue about what is right and wrong that there is a motoric, or bodily, basis for all in dancing — "This is what I feel and I'm going to knowledge. It has been found that children with show it." When they get out of class they are all severe reading problems often cannot differentiate the same and they really believe they are being dif­ the left and right parts of their bodies or cannot ferent. Maybe if they become professional they separate distinct parts. The first level of learn­ will become more individual. But now they look ing must involve bodily knowledge. From there the same, but they are sure they are being differ­ one can move into cognitive levels, but you have to ent. They don't realize they are being different in get into the bones first. exactly the same way.

Irene Bickelman Irene Bickelman The P.T.A. of Newton has brought dance groups In defence of the P. E. teacher. . . they are doing a to perform during assembly programs in the pri­ job. This is very new, dance in the schools. We mary schools. The children of Newton have been have to crawl before we walk. They are now look­ able to see the difference between professional ing for P.E. teachers who have had dance training. dance (people who have done it for a long while) and The child who has never had any dance and would amateurs fooling around. Dancers may not yet be never go to any dance class, has a taste of what able to get certification to go into the schools and modern dance is. This is an introduction to an art teach, but if they would work with a gym teacher, and it has great potential. Perhaps someday they giving lecture - demonstrations, master classes, will have the budget to hire a dance person in the etc. , they would create work for themselves and a gym departments. The interest is there.. .we have potential audience for dance. to be a little patient.

High School Teacher 1. Joelle Murat High School Student I teach many classes in modern dance, all with Dance is usually an extracurricular activity. In our varying schedules. I may have a class every day school they started a dance club, with a teacher who for five or six weeks and not see them again unless had one or two years' experience. When she left they elect to take the special dance class which is we had a gym teacher. The high school kids, who offered tothe upper grades. In that case, they will otherwise would be very susceptible to dance, be­ have class every day for 18 to 23 weeks. come discouraged when they are shown what dance is from a gym teacher. The things that are intro­ Class space is not large enough and classes have duced as dance are just pure calisthenics. There reached enrollments as large as 50. I feel that was no free movement in these classes, just a few the P.E. Department supports values which work exercises. Sometimes gym teachers show little against the values I have for dance. The "physical understanding of the body, like starting class with fitness" emphasis has been interpreted as a re­ 32 jumps but nothing to stretch your legs at all. quired 12 minute calisthenic session at the beginning After two weeks of this I got this terrible case of of each period. The exercises stress endurance shin splints and went around hobbling. The teachers and speed, not quality. Jumping rope on cement 64

and other exercises which encourage incorrect use not leave the movement in a cliche' state but learns of the feet and arms develop a way of moving which to develop and vary it. is very difficult to counteract in dance work. Jazz, drill team and pom-pom activities seem to lead to I always have some wonderful and responsive stu­ a "move and stop, move and stop" style, or to the dents . But professionally I often feel alone in the habit of "just getting" from one postion to another high school and feel more at home with the art and and defeats many of the quality objectives of dance. social studies departments.

The emphasis on tests and measurements and the High School Teacher 2. limitations they impose often means that students I teach nine dance classes, four in beginning dance, are put into dance classes on the basis of exams three in intermediate dance and two dance produc­ which are not competent to evaluate prerequisites tion classes. We are able to give about ten minutes for dance. Body alignment and even good posture of technique a day, the rest of the time must go for are sacrificed for achievement in tests. dressing, announcements and time to compose or rehearse forthe concert which is given at the end I feel that I was lucky to be educated during the ex­ of the semester. Our classes are large; sometimes perimental times of the '30's and the discipline of 40 students in a space smaller than a basketball the '40's. I believe that I have a welcoming atti­ court. tude tothe new with standards of good performance — notjust "anythinggoes." Students are now enter­ Although the dance program has always been very ing the dance field with low standards in composi­ much student - oriented and geared to producing tion and educational objectives. One student teacher dances that the students themselves compose, the wanted to have a night club owner come to school other Fine Arts classes have tended to be super to judge the high school students! I must train teacher-directed and highly oriented to provide in­ student teachers in the simplest skills before they expensive, mediocre entertainment for the com­ can handle my classes. They do not even know a munity. Although musical comedies are fun, they "round"nor a "groundbass"nor "resultantrhythm." are generally in the opposite direction aesthetically from what we spend our class time on. However, I wish professional dancers would not go in forthe there seems to be a trend away from community- great gobs of negative criticism. The P.E. teachers public relations oriented arts programs and to­ delight in telling me how one modern dancer they wards some real academic interest inthe arts. I heard at a concert ripped the performer to shreds. am very pleased with this new trend and the ad­ Modern dance is a minor art and when one is the ministrative cooperation and appreciation of our only one inthe school who is in the field one needs program. to feel more solidarity from without.

I question the advisability of high schools' having High School Teacher 3. classes for the express purpose of training students I started a Modern Dance Club in a school which to perform in musicals. The forces in the state had no dance program until I came. The club de­ which are opposed to folk dance as a frill were able veloped 30 members quickly. Three boys who play­ to keep folk dance out of adult education. Dance for ed in the band accompanied on the drums, after I musicals seems more of a frill to me and it, is apt taught them how to follow movement, not set it. to take us all out of the schools with it. When I left, after one year, the club was dropped. It seems a shame to reduce the opportunity when Some of the movies on modern dance are good. such great interest was kindled. Some of the worst come from colleges. I began the dance program in a gym shared by the Sometimes when I take my dance students to a pro­ other P.E. teacher. Creativity does not blossom gram they will say, "You won't let us do that!", and when the kids can catch glances at a volleyball game I sure won't. I am referring to ballet turns and the on the other side of the gym. We moved to the cafe­ splits and other cliches . .. and obvious treatment teria and moved tables four times a day. The floor of story material. A student is going to startwhere was not good, but the atmosphere was better. she is, and a high school student has not seen a cliche enough times to recognize it as a cliche. It is the I was lucky that the principal I worked for had an teacher's responsibility to see that the student does openmind. He would have continued a stronger pro- 65 gram had he been able to find someone to lead it. teaching methods, and production problems; I have an M.A. in dance, but in order to teach in courses in dance history and theory, and oppor­ the schools, I must have a P.E. degree. Why must tunity for independent research; a regular schedule I have a P.E. degree to teach only dance ? Dance is of performances of various kinds both on and off the such a specialized area that it takes all of one's campus — these, within the context of a liberal arts time to really do it well. curriculum, comprise the "dancer's world" of our students for their four undergraduate years (or, High School Teacher 4. inthe case of graduate students, two years of grad­ In the University High School where I taught, dance uate study). This program is possible largely was offered on an elective basis to junior and senior because Dance has been, for many years, an inde­ students five days a weekplus after-school activities pendent department within the Fine Arts Division. open to all at beginning, intermediate and advanced The plan was instituted not because of conflict with­ levels. It was an ideal teaching situation, the only in the former P. E. - Dance arrangement, but ra­ limitation being that dance classes were not open to ther because a knowledgeable and forward-looking boys, although they did participate in after-school college administration recognized the essentially activities, especially those relating to performance artistic nature of dance and sought to place this in school musicals. The high school age group I activity where it would logically seem to belong and found to be extraordinarily challenging and stimu­ could function best. lating. Our future relies on these open minds. Conclusion College Teacher 1. Dr. Harold Taylor, former president of Sarah After three years, I am leaving my university dance Lawrence College, has suggested in a lecture re­ position. I was determined to get the better of it, ported in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE that but I have come to the conclusion that it is impos­ our schools have become concerned with building sible because there is no understanding of dance. "invulnerability" to all experience which is in any From things I have heard, the picture has not way dangerous or exciting. "The effect has been to changed in 20 years. drive out of schools and colleges the creative arts and the creative attitude, and to crowd our curricula One difficult fight has been subjective feelings in with more and more requirements, more tests, other staff members because the dance teacher is more grades and more machinery for destroying the mostly interested in dance as an art. Not only does initiative and spontaneity of the American student." this take her into a realm outside the rest of P. E. , but it also means (to them) that she does not equally It is evident from the feelings expressed above that concern herself with Folk, Square and Social Dance. these attitudes affect dance teaching on many levels. I talked to the head of my department once about im­ The struggle to maintain the opportunity for quali­ provisation (structured highly) and she answered for tative experiences has led to endless compromises teacher-directed technique as the only way to in­ in regard to who teaches and how dance is taught. crease skill because it leads to the development of Nevertheless, we are continually assured that dance force, speed, and accuracy. does provide the kind of concentrated, stimulating, Like anyone else, I want and need understanding, and evocative experiences that can sensitize the encouragement and interest. For obvious reasons individual tothe impossibility of invulnerability and I no longer feel I can work with dance within a P. E. involve him directly in situations which might be department and will seek to work where dance is imaginatively dangerous and in all ways exciting. honored within a department of its own. As our programs expand and more and more money College Teacher 2. and personnel are poured into the arts, we must Although our work might seem tobe hampered by a bear in mind that quality can not always be bought — lack of adequate theatre resources for presenting it must be developed. A poor experience in class either our own dancers or visiting artists, and can close the mental and physical avenues to further the space and facilities for dance teaching are experiences. The arts, and dance as the oldest restricted and somewhat antiquated, I believe that new art, must constantly maintain that vitality of our students have a rare opportunity to work con­ freedom and growth which can lead each person to sistently and in depth on the many elements that reject the mundane or the mediocre and to move contribute to the development of a dancer-choreo­ toward aesthetic values appropriate to the recog­ grapher - teacher. Daily classes in technique; nition of individuality and encouragement of the graded work in composition; study of notation, creative attitude. PULSE 1965

ift/minrr inn Dance in Relation to the

IMPULSE I 9J1 Individual and Society (out of print)

IMPULSE 1952 Production Issue

IMPULSE 1 953 Dance in Education (out of print)

IMPULSE 1954 Dance as Communication (out of print)

IMPULSE 1955 Theories of Choreography (out of print)

IMPULSE 1956 Dance and Related Arts (out of print) IMPULSE 1957 Dance for Children (out of print)

IMPULSE 1958 Theories and View Points (out of print)

IMPULSE 1959 Arch Lauterer—Poet in the Theatre

IMPULSE 1960 Dance in the Screen Media

IMPULSE 1961 The Dancer as a Person (out of print)

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IMPULSE 1962 Audience for Dance

IMPULSE 1963-1964 International Exchange in Dance MODERN DANCE FORMS In Relation to the Other Modern Arts 9 by Louis Horst and Carroll Russell. $5.00

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