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CURRENT TRENDS Copyright 1966 by Impulse Publications, Inc. Index

Ernestine Stodelle ffiEVOILPTnOM ©IE EW©ILETII©]S? 6

Roberta Meyer FffiEEHDOMI Tfflffi©lEJ

Peter Yates Vn»n©KIS OF IBABICE 11

Sidney Peterson ffiUBlIDlLE-lME-TfflEffi 15

NOTES FROM ABROAD

Ann Hutchinson 1966 — TfflE EKKGILIISffl SCEME: A Conversation 16 Clover Roope John Graham II WEBRT T© EffiSHLAMlD) 22 Interview by Bernice Peterson Claude Pujade Renaud F-Affilffi ]K©TES 25

Lawrence Halprin fln©TA.Tn©BI & Lorle Kranzler B&EFILECT1I©]BIS HSI M©TI©IBI 34 Hank Kranzler A Photographic Essay

Lou Harrison ffiOCEETT, UOHIJ$nCIIA.]BI, M1CE1, MACfflESE— 40

William Bales ©ABBCE A.T BEKISrillBKGTWISJ 42 A Curriculum Statement for a Liberal Arts College

Ruth Lovell Murray TOAMCE EK TfflE lD>ETffi©HT ffi

Gloria Unti PEffiF©ffiMIlSI© AffiTS W©HLKSffl©F 50 Interview by Joanna Gewertz

Faith Gulick OQHSBBECTnCimT C©ILILE

Eleanor Lauer MIEILS C©EEE(EE " EFWAKED HB©ESnD>" FHR©

630507 Preface

When we chose "Current Trends" as the subject for of the Establishment, and detect a "whiff of change" IMPULSE 1966, it immediately became apparent as they report young professional dance enterprises that it could involve just about anything: avant- in London. garde, anti-dance, regional ballet, subsidization John Graham speaks about the experiences of the (private and public), happenings, non - dancers San Francisco Dancers' Workshop in Finland under dancing, sociology, education, research, profes­ the auspices of university students in Helsinki. sional organizations, standards, arts councils, He gives us insight into the ways this Workshop etc., etc. To attempt to cover such a list is utterly group utilizes movement and environment. impossible, so, as in previous years, we have in­ vited individuals who are working in various aspects Claude Pujade Renaud reviews a modern dance of dance to put into words what they are doing and concert in Paris, bemoaning the fact that more large what they hope to accomplish. IMPULSE , by its American companies don't travel to Paris. very name, communicates a sense of breath, in­ volvement, dedication and "unfinished business." "Motation," a movement notation system developed We put a date on each issue — there is no "last by Lawrence Halprin, landscape architect, is pre­ word." The articles range from report to evaluation. sented as an example of notation which deals with In each case, what is striking is that these contri­ environment. As Mr. Halprin points out, it does butors from across this country and parts of Europe not supercede Labanotation, but, when stages and are individuals, varied as they may be, who are other performing places are composed of moveable concerned with the art of dance and are at the base platforms, ramps and steps, and dancers perform of its growth and the increasing recognition of its on light battens, ladders, nets, etc., a simple floor importance as an art. plan drawing is not sufficient. Motation may provide an answer to the environment aspect of Ernestine Stodelle focuses her attention on the notation. avant-garde group in the New York area (not the "far-outers" she explains) comparing its working The "Photographic Essay" with photographs by Hank methods, idealogy and productions with those of the Kranzler gives us a glimpse of an experimental "traditionalists." She sees an exciting mainstream program "Reflections in Motion" at KQED — The of modern dance. Bay Area Television Station, in which 20 teenage Roberta Meyer, a teacher of ballet with unusual re­ boys and girls participated under the direction of ceptivity to a broad range of dance theater, states Lorle Kranzler. Composer Lou Harrison, one of the case for a strong ballet technique as a founda­ two composers who worked with this project, has tion for experimentation — even in the current put down some of his feelings and attitudes concern­ "anti-dance" manifestations. ing the relationships of music and dance. Although he decries mechanization, he looks forward to the Sidney Peterson, in his short piece, makes crystal possible future of dance in the weightless state. clear the difficulties of thinking and writing about a kinesthetic art. It serves as a warning to the would- William Bales' curriculum statement for dance at be research worker and theorist with tendencies to Bennington College provides other teachers and over -verbal ization. administrators with a model with which to compare Peter Yates looks at three performances in Los their own plans for expansion of dance facilities and Angeles and tells what he sees. Along with percep­ programs which are growing all over the country. tive observation he uses a wide frame of reference The last four essays present situations and projects that moves the essay into the field of aesthetic which are subsidized, wholly or in part, by private evaluation. or public funds. Ruth L. Murray reports on dance A conversation between Ann Hutchinson and Clover in the Detroit Schools. Current recipient of federal Roope on current trends in England is the first of and Ford Foundation grants, Detroit has a long three "Notes from Abroad." They consider the history of important and exciting dance in the public prospects of a "new" dance succeeding in the face schools. Here, again, we find that dedicated work of individuals has been the means by which pro­ tunities for boys and girls throughout the country. grams are developed and recognized. In this instance, as well, dance is included as an integral part of the curriculum. Gloria Unti describes the Performing Arts Work­ shop in San Francisco. This cultural program is We are proud to dedicate this issue of IMPULSE to funded under the Office of Economic Opportunity. Martha Hill, whose continuing devotion to dance is recognized and valued throughout the dance world. A Rockefeller Grant made possible the Connecticut William Schuman, President of LINCOLN CENTER College Summer Program in the Humanities with FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, has said of Martha William Meredith as director. Faith Gulick reports Hill, "The entire focus of her distinguished career the first session. It is significant that dance is in­ has been one of service. Her role as educator has cluded as a part of the program along with other been marked by an understanding of artistic goals arts. The projected federally sponsored Upward which were never diluted for educational exigencies. Bound Program at Mills College, described by It is not often that the two masters, artistic excel­ Eleanor Lauer, provides another example of the lence and educational validity, are so completely growing number of educational and cultural oppor­ fused in one individual." MVT

Editor: Marian Van Tuyl

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

Design: Lilly Weil Jaffe

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Cover: Dancers — Marc Ozanich (top) and Clyde Morgan Bennington College Dance Group Photo — Matthias Tarnay Hand lettering — David Lauer

Translation of "Paris Notes" by Virginia Bosche 25 Labanotation Score: Ann Hutchinson, LABANOTATION (New York, 27 New Directions, 1954, p. 60) Musical Score: Morton Subotnick 28

Photographs by courtesy of: Blackstone-Shelburne, New York 4 Daniel E. Lewis, New York 8 Hank Kranzler, Palo Alto, California 23, 35, 36, 37, 38 39, 40 Matthias Tarnay 42, 45 Detroit Public Schools — Audio-Visual Service Department 47, 48 Jimmy Tafoya, Detroit Free Press 49 Alvin Davis, San Francisco 51, 53 Gefcheidle, San Francisco 52, 54

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. "Martha Hill has always created a 'magneticfield' in which dancers confidently experiment — warmed by her generosity and personal understanding — as well as her complete empathy with the struggles and mysteries of the creative process.

"Martha Hill's American roots are tuned to a Whitmanesque uni­ versality and integrity. Her span is tremendous — from earthy practicality and humor to utmost flights of vision and experiment." Barbara Morgan 1966 is dedicated to MARTHA HILL

All expressions of indebtedness to Martha Hill are likely to be intimate as well as collective. Private kindness has been the means by which she has added to those public benefits which the present award seeks to acknowledge in the name of contemporary Dance and Dance Education in America. Though the effectof her untiring surveillance of Dance over the years is literally massive, and may be measured in terms of institu­ tions — The Bennington School of Dance (Winter and Summer), The Connecticut College School of Dance, the Department of Dance at two Juilliards, American Dance Festivals everywhere —her touch has remained the dancer's touch, spacy and visionary rather than enclosed, exploratory rather than peremptory, confidential rather than managerial.

Nothing is more characteristic of Martha Hill than her capacity to magnify talent in the actof serving it. Her career has been creative in the most exacting sense of the word: for she has brought into existence a historic opportunity for student, audience, and performing artist in the dance medium which would have been unthinkable without her. In the field of Dance Education, where her gifts of wisdom, perseverance, and imagination have been directed for three decades, her influence has been a decisive factor in the advancement of American taste. It is the presence of Martha Hill, more thanthatofany single figure, which has made the difference between an era of scarcity and anarchy in contemporary dance, and that repertory of considered masterpieces which has found their way to an expanding fellowship of spectators. Serving an unruly art in search of its prerogatives, she has hastened the literacy of theater-goers all over the world, and furnished the spiritual cornerstone for that "school of dance" whose truest measure is an era's enlightenment.

Her triumph has been to conserve and extend the entire range of dance activity in our time, enhance its abundance: to unite the apprentice with the potentialities of his art and his talent, and the master with the rewards of his dedication. As such, she re­ mains indispensible to the future, as it rapidly takes shape in that colloquium of theatres and performing arts along the Lincoln Center Mall. \SJU

Written by Ben Belitt on the occasion of the presentation of the Heritage Award to Martha Hill by the Dance Division ofAAHPER. Revolution or Evolution?

ERNESTINE STODELLE

Again and again in the history of art, the scene To their credit, the new guard has expanded and repeats itself. The "old" revolutionary entrenched enriched an inherited technique with important con­ in the esthetic structure which he has raised in tributions which show a healthy progression towards the name of his ideals stands facing the "new" broader and more imaginative uses of movement. revolutionary. On both sides there is antagonism — At their best, their tenets have an amazing range the established artist seeking to conserve the (we are referring to the avant-gardists who function stronghold of his accomplishment, the newcomer in the conventional theatre, not the "far-outers"). demanding "lebensraum" for his own esthetic creed. At one end, there is the absorption with movement") Behind each is the public he has drawn unto himself. as being expressive-in-itself; at the other end,-^ Such a scene is taking place at present between the there are the stimulating experiments with dance traditionalists and theavant-gardistsinthe modern as a composite theatre art, in which lighting, cos­ dance. tuming, props and sound effects are integrated with the movement. Between the two extremes lie a The old guard accuses the new guard of empty for­ variety of individual techniques, some highly pro­ malism, dehumanization, withdrawal, etc. Avant- ductive, some trite and uninspired. Diversified as gardists retort that traditional dance is archaic in it is, avant-garde dance —like traditional dance — terms of contemporary late-twentieth-century life. aims to discover (and communicate) "an inner sensitivity to every one of the body's parts, to the * "What an accusation! " say the traditionalists, "We power of its whole, and to the space in which it represent Man himself — his sufferings, insights, carves its designs" (Louis Horst, MODERN DANCE glories, defeats, as seen from the vantage point of FORMS). today's experiences." It may be argued that the philosophy which dominates "That's just the trouble. Man is in his own way. the avant-garde creed states itself in altogether With his tiresome emotions he creates a fog in different terms from the "humanistic"impulse be­ which movement itself is befuddled. Your dances hind traditional dance; that the renunciation of the are anti-dance." emotional self dispenses with motivation altogether;, that movement no longer directly expressive of a "Anti-dance! That's what yours are!" state of mind or feeling becomes, like water or air, ,K a transparent or neutral thing moved by propulsions And so on. But while the argument accelerates, from unknown sources—in other words, the victim works by choreographers on both sides of the ideo­ of chance experience. logical fence reveal that the bitter controversy is, jy au fond, a family spat. The argument between Chance and Choice in con­ temporary dance recalls the eternal debate between It is true that avant-gardists Merce Cunningham, free will and fate. There are those who agree with Erick Hawkins, Alwin Nikolais, Paul Taylor — to Shakespeare that it". . . is not in our stars, but in mention leading figures of the "new" dance — ourselves, that we are underlings"; and those who succeed in freeing the body of its emotional drives believe in fate — or "the stars" — as the supreme in the conventional sense; whereas, the "humanists" governing power of our lives. But both of these Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Jose Limon, philosophies infer a conflict between human motiva­ Pearl Lang, Anna Sokolow and other prominent tion and forces of "destiny" — an essentially per­ modern dancer-choreographers deal, in general, sonal point-of-view. Closer to the avant-garde with movement as psychological phenomenon. But vision of unmotivated movement is the philosophy the technical methods of both groups are funda­ of Zen Buddhism, in which personal will is relin­ mentally alike; each is concerned with the creative quished entirely as one submits effortlessly to life exploration of movement values. as it "happens." Though an intellectual argument is out of bounds on serves more as symbol than decoration. the stage of dance, where ideas have to be translated into esthetic and non-literary terms, every artist The abyss between human feeling and movement- builds his work on some philosophical foundation. essence narrows again in the work of Anna Sokolow, To this extent, a choreographer's personal philo­ whose message is essentially humanistic but whose sophy determines his movement-choices. But — choreographic technique comes curiously close to ironic thought — the audience at a dance concert is avant-garde methods of using form in the "abstract." unaware of the choreographer's working methods More of a sculptor than a dramatist, Anna Sokolow as such; it sees only the final product which must employs the textures and dynamics of non-literal stand or fall according to its esthetic merits as a forms to express her ideas rather than resorting theatrical experience. to narrative means that require mimetic interpre­ tation, in the manner of Graham and Limon. Group To many, Merce Cunningham's ballets, choreo­ choreography is her forte. graphed presumably on the Chance principle, convey an impression of meticulously worked-out patterns In the ballet, THE QUESTION, Anna Sokolow's of selected movement. They have a clarity and geo­ theme is the anonymity of twentieth-century man. metric precision that seem to belie Chance factors. She makes her points with a harrowing symbolism. This impression is, I think, due to the exquisitely As the curtain rises, a dim light reveals a clump disciplined dancing of a company superbly trained of figures massed together in an upstage corner. in a specific style. The art of Cunningham's Gradually, bodies begin to emerge, moving towards choreography rests, I feel, on the aristocratic the opposite corner with a heavy inertia. Some of beauty of the dancers' movements — not on the fact them slide helplessly to the ground as others move that the patterns are freely developed "ad lib" or laboriously over them. Then, the first group rises that emotionalism, per se, is "out." For the young, and advances. Wave after wave of faceless human especially, Cunningham's dance is - to use a phrase beings struggle onward to some vague imagined end. of his former director, Martha Graham - "an awak­ Miss Sokolow's question might well be: ening and intensifying of the awareness of life." Less than a leaf, If human emotion has irked the new choreographers, Frailer than a blade of grass... it must be admitted that they can't avoid depicting Where is Man some instances of it themselves. Without resorting In this grand plan to narration, Paul Taylor, whose gifts fall into Of rhythm, motion, mass? many categories, tells a terrible tale of man's flight from reality in SCUDERAMA. To illustrate his Is this humanist or avant-garde in attitude? Even point, Taylor uses a quote from Dante: "What souls the philosophical line begins to waver. are these who run through this black haze?" The result is a powerful tragi-comedy whose underlying That "inner sensitivity to every one of the body's statement eats away at one's thought long after the parts" (as described by Louis Horst) is most clearly curtain comes down. The form he has chosen to demonstrated by Erick Hawkins, who, of all avant- express his ideas is unforgettable as well, for gardists, comes closest to the traditionalists in within the fantasy of its contours there is a seering choice of inspirational material. Much of Hawkins' double entendre. Beneath the comic amphibious choreography deals with primitive forms, nature surface of SCUDERAMA's slithering, crawling and ritualistic play— familiar "old guard" subject movements with their interminable entanglements matter. However, Hawkins interprets these forms lies the story of man's loss of self-hood —and that with the sensory and imagistic technique that is is no laughing matter. characteristic of the avant-garde.

Even when Taylor deletes human reference alto­ The most adventurous of the avant-gardists is Alwin gether in a work such as TRACER, and writes Nikolais whose imagination, wit and daring have cryptic words of motion across the sky of space, led him and his disciples to the development of ex­ there is still something to stir human minds. In the citing theatrical forms, most of which are highly center of much of the dance action is a small silver entertaining. He often envelopes his dancers in wheel, spinning continuously with a soft whirring form-concealing garments that move independently sound. Does it signify universal motion or the of the human body with hilarious effects; his lighting spinning on and on of time? Whatever it means, it and sound scores (which he composes himself) add another dimension to dance movement. Yet, de­ Where, then, is the revolution? There is only the spite the emphasis on the mechanical side of dance mighty stream of modern dance flowing onward in presentation, Nikolais' works seem to show that its expressional course. May future trends be as man plus his environment is capable of limitless fertile and productive as those of today! action and is, therefore, the most worthy subject of art.

Ernestine Stodelle, wife of columnist John Chamberlain, was formerly a Humphrey -Weidman dancer. An editor on DANCE OBSERVER from 1960-64, she is presently writing a series on dance in colleges for DANCE MAGAZINE. In 1964 she wrote and published THE FIRST FRONTIER, the story of Louis Horst and the American dance.

Photo: Daniel E. Lewis

-* Freedom Through Discipline ROBERTA MEYER

It was not so many years ago that teachers of mod­ the day. However, this was less true in the dance ern dance forbade their students to study ballet world than it was in the other art forms. The lead­ technique. Within the past few years, however, the ers in the rebellion against ballet did not attempt trend has changed. Not only are modern dance an evolutionary growth out of the established tech­ students seeking ballet training on their own, but nique, but rather, sought to establish a technique teachers of modern dance are providing ballet wholly independent of those characteristics which classes in their studios, and choreographers are had come to be thought of as balletic cliche's. The insisting on proficient ballet technique from their fact that some of the "cliche's "served a purpose for performers. efficient movement was disregarded by many of the "new" dancers, though some of them, having had As a ballet teacher who has worked with modern training in the classical tradition, showed the re­ dancers under these circumstances, I have been sults of such efficiency. Some artists were what asked to express my thoughts on the meaning of this might be termed "natural dancers." Expressive­ current trend, and, if possible, to shed some light ness rather than virtuosity was their major concern. on the seemingly conflicting practice of many of Therefore, they did not suffer from lack of a defined these same dancers who, upon reaching a level of and disciplined technique; but unable to pass on development which enables them to create and per­ their expressive gifts, many of their followers did! form their own works, appear almost studiously to avoid anything which choreographically might be Certain principles of movement apply to all normal referred to as "balletic" in structure. human bodies, and those principles provide the tools which enable a dancer to move with maximum range It is my belief that there is no conflict between these and efficiency. Contrary to the belief of many apparently opposing developments, but, rather, that dancers, differences in body structure do not pre­ they are the logical outcome of a sequence of events clude classic training. They are, in actuality, the which have taken place during the past half century. very stuff of which our individuality is made; and, The arts in many ways reflect the social, political, therefore, should be given the most effective and and ethical standards of the society of which they broad technique possible in order to provide a are an integral part. At the risk of sounding like a foundation upon which they achieve full expression. pseudo-sociologist, I shall outline some of the ideas As the present generation of dancers is discovering, which I believe may have contributed to the shaping classic ballet training is capable of providing that of these current trends. foundation; BUT, some changes have had to take place within the attitudes of all concerned in order The Twentieth Century has brought vast changes. to make this possible. New theories in many fields have led us to challenge much that was accepted without question before the It should be remembered that at the time of the first turn of the century. The process of breaking away movement away from classic technique, ballet had from the stranglehold of tradition resulted in the reached a somewhat fallow period in choreography. destruction of ideas and values which were judged The apex of neo-romanticism, under the influences to be hypocritical, unrealistic, and inapplicable to of Petipa and Ivanov, had passed and, in spite of the changing world. Within the art forms we can the reforms introduced by Fokine, many artists easily trace the many breaks with tradition which felt the need of a dance form more expressive of accompanied the attempts of musicians, painters, the times. Somehow, ballet, with its flowing tutus, sculptors and dancers to explore new ways of depict­ pointed shoes and fairy tale themes, did not seem ing the emotional, mental, political and spiritual to be providing this expressive outlet, or was it even climate of the world in which they lived. capable of doing so. It is true that some choreo­ graphers were experimenting with new movement This artistic rebellion was originally led by people and modern music, but these changes were too mild educated in the "old school" under the masters of for those who felt the need to express themselves in Roberta Meyer is a former member of the San Francisco Ballet Company and the New York City Ballet Company. She has been on the faculty of the San Francisco Ballet School and is now teaching at the Ziceva Ballet School in San Mateo, California. 10

a more "downto earth" way. The approaches they that more dancers are becoming aware of the free­ used, many of them based on primitive and oriental dom which is the result of constructive discipline. influences, were bound to draw the scorn of the classicists; the disdain was mutual; and so was born We are on a two way street, and I do not wish to im­ a conflict which has not been fully resolved. ply that benefits are to be found solely in the modern dance world. Ballet has received a tremendous and Nonetheless, a beginning has been made. Fusion needed impetus from the present trend toward an has begun to take place, and through it is coming exchange of ideas in concepts of movement. That, much that is of value to both dance forms. Much however, is another story! Suffice it to say that of the recent trend toward a return to classical there are undoubtedly many reasons why modern training seems to be the result of an increased un­ dancers are studying ballet, and ballet dancers are derstanding of the true nature of ballet technique studying modern dance. The main point is that out as a means of building a foundation which, contrary of this growing knowledge of what the human body to old ideas, is neither rigid, limiting, nor con­ can accomplish, if it is not hindered by closed fining, but is capable, when correctly taught, of minds and old ideas, is bound to come a dance form preparing the human body for technical virtuosity. more exciting than we have yet seen. Perhaps It is not an end in itself, but, rather, a means to an there will always be a division between that which end; that end, as many modern dancers are now is called modern dance, and that which is referred discovering, to be determined by the artist. to as classical, but it is my feeling that the current techniques will, intime, become meshed, resulting In my discussion with modern dancers, it has be­ in a technique that is capable of endless develop­ come clear to me that many of them now feel that ment, and that those forms which might still be evolution of modern dance was hindered rather than clinging to the distinction between "modern" and helped by the many and varied techniques which had "ballet" will have become archaic and limited. erupted on all sides. Dancers trained in one school found it difficult to adjust to another, and many More than ever, in many areas of our lives, it is dancers found it difficult to adjust to another's necessary to expand our ideas, to increase our choreography. Individuality was fine, but it became comprehension of what is taking place around us, to obvious that 20 dancers using 20 different techniques draw upon the many constructive forces with which could produce little that was cohesive, and that the we come into contact, to get rid of our old preju­ resulting disparate effect could soon become as dices, and to overcome the contempt we often feel tedious and overworked a cliche as the swans and for that which we simply don't understand. The best princes of which the modern dancers had once so way to do this is to open our minds and investigate. heartily complained! Many of these dancers have overcome the idea that ballet technique is stereo­ This willingness to search and learn is becoming typed, regardless of what they may think of ballet the current trend in dance. There will, of course, as an art form. They realize that it gives them a always be those who are unwilling to subject them­ solid foundation and provides them with a common selves to discipline in their haste to express them­ technical basis. I believe technique is learned selves, and in periods of experimentation it is often primarily for the purpose of providing a foundation difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. None­ for experimentation, so one need not expect balletic theless, I believe that out of the great variety structure within the framework of modern dance which is evident today, something of value will choreography. But, as the old adage states, "you come; for experimentation, when built upon a solid cannot break the rules until you know them." foundation is bound, eventually, to produce quality. We don't have to sit by and accept all that we see It is my belief that the experimentation which is as work of integrity, but I do believe that it is in now taking place and which, to many of us seems our own best interest to encourage the establish­ utterly devoid of form and meaning, will lead to ment of an efficient and workable technique, and to new forms. Equally important, however, is the fact continue to investigate avenues which will lead to the evolution and development of the art of dance. 11 Visions of Dance PETER YATES

The lights go down, then up; the curtain is still formers, in pratfalls, clambering in, on, around down though past curtain time; the audience is stir­ chairs they continue bringing from backstage, in ring and chatting. My wife draws attention to a knockabout groupings, pantomime, contortions and young woman in an apricot-orange knit shift with interlaced arms and legs —atone time each is part pink-trimmed jacket, who is lugging into the audi­ entangled in another's coat or jacket — and mono­ torium a conspicuously hard-edged, cheap black logues which become mutually intermingled. The suitcase sprinkled with labels. The woman, less suitcase is emptied of colorful remnants and re­ young as you see her face more closely, hauls her packed, then dumped; a lunch pail produces fruit suitcase to an aisle seat, sits; then, as if discon­ and other objects. The tall man goes to work on a tent, pushes herself and suitcase along the row of banana, the two others munch apples; the tall man people. I am distracted from her by an eruption devours the banana peel and makes a good effort at elsewhere. From a side aisle a conspicuously downing a paper napkin. drunk, tall man in a loose overcoat and white peaked cap is making himself much too audible. A shout Though some of the audience may be resisting, as answers from the balcony, another from the rear. it is possible that several of my readers are fixed Something may or may not be happening; one doesn't firmly in disdain, the bulk of the attendance is con­ understand clearly all that is being said. And one spicuously with it. Fellow-travelers are shouting realizes belatedly: this is it. The Ann Halprin from every level and corner. The second peeled Dancers' Workshop Company of San Francisco is banana becomes an all too evident, if unplanned, loose among us; conspirators (fellow-travelers?) phallic symbol, borne triumphantly back and forth around us in many seats are shouting, speaking across the stage. While the voices out of the audi­ and signalling to one another reiterated banalities. ence hammer at them, the performers settle into Ann herself, the woman with the suitcase, which listless postures and watch. After a considerable she has put down, appears a couple of rows ahead tedium they gather up their rags, droppings, im­ of us carrying a volume labeled IONESCO, from pedimenta, start shoving chairs offstage, wander which, standing in one aisle and then another, she back into the audience, and one supposes that, with reads, projecting an occasional comment in the the blacking of the lights, the thing is ended. It was interchange. fun, presumably therapeutic as farce should be (tragedy is cathartic) and a sort of "Happening." She and the tall man and a heavy-set young man who has been sitting somewhere begin rushing about. The trouble with the ordinary "Happening" as a work The effect is confusingly dramatic, becoming more of art or entertainment is that the "unexpected" is athletic when the tall man suspends himself from the too often predictable after the first excitement. balcony rail over the audience. We presume that we (The same is generally true of electronic music in are in the midst of Part I, which "involves the dan­ its present exploratory state). There is also the cers using poetry by Richard Brautigan" — from a lack of real technical skill in the ability to per­ story called "The Flowerburger." form what happens, to keep the improvisation un­ predictable, that there was between the ordinary The house is not filled, indicating some resistance film comedian and, say, Buster Keaton. I was par­ to the Halprin "art"; indeed before the evening is ticularly impressed by the ability of Ann Halprin and over there will be a number of conspicuous depar­ her two companions to perform, easily and offhand, tures. Whether seats are empty or not, the per­ feats of physical and dramatic dexterity which gave formers move through them, treading on feet, theatrical weight to what they were doing. "Wait" pushing, shouting, until at last all three principals also in the punning sense, because they were able are gathered onstage. to set and hold their pace, not forcing the action, to avoid trying for laughs and quite simply sit out a What happens then proves that the art of vaudeville, long burst of audience reaction — munching their farce, slapstick is not dead; it is being revived be­ apples and banana. fore us by three exceptionally accomplished per­ Peter Yates, writer, lecturer and critic, is the author of AN AMATEUR AT THE KEYBOARD. This essay is reprinted from ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE (March, 1965) by permission of the author, who is music critic for that publication. 12

By comparison, Erick Hawkins failed to project the others who have not been previously seen. formally conceived funny gestures of "Clown Is Everybody's Ending," because he seemed to be I might say, parenthetically, that a charm of this forcing and at times appealing for laughter. His company is the inclusion in the cast of the two was seriously conceived comic dance. Comedy Halprin daughters, one teenage, one pre-teen. The must be serious, but such that the audience laughs elder has been performing with them several years. inadvertently out of what might be, otherwise, They are both as good troupers as the adults. sombre attention. The most ghastly-seeming mis­ haps are often the funniest, the most solemnly On stage the processional continues. Ata slowpace reiterated of accumulative absurdities the most the dancers walk back and forth among the heaped hilarious. clothing, one after another removing the white jack­ et to show white underclothing, then slowly bending Scarcely had we settled from the comedy than the to pick up whatever garment or object each may pull "sound event by Morton Subotnick" began. Noise- out of the heap and donning it. Back and forth they jazz leaped from the distributed loudspeakers, and move slowly, never changing pace, while the accu­ all through the house members of the audience began mulations of colored clothes, birdcage, hats, a bi­ shouting, commenting, firing off cracker para­ cycle wheel, take on a Caribbean exuberance. Then chutes of tape confetti, flashing lights, sounding one by one they begin doffing garments, stripping noisemakers, while the house lights went up and down to put on others. A member of the cast orders down. It was a "bash." The little girl behind us "Left" or "Right," the entire group turning at the was so happy in her delight that we passed her a quiet order, changing direction among the brilliant bunch of the confetti which fell around us, and be­ heaps. It goes on and on, this brilliant adagio of fore the glorious uproar ended we were all sporting walking colors, garments, objects, the birdcage colored tape. for a helmet, the bicycle wheel for a platter or hat- as abstract and elemental as it is also totally hu­ Better for children than for adults ? Perhaps. Fun mane. makes us all children. Such engagement in comedy, in participative fun, has been the greatest loss of A light-rail trimmed in black is lowered, a ladder theatrical reality since the gag-makers replaced the placed beside one end of it. With armloads of gar­ great vulgar comedians. Do I really mean "re­ ments, the cage, the wheel, the procession passes ality"? Yes —there is no substitute for comic vi­ its impedimenta up the ladder and follows, until sion. Tragedy enables us to transcend our defeats; they are strung along above the black drop, which comedy enables us to live with, to share from the then rises carrying them high as the proscenium. outside, with amusement, our absurdities. Do you A double platform of pipe and ladders is shoved a- refer to the "Theory of the Absurd"? Heaven for­ gainst the light-rail from behind; the procession, bid! That is a stoic philosophy of containment a- streaming garments, climbs, clambers, walks gainst a world in which, existentially, only oneself down. The light-rail vanishes; another platform may exist. To see oneself in others and others in is brought beside the first; the three ladders stand oneself is the sign of human imperfection, that be­ in a group alongside. And then commences a won­ ing accepted is made love and sacred. derful aerial ballet of climbing, spiralling, still varying the processional, now a journey among Can this method go beyond farce, beyond "whooping heights, the entire cast spread above and below in it up" ? That is the demand we must make on the continually changing color patches, postures, inter- chief piece of the evening. weavings of limbs. After much more has happened and attention slackened — it has really been going on As intermission ends, members of the cast wearing too long, invention and imagination straining, the long white jackets start hauling loaded cardboard attention passing from conscious to semi-conscious boxes to the stage. They carry down the aisle arm­ or unconscious — the white plastic covers are hauled loads of brightly colored clothing, heaping them on up the platform to fall from the top, accidentally, the stage, go back for more; the labor becomes a lumpish, like an El Greco cloud; and the dancers procession, a processional with ladders, more going again upwards start the final descent. Sud­ clothing, immense crumpled plastic wads, pre­ denly one perceives in its own reality an apotheosis sumably once auto covers, dragged along by two of El Greco, the floating fall of a Last Judgment, persons. One identifies Ann, her two handsome bodies suspended, contorted, seeming to enter or daughters, the male members of the cast, andsome be supported by substantial cloud. Imagination has 13 at last completely taken over the fiesta; the pro­ contrast, a logic of sufficient gesture, like the cessional, an aerial display of bodily gestures, has rising, the standing, and the walk of Duncan. His become sacramental, in the same way that, as some appeal is most strongly to those who seek an inde­ may remember, the broken bodies of the aviators, pendent dance medium, a median decorum within in Andre Malraux's great film of the Spanish War, stage bounds. were carried by villagers down the mountainside.

Yet it was all improvisation, within predetermined Erick Hawkins composes in collaboration with an limits, by a disciplined community of dancers, unusual musician, Lucia Dlugoszewski, who per­ physically and spiritually trained to work together, forms the entire musicforhis dances. Her instru­ among whom every gesture could be translated and ment is a grand piano, which she attacks from again transmitted, in spite of occasional confusion, before and behind, using plastic combs for bridge- as if it were the movement and music of a rite. mutes, other combs in wooden grips for "bows," Rather than tragic it was transcendental, an adven­ and a great variety of other small devices to alter ture resembling flight in multi-dimensional space. pitch, timbre, and the quality of response. Her compositions, though made for dance, are meant After such an ecstasy it is difficult, it is unfair, to to be free-standing, to be heard alone. An inheritor attempt to do justice to the work of Erick Hawkins. from Varese, Cowell, Cage, she has not gone the His aim, by intention, is not dramatic; he works limit of assault on the piano practiced by several with a vocabulary of gesture, formally and contem­ contemporary composers (If one can call them that! platively assembled along a linear plane, the dan­ someone mutters). Her music is chaste, open, elo­ cers usually in standing posture, floating or leaping, quent, and like most similar means, limited in with no emphatic recourse to the opportunities of range. Swishes and swatches of sound take the place stage space. The tempo stays fairly constant, with of notes. The means are legitimate and not preten­ few breaks in continuity and nothing unexpected; tious. From her alternative battery of paper, skin, there is no effort to provoke excitement. and wood drums, rattles, and other sound-produc­ ers, she brings forth a delightful elaboration of Because this dance so insistently repeats its ges­ small sounds. tures, it challenges our theatrical habit of looking always for the different or startling event. The In an article for JUBILEE she fairly wipes out the audience must seek satisfaction, as the dancers competition, except her own master Edgar Varese. wish to convey it, by observing the solemn, delib­ Like Varese, she finds in timbre "the component of erative rotation of a wheel of signs. I can admire sound of most vivid immediacy, richest in what the ascetic plan, regretting that it did not become Orientals call 'suchness.' Music emphasizing the for me, as I believe that it has been for others, a timbre aspect of sound maintains the clear emotion­ significant ritual. The house was nearly filled; al zero of a true nontonal music. Not having the there were no conspicuous departures. emotional implications of pitch, it need not exploit the psychological aspects of sound but awaken the The formality, the control of body and gesture faculty of wonder for its own sake. . .for me the among the dancers is a more direct extension from eternal revolution beneath all other revolutions is the art of Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, and Ruth in perception rather than conception. . .When an St. Denis than anything in the work of Cunningham Apache Indian finds our sensibility gauche and child­ or Halprin. It is hard to realize that Hawkins was ish one realizes that without this immediacy of real for over a decade a leading dancer in the dramatic hearing there is no music at all. . . Really we must company of Martha Graham. describe a sound and also prove one."

Merce Cunningham has rediscovered, freed from I dispute her argument, enjoy her conversation and strict gesture, the lyrical flowing of the entire body, admire the assuredness of her very public work­ carrying forward into aleatory independence, with manship: at a piano spotlighted on the stage apron far more elaborate combinations, the tradition of leaning far over the keyboard to pluck and swish or ballet. Ann Halprin has liberated expressiveness seated on the floor stage center in a circle of her from preparation, from deliberate meaning, from small drums, while the dance goes on around her. formality, into a happening as transitory and per­ petual as drama. Erick Hawkins has created, by Carol Scothorn, director, and PiaGilbert, musical 14

director, of the UCLA Department of Dance swept by the hand and led me downstairs into the whirl. their students into the new experimental choreo­ There, passed between one partner and another, I graphy with a program "in the round" on the did my best with the old Apache Dance (Parisian Royce Hall stage. The audience, too, apart from Apache, not Indian) from another era, until at last, a few latecomers, sat in bleachers on the stage. out of breath and temporarily abandoned, I stag­ There were a couple of inadequately realized ven­ gered from the melee. (Your feature reporter risks tures by students, one to music by Los Angeles his neck for art.) composer Henri Lazarof. The show got better as it went along. "The Lazarite," choreographed and danced by Carol Scothorn, owed much, I should guess, to Eugene SantoGiglio's "Facade," a vivid nightmareof sym­ O'Neill's LAZARUS LAUGHED, that impossible bolic realism, which he performed in company with drama which I regretted missing when it was played Greta Griffith, did not fail or fade to the last ges­ last spring at the same university; I had always ture. One encounters in amateur motion pictures, wished to see it because of its impossibility — the as in Albee's plays, a type of personal symbol which laughter, the crucified lion, and so on. For me, irritates rather then informs. Giglio's symbols the dance was only less impossible than the play, continually hit the mark, were pertinent not obvious. but it did not fail for lack of trying. Miss Scothorn A man pulls by a rope a flat cart on which a woman danced, jiggled, declaimed, fell down and rose to do sits applying makeup. The developing drama ex­ the same again. It was one of those times when plores beneath the man's evident slavery to his de­ you feel earnestly that if you knew what was in the votion and beyond to the woman's desperately real artist's mind you might do it justice. Though cer­ dependence on the man; the bond is passion without tain dramatic gestures were clear enough, the recognition; despite effort to speak through, it fails, continuity of sign or symbolism remained opaque. and the drama ends as it began. The dance action "Ground Bass," also choreographed by Carol held the eye and mind in a beautiful unanimity of Scothorn, swept the audience into an ostinato movement. stamped and sustained by running feet. Everybody ran, dancers, musicians, an unknown girl from the "The Aftermath of the Absolute," choreography by bleachers who broke into the movement as if trying Carol Scothorn, parodied indeterminacy: "The to setup a contrary rhythm and confuse the dancers; form varies for each performance and is determined the diagonal path across the stage resounded like a by the throwing of dice." A variety of unexpected drumhead, while other dancers spinning out of line happenings happened, and happened again and again fell into acrobatics, gestures, poses. The audience in a variety of combinations, and the variety begot sensibility, both ear and eye, stayed with the osti­ other happenings, while other happenings happened. nato, the line of changing runners, so that one Fun to watch and forget. scarcely observed what was happening each side the path. Like many of today's new reiterative "compositions" in sound or action it disregarded During intermission the audience was invited to time by intensifying one's participation in the time- join one of four guides for a "guided tour." Missing beating almost to hypnosis. One was returned to nothing, we presented ourselves and were led via the sacred stamping rituals. staircase and hallway to a balcony overlooking the Royce Hall lobby, where a free-for-all among the dancers (choreography by Bonnylee Hansen) was al­ ready in progress. For better viewing we ventured I came out of the spell with a deep sigh of satisfac­ to a lower side-balcony, where a dancer caught me tion to have been carried so far and safely released. L5

staircase, producing a descriptive analogue and Riddle-Me-This perpetual revelation of itself, instant by instant but never in isolation. In this sense, it has no existence SIDNEY PETERSON apart from itself and must be said to exist as a spatially unified and temporally continuous symbol only within the phenomenon of illusory forcetime- When we look, what do we see? What are we space, pastpresentandfuture. Needless to say, one making? When it's there we know it because it's is oneself the source of this illusion or, in a word, happening and alive and vibrant and knowledge has Gestalt. nothing to do with it because experience comes first, following creation, which is, of course, uniquely Beyond the plastic components of the illusion of dynamic, a flow of force, unified and continuous, symbolic force lies abstraction, emotional on the cohesive also, immediate, unreflective and in toto. one hand and, on the other, motional. Motional and Above all, in toto. The in toto is inviolate. It may emotional. Abstracted from the experience of be analysed but never disjointed. It must be ex­ everyday-life they automatically become symbolic perienced in-the-midst-of-it. It exists. Beyond but in no separate sense since they occur, like reflection. Prior to it. It's pre-reflective. Pre- everything else, simultaneously and in-the-midst- reflective in-the-midst-of-it in toto. Pre-reflec- of-it. With abstraction comes incipience and full­ tion leads to a consciousness of pre-reflection. ness, leading to denouement and requiring no This is known as the pre-reflective consciousness prologue or epilogue since when it starts it starts of total-lived-experience, including, categorically, and when it stops it stops. The question of what is time and space, without which there would be no abstracted naturally depends on what and how it when or where and, consequently, only the impos­ reflects its own import; import being separate sibility of experience in-the-midst-of-it. And yet from any possible description or translation into time and space are not separately descriptive of words. Another way of saying this is that we don't lived-experience. They must be reduced to time- shrug for resignation but shrugresign; they are one spaceand, preferably, toforcetimespace, all three and the same, each a symptom of the other. There in one of which are rooted in the pre-reflective is much more to this. In the end we come to art consciousness, located within the consciousness- itself and the need in educational circles for a more body, which is structured ekstatically, so as to enlightened creativity, performance and criticism stand out from itself, past, present and futurely in the interest of developing self-awareness, the but entirely in-the-midst-of-it, unified and diaspo- lived-experience and so on. ratic. Considered pre-reflectively, space means that hereness is really thereness. Hence the Is it possible, my dear, that you have read this hereness-thereness of forcespacetime, or force- far and still do not realize what we have been dis- timespace, leading to the post-reflection that if we cussing?If so, itmust be because you have not read can only pin all these things down the result may THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF DANCE by Maxine be the creation of an on-going literature, not to Sheets, recently published by the University of Wis- mention more jobs for more professionals in the consin Press, with foreword by Merce Cunningham field of on-going education, which exists but cannot and acknowledgments to Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, be said to be really in toto — yet. Kaelin and others. Thanks to Mrs. Sheets' very hard thinking and the equally hard reading that re­ To the ekstasis of on-goingness in-the-midst-of-it sulted, I think I now understand something that has onemustadd the awareness of form-in-the-making been puzzling me for years, why the Baroness Elsa as a continuous projection of virtual timespace von Freytag Loringhoven, a long time ago at a structured by the illusion of force —all onthepre- cocktail party at which someone proclaimed her reflective level of actual unawareness and mutual readiness to sing (I believe it was) for a worthy interacting and diasporatic ekstatic projection of cause, declared in a firm voice while rattling the the whole, although all this may change if the aluminium teaballs that dangled from her ears. "I audience forgets to be pre-reflective and, itself wouldn 't lift a leg for humanity." It wasn 't humanity in-the-midst-of-it. So long as one is with it, with­ that deterred her. It was the idea of lifting a leg. out shattering or being shattered in the process, It was just too complicated. form-in-the-making remains on the pre-reflective Sidney Peterson has been a frequent contributor to IMPULSE. level, expanding both ahead and behind, much as, He is a San Francisco writer, film-maker and critic, and is in a manner of speaking, the nude descended the the author of THE FLY IN THE PIGMENT. 16 Notes from Abroad 1966—The English Scene: A Conversation

I ANN HUTCHINSON

"The last time we met, nearly a year ago at my cottage in Massa­ chusetts, we sat chopping up a mattress to make cushions, and compared the problems of the English and American dance scenes — chopping them up as well. Now you are here in England again —how do you feel about coming back?"

CLOVER ROOPE

"That's difficult to answer. Most of my English friends think I have turned traitor, that I have few good words to say for British Dance. This is not the case. You are one of the few people who would understand the comparisons I am trying to make. After all — you are an ex-New Yorker who settled in this country a few years ago, and I, an English dancer, have just returned after two years of study in the States. Both of us have pursued very different and very specialized branches of the dance, and both of us have now come to the point where we are primarily concerned with current developments of Dance in general — centered particularly on the development of modern dance in this country."

"Perhaps we haven't pursued such very different branches of the dance. I started with modern and then concentrated on ballet, and you have reversed the process. Tell me, why did you go to the United States ? "

"Briefly, because I felt bogged down by classical ballet technique. Although still dancing with the Western Theatre Ballet, I wanted to choreograph, but felt my training had been so intensely one-track that I was stuck in agroove. No other approach to dance on a pro­ fessional level existed in this country — and I was aware that America (New York in particular) was aflame with diverse activity. I was lucky enough to win a scholarship that enabled me to explore the American dance field."

"How do things strike you, now that you're back?"

"I don't know. There's a definite whiff of change in the air."

"I've noticed a tremendous change in the last couple of years, both inside and outside the Establishment."

"Speaking about the Establishment, you understand thesituation on both sides of the ocean- backgrounds and current developments —do you think National institutions tend to dull the senses of the artists and the public?"

"Broadly speaking, yes. Are you not suggesting that a national es­ tablishment such as the Royal Ballet dictates a style and a taste which rule both artist and public alike? Ballet here has created a monopoly, leaving no room for any serious extra-curricular development."

"Exactly. It seems to me that modern dance was able to develop in America because classical ballet had not had time to impose a monopoly." Ann Hutchinson, a frequent contributor to IMPULSE, is the honorary president of the Dance Notation Bureau. Clover Roope, dancer and choreographer, was awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship for two years to study dance in the United States. One of the requirements of the grant was that she travel extensively in this country. 17

"But, surely, the development of modern dance in America runs far deeper than that. Don't forget that the United States was created out of rebellion and reformation. The character of the country, and New York in particular (which is the hub of the dance world anyway) is centered on the propositions: 'each man for himself,' and 'everyone has an equal chance.' "

"Right —but over here no-one else has a chance. Classical ballet gained a firm hold during the war, but of course the whole nation has for centuries been geared to a monarchial tra­ dition. Classical ballet reigns — it receives every penny of the Arts Council subsidy to dance. There is no other source of financial support to the Arts."

"You mean, the Arts Council supports only those that are proven?"

"Yes."

"That would eliminate incentive, drive or even competition from any other source. Are there no foundations in England to give grants for creative experiment such as Cunningham, Taylor, etc. have received in the States?"

"There are foundations, but they do not seem to be interested in experimentation."

"But what about local government grants in this country? No such thing exists in America. A child from a poor family in Birmingham, Alabama could not receive a local government grant to study at a dance school in New York. A child from Birmingham, England could receive a grant tostudyatan established school anywhere in England."

"But in Birmingham, Alabama that child would go to New York anyway, because the Ford Foundation (or one of the many others) would pay for it; the child from Birmingham, England would only go to one of the 'established' schools, because governments are not like foundations. They are not interested in 'ventures' or 'experimental ideas'— only in 'establishments.' "

"I think you are being unfair. Until recently the Federal Government in the U.S.A. has been totally unconcerned with aiding the Arts. All aid has been restricted to private foundations. Whereas here, the government is foremost in its subsidy of education of all types. Also, one must admit that if an American child won a foundation grant to go to New York, it would also be to study atone of the 'established' schools."

"Maybe; but just by being in New York one can't help coming into contact with the hive of activity which branches out in all directions. Take 'Off-Broadway.' No parallel exists in England."

"But a younger generation of dancers isgrowingup. They are thinking for themselves and becoming aware that other possibilities in dance exist and can be explored and used. Possibly, this feeling of change in the air is a casting around for something else. Certainly, the retirement of Dame Ninette de Valois reminds one that an era has come to an end." 18

"From another point of view, I get the feeling that a new era has begun, not in ballet, but outside. Suddenly, I find a tremendous interest in modern dance here, which certainly didn't exist two years ago. But I fear for the endurance powers of any such beginnings in the face of such strong traditional habits. What do you think?"

"It will not be easy, but the fact is that some of these new develop­ ments have the approval of Dame Ninette and the Establishment."

"What are they ? "

"For one, there's 'Ballet for All,' the brainchild of Peter Brinson, who organized it to the point where it is now officially under the auspices of the Royal Ballet and gets some subsidy. It is a lecture- demonstration group designed to broaden the understanding of the general public. It performs for schools, community centres — any­ where there is an audience. Its main emphasis is on ballet, howballet began, etc., but I understand it plans to broaden its range. Last summer in a special programme a modern dance demonstration was included. Experimentation with new ideas shows that there is a ven­ turesome spirit even in the Establishment.

"The Institute of Choreology, founded last year with a generous grant from two foundations, is another important development, because it shows growth in the acceptance of dance notation. Ten years ago when the Benesh system was adopted by the Royal Ballet, the doors closed on Labanotation. Now these doors are opening, and people seem confident in using what they personally feel is a more adequate system."

"But Labanotation has been taught for years in this country. What about the Sigurd Leeder School ?"

"Labanotation was taught there as part of the curriculum, but Leeder's school was isolated from the ballet world and even from the general activities in the educational field which have been based on Laban's teachings."

"Wasn't notation widely used with the rest of Laban's work?"

"Not in the educational fields. His belief was that no set forms should be imposed on the children from without. Basic principles of move­ ment should be taught, and it was up to the individual teachers and pupils to make variations of these, form combinations, patterns; but nothing was pinned down. But this is changed; notation is now seen as a teaching aid, a means of clarifying movement. One of the leading Laban teachers, Valerie Preston Dunlop, has opened the Beechmont Notation Centre in Sevenoaks, which will concentrate on the needs in this field, publishing dance materials, texbooks, etc.

"There is a whole change in attitude towards educational dance. Many people feel that the discipline and excitement of learning definite move­ ment patterns are needed. When Dorothy Madden came here a few years ago, teaching in the educational colleges, there was a significant posi­ tive reaction. On the other hand, teachers from the States such as 1!)

Joseph Gifford find the Laban work offers much that is valuable to them. This is the beginning of an important exchange, and I think both sides stand to gain."

"Does the educational field include any training for the stage ? "

"No, there is a very firm dividing line; educational dance is for the benefit of the student, to develop him as a balanced human being, and not to train a performing instrument for the stage. In the States this strong separation between the two does not exist."

"So, in fact, modern dance here has never reached beyond the amateur status. But now a professional interest in modern dance is evident."

"Wouldn't you say the Western Theatre Ballet contributed to this new attitude and helped to bridge the gap?"

"Oh, enormously. In its early days Western Theatre Ballet was the only outlet for new ideas and aspiring choreographers existing in England. The Rambert Company, once the cradle of British choreographers, has produced only one, Norman Morrice, in the last decade. The Royal Ballet can only afford to give space to 'established' choreographers. Western Theatre Ballet explored new ideas, particularly dance drama, and toured its ex­ periments to the very fringes of the British Isles. How could I ever forget those one night stands that took us from John O'Groats to Land's End! But now, after two years away, I feel that Western Theatre Ballet is 'in' — is established — and, like the Royal Ballet, is only willing to risk 'reputable' experiments. The young or would-be choreographer is back where he was five years ago, with no outlet."

"No. There's the new'Balletmakers.' Teresa Early heads this group, which is striving independently to provide opportunities for young choreographers exploring various forms of movement, working with designers and musicians, involving themselves with ideas of the past as well as with current trends."

"This sounds more like the 'Off-Broadway' movementin New York, which certainly never existed here before. This is really indicative of a fresh attitude — the beginning of the end of insulation. How did this group start?"

"Teresa Early found no outlet within the Establishment —and she did something about it. She wanted to choreograph and she needed a group. But she also believed choreography is a craft which needs tobe studied. There is no school of choreography here, no dance composition classes exist, so she set about providing the opportunity for the younger generation, including herself, to experience the disciplines of choreo­ graphic training."

"And you're the one who is giving them this discipline, are you not?"

"Yes. It's a most rewarding experience to see these channeled 'balletic' minds open up when they discover what else movement can be."

"Tell me about the new Dance Centre that has just been started near Covent Garden. Gary Cockrell, the founder, who is he?" 20

"Gary Cockrell came to England with WEST SIDE STORY and stayed. He was the most successful of those of that company who taught modern jazz here. He has just established a Dance Centre in the heart of London; studios where various forms of dance are taught, quite unre­ lated to each other, but all under one roof."

"WEST SIDE STORY really opened our eyes over here; the public saw that dance could be related to contemporary life in its most turbulent, virile sense. It was followed by two overwhelmingly successful seasons of Jerome Robbins' BALLETS U.S.A."

"You mean that between the first appearance of Martha Graham in England nine years ago, and her overwhelming success in September 1963, the ground had been made ready by WEST SIDE STORY and by Western Theatre Ballet?"

"Yes, and also by Martha Graham's film A DANCER'S WORLD, which has been shown countless times and has had an enormous impact. However, actual support was still re­ stricted to a comparatively small section of the dance world. The audience in 1963 was not the usual ballet audience. It consisted of painters, composers, writers, and a handful of dancers and choreographers starved for inspiration. Robin Howard, of course, recog­ nized this and has done very positive things toward fostering modern dance in this country. As a dance devotee, and a Graham fan from her first season here, it was he who made Martha Graham's 1963 season possible both with enthusiasm and financial support. At the end of that season, at a lecture-demonstration of the Graham technique, he proposed making the work available here. He then sent a handful of selected dancers over to the Graham School in New York for intensive study."

"Three other American modern dance companies followed in the path of success blazed by Martha Graham. Merce Cunningham was con­ sidered 'beyond the pale' — but Paul Taylor and Alvin Ailey seemed even more successful as a consequence."

"Was Robin Howard connected with the visits of these other companies?"

"Yes. His aim is to promote modern dance generally in England. Last year he was responsible for the organization of a three-month Graham Summer Course here. Mary Hinkson, Ethel Winter, and Bertram Ross (principals of the Graham company) came over and taught and demonstrated both within existing schools andat open classes. Their visit culminated in their appearance with the Royal Ballet group 'Ballet for All' — which marked the approval and public recognition of Graham technique by the Establishment."

"Robin Howard has succeeded in developing an exciting nucleus. A regular school has started; at the moment, Eileen Cropley, Anna Mittleholzer and I share the teaching. We all trained at the Graham School in New York during the past two years. Guest teachers come frequently from America—and the young recipients of Robin Howard's firstscholar- ships are now returning from the Graham School to help build the school in London."

"Now that you have joined the faculty of this school, what do you see as its ultimate goal?"

"After a firmly organized school, the formation of the first British Modern Dance Company." 21

"Exclusively Graham technique?"

"No — the hope for the future is that a style of modern dance native to this country will emerge: that the strong foundation of Graham technique will inspire dancers and choreo­ graphers to develop an individual style of their own."

"But, if only Graham technique is taught, won't the school be in danger of becoming an 'establishment'?"

"Robin Howard is aware of this danger, and even at this early stage has invited guests from other American modern dance companies to teach here. Paul Taylor and Bettie deJong have just left, and Patricia Christopher from the Limon Company has just arrived."

"Isn't it equally dangerous to diversify so much at this early stage?"

"It could be, yes, but Graham technique is the basis for the company work. Both Taylor and Bettie de Jong were members of the Graham Company. Pat Christopher has also taught there — and during the summer of this year, Yuriko will be here for several weeks. Later on, Juliet Fisher will be returning (she was here, too — passing through London on her way to Sweden)."

"All this sounds very exciting. When does Robin Howard aim to form his company?"

"Obviously, this cannot happen suddenly, but he hopes to give his young teachers and students frequent opportunities to experiment in small concerts —private at first, and then, as the standard and quality grow, public ones. In fact, the first effort took place only last week, when, at the end of Bettie de Jong's stay, the school performed excerpts from the Taylor repertory that she had taught; a very small, but promising beginning. At the same time I feel that the essential difference between such activity in England and in the States is that over here ideas are strangled at birth through lack of interest. What chance do you think Robin Howard has of succeeding?"

"I am a hopeless optimist. Besides, you can't keep a good thing down. I feel British dance needs the kind of programme Robin Howard is offering. And I believe there are enough free thinking minds to over­ come the complacency, stagnation, fear of change, the conservative, reactionary attitude, that have for so long held sway. The outlook for the future could be exceptionally bright and tremendously exciting." 22

I Went To Finland JOHN GRAHAM

Interview by BERNICE PETERSON

"How did you happen to go?" were excited about singing a lot of political songs they had composed and were interested in perform­ "There was a young man from Helsinki. He was ing for us. They are concerned with satire. It all in San Francisco on some sort of government had very much the feeling of the kind of thing that grant and we were rehearsing APARTMENT 6 and came out of Germany in the 20's. A kind of music going into performances. His name was Jaakko hall approach. One of the girls reminded me of Pakkasuirta and he said, 'what about coming to that type —a big stocky woman with very short hair. Finland?' A theatre group at the university was Like early Brecht. She had that kind of voice and interested and they raised some money and so we she sang with that kind of drive, the same emotion. went. The government had nothing to do with it. To me the beautiful thing is that people were making "The reaction to our own performance was, in this exchange. They were interested enough and general, accepting. The students had a tendency didn't have to have the government. They were to lean forward into the performance. It was a part paying our travel expenses. That's all. It wasn't of the kind of thing we were doing and I was aware enough. We had no funds of our own. So they pro­ of it. There was no need for them to say anything. vided a TV performance. The important thing was They didn't. But they were responding. They the student involvement in bringing us. They were were very much in touch with our working from behind us in all the producing aspects of the per­ the immediate response we might have to the other formances. Mostly they were writers. They were person in the dance, within its basic structure. writing new things and finding they were stimulated They were able to see that we were responding to by what we were doing. They felt we represented each other, that it wasn't a set dialogue, and this what they wanted and what they liked about what was interested them. It was something they discovered going on in America. There were writers, poets in our doing of it. and a few actors. No dancers. We didn't run into any dancers at all. None. I didn't investigate but "The theatre was different from anythingwe'd used from what I gathered there were no performances. before. There was a sense of being in the round. Nothing was happening. The audience was sitting around us —on two and a half sides —and we were moving in and very close "We had our own technicians. I think the students to them — in and about and close — so there was an provided us with one man who helped on the lighting. atmosphere, a climate— there was no proscenium They provided us with a place to live, furniture, — they were confronted with it right there. On the props and that sort of thing, a place to eat. For other hand, when I incorporated them—a thing I have the rest there was their energy and interest in what a tendency to do — more than Ann does or Leath — we were doing, their questions about how it came they responded as people usually do, with a certain about, their real involvement in that way. Their amount of embarrassment, of shyness —not know­ own interest is in political theatre. They want to ing where their place is, what to do. There was do as much as possible with it. I think that what that confusion. They are not invited in any direct reached them in what we were doing was the ele- way to participate. As part of the action I might mentof spontaneity inherent in our whole approach. go close, or sit beside someone and ask aquestion. They want to have a stand and a say in what they For example, the scene where I am throwing darts. are doing. There is censorship of course —more They might ask, 'can I play?' That kind of thing. than we experience —but they are still able, on an It may have had something to do with the way I artistic level, to have a say. They find an outlet handled the darts. Perhaps because the theatre in the theatre. Like our own students, they feel was different I felt closer to their responses. I rebellious and want to say something about it. might have thought they were responding more directly than they were. This is complicated. It "After the performance we went to a party and they involves the basic structure of the performance. In San Francisco, for example, we decided that Leath and I would begin. This was the basic structure. Leath and I began, then Ann and I played, then Leath and Ann. These were the limitations within which we worked. There were other limitations, which had to do with what we did. I played with a radio, Leath with a newspaper. In my scene Ann fed me and I focused on eating. In the final scene Leath focused on typing and Ann on dis­ tracting him. In Helsinki we broke down that structure. It was a new environment, a new audience and we had been away from the dance for some time so we were able to come back to it fresh. At home we had talked during the performances. Well, what about this ? And what about the particular structure of deciding in advance that two would always work together and in a certain progression? The point was, having gotten into it, were the limitations still important to us as performers? We decided that they weren't, that in the begin­ ning they had been arbitrary and no longer had any real meaning. So, in Helsinki, we broke them down. We agreed that any one of us would decide who would begin and the others would come into it, keeping the action but not worrying about the progression. Instead of sticking with a scenario we said that probably this or that would happen but could we leave it open to see what would occur ? We wanted to try this with the Helsinki audience. So we did and it caused a tremendous amount of confusion but the energy John Graham in APARTMENT 6 Photo: Hank Kranzler that was invested in that confusion brought an energy into the performance that we hadn't experienced before. We were playing, as it were, off the moment, with no reference of any kind except to the per­ former as a performer working with other performers with whom one has performed — we fed, of course, off these past performances. We couldn't make anything happen, it had to come off the moment and then you had to take it from there. It was very exciting."

"What about the talking?'

"Most of the audience understood some English. One was aware of the difficulties and played certain things harder. I felt that strongly. One of my thoughts was, I'll focus more on the body gestures and the physical relation of the other person and myself and let the vocal responses be secondary- a secondary focus, really. Also, what I found myself doing was using sounds rather than words. If 21

I felt a word I'd transform it into a sound. Like a revival of THE GREEN TABLE. The symbols a whisper-sound or whatever. I remember this seemed absurd and much of the movement melo­ occurred at the moment of performance. We had dramatic. One was pulled back into some old style done some exercises beforehand to get used to the of symbolizing death and all that. More German space and at that time we were using words, any than Scandinavian. More traditional too. After words —tothe disadvantage of the movement, Ire- all. The Scandinavians are interested in what our member. There were more words than movement. theatre is doing but in their own way. At the I remember trying to get back into the movement. Crystal Theatre in Stockholm, for example, they And then, in the performance — and I think this were doing very naive things with film technique, happened because the audience was so involved and with long monologues, free association techniques, one wasn'tsure who spoke English and who didn't — using the audience, moving into it, electronic I spent most of the energy in movement and there effects, natural sounds, modern music, rock-and- were no words, only sounds. If there were critics roll, speeches, conversation that doesn't relate in the audience, they haven't been heard from. to the action necessarily. They seem to enjoy focusing on the psychological climate of the indi­ "There was a review of the TV performance, which vidual. It was not very exciting. At this theatre was exhausting; the performance, not the review. they are interested in making —oh, let's see —they We worked on it three days. I think it was three. might use obscene words, only they didn't. What Anyway, it was a very exhausting thing. At first it I'm thinking of is a class performance of something was a question of relating to the camera. I climbed taking place around a toilet bowl. The scene took all over it, talking directly to it and got used to it place while one of the cast was going to the bath­ before the actual filming. Then it was not working room. That kind of thing. In another play they did with the camera but intensely with each other. It it was something about somebody in bed and he was was all very tight, you couldn't spread out and you dreaming. They're interested in the way our theatre didn't think of spacing in the usual way either. The is working but in a very naive way, trying to inves­ space was really between one person and the other. tigate psychological statements. The difference from the stage production was that the focus was shifted into each other more strongly. In Helsinki there is something else, their concern In general, I had the impression that this kind of with politics. My impression is that the Norwegians focusing does not interest the Scandinavians parti­ are concerned with ballet, the Finnish with politics cularly. and the Swedish especially with psychological states. They are all interested in contemporary develop­ "I think that European audiences in general love ments but not, I think, in relation to dance. In traditional things, they are really in love with tra­ writing and poetry, in painting and in certain as­ dition in a way we don't appreciate. Sometimes, pects of the theatre but not yet in dance. to an American, it is ridiculous. I am thinking of John Graham, an assistant professor at San Francisco State College, is a member of the Dance Staff in Physical Education and also teaches body movement in the Drama Department. Formerly a member of the Dancers' Workshop, he is now associated with Graham-Leath Productions, which was formed to continue working with an approach to theatre which was developed in APARTMENT 6. Bernice Peterson, a member of the editorial board of IMPULSE, is a professor at San Francisco State College in charge of the dance curriculum. 25

Paris Notes CLAUDE PUJADE RENAUD

The "Theatre d'Essai de la Danse" (the Ex­ boxing gloves and her easy use of ballet technique. perimental Dance Theater, a French association for research and choreographic studies) presented Another solo gave us a chance to admire the extra­ a dance concert at the Paris Theater on March 17 ordinary technical ability of the Japanese dancer, and 24, 1966. Kaoru Ishii, who studied in the summer of 1965 at Connecticut College. Karin Waehner, who has already given several dance concerts in Paris and in the provinces, pre­ Certain important choreographers were conspicu­ sented two compositions. The first was "One and ous by their absence from this concert. One Makes One" in which she danced with Jean Bouffort. The beginning was remarkable for having Sara Pardo, who gave a fascinating concert in June a slow sustained quality with very simple move­ 1965 at the Theatre des Nations, is Mexican. She ments executed simultaneously and in parallel by uses voices with great intensity, and has singers both dancers. The second dance "Ani Couni," and dancers on stage together. The poems of Lorca accompanied by music sung in a repetitive folk style, and of Pablo Neruda are integrated as the work de­ was done by a group of twelve dancers: excellent velops; the singers are not static, but participate choreography, well composed and lively, inaprim- in the action; the dancers themselves speak; this itive archaic style reminiscent of some earlier fusing of elements gives birth to an effective dra­ works ("Discours Primitif," music: drums of the matic game. Bahamas; "Terre Promise," music: spirituals). Arlette Bon, still another Argentinian, presented Karin Waehner comes from Germany, where she an interesting work at the Biennale de Paris in studied with Mary Wigman; she has also worked in October 1965, "Missa Criolla," in which she uses England, and has been in Paris for the last ten students of drama much more than dancers; this years. She became acquainted with American restriction necessitates very simple gestures and "modern dance " at a session at Connecticut College. restrained group movements.

This concert began with a new work by choreogra­ Laura Sheleen, who uses the basic idea of group pher Paolina Oca, the Argentinian dancer, with dynamics and psychodrama, and Jerome Andrews, music by Darius Milhaud. We preferred the solos also an American dancer, were not seen in the she gave in October 1965 at the "Biennalede Paris," Paris Theater concert. including a magnificent "Bolero" with music by Ravel. The French public in general ignores "modern dance." For it, dance equals ballet. These choreo­ A pleasant creation by Annick Maucouvert (who graphers are therefore pioneers who have to battle attended the session at Connecticut College) was against the indifference of the public and the press. pure Op: three dancers springing forth diagonally (The critics themselves are very badly informed. from black and white boxes and mobiles. Very few have any knowledge of "modern dance.") It is regrettable that the important American Graziela Martinez, another Argentinian, presented companies do not come in larger numbers to give a solo "Sur le Ring" in which her thin, incisive concerts in Paris. In recent years we have only figure and style were emphasized by enormous seen Paul Taylor and Merce Cunningham.

Claude Pujade Renaud teaches dance and psychology at the University (I. R. E. P. Paris). She has studied dance in Paris and at Connecticut College School of Dance. This article was translated by Virginia Bosche- Author's Note: This article, which originally appeared in PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURE, attempts to contribute to the on-going effort to bring a useful graphic system to kinetic environments whether on the Motation street or on the stage. That the development of the system has not reached its final form does not negate its purpose. Language is absolutely dependent on a dialogue and to begin it is necessary to venture an LAWRENCE HALPRIN organized attempt to communicate. This is what we are doing here. It is, therefore, a pleasure to put before the readers of IMPULSE this trial language, hoping that in the effort to understand it, some further light can be thrown on this method of expression.

The important thing is that it is not enough to read through the material; it must be studied and it must be tried out. Only in that way can we learn what the next step or the next variant should be. Written human language wasanteceded by drawings of what appeared significant. Gradually, graphic abstractions were evolved which eventually were to become symbols and then convertible symbols which were words. It should be clear that as the form of expression differs, the expression itself changes. Thus, new and unanticipated structures arise out of the new ideas that conceive them.

Let us hope that a similar process, if not a similar time scale, can eventuate with motation.

In a world intensely involved in the development of environment. This limitation of symbols affects motion through space, little has been done to ex­ our results. Since we have no techniques for de­ press it graphically. Movement is all around us; scribing the activity that occurs within spaces or mobility has permeated not only our engineering within buildings, we cannot adequately plan for it, but our arts as well. High-speed engineering for and the activity comes, in a sense, as a by-product freeways and rapid transit systems has become an after the fact. It is true that any good designer or obvious concern of environmental designers; re­ planner will think, while he is designing, of the ac­ cently, even sculptors and painters have broken tivity that eventually will occur within his spaces. through the barrier of static form, and musicians But he cannot design the movement, for he has no have dropped their fixations with established in­ tools to do so. Even highway engineers, who deal struments, scales, and positions-on-stage in a exclusively with movement, have no method for search for mobility in space as well as in time. describing it. It is imperative that we have a system to express this movement graphically—a tool that will permit "A new system should be able to focus primarily on us to work with movement itself as an essential and movement, and only secondarily on the environment. determining element in design. This would have use as a technique for designers working kinesthetic ally. Though many painters I noted this need some two years ago in my book have painted action, they naturally have always been CITIES (Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1963), completely qualitative and subjective and have not where the subject of motion through environment intended to codify a transmittable or universally is discussed in relation to urban design: understandable system. We need a system to pro­ gram movement carefully and analyse it, a system "In order to design for movement, a whole new which will allow us to schedule it on a quantitative system of conceptualizing must be undertaken. as well as qualitative basis. Since movement and Our present systems of design and planning are the complex interrelations which it generates are inevitably limited by our techniques of conceptu­ an essential part of the life of a city, urban design alizing and our methods of symbolizing ideas. We should have the choice of starting from movement as know only how to delineate static objects, and so the core —the essential element of the plan. Only that is all we do. Since we have developed techniques after programming the movement and graphically for showing buildings and objects, and outlining the expressing it should the environment—anenvelope spaces which they confine, we plan by architectural within which movement takes place—be designed. symbols, projected in conventional methods, on The environment exists for the purpose of move­ paper. We use the plan and the elevation, the iso­ ment. " metric projection, and sometimes a model. But all these accepted systems of architectural language For some time now, even prior to the publication describe only the fixed surroundings, the structures of my book CITIES, I have been working toward a and the spaces which they enclose. Landscape system of movement notation, and recently the plans, which tend to be less rigid and exacting, are system has been considerably refined. In setting still limited to a description of plants as static myself this task, I assumed that such a system ought phenomena, or of hard masonry structures in the to be useful for designers working with pure move- Lawrence Halprin is a landscape architect presently involved in urban freeway and rapid transit design as well as in landscaping. This essay is reprinted from PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURE (July, 1965) by permission of the author. 27 ment: in dance and theater; for the newer choreo­ The escape from the traditional note scales can be graphers whose aim has been to use sculpture and seen in a score by Morton Subotnick, titled "PLAY! painting with theater; as well as for those of us de­ (1) for Wood Wind Quintet, Piano, tape." Here, the signing for environment—architects, planners, and composer is no longer indifferent to the environment landscape architects. My system of notating move­ in which his music is played, but makes the en­ ment is a tool that should prove very useful for en­ vironment become a part of the music. Some of the vironmental design, but it was not developed for composer's instructions read: "Players may move that purpose alone. I hope that it will have univer­ from left to right or right to left but must always sal application for every kind of movement. move through a head turning square. The diagram (next page) indicates long tones, their general inten­ Immediate parallels with other explorations in no­ sity, quality, duration, and pitch. Stems extending tation come to mind. The most comparable are from each note help to locate the pitch and duration." those in music. Traditionally, music has isolated notes for established instruments and has fixed their Further changes have occurred in music. In many positions in space and time on bars, usingclefs and of the newer works, such as those of John Cage, an variations in note duration. In most cases, the mu­ essential element in the presentation is the move­ sicians themselves have stayed in one position; only ment of the performers, who change position on the sound has varied. More recently, musical nota­ stage in a kind of choreographed processional, tion has burst its accepted form, for various rea­ moving about from instrument to instrument while sons comparable to ours. In electronic music, for they make their sounds. Dance has invaded the example, sound is developed, and the resultant environment of music. tones cannot be scheduled in reference to any fixed In the dance itself—the purest form of movement- system of instruments or notes. The need for a new choreographers have been working for centuries to notation arises out of the inability of the traditional devise systems with which to record their move­ system to express new concepts. ments. The most recent and complete system to date is Labanotation (left), developed in Europe by Rudolf Laban. This is a system whose purpose is to record dances so that they can be compared and analyzed and to serve as a record for other dancers in reconstructing the dance. Labanotation is de­ tailed in its recording of gesture; it is a fine tool for conveying precise movements of arms, legs, step patterns, and attitudes. It does not attempt to grapple with the issue of the environment of movement. But Labanotation is, in certain ways, parallel to our system in its use of vertical staves. And where detailed portrayal of finite gesture is important, the system can be used concurrently.

MOTATION

Environments change their qualities with the varia­ tion of speeds they generate. As we move through them, they move around us. On our freeways and rapid transit systems, the variation in environ­ mental speed becomes clearer when we observe the contrast in the high-speed foreground and the low- speed background. Sitting at the window of a train, for instance, one gets a certain feeling from passing a series of verticals, a feeling very much deter­ mined by their number and the distance between them. Passing piers that are quite close to each other surprise the passenger again and again with a sense of their nearness. The change of speed is LABANOTATION: Study in Simple Jumps made more apparent in this way, so that, on a route, 28

Page four of score for "PLAY (1) for Wood Wind Quintet, a pattern of acceleration is soon Piano, tape" by Morton Subotnick established. We have all observed FLUTt Ma Lllr telephone poles and track markers alongside a railroad track rush by DMWa •IK* y-.? at great apparent speed while ob­ jects on the horizon seem to move r rlr r HK» nut IT T hardly at all. As another example, an automobile can be defined as an instrument for moving you to the TVtUi*t»T • oil J^l city, but it can also be defined as a IlVL means of moving the city to you. In terms of the individual whose only true continuity is his own a-

CU»M«T wareness, it can be said, with all psychological justice, that the Stum. y •1. If >f <• [. f(l I1 f.l.J, n.OT» I ii - IIUULIUUIJ environment moves. This is an I *-^ ^^M ii If.iff, f „,, r essential basis for my notation '.:• ^^n -o.O IMC TT w^ system. THE SYSTEM For clarity, I have called this ... system of movement notation "-*.» b tie "Motation," a name that is very it 11 J' IN .. - close to auto-definition. . Any notation system should be QAS10NI reasonably simple, readable, and V should possess a graphic quality that expresses at a glance the f t i t t t r \ It '"«M biff nature of what is being recorded. The idea of the Motation system 9 resembles the technique of the TAPE CONTINUES animated film in that individual pictures or "frames," sepa­ rated in space are related in time to form apparent movement. An environment-which can be a stage, a city block, a forest or a continent —is set off in divisions of space. The notator bases his record on what is to be visually inventoried — depending on the purpose of the voyage — at each of these

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Instruction for page four — "PLAY (1) for Wood Wind Quintet, Piano, tape" by Morton Subotnick MOTATION SYMBOLS 29 divisions. The primary features affecting the move­ FIG. 2 ment are indicated. For instance, the record will SYMBOLS IN GENERAL be conditioned by the speed of the journey, and when separate notings are read serially, they should re­ i I VERTICAL ELEMENT flect a sense of speed — just as if running off the 2 —— HORIZONTAL ELEMENT still frames of a film at different speeds. 3 \ DIAGONAL ELEMENT

• /• CURVEO ELEMENT

SYMBOLS FOR STRUCTURE

5 n HIGH BUILDING FIG. 1 MO MOTION •locwiac MOTION • 5 LOW BUILDING THE SYMBOLS 7 ffl MEDIUM BUILDING In Motation, the "frames "are notated with a series 8 £) GROUP OF BUILDINGS of 26 basic symbols; other symbols have also been devised to augment the symbology. By themselves TOMER or in combination, this "alphabet" produces the • 1 "words" of the Motation "language." The dot, the IHII'FfNCE l0 PI DOOR OR GATE arc, and the straight line are the basic symbols. Using these geometric elements, a rational lin­ "TT UNDERPASS guistic structure has been developed that is sym­ bolic and purposely nonpictorial. SYMBOLS FOR LANDSCAPE

The symbols lend themselves to meaningful associa­ «r\ HILL tions. For instance, the dot stands for a human JJjrt RAlLlUG l3/^\ MOUNTAIN being. A human is a moving being; the dot, there­ fore, is used as a part of the symbols for other *\U VALLEY things that move. The circle, for example, which l5 is an open dot, suggests a wheel; further, a dot 0 BODY OF MATER within a circle symbolizes a car. The arc repre­ sents organic forms in the landscape and is used to •«^S7 RUNNING WATER symbolize a hill. With an interior semicircle, it FOUNTAIN becomes a mountain. The half-circle of "hill" "^7 becomes "dome," but by placing a dot within it, ia «f TREE suggesting movement, it changes to "cloud." The straight line is symbolically abstracted to represent 19

THE MOTATION FORM 22 f£] TRAIN 23 © BIKE The motation system employs a standardized form (see Fig. 3), the purpose of which is two-fold. SYMBOLS FOR DIRECTION First, standard sheets can be joined end-to-end to form a movement composition or record of any 24 y DIRECTION OF MOVEMENT length; this is convenient to read, like a scroll. Secondly, movement notations on standard sheets 25 L^" EYE LEVEL RIGHT DOT ON BOTH _ sipes. OF SYMBOL 26 1 ABOVE EYE LEVEL LEFT 30

i n—'—n the bottom of the Horizontal Track. This outline is then segmented in succeeding frames on the track above. When the Motation is extensive, these frames are keyed to the Key Frame. These suc­ cessive frames of the Horizontal Track repeat only the section of the trip that is being notated in the corresponding frames of the adjacent Vertical Track. In these segments, additional topographic features can be added. — ...... FIG. 3 THE VERTICAL TRACK are easier to compare with each other. Since a subjective element is unavoidable, a significant On the right of the Horizontal Track is a stack of consensus of a given route demands the uniformity smaller frames that make up the Vertical Track of standardized Motation forms. (Fig. 5). This track is plotted as a record of the

ID »*A B 5. After * toft turn, fountain *f> On the lower right corner of the form, in which are petrs on left.

noted: title, an indication of the means of move­ ID 4. Mounting steos. ment, the units of time and distance, and the total time and distance. *Poro4chlng steps.

7*Z r-cirtg steos .ft.-r * riant turn, The basic symbols are listed above this title block, >tr if m concrete umbrella roof on right* • t ...ut to pass under * q-te. with space adjacent for additional symbols and &a n a •'iqh building *he*d. Trees on special notes.

THE HORIZONTAL TRACK

On the left side of the form is a row of large frames FIG. 6 that compose the Horizontal Track (Fig. 4). This The Horizontal and Vertical Tracks are read to­ gether to give, in toto, the qualities of three di­ * T B= mensions-that is, of height as well as distance. Y Y rw*fc^t SPEED AND DISTANCE TRACKS

In order to indicate speed, two strips on either side A n Hon ONTAi T« Mi of the Vertical Track are used to mark off units of FIG. 4 distance and time (Figure 7). Thedistance strip is track is used to map the path of travel within an also used to indicate the rise and fall of the surface environment. It is on this track that all the hori­ that is moved upon: a diagonal is graduated to fit zontal turns, directions, and motion relative to the degree of elevation or declination, thereby other mobile elements are plotted. First, the basic showing ramps, steps, ladders, etc. In addition, outline of the voyage is drawn in the Key Frame at special events that need to be recorded, such as sound, smell, color, or rain, are indicated in this understood. However, for those unaccustomed to strip. In the Time strip, the irregular spacing of such systems, it requires patience and practice in the dots indicates change of speed. For example, the learning process. one might visualize Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs as they fled from the witch: when On these pages are two abbreviated examples of they walked, the crumbs fell close together; when Motation forms, which apply to actual journeys they ran, the crumbs fell farther apart. and events. One of these records a scene in a dancer's workshop, and the other, a trip along the San Francisco Freeway (see following pages). In 1/ each case, verbal descriptions and photographs,

taono which are keyed to corresponding Vertical frames by number, have been provided to aid the reader *"" y-^^ in visualizing the graphic system. .-.- CONCLUSION

FIG. 7 Dl*TAMCC This, then, is Motation. What can be done with it? If there is a change from walking to riding a train, The system is a tool both for recording existing it is shown by a break in the track, a noting of a events or to create new conditions. It is a scoring shift in motive power and changes in units of dis­ system for motion through space, just as musical tance and units of time. While it is sensible to notation is a scoring system for sound. Its uses notate 10 yards as the unit of measure afoot, it are the same. As a musical score can describe would be too small a unit at 60 mph to be practical, a piece of music that then can either be heard in and vice versa. the mind's ear or actually played, so Motation can describe motion through spaces that can either be Finally, the combined tracks (Fig. 8), which indi­ seen through the mind's eye or moved through in cate all the elements of horizontal space, vertical actuality. space, time, and distance, can be read effectively to plot the movement of a person or object through Motation is a tool for choreography as much as de­ an environment at understandable speeds. A com­ scription: choreography in the broadest sense — pleted section of the Motation form looks like this: meaning design for movement. As the accompanying illustrations indicate, Motation can be used for v 1 IL choreographing dances for stage and theatre, for 1 Y the design of movement through urban spaces at : pedestrian speeds, or for the qualities of motion fm4T through space at the speed of freeways and rapid •• • H transit systems.

n .•-• * TNACK In the long run, our cities - our whole environment - are perceived and experienced through movement. As I pointed out in the prologue to CITIES, "The FIG. 8 city comes alive [only] through movement and its RECOMMENDATIONS rhythmic structure. The elements are no longer merely inanimate. They play a vital role, they In reading Motation, it is important, particularly become modulators of activity and are seen in for architects, to remember that these are not juxtaposition with other moving objects. Within the substitutes for plans and elevations but rather ab­ space, movement flows; paving and ramps become stract representations of three-dimensional visual platforms for action; the street furniture is used; experience—a new symbology. the sculpture in the street is seen and enjoyed; and the whole city landscape comes alive through move­ Furthermore, it should be pointed out that any new ment as a total environment for the creative process language requires some effort and time before of living." facility in its use is acquired. Musicians, accus­ tomed as they are to "reading" notes in space, have It is as a tool to help achieve these aims that the found this new system simple, direct, and readily Motation System has been developed. 32

The Motation (right) is a variant approach to the Motation System in that the dancer is in motion rather than the notator. Numbers cor­ relate frames, photos, and verbal description. There are three dancers, labeled A, B. and C; their positions are noted on the Horizontal Track. The action begins with A and B at audience's left (1). A is standing downstage, B sitting down upstage. While B remains still, A moves audience right and to the rear. Then B rises as C enters from the right (2), crossing the stage with an exaggerated low stride, while A reaches a piece of stage fur­ niture, a box, and picks it up. A then drops into a chair as B moves to center stage and mounts a pedestal.

In spite of the different way in which this ac­ tion is recorded, it could be conveniently keyed into a moving notator's record at any point. For instance, if a walking notator, who is recording a standard Motation of his changing environment, pauses in front of a puppet show, he merely stops and notates it. In so doing, however, he shifts into a different "key," and then he changes back to the former method when he moves on. Although the ex­ ample here is of a stage experience, it could be a record of any action observed from a fixed point.

Clearly the system is also workable for de­ signing a movement sequence.

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The Motation form (right) is an excerpted record of an automobile trip on a freeway in San Francisco. For this extended journey, the Horizontal Track is keyed to the Key Frame. The roadbed used is elevated on a supporting structure for the entire length of the route; therefore, except for the high surrounding buildings, foregrounds are out of sight. Fur­ thermore, this is a record of what is seen by a driver (rather than a passenger) of a car on the freeway. Since the driver properly keeps his eyes on the road, that is primarily what he sees, but there is always the horizon, which never escapes his peripheral aware­ ness like running a gauntlet of neonized super-billboards.

At the start, the car ascends a curving ramp amidst a scatter of low- and medium-sized buildings. A turn is made to the right as two striking landmarks make their appearance: the tower of the Ferry Building rises on the leftahead; and beyond that lie the silverspans of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (1). Beyond that are overhead arches used for traffic signs (2). Nearing the Civic Center, what was once an upper roadbed becomes the lower one, as opposing traffic is routed overhead. The car enters a rather cubistic professional experience, in that the road be­ low, at a point ahead, meets the concrete of the roof above (3).

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0» SPACE . t" ** -* > • H| •*•-"-• TO DISTANCE •* Ml*-** tO », TIM! £MiH J^aJ«*W/^»A.y i*t>r : »•( --. 34 Reflections in Motion—A Photographic Essay LORLE KRANZLER with photographs by HANK KRANZLER

One day, Bill Jones of KQED, the Bay Area's edu­ dance composition. The addition of this element cational television station, and I were discussing should not "throw off" my own preconceived ideas. the peculiar limitations of the dance as seen through The first dance we filmed was called "Mirrors." the television medium — the fact that it seems to It stemmed from an idea in which I had had a long reduce a three-dimensional art to two dimensions, and deep interest. When we worked in class, I ob­ the de-personalizing of the direct relationships of served the complete absorption and concentration the performers and the loss of the sense of space. of the youngsters. The reflection of personality Instead of curtailing possibilities in these ways, and oneness that they found with each other seemed could television actually expand them? tome so beautiful and "real" that I wanted to share this in a dance. The camera was able to close in So we started to talk about how we could utilize the upon the couples, to look through the imaginary technical potentials of the cameras and the co- mirrors. In order to give the cameras ample chance choreography of the technical director, Winifred to concentrate on a few people at a time, we struc­ Murphy, and her staff, and myself (as the dance tured the dance in such a way that different couples choreographer) to find a new medium for dance. started and ended at different times. The personal We wanted to find a way to create something that involvement and the giving to the partner (and would be totally different and impossible on a stage thereby to the viewer) were very apparent and very or without the resources of the television studio. warm. Each couple worked with a theme or idea, which changed each time they did it according to KQED had just acquired new camera equipment, their "mirroring" of each other. and the staff wanted very much to work with a group of dancers who would be willingto come in and co­ When we started with this dance, we went through operate in a joint venture. it once in order to give everyone at the studio a chance to see what the dance would be like. Then we My job was to organize the choreography for my "performed" it, running the first film. Immediately dancers in such a way that there would be a definite afterwards we sat down to watch the reshowing of structure within which they could improvise. The the video tape. (What an experience for all of us). structure would be like a mobile, open to changes Everybody was feeling pretty pleased. After some given through music cues. There would be specif­ discussion as to possible variations on camera ic reasons (ideas) and limits that would help deter­ angles, close-ups, etc., we re-shot the whole mine some of the forms of the improvisation. dance. (We had agreed to do no cutting or splicing of the film.) Since I was working with about 20 teenagers, both boys and girls, whose backgrounds in dance were When we viewed the second taking, it was immedi­ extremely varied, (some had never danced before ately apparent that many of the technical changes the beginning of this particular 10 week session), were an improvement over the first film, but the each individual had to help provide his own move­ over-all feeling, the concentration, the relationship ments within a given framework. This meant that of the dancers toward each other, the cameras there was no need to push and pull the group into a toward them, and the sequences were not as "warm" mold that fitted my ideas. With dancers so varied as the first time around, and so we decided to use in technique, age, and physical structure, this the first shooting as our final product. would have been practically impossible. Then we went on to our "Black and White" dance. I had to have an over-all choreographic idea, but I This dance was conceived by Bill Jones, the pro­ could not finalize it as it would have been handled ducer and set designer. His idea was to do a dance for the stage, since the camera-performer encount­ in complete black and white tones, electronically ers would come into play and would be part of the removing all the gray middle tones. Lorle Kranzler, dancer, choreographer and teacher, received her early training (ballet) in. Europe. At present, in addition to her work as choreographer, she is director of the Stanford Creative Dance Group, a cooperative organization of more than 100 students. Gretchen Oliver and Bill Barber on the set of "Mirrors," waiting for their cue to start their 'mirror' image." •

Lorle Kranzler in foreground watching run-through of "Mirrors.

The group watching the video tape immediately following the filming of "Mirrors. 37 We had set up movement ideas based on levels, backstage) satandstood around to watch the show­ space, and time. In complete contrast to the per­ ing of this final film, the atmosphere in the studio sonal approach of the other dance, we wanted to became more and more excited and electric. When simulate abstract, paper cut-out figures, which the film ended there was a second of stunned si­ could be played with through the cameras, super­ lence, followed by complete pandemonium. Every­ imposed, reversed to be negative images, lines of one hugged and kissed everyone else — performers, the body made ragged, figures fragmented by the camera men, producer, director, and anyone else use of white hangings, behind which the dancers close enough to be in reach. As for me, I think I disappeared and reappeared. did not even move. My awe at what could be pro­ duced with a group of people with imagination, tech­ Again, we filmed it once for over-all ideas of what nical ability, courage to try something new, and a could be done technically, chose the ideas we wanted willingness to "give" and become a member of a to use (we did not want it to get "gimmicky"), and creative working group was absolutely astonishing then filmed it "for real." and gratifying. Our experiment was a success. I understand that The youngsters (we had been working for over six the staff of the station is so enthusiastic and has hours by then), dressed in their all black leotards such confidence in the films, particularly the "Black and tights, black gloves, masks, black make-up on and White" dance film, that they are going to send faces, wrists and feet, were still "all with it." it to the International Film Festival at Monte Carlo. Cheerful, enthusiastic, hot and tired, and com­ pletely "available," they had won the hearts of all As I write this, we have set a date (May 6) for a the adult crew and staff members at the station, second workshop filming during which we will who had been rather leery about having to work with shoot one more dance, an abstract sea-life scene, a large group of teens. which will round out a full program, "Reflections in Motion." KQED plans to make the show available When everyone (somehow there seemed to be a to NET (National Educational Television) for view­ crowd of people who had been working or watching ing throughout the country.

"Black and White" during the final filming "Sea Motif" — Stanford Creative Dance Group "Black and White" — Dancers disappeared and reappeared behind the white scrims that were placed in the performing area. Lou Harrison at the piano with Richard Dee, violin, participate in the performance of "Mirrors." In "Black and White" Mr. Harrison uses percussion: bells, drums, chimes, gongs, etc. Society, Musician, Dancer, Machine— A Set of Opinions Entirely Attributable to LOU HARRISON, in 1966

Predominant practice today is for dancers to use and decadence grows socially in the U.S.A. , and as disks and/or tapes while teaching classes, and for the only socially undisciplined class (the Military) accompanying concerts as well. This is Bad Prac­ can actually thwart any plans of youth, or kill it tice — for it trains in lifeless (un-inter-responding) off for that matter — then youths certainly can't rhythm, and it increases the popular belief that plan their lives, let alone plan their art! Why Machines are Holy. It is part of the same thing should they ? Why should Society ask them to plan that causes us to housebreakour children and allow their art? our automobiles to spew their waste-products all over us. The dancer who uses disks or tapes It cannot be too strongly put that an artist who in concert (unless the music is originally creates a Performing Art (Music, Dance, Theater, "Electronic") is not an Artist but a Hack. etc.) does not own his work — by duly constituted laws the public has seen to it that The Public owns Machine reproductions — the replication and dis­ his work, and that he is granted only certain rights persal of millions of "copies " of almost everything- over his creations for only a limited time. Well, has resulted in a general Bourgeois Tedium: the naturally, no one is going to buy a property that is Repeatable, then, made a common Tedium. After about to become a Public Park! This is why we are Hitler's War a New Effort arose among the Educated all poor. Hail Fellow Creator of the Public Wealth! to avoid, and counter, this situation by producing If a dancer wants a rhythmic life in her classes, she the Unique Event, preferably unrepeatable. Ab­ will hire a good creative musician — a composer. stract Expressionism,Happenings,Tacheism,etc., were all aimed at revivifying single states or events. If a composer starts to improvise for a dancer's I myself was miserable during that period — for it classes, he will first ascertain whether he or she almost neglected the inter-compositional relation­ counts aloud while he (the musician) is working. ships that, to me, constitute Art, and made The If the dancer does this, the good composer will Relationship to be only between oneself (as person) abandon that studio. This matter is so important and some thing or event (paint, sound, etc.). lam in the working relationship of the two that I venture happy now to notice in Society a return toward re­ to say that (if negative) no other (or Concert) work lational and/or mensurating art — Planned Art. of artistic merit could possibly be made by the two of them together. I was distressed by the frequently aleatory pro­ cedures of many of the Young until it dawned on me It is in the Teaching Studio that a Musician and that in a very real sense they were being realists Dancer form their true relationships — Here where and realistic. As population grows (world-wide) they are both earning money, Both stimulating

Composer Lou Harrison lives in California where he has had extensive experience in working with dancers. Currently, he is the recipient of a grant. 41

growth in others, and surprising One Another with accorded literate music now tends to accrue to re­ new Turns of Art — here is their basis. (For an corded improvisation as well. I find this a bold example: the music made by Richard Dee and my­ step backward. And Hilarious. I am an old self for the Video-tape "Black and White" by the Fuddy Dud. Camera - Choreographer Winifred Murphy with Lorle Kranzler's youth group, was designed in a Dance Improvisation (by dancers in dance, I mean) fashion picked up by me from one of Mrs. Kranzler's is generally either About a Subject, or Free —in teaching procedures of several years back — an order to find interesting and/or meaningful forms. idea directly exchanged in the working and teaching It is good, I think, when: studio). In classroom creative learning and exploring— When seeking expressive movement material Hearing and Kinesthesis do, indeed, share neigh­ for composition boring "Offices" in what Robert Bridges calls "the Possibly in public concert (occasionally) by spiral audience chamber of the mind." Plato said Solo Dancer who has a long background in that an education consisted in "learning to sing and Formal Composition dance well." When partially pre-decided (and done by a group) to provide the "material" out of which i Musicians should proceed toward Numeracy — a "Camera-Choreographer" (Lorle Kranzler's knowing and using precise pitch ratios. Dancers excellent term) will compose a movie or should move on toward Literacy — reading and video-tape writing dances. Labanotation is the best and most and lastly, Privately or at Parties for the Hell practical form of dance literacy today. of it

• To enjoy working for Modern Dancers (In Concert) When a system of internal cues and responses is the Composer must realize that he is here working set up, we are no longer in the realm of improvi­ in the field of Experimental Chamber Music. No sation, but in the realm of Variable Composition. symphonic orchestras accompany the modern dance I find that I'm bored by group improvisation in the concert; and even his experimental chamber music concert hall because one has to wait too long for for dance may never be noticed by the Professional anything interesting or beautiful to happen (when Musical Body (reviews, further musical perform­ with a little planning both can be made to happen) ances, etc.). He should little care — he can deal and that this is true of both the arts. Great or with the professional musical body by other means. beautiful forms are almost impossible to create by committee — doodling is the result. The remedy is Literacy. Xenomuseophobia (the Fear of Foreign Muses) is not a difficulty of Modern Dancers, as it so often is of Modern Musicians. Dancers generally welcome Are we to continue to have some form of Public all the treasure trove that Ethnomusicology is turn­ Arts at all???? The Chinese - who faced the ing up for us — both as to instruments and styles. problem of "Saturation Population" many centuries The sensible musician will, therefore, continue to ago — do not have a Public Art, and now not even Spread the Good News! the remnants of it which were preserved in the imperial court ceremonies. Indeed, no advanced Improvisation, solo, at any instrument (or group of or heavily populated culture since Tang and Sung them) during dance movement — whether solo or China shows anything but soloistic, private, deli­ group — is a cultivated skill which is built up of cate, and even esoteric art. Will We have a public years of effort and/or trial and error. It also art in future ? ? ? ? ? requires a Kinetic Empathy which is speedy and re­ liable. It is good practice for young composers, , The machine which will really influence dance more too, for one may learn how to sustain Form-Build­ than any other will be, of course, the Space Ship. ing Musical Functions by doing this — and learn Imagine the delights of Free-Fall Choreography — the difference between Form Building and simple Grande Pirouettes executed on the point of the fore­ Doodling. In "olden times " (even in the last century) head (as in a recent Russian film short) — or body distinguished composers improvised In Public for movement conceived with only design and muscle the public's entertainment. Duet, Trio, or even empathy in mind — rhythm without gravity — group improvisations are recent additions. Since take-off-push — and what not else? the advent of phonography, the Success of Jazz, and the discovery of a Serious Improvising Tradition (in , The views herein expressed are not necessarily India), much of the prestige and acclaim earlier those of the Establishment. 42

Dance at Bennington— A Curriculum Statement for a Liberal Arts College WILLIAMBALES

Editor's Note; The following statement is the first draft of apian written by William Bales, when the administration of Bennington College announced an expansion program. The plan does not Dancer: Kathryn Posin necessarily represent the curriculum that will be adopted. Photo: Matthias Tarnay

In 1932 Bennington College made an historical majors and "minors" since 1932. Over half are innovation in liberal arts education when it included still continuing work in dance. dance as a basic field of study. In the ensuing years the Dance Department has achieved a distinguished The faculty, anxious to sustain the quality of its reputation among educators, professionals and work in an expanding college, has restudied its critics for its outstanding work. A recent article curriculum, concluding that the present approach in DANCE MAGAZINE, probing the question of to dance is germane to the liberal arts objectives "College or Career for Dancers? Bennington's of Bennington College. But development in new Answer," describes Bennington as a college . . . directions must be undertaken in order to meet where some of the best dancing to be seen in changing philosophic and aesthetic concepts. Ad­ America is being taught and performed." vantage must also be taken of new technological developments which can facilitate critical study of More rewarding to the dance faculty is the knowledge a visual field. gained from a recent survey of dance graduates,

William Bales teaches dance at Bennington College. Formerly he was a member of the Humphrey- Weidman Company and, later, appeared with Jane Dudley, Sophie Maslow and company. He also teaches at the Connecticut College School of Dance and is a member of the Dance Panel of the State Department's International Cultural Exchange Program. 43

Questions have also been raised because of the A basic theory course, Structure and Style, pre­ emerging importance of the performing arts in the cedes all other work in dance. This course intro­ national scene. Are new challenges of leadership duces the student to the field from philosophic and being imposed upon established performers and historic viewpoints. Dance is studied as ritual, educators ? Does Bennington College have a role social activity, spectacle and entertainment. Criti­ in the future developments of the arts that extends cal work is done through both reading and writing beyond the limits of the college community? of papers and practical movement problems. Graded technique classes in modern dance and THE CURRICULUM ballet are offered daily. Practice in Performance Additional Courses Dance Notation, Music for Dance, Stagecraft and The weekly Dance Workshop, a choreography work- Acting technique are required. Practice Teaching in-progress session, is the focal point of study at is a required experience for each dance major. Bennington College. Here the first attempt of an Work in production is also required and includes elementary student as well as the finished work of performance in works by the dance faculty and a dance major is shown for diversified criticism. students. Faculty works-in-progress are also presented. The workshop idea demonstrates the importance A dance tour every other year during the non-resi­ given to practice in performance, and it is the dent term is an integrated curricular experience unique conceptual basis upon which the dance cur­ for the serious dancer and serves as a synthesis riculum is structured. All dance study is designed of the total dance training. (The 1966 touring group to enable the student to function in workshop activi­ presented 37 performances, traveling from Maine ties to her fullest capacity as performer, director to Wisconsin and south to North Carolina.) or choreographer. Her limitations are her indivi­ Courses for the Non-Major dual ability and time, for a Bennington dancer pur­ sues many disciplines in acquiring a rounded liberal All courses in the dance curriculum are open to the arts education. non-major. The dance faculty believes that the work for the non-major is one of the distinctive Dances successfully completed through the weekly features of its curriculum and defines its objectives sessions are selected for an open workshop, or as follows: public performance, presented each term. The dances are polished and mounted with as near pro­ a. To educate an enlightened amateur in fessional performance as the particular student the field. group can give. Faculty or repertory works danced b. To educate a perceptive and informed by undergraduates may also be included in the pro­ audience. gram. For many years the Fall Workshop has been c. To provide educational disciplines that presented in New York under the sponsorship of the are acquired from the practice of move­ YM-YWHA at Kaufmann Hall. ment as a communicative theatre art. These are especially useful to students These public performances are viewed as the climax in the related performing arts of drama of the term's work, but the substance of the Dance and music. This work is in no way taught Workshop is to be found in the weekly sessions of as a "service course." performance and criticism. Special Students To enlarge the scope of creative work in dance, Basic Courses four scholarships are presently offered to men. These special students are chosen for their ability Preparatory work for Dance Workshop is taught in as dancers and their potential for making use of graded composition classes where the student ex­ Bennington's educational opportunities. When their plores the communicative elements of movement. She studies traditional forms, group choreography academic work is certified, they may be enrolled and learns the craft of dance structure. As her as regular students working for a degree. studies advance, the student develops her ability There is also a Master's program in dance for a to use these resources expressively and to work limited number of students with requisite qualifi­ independently. cations . -1-1

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE Other requirements for stage, size of auditorium, etc., are quite individual. But green room, dress­ Technical Assistance — Film or Video-Tape ing rooms and other backstage spaces and equip­ ment must be coordinated with the plans for other With sufficient space available, the dance faculty stages. Permanent lighting equipment and switch­ plans to incorporate work with film, to explore board should be part of the facilities of each theatre, composing for a spatial medium and for the use but a master plan must be devised that will be of film as a visual teaching aid. A dance film reasonable for the college. library has been started and it will be enlarged as funds are made available. A library of recorded Theatre for Dance works by Bennington faculty will also be started. Stage At present, the dance faculty is investigating the costs of video-tape as a practical visual aid in the Dance requires a stage with a proscenium arch. curriculum. The floor must be specially constructed so that it has "spring." The floor must be madeofsoft wood, Artistic Development — Resident Dance Company but must be free of splinters. (No floor screws can be used on it.) Approximate dimensions should be: In an expanded college with an adequate theatre and sufficient rehearsal space, we hope to find means Proscenium opening 45 feet of establishing a resident professional dance com­ Depth to back wall 40 " pany as an adjunct to existing dance activity. (In Depth to cyclorama 30 " much the same way that a string quartet is often Height of proscenium opening 25 " resident at an educational institution where it is primarily engaged in professional activity, but is Auditorium also a contributing element in the cultural life of the community.) The proposal is a continuingartist- Capacity — between 325 and 350 in-residence plan. Floor must be sloped so that sight lines will give The dance company would be a creative stimulation an unobstructed view of the stage and stage floor. and offer performing opportunities for faculty and students. Itmight provide a basis for a professional A small orchestra pit — to accommodate a piano program of graduate study in dance. It could also and other instruments. be a service to the community at large, the town of Bennington, and might eventually serve the cultural Air conditioning in both auditorium and backstage. ends of the state of Vermont. It is a concept that might attract Foundation support. Studio Space (Exclusive use)

PROJECTED TEACHING FACILITIES One teaching and rehearsal space the exact dimen­ sion of the stage, plus additional room in front and For years, the most persistent problem of the cur­ back for adequate viewing. This space will also be riculum at Bennington College has been the lack of used for experimental performances and should adequate classroom and studio space. Since 1932 have lighting facilities suitable for its multiple pur­ when the trustees decided to open the college in poses. Its dimensions should beat least 60 feet by buildings hastily converted from farm house and 45 feet and 20 feet high. barn, Bennington has improvised imaginative solu­ tions to meet space needs each September, but, in Two large teaching studios adequate to accommo­ the past few years, finding answers is more difficult, date a class of 35 students as a maximum. Floor more costly and more ineffectual. space over 2000 square feet; proportion of one to one and a half. Height — 18 feet. Exploratory discussions with other performing arts indicate that Bennington must have more than one Two studios — 1200 square feet — proportion of one theatre, primarily because each department con­ to one and a half. One of these studios should be siders the theatre a performing laboratory which adjacent to faculty offices and primarily for faculty must be available to the students for daily work. use. 45

All studios must have raisers and spring floors, outside lighting (windows), no fluorescent lighting, sound proofing. They must be equipped with mirrors and barres. They must contain tape recorders, phonographs and pianos. Change rooms with shower and toilet facilities must be conveniently located. Additional Space Offices for faculty including music director Room equipped for recording and taping Film library Music library Office for secretary

FACULTY APPOINTMENTS To support its Performing Arts Curriculum, Bennington College maintains a flexible policy of faculty appointments. The college looks for an instructor who has expertness in the field and an enthusiasm for teaching, rather than academic certification. It also looks for faculty members with lively points of view, who are daring, but not divisive. For any plan to work, no matter how complete and ideal it may be, the first essential is to have a faculty equipped to carry it out.

Bennington College Dance Group Photo: Matthias Tarnay Dancers (left to right): Anita Dancoff, Linda Wilder (in air), Susanne Snyder (back to camera) Anna Coffey, Clyde Morgan 46 Dance in the Detroit Schools—1966 RUTH LOVELL MURRAY

Detroit, Michigan in the past decade has been a that interest have only the Public Schools to which burgeoning city. Such a description does not refer to turn. to its population, for as is characteristic of similar urban centers, there has been a continuous move That the schools have not failed them is a phenome­ to the suburbs on the part of middle and upper middle non which is rare if not non-existent in the public class white families (although in Detroit this has secondary schools of most large cities. It began been somewhat reversed of late by programs of long ago with a few physical education teachers in urban renewal). Rather it is because farsighted the secondary schools, whose interest in dance led city leaders, an enterprising Mayor, an excellent them into summer study, and a physical education Superintendent of schools, and an expanding Wayne administration which encouraged new departures in State University campus in the heartof the city have programming in the elementary schools, and for been influential in affecting many desirable changes. girls in the secondary schools. Undoubtedly, a A system of freeways veins the city, so important strong influence was a dance program of quality at where the automobile is the primary means of Wayne University (now Wayne State University), transportation; urban renewal projects have cleared the annual concerts of its performing group and its some of the more sordid slums; the beautiful water­ appearance before community groups throughout the front on the Detroit River is coming into view as city. Many of these dancers took their interest and 19th century warehouses are removed and public skill in the teaching of dance into the secondary buildings and high-rise apartments replace them. schools. Gradually, more and more senior high Most significant of all, Detroiters are developing schools began to have dance classes and extra­ pride in their city and in its potential as an environ­ curricular dance groups, which gave their own con­ ment for good living. certs or joined the music or drama departments in performance. Known in the past as a place which was long on in­ dustry and short on culture, this popular image is Dance in the high schools began to develop more rapidly changing through unified city effort. In this rapidly in the late forties with the appointment of endeavor the University and the Public Schools Dr. Delia Hussey as supervisor, who had among are playing an active part. In 1959 Dr. William other responsibilities, the direction of the second­ Berenbaum, at that time the only assistant vice ary school dance program. Dr. Hussey, a former president of Wayne State University, organized Wayne University Dance Workshop member and eighteen (now increased to twenty six) cultural later an assistant choreographer of the University institutions of the city into what was called "The Group, is at present assistant director of the Detroit Adventure." This body sponsored a series Division of Health and Physical Education of the of "Conversations in the Arts" throughout the city, Detroit Public Schools. Under her guidance more culminating in a late spring festival week of lectures and more high schools began initiating dance classes and performances, with participating artists of and after-school dance clubs. Gradually, in a few every persuasion and as far afield as Italy. From schools, students could choose from beginning, the beginning, dance was included in these art intermediate and advanced classes as well as mem­ gatherings and the dance events were never lacking bership in the performing group. School principals in enthusiastic audiences. and teachers in related arts began to take pride in the quality of the dance program in their individual This interest in dance is of long standing in Detroit, schools. In 1955 an "All-City" High School Dance due in large part to what has been going on in the Group was formed. Students from all high schools schools over a period of years. True, Detroit has teaching dance are auditioned and meet weekly for several good, solid ballet studios, and in recent advanced technique and composition. Members of years a City Ballet Company has been formed. But this group have performed with the Detroit Symphony comparable schools of modern dance have never Orchestra and are a feature of the combined high school dance program given each spring, which existed here, and for the most part students with

Ruth Lovell Murray is Professor of Physical Education at Wayne State University in charge of the dance curriculum. She is the author of DANCE IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 47 this year will be held in the new Ford Auditorium chosen to experiment with a total school curriculum on the Detroit River. in which parents as well as the school community would be involved. This article, however, will Because of its long and favorable history, dance confine itself to the Cultural Enrichment Project education is a solid and highly respected aspect of provided for certain inner-city schools under Title the total physical education program in the Detroit I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Public Schools. Consequently, there was no ques­ Together with music, art, and language education, tion of its involvement in the federally sponsored a program of after-school dance activities for programs now currently operating in the schools. schools of so-called "culturally disadvantaged" These include programs funded by the Economic children was planned in the fall of 1965 and after Opportunity Act of 1964 and the Elementary and finally being funded, began its operation in the Secondary Education Act of 1965, as well as a Ford spring of 1966. Dance in most of the senior high Foundation Grant. The latter is known as the "Great schools was already a well-established part of the Cities" Project, Detroit beingoneof fourteen cities school curriculum. Therefore it was decided, at

Detroit All-City High School Dance Group Photo: Detroit Public Schools Audio-Visual Service Department 48

least at first, to concentrate on the junior high and elementary school levels. The lack of quali­ fied dance teachers (even though in this program it is not neces­ sary that they be certified) is a handicap which still exists, es­ pecially in the teaching of junior high school boys. Nevertheless, the program has made a most auspicious start and at an all- day workshop in February, for principals and administrators involved in the project, dance made a greater impact than any of the other areas being de­ scribed or demonstrated.

Voluntary classes in modern creative dance (and in a few cases folk dance) are held for two hour periods once or twice weekly af­ ter school. At present this is in effect in ten elementary and seven junior high schools among those in the inner-city which are included in the program of cul­ tural enrichment. More classes will be added as teachers become available, and principals in the participating schools request them. A "coordinator"with long experience in the teaching of dance helps to organize the classes and supervises them. Children from nearby parochial schools are free to participate, and some do. Detroit All-City High School Dance Group Photo: Detroit Public Schools Audio-Visual Service Department Compared to most large cities Detroit has an en­ 50%. Negro and Oriental and 507c white students, viable record of school integratidn. It is most and it is totally integrated in spirit and fellowship interesting to note that in the past decade in three as well as in numbers. Two of the relatively few separate instances, the dance teacher has been the secondary school boys who braved the ridicule of first Negro teacher to be placed in an all-white their schoolmates to participate in the all - city senior high school. In each case within a very Short dance group and who have gone on to professional time she has gained the respect and admiration of careers in dance are both Negroes. One is Clifford the total school population; faculty, parents and Fears, who toured with the Katherine Dunham students alike. At present, five of the senior high Dancers for several years and now has his own school teachers of dance are American Negroes, studio in Stockholm. The other, Audrian (Rod) some teaching in predominantly Negro schools, Rodgers, is now a member of the Erick Hawkins some in predominantly white schools. Conversely, Dance Group and this year received a Whitney white teachers find great satisfaction in teaching Foundation Grant to continue his study in dance. dance in predominantly Negro schools. The pre­ sent student personnel of the Detroit all-city high I should like to close with an incident involving one school dance group is made up of approximately of the dance groups in an inner-city high school and 49 its teacher, who gave a demonstration for the prin­ tion as "one of the most thrilling experiences of cipals and administrators involved in this new my life." federal program of cultural enrichment. It was presented as though to an assembly of elementary An effective program of Cultural Enrichment for school children, and involved the audience as well children and youth must go beyond mere exposure as the dancers in a highly skillful way. Modern and involve participation as well. Dance as a form dance was explained, its differences from other of non-verbal communication can speak louder than types of art and theatrical dance clarified, its move­ words, and often more truthfully in its expressive ment elements and the kinds of movement which it aspects. In so doing, it can help the child to dis­ uses for composing described and demonstrated. cover himself and his potential more directly than All of the demonstrating group (which included boys most other art activities. Dr. Paul Torrence, as well as girls) and their outstanding teacher, noted for his research in creativity, said in a recent Mrs. VeraEmbree, were Negro, and she used this interview that creatively gifted children begin to fact to acquaint the audience with aspects of their be pressured into the mold of conformity by teachers African heritage. The group finished with a dance and peers atabout 8-9 years of age. If at that time they had made, "Kin and Ken," to an accompaniment their intellectual and cultural horizons are not of drums and authentic African chants. broadened and opportunities for creative challenges are not offered, they tend to withdraw into the The audience of tired administrators on a late narrow channels of doing no more than what is ex­ Saturday afternoon were spellbound. The next pected of everyone. Monday, because I had introduced Mrs. Embree, I received a letter from the director of language It is hoped that these federally sponsored programs education for the Detroit Public Schools, a man of will move at least some children beyond that point broad artistic interests, describing the demonstra- and open for them new doors of artistic interest and achievment.

Demonstration Dance Lesson — Keating Elementary School Michael Bellovich, instructor Photo: Jimmy Tafoya, Detroit Free Press 50

Performing Arts Workshop GLORIA UNTI Interview by JOANNA GEWERTZ

INTRODUCTION Area Action Board. The Workshop is also partici­ pating in a teacher-training program in cooperation The Performing Arts Workshop is a creative pro­ with the Urban League On-The-Job Training Project gram based upon the use of group art forms to mo­ under contract to the U.S. Department of Labor. tivate young people and adults living in a depressed Five teacher-trainees, all from the Western Addi­ area. The target area is the district known as tion, are currently being paid for on-the-job train­ Western Addition. Children born and bred in such ing. Several Program Aides have also been hired circumstances inherit not only their parents' eco­ from the community. nomic poverty, but also their cultural poverty. Both adults and children usually never encounter Miss Unti feels that one of the goals of a cultural those aspects of social living which motivate one project is to express that which is unique about the toward humanity-affirming objectives. participants and their community; she hopes to create a dance group that will make its own authen­ In short, the creative program attempts to bring tic statement. about those ego-building factors which result in socially aware and legitimately self-affirming per­ Classes, from age three through adult, are free to sonalities. By learning to focus through dance residents of Western Addition. Unfortunately, most technique, one may harness the psychic and kines­ classes are full and expansion depends on acquiring thetic energy which would otherwise be unrealized — larger space. A total of 160 are currently enrolled in other words, bring oneself "together." in classes.

The key to the program's success is the ability of The Performing Arts Workshop is a non-profit or­ the leader (teacher) to begin at the level of the ganization whose goal is to increase community group's own dynamics and move from there. The participation in the performing arts at all age levels Workshop participants emerge from the community with special emphasis on youth in poverty areas. and as a group reflect the community, its feelings and perceptions. Mutual acceptance between leader INTERVIEW and participants is indispensable: only then are they capable of serious creative work. My background is part of what is important in making this program. After ten years of training The program provides experiences of discipline, in the basic techniques of the ballet and modern in an organic way rather than being superimposed. dance fields and three years of drama, I could have Collective work, self-administration and self- made the choice of opening up a private studio, as direction give the participants a sense of commit­ many dancers do, and either making it or not. ment to their own investment. It meets the needs Actually, I didn't want to face private enterprise. for self-expression and stimulates imagination. It What is important is that as an individual I believed requires concentration and meeting schedules and in government subsidy of the arts. Since we didn't deadlines. Competitiveness is de-emphasized and have government subsidy, I felt the closest thing the discovery and assertion of individuality are would be the agencies that were in communities and encouraged. dealing with people who were in depressed areas. I wanted to go to the community centers and I did. This outstanding work came to the attention of the I found out that I was an apology for the "establish­ Economic Opportunity Council when it was first ment," which bothered me. I found out that the way putting together its local program. The Performing the community center was using the art forms was Arts Workshop became the only cultural group in really like an "arts and crafts " program, to keep the the city to receive Anti-Poverty money, having re­ students off the streets. That the potential of the ceived approval from the Western Addition Interim art forms wasn't even being tapped was repulsive Gloria Unti, Bay Area dancer and teacher, has been outstanding in her work with teenagers and Community Centers in San Francisco. Joanna Gewertz, dancer and teacher, is a member of the editorial board of IMPULSE. She is currently involved in graduate study in theater. .-,1

Performing Arts Workshop Photo: Gefcheidle tome. The students and participants were just not going when the teenagers, a group who was bored being reached on any level, even the craft level. with the non-structured, non-active program at the This was so in Y's and many community centers center, came to me and asked if I would teach them where I worked. karate. I told them I didn't know anything about karate but I would teach them yoga. That was a for­ Then I went to a center in a part of the city where eign enough word for them so they accepted it. They I happened to live, and was accepted by the director. thought it was exotic. They got very much involved She couldn't support my idea financially, but she and began to make up dances. Actually, the process gave me the facility to work in. It didn't take long was a kind of movement experience that I was giving to develop something. It became rooted in the com­ them. I certainly wasn't giving them a regular munity , and I began to find out that the art forms, dance technique class, as you give to middle class and this specific one, dance, were making changes children who have more discipline and focus. These in the individuals. The discipline and structure kids began to realize that you could make up a dance were affecting the kids. Being there day in and day and say something. We then had a performance and out I was able to relate to them in deeper ways. three dances were done. One was called "The Fool The process, the disciplines inherent in the art and I." It was a fantastically clever take-off on a form gave the participants a structure in which they hipster and a square. Another dance was a physical would be secure enough to be able to open up and competitive dance, in which they did a lot of athletic express themselves. Freedom brings about crea­ movement. The third dance was a boy-girl dance. tivity, but you need the limits and the disciplines and the structure in order to be free, to be able to This performance had a local community audience create. With these limits and tools they began to and it hit like fire. Music critic, Ralph Gleason find that they had some meaning in their lives. If reviewed it and said, "That group of kids put on a they wanted to say something, they could say it show Saturday night that knocked me completely through this form. out." Before I knew it, the leaders of the group came to me, and soon the teen workshop developed. But, at that time, the work was still based more on It grew into a group of 40 guys and 15 girls. The the middle class children who would come in and main energy, the creative energy, the sustaining get the benefits of the program. Things really got of the program was from the boys — not the girls. 52

This group became very exciting, but began to have a conflict with the methodology of the center. They came to rehearse on two days a week and at least four hours on Saturday. Their whole life was cen­ tered around this thing. I tried to maintain this dynamic approach to the program in the center, but was told it must change. This I wouldn't do. Sol left.

I came to the YMCA as a private teacher and just rented space. Meantime, interested people set up a committee and a board was soon formed. The proposal was written from the actual work done. We got our grant from the government and our re- lationshipwith the Y changed; it was now an organi­ zation in contract with the Y. I started with a new group here, and now in five months we have about 160-180 students.

You have to bring so much with you, beyond your students, beyond your name. You have to have organizational ability to go on. You have to know what you're doing, otherwise it gets chaotic. The dynamics and needs of this community are entirely different. You have to be constantly in a state of sensitivity to changes. Sometimes you aren't and things come to a head, and then you get focused, but you try all the time to be able to change and not al­ ways follow through on what you expected.

When you come into an area like this and you have a white skin, it's not so easy to be accepted. It becomes a question of provingyourself over a period of time. As long as you are able to fulfill the needs, in other words, thatyou are not "shucking," you're really giving something, then the community is — and rightly so — going to want to take advantage of it.

And so it happened. The classes were formed and interest began to develop. People in the community began to hear about it. The kids would come and watch and they'd say something to their mothers. A woman named Joyce came to me and I put her on the payroll to be an organizer in the community. She's indigenous to the area so her relationships to the community were well developed. She would go to homes and organizations and talk. She believed. This work opened up a whole new world to her. Joyce is part of the teacher training program we have now. It is a very exciting thing, based on trying to get Performing Arts Workshop people right out of the community to learn the skills Photo: Alvin Davis and eventually take leadership in this project and relate back to the community. It is a job training program. 53

I realized soon after I started that a method and an attitude that comes out of the community can be taken over by the community people. Who knows better than they do ? If you really identify with the people that you're working with, in the sense that you don't want to change them but that you want to harness the energy — not change it, harness it — then you've got a rapport going and you're able to open up the environment for creativity. Otherwise, you are really working on two different levels all the time. There's another important thing I've learned in this work. The teacher must not remove himself from the students. He should be accepting and supportive, but not destroy the art in favor of the personality, nor destroy the personality in favor of the art. It's a thin line on which you are always working. It is the duty of any teacher in this pro­ ject to be able to train a professional dancer. Al­ though I don't feel any one teacher ever does that; experiences have to be brought in beyond that one person. It's a question of how does the teacher really relate; how one accepts a person and then builds from there to develop the inner strength of the individual. You do this through discipline. It isn't step one, step two, step three. The attitude Performing Arts Workshop Photo: Gefcheidle of the teacher is two-fold: first, she loves her art form, and, second, she identifies with the student. Joyce had heard about a dance program at the Y, Ego-development is established from the very first not our program, but a tap class. By accident, she class. When non-professionals take themselves came into my room. She became tremendously ex­ seriously and have commitment, you have an energy cited for her kids, since she thought at first that it and excitement that you can't even find in profes­ would be for kids. When I told her that we had adult sional groups. classes, she said that she had always wanted to be a dancer and she would like to attend. She's been The Performing Arts Workshop is the name of our with us for the five months. project. We decided on that title because although dance is the mother base right now, itdoesn'tmean Joyce is one of six teacher-trainees in the program that that's where it'sgoingto stay. Dependingupon assigned from the Urban League on-the-job training the growth and talent it receives from the commun­ project, which means that the League pays a certain ity, it may set up a music department. It depends percentage and we pay another percentage. The on many factors especially our economic ability to teacher-trainees get $200 a month to study, which handle the growth that will occur. I have some fig­ is a terrific thing. They do not get paid for teaching; ures here from the Quarterly Report that I wrote none of them is ready for that yet. They take a for the E.O.C. During the quarter, there were class every morning. They watch all the classes 1,501 individual attendances (one person, one time), I teach, children and teen-agers. Some, who can and 251 classes, workshops or rehearsals. There take on more responsibility, participate in pro­ were approximately 240 off-the-street spectators. ductions. They take night classes; they go to re­ We call them "watchers." We find this to be very hearsals, they have composition class. They study important and we allow it even though it's difficult music twice a week, and anatomy. The music is for the teacher and makes problems. But it is taught by a musician and anatomy by a nurse who part of educating the community. The attitude of has taken dance with me for about six years and has the participants towards the watchers is great; it's really developed an interesting approach to anatomy not like a private studio, where it just wouldn't be for dancers. Eventually, we hope that this project tolerated. The kids and adults who come to watch will be able to sustain them and even send them out have learned to be quiet and they show respect to other areas where they are needed. towards the class. At the close of the quarter, Performing Arts Workshop Photo: Alvin Davis 55

student registration stood at 160, an increase of structed that they really get a sense of fulfillment 90% over the end of the previous quarter. Of these, and achievment from it. 104 are residents of the Western Addition; 56 are from other neighborhoods. We have a lot of technical problems in doing a We are going into production now. The teens are performance. We have to set up the environment going to be doing a montage of dances of what is of a theater and that's about all we can do. Sight- important in their lives. It is called "Inside the lines and so forth will be a headache, I'm sure. World" — An Evening of Dances and Mime. Joyce We'll have to bring in bleachers, but it will produce is the Master of Ceremonies. The performance is a somewhat cozy environment. We felt that it was divided into five scenes, each a different "percep­ important to perform where we're working so that tion" of their world. The first, entitled "We," is the identity is retained. about themselves and involves rock-and-roll dances. The second, "Us," is about love and they dance boy- Putting on a performance is part of the learning girl dances. The third, "They," is about conform­ process, not only because dance is a performing ity and authority. It satirizes the rules and regula­ art and a means to communicate, but also because tions at school. They poke fun at the teacher by the disciplines are so great. If you're going to be having him dance in a way that shows his lack of in a production it means self-discipline. It's the ability. There are two dances which are final group that disciplines you, not a teacher nor an statements. One is a street scene. The kids hang authority. It's whether you want to get the job done around aimlessly until one girl picks up a guy. The well, not the discipline you renounce because your cops bust it up. The other dance is set at an army mother said it. Self-discipline is the key thing that induction center. The "non-believers" are inducted is learned in production. against their will. The "believer" is killed by accident. These last two scenes present the choices We hope to involve the community people as a large the kids feel they can make. I wish society could active audience because the participants are from offer them a third. the community and are going to reflect the feelings and perceptions of the community. Eventually, we The adult group is presenting "Just A Taste," re­ hope it will be similar to whatexisted when Charlie flecting the ethnic cultures within the group. There Chaplin was in England, where the old music halls will be an African dance to congo drums, a solo in were the reflection of the people in the area. The the modern dance idiom by a Japanese dancer to material that will be performed will have a very Japanese music, an improvisation to original guitar close relationship to the people watching it. Once music and a jazz piece. Five women are dancing a the community and the project become one, the Vivaldi work which is very disciplined. They enjoy forms won't change but the content will. It will be that kind of music. The dance is so tightly con­ very interesting and will become very exciting. 56

Connecticut College Summer Program

in the Humanities FAITH GULICK

"The Connecticut College Summer Program in the Humanities is a plan to introduce forty high school girls to the excitement and challenge of study on a college campus and under the conditions of living and work­ ing that prevail in a small liberal arts college. The hope is that some of these girls, previously doubtful about whether they could or wanted to go to college, will find interests and abilities that will lead them there. The Program. . . hopes for several long-range effects. It would like to prove valuable not only to the forty girls who attend the session but to the schools and communities to which they return. The schools are, in effect, invited to send girls who are at present of limited value as students in their classes and as citizens in their schools and communities in the hope that they will return more useful and energetic people. The Program is based on the belief that these schools and communities are the right places for its results to be tried and proved." *

In the summer of 1965 at Connecticut College, which could not only give them a fresh view of them­ with the School of Dance in full session, forty teen­ selves and their human possibilities, but also re­ age girls participated in the Connecticut College veal talents and intellectual capacities of which they Summer Program in the Humanities. Through a might otherwise remain unaware. It was hoped that Rockefeller Foundation grant of $150,000, the these girls, now in the summer between their 10th College was able to organize and conduct an eight- and 11th grades, might be awakened to the possi­ week experimental program for talented high school bilities of higher education in the humanities, a girls from culturally impoverished environments. radical departure from the trade school training to Designed as a three-summer project, this program which most would normally be attracted. is one of the first of its kind for girls. Thestudents came from high schools in nearby Connecticut cities The curriculum was intended to stimulate and sur­ (Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, New London) prise the students with new intellectual experiences and New York. Twenty-six of them were Negro, rather than build on the foundation of regular high five were Puerto Rican, one an American Indian school courses. It was slanted toward the fine arts from the Southwest, and eight were Caucasian. and it was taught by methods generally impractic­ They had been selected by teachers and guidance able in the large classes in high school. The girls counselors in their schools, who felt that, for rea­ studied literature and composition and were en­ sons of cultural and racial disadvantage, these girls couraged in self expression through the creative and were performing below their potential. In addition, performing arts of music, dance, dramatics and they all came from homes where there was thought studio art. A required course in the history of to be substantial economic disadvantage. music and art sought to establish for them the re­ lationship between the creative and the academic The program was designed to provide the students approaches. with novel and stimulating intellectual experiences,

* From the Prospectus sent to the participating schools before the session.

Faith Gulick teaches dance at Connecticut College and is a member of the faculty of the Connecticut College School of Dance and the Summer Program in the Humanities. 57

To sustain the participants' interest through later short dances and performing them for each other. counseling in their schools and by regular staff The incentive of the festival performances of the visits, a portion of the Rockefeller Foundation's Connecticut College School of Dance, which the girls grant is reserved for follow-up activity after each saw, affected a final full class project in the recon­ student has completed the program. This will be struction of oneof Jose Limdn's newworks, a five- done cooperatively with the high schools in order to minute dance presented with buoyant feeling! nourish and encourage each girl's desire to go on to higher education. In his report after the first summer's session, William Meredith reviewed the purposes and philo­ William Meredith, poet and associate professor of sophy underlying the project and then went on to English at Connecticut College, is the director. speak of the evaluation of the program: "Judgment In previous summers he has been a staff participant of the program must be tentative and long-deferred. at Princeton University's pre-college session for The staff expressed conviction that a great deal had Negro boys. The program's teaching faculty was been accomplished with individual students and that, composed of six instructors, several of them in general, moststudents made one or more useful women, selected for their fresh, powerful ideas discoveries about themselves. The most reliable about the creative and interpretative processes. evaluation will be made by the high schools to which They were drawn from the faculties of leading these girls are returning. Measuring what I think colleges and universities throughout the country. we accomplished by what became of the students While at Connecticut College, the high school girls from the Princeton Summer Studies Program on had eight of the College's undergraduates as advis­ their return to school, I would hope that our students ors and companions. These were chosen from a would raise their grades by 10%, on the average, voluntary group that began a counselor training and that many of them would give other evidence of period in February. greater self-assurance.

Reactions to the dance classes were enthusiastic. "In the correction of deep-rooted social inequalities, A considerable flux in attendance was evident as aneffortas small as ours will be scarcely measur­ there were those participants who came and went able, and having deliberately passed over the and a sturdy core who stayed on for the full dura­ students of greatest potential, and urged our own tion of the session. Generally, the practice of students to regard their own schools and communi­ disciplined movement and exercises met with ac­ ties as the first arenas of their ability, we do not quired appreciation. Initially, the long periods of look for spectacular academic or professional suc­ strenuous, ordered movement brought rejection and cess from most of them. What we do look for, from rebellion. The transition to inventive movement many of the girls, are lives that will bridge two came about gracefully through improvisatory use of worlds more confidently and realistically as the re- circle folk dances with which some of the girls were sultof a two-year dialogue between the Humanities familiar. From these dances the girls could take the Program and their own environment. The increased initiative in teaching each other steps and patterns, understanding of the race barrier on the partof the and, from there, progress naturally to expressive counselors and the staff, may also prove a large, movement themes. By the end of the summer the intangible by-product of the program that will be students took considerable delight in making up felt in unexpected places." 58 Upward Bound

ELEANOR LAUER

SUMMER PROGRAM AT MILLS COLLEGE, OAKLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 8 WEEKS - JUNE 19 - AUGUST 13, 1966

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS - who will be Seniors Fall 1966 and a few who will be Juniors Fall 1966 group will limited to 100 students, who will live in Mills College housing units — all expenses paid, plus a modest stipend.

PURPOSE: To help students become interested in the benefits of a college education.

ACTIVITIES: Study — Workshops: Music, Pottery, Creative Writing, Dance, Drama, Biology, Painting and Drawing. Classes: Arts, Literature, Natural Science, Social Science. Discussion Groups: Current Problems and Issues

RECREATION: Swimming, Touch Football, Basketball, Baseball, Other Sports. Dances, Coke Parties, etc.

STAFF: From Mills College Faculty, Oakland Public School Faculty, Community Recreational Leaders, College-student Counselors.

Thus begins the announcement and preliminary and each student will be expected to participate in application form distributed by Mills College this one class of each type. In the Workshops, which past spring to high school students in Oakland, will meet for four two-hour periods each week, California. The Upward Bound program is designed emphasis will be placed on exploration of the vari­ to help capable 10th and 11th graders who might ous media and development of skills and knowledge not otherwise envision college as a possibility for necessary for creativity. Lecture classes will themselves. It is financed through the Office of follow the pattern of a small college course, in Economic Opportunity and is one of 55 comparable which the lectures are supplemented by reading projects in various colleges throughout the country. material and discussion of the readings, lectures, The 12-month plan provides a summer residential and related topics. Discussions or "seminars" pre-college course and will continue in the fall with will be concerned with problems and issues of par­ special classes, tutoring, and cultural activities. ticular interest to the students. The instructor will not only lead the discussion but will also provide At Mills this summer 100 students (approximately a list of relevant readings, which may be from 50 boys and 50 girls), intellectually promising but current magazines and newspapers as well as from from the lower socio-economic strata, will live in regular academic sources. the college dormitories for eight weeks and parti­ cipate in a curriculum emphasizing basic academic The teaching staff will be drawn from the Mills areas and the creative and fine arts. Three types College faculty and from the secondary schools. of teaching-learning experience will be available, Instructors will be assisted by 16 college students

Eleanor Lauer, a member of the editorial board of IMPULSE, is Chairman of the Dance Department at Mills College. 59 who, as "tutor-counselors," will live in the dormi­ courage critical thinking and problem solving and tories with the high school students and participate to foster self-confidence in personal capabilities. in the recreational and hall activities, as well as It is hoped that, through the eight weeks of con­ in the regular academic program. Physical and centrated work in the summer and the follow-up psychological health will be provided for by a pro­ program during the 1966-1967 school year, at least fessional staff. College recreational facilities as some of these students may have their horizons so well as the library will be available to the students, widened that not only will they regard higher edu­ and the cultural centers and activities of the San cation as a personal goal, but they will also have Francisco Bay Area will be utilized. the confidence and determination to move in that direction. The major aims of the total curriculum are to en­

Rehearsal Conference at Mills College Photo: Donald Bennett 60 6305

PULSE 1966

n .. r_ _ n_ _ Dance in Relation to the

IMPULSE I 95 I Individual and Society (out of print)

IMPULSE 1952 Production Issue

IMPULSE 1953 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

IMPU LSE 1961 The Dancer as a Person (out of print)

IMPULSE 1962 Audience for Dance

IMPULSE 1963-1964 International Exchange in Dance

IMPULSE 1965 Dance and Education-Now

MODERN DANCE FORMS In Relation to the Other Modern Arts by Louis Horst and Carroll Russell. $5.00

THE ANNUAL OF impulse publications inc. • 160 palo alto avenue • san francisco, California 94114