EXTENSIONS OF DANCE

• '.: 1 mmI i

3.5

Contents

Marian Van Tuyl PREFACE 3

Margaret H'Doubler STATEMENTS 5 Selected by Nik Krevitsky

John Halverson THE DANCING HEALERS OF CEYLON 7

Renee Renouf TWO MEN OF ASIAN THEATRE 15 Onoe Kuroemon of Grand Kabuki Shivaram — Kathakali Performer

Joseph Adedoja Oyewusi OPEN LETTER FROM A NIGERIAN EDUCATOR 20 Adele Wenig

Joann Kealiinohomoku AN ANTHROPOLOGIST LOOKS AT BALLET 24

AS A FORM OF ETHNIC DANCE

Elizabeth Oberstein PARIS — 1968-1969: A Manifestation of Dance 34

Bari Rolfe MIME — Paradigm of Paradox 37

U.C. BERKELEY DANCE - A Photographic Essay 40

Luba Blumberg HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF 47 RENAISSANCE DANCES Joanna Gewertz Harris THE CREATIVE ARTS AND LIBERAL EDUCATION 50 Report of a Workshop Conference

NEW DANCE ENVIRONMENT AT MILLS COLLEGE 54

LONG BEACH SUMMER SCHOOL OF DANCE 56 A Photographic Essay

Mary Whitehouse REFLECTIONS ON A METAMORPHOSIS 62

Gay Cheney "IT IS A GIFT" 65

Rhoda Winter Russell THE WISCONSIN DANCE IDEA 68 Tribute from a Movement Therapist

Varda Razy DANCE THERAPY IN A COMMUNITY MENTAL 71 HEALTH CENTER

Joseph R. Schlichter SEQUENCE: Psychodance 1964 76 Movement Therapy 1968 "Who Am I?"

CEREMONY OF US - A Photographic Essay 80

William F. Soskm PROJECT COMMUNITY AND THE CHILDREN OF 88 "THE GOOD LIFE"

"WHERE ARE YOU AT?" Board Members Answer The 95 Question Editor: Marian Van Tuyl

Editorial Board: Doris Dennison, Ann Halprin, Joanna Gewertz Harris, Nik Krevitsky, Eleanor Lauer, Crystal Samuels, Dorrill Shadwell, Adele Wenig, Rebecca Fuller, Gretchen Schneider, Rhoda Slanger

Design: Lilly Weil Jaffe

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Cover: Photograph of Ceremony of Us by Tylon Barea Hand lettering by David Lauer Drawings: David Lauer 8, 23, 55 Photographs: Robert G. Campbell 40-46, 91 Audio Visual Center, California State College, LongBeach 56-61 Laurie Grunberg 80, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87 Tylon Barea 81, 84 Constance Beeson 83 Michael Harris 92 Renny Wruck 93 Unless otherwise noted, photographs, charts and drawings are included by courtesy of the authors. Editorial assistance: Susan Brown, Marva Campbell, James Graham, and Renee Renouf

Published by Impulse Publications, Inc., 160 Palo Alto Avenue, San Francisco, California 94114 $3.50 per copy (California residents add 19£ state tax per copy). Make checks payable to Impulse Publications, Inc. Printed by-Chapman Press, San Francisco. No part of the material herein may be reproduced,without the consent of Impulse Publications, Inc., with the exception of short quotations used for reviews. Copyright 1970 by Impulse Publications, Inc. Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 61-26301

A few of the previous issues of IMPULSE are still available: IMPULSE 1959 Arch Lauterer - Poet in the Theatre $2.50 IMPULSE 1960 Dance in the Screen Media $2.50 IMPULSE 1962 Audience for Dance $2.50 IMPULSE 1963-1964 International Exchange in Dance $3.50 IMPULSE 1966 Current Trends $2.50 IMPULSE 1967 The Dancer's Environment $2.50 IMPULSE 1968 Dance — A Projection for the Future $4.00 This issue is devoted to a 152 page report of the Developmental Conference on Dance sponsored by the United States Office of Education, Arts and Humanities Program

Other Impulse Publications available in paperback from DANCE HORIZONS, INC., 1801 East 26th Street, Brooklyn, New York 11229 MODERN DANCE FORMS In Relation to the Other Modern Arts by Louis Horst and Carroll Russell, $2.95 ANTHOLOGY OF IMPULSE 1951-1966, Marian Van Tuyl, Editor, $2.95 and will, no doubt, provoke strong reactions. As Preface she has somewhat ruefully noted, the rewards of scholarship do not include complacency.

Further extensions of dance are explored by Luba When we selected "Extensions of Dance" as the Blumberg, who reports on her work with musicians subject for IMPULSE 1969-1970, little did we in reconstruction of Renaissance dances. For anticipate the manner in which it would develop. dancers, mime seems to be surrounded by a sort For several years we had contemplated a volume of mystique. Bari Rolfe, describing mime as a devoted entirely to aspects of dance and movement "paradigm of paradox," gives a clear picture of therapy. We felt that the West Coast centers and this art form and an explanation of some of its individuals have much to contribute to an issue on techniques. therapy. Indeed, a large part of this issue con­ Photographic Essays of "new environments for sists of essays related to therapy presenting a dance on the West Coast" include U.C. Berkeley range of individual approaches, but not restricted Dance in the Department of Dramatic Art, the to one geographical area. Summer School of Dance at Long Beach, "Cere­ We soon found that the "extensions " went in so many mony of Us" with the Dancers' Workshop of San directions that it almost seemed as if the book Francisco and Studio Watts, and drawings of the should be circular inform. Whereas, in previous new Walter Haas Pavilion at Mills College. An issues a section has been devoted to "Notes from important extension of dance in education is to Abroad," the shrinking of our world has invalidated make administrators aware of the value of dance such an arbitrary division. Dr. John Halverson's in a liberal arts curriculum. Joanna Gewertz essay, "The Dancing Healers of Ceylon," is afine Harris reports on a workshop conference at Mills example with its fascinating description of what College designed for this purpose. went on in the particular ritual as well as the Mary Whitehouse begins a large section devoted author's discussion of the psychological implica­ to aspects of therapy in this country with an essay tions and the "magic" of dance. Renee Renouf, in on her own development from being a dancer to her interviews with Onoe Kuroemon of the Grand her present involvement with movement therapy. Kabuki and Shivaram — a Kathakali performer, Gay Cheney, a student of Mrs. Whitehouse, con­ stresses the father-son relationship in the devel­ tinues this line of thinking and applies it to her opment of these two artists of traditional Asian teaching of college students. Varda Razy, who theatre. A similar respect for the elders in a works with dance and percuss ion, as differentiated society is evident in the "Open Letter" by Joseph from movement therapy, reports a study carried Oyewusi, who is studying in this country before out in a day hospital. With the current emphasis returning to Nigeria fired with the determination on social psychiatry and keeping the patients in to forward dance in the physical education program the community, this has potential as a therapeutic of his country. When one thinks of dance in modality in large groups. Joseph Schlichter makes France, ballet dancing and the Folies Bergere strong, direct statements in describing his meth­ probably come to mind, but Elizabeth Oberstein, odology, which has developed over the past years in her article,"Manifestation of Dance in Paris," from what he called Psychodance to Gestalt ori­ makes it clear that the political upheaval of recent ented Movement Therapy. His piece "Who Ami?" years has involved dance teachers in the schools. has been described as a sensitive portrayal of She takes note of the influence of American dance counter -transference. in France, emphasizing, again, the small world in which we are living. Dr. William Soskin considers the plight of the In the summer of 1969, Joann Kealiinohomoku children of the "good life," and describes a pro­ presented a paper at the CORD Conference on ject which is concerned with the problems of our Historical Research in Dance. I was amazed and young people. Two facets of the varied program of fascinated to observe the bristling of the group Project Community represent extensions of dance: when Mrs. Kealiinohomoku referred to ballet as Carolyn Sawyer's groups based on the work of an ethnic dance form, so we asked her to write an Mary Whitehouse and the explorations of self- essay on this topic. Anthropologically oriented in­ awareness under the leadership of Judyth Ofsowitz dividuals will not find her thesis difficult to accept. using her experiences with meditation in the Her erudition and clear thinking are stimulating Orient and her study of T'ai Chi Ch'uan. We dedicate IMPULSE 1969-1970 to Margaret reads it ? " I remember going into a dance book­ H'Doubler, whose life has been devoted to dance shop in New York years ago where the discouraged and its "extensions." Rhoda Winter Russell honors proprietor said, "Ballet dancers can't read and Miss H'Doubler in her article, "The Wisconsin modern dancers won't read anything that doesn't Dance Idea — Tribute from a Movement Therapist." have their pictures in it." But we take great sat­ isfaction in the fact that our issues do go all over the world. Today's mail brought requests from ANNOUNCEMENT Ghana and from Alaska. This is the last regular issue which Impulse Pub­ lications will produce. If there are individual Our financial state is deplorable. We have aimed projects which need to be undertaken, it may be to pay the printer and the postman, and have been possible to do them. able to do so because previous issues are in con­ stant demand when people find out that IMPULSE exists. We are definitely a non-profit enterprise It is 20 years since I received the letter from Ann but haven't yet convinced the Federal Government, Halprin asking if I would help with a publication because we are judged to be a social club, "like a that was being put out by the students at the Halprin- ski club," and nota cultural or educational organ­ Lathrop Studio. My "impulse" was to refuse, but ization! I freely admit that I have not been suffic­ since I thought she just wanted me to contribute an iently aggressive in this matter. My total invest­ article, and since I have always felt a responsi­ ment of energy has gone into producing IMPULSE bility to dance (having spent my life in it) I con­ in as fine a form as possible. sented to talk with her about it. I was appalled when she just handed it to me. Since that day Each year the membership on the Editorial Board IMPULSE has dominated my life and has imposed is determined by actual work on the issue. There upon my husband and my children. Once, during is no "window dressing." Most of the board mem­ the early years, our youngest son asked, "When bers are closely associated with the field of dance can we go to the cabin ?" I replied that we could and work at full-time jobs. Their teaching, ad­ go as soon as we got IMPULSE "to bed." His next ministrative duties and performing severely limit question was, "What if it wakes up ? " the time they can give to this volunteer work.

"Little magazines" are supposed to run their course Lilly Jaffe, who has done the designing for years, and disappear, and, after 20 years, we realize is an artist with extensive experience in layout. that everything about our operation is old fashioned; She decided to help us, she said, because she had volunteer help, hand-typing and layout, practically seldom seen people work so devotedly on a project. no advertising, e.tc, etc. We had a working motto It is a joy to watch her as she works surely and "IMPULSE manages everything badly." David swiftly at the solution of layout problems and Lauer made a handsome sign in the Think Ahead makes the endless aesthetic choices involved. In style of the period — and we lost it! One time a strange way, putting an issue together is like when I was about to address a convocation at Mills doing a large piece of choreography: the choice College, the president of the college, preparing to of thematic material, the development, the "happy introduce me, leanedover andwhispered, "Where accidents" resulting from decisions regarding is IMPULSE published?" I whispered back, "In form, the problems, the demands for precision, our basement." and the production. Chapman Pres s has been very helpful to us and we appreciate having had the We have worn out four IBM Executive typewriters. benefit of their excellent work. IBM salesmen assure us that our work would be simple if we would just invest in a $22,000 ma­ Our stated purpose in publishing IMPULSE has chine! With such amateurish methods as we use, been to choose a topic concerning dance or a re­ it is interesting that we receive applications, com­ lated field and invite qualified persons to write plete with impressive curriculum vitae, from what they wish to say on the subject. We have individuals desiring to work for this fine publica­ been most fortunate that so many scholars and tion . Little do they know! We file thes e along with artists have been willing to contribute. We are laudatory comments and letters in our "morale deeply grateful to all of these individuals, without building" folder. whom, indeed, there would have been no IMPULSE. Then, of course, there are those who ask, "Who Marian Van Tuyl This issue of y/iTI/9Wfc? is dedicated to Margaret H'Doubler

"Dance is art creation in movement.

We all meet on the sensorial level.

Life is our heritage; but to live is its full moment.

Each one is a particular self. Once the self is discovered or believed in, one's reservoir is unbelievable.

The supreme work of the brain is mentality, the making of the mind.

You are the only recipient of your own impressions.

There is no such thing as a wrong movement. Every movement is in terms of a sense meaning.

The purpose of dance in education is to find values and build an effective adult life upon them.

There is a lot of self-realization by interaction with others.

Art is the only means to give expression to certain qualities of emotion.

Movement does not need mind for its existence but it does for its clarification.

One has to work from the sensorial to the perceptual to the conceptual; from objective stimulation to subjective conversion of the material in oneself and his relation to it, and everyone is meant to do that. We are endowed with that kind of equipment for living.

These statements by Margaret H'Doubler were selected by Nik Krevitsky from recent conversations with Miss H'Doubler and from lectures and classes she has given in Tucson, Arizona this year. He calls these excerpts "H'Doublerisms." Dr. Krevitsky, Director of Art in the Tucson Public Schools, is an artist and author, and is a member of the Editorial Board of IMPULSE. When you are creating you are trying to find that which will meet the ideal as you see it. In art we can do that.

Art is a human necessity.

The miracle of moving is connected with the miracle of knowing and thinking and acting.

When students discover the freedom that is theirs because of discipline something happens to them and they are so ecstatic they hardly know what to do with it.

If you know your facts of movement you can build different styles and find your own individual style and discipline it.

Movement implicates everything we do in life. Whether the motivation is to shake hands or fly a kite or play the guitar or dance we are using the same set-up.

I think if students could have a program of creative experience all through our educational system we would have different young people. Half of the trouble now is they don't know themselves, what makes them tick. They don't know how beautifully they are endowed.

You have to know movement first before you can develop your own style. After you get the basic understanding you can feel the adjustment that is being made. You can develop your own style. If you can develop your own style you can understand the styles of others.

I look upon dance as a great force in education and it is basic even for those who are talented enough to make it their work as concert dancers. I have always used the dance to help students discover themselves so that they could take it into the more serious business of adult life and be able to create and find values worth living by.

Rhythm demands obedience.

There is a marvelous lot of teaching that imparts information, but that's not giving the experience to be evaluated. You have to go through it. You have to create. You can't tell anybody." The Dancing Healers of Ceylon

JOHN HALVERSON

Double Torch Dance

The island nation of Ceylon is the home of an ancient civilization, closely linked to India in many ways but also quite distinct, particularly in its Buddhist religion. Theravada Buddhism claims to be the oldest and purest form of Buddhism (in contrast to northern Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, China and Japan), and Ceylon has in turn some claim to being its principal center in the world, not only because of the long and unbroken tradition of its practice but also because of the possession of the most sacred relic of the Buddha. Theravada Buddhism, and especially Ceylonese Buddhism, is marked by an austere simplicity of doctrine, liturgy, and aesthetic expression. The characteristic architecture, for instance, in contrast to the Hindu temple with its confection of deities, is the stupa, a plain white dome, severe and chaste. The heart of the religion is meditation, its goal withdrawal and release from this world of desire. Strictly, it is a religion without even a god.

The essential purity of this religion is real and impressive in practice. Yet this Buddhism, familiar to some extent in the West, is that of the few. Folk Buddhism — and Ceylon is predominantly a peasant society — is something else. Here the Buddha is worshipped as a supreme god, and a number of deities, originally from the Indian tradition, are significant objects of worship. The peasants, and indeed many of the more educated and sophisticated Ceylonese, address their petitionary prayers to the deities Kataragama, Pattini, and others. In folk Buddhism, there is, in fact, a pantheon. And just below the gods, there are the demons, who have a very direct and immediate influence on life. In older times, they were regarded as the primary source of physical ailments: to be deaf, for example, was to be possessed by "Biri-sanniya-yaka," the

Dr. Halverson is a Fellow of Stevenson College, University of California, Santa Cruz; he has spent two years in Ceylon as a Fulbright Lecturer. "deaf-condition-demon." The belief in demons big drums throughout the ritual. In the second is still very widespread, but with the growth of act, the exorcist censes (with the smoke of pow­ western medicine and the resurgence of traditional dered resin) the offerings to the demons, which eastern medical practice, it is chiefly psycholog­ have been placed in front of the patient, all the ical rather than physical disorders that are now while chanting, steadily stamping his feet and attributed to demonic sources. And to deal with tossing his head from side to side. This may go these personality disturbances, there are a num­ on for an hour. It is monotonous, mesmeric. ber of exorcistic rituals that are practiced with From time to time he blows on a whistle to invoke great frequency among the Ceylonese peasantry: the demons. they are a common part of village life. All are essentially dance rituals. The power of the dance Opposite the patient is a large cage-like structure is the vital center of exorcism, and the subject of of bamboo called a vidiya ("street"), and from this essay. It is the form and function of dance in here in the third act the dancers emerge for the this context that I should like to discuss, focusing "Evening Dance." Their number varies, depending on the most popular ritual, which is called the simply on the cost of the ceremony, but usually Sanniyakuma (sanni, "condition of health," yaka, at least four dancers participate. They are in "demon"). The form of this ceremony varies costume distinguished by crown-like headgear and greatly from one place to another; the version I breast ornaments, both in a mandala pattern. The shall describe is from a particular area of the first part of this act is primarily a professional southwest maritime region around the village of display of dancing. Individually and ensemble, Alutgama. the dancers execute steps ("pada"), which they discuss with the drummers. All the dancing is This ritual is performed to cure persons with oriented to the drummers. The individual pada psychological disturbances that range from rela­ begins with the eastern pressed-hand salute to the tively mild but persistent anxieties to somnambu­ drummers; the dancer walks around the arena and lism to schizophrenia. It begins sometime after on completing the circuit, touches the drums in a sunset and continues all night until after dawn. caressing gesture before he performs the pada. The patient has been diagnosed as being possessed The steps vary in detailed footwork, but the core by a demon, in the case of this ritual always pattern of movement is much the same: a sequence Maha-sohona-yaka, "Great Cemetery Demon." of side to side steps, a forward-and-backward The object of the ritual is of course to drive out movement, and a near circle, the dance always the demon and restore the patient to normal. The facing the drummer or altar. The pattern is that procedure combines coercion and propitiation. of a quadrated circle, that is, a mandala. The background mythology conceives the demons as exercising power over human beings only with the conditional warrant of the Buddha: it was he, long ago, who authorized demonic existence and practice on condition that, when properly propiti­ ated, they must release their hold on men. The exorcists, therefore, allying themselves with the power of the Buddha, offer the demon proper sacrifice and perform the correct formalities.

Thus the rite begins with the establishment of the exorcists' authority by worship of and appeal to Buddha and the gods, and by recitation of the myths of authorization. The ritual area is the "front yard" of the patient's home, where tempo­ rary altars have been setup, dedicated to Buddha and the gods, and offerings prepared for the demons. In the first of nine acts, the chief exor­ cist dances, chants, and worships before the altars, invoking divine assistance and asserting his own power to effect the exorcism. All the ac­ tion is accompanied by the rhythm of two or three "Cheating Death"

Patient in Trance 10

The dancer characteristically ends the pada in the The fifth act is a series of three demonic repre­ raised foot posture of the classical SivaNataraja. sentations: Black Demon, in a black, pop-eyed, Between steps, the dancers always circumambu­ tusked mask; Blood Demon, in a red monkey mask; late the ritual area. The circular motif is repeated and Sorcery Demoness. The first two emerge in the most athletic and dramatic variation: an noisily and menacingly from the vidiya, engage in orbit of spins, both upright pirouettes and leaping coarsely humorous colloquies with the exorcist, twirls that are often close to cartwheels. These who controls their aggressiveness by throwing displays are, incidentally, noisily and enthusias­ fire in front of them, and accepting at last their tically encouraged by the audience. offerings and promising to leave the patient alone, return to the vidiya. Sorcery Demoness appears in After this seemingly gratuitous demonstration of three manifestations: first as a coquette, dressed skill, the dancers make obeisance at the altars, in a sari and wearing a pink, blandly pretty mask, and resume the dance carrying torches. Again when she flirts outrageously with the interlocutor; the emphasis is on the dance itself. Soon, however, second, as a grotesquely pregnant, complaining the patient has a brief convulsion and subsequently woman; and finally, as a happy mother cooing goes into a trance state. He is now drawn into over her baby. the circle by the chief exorcist, who with a wand scratches a serpentine path on the ground from The comic transformation of the demonic reaches the patient's place outside the circle to the center. a peak in the sixth act, in which a succession of This path the patient follows as if hypnotized by it, grotesque masked characters clown their way moving rhythmically in a kind of clumsy dance to through bawdy, scatological dialogues with the in­ the sound of the ever-present drumming. Roughly terlocutor. As an indication of the level of humor, handled and interrogated by the exorcists, he is we may mention one figure who enters carrying forced to the Buddha's altar, where the demon in smoking incense, complains ofthe overwhelming him is obliged to name himself and promise to odor of anuses in the audience, and censes the leave the body when the rites are properly com­ area, including himself. Another lays an egg. pleted. Thus the patient too has a well-defined role Another pretends to shoot the sacrificial cock and in the ritual drama. When he is restored to normal triumphantly holds up the bird to display the "bullet consciousness and to his place outside the circle, hole" in its rump. If the humor is not exactly the act continues with a mock combat between two elevated, it is often hilarious. dancers, each grasping torches. In some per­ formances, an exorcist also rubs the burning The climax of the ritual comes in the next act, the torches against his body, holds them under his "Great Dance, "performed at the dead of night, an chin, and bites off the fiery ends. hour or two before first light. In a radical change of mood, a single unmasked dancer does an elec­ In the fourth act, the chief exorcist lies down on trifying, violent "double-torch" dance. To the a mat, pretends to be dying, and constantly chant­ steady booming drums and the hypnotic jangle of his ing, invokes the Death Demon, who eventually leg bells and anklets, he is in constant rhythmic appears from the vidiya. He is impersonated by a movement. Ordinarily, with the help of great dancer in glistening black-face, with red-rimmed gulps of resin smoke, he goes into a trance. In eyes, large false teeth and long hair and beard. his teeth he clamps a torch burning at both ends, He enters slowly and deliberately, eye-balls roll­ and whirls around the arena again and again. At ing and tongue darting snake-like in and out of his last he begins to throw fire all around; then sud­ mouth. He never speaks but grunts and chortles. denly he breaks out of the circle, the alarmed Grotesque, uncanny, unnerving, he is an effective audience scattering out of his path; he dashes representation of the demonic. When he discovers around the property and into the house itself; and the "body," he prances gleefully about it, pretends everywhere he throws fire in great red billows of to cut off fingers and toes and eat them, and fi­ flame that expires almost instantly. Suddenly he nally rolls the body up in a mat and carries it off reappears in the circle at a run, dashes straight behind the vidiya. The anthropophagous display is through it and out into the night. As he does so, boisterously clownish, and the character of the the patient seizes the last offering, for the Great demon changes from predominantly sinister with Cemetery Demon, and runs after the dancer. With comic undertones to predominantly comic with many of the audience on their wake, they go off sinister undertones. It is such a transformation to the village burial ground, and there the actual that characterizes the treatment of the demonic exorcism occurs, as the demon in the patient is throughout the ritual. adjured to eat the offering and go away. 11

And so it is done. But the ritual is not yet over. between the ritual world and that formless world The patient, now liberated from his incubus, re­ "out there" ofthe demons, and who are thereby turns to his place, the drums roll, and as the night channeled and controlled. sky begins to lighten, a last demon emerges, with much premonitory rumbling, from the vidiya. In When they do come, it is with some show of ag­ appearance, he is virtually indistinguishable from gressiveness, but the exorcist continually keeps the Death Demon of the fourth act, the first demon them under control with fire and with words. He of the ritual, and his name is "Death-condition- deceives Death Demon and overbears Black Demon demon." He is the most clownish of them all, ca­ and Blood Demon. All the demons and quasi- vorting and bumbling around like a large puppy, demonic figures are revealed over and over as cracking jokes, and making feints at the delighted buffoons; despite their frightening or sinister children in the audience. Most of his activities, appearance, they are shown to be controllable and however, are directly with the patient, and for the essentially harmless. In the end, this control is first time there is no exorcist intervening. passed on to the patient himself when, in the penultimate act, he is left alone with the clownish This entertainment is followed by the last act of last demon without the exorcist as intermediary. the ritual, a long chant of thanksgiving and re­ The transformation is then complete; in Jungian peated obeisances to the Buddha and the gods. terms, the patient has confronted and assimilated his "Shadow." This is a psychotherapeutic rite, reasonably suc­ cessful on the whole, utilizing the healing power Sorcery Demoness clearly occupies a special po­ of the symbol. The basic mechanism seems to be sition, for she lacks the sinister character of her to establish a symbolic model of transformation to colleagues and, unlike them, she is not propitiated which the patient sympathetically and unconscious­ with any offering. Her successive manifestations ly responds. The ritual may be seen as a three­ as maid, pregnant woman, and happy mother fold process involving three modes of action: first represent the life process, and may be seen as the establishment of authority by the act of chant­ another symbolic suggestion to the patient: that ing; second, the taming of the demonic, in which of giving birth to a new self. comic mime and dialogue are the active means; and third, the integration of personality through The relation of the patient to the mimetic episodes the dance. All work together toward reassuring just discussed is that solely of an intense observer. the patient, convincing him of recovery. It is no What he is watching is, I think, a model of his own doubt the "power of suggestion" at work, but it psyche, presented as an area in which the demonic works almost entirely at a symbolic, noncognitive, and controlling forces of the psyche (the forces nonverbal level. of the Id and Superego, in Freudian terms) act out a conflict, in which the latter is the victor. The The ritual area is set off clearly as a special place. demons, with their malice, capriciousness, fear- The patient sits at its edge, carefully excluded at someness, grotesqueness and irrationality, are the beginning by symbolic barriers, and intently models of the Id or Shadow component of human watches the actions taking place before him. In personality; and the exorcist, with his reliance the first act, the exorcist recites the myths that on tradition, authority, and order, represents authorize the rite, and venerates the Buddha, who the socialized component, which ultimately tri­ is the ultimate guarantor of its success; thus the umphs — not, however, by banishing the demonic, exorcist acquires for himself and for the moment but by accommodating it. a supernatural power to deal with supernatural phenomena. With fire, incense, and water, he The third mode of action, the dance, dominates thoroughly purifies the ritual arena. His dance the two most significant acts of the ritual, which inscribes the mandala pattern on the ground. All are altogether distinct from the others. The of these actions, then, have the effect of setting Evening Dance and the Great Dance have no masks, up a third world, sharply set off from both the no mimetic action, no demons represented. They ordinary world and the supernatural world; and are the only episodes in which the patient actively within this space and for this time, the exorcist participates, and the only ones where the demon maintains supreme control. He may then safely is dealt with in his actual invisible presence. The invoke the demons, who arrive through that struc­ Evening Dance is, as I have said, a demonstration ture called a "street," because it is the passage of dancing skill. The dancers say, "It pleases 12

the gods," which is indeed the only explanation is the real thing, and its surfacing is controlled offered for this episode. It seems also evident, by the power of the dance. however, that skillfulness is linked with efficacy: a good dancer is a good healer. He in turn depends This is, of course, even more, and more drama­ on the drummer, to whom he gives obeisance, to tically, the case in the Great Dance, when the whom he dances, and from whose drum he seems actual exorcism occurs. In this climactic act, to draw energy as he touches it. The energy of the generative power of the rhythm of drums and the drum's "free" rhythm he converts into the dance reaches apeak. Here the rhythm continues ordered patterns of the dance, particularly the without cessation, and the dance increasingly pattern of the mandala, which is repeated in his builds up in frenzy and tension, until the double- costume. The mandala, both in Jungian psycho­ torch dancer explosively breaks out of the ritual logy and in traditional Buddhist iconology, is a circle, to which until that moment action had been symbol of the integrated self, and it is this symbol so carefully confined. And this is why the action that the dancers bring in living form into the ritual. is as dramatic and even alarming as it is, for the And only when it is established does the patient world of the ritual circle has been a small, safe, cross the circumference of the ritual circle and controlled place. In a purifying ecstacy of flame- enter the third-world arena. It is a dangerous throwing, the dancer now enlarges the circle to place for him, and he enters under the protection include the immediate surroundings of house and of a trance state. He is still possessed; the Great king, the profane world of the living; and soon Cemetery Demon is there with him. In subsequent thereafter, as he continues his action at the ceme­ acts where demons appear, they are only repre­ tery, the world of the dead is also included. Once sented. Everyone knows they are an actor-dancer again, it is the demon himself that must be dealt in disguise. But here and in the other dance act, with, not a representation; now, moreover, it is the demon is believed to be actually present: it not just a matter of a voice from within the patient's

Hunn iyam-yakkhini (Sorcery Demoness) 13 body; the demon is actually to be brought out. For if the patient is freed of the demon, it is also true that the demon is released into the world. The obvious danger of this situation is hedged about at the moment of expulsion by continued invocation of the Buddha and of divine authority. But the mo­ ment has been made possible at all, it would appear, solely by the dance itself, in which no liturgical element, verbal or mimetic, has had any part. What is there in the dances that engenders such a possibility ?

It is significant that the double-torch dancer should be in a trance, in an ecstatic state that is marked by the feeling of transcend­ ence both in the dancer and in the responses of his audience. He is somehow "outside," "above," "beyond," as all the terms for the condition imply. This state is evidently reached through the repeated rhythmic

Hiri-yaka (Blood Demon)

Kalu-Yaka (Black Demon) 14

movements of the dance. The phenomenon is point of view as determined by the degree of con­ well known if not completely understood. Joost nectedness each being has. Men are deeply en­ Meerloo, starting from his own aphorism "Every­ meshed in time, place, and circumstances; they thing is rhythm," refers to many instances, tracing are tied to family and society, to occupations and them finally to the so-called "Nirvanic" womb responsibilities. The demons also have many state of the unborn child rocked in the amniotic ties, but they transcend time and place. The gods fluid to the rhythms of his and his mother's heart­ are far more free, and the Buddha, at the top of beats. The dance ecstacy maybe called regress­ the scale, is absolutely free of all ties. The de­ ion, then, but that in itself is to say very little gree of power increases in exact correlation to and suggests nothing at all as to how the dance the degree of detachment. Now in order to control could become an effective agent in a magico- demons, man, who is the lowest of the beings in religious context. this scale, must rise above not only his own con­ dition but that of the demons as v/ell. The exorcist In whatever way the trance or trance-like state is does this in one way by reaching upward through to be understood, it is reached through regular prayer to the highest levels; in another way, he repetition. Most of us know the curious experience translates himself temporarily to the divine level of repeating a word until it loses its meaning, be­ in the ecstatic Great Dance, which generates for comes empty sound. The most common techniques the time a condition of freedom and power. The of meditation involve a repetition of words or trance state does, in pragmatic fact, permit re­ thoughts until, as they say, the mind becomes markable physical exploits, particularly of en­ empty. Hypnosis often utilizes the rhythm of pen­ durance, which are apparently not possible in dulum objects. In all such cases, consciousness ordinary states of consciousness. is altered: it is "disconnected" from its ordinary objects. Awareness of one's surroundings re­ The realization of all these matters is deeply em­ mains but with a lowering of the intensity of in­ bedded in south Asian tradition, most richly per­ volvement. The extreme form of this state is haps in the Indian figure of Siva Nataraja, God as schizophrenic withdrawal from the outside world. Lord of the Dance. In his iconic representation, There is also in such states an attenuation — and Siva dances in a mandala of fire, signifying the again at the psychotic extreme, a complete loss — cosmos: "nature's dance as moved by the dancing of identity, for self-identity is the ability to locate god within," as Zimmer says. In one of his four oneself in a web of connections with other persons hands he holds a drum, which signifies creation and things. and generation; in another is the flame of purifying destruction. One hand is raised in the gesture that The "power" of the dance probably derives, then, means "Fear not," another points to his raised from the sense of transcendence induced by rhyth­ foot, signifying release. The other foot tramples mic movement. One goes beyond the ordinary on a writhing demon, who is a symbol for worldly connections of consciousness, beyond the ordinary attachment. It is easily seen how closely the self; it is a liberation from the mundane. In doc­ conception of Siva Nataraja corresponds to the trinal Buddhism, what I call psychological connec­ structure and meaning of the Sanniyakuma. From tions with the world are encompassed by the term village rite to cosmic philosophy, the power of "desire," or "craving," which is the source of the dance is a fundamental element of Eastern human suffering; hence the goal of meditation is consciousness. detachment and release from desire. The ladder of being in folk Buddhism can be seen from this

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Meerloo, Joost A. M. THE DANCE. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1960. Van der Leeuw, G. SACRED AND PROFANE BEAUTY: THE HOLY IN ART. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. Wirz, Paul. EXORCISM AND THE ART OF HEALING IN CEYLON. Leiden: Brill, 1954. Zimmer, Heinrich. MYTHS AND SYMBOLS IN INDIAN ART AND CIVILIZATION. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1946. 15

Two Men of Asian Theatre interviewed by RENEE RENOUF

The following dialogues are excerpts from interviews with Onoe Kuroemon during the October, 1969 engagement of the GRAND KABUKI in San Francisco and with Shivaram in the Summer of 1969. Both reflect the environmental climate of traditional Asian training in which the mastering of a theatre-dance technique commences like the entire process of human growth — in the home — and proceeds visibly from childhood to maturity and the assumption of a life-long career. In each case, reminiscences about the training reveal a remarkable similarity, given the differences in the typical performance settings and the overt social raison d'etre for the styles themselves. KABUKI, with the actor's use of speaking, is perhaps more total theatre, KATHAKALI, with its greater reliance on gesture mimed to a sung narrative, is perhaps more total dance, but the two styles of all-male theatre from. Japan and South India are without question brothers of the spirit.

Onoe Kuroemon of Grand Kabuki

The backstage calm ofatotal professional setting Suddenly the scene was ended and bustle began. enveloped me in its special economy of motion, Shoroku suddenly appeared in the wings, making and watching performers waiting doesn't change a little streak of contained energy in front of me. much from culture to culture. Minosuke, playing An attendant lit the lamp that I remembered from Rikiya, Yuranosuke's son, was sitting, his facial the San Francisco Opera House stage in 1960 with muscles occasionally twitching underneath his the incredible illusion of the receding house of white stage mask, knees in adancer's second po­ Yuranosuke's dead master. sition, back erect, the hands resting on the knees. Baiko had bustled off into the wings, and, as I A patient-faced man was sitting near the door and watched the group near me change, Kuroemon motioned for me to sit down, my miniscule com­ emerged from the door where the stage informa­ mand of Japanese practically exhausted by "arigato tion was posted in Japanese, and stated, "Will you gosaimasu" and the comment "aki desu" to which come, please?" I followed him up the squared he responded with a beaming, gentle smile of ac­ circle (staircase) to the second floor of the Curran knowledgment. Outside, the rain descended with Theatre where open doors revealed an onnagata its own rhythm of heavy sound. (the male actor who portrays female characters in Kabuki) finishing her wig, a warrior emerging Kikunosuke and the retinue of Lady Kaoyo began from his make-up. Kuroemon's cubicle was una­ to assemble in the wings, one of them helping her dorned save for a furoshiki - sized square upon on with her overcoat, touching the train of her which his stage make-up was neatly assembled. kimono here and there, and standing waiting with Behind him a cast-iron pipe held street clothes, the same postures I have seen in the wings of Royal an oblong straw basket contained some form of Ballet performances, the same aura of matter- costumes encased in plastic. of-factness, the husbanding of energy for one's job on stage. Performers are everywhere given "I hope you don't mind, I have brought some candy to periods of intense activity followed by periods for you and the rest of the crew." of utter inactivity. A precision in that intensity makes them somewhat enigmatic to those who never Kuroemon's mouth broke into a smile as he ac­ have performed. It was all there, like a familiar cepted the package and said, "Thank you." As the diagram. The prose behind the illusion possesses only English-speaking member of the company, I a beauty and magic all its own. wondered at the amount of service he was required

Renee Renouf has been San Francisco Correspondent for DANCE NEWS since 1962 and has contributed reviews, articles and commentary for various English and Asian magazines on both Bay Area dance events and the dances of Asia. In 1966 she spent ten weeks in India as a guest of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. 16

to give as translator, even as I was impressed at shape of the face, the personality." the remarkable control over his "1." It promised "And you never danced onnagata roles ? " to be an interesting hour. "Oh, between ten and fifteen." From the manner "I'd like to ask you about training for Kabuki, and in which Kuroemon made the statement it seemed what determines which school you will follow." as if it was more for experience.

"There is no 'school' as such. Your father trains "I wanted, also, to ask you about the dancing you from the time you are small. My father, schools. It is my understanding that the two prin­ Kikuguro VI, introduced me and trained me, and cipal schools — Fujima and Hanayagi — have two then, of course, I have had other training." branches. In the Fujima School, Shoroku is the head of one and Kanjuro, your choreographer, is "How old were you when you started?" head of the other. How did this happen?" "My father introduced me when I was three." Kuroemon looked a little puzzled. "There are two "And you were an apprentice then ? " schools because the one has become two, "and with a small gesture of the hand more or less dismissed "You might say that. I was around the stage all the background. "I have studied with Kanjuro, the time, and I played roles occasionally." Kanjuro studied with my father. Baiko, my bro­ "You mean you appeared in your first Kabuki per­ ther, has studied with Kanjuro, so has Shoroku, formance when you were three ? " so has Utaemon." "Yes." "Now that there are two stages where Kabuki can "Then it's not like getting a natori in the Fujima be performed in Tokyo, how has the National The­ atre affected the performances at the Kabuki-za? or Hanayagi schools of classical dance." "Not exactly, because it is your father who is "Shochiku is the company holding the contract for presenting you, usually." the Kabuki troupe which plays at the National The­ atre as it also does for the Kabuki-za, so it means "Then what did you study?" I asked. that the actors don't play together so much any more —maybe twice a year, five or six perform­ "There are three things we study: joruri —which ances altogether. This tour has enabled us to be comes from the puppet theatre, and which has given together again. This troupe is called theKikugoro Kabuki much inspiration — then dancing, and also troupe, in honor of my father." The gentleness naga-uta." of his pride was delicate but perceptible. "Is it ever possible that someone other than the The obvious eminence of his father in the Kabuki members of the family become Kabuki actors — realm led me to the next question. "Then your I mean, let us say, the son of a musician or the father had the right to determine what title should son of one of the stage-hands in the theatre?" go to whom ? " "You mean a non-Kabuki family ? It is not usual for someone outside the Kabuki tradition to become "Yes," was Kuroemon's succinct reply. a Kabuki actor, but it is possible, through intro­ "Then who is it now who does this?" ductions, but very hard, very rare. For someone closer to the Kabuki, if there is talent, it is re­ "The head was an actor by the name of Sadanji. cognized." He died recently, just two weeks back. He could determine who received which title and whether "How is it done?" I asked. one should be left vacant." "One becomes an apprentice and is adopted by the "I've understood that principal actors have a good head of a family, usually taking the name of that deal to say about their costumes. Do they have family. That is how the name continues." them made up at their own choosing?" "Who decided what kind of a Kabuki actor you "We rent costumes from Shochiku, who also has would become ? " a costume rental service." "My father, my teachers. It's based on their ob­ Apparently even Kabuki glitter has its own system. servation of the bone structure of the body, the 17

Shivaram — Kathakali Performer

Renouf (Ed. Note: Shivaram refers to the green make-up "Did you ever go with your father when he was because he was trained to play the role of the hero.) getting ready for a performance and sit near "Or whatever the dominant color is. Then it's him and watch the whole process ? " after that the costume is put on ? " Shivaram "When I was about five years he took me a number "Yes. For a king it is green make-up, for of times. Because he didn't have his own troupe, Hanuman, King of the Monkeys, there are many he used to go to different troupes. About sunset complicated lines, and Ravana has yet different he had his dinner, then walked about six miles. lines with a lot of pinkish make-up inside — the Quite often, he told me to come with him, and I line near the nose and cheek and so. We are taught went because that was the only time we children all these make-ups during our ten years of train­ got some kind of new treat. We would go to a kind ing because we have to know all the make-up —do of coffee shop to get a sweet. So I followed my do all these things. There are many actors who father many times. I can still remember a small don't learn chutti —they should know everything." temple about six miles from my village and one "You mean before you begin to specialize place called Cheramangalum where there is a big you should learn all you can ? " Shiva temple. I can even remember the scenery and the whole surroundings. "Yes, you see many actors learn to sing even — not too wonderfully, but at least to know the rhythm "As I was only six, I just went to the dressing and how the words go. That is helpful when you room. It was already eight o'clock when we ar­ grow to be an old man. As a teacher that will be rived, so my father told me to sit just there by very useful to you. You have to learn a little bit the oil lamp. There was only one lamp; things of drumming also — chunda and maddhalum are were done in a rather poor way. I could see a- very, very essential. Of course, the dancer's roundme some men already made up, some mak­ training takes up the whole day and there is never ing up — then my father took off his shirt and he enough time, but some do pick it up, and it will be started to put on his make-up." very useful later on." "How much does a Kathakali actor do of his "How is it made, this make-up you put on?" own make-up and how much does he have done ? " "There is a kind of stone called minola. It is a yellowish stone which is found in the aryuvedic "Oh, they actually do all their own make-up except shops where they sell all the herbs. We also buy chutti — chutti is done by someone else." (Ed. note: some other pinkish stone. These are ground with Chutti is the rice puff paste ruff built up along another kind of stone." the actor's lower cheek to frame his make-up and "Mortar and pestle?" make his facial expression more visible under the illumination of a single oil lamp used during "They really make it into a powder; mix it like a performance.) paste with coconut oil, then add a blue and some other stuff to make it a kind of fluid, shiny, to "What is the sequence of application ? Do you make the green make-up. It's actually a job of put on make-up first and then the chutti?" about an hour and a half. The fluid is called "You make up certain outlines — chutti goes in par­ chenjalam—I don't know what it is in English." ticular outlines for different characters. Then "When your father acted, was he responsible there are a few other marks on the forehead and for his make-up mixture ? " the eye make-up and long eyes and eyebrow black. They paint a certain number of things so that after "No, no, the troupe manager — the owner of the chutti they won't have to go through things that take troupe — had to buy all these things. In those days, a lot of time. They lie down for chutti, and after it cost maybe two cents — about 24 paise — but chutti is applied they fill up inside with the green." now it may be a little more. He would buy it for

Shivaram, a Kathakali performer, was a member of the first class at Keralakalamandalum. Following graduation, he studied briefly with Shankar at his school in Amora and then began a series of tours and appearances, which took him to Ceylon, Australia, Europe, the United States and Canada. He was the first dancer in the Kathakali tradition to perform extensively outside of India. 18

about two months, because carrying all these things is difficult, and in Kerala you can always find aryuvedic shops." "Did it have to be made up fresh every day ? " "Yes." "Shivaram, of course this is looking back­ wards , but did you feel your father became dif­ ferent or the make-up was different, or did you feel they were one and the same thing? Of course his appearance became different, but did he behave different­ ly as he got into his character ? "Of course, his appearance became different. He could not actually talk with his chutti make-up, so that his actions became a little stif- fer, stricter. When you have all these big skirts, like in some of the operas here, it is a lot to carry. If you talk to your own — someone you know so well — it would be different — you become a different charac­ ter with all this make-up, sol felt that he looked to me different and acted differ­ ently." "And he paid less at­ tention to you ? " "Yes, that's right—oh yes. He paid me less and less attention and I paid him more and more attention! (at this point on the tape Shivaram let out a long and wonderful chuckle.) The color was very marvelous Shivaram as The Lord Krishna in Krishna and Sudama, a tale of religious devotion and, of course, it was such a surprise for a six year old boy. Looking at such pink 19

eyes, I couldn't quite believe how after a few "One's physique has to be very good. A good body seconds eyes could become pink and all the eye­ will help a man to be strong, to defend himself." lashes be so different. It was quite fascinating. In those days I hadn't seen anything so unusually "Did you have special quarters near the colorful and so it had a big effect. That, actually, temples where you danced ? " was my inspiration to become a Kathakali dancer "If it is inside the temple courtyard, there will be — just watching my father. a room attached to the temple where we make up. If it is in a private home or the big yard of a land­ "How did the eyes turn red, Shivaram?" lord for something like a marriage, there will also "There is a form of eggplant called chumbapour be a room set aside for us. For marriages, es­ grown only in Kerala, I think. When it comes to pecially, there are many stories of Krishna and bud, Kathakali dancers pick it up, take off the Radha which are supposed to bring good luck." petals, and in the center is a very small seed which is crushed in your palm and heated by rub­ "How did you become acquainted with all the bing it for about a half an hour. That makes the stories to which you later danced?" seed turn black and reddish and it also becomes "They come gradually; you begin to study; you hear very soft. Then they are stored in a cloth. They about them when you go to the temple, and you hear are picked at least four hours before a perform­ the names Krishna and Radha and get certain ideas ance in quantities of 50 to a 100." about the stories. You don't know the details, but you know it is our God and things like that. Then "It's not used for food?" when you study Kathakali, you get to know more a- "No, it's only used for this purpose, although some bout the Ramayana and Mahabharata. It gets a little brahmins use it for temple worship. I think the more clear because you have to know each scene name of the plant is puttari chumba. Wherever on account of the character you are presenting." there are Kathakali dancers it is grown — to get "Philosophically, Shivaram, do you feel that the pink eyes." all these things — the eye exercises, the "How long does it take to redden the eyes ? make-up, the training — help to create this Does it hurt ? " certain intensity of Kathakali ? " "Oh, about two to five minutes and, after practic­ "Yes, yes. That's exactly what it is. And while ing eye exercises with the ghee in the early hours you lie down for the chutti, for two and a half hours, around the oil lamps, the eye muscles become you really mentally and physically relax so you pretty strong." gradually think about the character you are going to portray, so you get certain feelings while you "Do you find any relationship between the are having the chutti. There is enough time — kinds of exercises you learned and the warrior there is no anxiety about time. Then, of course, exercises traditional to Kerala?" during the putting on of all the dress after your "There is one particular, great form of self-de­ face is made up —" fense in the north part of Kerala called Kalaripayat. "It's a ritual." It is a very wonderful, very old tradition— at least a thousand years or more — and, like Kathakali, "Yes, it's actually a ritual. You get on your big handed down to pupils and sons. It is similar to skirt and your chest ornaments; you practically Kathakali in the jumping and the way they stretch become that character. Then you sit down by the their legs. They also use sword and shield — the oil lamp and prepare for the headdress which is squatting on the floor or hiding with the shield — most essential, the most important thing which getting away from the enemy — all those move­ they sprinkle water on and pray." ments are similar." "To put water on the headdress is like doing "The methods of massage as well?" pujja?" "I think that the Kalaripayat people also have some "Yes, it's exactly like a pujja to a guru, to your massage, because in that part of Kerala they are teacher, and because that headdress is like a quite famous for the massaging system. In the crown of a king, it's very, very sacred. This is aryuvedic treatments there is much massage — done even to the evil spirits, because even for most of the troubles are cured by massage." evil characters the blessing of his teacher is "They feel the massage makes them alert needed, according to what we believe." and relaxed." 20 Open Letter from a Nigerian Educator JOSEPH ADEDOJA OYEWUSI Introduction by ADELE WENIG

Although there has been an awakened interest in shattered. My students and I experienced the Africa and the heritage of the Afro -American, spirit and meaning of West African dances, es­ authentic, viable experiences in and information pecially those of the Yoruba tribe. The beliefs about the dancing are rarely available. Occasion­ and gentle temperament of this tribe are apparent ally a touring group will present dances from a in the quality of the movement and in the form of particular area, but the staging of performances these dances. for audiences presents the actions out of context, and the meaning is often missed. There is little In subsequent meetings and correspondence, Mr. opportunity to talk with the dancers or to see the Oyewusi discussed folk dance and dance in educa­ dances as they are done in their own environment. tion inNigeria, men in dance, his master's thesis It is even difficult (and expensive) to obtain films concerning Igbin dances of the Yoruba tribe, made which both show the dances and give insight into some personal observations on "soul" dancing in their meaning and role in the culture of which they the United States, and spoke about what he hopes are a part. To have a personal exchange with an to do when he returns home. Here are some of educator from West Africa, who not only has know­ the thoughts he shared with me: ledge of the dances but also has the ability and willingness to teach others, is an even greater rarity. Therefore, it was a delightful experience Traditional African Dance in Education to have such an exchange with Joseph Adedoja It is not an exaggeration when it is said that almost Oyewusi from Nigeria.* every African dances. Dancing is a part of living. I did not learn my native dances in a school. I I met Mr. Oyewusi while searching for authentic, "picked them up." There is dancing for almost well-researched materials for a general studies every event. Dancing is so common that it is course in Afro-American Dance Heritage offered performed without thinking much about it. Many at the California State College at Hayward, and I of the dances are losing their original meaning invited him to be guest instructor for the class. and form. Many other things in society are also Generosity, warmth and a gentle quality permeated changing. If nothing is done to preserve the the presentation of the dances, their history and dances, they maybe lost. My hope is that through relationship' to the total culture. Many pre­ dance education, the significance and function of conceived stereotypes of African dance were African dances will be preserved.

Joseph Adedoja Oyewusi is currently a graduate teaching assistant in the Physical Education Department and the soccer coach at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, California. He has had extensive train­ ing and teaching experience inNigeria, including the teaching of general subjects on the elementary school level, and mathematics, physical and health education on the secondary and college levels. From 1964 to 1968 he was on the faculty of the Advanced Teachers' College in Ondo, Nigeria (a UNESCO project) to which he will return upon completion of his graduate studies. Although the Nigerian government gave Mr. Oyewusi approval to study in the United States and granted him a two years' leave of absence, he is not sponsored by the government nor is he an exchange student. His coming was arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Dave Radmore of Stockton, whom he met in 1962 when they were in a Peace Corps Mission in Nigeria. The Radmores paid for several semesters of his under­ graduate education and provided room and board in their home. In 1969 the University of the Pacific granted him a fellowship to study toward a Master's Degree. (His master's thesis concerns the Igbin dances of the Yoruba tribe.) Adele Wenig teaches dance at the California State College at Hayward where she is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Education. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors for the Committee on Research in Dance as well as a member of the Editorial Board of IMPULSE. * Mr. Oyewusi was referred to me by Mrs. Miriam Lidster, a member of the Research Committee of California Folk Dance Federation, who had been working with Mr. Oyewusi on notating and filming Nigerian folk dances. 21 Men in Dance From my casual observation, American men seem not to be as active in dance as men are in many other parts of the world, although the few men who do take an active part are dedicated. Some American men have told me that dance is womanly and therefore sissy. I cannot find where that idea comes from. Dance is expected to be comprised of graceful movements, and the most graceful, moving animals are in the cat family — lions, leopards, tigers, etc. Do men, at any time, think of these animals as sissy? Or do men want to admit that clumsiness is the mark of a man? In my country there are dances for men only. We also have dances only for women or for children. Many dances are for the mixture of the sexes and ages. I feel that either men or women can teach dance depending upon the interest and enthusiasm shown by the individuals. Most of the dance teachers I knew before coming to the United States were men. When I return to Nigeria, I will encourage everyone to be interested and to participate.

Joseph Adedoja Oyewusi "Africa is a country rich with culture and tradition. We have many exciting rhythms and dances and use many music-producing instruments not found in other cultures. These instruments can be made simply or obtained cheaply. (For the comparable purchase price of a good piano in the United States, Nigerians could build a fairly large gymnasium and also equip it with many African instruments.)" 22

Folk Dance in Education I feel more strongly than before I came to the United States that folk dance is an important part of physical education. The present emphasis in physical education is upon education through physical activities, and folk dance answers this challenge. Dance — religious or secular, vigorous or gentle, fast or slow — is physical exercise. In addition, folk dance is enjoyable. The enjoyment may show or it may be deep inside the individual. Dance is an expression of one's ego. Dance is a mode of expression — a language. By dancing, a person can express innumerable things which words fail to communicate. From the study of folk dance one may read, with ease, the customs and traditions of a tribe or nation. These dances may tell stories or show expressions of joy or sorrow, love or hate, willingness or reluctance. Folk dance, therefore, also relates to the social sciences taught in the schools.

Projected Plans The only dance in Nigerian physical education at interest of the State government can be easily present is in the five letters on paper — DANCE aroused. People from other countries are now — in the curriculum guides or outlines. eager for dance materials from Africa. There is more than ever a need for research and good When I resume teaching physical education at the notation of African dances. Advanced Teachers' College in Ondo, I hope to introduce folk dancing into the curriculum. Since I am learning a number of folk dances from other my students will teach in the secondary schools parts of the world, and am collecting folk dance when they graduate, I will expect them to become records and books to take back with me. In addi­ competent in teaching dance in order to incorpor­ tion, I shall take a phonograph, tape recorder, ate it into the school program. movie camera and projector to help me continue my research. I also hope to obtain permission to teach folk dance to one or two elementary school classes during Yoruba Dances their physical education periods. These classes My primary intent in writing my thesis* is to will show the dances to other classes and teachers. present a thorough research paper on Yoruba In this way more and more people can be involved. dances. Some of the customs and traditions re­ For those who are already teaching, folk dance vealed in the dances may be of interest to you. will be included in the physical education refresh­ Respect is the key action in the Yoruba custom. er courses. Besides the yearly course, short There is respect for age, knowledge, strength, courses may be conducted. and position. When elderly people are talking, the I would like to develop a performing group which younger ones must not join them unless they are would go to other teachers' colleges as an incen­ invited to do so. When they are, they must show tive for those colleges to start a program in dance. gratitude for the invitation. This also shows in the I have discovered, in other parts of the world as way the people are arranged during any dance, well as in Nigeria, that folk dance expresses many which is always performed in a large open space. ideas which generally have the greatest meaning A glance reveals that the old men are grouped to­ for the dancers themselves. Yet while the dancers gether and the younger men are also together. move there is created an opportunity for all pre­ The kings and chiefs are in a different section. sent to share the experience. I hope that my The women, too, group themselves according to people at home will join both in dancing and in their ages. This is a natural arrangement since sharing these exciting experiences. custom makes it more comfortable to stay with one's own peers. All form a circle leaving a space I am preparing a series of articles for newspaper in the center for the dancers. The drummers publication on the importance of dance in the school occupy an important position near to the priests. curriculum. I will encourage others who are in­ terested to write their support. When anyone wants to dance he has to prostrate State support is needed in the research of indi­ himself in front of the king or chief and bow to those genous dances of the country, and I feel that the who are older than he is. He also has to pay re­ spect to the drummers. Only then may he dance, * My research into the Igbin dance of the Yoruba tribe can be read in the thesis to be completed in the spring of 1970 at the University of the Pacific. 23

In the Igbin dance, for ex­ ample, the chief priest of the cult leads the dancers. They all dance "low" when they are in the section where the older people are. The older people acknowledge the courtesy by waving their two fists at the dancers. When the dancers get to the section where the younger ones are, they dance "high." The younger ones bow in acknowledgment.

The dance is done is a se­ quence according to dignity and age. The king dances first; the chiefs come next; then the priests and priest­ esses dance. The old people take their turn and then the young ones.

The sticks carried by the Igbin dancers simulate the "war" in the history of Obatala (the Yoruba myth­ ical god of creation, orisa) 1- The Shrine 8- The Young Men during the worship of whom 2- The Priests 9- Boys 6 to 18 years 3- The Drummers 10- Girls 6 to 14 years the dance is performed. 4- The Old Men 11- Young Women Actually, before the dance 5- The King and his Retinue 12- Old Women is done, a pseudo-war is 6- Children under six years 13- The Priestesses fought. 7- The Iyalode, Woman King 14- Dancing Arena

Afro-American "Soul" Dancing "Soul" dancing has much of Africa in it. The wriggling of the waist, the movement of the upper body, the relaxed body and free arm movements are definitely African. These movement of the upper body and waist seem natural to Afro-Americans and they do them with ease in the classes where I have taught Nigerian dances. "Soul" fills the need to identify oneself through a dance and musical form. America is a con­ glomeration of races and the different cultures and traditions are becoming so mingled that unless some stand is taken by the individual subcultures, they will be lost in the ever-changing and developing ideas. I feel that the Afro-American is conscious of these changes. Although he has been exposed to other cultures, these do not satisfy him. He, therefore, needs to identify with something which is his. His history includes some of the richest living cultures in the world, of which he can well be proud. I suggest that an ever deeper interest in and closer study of Africa by Afro-Americans will give them the basis for a long sought indentification, and recognition by the white Americans of these cultures and traditions will create a better atmosphere for racial understanding. 24 An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet

as a Form of Ethnic Dance JOANN KEALIINOHOMOKU

It is good anthropology to think of ballet as a form with unsubstantiated deductive reasoning, poorly of ethnic dance. Currently, that idea is unaccept­ documented "proofs," a plethora of half-truths, able to most Western dance scholars. This lack of many out-and-out errors, and a pervasive ethno­ agreement shows clearly that something is amiss centric bias. Where the writers championed non- in the communication of ideas between the scholars Western dance they were either apologists or of dance and those of anthropology, and this paper patronistic. Most discouraging of all, these au­ is an attempt to bridge that communication gap. thors saw fit to change only the pictures and not the text when they reissued their books after as The faults and errors of anthropologists in their many as seventeen years later; they only updated approach to dance are many, but they are largely the Euro-American dance scene. due to their hesitation to deal with something which seems esoteric and out of their field of competence. This survey of the literature reveals an amazing However, a handful of dance anthropologists are divergence of opinions. We are able to read that trying to rectify this by publishing in the social the origin of dance was in play and that it was science journals and by participating in formal not in play, that it was for magical and religious and informal meetings with other anthropologists. purposes, and that it was not for those things; that it was for courtship and that it was not for court­ By ethnic dance, anthropologists mean to convey ship; that it was the first form of communication the idea that all forms of dance reflect the cultural and that communication did not enter into dance traditions within which they developed. Dancers until it became an "art." In addition we can read and dance scholars, as this paper will show, use that it was serious and purposeful and that at the this term, and the related terms ethnologic, same time it was an outgrowth of exuberance, was primitive and folkdance, differently and, in fact, totally spontaneous, and originated in the spirit in a way which reveals their limited knowledge of of fun. Moreover, we can read that it was only a non-Western dance forms. group activity for tribal solidarity and that it was strictly for the pleasure and self-expression of In preparing to formulate this paper, I reread in the one dancing. We can learn also, that animals an intense period pertinent writings by DeMille, danced before man did, and yet that dance is a Haskell, Holt, the Kinneys, Kirstein, LaMeri, human activity! Martin, Sachs, Sorell and Terry. In addition I carefully reread the definitions pertaining to It has been a longtime since anthropologists con­ dance in Webster's New International Dictionary, cerned themselves with unknowable origins, and the 2nd edition definitions which were written by I will not add another origin theory for dance, be­ Humphrey, and the 3rd edition definitions which cause I don't know anyone who was there. Our were written byKurath. Although these and other dance writers, however, suggest evidence for sources are listed in the bibliography at the end origins from archeological finds, and from models of this paper, I name these scholars here to focus exemplified by contemporary primitive groups. my frame of reference. For the first, one must remember that man had The experience of this intense rereading as an been on this earth for a long time before he made anthropologist rather than as a dancer, was both cave paintings and statuary, so that archeological instructive and disturbing. The readings are rife finds can hardly tell us about the beginnings of

Joann Wheeler Kealiinohomoku, a dancer as well as an anthropologist, has taught modern dance for several years. At present, she is a candidate for the doctorate in anthropology at Indiana University, where she is writing her dissertation on "Theory and Methods for the Anthropological Study of Dance." She has studied the dances of Polynesia and Micronesia for six years in Hawaii, has researched and ob­ served religious and recreational dances of North American blacks, and has lived on the Hopi Reservation for eleven months while'studying the role of dance in Hopi society. 25 dance. For the second set of evidence, that of that dance is useful to the tribe and that it is using models from contemporary primitives, based on the seasons. Primitive dance, or as he one must not confuse the word "primitive" with phrases it, "earlier manifestations of human ac­ "primeval," even though one author actually does tivity" is everywhere found to be "almost identi­ equate these two terms (Sorell 1967:14). About cally formulated." He never really tells us what the dance of primeval man we really know nothing. these formulations are except that they have little About primitive dance, on the other hand, we know to offer in methodology or structure, and that they a great deal. The first thing that we know is that are examples of "instinctive exuberance" (Kirstein there is no such thing as a primitive dance. There 1942:3-5). are dances performed by primitives, and they are too varied to fit any stereotype. Terry describes the functions of primitive dance, and he uses American Indians as his model. In It is a gross error to think of groups of peoples his book The Dance in America he writes sympa­ or their dances as being monolithic wholes. "The thetically towards American Indians and "his African dance "never existed; there are, however, primitive brothers." However, his paternalistic Dahomean dances, Hausa dances, Masai dances, feelings on the one hand, and his sense of ethno- and so forth. "The American Indian" is a fiction centricity on the other, prompt him to set aside any and so is a prototype of "Indian dance." There thought that people with whom he identifies could are, however, Iroquois, Kwakiutl, and Hopis, to share contemporarily those same dance charac­ name a few, and they have dances. teristics, because he states "the white man's dance heritage, except for the most ancient of days, Despite all anthropological evidence to the con­ was wholly different" (1956:3-4, 195-198, 3). trary, however, Western dance scholars set themselves up as authorities on the character­ With the rejection of the so-called primitive char­ istics of primitive dance. Sorell combines most acteristics for the white man, it is common to of these so-called characteristics of the primitive ascribe these characteristics to groups existing stereotype. He tells us that primitive dancers among African tribes, Indians of North and South have no technique, and no artistry, but that they America, and Pacific peoples. These are the are "unfailing masters of their bodies "! He states same peoples who are labeled by these authors as that their dances are disorganized and frenzied, "ethnic." No wonder that balletomanes reject the but that they are able to translate all their feel­ idea that ballet is a form of ethnic dance! But ings and emotions into movement! He claims Africans, North and South Amerindians and Pacific the dances are spontaneous but also purposeful! peoples would be just as horrified to be called Primitive dances, he tells us, are serious but ethnic under the terms of the stereotype. Those social! He claims that they have "complete free­ so-called characteristics-as-a-group do not pre­ dom" but that men and women can't dance together. vail anywhere! He qualifies that last statement by saying that men and women dance together after the dance degen­ Another significant obstacle to the identification erates into an orgy! Sorell also asserts that of Western dancers with non-Western dance forms, primitives cannot distinguish between the concrete be they primitive or "ethnologic" in the sense that and the symbolic, that they dance for every occas­ Sorell uses the latter term as "the art expression ion, and that they stamp around a lot! Further, of a race" which is "executed for the enjoyment Sorell asserts that dance in primitive societies and edification ofthe audience" (1967:76), is the is a special prerogative of males, especially double myth that the dance grew out of some spon­ chieftains, shamans and witch doctors (Sorell taneous mob action and that once formed, became 1967:10-11). Kirstein also characterizes the frozen. American anthropologists and manyfolk- dances of "natural, unfettered societies" (what­ lorists have been most distressed about the popu­ ever that means). Although the whole body par­ larity of these widespread misconceptions. Ap­ ticipates according to Kirstein, he claims that the parently it satisfies our own ethnocentric needs emphasis of movement is with the lower half of to believe in the uniqueness of our dance forms, the torso. He concludes that primitive dance is and it is much more convenient to believe that repetitious, limited, unconscious and with "retar- primitive dances, like Topsy, just "growed," and dative and closed expression"! Still, though it that "ethnological" dances are part of an unchang­ may be unconscious, Kirstein tells his readers ing tradition. Even books and articles which pur- 26

port to be about the dances of the world devote In simpler cultures than ours we find a mass three quarters of the text and photos to Western of art actually created and practiced by the dance. We explicate our historic eras, our royal people as a whole. (Martin 1939:15) patrons, dancing masters, choreographers, and performers. The rest of the world is condensed The first question which such a statement raises diachronically and synchronically to the remain­ is what is a "mass of art" ? Martin never really ing quarter of the book. This smaller portion, defines art, but if he means art as a refined aes­ which must cover all the rest of the world, is usu­ thetic expression, then it can be asked how such ally divided up so that the portions at the beginning could ever be a collective product. Does he mean imply that the ethnic forms fit on some kind of that it appeared spontaneously? Does he really an evolutionary continuum, and the remaining think there can be art without artists ? And if he portions at the end of the book for, say, American believes that there must be artists, does he mean Negro dance, givethe appearance of apost-script, to imply that a "people as a whole" are artists? as if they too "also ran." In short we treat West­ If so, what a wonderful group of people they must ern dance, ballet particularly, as if it was the one be. Let us learn from them! great divinely ordained apogee of the performing arts. This notion is exemplified, and reinforced, Doubtless, Martin probably will say that I have by the way dance photos are published. Unless the taken his statement to an absurd extension of his non-Western performer has made a "hit" on our meaning, but I believe that such thoughtless state­ stages, we seldom bother to give him a name in ments deserve to be pushed to their extreme. the captions, even though he might be considered a fine artist among his peers (Martin is the excep­ It is true that some cultures do not place the same tion). For example, see Claire Holt's article value on preserving the names of their innovators "Two Dance Worlds" (1969). The captions under as we do. That is a matter of tradition also. But the photos of Javanese dancers list no names, but we must not be deceived into believing that a few you may be sure that we are always told when hundred people all got together and with one Martha Graham appears in a photo. A scholar unanimous surge created a dance tradition which, friend of mine was looking over the books by our having once been created, never changed from that dance historians, and he observed that they were day forward. not interested in the whole world of dance; they were really only interested in their world of Among the Hopi Indians of Northern Arizona, for dance. Can anyone deny this allegation? example, there is no tradition of naming a chore­ ographer. Nevertheless they definitely know who, within a Kiva group or a society, made certain Let it be noted, once and for all, that within the innovations and why. A dramatic example of the various "ethnologic" dance worlds there are also variety permitted in what is otherwise considered patrons, dancing masters, choreographers, and to be a static dance tradition is to see, as I have, performers with names woven into a very real the "same" dance ceremonies performed in sev­ historical fabric. The bias which those dancers eral different villages at several different times. have toward their own dance and artists is just as To illustrate, I observed the important Hopi "bean strong as ours. The difference is that they usually dances" which are held every February, in five don't pretend to be scholars of other dance forms, different villages during the winters of 1965 and nor even very much interested in them. It is in­ 1968. There were the distinguishing differences structive, however, to remind ourselves that all between villages which are predictable differ­ dances are subject to change and development no ences , once one becomes familiar with a village matter how convenient we may find it to dismiss "style." But, in addition, there were creative some form as practically unchanged for 2,000 and not necessarily predictable differences which years (see DeMille 1963:48). It is convenient to occurred from one time to the next. The Hopis us, of course, because once having said that, we know clearly what the predictable differences are, feel that our job is finished. and they also know who and what circumstances led to the timely innovations. Not only do they As for the presumed lack of creators of dance know these things, but they are quite free in their among primitive and folk groups, let us reconsider evaluation of the merits and demerits of those dif­ that assumption after reading Martin's statement: ferences, with their "own" usually (but not always) 27 coming out as being aesthetically more satisfying. "always" recognized in dance. That is, Hopis don't dance at births, marriages, or deaths. In Martin's Introduction to the Dance (1939) the first plate contains two reproductions of drawings Obviously, it cannot be said that they dance on of Hopi kachinas. Judging from its position among "every" occasion. Furthermore, the Hopi stamp­ the plates, this must be Martin's single example ing would surely be a disappointment to Sorell if of dances from a primitive group. DeMille also he expected the Hopis to "make the earth tremble shows Hopis as examples of primitive dancers under his feet" (1967:15). DeMille might also be (1963:33,35. The latter is a "posed" photo). Let surprised that there is no "state of exaltation" or us see how well the Hopis compare to the general­ "ecstasy" in Hopi dance (cf. DeMille 1963:34,67). ities attributed to primitive dancers. It is true that more Hopi dances are performed by PARADIGM males than by females, but females also dance un­ der certain circumstances and for certain rituals Hopi dances are immaculately organized, are which are the sole prerogative of females. What never frenzied (not even, in fact especially, in is more important is that women participate a their famous snake dance), nor is there a desire great deal if one thinks of them as non-dancer to translate feelings and emotions into movement. participants, and one must, because it is the en­ The dances are indeed serious, if this is synono- tire dance event which is important to the Hopis mous with purposeful, but many dances are not rather than just the actual rhythmic movement. serious if that word negates the fact that many dances are humorous, use clowns as personnel, For the Hopis, it is meaningless to say that the and contain both derision and satire. Hopi dance primary dancers are the chieftains, witchdoctors is also social if one is speaking as a sociologist, and shamans. Traditionally they have no real but they have only one prescribed genre of dance "government" as such, and every clan has its own which the Hopis themselves consider "social" in rituals and societies which are further divided the sense that they can be performed by uninitiated according to the village in which they live. Thus members of the society. Hopis would find the idea everyone will participate to some degree or another of "complete freedom "in their dance to be an alien in a variety of roles. There is no shaman as such, idea, because much of the form and behavior is so of course there cannot be shamanistic dances. rigidly prescribed. Certainly they would never As for witchdoctors, they do not dance in that role lapse into an orgy! Nor do they "hurl themselves although they dance to fulfill some of their other on the ground and roll in the mud" after the rains roles in their clan and residence groups. begin (DeMille 1963:35). I do not know what is meant by a "natural, unfet­ Hopis would be offended if you told them that they tered society," but whatever it is I am sure that could not distinguish between the concrete and the description does not fit the Hopis. In their dance symbolic. They are not children, after all. They movements the whole body does not participate, certainly understand natural causes. But does it and there is no pelvic movement as such. The make them primitive, by definition, if they ask dances are indeed repetitious, but that does not their gods to help their crops grow by bringing interfere in the least with the real dramatic im­ rain? Don't farmers within the mainstream pf pact of the performance. Within the "limitations" America and Europe frequently pray to a Judeo- of the dance culture, Hopi dance still has an enor­ Christian God for the same thing ? Are the Hopis mous range of variations, and this is especially more illogical than we are when they dance their true because the dance "event" is so richly or­ prayers instead of attending religious services chestrated. with responsive readings, and a variety of motor activities such as rising, sitting, folding hands Far from being an "unconscious" dance form, and the like ? Hopi dancing is a very conscious activity. And I cannot believe that it is any more "retardative" Once again assessing the Hopis in the light of the or closed within its own frameworkthan any other characteristics presumably found for primitive dance form, bar none. Finally, I find nothing in dancers, we find that Hopis don't dance for the Hopi dance that can be called "instinctively ex- three specific life events which supposedly are huberant," but perhaps that is because I don't know 28

what "instinctive exuberance" is. If it is what I which are neither too exclusive nor too inclusive. think it is, such a description is inappropriate Even the word dance, itself, is never adequately for Hopi dances. defined to apply cross-culturally through time and space. Instead of definitions we are given Lest someone say that perhaps the Hopis are the descriptions, which are a different matter al­ exception to prove the rule, or, perhaps, that they together. I have been closely questioned as to are not really "primitive," let me make two points. the need for definitions "as long as we all mean First, if they are not "primitive "they do not fit in­ the same thing anyway," and I have even been to any other category offered by the dance scholars asked what difference it makes what we call some­ discussed in this article. Their dances are not thing as long as we all understand how some term "folk dance" as described, nor do they have "eth­ is being used. The answers are twofold: without nologic dances," nor "art dances" nor "theatre the discipline of attempting to define specific dance" as these terms are used in the writings terms we are not sure we do all mean the same under consideration. Clearly, in the light of these thing or that we understand how a term is being writers' descriptions, they are a "primitive," used. On the other hand, the tacit agreement "ethnic" group with dances in kind. Secondly, I about frames of reference can distort the focus know of no group anywhere which fits the descrip­ of emphasis rather than giving the broadly based tions for primitive dance such as given by DeMille, objectivity which comes from using a term de­ Sorell, Terry and Martin. Certainly I know of no notatively. justification for Haskell's statement that "many dances of primitive tribes still living are said to For seven years I pondered over a definition of be identical with those of birds and apes" (1960:9). dance, and in 1965 I tentatively set out the follow­ Unfortunately, Haskell does not document any of ing definition which has since undergone some his statements and we cannot trace the source of slight modifications. In its current form it reads: such a blatant piece of misinformation. Dance is a transient mode of expression, per­ It is necessary to hammer home the idea that there formed in a given form and style by the human is no such thing as a "primitive dance" form. body moving in space. Dance occurs through Those who teach courses called "primitive dance" purposefully selected and controlled rhythmic are perpetuating a dangerous myth. As a corol­ movements; the resulting phenomenon is re­ lary to this let it be noted that no living primitive cognized as dance both by the performer and group will reveal to us the way our European an­ the observing members of a given group. cestors behaved. Every group has had its own (1965:6, rev.1970) unique history and has been subject to both inter­ nal and external modifications. Contemporary The two crucial points which distinguish this de­ primitives are not children in fact, nor can they finition from others are the limiting of dance to be pigeon-holed into some convenient slot on an that of human behavior since there is no reason to evolutionary scale. believe that birds or apes perform with the intent to dance. Intent to dance and acknowledgment of I suggest that one cause for so much inaccurate the activity as dance by a given group is the sec­ and shocking misunderstanding on the subject of ond distinguishing feature of my definition. This primitive groups is due to an overdependence on is the crucial point for applying the definition the words of Sir James Frazer and Curt Sachs cross-culturally as well as setting dance apart whose works have been outdated as source mater­ from other activities which might appear to be ial for better than three decades. In their stead dance to the outsider but which are considered, say, I would suggest that they read some of the works of sports or ritual to the participants. Webster's Gertrude P. Kurath, whose bibliography appeared International Dictionary shows much contrast in in the January, 1970 issue of Ethnomusicology. the definitions of dance between the 2nd and 3rd This and other suggested readings are given at editions. The reason for the contrasts is clear the end of this article. when it is understood that a performer-choreo­ grapher of Western dance wrote the dance entries DEFINITIONS for the 2nd edition (Doris Humphrey), while an ethnochoreologist (Gertrude P. Kurath) wrote the It is disconcerting to discover that writers tend to entries for the 3rd edition. use key words without attempting real definitions 29

We cannot accept Kirstein's contention that "it is Indian woman could not, nor would not perform the apparent, . . . that the idea of tension, from the jumps of the Masai people of East Africa. Other very beginning, has been foremost in people's differences are not clear because they are part of minds when they have thought about dancing seri­ a chicken/egg argument until further research is ously enough to invent or adapt word-sounds for it" done and until more of the right questions are asked, (1935:1). Alber (Charles J. Alber 1970: personal We do not know, for example, whether people who communication) assures me that both Japanese squat easily with both feet flat on the ground do so and Mandarin Chinese have time-honored words because their leg tendons are genetically different for dance and related activities and that the idea from non-squatters, or if anyone could have the of tension does not occur at all in these words. same tendon configuration if they habitually as­ Clearly Kirstein's statement indicates that he has sumed such postures (see discussion in Martin not looked beyond the models set out in Indo- 1939:97). As for "innate" qualities, we have al­ European languages. Can we really believe that most no real evidence. There is nothing to support only white Europeans are "advanced" enough to claims such as "barefoot savages have an ear for speak about dance ? rhythms most Europeans lack" (DeMille 1963:48). There is much we do not know about bodies and The notion of tension through the etymology of genetics and cultural dynamics, and in addition, European words for dance does reveal something we are especially ignorant about systems of aes­ about the Western aesthetic of dance which is ap­ thetics. It would be wiser for Western dance parent from the Western dance ideals of pull-up, scholars to leave qualifying remarks and open- body lift and bodily extensions. Elsewhere these endedness in their discussions of these things, or things are not highly valued. Indeed my "good" else these scholars may have a lot of recanting Western trained body alignment and resultant ten­ to do. sion is a handicap in performing dances from other cultures. Martin seems to have the greatest in­ Two terms which now require discussion are sight in the relativity of dance aesthetics when he "primitive dance" and "folk dance." These com­ describes dance as a universal urge but without a ments are to be understood against the framework universal form (1946:12). Further he states: of my definition of dance which I have already given.

It is impossible to say that any of these ap­ British, and especially American, folklorists are proaches is exclusively right or wrong, bet­ concerned with defining the "folk" in order to know ter or worse than any other. . . They are all what "folk dances" are. Our dance scholars, on absolutely right, therefore, for the specific the other hand, usually use "folk dance" as a kind circumstances under which they have been of catch-all term. For example, DeMille lists created (1946:17). Azuma Kabuki under her chapter on folk dance companies (1963:74). To call this highly refined Indeed Martin comes the closest to the kind of rela­ theatrical form "folk dance" doesn't agree with tivity which most American anthropologists feel is Sorell's argument that folk dance is dance that has necessary for observing and analyzing any aspect not gone "through a process of refinement"; that of culture and human behavior (see Martin 1939: has not been "tamed" (1967:73). Perhaps such 92-93, 108). It is true that Sorell and others discrepancies help to show why definitions are so speak of differences caused by environment and important and what a state of confusion can exist other pertinent circumstances, but Sorell also a- when we presume we all "mean the same thing." scribes much of the difference to "race," to "racial memory," and to "innate" differences which are Rather than following Sach's contention that the "in the blood" (1967:75-76, 275, 282, 283). These "folk" or the "peasant" is an evolutionary stage ideas are so outdated in current anthropology, that between primitive and civilized man (1937:216), I might believe his book was written at the end of I shall follow the more anthropologically sophis­ the 19th century rather than in 1967. ticated distinctions which are discussed by the anthropologist Redfield in his book Peasant Society It is true that many cross-cultural differences in and Culture (1969: see especially pp. 23, 40-41). dance style and dance aesthetics are due to both In brief, a primitive society is an autonomous and genetically determined physical differences and self-contained system with its own set of customs learned cultural patterns. In some cases the dif­ and institutions. It may be isolated or it may have ferences are clear. For example, a heavy Mohave more or less contact with other systems. It is 30

usually economically independent and the people of influences, this does not undermine its effec­ are often, if not always, nonliterate. (Notice that tiveness as an ethnic form. Martin tells us this, the term nonliterate refers to a group, which has although he probably could not guess that his never had a written language of their own devising. statement would be used for such a proof: This is quite different from the term illiterate The great spectacular dance form of the which means that there is a written language, but Western world is, of course, the ballet. an illiterate is not sufficiently educated to know . . . Properly, the term ballet refers to the written form. Thus DeMille's statement that a particular form of theater dance, which the primitives are illiterate is a contradiction of came into being in the Renaissance and terms fpeMillel963:23].) In contrast, peasant or which has a tradition, technic and an folk societies are not autonomous. Economically aesthetic basis all its own (1939:173). and culturally such a community is in a symbiotic relationship with a larger society with which it Further quotations could be made to show the eth­ constantly interacts. It is the "little tradition of nicity of ballet, such as Kir stein' s opening remarks the largely unreflective many" which is incomplete in his 1935 book (vii). without the "great tradition of the reflective few." Often the people in peasant societies are more or ETHNICITY OF BALLET less illiterate. If one adds the word dance to the above descriptions of primitive and folk (or peas­ I have made listings of the themes and other char­ ant) there might be a more objective agreement acteristics of ballet and ballet performances, and on what is meant by "primitive dance" and by these lists show over and over again just how "folk dance." "ethnic" ballet is. Consider for example, how Western is the tradition of the proscenium stage, Another troublesome term is that of "ethnic dance," the usual three part performance which lasts for as I have already indicated. In the generally ac­ about two hours, our star system, our use of cur­ cepted anthropological view, ethnic means a group tain calls and applause, and our usage of French which holds in common genetic, linguistic and terminology. Think how culturally revealing it is cultural ties, with special emphasis on cultural to see the stylized Western customs enacted on tradition. By definition, therefore, every dance the stage, such as the mannerisms from the age of form must be an ethnic form. Although claims chivalry, courting, weddings, Christenings, bur­ have been made for universal dance forms (such ial and mourning customs. Think how our world as Wisnoe Wardhana has been attempting to de­ view is revealed in the oft recurring themes of velop in Java: personal communication 1960), or unrequited love, sorcery, self-sacrifice through international forms (such has been claimed for long-suffering, mistaken identity, and misunder­ ballet: see Terry 1956:187), in actuality neither standings which have tragic consequences. Think a universal form nor a truly international form of how our religious heritage is revealed through dance is in existence and it is doubtful whether any pre-Christian customs such as Walpurgisnacht, such dance form can ever exist except in theory. through the use of Biblical themes, Christian holi­ DeMille says this, in effect, when she writes that days such as Christmas, and the beliefs in life "theatre always reflects the culture that produces after death. Our cultural heritage is revealed it" (1963:74). However others insist on some also in the roles which appear repeatedly in our special properties for ballet. LaMeri insists that ballets such as humans transformed into animals, "the ballet is not an ethnic dance because it is the fairies, witches, gnomes, performers of evil product of the social customs and artistic reflec­ magic, villains and seductresses in black, evil tions of several widely-differing national cultures " step-parents, royalty and peasants, and especial­ (1967:339). Nevertheless, ballet is a product of ly, beautiful pure young women and their consorts. the Western world, and it is a dance form de­ veloped by Caucasians who speak Indo-European Our aesthetic values are shown in the long line of languages and who share a common European tra­ lifted, extended bodies, in the total revealing of dition. Granted that ballet is international in that legs, of small heads and tiny feet for women, in it "belongs" to European countries plus groups slender bodies for both sexes, and in the coveted of European descendants in the Americas. But, airy quality which is best shown in the lifts and when ballet appears in such countries as Japan carryings of the female. To us this is tremen­ or Korea it becomes a borrowed and alien form. dously pleasing aesthetically, but there are so­ Granted also that ballet has had a complex history cieties whose members would be shocked at the 31 public display of the male touching the female's Dance" in the 1949 edition of Dance Encyclopedia thighs! So distinctive is the "look" of ballet, that rejects the use of the word "art" for these dance it is probably safe to say that ballet dances graph­ forms, however. In the context of his criticism, ically rendered by silhouettes would never be his point is well taken |l949:437].) I do not know mistaken for anything else. An interesting proof why La Meri chose to discard this usage and sub­ of this is the ballet Koshare which was based on stituted the word "ethnic" for "ethnologic" in her a Hopi Indian story. In silhouettes of even still 1967 version of the Dance Encyclopedia article. photos, the dance looked like ballet and not like a She did not otherwise change her article, and since Hopi dance. it was originally written with the above mentioned dichotomy implicit in her discussion, her 1967 The ethnicity of ballet is revealed also in the kinds version becomes illogical. (For a critical re­ of flora and fauna which appear regularly. Horses view of the Dance Encyclopedia and especially of and swans are esteemed fauna. In contrast we La Meri's entries see Renouf, Ethnomusicology have no tradition of esteeming for theatrical pur­ May, 1969:383-384.) poses pigs, sharks, eagles, buffalo or crocodiles even though these are indeed highly esteemed It is not clear to me who first created the dichoto­ animals used in dance themes elsewhere in the my between "ethnic dance" and "ethnologic dance." world. In ballet, grains, roses and lilies are Certainly this dichotomy is meaningless to anthro­ suitable flora, but we would not likely find much pologists. As a matter of fact, European cultural call for taro, yams, coconuts, acorns or squash anthropologists often prefer to call themselves eth­ blossoms. Many economic pursuits are reflected nologists, and for them the term "ethnologic" re­ in the roles played in ballet such as spinners, fers to the objects of their study (see Haselberger's foresters, soldiers, even factory workers, sail­ discussion 1961:341). The term "ethnological" ors, and filling station attendants. However, we does not have much currency among American would not expect to find pottery makers, canoe cultural anthropologists although they understand builders, grain pounders, llama herders, giraffe the term to mean "of or relating to ethnology," and stalkers, or slash and burn agriculturists! "ethnology" deals with the comparative and ana­ lytical study of cultures (see entries in Webster's The question is not whether ballet reflects it own New International Dictionary, 3rd edition. Be­ heritage. The question is why we seem to need to cause "culture," in a simplified anthropological believe that ballet has somehow become acultural. sense, includes all of the learned behavior and Why are we afraid to call it an ethnic form ? customs of any given group of people, there is no such thing as a cultureless people. Therefore, The answer, I believe, is that Western dance "ethnologic dances" should refer to a variety of scholars have not used the word ethnic in its ob­ dance cultures subject to comparison and analysis. jective sense; they have used it as a euphemism Ethnic dance should mean a dance form of a given for such old fashioned terms as "heathen," "pagan," group of people who share common genetic, lin­ "savage," or the more recent term "exotic." When guistic and cultural ties, as mentioned before. In the term ethnic began to be used widely in the the most precise usage it is a redundancy to speak '30's, there apparently arose a problem in trying of "an ethnic dance, "since any dance could fit that to refer to dance forms which came from "high" description. The term is most valid when used in a collective and contrastive way.* cultures such as India and Japan, and the term "ethnologic" gained its current meaning for dance scholars such as Sorell (1967:72), Terry (1956: Apparently one pan-human trait is to divide the 187, 196), and La Meri (1949:177-178). (An in­ world into "we" and "they." The Greeks did this teresting article by Bunzell on the "Sociology of when "they" were called barbarians. Similarly,

•Harper distinguishes between ethnic and theatrical dance on the basis of "integral function of a society" versus dance which is "deliberately organized" to be performed for a general, impersonal audience (1967:10). This dichotomy, which is based on genre rather than the society, provides a good working classification. However, the distinction fails when the terms are tested. Thus one can have ethnic dances of an ethnic society, but not theatrical dances of a theatrical society. It seems clear that "ethnic" is a more embracive category under which "traditional" and "theatri­ cal" might be convenient sub-divisions. In any case, Harper's discussion is thought-provoking. 32

the Romans called the "they" pagans, Hawaiians It is perfectly legitimate to use "ethnic" and call "they" kanaka'e, and Hopis call the "they" "ethnologic" as long as we don't let those terms bahana. All of these terms imply not only foreign, become connotative of the very things which but creatures who are uncouth, unnatural, ignor­ caused us to abandon the other terms. We should ant and, in short, less than human. The yardstick indeed speak of ethnic dance forms, and we should for measuring humanity, of course, is the "we." not believe that this term is derisive when it in­ "We" are always good, civilized, superior; in cludes ballet since ballet reflects the cultural short, "we" are the only creatures worthy of be­ traditions from which it developed. ing considered fully human. This phenomenon reveals the world view of the speakers in every I must make it clear that I am critical of our language, so far as I know. Often the phenomen­ foremost Western dance scholars only where they on is very dramatic. According to a scholar of have stepped outside their fields of authority. Mandarin and Japanese languages, in Mandarin Within their fields they command my great re­ the "they" are truly "foreign devils," and in spect, and I would not want to argue their relative Japanese the "they" are "outsiders" (Charles merits. Scholars that they are, they will agree Alber, personal communication: 1970). with me, I feel confident, that whatever are the rewards of scholarship, comfortable complacency I suggest that, due to the social climate which re­ cannot be one of them. jects the connotations with which our former words for "they" were invested, and because of a certain sophistication assumed by the apologists for the I am indebted to Monica Wirt, Marcia Texler "they," English-speaking scholars were hard- Segal, and to Charles and Joy Alber for reading pressed to find designators for the kinds of non- this manuscript and discussing it with me. Western dance which they wished to discuss. Hence the euphemistic terms ethnic and ethnologic seemed to serve that purpose.

SOURCES CITED: Bunzel, Joseph H., "Sociology of the Dance," The Dance Encyclopedia, Anatole Chujoy, comp. and ed. New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1949, pp. 435-440. DeMille, Agnes, The Book of the Dance. New York: Golden Press, 1963. Frazer, Sir James G., The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillan Co., 1947. Harper, Peggy, "Dance in a Changing Society." African Arts/Arts d'Afrique 1:1, Autumn, 1967, pp. 10-13, 76-77, 78-80. Haselberger, Herta, "Method of Studying Ethnological Art." Current Anthropology 2:4, October, 1961, pp. 341-384. Haskell, Arnold, The Wonderful World of Dance. New York: Garden City Books, 1960. Holt, Claire, "Two Dance Worlds." Anthology of Impulse, Marian Van Tuyl, ed. New York: Dance Horizons, Inc., 1969, pp. 116-131. Humphrey, Doris, "Dance" and related entries, Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd edition, unabridged. Springfield, Massachusetts: G. and C. MerriamCo., Publishers, 1950. Kealiinohomoku, Joann Wheeler, A Comparative Study of Dance as a Constellation of Motor Behaviors Among African and United States Negroes, unpublished M.A. thesis. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University, 1965. Kinney, Troy and Margaret West Kinney, The Dance. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1924. Kirstein, Lincoln, Dance. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1935. , The Book of the Dance. Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1942. Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch, "Dance" and related entries, Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd edition, una­ bridged. Springfield, Massachusetts: G. and C. MerriamCo., Publishers, 1966. 33

La Meri, "Ethnic Dance," The Dance Encyclopedia, Anatole Chujoy and P. W. Manchester, comps. and eds. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp.338-339. • "Ethnologic Dance," The Dance Encyclopedia, Anatole Chujoy, comp. and ed. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1949, pp. 177-178. Martin, John, Introduction to the Dance. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc., 1939. , The Dance. New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1946. , (John Martin's Book of) The Dance. New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1963. Redfield, Robert, The Little Community and Peasant Society and Culture. Chicago and London: Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1969. (First published separately, 1956.) Renouf, Renee, Book Review of The Dance Encyclopedia, Anatole Chujoy and P. W. Manchester, comps. and eds., Ethnomusicology 13:2, May, 1969, pp. 383-384. Sachs, Curt, World History of the Dance, Bessie Schonberg, trans. New York: Bonanza Books, 1937. Sorell, Walter, The Dance Through the Ages. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1967. Terry, Walter, "Dance, History of," The Dance Encyclopedia, Anatole Chujoy and P. W. Manchester, comps. and eds. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967, pp. 255-259. , "History of Dance," The Dance Encyclopedia, Anatole Chujoy, comp. and ed. New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1949, pp. 238-243. , The Dance in America. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1956.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Claerhout, Adriann G. H., "The Concept of Primitive Applied to Art," Current Anthropology 6:4, October, 1965, pp. 432-438. Harper, Peggy, op. cit. Haselberger, Herta, op_. cit. Kaeppler, Adrienne L., "Folklore as Expressed in the Dance in Tonga," Journal of American Folklore, 80:316, April^Iune, 1967, pp. 160-168. _, The Structure of Tongan Dance, unpublished doctoral dissertation. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii, 1967. By University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan. Kealiinohomoku, Joann W., and Frank J. Gillis, "Special Bibliography: Gertrude Prokosch Kurath," Ethnomusi­ cology 14:1, January, 1970, pp. 114-128. Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch, "Panorama of Dance Ethnology," Current Anthropology, 1:3, May, 1960, pp. 233-254. Renouf, Renee, op_. cit. Rood, Armistead P., "Bete Masked Dance: A View From Within," African Arts/Arts d'Afrique 2:3, Spring, 1969, pp..36-43,76. 34 Paris, 1968-1969: A Manifestation of Dance

ELIZABETH OBERSTEIN

"What theater manager in New York today would Changes come about and manifest themselves risk booking a large, expensive company with the through art and politics when people become con­ reputation of having French dance taste ? " In light vinced of a need for change.* A quiet back page of recent political events in France, this as well story to the near-revolutionary events of May, 1968 as other questions concerning the culture and his­ in Paris was a reawakening of the conscience of tory of France has become an au courant topic of the French artists, including those in the dance. discussion and writing. Following the phenomenal The students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts and the events of May and June of 1968, every intellectual Conservatory of Music were equally involved as periodical featured articles on the state of politics those of the Sorbonne in demanding reforms in the and arts in France, and books have developed this training they are getting and opportunities to re­ theme into a contemporary analysis of the whole ceive financial aid. They became conscious of evolution of French culture. The query of critic the fact that they are not relating to the times, George Jackson as posed above, therefore, is not partially due to the structure within which they only a dialectical "inside" question relevant to the are forced to work, but also due to their own lack commercial potential and critical evaluation of a of awareness. Now they are ready for a change. sophisticated New York audience, but relates to the current analytical thought in France. A quotation from Jose Limon's article in IMPULSE 1968 —Dance, A Projection for the Future, is rel­ Is it not an interesting phenomenon that La Danse, evant at this point. It appeared in the context of whose mother tongue is, after all, the French a question posed to Limon by one of his students: language, whose mother country, bearing and "What can an artist do when confronted by his weaning her into a courtly, sophisticated, eth­ fellow man's seemingly incurable predilection for ereal creature to entertain and charm the courts violence and brutality, this addiction to savagery of Henry in, Louis XII, and finally nurturing her and bellicosity? . . . How can the arts grow and into a ravishing Fine Art under the enlightened flourish in the poisons or embittered ambiance of tutelage of Louis XIV, should today be scorned, our era? How can they survive ? " That an outbreak scoffed, ridiculed, and rightfully ignored? The of violence and bloodshed in the Latin Quarter of answer probably lies in the affair between ballet Paris paralleled in the streets of Memphis only and the Romantic Era, when the former, wooed a few weeks before, could have initiated a plea to from life, was left home to stagnate, taking no be better educated to serve and create in a world part in the succeeding intellectual and artistic that changes as fast and reacts as instantaneously ideas which* abounded in France in the latter half as glass from a flying brick, is a positive answer of the 19th Century and pre-war 20th Century. to that question.

For about a decade previous to May 1968 there had An innovator may initiate change out of immediate been a small but active group of modern dancers personal necessity as well as out of long range in France, most of them working independently, ambitions. Karen Weahneris such an innovator. but very definitely working, with a fervor and in­ Of French-German parentage, she left Europe as dividualism that only the French possess. Because a child during World War H to live in Argentina. an art relates to its time, it is necessary to recall Having lost her family during the Resistance in that these were the post-war years in Europe, that France, her earlier political involvements were much of the decadence in European art is a result only a bad memory, and she continued her study of the forced isolation of many artists while their of dance in the "new" world. Returning to France countries rebuilt themselves, preventing any new as an adult, she established modern dance in the ideas from filtering in. There were, neverthe­ A return to America after that terribly violent and soci­ less, a few individuals who did leave and, more ally awakened year, 1968, exposed many changes; the significantly, returned. Thus anew seed was sown most striking was a new Black Consciousness, which had and, just as the womb has to provide the right con­ manifested itself as much in dance as in politics. Dance ditions for conception and nurture, the environ­ is seen as a social tool, as well as an art, involving black ment has to be ready for new ideas and change. people in their own heritage of jazz and African styles of movement. Elizabeth Oberstein is a dancer who, after graduation from U.C. L.A. in 1967, has spent considerable time in Europe. She has taught at the Scapino Ballet in Amsterdam, and has studied mime with Decroux in Paris. 35

curriculum of the Schola Cantorum, a music and the period in late May, when the Petit-Odeon and dance school of recognition in Paris. Her verve Institut des Arts were still occupied by artists and drive for this new form sparked interest in and actors, a meeting of dancers took place. The the post-war generation of dancers coming to the objectives of that meeting were: sharing of in­ school. It is this group that constitutes the core of formation regarding the present problems and the modern dance activity in Paris and, thus, France. state of dance in society; evaluation of the present structures. Resisting any propaganda or political involvement In addition, a second meeting was scheduled for for many years, Miss Weahner felt obligated, in May 31, 1968 to provide information and seek a the wake of the new cultural crisis in May, 1968, solution. Included in the notice for this meeting to take action. She instigated a meeting of dancers was a listing of "certain errors not to commit": during the period when public buildings such as the building in haste at the risk of becoming bureau­ Petit-Odeon and Institut des Arts were still being cratic; closing the dance in a world by itself; di­ occupied. Up to that time, the numerous modern viding the study of dance into fractions when, in­ dance contingents had rarely talked with each other deed, the objectives are the same. and had never talked to those "others" aligned with Roland Petit's Opera, which staunchly ad­ As a result of the May meetings the newly estab­ hered to classic ballet and had nothing but disdain lished Comite' d'Action de la Danse (C.A.D.) re­ for the modern style. leased notice of another meeting on September 11, 1968, the final day of the 9th Session of Dance Petit's Opera was responsible for the virtual os­ (C.I.D.). The C.I.D. is an organization witha tracizing of Maurice Bejart, the one daring force nation-wide active membership that sponsors in French dance today. This provocative figure of dance workshops every Spring and Fall, parallel­ the European dance scene was obliged to leave his ing, in objective at least, Connecticut College home, France, and to re-establish himself in and similar Summer Sessions in the United States. Belgium in 1959. There he was able to realize new The C.A.D.'s timing of their meeting was signifi­ ideas and concepts of dance with the cooperation cant in that many professeurs of Physical Ed­ of a make-shift company, whose members, like ucation departments from the provinces were in those of the Dutch companies, hail from all over Paris for the dance workshop and could attend the the globe.* In the Summer, 1968, Bejart was in­ meeting (and they did). The story has a familiar vited back to France, when he produced and di­ ring, but these are the people who will be respon­ rected a theatre - dance piece with Jean - Louis sible for initiating dance into the school system Barrault. This monumental, innovative work had in France, and the dancers themselves wanted to potential merit, but the production had to be sus­ make sure that certain essential standards will pended with the firing of Barrault as Director of be maintained. the Theatre Petit - Odeon (for his "reactionary activities in May"). The May C. A. D. meeting had resulted in a 14- page study of the teaching of dance in the French The result of this situation was a virtual laying school system (Avant-Projet de reforme de down of arms and a deep soul-searching into the l'Enseignement dela Danse), which has as its ul­ state of dance in France. During the occupation timate objective aFaculte de Danse in the univer­ ofthe Conservatory of Music, a schedule of free, sity. This is a revolutionary idea in Europe where open classes was set up, wherein any teacher of the class system still prevails. University edu­ any style or technique could volunteer his services, cated professional people are placed in one class, and all dancers were invited to participate in the and artists, lowest of whom are the dancers, are classes. A constructive workshop in dance brought placed with craftsmen in a very much inferior together such varied elements as classic, modern, and separate class. The scope of the study is Basque, Spanish, and Oriental styles. During enormous, but its style is cautious; it aims to reestablish the dancer's image in society by up­ Once in Brussels, Maurice Bejart integrated his Ballet- Theatre with the company of the Theatre Royal de la grading the teaching and education of dancers. Monnaie, a group of dancers who, themselves, were the The September meeting reflected this cautious­ result of a recent integration of English and Belgian ness in a heated debate on "Who is qualified to troupes. His concept of the Ballet of the 20th Century is to teach?" This produced such out-of-order but per­ illustrate contemporary music — Stravinsky, Schoenberg, tinent, frustrated cries as "La Danse n'existe pas Webern, Berg —in choreographic forms based on classic en France. On est parti pour la Belgique pour techniques, but "adjusted to modern tastes and sensibili­ danser." ties." Thus, he is not a total revolutionist! 36

The changes are slow, and the revolutionary fer­ of mime, such as Decroux, in France could have vor comes in spurts. Since the September 1968 additional bearing on a new style of movement or meeting, the C.A.D. has, in effect, liquidated presentation to emerge from France. itself. The driving force at the Comite, a young man who had abandoned his studies in dentistry to Furthermore, just as TheophileGautier's writings study dance, returned to his "profession" after influenced the Romantic Ballet, and just as John admitting defeat by insurmountable bureaucratic Martin's books and critical essays helped in the obstacles. The University at Nanterre (proving original establishment of the Modern Dance in grounds of Daniel Cohn-Bendit in May 1968, America, perhaps today the French, with their and thus very "progressive") now has several pride of letters and language, will develop a liter­ American-trained modern dance teachers on its ature of dance that will succeed in defining this physical education staff, but the French univer­ new form of contemporary art. sities on the whole are still behind their timetable The French are a people of sensibility, wisdom, in revamping the present curriculum, and have moderation, and wit, a people with classical habits barely touched the realization of any new ideas. and an incurable need for clarity of language. With all things French, it is the how, the manner, the As in any revolutionary movement, there is a style of the rendering, that is its essence, its public to educate, a public "to be made aware of reason for being, and, in spite of periods of great . . . the state of dance in society." This objective creative exertion followed by massive political is already being reached via the International turmoil, the French imagination has always dis­ Festival of Dance, which convenes four or five covered the perspective necessary for survival. major dance companies of the world each year for Perhaps the French love of order and form, coupled a series of concerts. The festival has included with the surrealistic fantasy of their imagination, in its programs of 1968-1969 free lecture demon­ could actually create something new, somehow strations by each company. Americans, Alwin linking the French dancer of today with his social Nikolais and DonRedlich have taken the opportun­ environment and cultural heritage in a vital, living ity to set forth (and defend) their methods and expression. motivations of movement exploration. Their state­ ments were at times controversial and violently It is fascinating to contemplate a French "style" opposed to the ideas of the conventional ballet of dance, ignoring, as much as possible, the pre­ follower, but at least there is evidence of an a- sent connotation of a stiff, representational 19th wakening of consciousness that indicates that one century Romantic Ballet. The word "style" itself can hardly ignore this time of change in France, is an interesting one for Americans to contemplate. in every domain, from the old administration to The European today, though genuinely fascinated the new. » with American bravado, ingenuity, initiative, and "campiness," finds the American way of talking, The question that presents itself to us now is how eating, dressing, and thus living, to have a lack valid is it to the French culture, and to the evolu­ of style. To be sure, there have been exceptions such as Ernest Hemingway, JohnF. Kennedy, and, tion of a French school (i.e. style) of dance, to in dance, Martha Graham. set up an educational system of dance based on American concepts and, it appears, American "style" in every sense of the word? If it will in­ John Martin has defined American dance as "less tensify the present soul-searchingamong dancers interested in being than becoming." Although in France, it will be quite valid. If it will merely American dancers move with joy, perhaps an ec­ academize an art form that we, in America, are static release of energy, the European, particu­ fighting desperately to un-academize, then it will larly the Frenchman, more aware of stylization, be a failure. analyzation and form, seeks to learn and perfect what the Americans have started. Therefore, it Self-discovery, however, often comes about only is not surprising that the Graham technique, the after learning from others. Isadora Duncan, for only style of modern dance taught at a professional instance, was highly influenced by Delsarte's level in Holland and France, is savored and loved, codification of gesture and accompanying philo­ for it has been accepted by the Europeans as sophy that all movement has meaning. Thus, a "classic" American — thus, being, not becoming. franco-american cultural exchange is far from "As for regimentation," John Martin continues, new. It is possible that the highly developed schools "the employment of a common code of movement 37

does not necessarily make all dancers alike any "Naissances,"a combination of modern dance with more than the employment of a common language violent dynamic contrasts reminiscent of Graham, makes all speakers alike . . . the existence of voice, and unconventional use of theatre space. a specified code actually heightens these differ­ ences." It is not the time, however, to judge the artistic merit of the French dance, but it is important that There are several young groups now performing we recognize that in the wake of dynamic political in Paris who have taken the initiative to involve turmoil there has been a revitalization of the dance themselves in a "recherche pur" of theatrical world in Paris. There are reasons to expect both techniques and style. They make no pretensions the best and the worst in the fruits of this period of having yet found what they are looking for. The of gestation, but the reason to be optimistic rests Biennale de Paris, a festival of arts which took in the continued consciousness of style coupled place most recently in October 1969, presented two with the emphasis, as evidenced in the Avant- such groups: The Yves Lebreton Company (com­ Projet de Reforme de L'Enseignement de la Danse, posed of young French and Americans, all former on relating the dance and dancer to society. The students of mimist Etienne Decroux) represented a ballet d'action must be put in its historical place, synthesis of Decroux's "super-marionette" styli- the role of the male dancer must be recognized zationandStanislavski's "psychic motivation"; and more fully, and the characteristic French indi­ the Studio Group of Pierre and Sandee Chabert,* vidualism must be extended into the medium of which presented a work in progress with the title dance, both for the performer and choreographer. If, in establishing an educational program of * He is French, trained in theatre; she is American, dance, a healthy balance of style and idea is the trained in the modern dance of Graham and Cunningham, result, then a new dimension of dance may be and she has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Harvard something to watch for from a land where it has University. not been dead but dormant.

Mime— Paradigm of Paradox

BARIROLFE

The visible world is no longer a reality and the unseen world is no longer a dream. — Keats

In its single syllable, the word mime evokes the stract and of the abstract by the concrete." And opposites of actuality and image, of illusion and one sees the whole through the fragment — the reality, of essence and appearance, of concrete moment "one strikes anywhere on a gong, the en­ and abstract. Those dualities have a particular tire gong resounds."* appeal to us today; all the art forms are exploring Marcel Marceau says that mime, an art of illu­ their possibilities, and on the stage we have grown sion, makes visible the invisible and concrete the used to them in the works of Pirandello, Genet, abstract, and that the audience identifies with the Pinter, and Ionesco, among others. Further: very trickery of it.2 mime has constantly changed, and yet remains the same; it is universally understood, yet defies definition. To extend the paradox from form to function: Jacques Lecoq, head of one of Europe's foremost The mimes themselves draw on paradox to de­ mime schools, believes that mime as a separate scribe their world: Etienne Decroux wishes "to art has no permanence; it becomes fixed and give the idea of movement by means of the attitude formalized at certain times with the emergence (a stop, an arrested gesture) and of the attitude by 1 Paroles sur le mime, (Paris, 1963) pp. 45-46. means of movement; of the concrete by the ab­ 2 Program notes and lectures. Miss Rolfe is a member of the drama faculty at San Fernando Valley State College, Northridge, California. This article is taken from a chapter of a book now in preparation. Copyright 1970. All rights reserved. 38 of a great virtuoso, but its search for the gesture Other mime techniques: pantomime has developed of words is rather to nourish its children, drama certain codes, gestures of fixed meaning. Gross and dance.* Jean-Louis Barrault dreams of an exaggeration, whether of situation or reactions, is art of gesture which, finding its source in silence, frequently used by circus clowns, Harpo, Skelton, is nothing but essential theatre.4 But it is also a and the American silent film comedians. Mime pure art in itself, when it succeeds. ° of the modern French school has evolved certain conventions, such as walking in place. Marcel Gestures are "the visible language of our interior Marceau's creation, Bip, pantomimes a butterfly life," writes dance critic Albert Cozanet echoing hunt, but the moment his hand represents the Decroux and Marceau, "the concrete signs of the butterfly we have impressionism. Figuration, state of our soul; physical because our body is living scenery and props, is a technique whereby the instrument of our intellectual as well as our the body, or parts of it, represent objects; the physical activity . . . translating our thoughts, same human vessel depicts both man and the ma­ feelings, passions, desires, to the most delicate terial world. Gilles Segal in an underwater sketch nuances of our emotions and our dreams."» becomes in turn deep seadiver, fish, water, plant Contradictory terms like "thinking overheard" life — anything found in that milieu. Pierre Verry (Arthur Symons) and "visible language of our (these last-named are contemporary French interior life" lead us to a supremely dramatic mimes) mimes a chess game in which two perform­ moment of "sound made visible" — that of Helen ers are the players and the chess pieces, in turn. Weigel in the scene in which Mother Courage re­ fuses to acknowledge her dead son: as his body Barrault, in his role of Deburau in Les Enfants was carried off she tore her mouth open in a shape du Paradis, played the mimed sequences in pan­ that suggested the screaming horse in Guernica. tomime blanche, a form of dumb show employing The sound that came out was raw and terrible, the familiar codes and conventions of pantomime. "but in fact there was no sound. Nothing. The Telescoping an action (making it briefer on repe­ sound was total silence. It was silence which tition), ellipsis (eliminating non-essentials), and screamed and screamed through the whole theatre stopped time have become so familiar in films that so that the audience lowered its head as before a we scarcely recognize them as stylizations. A gust of wind."^ mime uses ellipsis when he turns upstage as one character, then faces front as another. Stopped How does the artist achieve these provocative time occurs when the mime as David flings the dualities ? He is able to do so because mime is stone, and then as Goliath receives the blow. composed of certain devices of stylization which inevitably result in paradox. (Stylization here re­ Examples of almost every device are found in the fers to the theatrical techniques of departure from work of Marcel Marceau. He gives us mime con­ naturalistic enactment of reality, and they are by ventions in various illusions of walking, running, no means confined to this art.) The one which and climbing. As Bip he plays primarily in panto­ comes first to mind is the use of imaginary obj ects mime and with imaginary objects; in the multi­ or persons, making visible the invisible. An character sketches like The Public Garden and abstraction is created by a concrete motion of Tribunal he uses telescoping, ellipsis, and imag­ walking, to symbolize man's life span (Marceau's inary persons; and he gives us symbolism in The Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death). A series Mask Maker and The Cage. In 1963 he added of attitudes is the method of finding the essential Contrasts, a piece in a form new to his style, a movement. Poetic extension, the use of one ob­ McLuhanesque series of fractured, fragmented ject for another, reveals the dream when a type­ images, without beginning or end, closer to film writer becomes a piano or when Chaplin makes than to what we have usually seen in mime; it buns into dancing feet. could easily be a statement that form IS content.

3 Many mimes use props, sets, projections and "Le mouvement et le theatre," bulletin of the Maison costumes, but I limit my discussion to those de­ de la culture d'Amiens, France, December 1967. 4 The Theatre of Jean-Louis Barrault, (London, 1961) vices executed by the artist's body. p. 30. All of these clearly make visible the invisible, but 5 Jean-Louis Barrault, Reflections on Theatre, (London, 1951) p. 157. the imagination also does the reverse. When the 6Qu'est-ce que la danse?, (Paris, 1921) p. 11. mime proposes a given image, we "see" only that 7 George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy, (New York, which is essential to that image; when he is a 1961) p. 354. bird in flight, we efface the supporting leg firmly 39

planted on the ground; when his hands are tiny create each separate spectator's ideal of beauty. darting fish, we pay no attention to the rest of the That imagination will re-create Marceau's cage body. The "visible" is only what the image re­ as an image of each individual' s private nightmare. quires; the rest is "invisible." His final mask, when he is freed of his imprison­ ing mask, is envisioned by an audience of a thou­ Mime introduces its audience to an unlimited fan­ sand as a thousand different forms of agony. tasy world as it juggles time, space and reality. Of course, the motion picture can do as much and The fluid interchange between stage and auditorium more by its direct presentation of the fantasy occurs when a passive, or suggesting, performer image and its freedom to deal with space and time. calls forth an active, or imagining, audience. No But the special attraction of the theatre form is, matter how extreme the stylization, the mime can first, that it suggests rather than imposes the take his public to any joyful heights of fantasy if image, leaving it to the audience to dream it, and he does so carefully, clearly, step by step, deftly then the fact that it is, after all, a man like other offering the "accuracy of actuality and the accu­ men who is creating, in a live and fleeting moment, racy of imaginative understanding," in another of what Picasso called the lie which makes us realize Arthur Symons' happy phrases. the truth. The joy of unspoken understanding, of a meeting The same intriguing quality of paradox extends to of two minds, of messages sent and received, is the audience, for the less it sees with its eyes, profound and moving. The mime and the audience the more it sees with its imagination. The viewer can give each other that all too rare gift of the is directly involved by the necessity to complete stage, a lively exchange across the footlights re­ the invisible image. The more such imaginative sulting in a deeply satisfying evening in theatre. participation, the more satisfying is his experi­ The pleasure of recognizing the known, the like, ence. He sees not a tangible image, not even a the familiar, is one of the important pleasures in virtual or dynamic image, but a fantasied virtual mime. We enjoy receiving the message and say­ image which is evoked in the collective mind and ing, "Yes, that's how it is." And we must also then individualized by each one. The mime's first see some unlikeness in order to receive another gesture with an imaginary object implies the necessary pleasure, that of surprise. The sur­ question: "Do you see? Do you recognize?" And prising act is unexpected but at the same time it the spectator's first smile or delighted gasp is must be inevitable. "A thing in acting seems in­ his affirmative answer. The eye sees the man evitable because it surprises and satisfies us at plucking at empty air, but the mind dreams the once."8 The same holds true for other arts, as balloon string in his fingers. The eye sees two witness John Radar Piatt's remark that "Mozart's people glance at each other and away, and the genius was that he combined the maximum of sur­ imagination conjures up a world of feeling, con­ prise with the maximum of inevitability."9 Again, tact, and exchange between them. That imagina­ Marceau's workis a prime example; he invariably tion can fill a stage, for example, with many more gives us first the totally familiar, fulfilling our chairs (Eugene Ionesco, The Chairs) than a per­ child-like expectations, then he adds the clowning, former can put into play. That imagination, the absurd, and exaggeration by way of surprise, sparked by the suggestion of a beautiful girl, will a surprise which is at the same time inevitable.

To summarize: Mime, then, particularly in its art form is a model of paradox: By removing superficial communication it reveals deeper layers of communication. By eliminating trivial gesture it gives meaning to small gesture. By substracting sound it forces consciousness of sound. By using immobility it emphasizes movement. By emptying physical space it fills imaginative space. By recognizing the essential we learn what is unessential. By exaggeration it gives a sense of proportion. By figuration, man as object, it reaffirms man as man. By unreality it reveals reality. Mime, by eliminating real life, creates true life. 8 Stark Young, The Flower in Drama, (New York, 1923) p. 112. 9 The Excitement of Science, (Boston, 1962) p. 69 U.C. Berkeley Dance DEPARTMENT OF DRAMATIC ART

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA - These words, in the minds of a great many people, suggest a place where the atmos­ phere literally vibrates with disorder, where constantly erupting spasms of con­ fused violence break hourly into the pat­ tern of living, and where unsettled young students carry on open combat with any visible sign of continuity.

In contrast to this widely publicized pic­ ture of a community in confusion is the atmosphere of quiet and steady concen­ tration, which prevails in the program of dance at the University of California. Under the direction of David Wood, as­ sisted by his wife, Marni, a major pro­ gram in dance is beginning to unfold. Either in spite of— or, more likely, be­ cause of — the intensity and diversity of attitudes and events on the campus, the students have responded to the demand for disciplining energy. There is an oppor­ tunity, here, to establish a world of calm and constructive activity in the study of dance.

No small contributor to the possibility of creating such a world is the unique studio which houses these classes. Situated scarcely 100 yards from Sproul Plaza (administrative center of the University and scene of many student mass meetings) the redwood shaded studio provides an

Dance Studio Department of Dramatic Art Directed by David Wood assisted by Marni Wood

Photographs by Robert G. Campbell ^•^•HHBRraSSfflawHEi U.C. Berkeley dance class next page: David Wood and class 43 oasis for pursuit of a clear line of thinking and Inside, however, the atmosphere is not lacey at working. A student comes here not to escape all. Redesigned by John Takaushi, the interior from meeting the urgent concerns of a distracting is spacious, spare in decor and simple. The age but to concentrate, without interruption, on studio (which was the congregation meeting hall) developing physical strength and movement ability, has its original three story cathedral ceiling with on building awareness, and on gaining confidence great cedar beams spanning the 50 foot width. in communicating as an individual. At the end of the room, where the minister's pul­ pit stood, the area with the apse has been raised, Among the other imposing cement, glass and steel making an excellent stage for presenting creative structures of the campus architecture, the wooden studies. The floor of unfinished maple is just now dance studio, with shingled sides curling from age, beginning to take on the proper toning from the already stands apart. It appears intimate, weath­ dozens of treading and turning bare feet that buff ered to a cozy brown. Originally, the building it every day. Except for the piano, tucked into was a Unitarian Church built in 1878, designed by one corner, and a stool for the instructor, the Al Schweinfurth, student of the famous architect room is bare, leaving every possible inch of space Bernard Maybeck. Maybeck, himself, one of the available for dancing. founding members of the church, contributed sev­ eral details to the building in the form of porticos, And dancing there is, with some 200 students fireplaces, and a parish hall. Whole redwood working daily in the classes! The greatest num­ tree trunks provide supporting pillars at the en­ ber of these students dance in the active University trance. The enormous windows invite the sun, program. A few are members of the Berkeley toning the light through panes of amber stained community who have joined the evening classes, glass, and tangled fingers of wisteria embrace and there are 75 high school students participating the entire structure in loops and whirls of lacey inatuition-freeprogram which Mr. Wood teaches designs. to encourage young people's interest in dance. opposite: David Wood teaching in the new studio at Berkeley View of the studio showing performing area for class studies

47 Historical Reconstruction of

Renaissance Dances LUBA BLUMBERG

What motivates a dancer to study pre - classic not composed as dance accompaniments.) There dance forms ? A dancer might become interested is a definite value, however, to learning the ori­ in historical reconstruction for a variety of rea­ ginal line, the basic melody, before attempting to sons: A suite of early music might suggest a new ornament it; and if one wishes to perform histor­ modern choreography, and some knowledge of ical music in an authentic manner, it becomes authentic pre-classic dance patterns might be use­ incumbent upon him to gain some understanding fully incorporated. Or, a dancer might be asked of how the dances were performed. Furthermore, to choreograph a Renaissance dance or two for I feel there are at least two very valid reasons for staging in a Shakespearean or other Elizabethan dancers' learning the authentic dance patterns: drama. In the first place, a convention or rule must be learned before an artist can intentionally take In my case, the initial impetus came when I began license for effect. In the second, I feel that music to play 16th century musical instruments known and dance that are performed authentically, i.e., as recorders and found that so much of the extant in the manner in which they were originally cre­ Renaissance music is actually written as dance ated, usually produce a much more exciting per­ music or is dance-based. If one is at all concerned formance. about playing early music as it was intended to be performed, how can a musician possibly play a How can a dancer research an old dance and hope dance piece without some knowledge of how the to reconstruct it ? As any dancer who has attempted dance was performed? to reconstruct a dance solely from a printed page knows, it can be an extremely frustrating experi­ Choreographers in either ofthe first two situations ence. Many of us have attended master classes have been guided in the past by paintings and other or workshops and have carried home syllabi con­ visual sources available from the period and have taining instructions. These have proven most use­ used a combination of these sorts of cues with ful as a memory aid: i.e., having once been shown whatever information can be gleaned from written a dance and having also, perhaps, been led through material — however inexact it proves to be — and a dance, it is possible (though sometimes difficult) have been happy to achieve "finished" dances that to reconstruct the dance alone at home. If the at least impart the flavor of the period. Poetic problems cannot be solved alone, it is possible to or artistic license has always permitted deviation contact others who were present at the workshop, from conventional performance; I would have no or even the instructor, for assistance. quarrel, therefore, with any modern dance com­ pany that wishes to dance its own interpretation Digging through early dance manuals (written in of, for example, a pavan. By the same token, the archaic English, Spanish, French, and Italian) choreographer for an Elizabethan drama is free presents many problems. One particularly an­ to improvise. noying experience happens again and again. It seems that the professional dancing master is I do not insist upon authentic performance because usually a poor expounder. It is much easier to I am a purist. Dance music does not always have "show" than to "tell." He devotes himself to his to be played at a tempo and with phrasings that own inventions rather than to general principles; permit dancing: witness the many occasions in and he expects his readers to be familiar with the which medleys are used today in background or basic concepts and, in addition, to have practical concert settings or in wildly extemporaneous ex­ instruction. I have more than once tracked down plorations such as modern jazz. (Some of the an early dance manual, only to find that the very later — 17thcentury —dance suites were certainly thing that was puzzling me at the moment was

Luba Monasevitch Blumberg, whose father was a violinist in the Philadelphia Symphony under Leopold Stokowski, earned an M.A. in Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley, and is now teaching Folklore at the University of California Extension Division. She has done research and reconstruction of dances of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in the Music Department at Stanford University and has also studied and taught Flamenco, Balkan and Israeli dances. 48

taken for granted by the dance master and com­ evident that we were all in this together, that no pletely ignored by him in his writings, or, even one was "performing" and that professional stand­ more frustrating, to read something like, "If the ards were not being applied to their "dancing." foregoing is not eminently clear, the reader has As the relationship between the dance patterns and only to observe Lady So-and-so at the next Ball," the music they were studying became apparent, the or "Should the honored reader not be satisfied with dance lab came to have more real meaning to the this description, he may give me the honor of a musicians; and the strong resistance gave way to visit and I will make these dances clear to him enthusiasm and even eventual enjoyment. both in theory and practice." One student in particular had real difficulty in I don't know anyone who was alive in 1588. If I "letting go" and in moving. He was a conducting decipher a dance step described in a 16th century major, and his stiffness while holding the baton treatise, there is no one to whom I can go and was obvious to his professors and colleagues at the ask, "Look, ami doing this right?" Furthermore, beginning of the year. After overcoming his in­ until very recently, modern musicians and editors itial resistance and after having danced with my of modern editions of early music had little un­ class, he improved dramatically as a conductor. derstanding of the early dances. As a result, no available recordings of early music were dance- My primary concern in this project was not pol­ able. If a dancer had been able to figure out how ished performance. The rationale behind teaching the steps might have been performed, he could not musicians to move through the actual dance pat­ have worked them out with accompanying music. terns was to help them to 1. Recognize and identify specific common On the other hand, it is an exceedingly rare mu­ 16th century dances sician who is also a dancer. Even a scholarly 2. Play them at proper tempi and with ap­ musicologist could work up to a certain point — propriate phrasing and then would become dependent upon a dancer to solve many problems and to test the perform­ The musicologist and the dancer each has know­ ance . The close cooperation between musicologist ledge that is invaluable to the other. The musi­ and dancer, then, would seem to be prerequisite cologist must be trained to analyze early music to any worthwhile research. and must be genuinely interested in dance rhythms as they relate to the music. The dancer must have Musicologists in the Music Department at Stanford infinite determination and patience — the dance University were concerned with the relationships that can transpire in the space of a few minutes between dance and music. So inthe early 1960's can take discouraging months to reconstruct an answer was provided to my question, Where faithfully. can a dancer make a contribution to the research and reconstruction of historical dances ? Graduate The importance of this cooperation became dra­ students in the Music Department were studying matically evident while we were working on the "Performance Practice of Early Music." I began pavan. This dance serves to illustrate one of the my research and reconstructions there and taught basic reasons for research of this sort; the de­ candidates for advanced degrees in music to move termination of tempo. All intelligent musicians through the early dance patterns. Each week stu­ have read descriptions of the pavan which state dents in this course met for four hours of lecture that it is a slow, solemn, dignified processional with a musicologist plus an afternoon dance lab dance. And, logically, they invariably played the with me. music in a slow, stately manner. It was only by going back to an early treatise on the dance What are some of the challenges in teaching non- (Arbeau)that we were able to determine that, yes, dancers to dance ? The first meeting or two were the dance is a slow one; but music accompanying fraught with resistance. Though not actually ver­ it can be very sprightly! Fortunately, the situa­ balized, the vibrations that came through "loud tion is now changing. But up until just a few years and clear" were saying "I can't dance. . . You ago well-meaning (and very talented) musicians can't make me dance. . . What ami doing here?" could record the music discovered in old manu­ The initial blocks to overcome were self-con­ scripts. And dancers could read descriptions of sciousness and the fear of being made to look the steps and try to fit their reconstructions to ridiculous. By the second or third meeting it was available recordings. It didn't work! 49

What are some of the blocks inthe way of today's Musically notated, the six pulses are actually per­ musicians' playing early music authentically? formed like this: Musicians of every age learn certain conventions. AMERICA One of the first things we learn is how to count; then we are taught to see how bar lines are used to divide a musical line. While we may not be familiar with the term "thetic beat," we do learn |§j j j J i j. m Z etc. — consciously or unconsciously — to accent the \ count: 12 3 4-5 + fi first note following a bar line. For example, we count: 12 3 4-5 + 6 recognize a waltz as being in three-quarter time, The fourth note was probably actually held as if written 3/4, and meaning in the notation of our it were "double-dotted." music that there are three beats to each measure (that is, between each two bar lines) and that each Once a musician has danced Shakespeare's "sinka- quarter note receives one beat. When played, pace" (the galliard was commonly so called from then, the first beat of the waltz rhythm is accented; the French cinq pas — because the dancer was up ONE, two, three; ONE, two, three. If two quarter in the air on the penultimate count, it was called notes precede the first bar line, these two notes are the five-step), when he then plays the galliard treated as upbeats, and the third note — the one music on his instrument he will unerringly place immediately following the bar line — is accented: an accent on the fourth pulse regardless of where the bar line appears. That is, he will if he knows WALTZ that the piece of music is, indeed, a galliard and ffi£ if he knows the dance. Not having any knowledge ^ 33E ££ of the dance, a modern musician would have no way of knowing that a modern editor had incor­ would be counted 2 3 1 2 3 rectly placed a bar line and would — following his training — feel the thetic, or accented, beat as the Modern editors, unfortunately, are not familiar first one after a bar line, even if the third, rather with Renaissance dances, and as often as not are than the fourth note appeared in that spot (as in in error in their editions of early music. Musi­ the example of the waltz, above). cians trained today and ignorant of the dance steps that the music was meant to accompany are certain Here is an example of a misleading modern edi­ to produce something far from the intent of the tion of a galliard which actually appears in print.1 composer. To continue with our example of the The first two bars of the top part are published waltz — a rhythm in triple meter that is familiar like this: to our 20th century ears — let us compare it with another triple meter dance: thegalliard. Probably GAILLARDE no other dance is mentioned so often in English literature at the close of the 16th century as the galliard. There are six pulses (or "counts" inthe j r r 11 J r r f 5etc . dancer's world) for each galliard step, the most P important count —i.e., the one receiving the If the musician had never danced a galliard, it accent — being count #4. would never occur to him to phrase the notes across the bar line (which would be the correct It is said that Queen Elizabeth exercised by doing phrasing for this dance). six or seven galliards each morning in her private apartments (presumably not in her usual stiff, padded Court attire), and a galliard tune which was familiar to her is equally known to us: "God etc. Save the Queen" or "My Country 'Tis of Thee" ^m ("America"). The reader has only to hum the be­ ginning phrase to understand the correct phrasing should be counted for the dance: 12 3 4-561234-5 6

My coun-try 'TIS of thee 1F.J. Giesbert. TIELMAN SUSATO DANSERYE, Mainz, count: 1 2 3 4-5 "&" 6 Germany, B. Schott's Sbhne., Heft II, 1936, page 5G. 50

To begin with a rest is also misleading, but furth­ manner or another — deal with musical matters, er discussion of the music is beyond the scope of many of them in the form of puns.) The appreci­ this article. The main point is that correct phras­ ation and enjoyment of any literary scholar would ing (and tempo) can best be ascertained by learn­ be enhanced by a deeper understanding of these ing the actual dance steps. matters.

Can the study of pre-classic dances benefit others Dancing was a necessary accomplishment for all besides dancers? I have already discussed the actors at that time for they were often called upon musician and the musicologist who, through a to dance in a play. (Statistical minds have found better understanding of the early musical forms that out of 237 Elizabethan plays, 68 call for (most of which are dance-based), can be helped dancing in their actual texts.) In addition, there to more authentic, convincing, artistic, and ex­ are many instances in Shakespeare where a dance citing performances. For the historian, a clearer is not actually performed on the stage, but where picture of how people actually lived, dressed, and dance music is called for. A knowledge of the interacted with one another can often be found contemporary dances would unquestionably help through a study of customs; and dancing was en­ one to choose appropriate music. Through solving thusiastically practiced by all classes during the problems arising out of musical cues, theater Renaissance. directors and actors would almost certainly a- chieve more exciting productions, and gain fuller Music and dance are close to the hearts of most knowledge of the artist's real intent and actual poets, and they figure prominently inthe writings practices inthe Renaissance, as well as a clearer of Shakespeare. (About 500 passages — in one insight into the creative process.

The Creative Arts and Liberal Education—

A Report of a Workshop Conference JOANNA GEWERTZ HARRIS

In June, 1968, a Workshop-Conference sponsored these convictions and the existing curricula by the National Foundation on the Arts and Human­ in the creative arts which, for the most part, ities took place on the campus of Mills College. limit the range and academic value of studio During 1967 anti early 1968, a planning committee activity at many liberal arts colleges. In or­ met several times in order to establish the prem­ der to explore the possibilities of significant ises as well as to formulate the program for the changes in the teaching of fine arts, admini­ conference. Excerpts from the report of that com­ strators and artists, teachers and laymen mittee will show the basis, direction, and the goals must meet to share ideas and experiences. of the Workshop-Conference. Awareness of the existing problem and a re­ assessment of art activities on individual Members of the planning conference affirmed campuses can thus be brought about. that participation in the creative arts, actual studio activity, is an indispensable element The objectives of the conference were outlined as of a liberal education . . . theory, history and follows: observation of the arts, however important they may be, do not create a sufficient sense 1. To give each participant an opportunity for of involvement. . . the personal encounter by renewed and strengthened contact with the student with the arts stimulates the kind studio activity and with the ideas and tech­ of intellectual and emotional awareness and niques of master teachers through his own growth which are the goals of liberal education. participation in the creative arts.

The need for the proposed Workshop-Confer­ To identify the problems of current crea­ ence arises from the discrepancy between tive arts curricula in liberal arts colleges.

Joanna Gewertz Harris, Bay Area choreographer and teacher, is instructor in dance at Stevenson College, University of California, Santa Cruz, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the Editorial Board of IMPULSE. 51

3. To provide the environment which will one must return to long-forgotten basics: the make the dialogue and understanding revelations of non-verbal symbology, the possible among administrators, artists shape of things, the assessment of one's and artist-teachers. special world, the physical knowledge of emo­ tions. Was there ever a greater need for 4. To discuss and plan ways to improve the these knowledges ? teaching of the fine arts in light of the best of present thought and practice. ... I selected the creative aspect as the best 5. To make state arts commissions aware of approach. The objective was to experience the resources of the college community directly space and time design in movement, in the field of the creative arts; to plan for to use the body as an instrument for design, cooperative ventures which would expand no matter how simple. . . I began with very creative arts programs in the general limited body exploration as a factor in energy community. and time. We explored simple arm and hand gestures (the safest motion for adult non- Except for three of the master-teachers, all 42 dancers) placed in design form. This session conference participants were from public and generated fairly good connections with the private colleges in the three West Coast states language of dance. . . and the Province of British Columbia. Events Mr. Allen Fletcher was primarily interested in consisted of morning classes for small groups, recalling and rethinking some approaches to afternoon general sessions concerning new devel­ dramatic imagination. Through problems of sense opments in the various art forms, evening per­ memory and improvisation, the group worked with formances, lecture-discussions, and an art and concerns of the actor and director. Some scenes architecture tour of San Francisco. In the final from Chekhov formed the basis of the group's session of the conference, Alfred Frankenstein dramatic exploration. participated as discussion leader. The art sessions were led by Mr. Frank Hamilton, A major focus of the conference was the morning assisted by model Florence Allen. Some partici­ workshop. The master-teachers for these ses­ pants had not had the opportunity to draw in years. sions were: Bella Lewitsky, dancer and choreo­ Some were coming to the experience for the first grapher, Los Angeles; Allen Fletcher, director, time. Using simple materials of pen, ink, pencil, Seattle Repertory Theatre; Frank Hamilton, artist, pentels and crayons, Mr. Hamilton sought to ex­ teacher, San Francisco; and Leland Smith, com­ pand visual perception and assist relaxation in poser, professor music, Stanford University. drawing. Many, many short poses and moving postures were used by the model to force the The dance workshops were geared for the non- person sketching to think in terms of line and dancer to introduce him to a general approach to composition rather than detailed accuracy or re­ the techniques and choreographic experiences of presentational figures. Each participant was to modern dance. Miss Lewitsky stressed the ap­ complete an entire sketch book with "moments of plicability of dance work to each of the other art compositional awareness," one design element forms. She summarizes her point of view and per page, rather than belabored finished products. her approach: Adult educators should become aware of the Mr. Leland Smith was interested in conveying to singular role played by dance. It has the his workshop groups the new concepts which have virtues shared by all the arts: development evolved in teaching musical awareness —concepts of discernment, invention, discrimination, which have grown out of the aesthetics of music individual perception, etc. — attendant to composed since 1950. With simple percussion in­ creative activity. But dance, alone, has the struments and some illustrative tapes contributed human body as its sole instrument. This by Mr. Smith, the groups were able to experiment, means that self-identity is natural and una­ composing with simple sounds supplemented by voidable. In the act of discovery and perfec­ various tape sounds. Mr. Smith brought to every­ tion of the instrument for dance, one must one's awareness the advantages and possibilities reaffirm the miracle of self. One relocates of sound tapes made through computers, using as the individual as meaningful, deeply com­ illustrations several of his tapes made with com­ municative and therefore useful. In dance, puters at Stanford University. 52

Mr. Smith describes his sessions: sculpture by GeroldBol, a guest of the conference, Perhaps the main point I wanted to get across and a lecture with tapes by WillOgden, Chairman, in my sessions at the summer conference was Department of Music, U.C. San Diego, on "New that musical understanding can best (maybe Music for Everyman." In general, the emphasis only) be taught in terms of musical activity. in the group sessions was on participating with the The "appreciation" of music can never be fed art materials (as an example, making music with to students like vitamin pills. Appreciation "found sound"). will come naturally when the normal powers of perception are sharpened and directed to­ Student films made in a course at U.C.Berkeley ward the essential elements of music. were shown. Mr. Andrew Doe and Mr. Richard Barnes of Pomona College showed films on "Street While it is not impossible to develop percep­ Theatre." This and other discussions of mixed tion through mass lectures and passive listen­ media led to a discussion of new uses of technology ing, I am convinced that active participation and the wider aesthetic they demand. It was stated in making music greatly speeds the process. that student understanding and development are When the student is put in the position of be­ often limited by the teacher's failure to accept ing able to approach music as an involved unfamiliar approaches. producer instead of a consumer, he is forced to consider the fundamental nature of sounds and their relationships. . . Lecture-demonstrations and performances were also included in the schedule of the Conference My sessions generally went thus: Rhythmic week. Bella Lewitsky and her company, consist­ participation — small percussion instruments ing of Janice Day, Charles Edmundson and June were used first to simply stay with the steady Morris, performed a lecture-demonstration which beat of music played on the piano and later to was of great value to the group, many of whom interject rhythmic counterpoint at specified were unacquainted with modern dance ideas in any places (sometimes with and sometimes with­ detailed manner. Miss Lewitsky gave vivid illus­ out piano continuity). Pitch participation — trations of the elements, materials and creative each person had to use his instrument in aspects of modern dance from her point of view: terms of the pitch it produced. Thus, tunes Every gesture, every motion must travel could be played after the fashion of "ringing through paths of space, time and energy. changes." Then, improvisations based upon When these factors are expanded, heightened, rhythmic and pitch considerations were done distorted — the gesture may be abstracted, with piano accompaniment. Finally, the same distilled or generalized... In our highly procedure was followed using a tape recording verbal society, one is familiar with movement of computer generated sounds as basic ma­ closest to the word, literal gesture or mime. terial . The purpose of this was to free the Communication exists at many levels. The ears from listening in the purely conventional least important one may be the one which is way which the piano inspires. . . the most specific. The afternoon general group sessions provided Formal performances were given by the Mills opportunities for extending participation in the Performing Group, musicians in residence at arts in other contexts and inter - relationships. Mills College, and by the American Conservatory Miss Lewitsky, who led the first of these meetings, Theatre. The latter offered a lecture-demonstra­ presented a film entitled "Body-Ego Techniques" tion in training techniques at the theatre con­ made by Trudi Schoop and Jeri Salkin of Los servatory followed by an evening performance of Angeles, which dealt with primary knowledge of HAMLET. dance and extensions of dance into therapy. In addition, Janice Day of Los Angeles State College and Helen Goodwin of the University of British The final session of the Workshop - Conference Columbia led the whole group in working with some was an all-morning discussion and evaluation led of the time-space-energy ideas vital to dance. by Alfred Frankenstein, critic, San Francisco Chronicle. Community guests included Mr. Paul Mills of the Oakland Museum and Miss Carol Other group sessions included an opportunity to Pulcifer, supervisor, Cultural Arts Section, draw on blank poster board areas in the art gal­ Oakland Recreation Department. lery, a session exploring and manipulating kinetic 53

The response to these workshops was enthusias­ and finding out why artists draw live nude tically summarized by Mr. Peter Huse of the models (and finding out that it isn't why they Centre for Communications, Simon Fraser Uni­ always thought it was!). Try it another time versity, Vancouver, B.C., Canada: and try — however hard it is — to get those guys there! The exciting thing for me at this conference was the way each day began with total immer­ sion in a different medium. The different Participants affirmed the value of the concentra­ tion, progression, awareness, self-challenge, and points of view provided to me by artists in excitement of participation in the arts. They named other media and the involvement and result­ as problems of the arts in liberal arts campuses ing edge of intensity in my own personal the following: lack of standards in hiring teachers; learning experience was, I feel, quite unique administrative ignorance of problems confronting for this kind of conference. Beginning each the arts' curriculum; lack of communication and day, I threw myself creatively into these other interaction between arts and other "academics" on media and the surcharge of excitement from the campuses; a narrowness about what constitutes this morning activity carried me over the "creativity"; the tendency to get into "ruts" and whole day and took many forms of involvement lose awareness of new ideas in the field of art in various aspects of the conference and in activity and teaching; lack of a sense of reality the issues the conference raised. as to what is possible as far as "professional training" in the arts on a liberal arts campus. Unlike previous developmental conferences de­ voted to a single art form, the June, 1968 confer­ In evaluating the creative arts and community ence was concerned with several arts and their needs, the participants felt that a larger audience place in education. This aspect proved stimulating outside the college community needs to be culti­ to many participants. To quote one, Robert Loper, vated to participate and enjoy art activities. The Professor of Drama, University of Washington: supermarket and the street are places where the I found the sessions fascinating in themselves arts should be seen as well as galleries and audi­ in revealing some common problems and gen­ toriums. The vitality and enthusiasm ofthe artists uinely useful in giving me a concrete picture should be used to make liaisons between the campus of the quality and direction of work in other and community institutions. The artist's insights areas which made the arts more available in into the values of art and life give him a special a personal way to the student who will never place within a disrupted society. be a professional performer, composer or writer. It was hoped that out of the Conference the follow­ ing events and possibilities would materialize: One objective of the conference — to bring together 1. A clearing house for information concern­ administrators, artists and teachers — could not ing the creative arts in West Coast colleges. be realized, because very few administrators attended. Because of scheduling difficulties or, 2. A network for exchanging performance and perhaps, because of reluctance to participate, a exhibits. great many administrators who had been invited, 3. Future Conferences on: sent, as substitutes, faculty members from one The Creative Arts for Administrators, or another of their arts departments. In discuss­ Artist-Teachers ing the need for future conferences one participant (an administrator) expressed his point of view: The Teaching of the Creative Arts The Creative Arts for Liberal Arts If only some way could be found to ensure that Students and Pre-Professional (Con­ another time President A, Chancellor B, Provost C, DeanD, Treasurer E are there in servatory) Students person, grappling with the business of banging The Creative Arts and the Community a gong at the right moment, struggling to get out of themselves and into some other char­ It was felt that these proposed conferences should acter, forcing themselves to be articulate be small, geographically limited, and preparatory about why they don't like this or that film, for some future large scale Endowment sponsored suffering the embarrassment (or savoring the Conference toward the Creative Arts and National pleasure) of pretending to be a leaf in a storm Welfare. New Dance

Early in 1971, the Mills College Dance Department will enter into a "New Environment" when the Walter A. Haas Pavilion is com­ pleted. The building will provide studios, classrooms, and offices for the Dance Department, an au­ ditorium seating up to 1000 people, gymnasiums, classrooms, and offices for the Physical Education Department. It has been almost ten years since the Dance Depart­ ment had to abandon its spacious and pleasant studio in the old gymnasium, when that building was found to be unsafe for use. Following a period of dispersal of dance activities to a number of widely separated areas of the campus, the department has been housed for the past six years in a 50-year-old temporary building whose facilities are both inade­ quate and overcrowded.

Designed by Ernest J. Kump and Associates, the Pavilion is located on the main drive of the campus. The center room on the upper floor is 82 feet square, with unbroken floor space for gymnasium use. The Walter Haas Pavilion under construction Folding banks of theatre seats are recessed in the walls and may be moved out into several different seating arrangements, for audiences as small as 250, as large as 1000 persons. A large cyclorama, stage facilities and theatrical lighting provide similar flexibility for theatrical use. This hall, with its choice of stage or open floor space, will accommodate dance, musical, operatic or theatrical performances as well as intermedia events. The lower floor, partially below ground and lighted by clerestory windows, provides the Dance Depart­ ment with three large studios, a smaller rehearsal hall with a stage, and a costume room. The Mills College Dance Department is one of the oldest college dance departments in the nation. Dance has been a part of the College's curriculum since the early days of this century, originally as a part of the physical education program. In 1942, a separate Department of Dance was established inthe Division of Fine Arts. Both the Bachelor of Arts and the Master of Arts degrees have been offered since that time. Now under the chairmanship of Eleanor Lauer, the department has experienced considerable increase in both number of students and amount of activity. Thus the new building will fill a long-standing and critical need for the Dance Department as well as for the College as a whole. In recent months it has been made very clear that not only do people affect an environment, but an environ­ ment also affects people. It is hoped that the Haas Pavilion, with its unique design and quiet spaciousness, will influence the dance students toward greater concentration and productive creativity. 55 Environment at Mills College 56

Long Beach Summer School of Dance—California State College

Beginning in the summer of 1968, California State College at Long Beach has offered "a comprehensive summer course in dance designed to meet the needs of dance teachers, college dance students, performers and choreographers " (catalog state­ ment). This program has brought artists and teachers from various parts of the country to give classes in dance technique (modern, ballet, jazz), composition, music and dance, stage­ craft for dance, and lectures on various aspects of contemporary dance. Films and dance concerts by both faculty and students are also included in the summer schedule.

The photographs in this "photo essay" about one of the new en­ vironments for dance on the West Coast were made during the 1968 and 1969 summer sessions and were intended to show people and activity rather than locations or facilities.

Photographs: Audio-Visual Center California State College at Long Beach

Carlton Johnson teaches a class in Modern Jazz Technique below: Betty Walberg helps student performing before above: Students in Ethel Winter's class in video-tape camera in choreography lab Advanced Modern Dance Technique Ethel Winter demonstrates for her class in Modern Dance Technique HI Fritz Ludin helps a student in his class in Modern Dance Technique II

Bernard Skalka, teacher of Stagecraft for Dance, supervises a student backstage at the campus Little Theatre. above: Fritz Ludin demonstrates for his class below: Students in Alfredo Corvino's Ballet Technique H class in Modern Dance Technique II $mg£L P? 62

An artist's stature, his originality and his uniqueness, depends on his capacity to experience his world. This world has two faces: the outer one, full of objects and events; and the inner one, potentially just as rich, but far less known to most people. Because our culture concentrates so exclusively on the outward orientation, I have been at some pains to explore movement as an inner experience.

The inner world of the body comes alive in two ways — sensation and feeling. Sensation has to do with the exact feel of body condition and functioning; feeling has to do with the exact sensing of the expressive component, the emotional overtone. If these two are connected through outer imitation, learned technique, and stereotyped meaning, the imagination which provides and forms material has no depth. The differ­ ence between high competence and genuine expressive meaning is imagination. In my work with dancers, I try to get at the individual experiencing of movement sensation and feeling meaning, so that the raw material out of which dance grows is discovered in the body, not preconceived in the head.*

Reflections on a Metamorphosis

MARY WHITEHOUSE

I am an ex-dancer; not only by virtue of the passage The war punctured the balloon of innocent ambition of time with all that means to strength, speed and and dedication. With a husband overseas and two flexibility, but by virtue of a slow metamorphosis, children to help support, dance took on the dimen­ a gradually changing focus of interest. It is only sions of a job instead of a crusade. I made the now that lean sense the outline of all that has taken transition into the relative calm and security of place in my journey from my dance years to the college teaching. But, as I looked at the modern kind of work I am presently doing. dance of most concerts and classes in the late '40's and early '50's, it seemed to me increasingly As I left dance, and I did leave it, it was not in or­ stereotyped in general content and form, increas­ der to do something else, find another profession, ingly skill oriented. It had in many ways become but in response to an urgent need to go beyond as­ an activity to be learned, and I could perceive sumptions implicit in "being adancer." It became very little attempt to further its original impetus a search for a different understanding of dance and which had consisted in the basic discovery that the of my commitment to it. I had outgrown that mar­ dancer had something humanly significant to say. velous and simple-minded missionary zeal associ­ ated with an absolute conviction that dance, and It was an important day when I discovered that I modern dance in particular, would transform the did not teach Dance, I taught People. I did not know world — that if everyone knew about and partici­ it, but it was the beginning of a sea change, the pated in dance, all the ills of Man could be healed. stalk of an underwater attitude which would grow This conviction took the form of large and small slowly to the surface over a period of years. What concerts under varied conditions for various kinds it meant, I could not really imagine; but it was of groups, of lecture demonstrations and master accompanied by a feeling of relief and excitement. classes in addition to regular studio teaching. It It indicated a possibility that my primary interest reminds me, now, of "show and tell" in primary might have to do with process not results, that it school, with its youthful amalgam of pride, en­ might not be art I was after but another kind of thusiasm, and competition. human development. Perhaps there was something

•Statement by Mary Whitehouse at the Developmental Conference on Dance at the University of California, Los Angeles reported in IMPULSE 1968. Mary Whitehouse, pioneer in the field of movement therapy, has been on the Dance Faculty at U.C. L.A. and has given lecture-demonstrations at various conferences, colleges and hospitals. In her Los Angeles studio she works with individuals, conducts weekend workshops for men and women, and trains teachers. 63

in people that danced, a natural impulse, unformed In sensing this, I found that I was involved with and at first even fugitive. If I could find ways of both an inner process of self-recognition and the releasing it, if I could come to grips with what in­ possibility of inner growth. There is something terfered with and prevented its expression, I might incontrovertible in coming up against one's own find the beginning of what my discovery meant. body as it actually is, sluggish and resistant or floppy and yielding. As people begin to move in Then it occurred to me to ask what it is that man their own way, they are faced with feelings of does when he dances, not only as artist but as man. surprise and delight and often of anxiety and em­ He expresses that which cannot be put into words; barrassment. Judgments, corrections and ex­ he gives voice to the ineffable, intangible meaning planations are of no use. It is their movement, and condition of being alive. He puts himself in and it happened just that way. touch with forces beyond the purely personal and mundane. He swims in a river of movement that Change can happen and development can take refreshes his spirit. place through the discovery of unused and previ­ ously unavailable qualities of movement. For There was my clue: the meaning and condition of instance, something as simple but as basic as being alive. The degree ofaliveness in people was large, strong, assertive action in a forward di­ the starting place. I had to be able to begin where rection can be built up gradually from a walk, people were, not where I thought they ought to be. and coaxed, not commanded, from the timid, self- I wanted, now, to help them explore and extend apologetic ones. The experience of this new their aliveness. Together we had to suspend a quality of movement provides a change in feeling, specific image of dancing, and of my teaching them another dimension of the self. Change can also to dance, in favor of the discovery of their own take place through the discovery of previously bodily condition, their own attitudes, assumptions unavailable feelings. For the ones who move and feelings inthe experience of themselves mov­ like bulldozers, the longing to experience them­ ing. Then came another clue. We needed to know selves yielding and delicate results in a changed the something in Man that dances. Dance does not quality of movement. So movement can lead to belong to dancers; it belongs to Man — and always new feeling; feeling can lead to new movement. has. It was once the transpersonal stuff of his re­ They are in some way one. lation to his universe, and can be, even now. But now it begins with the personal, with ourselves Nevertheless, for years I was still caught in that as we find ourselves. For the dance to open out, ancient conflict between form and content or be­ for it to become more than ourselves in our little, tween technique and improvisation that is an difficult lives, we have to let ourselves be touched, argument in all the arts. In dance, it appears moved. It is no accident that when we are touched when people say, "but before you can dance, you we call it a "moving experience." must train the body." This is true in a sense for dancers, but for people who don't want to become Gradually I came to see that movement is one of dancers, it is the feeling of dancing that counts: the great laws of life. It is the primary medium not the discovery of what their bodies cannot do of our aliveness, the flow of energy going on in us but of what they can do, of what is naturally avail­ like a river all the time, awake or asleep, twenty- able to them, of the joy and rhythm and energy four hours a day. Our movement is our behavior; that is their rightful heritage. As I let go of the there is a direct connection between what we are materials of formal instruction, or used them like and how we move. Distortion, tension, and differently, I saw that the deeper I could get into deadness in our movement is distortion, tension the sensation of how movement felt to the person and deadness in ourselves. As long as the body doing it the more expressive it became and the can be regarded as an object to be trained, con­ more clarity emerged. trolled or manipulated, one need not experience these things; one is still doing something to it or The time came when I felt I could not continue with with it. But when it is somehow myself, impelled weekly classes. I still knew too little of what the by impulses, feelings and inward demands for individual inner development was, how it worked in action waiting to be perceived and allowed, I am movement. I was still too obligated to the group suddenly aware of being differently alive, differ­ energy, timing, structure. Often the impact of ently conscious of myself. what happened to individuals had to be left hanging 64

or was cut across by the democracy of the group in each attempt to move together, they exchanged reaction. I had begun, at intervals, to experiment reactions, shared their feelings. Often what one with the difference between individual appoint­ had "heard" took on a different quality than another ments and group sessions. It was not at all a ques - was conscious of offering. This necessitated self- tion of doing alone, with special attention, the questioning, an admission or a denial that opened things done in class. It was a question of following up self-knowledge. Slowly they learned to let go myriad clues provided by that person, at that point of needs for leading or following, requirements for in his or her life. Some of the clues lay in bodily being generous or nice, inward assumptions of limitations, physical usage, areas of blockage. right and wrong. They learned that each contact Some lay in emotional reactions — involuntary was an existential moment in its own right, dif­ tears or bursts of anger. Some showed up in verbal ferent from any other; that it consisted of I and assumptions or judgments, points of view taken for Thou and a third element — that which is between granted as gospel truth and exhibiting an evaluative us, that which is not mine though I am in it and attitude not connected with the actual physical ex­ not yours though you are in it, but something pression. It became a self-confrontation for both more, something which contains us both and has of us, a conscious integration of the not-before- its own feeling and its own development. When known, with a consequent modification ofthe known. this third element is present, the movement takes on simplicity and inevitability, a Tightness that is But, satisfying as this new area of exploration was, deeply rewarding to each because it comes out of it answered some needs only to activate others. a willingness to be there for what wants to happen. People need people. It was not long before I found It is a paradox in which our differences meet and that there were those for whom moving alone in a our sharing creates something new. large space while I watched was less rewarding than participating in a group. Something about the Experienced between two, this sharing can be ex­ energy built up in common, the sense that every­ tended gradually to include three, five, a larger one shared a similar struggle, the mutuality of group. Sometimes there comes a wonderful mo­ giving and receiving, offered a more satisfying ex­ ment in which a spontaneous rhythm or dynamic perience, a more illuminating development. intensity gradually catches all the members of the group, liftingthem into a leader less whole, uniting All the mystery and delight, all the anxiety and them in a common action or common direction, a doubt of the I — Thou connection immediately pre­ spontaneous order, a statement growing and ex­ sents itself in a group. Questions of personal panding, swelling and changing until it comes to truth and individual impulse come up against dif­ its own natural ending. From the outside, it has ferent truths and different impulses; questions of a quality of unpremeditated choreography. From how I can honor the reality of my own feeling the inside, it is an experience of participating in without ignoring the reality of others, how I can a totality made up of more than the sum of its be open to those others without over-adapting or parts but including each part equally. over-asserting myself. It seems to me now that what I do is no longer It was here in the passages of movement between dance, though it has moments of pure dance in it. two people that it became clear how much more It has turned intoTao, a way, a becoming. Move­ immediate movement is than words. The physical ment, as I know it now, touches people in their situation, the actual movement communication, lives. It opens up their individual sense of them­ can be felt directly in the nerves and muscles, selves and teaches them that they are humanly not glossed over by politeness or distorted by valuable to each other. It is the discovery of the automatic agreement. I saw how some tend to lead growth process that is themselves becoming. The and some to follow, some take the initiative and word becoming moves; it is the movement aspect some hang back; how some want to give continu­ of eternity. Being is the essence; becoming is the ously and some wait to receive. movement of the essence.

As the people became aware of themselves moving, After all, it is Life that dances. we learned to take time to talk. After participating 65

"It is a Gift" GAY CHENEY

As a dancer ready to choreograph, I wanted to so many different teachers in so many different peel off the layers of acquired technique and move­ ways for so many different dances that I was curi­ ment habits to get to the core of my own movement ous to know what movement would occur to, in and style. As a human being ready to grow, I was also for me. I willed only to allow it to happen. It be­ looking for a way to pare away the many skins of gan and I followed it out. "It" seemed strangely learned and acquired behaviors to reveal my own familiar; it was a moment of a very real me. In authentic self. I was not only ready to do this, the realization, I broke, cold and clear, from the but fortunate enough to have the time and oppor­ heat of total involvement and concentration. tunity to do it. Toward the accomplishment of both objectives, I began to work with Mary Whitehouse Several weeks later, I was still moving on the and "movement in depth." floor, having spent much time as a leg-less crea­ ture squirming, rolling, wiggling, pushing and For those in dance, the medium of movement may pulling, sliding and slithering. Suddenly self-con­ not be the easiest means to self-revelation. We scious at this limitation, I decided I would stand, are so facile in movement, practiced in control, only to discover that it was impossible. My legs and conscious of presenting the best image. We had no desire to support me. There was no strength are accustomed to speaking to others about move­ to accomplish it, nor the memory of how it could ment, yet learning to speak openly and honestly of be done. I wondered how it did happen, how it ourselves in movement takes a different orienta­ happened for the very first time, not, apparently, tion. by simply deciding to do it. I wondered, too, at my weakness, for I was strong, disciplined, well In the beginning sessions with Mary Whitehouse, trained. What was it all about? What was I all she suggested moving around the studio to become about? The question had been voiced; the answers acquainted with it, then locating a place and posi­ continued to unfold. tion where I could settle comfortably and quietly. In response to this first cue, I ran out the momen­ More sessions passed. One day, while intensely tum of the»daily race in Los Angeles traffic, shook involved in exploring another movement path, I out some of the anxiety about beginning this ex­ was suddenly aware that I was on my feet, on the ploration, and finally came to rest, willing to give edge of taking a first step into space. I was not myself up to the directions of the leader, only to aware of how I had gotten there. How groping and discover quickly that the leadership was to come difficult that first step was. How unsure. It hap­ from my own thinking, feeling body. It was my pened once, then again. As it continued, my torso mind that had to be deposed from its usual position began to open up and out from its original crouch of authority. It was to be focused and centered in until I was fully extended. Suddenly, I knew I was my body, totally with and not above it busy with there. I knew I had made it. My eyes flew open. thought. I was merely to watch, listen, feel for the There was Mary, knowing and proud. Nodding, motor impulse to begin, allow it to happen and de­ she said, "What a tremendous thing — to stand, velop, meanwhile attending to the resultant feeling. entirely alone, on your two feet!"

In that first session, I began on the floor, quietly, The idea seemed almost staggering, but I knew simply waiting —and waiting, eventually thinking now why it had taken so long and been so difficult. to myself, "Well, getup stupid, and move. You're How fascinating that it had happened in the natural a dancer." I knew full well that in starting from course of solving another problem, when my at­ this particular motivation I would deny the deeper, tention and effort had been directed toward some­ slower impulse that I had sensed would be worth thing else. As the sessions continued, I was aware waiting for. I knew, too, that Mary would feel the of passing through various stages of human devel­ denial, see the will in action, and question its ne­ opment, of re-experiencing, re-discovering areas, cessity. Besides that, I had moved as a dancer for aspects of myself. Who really knows the shape Dr. Cheney is Associate Professor of Dance at California State College at Hayward. With Janet Strader, she is the author of Modern Dance, which is described as a guidebook for students in experiencing dance. She was also responsible for Movement: The Meaning of Now, a multi-media presentation focused upon the aesthetic quality of sports. 66 and weight of his own head ? One thing I knew for of tension. He begins to learn about others, sens­ certain from all this was that my head was not the ing the arrogance in another's upward focus of only container of brains. My whole body seemed chin and eyes, knowing the wanderer who goes tobeamind, ushering thoughts into consciousness everywhere and nowhere. And he recognizes these for consideration and formulation. To be able to same aspects in himself. He discovers the mean­ trust this body intelligence meant a relaxation of ing inherent in moving simply back to back, side the strain of mental responsibility, a giving up of by side, eye to eye, coming toward or going away the driving of the will. in movement relationships which tell that which words can never say. One knows what it is in man In the experience of movement at this level, one that is manipulating, dependent, pushy, "moved," tunes in on his humanity — that part shared with that which leads, controls, submits to others. As others and that part unique to himself, that which others respond to him, he learns not only how weighs on the positive side of the scale and that movement feels inside but how it makes those on which is heavy on the negative, that which weighs the outside feel. He knows what and how he projects more on the left and that which slides to the right. to them. Thus, a wealth of motion - feeling ma­ As he knows opposites and extremes, he begins to terials accumulate for the choreographer along sense the place where they meet; he comes close with a sense of projecting, of reaching beyond to center, to being centered. oneself, that begins to develop for the performer.

In moving back and forth from outer edges toward In the process of "movement in depth," one real­ center, I had discovered the existence of a fuller izes the innate and natural form that the evolving personality and continued to explore it. The con­ movement takes as though issuing forth from an cern had been with therapy, with discovering and inherent pattern of organization. One learns to experiencing the materials of myself in movement. trust the intuitive plan to be consistent with the The more fully known these materials had become, biological structure of the feeling involved. Look­ the more secure I was in knowing, the more my ing at a movement episode in retrospect, one may focus could change from what was inside myself to realize that it took the form of a theme and varia­ outside contact with others. An increased concern tion. Repetition with variation occurs when a per­ for the discovery and experience of others evolved. sisting interest gains or loses in importance, or I wanted to make dances to share with them. is seen from a new point of view. A theme devel­ ops if its original structure is rich in potential For one ready to choreograph and perform, all the meaning for the mover. As a problem is dealt past experiences of "movement in depth" are per­ with and solved, a movement sequence intensifies tinent . One knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that to a climax and is over. Balance can be experi­ the materials of dance, of movement, have feeling enced as quiet, as peaceful, as an occasionally and meaning. Movement itself, the in and out necessary rest, but as dead when existing for too of motion — carried by momentum, halted, de­ long a time. One knows life and movement as dy­ monstrative with open arms or subtly responsive namic , requiring the countering of weight and time, in one shoulder — has significance, has mean­ the matching of left with right, the opposing of for­ ing for the one who moves and for the one who ward and back, the sequence of giving and taking, sees it. when a thing begins in earnest, and when it is done.

One knows what it means to walk the straight and Through experience in this work, one develops narrow, to go round in circles, to be drawn by the focus and concentration, the sustained zeroing-in diagonal. He finds his own "cornerness," and dis­ that is necessary in choreographing and perform­ covers the feeling of that which is behind him. ing. It brings the total person to his work holding There are experiences of knowing with inevitability no part out of involvement by distracting, dividing where one's place is in a room, experiences of self-consciousness. In addition to the innumerable being in orbit, of being part ofthe rhythmic scheme new articulations discovered in these explora­ of things. The realization of when one feels slow, tions, it is the openness to feeling within the joints, how speed affects him, what his individual rhythm nerves, muscles, viscera during the articulations is becomes available as one moves "time." One that make for the "dancer" who is a dimension be­ discovers the tightness of his body, that which yond the mechanically perfect technician. is inflexible in himself. He finds weakness and strength, and discovers what to do with excesses As one tunes in to the influence ofthe environment, 67 experiencing movement in relation to it, an extra of human beings through dance, and the teacher is sensitivity to other elements of dance as theatre concerned not only for the experience of the indi­ develops. The moving man begins to use his en­ vidual, but for that which individuals can give to vironment as a part of the total picture of his art. others. He begins to respond to weight, shape, texture, and color of things moved in, with or on. Sound It is time again for being a teacher, the time for seems to accompany, control, oppose, juxtapose self-concern is over. I had been given time to movement. One sees motion in new lights as he contact myself as human being, as choreographer opens his body to feel the energy of a sun ray, the and dancer. As teacher, itwas required that I be changing length of a shadow, the weight of blue. more of all these things. Away from Mary, I could Costume materials are seen with the eyes of the continue on my own, learning and growing with fingertips; the ear is touched by sounds. One is each situation. There was one time that is still affected and uses his awareness of effect to enrich close to all of us. It was in a class in improvisa­ the perceptual experience of his dance, making it tion, a class of college students, half ofwhomwere fully alive for the audience. black, half white, half men, half women. It was a day of special intensity having more than the These experiences are not only deeply meaningful usual electricity. Something was going to happen. for the individual but provide increased sensitivity, It could go either way —they would have to decide insight, perspective, and material for the former which. A remembered personal experience with and performer of dances. "Movement in depth" is Mary gave the cue: "Move in relation to your feel­ considered primarily as therapy. Therapy in the ing as you say the word 'no' in any way, in as concept of Whitehouse is cathartic and creative: many ways as you like. " resolving the past while constructing a new present, getting rid of excess tension while realizing new How reticent they were at first. How careful. It uses for energy. It has phases of unconscious and was not usually allowed, not nice. Voices and conscious work, occurring in movement and then bodies whispered for quite a while. Suddenly, brought into conscious awareness. Whitehouse "No! " bellowed a male voice, unable to restrain considers the latter phase as perhaps the most any longer. Silence. "No!" roared the voice again, important. One not only gets rid of symptoms but with a stomp and fist in gesture. "No?" questioned makes an effort to understand the causes. While others. Again, the same reply. It was out. The one moves out the unique and common, divine and barrage of fireworks seemed like the explosions animal aspects of himself, he comes to recognize of the negations of all time. How long we had these not as opposing forces pulling in two different waited to sayit. Itwas shouted, wailedand thrown directions, but as two points on a continuum gath­ — flip and angry, fresh, determined, satisfying, ering him into a continuous circle not only within soulful, painful, and full of sorrow. One had held himself, but within the cosmos of other cycles her voice and body quiet throughout, not a sound and systems. If one accepts the situation and nor a move. She had waited, listening, till now. works in it, the result can be an integration and "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, " she cried, harmonization of the personality. Such a person winding her way to the center of the room into has potential for making well-integrated dances of another's waiting arms. She covered her brim­ powerful total effect. ming eyes with her arms, then both dissolved to the floor in tears. "No, no," admonished one Therapy and art are known traditionally as antag­ would-be comforter, starting to move toward her onists. From these experiences they maybe seen to pat and soothe. "NO!", protested a strong male as complimentary, related, running parallel in voice, blocking her progress, "No" —let her cry. process. As one explores himself, he also dis­ Her sympathy thwarted, do-gooder turned angry. covers others; as he discovers the meaning of "NO! ", she slapped out. There followed an even movement, he begins to know about dance. In stronger objection to the interference. A meeker therapy, movement is the means leading to the end question, a quieter answer; an acceptance of the of self-knowledge; in art, movement is the end answer, and both affirmed and resolved, "no." with oneself the means for bringing it to others. As one feels the desire to bring experiences to The voices had been gathering in, quieter now. others, he begins the transition from therapy to The last joined in to complete the two halves of art. In teaching, one is responsible for both. If sorrow, providing a cradle which rocked the inner the subject is dance, the object will be the growth two, as each other, as themselves. The unison 68

motion had almost begun to hum when, in the cen­ own and the others' beauty. It was a mutual ex­ ter, one head lifted, the eyes turned upward, the perience of "Joy," as described by William Shutz, mouth opened, a voice poured out. By the sound in which they perceived that they were more than of it, the song came from the deepest part of her be - they had thought they were. ing. She sang, "We are one." Thetears streamed down the brown face, blond head on her shoulder, It is a time for teachers, a time for teachers to singing with helpless arms hanging, held protected accept and love, to make possible the acts of in her vulnerability. The others, held closer in choice, creativity and responsibility, to have faith their rocking, gave out the waiting tears as her in the potential humanness of all, to recognize the song touched each vibrating center. beauty inherent in each one. There is this possi­ bility in motion. It is time for moving and being The singing ended. The sobbing stopped. Eyes moved. sought out those of others, all held direct for an instant. The rocking stopped, the stillness was I made an error once in. describing this natural overwhelming. Able to bear it no longer, the re­ sense and sensitivity of the body. I had told a lease came in a round of giggles and the passing class: "It's not a gift. We all have it." A more of Kleenex. It was a moment of sweet self-con­ discerning student took my hand: "It is a gift, and sciousness, as each knew the tender truth of his we all have it."

The Wisconsin Dance Idea—Tribute from

a Movement Therapist RHODA WINTER RUSSELL

"Learning is a process of maturation, the development of inherent potentialities, and the acquisition of new skills by modification and combination of old ones, all of which results in changed behavior." "Movement is an expressive language — we gain mastery and knowledge of ourselves in the doing." "Through consciously experienced values in movement one becomes more selective because of growth in sensitivity." i "The body may be considered the outer aspect of personality." "We are equipped with a structure and endowed with a means of putting this structure into action and with a means of becoming aware of sensations in actions and in rest." "It is essential to believe in the educability of human nature and convinced of the values that can constitute the development of a well-rounded personality."

"To teach is to accept the privilege and responsibility of shaping and directing human thought . . . and to help each individual develop to his fullest capacity as a human being."

Are these quotations taken from the latest bro­ movement therapist establishes as basic to her chures and catalogues of the almost 100 "growth role as a human being reaching out toward her centers" throughout the United States ? Are they patients as fellow beings ? Although the quotations, quoted concepts from the newest materials on their philosophy and meaning, could encompass all Gestalt Therapy, Existential Psychology, or Be­ of these areas enumerated, they are simply a hand­ havior Theory? Are they just-released mani­ ful, among pages and pages, and years and years, festoes from Esalen or the new Group Dynamics of the thinking and teaching of Margaret H 'Doubler. departments ? Perhaps they are the new directives Margaret H'Doubler and the Wisconsin Dance from VISTA, Head-Start, or Job Opportunities? Idea go back long before growth centers, sensi­ Or are they simply a compendium of what a good tivity training, adjunctive therapies, encounters, 69 marathons, and all of the psychological synthesis these identical goals are sought in helping and ofthe just past decades. As far back as 1919 Marge guiding individuals to be themselves, to make H'Doubler, affectionately called Miss H'Dee, was more accurate their total "sensory" perceptions, onto developing the human potential! to be able to give and perceive accurate and ade­ quate feedback. This is therapy and growth inthe Miss H'Doubler created a course of study based '70's. on the integrity of the human organism, the edu- cability of that organism, and the importance and To a movement therapist working primarily with value of the creative aspects of any endeavor that individuals whose disturbances and behavior ne­ individual entity undertook. Her basic philosophic cessitate hospitalization, these backgrounds prove and educational goals were not "to make dancers," to be equally valuable. The problems of patients but to help students to develop the ability to live and non-patients are, I feel, quite similar. It is to their fullest potential with an understanding and a question of degree and depth. appreciation and awe for life itself. The Wisconsin Dance Idea used movement as a means, but not as Movement therapy uses basic movement in a an end in itself, to accomplish this task. directed, structured, therapeutic setting to help build ego-strength, to develop identity, and In a recent flyer from the Humanist Institute of to enlarge and enhance an individual's movement San Francisco, the following reasons for attending patterns and reactions, as well as to help increase its functions are listed: "To help one get closer his kinesthetic awareness and response. This to other people, get in touch with one's feelings, technique, through the use of basic motor and examine one's values, learn how people see one, movement pattern analysis, relaxation techniques develop honesty and trust, be more spontaneous, of both an emotional and physical nature, exercise, to be able to change, to get more out of life." and sensory awareness experiences can be a way These are areas which both emotionally healthy of helping a patient relate better, more approp­ and emotionally disturbed people need to grow in riately, and more comfortably with his environ­ and explore. The Wisconsin Dance Idea and Dance ment, with others, and most importantly, to him­ Department, through the vision, understanding, self. The therapy attempts, thereby, to enhance and concepts of Marge H'Doubler, laid down a cur­ the patient's perceptions of his totally responding riculum and provided an environment where stu­ personality. Movement, Perception, and Touch dents could do just that within the context of explor­ are used as areas for kinesthetic feedback to in­ ing dance and movement. The basis for this was the crease perceptual awareness and enlarge the kinesthetic approach to movement education which patient's ability for response and communication utilizes and emphasizes procedures and know­ with reality. Through movement therapy the pa­ ledges that familiarize the students with the tient can begin to experience his body as a source "movement sensations relayed to the cortical area of pleasure rather than one of irritation and nega­ where they enter consciousness." tive inwardly directed feelings.

In the 1940's, Marge H'Doubler formulated some In movement therapy the body is the instrument aims for her courses: to develop kinesthetic and movement itself is the medium of the modality. awareness, perception, and the ability to give While it is true that of itself, movement per se, adequate motor response; to discover and evaluate is not verbal, in working with the whole educative- feeling states that accompany movement sensa­ therapeutic process of the totality of human re­ tions ; to experience the expressive power of move­ sponses one must include both verbal and non­ ment; to gain the understanding that meaning and verbal reactions and mechanisms. Therefore, communication are due to the structure of the the voice is included in movement therapy tech­ movement form. Anyone who has participated in niques both as pure sound response functioning in good sensitivity training, in mass encounter tech­ integration with movement responses, or on a niques, and in "group gropes," well knows that

Rhoda Winter Russell is Movement Therapy Supervisor at Philadelphia State Hospital and is also on the Board of Directors of the American Dance Therapy Association. She has conducted therapy programs at large state institutions, private clinics, community mental health day-care centers, and with psycho­ logists and psychiatrists in private practice. 70

higher, more sophisticated cortical level of lan­ away from, and against. The force concept of guage. For this reason, the techniques offer an strong can be developed, as can all movement con­ excellent opportunity to add a "verbal" dimension, cepts, from the physical feeling to the psycho­ to an area erroneously, in this author's opinion, logical realm of strength in terms of strong feel­ considered "non-verbal." The movement thera­ ings, having a feeling of strength, strength of pist not only utilizes her own body movements and convictions, etc. skills in ability to read and analyse movement, but she also uses her own voice as auditory stimulus In movement therapy there is no right or wrong. as well as for direction giving. In trying to elicit The question only is: did you solve the movement an integrated movement-sound-feeling response problem, and how? By setting up movement situ­ from a patient, the therapist must in turn be a ations, the therapist helps the patient to get out totally responding model. Our voices, as sounds, of his self-oriented, often self-negating, self-de­ give away our feelings. Do we really hear what feating, basically insecure and often hostile atti­ we are saying? Such concepts as saying "no" and tudes into an open, more outwardly directed, more meaning "yes" can be explored with both body and healthful attitude. voice as correlates and harmonies in one person­ ality. Movement therapy stresses reality because it deals with and uses the body, touch, perception In order to develop accurate kinesthetic awareness and the environment. And it focuses on the body of one's own responses, to begin to perceive as the instrument of communication. An express­ more accurately the surrounding environment, ive personality combines the psyche, the body, and to begin to get feelings about both of these the mind, the nervous system, the total Gestalt perceptions integrated into the most positive of capabilities of the human individual. However, behavior and movement responses, for a given ultimately, it is through the body that feelings and individual personality, the movement therapist thoughts are experienced and shared and commu­ develops his structures, environments and, if you nicated. Movement therapy opens up the channels will, his therapeutic thrust in the three main for more accurate communication, more self- building block areas of movement itself: Time, aware communication, and helps to organize the Space, and Force. body itself into a more healthy organism for life and living. Time factor concepts include such categories as: fast; slow; counting; the number of body parts; Personality emerges from broad experience. The rhythm and rhythmic problems; and even relating individual as therapist, as a human being, lays the time of day, week, season and year to move­ down a foundation of warmth, knowledge, skill, ment problems. As'exampleof the latter might be and a belief in the moving and movable human in­ a "directed movement fantasy" around Halloween, dividual. This is the heritage that Miss H'Dee in which patients (especially children) might move gave her students. This is one therapist's appre­ like, make a face like, the character they want to ciation for the Wisconsin Dance Idea and for Miss be for Halloween. H'Dee, a precursor and innovator of the concept of the deep and meaningful role movement plays Space factors which are constantly being brought in the total scale of life. Today's helpers and into play by movement therapy are: focus — focus healers, psychiatrists and psychologists, trainers of attention, focus on body parts, eye focus; the en­ and trainees, hippies and humanists, existential­ vironment in terms of the room — floor plan, el­ ists and experientialists are all exploring and ex­ ements such as levels, directions, facings, inside panding the territory that Marge H'Doubler moved and outside concepts; space relationships with and her way through in her own long ago but still vi­ to other people; space relationships to objects — brating journey. Miss H'Dee, An Original — handling and moving them. was always tuned-in, turned-on, and for real. Marge H'Doubler, truly the spirit and symbol Force aspects of movement which can be isolated and essence of being alive. Margaret H'Doubler for therapeutic structure and learning include: encounters life itself. She leaves this spirit big; small; strong; weak; large; push; pull; grab; wherever one experiences her. She is truly one and the combinations of space and force aspects of The Beautiful People! ! ! which yield movement descriptions of toward, Dance Therapy in a

Community Mental Health Center VARDA RAZY

Based on the philosophy of keeping the patient close behavior and picking up cues, using this informa­ to home, community mental health services are tion to enable individuals and the group to take ad­ attempting to cope with an increasing variety of vantage of the dance experience to become more emotional disorders. As day hospitals are called open and capable of dealing with their problems. upon to deal with more severely incapacitated people and truly serve as an alternative to 24-hour The dance therapist must also be cognizant of the hospitalization, and as out-patient centers try to types of situations that prevail in a mental health take care of patients who have not generally been setting, such as the problems and resistances en­ acceptable as treatment candidates heretofore, we countered in the development of a new and some­ find increasing gaps in our knowledge and tech­ what unusual type of treatment program. Resist­ niques. The problems of loneliness, isolation, ance, with attitudes of indifference, apathy, dis­ passivity, silence, hyperactivity, etc., which can trust or deprecation, maybe based on a stereotype reinforce poor motivation for changes, are often of dance as entertainment or diversion rather than more accessible to a non-verbal activity thera­ a useful ancillary treatment method, or upon feel­ peutic approach than to any other treatment form. ings of discomfort and tension that mental health professionals experience when called upon to share Dance therapy is a non-verbal medium which by or participate more directly in an expressive definition avoids intellectualization. It is group- therapy form. An essential task to undertake is oriented, making it an applicable medium for a day to help the mental health professionals learn how hospital, yet it offers something of value to each dance therapy can be meaningfully integrated in­ individual patient, be itmoving, creating rhythms, to a psychiatric treatment setting. The mental bringing records and sharing them with the group, health staff cannot do this on their own. The ac­ or merely listening to music and observing the tive demonstration of the value of dance therapy activities. The group structure, which provides and the way it can be combined to add to, or re­ a less threatening experience for many patients, place, other forms of therapy must be clearly set allows the therapist to observe the interaction in forth. One of the most rewarding experiences for the group and the behavior of the individual patient. any therapist is to note the developing sensitivity This form of therapy can also be used to facilitate and acceptance on the part of the mental health ventilation and reduce tension. staff.

Who should become a dance therapist? INITIATING THE PROGRAM The qualifications of a dance therapist are varied In initiating the dance therapy program in the and complex. Skill and experience in the area of Center, in the Day Hospital as well as in the Out the art form, a background in modern dance as Patient setting, itwas important to viewthe func­ well as folk dance, a knowledge of drumming and tioning of the program in the total perspective of other forms of percussion can enrich the re­ the over - all services offered. Channels of sourcefulness and adaptability of the therapist. communication with others involved in treatment Experience in teaching is important, though it had to be established and maintained, and regular must always be born in mind that dance therapy meetings were held with the Chief Psychiatrist. does not have as its goal that patients necessarily Also, in order to get a complete picture of the learn to dance, but that they be more expressive patients and the group, the dance therapist partici­ while taking part in this moving, rhythmic activity. pated in the community meetings and psychodrama.

Certainly the dance therapist must be familiar with Because of the uniqueness and newness of dance the kinds of difficulties that individuals experience therapy on the mental health scene, the program is in various emotional or mental disturbances, and often initiated without providing adequate budget, must be very sensitive and insightful, observing and the therapist may have to supply the necessary

Varda Razy, dancer, teacher, therapist, was formerly Dance Therapist at Wiltwyck School for Boys, Esopus, N.Y., at Childville, Brooklyn, N.Y., and theNew York School forthe Deaf, White Plains, N.Y. This article is based on experi­ ences gained at the Day Hospital and Out-Patient Clinic of the North County Mental Health Center, which is a regional division of the San Mateo County Mental Health Services serving a suburban area of 160,000 people immediately adjacent to San Francisco. This study was carried out under a grant from the San Francisco Foundation. 72

equipment and be imaginative and flexible in uti­ goal, the session is not structured and, therefore, lising space and existing materials. A phonograph is open to develop in accordance with the over-all and a sufficient and varied collection of records are mood and need of the patients. Lively, rhythmic essential. A full range of percussion instruments, music with a steady beat, such as "Tijuana Brass" including a set of bongo drums, wood blocks, wood which is invariably exhilarating, seems to be the sticks, claves, castanets on a stick, maracas, most effective springboard for initiating a session bells, finger cymbals, and a Congo drum should and for the warm-up period. The author has ob­ be available. The Congo drum is particularly served that one must work extremely actively to useful as an outlet for repressed anger of many combat apathy and self-preoccupation. With per­ schizophrenic patients. When restless and very cussion instruments readily available, and with tense, these patients express their own dynamics encouragement, patients will experiment and can and rhythmic patterns in playing the Congo drum. be drawn out of their apathy by beginning to accom­ These percussion episodes often leave them ex­ pany the rhythms on instruments of their choice. hausted, but more relaxed and able to resume Frequently, within a few minutes the rhythmic communicating in the other activities. Other pa­ sound of ensemble playing can be heard. One per­ tients, who are more passive or withdrawn, may son may play a rhythmic pattern which will then not be able to use or express themselves on louder be shared and embellished by the rest of the group. or more aggressive instruments, but may choose Having the patients begin to exercise in a sitting simpler and less dominant equipment — as wood position can lead them gradually into dancing with­ blocks or wood sticks — and thus be included in out feeling too threatened or embarrassed. In­ the group activity. Often, the choice of instru­ sisting that they begin in a sitting position on the ments is based on size, form, or symbolic mean­ floor can be a problem, since it may be too ex­ ing for the patient. As an example, a very passive posed, regressed or threatening. patient was able to express himself through the use of finger cymbals, which allowed him to par­ After the warm-up period, the session can develop ticipate and simultaneously express some of his in a number of ways: steps of a folk dance, a negative and sarcastic feelings about being in- complete folk dance, a modified folk dance adapted involved in any group activity. to the patients' ability, improvisational dancing, or any combination of music, percussion and dance. A tape recorder is valuable for recording rhythm sessions and, in a playback, allowing the group to Termination of the session may include a request hear how they sounded. Emotionally disturbed in­ period in which patients can listen to special re­ dividuals often have distorted or incomplete self- cords, review of a dance, or a demonstration of images and are very concerned as to how they part of a folk dance by the therapist. Such a de­ appear to others. ' Participating in a group and monstration is informal and at the request of the "rehearing" themselves is one means of correcting group, and is frequently a great source of inspi­ this type of misconception. It is also an effective ration! This, too, is an appropriate time to pro­ way of demonstrating to them behavior which may mote group participation by involving the patients not be appropriate, such as rhythmic difficulties, in planning the following session. Patients can overly loud participation, silence or passivity, or also be encouraged to express their own feelings dominating, overly aggressive behavior, etc. and attitudes about involvement in dance.

THE DANCE THERAPY SESSION Following the session, it is important that the therapist record what took place, and significant The dance therapy activity starts from the moment observations should be communicated at a later the patients and the therapist set up the instru­ date to other staff members involved in the ther­ ments and a place for the session arranging the apy of the patients. furniture in a loose circle form. Patients are encouraged to take most of the initiative and re­ The effectiveness of the dance therapy is enhanced sponsibility, the ones who have been there longer by the contrast between the dance program and usually help the newcomers. preceding or succeeding activities. At first, dance therapy followed the therapeutic community meet­ A relaxed and casual atmosphere lends itself well ing and gradually became integrated with it when to the warm-up period. In contrast to the conven­ itwas apparent that this closer relationship al­ tional dance class where learning is the prime lowed more effective utilization. During the latter 73 part of this study, however, dance therapy was The identification of dance and expressiveness as held following psychodrama. The dance therapist a feminine mode may discourage male participa­ was able to observe during psychodrama and to tion or make the males somewhat self-conscious. notice the interaction in a group, the general mood, This problem seems to diminish with the age of and any significant occurrences which could be the patient, and older males are frequently less picked up and dealt with during the dance session. inhibited in their participation. In addition, it served as a bridge between psycho­ drama and the ensuing activity. It is interesting DEVELOPMENT OF OUTPATIENT PROGRAM to note that psychodrama and dance therapy related to each other in an inversely proportional way; The demonstration of the usefulne s s of the program when psychodrama was very intense, the group did in the Day Hospital led the administration to en­ not function cohesively in dance therapy. However, courage development of a similar group for out­ when psychodrama was on a low key with limited patients meeting on a weekly basis. In contrast to involvement and little expression of feelings, in­ the Day Hospital where all patients participated dicating that there was development of tension automatically by virtue of their being in the Day which could not be released, the dance therapy Hospital, patients on an outpatient basis had to be served as a means of promoting group interaction. selected. This necessitated the development of useful criteria, which were formulated with the mental health staff. In actuality, anybody could, PROBLEMS RELATED TO DANCE THERAPY and probably would, benefit from, or at least en­ The patients ranged in age from 14 years upwards, joy this activity. Since, however, many precon­ and came from varied cultural backgrounds. A ceived ideas about its usefulness may exist, the requirement of the treatment program was parti­ following pointers may be helpful: cipation in all activities. Adolescents liked music 1. Are any of the specific goals of dance ther­ that frequently clashed with the tastes of the older apy as an expressive activity related to the patients. In addition, they were more activity- patient's problem, such as, for example, oriented. The dance therapist must find a work­ withdrawal and inhibition expressed in stiff able common denominator for the choice of music and rigid posture and halting movements ? as well as for dancing. Certain patients may re­ quest a particular piece of music which may go 2. Can dance therapy be integrated into the counter to group needs. A brief group discussion overall treatment plan of the patient ? For helps a patient realize that the dance therapy is example: encouragement of exploration of an opportunity for developing and dealing with new areas of endeavor as a means of en­ problems in sharing, and that only a give and take hancing the ability to socialize or accept attitude will work. Since likes and dislikes often new challenges such as work, hobbies, etc. take an exaggerated form and are distorted when 3. Can the patient work with media used in dealing with emotionally disturbed patients, this dance therapy and does he express interest type of issue is not easily settled, but becomes a in and a desire to join the program ? useful part of the corrective emotional experience. 4. Is there evidence that this nonverbal form Some patients may feel that they have been slighted of expression may be more effective in the or make demands for more individual attention. development of self awareness than an in­ In these cases it may be useful to attempt to form­ tellectually oriented verbal psychotherapy ulate some individual activities which the patient alone? For example: inhibited patients can enjoy and participate in within the structure with impoverished social and activity pat­ of the group. terns may experience situations in dance therapy that would be useful and pertinent The non-participant patient is frequently encoun­ in discussion with their psychotherapist at tered; and should too many patients of this type be a later time and might lead to disclosing in a group, resistance and apathy become almost feelings and thoughts not otherwise as ac­ overwhelming. Sometimes the lack of participa­ cessible. tion can be quite hostile and aggressive in which case patients actively try to influence others not 5. Are there particular symptoms or diagnos­ to participate. Frequently, patients may isolate tic problems in which the movement and themselves by withdrawing or participating in a form of dance therapy can be useful, such very passive-aggressive manner. as helping phobic s with social inhibitions 74

overcome the fear of people and groups, valuable in pointing out idiosyncrasies, both or assisting regressed schizophrenics in in assets and liabilities, that might not be partial remission in developing a better revealed in a more traditional psychothera­ concept of body image, or enabling indivi­ peutic approach. duals to overcome learning inhibitions or 2. As part of a social therapy group, empha­ improve peer relationships to enhance sizing sharing peer group relationships and sharing, etc. ? expressiveness.

Mental health staff members are inclined to refer 3. As an adjunct to group therapy for indivi­ individuals whose behavior and activity patterns duals or couples, with close interaction tend to be rigid and inhibited, with depressive af­ between the dance therapist and the group fect, ignoring opportunities to refer other patients therapist. In groups of couples, the inter­ whose behavior might be more active and out-going, action can be illustrative of marital conflicts though disorganized. This can lead to an over­ and defects of problem solving. For in­ abundance of passive, withdrawn, depressed or stance, the leader and follower roles be­ schizoid patients and limits the opportunity for come very distinct in dance therapy and often members in the group to learn from each other. appear in different forms or more clearly As a result, the patients inthe on-going program, than through verbal behavior. meeting once a week for an hour, have a common feeling of depression manifested in a slouchy man­ 4. As an adjunct to family therapy as a diag­ ner of sitting and an initial indifference to physical nostic tool. It can also illustrate the family movement (involvement). They talk about their constellation, its roles and rules. Who ac­ lethargy, fear of leaving the house, of riding in a tually is the leader in the family, who leads bus or car, crossing the street; they complain rhythmically speaking? Who leads dynam­ about somatic symptoms, tense neck muscles, ically speaking ? How does the family share spastic stomachaches. One schizophrenic patient as manifested by utilization of instruments ? fluctuates between retarded fatigue and a fidgety, Can the family play together, can they be nervous agitation. tolerant of differences ? Who chooses and who makes decisions ? The goals of these sessions are: 5. As an integral part of a children's activity 1. To work out specific problems through group. This is particularly useful in deal­ movement, dance, percussion ing with adolescents who are not able to communicate verbally. 2. To give each individual an opportunity for creative expression 6. In private practice, in individual as well as in group practice, dance therapy can be in­ 3. To utilize the session for group awareness corporated into the treatment plan. and socialization 7. As a training device for mental health pro­ 4. To convert behavior, such as hyperactivity, fessionals to increase their awareness of through dance or percussion into ordered, non-verbal behavior, help them understand meaningful expression the language of the body, and to provide op­ 5. To make the patient aware of his problems portunities to incorporate this knowledge or as revealed in dance and relate them to these techniques into their everyday work other areas of the patient's life through with patients. discussions related to movement, dance, percussion The utilization of this particular therapeutic form offers a new and challenging opportunity for thera­ On the basis of the experience gained in the Day pists to observe their patients in a different activ­ Hospital and Out Patient settings, the value of ity than the traditional psychiatric setting, and at dance therapy as a method in psychiatric treat­ the same time it opens avenues for expression for ment was demonstrated. The program, however, some patients. Both emotionally disturbed adults can be enhanced, and needs further development and children can be benefited through this modality, along the following lines: and it can be useful in working with individuals 1. As a diagnostic and therapeutic tool. The in other types of situations such as probation and observations of the dance therapist can be institutional care settings. 75

DANCE THERAPY PROGRESS REPORT AND GENERAL INFORMATION

NAME: DATE: PERIOD COVERED:

1. RHYTHMIC PATTERN (comments about the type and form of rhythms suited to or difficult for this patient):

2. MOVEMENTS (description of the nature and pace of patient's movements):

3. CREATIVITY (description of the origin, themes, spontaneity, etc. of the patient's creative ability):

4. INSTRUMENTS SELECTED AND USED:

5. ART FORM PREFERENCES (list type of material which appeals most to the patient, e.g. folk, classical music, given steps, etc.):

6. BEHAVIOR AND PARTICIPATION (description of patient's gross performance and ability to fit into the group and participate in the dance):

7. GROUP INTERACTION (comments about the patient's ability to work with other individuals in the group, including the leader and his role):

8. OTHER COMMENTS:

REFERRAL FOR DANCE THERAPY

Name of Patient Age Date of Referral Therapist 2. Diagnosis (include symptoms where relevant): 3. Present Therapy (include drugs): 4. Treatment Plans and Goals (include estimate of duration of treatment): 5. Suggestions About Dance Therapy (goals of work):

Patient Characteristics (check if appropriate): Physical Intelligence Emotion Thought Processes poor coordination bright depression logical in need of exercise normal elation orderly organic defects defective suspiciousness delusionary Behavior memory defects bland obsessions hyperactive learning blocks wide fluctuations rigidity apathetic creative Perception intellectualizes impulsive unimaginative accurate flight of ideas aggressive special talents/skills alert concrete destructive Social & Interpersonal inattentive Language compulsive culturally deprived distracted articulate withdrawn unsociable distorted precise mannerisms or habits shy confused illiterate inhibited sociopathic disoriented vague repressed manipulative body image defects good non-verbal commi passive-aggressive 6. Other Comments: dependent isolated 76 Sequence

Psychodance 1964 JOSEPH R. SCHUCHTER

Movement and dance can be a complete mode of psychotherapy. It is not recommended exclusively; but it can stand alone. Each session, each group, each working area, and each time is different. Self-expression, self-discovery, and reaching out are hoped for.

Movement can help feelings into the muscles! Movement can help feelings into self-acceptance! Movement can help being alively!

Dance and movement here range from esthetics to bowel activities; i.e. energy, effort, shape, gestures, flow, tempo and time boundaries, abstractions, collisions and itches. We can not not speak with our bodies. Dance and movement are here used in a continuum from controlled problem experiments to spontaneous free-wheeling experiences.

Moving is situationally immediate. It can only be done in the present. These physical activities can be dilute group therapy or depth integration and analysis. My emphasis is on the individual in depth in group setting.

METHODS

Do not take the following methods literally. At times, the instructions are authoritarian, at other times, a catalyst, and still others, the results of emotional involvement. I am not interested in performance; I am interested in being. Warm-up In a circle. "Go stiff all over 1 Hold it! Go soft! Go hard! Go ugly! Go fierce! Go sad! Go glad! Go comfortable! Face a neighbor! Go stiff! Go limp! Hang on to your neighbor! Keep your bodies touching somehow! Go stiff! Go fierce! Go angry! Shout at your-neighbors! Go soft! Go hard! Walk together that way! Go strong! Go tall! Go short! Lean on your partner. Push! Push him off balance! Drive him to a corner! Push! Force him down! Down to the ground! Don't let him go! Drag him around! Now gently help him up. Pick him up! Lift him! Now carry your partner back to where you started. If your partner is too heavy or big, lead or drag or pull him gently back. When you get there, rest and talk personally."

The spine can move in three planes: the door; the wheel; the table. Use them all singly, and then in combinations to warm your body and express yourself. Directed Movements Someone demonstrates a movement phrase. The group is asked to mirror the movement, then shadow it. To mirror means to duplicate as exactly as possible. To shadow means to distort and extend the movement subjectively. The leader presents a short pattern of movement based on "I." Mirror the pattern while repeating the word "I" aloud as the movement is done. Now shadow the movement while saying "I." Do this particular shadow pattern several times until you are satisfied with how it feels to you. Now add more of your own.

JRS, B 4-24-33; 5' 10"; 180; 20/20; 6 3/4"; SS 097-24-3261; BA 1965; USN 526722/1310; M 6/21/62; MA '64; JHSGENSC 326159; CBNYT 086-516949; 212-925-6898; NYC 10012; ADAM •4-18-70 . 77

Various sentences to be completed spontaneously in movement from one end of the room to the other. "I am frightened by. . ." "My mother always. . ." "Loneliness. . ." "Die! Die! Die!..." Do not think! Do! Initially there is a good deal of mimetic story telling. Shadowing pantomimic actions makes new movement statements.

Self and Others Symbolic Situations A volunteer walks from the distant end of the Dick walks continually around in a large circle. room to someone through two narrowing David is to become totally dependent on Dick. channels of standing, kneeling, and sitting David can close his eyes to see himself in a people. Those making the channels watch the completely dependent situation and apply that volunteer closely for the entire journey. "She here now with Dick. The past can be brought to walks with a chip On her shoulder." " She's the present. This is not reenactment. This afraid." "She's ashamed she's so fat." "I can't is now. David and Dick. get my chin down." "It's a trap." "The people sitting are so beneath me." Fantasy Show how you feel now. Use movement and Move big using your whole torso expressively. sound. Try to stay away from pantomime. Find movement that touches you. Keep doing it and fantasize aloud. Show how you feel now toward someone here. Physically with sounds but no words.

SUMMARY Movement can put gut reactions into the striated muscle system — emotions into skeletal action. Language evokes images which find expression in movement. Expression in movement provokes language. Movement is a clue to seeing the self kaleidoscopically. Our society is complex; reality and fantasy are inextricably intertwined, like the shifting images on a cracked mirror. Our laughter turns to tears.

This therapy is irregular, unreliable, irrational, unpredictable and valid. We may want reality to be rational. We may want a therapy that explains the past. But we need a therapy of the present — a psychology of abandon.

Most of us are only limb workers. Our bodies are half baked daily. But feeling is in the spine. Breathing is in the torso. The chest, the spine, and the viscera are core. In this therapy we want the spine to curl and straighten and turn. Limbs follow torso leads. We want you to feel with your belly. And breathe. And stretch what you don't. And coax your body off its usual axes. Here everything possible is made physical, is made action, is made movement. You are taken literally. This is not a "do me" group. You are expected to do what you say you want to do. This group gives you what you want — often without modifiers, without qualifications and in such quantity that it becomes unbearable. The group supports and takes you at your word. My groups have never had a sexual orgy. I intervene. I find orgies too upsetting, so that you have to fight hard to get past me. I am wary of sex that is exhibition for others rather than pleasure for self.

* From a forthcoming work by Joseph R. Schlichter with Richard Nonas, sculptor (formerly an anthropologist) and Paul David Pursglove, Gestalt Therapist. 78

Movement Therapy 1968 JOSEPH R. SCHLICHTER

Our American taboos say little or no touching. If we can't touch, I can't make real: I like you; I am angry with us; I need comforting; I love you-me.

We mirror, echo, and reverse. These might be called repetition, distortion,and opposition or synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms, if you like. The methods melt into each other. To mirror is to copy as exactly as possible what you see someone else doing in movement. When I mirror I don't invade — I let you be. To echo is to distort your own movement or someone else's. Echoing is exaggeration. It is going further with it, following it, seeing where it goes and where it comes from for yourself and only for yourself. When I echo you, I use only my own feelings and I don't interpret you. When I reverse I do the opposite of what I see or feel. What I do may reveal myself. I am not always aware of what I do. When you do the opposite, and I try it on, something happens. My laughter turns to your tears and comes home.

Opening: I am rolling on the floor. Breath is Longing: The room is darkened. I hold him, hard to come by. I mutter incoherently and in rocking and crooning a lullaby. He abruptly pulls rhyme. I do verbal fantasy flights while crashing away from me. I reach out my arms and coax into walls. My eyes bug; my tongue sticks out. him to come back. He doesn't. I stretch my I am alternately totally rigid, totally flaccid. arms farther and farther. My eyes are closed. My eyes roll; I sputter, gag and dry-heave. I see My arms ache. Suddenly, I am calling, "Mommy! the clock hand move through 20 minutes. It takes Mommy! " My arms are railroad tracks going me 20 minutes to accept a proffered hand. The over the horizon. group holds me in their arms, rocking me gently Forcing: I love the whole world. I walk with my while humming. Thank God, I'm home at last. arms stretched out wide to everyone. I am I'm safe again, at last. I just can't reach out. beautiful and at ease. We should all love each I fear never getting out of one of these spells. other. No one comes to meet me. I reach out The group lifts me to arm's length overhead and but no one reaches back. I feel ignored. Why do carries me. I am resurrected but totally limp you walk around with your eyes covered ? in their hands — I'm safe. Others walk away. Some cross their arms and Wallowing: I am hanging on to a pillow, being just stare at me. Look at me! Look at me! dragged around the room. My eyes are closed. Stretch your arms out to me, you bastard! You I am yelling for Mommy. There are no other look over my head. You look at my feet. You words. I keep my eyes closed in embarrass­ look everywhere except at my eyes. ment and shame. I am jerked around the room hanging on to the pillow. I will not let go. Losing: I can't reach out. My hands are behind my back. I am struggling to bring them forward. I try to stretch out my hands toward the group. I prevent myself all the time. Ican'tlcan't I won't I won't. . . I'm afraid. . . I'm afraid. I am a record on automatic replay. I must be exhausted and worn with wearing to be lying on the floor calling out, "Help me! Help me! " Changing: I scream at 100 decibels. I sit and rock and hold my ears and scream and scream. The sound comes from way down and from far From Recognitions in Gestalt Therapy, away. I hurt so. I don't show that things affect selected by Paul David Pursglove me. I love that long wail. It shivers my spine (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968). and hollows my head. It is pure. It's been a Reprinted by permission of the editor. long time since I have been pure. 79

"Who Am I?" JOSEPH R. SCHLICHTER

Who am I at 36 years of age? Big Daddy? spoiled child? seducer? friend? teacher? What is my dome structure? Open to some visitors but no transients. I switch often. The earth is an object. I am finite; I feel infinity.

Countertransference is much of what I do. I am not impartial. I am manipulated. I get confused about who is being helped. I deny that my responsibilities are only professional. I charge people money for my involvement and my biases, not my impartiality.

The aim of therapy is to make the patient more acceptable to the therapist. I can't work with everybody. I have to appreciate you. You must accept my style. Transference makes me daddy. Daddy watches, waits, and teaches, daddy loves, daddy wants, daddy makes mistakes.

I don't know where my ends are. I don't think I want to know.

I nit-pick, I create. I push. I want to help. I fear being hurt. I have hurt a lot. I don't want people to hurt so much. I am a god. I want to live in a world of gods. I don't want to be king. Kings are concerned with power. Gods have it. Until you create yourself as a god you are not through with therapy.

The attraction of you is the potential power of you. Ego and egoless are not opposites. Therapy ends when what you touch bears your style; when you shape your world. The end of therapy is when you are dangerous.

Transference makes me a lover. Therapy aims to make you a better lover. Therapy makes me a better lover.

Eros moves me toward my patients.

Friendships are gods flowing.

Flux therapy.

I am a filter.

I want voraciously; for me; for you. But it is difficult for me to part with you.

Therapy is home-cooking. It is also cash and carry.

I am a fail-safe bomb. I teach to disinter, to solar heat your plexus, to sail you.

Do me next please Joseph Schlichter.

* Selected from forthcoming publication by Schlichter, Pursglove and Nonas Johnny Hopkins and Casey Sonnabend Photo: Laurie Grunberg 81 Ceremony of Us directed by ANN HALPRIN in collaboration with

DANCERS' WORKSHOP of SAN FRANCISCO and STUDIO WATTS

Dancers: Melinda West, Pepe Hill Photo: Tylon Barea

At the invitation of James Woods, Chairman of Studio Watts, Ann Halprin conducted a dance workshop at Studio Watts, out of which she developed a group which, together with her own San Francisco group, The Dancers' Workshop, presented Ceremony of Us. The first perform­ ance was done for the Los Angeles Performing Arts Festival.

In describingher own point of view, Ann Halprin said: "We have used a very natural approach to movement. A self-style if you will. An ap­ proach that includes the total sensory re­ sources of each individual. We move, sing, shout, speak, laugh and cry. We are, through this most exciting non-verbal medium, learning to be ourselves through movement. Out of this commitment we become our own script, our very own score. We will do a dance about US." Performance at Mark Taper Forum Photo: Tylon Barea 82

Levitation — group supporting the individual Photo: Laurie Grunberg

"I know I was whole once, stripped naked and consumed, and now back to self." ) Ann Halprin, Xavier Nash, James Woods, Chairman of Studio Watts Photo: Constance Beeson

Jacqueline Durban Christipher Joy Photo: Laurie Grunberg

Dancers and KQED cameraman at rehearsal for taping of program Photo: Laurie Grunberg t

Dancers: Daria Halprin, Dennis Anderson

Photo: Laurie Grunberg

Performance at Mark Taper Forum — Photo: Tylon Barea

l*\

86

Dancer on top: Johnny Rae McGee Photo: Laurie Grunberg 87

Dancers: Daria Halprin, Dennis Anderson Photo: Laurie Grunberg 88 Project Community and

the Children of "The Good Life" WILLIAM F. SOSKIN

More and more the "good life" that was promul­ His interminable warring, his brutal crimes, his gated throughout the earlier decades of this century ruthless acquisitiveness are related to such con­ as a realizable American dream is coming to be cepts as the territorial imperative, the survival suspected by young people as another Madison of the fittest and the furies of a malevolent Id. Avenue style spot commercial, evanescent as the This popular and appealing idea is quite possibly image of beautiful, open cattle country that is no more than a half-truth, a convenient conjec­ linked with each deadly pack of a well-known brand tural substitute for the Devil that merits sober of cigarettes. examination and challenge. For it could equally be argued that many of our troubles arise from Consider that in over 30 years there has hardly the fact that man is grossly over-endowed with been a day when the newspapers of the land did not unexplored or too little appreciated propensities carry a major story about a war-threat or actual to make it possible for him to find reasonable combat, or that our political and military leaders peace and contentment and fulfillment in the kinds and their adversaries continually menace each of societies he has thus far been able to create. other with instruments of destruction that could Too many of his physical and mental qualities are incinerate half the nation in a single day. Our still unknown, too many of his potentials unused, young people fear this. Consider that as individual too many of what are perhaps very fundamental citizens, and even in our small organized protest needs are unsatisfied. groups, we stand by mute and powerless watching the sickening and wanton exploitation and pollution Let us remember that already 8-10,000 years of our habitat. And our young people see this. ago the human brain was fully enough developed Consider that, in the pursuit of his "good life," to have enabled man to create and to adapt to the the average middle-class American consumes in complexities of contemporary Western civiliza­ a lifetime 30-50 times or more the goods and nat­ tion. Or that given an equivalent education, ural resources available to the poorest and least Charlemagne of medieval times or Caesar of fortunate citizens of this and other countries. And Rome, or Solomon, king of the Jews a thousand our young people feel this. Consider that this years earlier, or Hammurabi of Babylon a thou­ illusion of the "good life" may progressively be­ sand years earlier still, or Khufu of Egypt a full numb us to the gradual deprivation of vital psy­ 5,000 years ago might all have served us adequate­ chological, emotional and social needs — like a ly as contemporary heads of state. Considering feast of cookies with little nourishment. And our the corpus of knowledge extant at the time, or the young people sense this. Hence not only at the relatively small numbers of people who had claim college level, but already in the high schools in to an education, the artists, poets, philosophers, many cities we see a growing discontent with the generals, mathematicians and physicians of Egypt proffered educational fare. "Silas Marner" and 40 centuries ago compare quite favorably to those geometry and French II simply do not assuage the in America in Lincoln's time. It is unlikely that urgently felt but often unnameable desire of young man's brain has developed measurably in 40 cen­ people for help in learning how to live a life dif­ turies; only the rate of accumulation and diffusion ferent from the "good life." and application of knowledge has changed. And it is sobering to realize that the brain of contempo­ We have been reminded periodically over the years rary man is already fully prepared, undoubtedly, that man's personal and social failings arise in to discover and invent all the concepts and theories significant degree from the fact that he is still and codes and practices that will shape civilization too close to his animal nature, and therefore ill- a thousand years hence. equipped to live inthe fast-changing, highly tech­ nical, stressful society in which he finds himself. If contemporary man is perilously close to his

Dr. Soskin is Research Psychologist in the Psychology Department, University of California, Berkeley. Project Community is being supported by grants from the Rosenberg Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health. It is a project of the Psychology Clinic, University of California, Berkeley. 89

animal nature and aware of it, he might also at a significant part of their time and energy to self- the same time be precisely as close to God and exploration. In addition, in most societies from unaware of it. Understand that I do not know ex­ earliest times the exploration of that greatest actly what I mean by "God." The concept is a very mystery of all — the mind of man — was the spe­ ancient one that has evolved slowly over millenia cial province of an elite, the shamans and priests. — though in the West over the past 2,000 years It is the nature of elites to preserve the base of few men have dared to further that evolution. At their authority and power. So great has been the the very least we can say that the concept of God position of religious leaders in most societies was meant, among other things, to express the that only in very slow succession have kings and very loftiest reaches of man's experience. For physicians and philosophers and scientists dared whatever the strenuous efforts of authorities to to question their power or re-examine their be­ distinguish clearly between God and man, through­ liefs . out the long history of human thought there has lurked in its penumbral shadows the curious the­ Finally, it appears to have been a mark of our ological theory of immanence to account for the advancing civilization that its mores and social fact that under certain circumstances men have codes impose progressively more restriction and had "spiritual" experiences so profoundly atypical uniformity and self-control on the expressive or and unfamiliar and inexplicable as to still be inner-directed exploratory behavior of individuals. describable only in archaic concepts as "super­ Only in the "lower" classes are adults free to natural" events. It seems very probable that these dance with joy, to love and weep openly, to retain penetrating insights and the associated deep and ancient symbols and rituals or to experience ec­ unfamiliar feelings are not inexplicable adventi­ stasy. Religious rites and forms of worship — tious experiences, or the products only of rare the via regiato some of the major outer reaches genius, or of ineffable mystical excursions. Least of the mind since far back in the Stone Age — have of all shall we forever have to consider them grown so pallid, so unemotional, so merely reci­ as acts of God, an explanatory principle which, tative and formalistic inthe major denominations if invoked too readily as the natural sciences dis­ of our day, as to be almost useless as a vehicle covered long ago, fosters ignorance by deterring for helping man to come in touch with that deeper inquiry. part of the self which we call the soul.

Theology and philosophy and the psychological Survival, security, salvation, these three per­ sciences have built only the flimsiest of bridges vasive concerns of ancient man have shaped the to this terra incognita of human experience. It character of every major civilization and every is certainly possible, indeed highly likely, that major social institution on this planet. They are these rare emotional and cognitive discoveries imbedded so deeply in mankind's history, tradi­ could be available to a far larger number of people tions and thought that it is difficult for most of us than we have heretofore supposed — and with sig­ to conceive what a society might be like in which nificant implications for the kind of society that the threat to physical survival is significantly di­ might emerge in consequence — if the life style minished — as it is becoming in America with and education of more people were suitably a- respect to illness and disease, if not yet with re­ dapted to sensitize and predispose them to such spect to wars. Or what a society might be like discoveries. There is good reason for this not if the major part of its citizens no longer feared having happened on any large scale or in any en­ poverty — as is already foreseeable in America during way in the history of civilization thus far. inthe growing acceptance of the idea of a guaran­ teed annual income. Or where the continuing un­ For one thing, still to this day over most of the certainty over salvationor the unknown after death globe poverty and the urgent struggle for survival might be somewhat allayed through the theological have dictated the allocation of human energies. reconceptualizations of churchmen following such Furthermore, up to this point in man's slow social thinkers as the late Jesuit, Teilhard de Chardin. evolution the majority of societies have provided or permitted such great rewards for economic Could we imagine that after all these eons of exploitation and tolerated such dreadful conse­ groping upward out of the pit of fear and want the quences of economic dependence that generally human enterprise would finally settle down to only the very affluent or the very independent or squander itself on endless leisure and pleasure, the very alienated could afford or dare to devote dallying forever after with trivial plastic novelties 90

and forever contented with the insipidities of big- great majority of today's youth. Our technology screen television as in the current version of the and communications and mobility, the changing "good life"? Unlikely. The whole groping effort character of our habitats — to say nothing of our seems to be but a succession of unfoldings, a sheer numbers — have made the problems of continual forward-thrusting exploration into what living, and of living together, too complex and more mankind might become. At periodic inter­ urgent for us to assume that an education geared vals this forward-thrusting exploration has led to the needs of the 1920's is still adequate today. man to overtax previously useful and venerable institutions, until at last they had to be abandoned Somewhere between a faltering church and a seri­ in favor of newer ones, better suited to his im­ ously ailing school, in that limbo which is called proved conception of who he is and where he is adolescence, there appears to be a need for a whole going. Thus, animal worship was abandoned, and new complex of educating institutions. Not merely human sacrifice, and slavery, and the law of Talon different "schools," and certainly not hastily im­ and the divine right of kings. Thus, monotheism provised new departments incorporated into the emerged, and coinage to replace barter, and de­ existing potpourri of extra-curricular offerings. mocracy and sufferage, and equal rights before Such institutions will not resemble the large ar­ the law, and universal education for our youth. chitectural splendoria with carpeted study halls, intercoms and computers that educational plaza In our schools we have given up the hornbook and enthusiasts dream about and building contractors moved on from the Three R's to biology and physics gleam about. What is needed is a drastic re­ and home economics, and more recently to pro­ thinking of the kinds of learning that would go into grammed lesson units and closed-circuit television a life-oriented rather than a job-oriented educa­ and educational plazas — like shopping plazas, tion, with at least as much emphasis on values those educational supermarkets for the young and ideas as on skills and "facts." What is needed which could only have been conceived by efficiency- is variety in the kinds and sizes of educational minded adults who think in terms of units to be settings, allowing for greater degrees of inti­ processed through a system rather than children macy and longer durations of acquaintance be­ to be guided humanely and wisely to the full ripen­ tween youth and particular adults, to replace the ing of the human potential. But after all this uniform bureaucratic impersonality that charac­ progress, these days hundreds of thousands of terizes our present schools. What is needed is a tired and troubled teachers, as their classes grow decentralization of the entire educational system, more restless and querulous and as daily absence with different kinds of relatively autonomous ele­ rates mount despite their most conscientious ef­ ments developing entirely new curricula in areas forts, must be asking themselves about the ade­ of knowledge and life experience virtually ignored quacy and appropriateness and relevance of the by the schools of today. educational experiences we provide our young. For, despite the architectural innovations and the One such institution, certainly, ought to have as electronics innovations and the "systems" innova­ its primary purpose to teach young people to come tions, the stark fact is that our schools are in to understand themselves better. It will do so by grievous trouble, and our young people are trying providing didactic experiences and experiments to tell us this, if we could only comprehend the and exercises that draw attention to the subtle meaning of their anger or alienation. personal determinants of our daily life. It will help young people to understand the dynamic pro­ We are struggling to make do with a 1920's con­ perties of their casual utterances. It will help ception of education in a country where change has them to explore openness and honesty and de­ been so rapid and vast that anything else 50 years pendency and trust — and also fear and anger and old is regarded as fit material for museums. loneliness. It will help foster acceptance and The high school organizationally modeled on the enjoyment of oneself as alternatives to unreason­ auto factory and business corporation and govern­ able, interminable striving. It will encourage ment bureau — efficient, impersonal, standard­ self-expression and creativity, not as perform­ ized — however well it might have served to ances or productions but as necessary and satis­ hurriedly produce better workers in the surge of fying transient experience, and it will encourage industrial growth in the first half of this century, quietude and reflection as an essential counter­ is certainly no longer adequate to the needs of the part to action and the daily flood of sensory input. 91 The realization of the need for such an institution institutions charged with grew out of our therapeutic explorations with ado­ responsibility for educat­ lescent drug-abusers. Whatever terror they might ing the young. have struck justifiably in the minds of worried parents, these high school students were eminent­ Space is too limited to de­ ly worth listening to. Not for what they had to scribe the program in de­ say about their drug experiences, or for the face tail, though we can sketch value of their justifications for using LSD and out a few of its features. marijuana andmethamphetamine and heroin. Ra­ Every member of Project ther, it was the inferences that one could draw Community belongs to a from these justifications. Take time to listen for "primary group" — a unit an hour -and -a-half a week for 20 or more weeks that bears some similarity to groups of a half-dozen adolescent drug-abusers, to what in other contexts might be called a "ther­ or even to an unselected sample of high school apy" group or a "sensitivity" group or a T-group students, and you cannot avoid being struck by or an "encounter" group, though uniquely adapted their isolation from the rest of society, their to the needs and characteristics of 14-18-year- hunger for some internal frame of reference with olds. Primary groups meet weekly for 1 1/2 hour which to guide their daily lives, their alternately sessions, range in size from 6-10 members and timid and bold quest for self-understanding, their are guided by a pair of adult co-leaders, who are intense desire to be cared about, to be accepted usually of opposite sexes, often 10 or more years and respected, their dis­ different in age, and of differing professional may at the blatant deceits training. The senior co-leader, at least in this in adult society, and the experimental stage of our development, is always demoralizing effect of a psychologist or psychiatric social worker spec­ (jY\/\f) their helplessness in the ially chosen because of his or her experience in £y [J UIs face 0f tne awesome pro­ working with young people. The junior co-leaders, blems confronting us to­ with a model age of about 26, come from a broad day. range of disciplines and work experiences. Pri­ mary-group membership constitutes a commit­ f- u\ I I Project Community is one ment to continuing explor­ groping effort in the direc - ation of one's self and ^*>*^** tion of trying to invent new one's relation with others resources and new learning opportunities for these in the social context of a young people. It is in a sense an after-school stable peer group. school for approximately 140 self-selected high school students from Berkeley and surrounding An important additional communities. They come voluntarily to engage variant available to those in a program that combines some elements of a who choose it is the cross- youth center, a mental generational group, made health clinic, a school, a up usually of four or five social service and possi­ members and four or five bly even a church, without parents of other members; (never two persons quite being any of these from the same family). This second kind of group things. It is a place where enables young people (and, not incidentally, par­ young people come pri­ ents as well) to reach for a deeper understanding marily to learn about with members of a different generation. themselves through avar- iety of experiences and An entirely different format and direction of self- explorations not generally exploration is provided by a series of workshops available in the monolithic or courses, or whatever one wishes to call a

Ed. Note: Project Community is housed in a roomy old fraternity house which seems to provide plenty of space for the various activities. At the time of my first visit these intriguing signs were hanging at the head of the broad entrance staircase. They were drawn by one of the young participants in the project. 92

guided sequence of experiences. Whereas the by selected external stimuli. Or exploration of primary and cross-generational groups are expli­ archetypal symbols and universal experience citly interpersonal and verbal learning situations, themes through guided daydreams. Or elementary some of the workshops offer an opportunity for ex­ approaches to meditation as a means of detaching plorations in entirely different modalities. Mood oneself briefly from the unremitting flow of stim­ and impulse expression and release through spon­ uli from the "outside" world. taneous, improvised gross bodily movement, for example. Or atuning oneself to the subtle and Two of these workshops may be of particular transient sensations and effects that arise from interest. Conducted by two very talented and sen­ carefully attending to bodily processes. Or sitive women — Carolyn Sawyer, a student of merely experiencing passively, without conscious Mary Whitehouse, and Judyth Ofsowitz, a student effort, the images and affective responses evoked of Charlotte Selver, they exemplify the kinds of

Hallway — Project Community Photo: Michael Harris 93 experiences we are trying to mold into a coherent students learn to unselfconsciously allow their curriculum. bodies to yield to the delicate inner prompting or to give expression to long-buried restraints. Following the theory and techniques developed by Mrs. Whitehouse, Carolyn Sawyer each week What these young people learn with dramatic im­ creates for her students special atmospheres in pact is something almost lost to all of us who have which, through the use of appropriate music and become inured to the limited range of physical ex­ other effects they can explore and express word­ pressiveness that is consonant with middle-class lessly a variety of moods, impulses and urges. propriety, viz., that different forms of bodily Because they may arise from repressed ideas, movement are releasers of a far greater range some of these can be expressed only in symbolic, of affective experience than we are accustomed motoric forms, or because they may be funda­ to. Spontaneous, unstylized movement performed mentally non-verbal or pre-verbal, they can only in synchrony with certain forms of music can e- be expressed through visual or motor outlets. In­ voke a whole range of qualities and intensities of fused and guided by evocative music — sometimes emotion rarely produced by verbal or visual stim­ joyous and gay, sometimes sensual, sometimes ulation. The work of Mary Whitehouse and her gentle and dulcet, sometimes robustly sonorous— students takes us far back beyond bodily movement

Group Session — Project Community Photo: Renny Wruck 94

as dance, as an art form, to rediscover a long- merely identify an object, and the reward comes neglected ingress to deep - lying strata of the often from resisting too ready classification and psyche. In an atmosphere of understanding and naming. supportive acceptance — without which the entire effort might lose its psychological effectiveness For our often over-stimulated, externally oriented for adolescents — Mrs. Sawyer opens doors to young people of today, meditation may more and emotional experiences that are rare chance events more become an essential vehicle through which in the normal course of one's existence, and her to retire from the flood of input, to take stock of students learn over time how to recreate these oneself, as it were. But meditation can take many experiences at will to counter the pressures and other forms than the classic one most popularized burdens and strains that cumulate unnoticed in in this country, and young people working with their daily lives. As Mrs. Sawyer expresses it in Miss Ofsowitz may learn to practice it while wash­ her own words, "I sometimes feel as though I am ing the dishes or walking to school, or eating a the channel through which each person in the room sandwich in the park. can learn to remember, in the sense that Dante meant 'All of life is remembrance.' I try to create There are other workshops besides these two, and an atmosphere of 'spiritual permission'. . . . still other activities of which members may par­ The felt limit of ourselves is the body, and our take, like the week that one group spent helping growing sense of self expands that limit.... Mexican-American families in a self-help house- Change happens by itself after we once come in construction project, or the fortnight another touch with 'what is', and find it right. ... I try group spent on an isolated stretch of California to help them discover the importance of accepting coast in an authentic Sioux tipi they had construct­ the opposites we carry inside in order that we can ed over the course of a summer. In all these ex­ feel our wholeness." plorations members of Project Community are being helped to find their own internal sources of Judyth Ofsowitz provides a different direction of security, rather than searching always outside exploration. Well-versed in T'ai Chi Ch'uan and themselves or requiring more and more from the in meditation — having spent several years inthe social and physical environment in a desperate Orient — Miss Ofsowitz creatively leads these effort to find "out there" what is already either young people into entirely new realms of self- inside or nowhere at all. Many of the children of awareness. In long periods of quiet relaxation, the "good life" have had ample opportunity to ob­ her soft voice drifting over their prone bodies, serve the destructive effects of careless questing members learn to attend afresh to ignored sensa­ and are searching for some less, which is more. tions arising from the surface of the skin, from The question is whether we have the knowledge or muscles, from de'ep-iying organs. At other times wisdom or willingness to help them. the senses are guided to explore external stimuli in unfamiliar detail, the touch of a petal, the Whether Project Community will survive is prob­ smell of an herb, the sound of droplets of water lematical. Such experiments are costly and we falling in a pan, the experiencing of a flower sway­ are not disposed to providing "luxuries" for our ing in the breeze. Or at other times still the youth in these times. Even if it does survive, we quieting effect of progressively more relaxed are unsure what Project Community might be­ breathing and the awareness of images and feel­ come, or should become. If it serves only for a ings that emerge as the consciousness of external brief time to dare others to think boldly about what stimuli gradually fades. Perception is greatly education for our youth might be, it will have enriched by seeing more than is necessary to served its purpose well. 95

"Where Are You At?"

The Federal Communications Commission has set aside a channel (122.9 MHz) for use by pilots talking to other pilots inthe air. When we are flying we sometimes switch to that frequency and hear an almost standard radio communication. The conversation invariably starts out with "Where are you at?" The other pilot answers with an elaborate description of compass heading, altitude, true air speed, ground speed, winds aloft, landmarks, etc. The one who asked the question in the first place usually comes on again with, "I can't see you," and goes on to give his position and the details of his flight. However, they sometimes do find each other, and the mutual delight at satisfactory communication is almost touching.

After working on this issue of IMPULSE over the past year encountering so many varied points of view relative to extensions of dance, we decided it would be fitting to ask this question of members of the Editorial Board. They have had very little opportunity to express their personal biases and positions while they have worked faithfully through the years choosing, designing, typing, proofing and more proof­ ing, mailing, and doing all the other chores connected with getting out the magazines and the books. Some of them did accept the challenge of putting down on paper "where they are at." Perhaps we can answer, "Yes, I see just what you mean," or even, "I don't agree with you at all." Both replies are valid.

ANN HALPRIN I'm interested right now in participating in the because it leads us into rituals, ceremonies, rites, development of dance as a societal art. If dance initiations of the most energizing and primeval in these terms can be exciting, dynamic and in­ nature. I like to feel a heightened aliveness by spiring as well as useful, all the better. being in a situation where everyone is turning on to himself through each other. I call these situa­ — multi-racial dance. Not just blacks, yellows, tions myths. A multi-racial theatre whose AE browns and whites integrated but, rather, to reflect the values derived from a community of actually evolve a totally new AE.* A Dance which is multi-racial in the sense that dif­ performing artists evolving collectively with ferences are recognized, respected, and people everywhere (audience). strengthened in the development of a multi­ racial art. — communal dance. Not a company of dancers but, rather, a community of performing art­ ists developing art collectively. This involves equal opportunity for input, taking power and assuming responsibility. This is accom­ plished through an approach which is cyclic JOANNA GEWERTZ HARRIS rather than hierarchical. The ideas of com­ I don't like dancing. It may be "far out," but it is munal art are currently practiced by using 1 not alive. It may be sensual, personal, but it is no the RSVP cycle. longer individual, unique nor challenging. It may Dance as an Experiential Event; the artist as hero be revolutionary, but, like other revolutions today, is one alternate; the artist as leader to awaken the it has lost the spirit and the purpose of rebellion. artist in all of us is another way. I choose this way Most dance I see is acquired by imposition from without, through worship of the "master." It shows *AE: aesthetics evidence of fascism, of acceptance without ques­ 1 Lawrence Halprin, The RSVP Cycles, Creative tion, of a method, a ritual which will bring per­ Processes in the Human Environment (New York: fection. There is much technical "perfection" and George Brazillar, 1970). little imaginative dance. Dance looks worn out, 96

old fashioned and limited to the sadness of "pretty ELEANOR LAUER girls making pretty movement." The body may appear to be alive; the spirit is dead. Posture "Where are you at?" This colloquial question and pretense. apparently designed to set the traditional gram­ marian's nerves on edge, actually seems to carry Some dance I see is very cool . . . trying to be a particular implication. The intruding "at" hot. The games of therapy and theatre are played suggests that not only is one in some place, but to the accompaniment of the technocratic multi­ one is also "at" something, doing something, and media rock scene. Everyone and everything gets for some particular reasons. lost in it. Group grope and groveling. They tell me "it's a groove." It turns me off. Human As for me, I have been actively engaged in the dignity disappears. various aspects of dance — as student, dancer, choreographer, teacher, administrator, etc. — The teachers are scared. They keep the training for many years. At present my efforts are mainly the same, generation after generation. Yet, it's devoted to college students, undergraduate and all different. Even the bodies. Nobody teaches graduate, for whom dance is an essential element "the art of choreography." It's easier to follow in their lives. I am concerned that they become the rules. It's easiest to live off the work of the more than "good performers," more than, even, leaders . . . and die. effective dancer - choreographers. I feel that Sometimes in a children's class, I see a spark of the truly dance-educated person has not only a what dancing is. Sometimes a college student mastery of the movement medium and a capacity breaks through with a new synthesis, a dynamic for communication through dance, but also an space, a sense of humor, an outdoor event. The ever-growing knowledge and understanding of the creative and inventive possibility appears. We arts, their significance to the individual and their delight in ourselves and work and discipline and relationship to each other and to society. training and trying and failing. For a minute, No matter how many pictures, poems, dances, there is dancing again. etc. the computer may be programmed to pro­ duce, it seems to me that the arts will remain an essentially human activity. In an era not dis­ ^J&*^^, &.&€?Asl Co tinguished for itshuman-ness, the arts seem to be one of the few means by which a person can come to know himself, to realize his potentialities, and to develop capacities and values appropriate to the betterment of the human condition. NIK KREVITSKY.

I am at my own center from which as I rotate I see everything as happening, as becoming, as a L changing phenomenon. To me nothing remains the same, nothing is constant in my experience. I find memory a most deceptive but delightful fantasy. Dance is part of me. It has always been.* The more it changes the more it seems to remain MARIAN VAN TUYL the same. From where I am at it fascinates me even when it plays the same old tunes. It just I am "at" the point in time when IMPULSE is seems unreal in a different place at a different almost ready to go to the printer and, thus, to be time. From my center as my sphere spins irrevocably committed to an independent existence. rapidly, everything, the yesterdays and the to­ It is rather scary. How many typographical er­ morrows, whirls into an exciting now, one great rors will show up? Will readers really understand big today, and that is where I am at, at the our insistence that statements are made "at a moment. date," and that everything can never be said on any subject, and that writing about something, es­ •Without it I wouldn't be where I am. pecially as evanescent as dance, is not doing it? ~~7u>/c jfcuvfrfarJ*' 97

With such a large portion of the book devoted to can never tell when the exquisite shivers down the aspects of therapy, I am struck, as I have been spine or the silent singing in the muscles of the again and again, by what I believe is a solution. throat are going to be evoked. It can happen in Dance, basic dance, movement — whatever one the theater or other performance area, but it is wants to call it — must be available to every child also one of the rewards of teaching dance compo­ from two years on. The development of the kin­ sition, a class in which the students' movement esthetic sense must be fostered to avoid the one­ truly speaks so loudly that words are of little use. sided, verbally oriented education with which we are saddled, and to avoid "alienation of the body" which afflicts so many of our adults today. It is not as if it should be so difficult. It is just a matter of allowing it to happen. Parents, almost ^K^y universally, take delight in the way the small child moves freely and rhythmically, but something goes wrong very soon.

I believe that education in the arts (dance in­ ADELE WENIG cluded) can well follow the pattern set forth by Moholy-Nagy of theBauhaus; absolute freedom of I am on a continuum, exactly where is uncertain, expression in early childhood to the pre-adolescent unimportant. The way stretches behind and in phase of development; emphasis on technical train­ front beyond view and my existence. There are ing during early adolescence; a synthesis of the curves, bends and side paths yet certain consist­ two previous stages as the individual grows to encies persist: maturity and has "something to say." It is at this The body is the instrument through which the stage the student can get a sense of history and of dance lives or speaks. This instrument must "time-binding," an awareness of the cyclical pat­ be sensitive, disciplined, "alive." The tern of styles and forms, a conviction that he does dancer-person needs not only physical skills not have to join the "cult of the new" to be unique but a high degree of ability to concentrate, (because he is), and a realization of the freedom perceive, explore, react, integrate and do. that can come from discipline. My concern and interest are with dance as If such a progression of experience in dance and meaningful experience (alone and with others) the development of kinesthetic sensitivity could be as an integrating growth experience, as a available to each child, only the ones "who could means of communicating and relating. These not help it" would be dancers, and we, as audi­ goals may be achieved through many forms ence, would be spared the ordeal of watching end­ of dance from folk and social dance to the cre­ less, inept, naive displays of self-indulgence ative or performing art of dance if the indi­ which are really in the realm of therapy rather vidual brings his whole being into the action, than art. We do not want to be captive audience and if the movement comes from within. in a situation where fascination with the boredom of it all is our reward, even though boredom does Many kinds of learning may emanate from and serve as a sensitizing agent. Dance is difficult be organized around dance: scientific, tech­ in that it takes time to see it and most dances are nical, creative, historical, psychological, too long. Going to an art exhibit, it is possible aesthetic, etc. to pass over quickly the objects with which one At the core, of prime importance, is to dance does not make connection. If one or two of all — to experience the movement, to be in it. the paintings in a show are memorable, it is con­ Everything else comes out of the experience. sidered a stimulating experience. As an educator (one who draws out from the However, let me hasten to say that I am an "addict," learner) can I open the way for the meaning­ and if I can occasionally see one dance that thrills ful experience and encourage the learner and excites me, it lasts for a long time. And one to go on past me to rich, untried, new experiences a*^-