Jeté Propelled Center Students in This Performance of Ministrator Who Stars and Students Mingle at the Harvard Dance Center

Montage Art, books, diverse creations

18 Off the Shelf 21 Flexible Movies 22 Twin Passions 25 Open Book 26 Joculor, Ergo Sum 27 Sexy Struts 28 Chapter and Verse

took her to New York to study with Balanchine, and she spent 24 years dancing with his company—but her firsthand knowl- edge gives Harvard undergradu- ates and graduate students a privileged look at the works and personality of one of the great artists of the twentieth century. “What we o≠er here is a blend of the experiential, the historical, and the theoreti- Ballerina Heather cal,” says Elizabeth Watts coached these Bergmann, the en- Harvard Dance ergetic dance ad- Jeté Propelled Center students in this performance of ministrator who Stars and students mingle at the Harvard Dance Center. George Balanchine’s has led the Har- DEBRA CASH Serenade. vard Dance Pro- by gram since 2000. A dance community that was often overlooked by the University as eather watts says that on a costume—plain back pants, nothing a whole now boasts extracurricular stu- she prepared for teaching athletic or casual, di≠erent than I dress in dent troupes specializing in everything her Harvard course, “George my usual life, I’m an old hippie—and hop from Bhangra to ballroom, for-credit Balanchine: Ballet Master,” on my bike and get to class just in time for courses taught by dance professionals, the same way she used to the curtain to go up and do it.” She laughs and the glamorous, e∞cient space of the Hprepare for a performance at the New and confesses, “I was terrified each and new Harvard Dance Center, which lies York City Ballet (NYCB). “At 11 a.m., I every Monday.” along the gentle swell of Observatory Hill would go to the Dance Center, get my Her presence on campus is a sign of a on Garden Street and is busy from midday students’ responses to their reading as- burgeoning of interest in dance at Har- to midnight. signments in hard copy, reread them and vard and a flowering of commitment by “There are 700 students using the build- highlight a few, finish going over which the University administration. Watts may ing every week, and that’s not including videos we were going to watch, and then not have attended college herself—a Ford audiences,” Bergmann explains. Dancing run back to my apartment. Then I’d put Foundation scholarship at the age of 13 at Harvard can be a huge time commit-

Photograph by Courtney Bryant Harvard Magazine 17 MONTAGE ment: some students rehearse and take on research done at Harvard classes up to 30 hours a week in addition Business School and interviews to managing a full course load. It’s not un- Off the Shelf with 125 top leaders in busi- common to see a dancer stretching in the ness, George, former CEO of corner with a laptop open in front of her. Recent books with Harvard connections Medtronic, shows readers how Though dance at Harvard may have a to craft their own leadership- new visibility, it boasts a long tradition. A Natural History of North American development plan.You should,he advises: Art connoisseur Lincoln Kirstein ’30 Trees, by Donald Culross Peattie ’22, il- know your authentic self, orient your lustrated by Paul Landacre (Houghton moral compass, understand your motiva- It’s not uncommon Mifflin, $40).This is a one-volume edition tions, build your support team, and stay of two classics from the 1950s by Peattie grounded by integrating all aspects of to see a dancer (1898-1964), who wrote about the giant your life. sequoia and the lodgepole pine with such stretching in the eloquence, erudition, and even humor Letters from Eden: A Year at Home, in that a botanical colleague once sniffily re- the Woods, written and illustrated by corner with a laptop marked to him, “I see you could not re- Julie Zickefoose ’80 (Houghton Mifflin, sist the temptation to be interesting.” $26). Zickefoose is an artist, naturalist, open in front of her. and sometime NPR commentator, who No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial knew at the age of seven that she wanted founded, with Balanchine, what would Campaigner, by Robert Shrum, J.D. ’68, to paint birds for a living. She paints— become the School of American Ballet and IOP ’74 (Simon & Schuster, $28). A vet- and writes—delightfully. NYCB. Beginning in 1965, modern dancer eran strategist in Democratic presi- Claire Mallardi ran the under- dential campaigns, Shrum provides graduate dance program, ex- much well-recounted insider’s history, panding it to incorporate a broad likely to nourish political junkies. variety of genres. As artistic director emerita she continues to Glamour Addiction: Inside the teach “Movement for Actors,” a American Ballroom Dance Industry, course she introduced in the mid by Juliet McMains ’94 (Wesleyan Uni- 1980s. versity Press, $26.95). An assistant But in 1999, the newly created professor in the dance program at the Radcli≠e Institute for Advanced University of Washington and an ac- Study announced long-range tive DanceSport competitor, McMains plans to reclaim in 2005 the Rie- explores the meaning of this block- man Center for the Performing buster cultural phenomenon. With Arts, housed in the century-old photographs. gymnasium in Radcli≠e Yard that had been used exclusively as A Fighter’s Heart: One Man’s Jour- dance space since 1980. “Dance

ney through the World of Fighting, JULIE ZICKEFOOSE had been happening there since by Sam Sheridan ’98 (Atlantic Monthly At the brown thrasher’s instruction in April, 1898; Mark Morris taught his ﬁrst chore- Press, $25). Sheridan chose violence as a it’s time to plant peas. From the book. ography class in that space and the feet of career and here wipes the blood from his Anna Sokolow, Merce Cunningham, and nose long enough to give readers a first- At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, the Nicholas Brothers, among other hand account of disciplined aggression. by Anne Fadiman ’74 (Farrar, Straus and greats, had touched that ﬂoor,” says Cath- Giroux, $21).The familiar essayist, writes leen McCormick, director of programs at The Lonely Patient: How We Experi- Fadiman, speaks “to one reader, as if the the O∞ce for the Arts, which oversees all ence Illness, by Michael Stein ’81, M.D. two of them were sitting side by side in of Harvard’s ongoing arts activities, in- (Morrow, $23.95). For the benefit of both front of a crackling fire with their collars cluding the dance program. “We had a the sick and their well family and friends, loosened, their favorite stimulants at problem. We had dance here and we were Stein probes the inner life of patients hand, and a long evening of conversation losing our home, so we had a concrete who are seriously ill, their experience of stretching before them.” Most of these issue we had to solve.” betrayal, terror, loss, and loneliness. essays first appeared in the American Students rallied. “They developed a 50- Scholar, which Fadiman edited before be- page report with all kinds of statistics, True North: Discover Your Authentic coming the Francis writer-in-residence at press clippings, and letters from alums,” Leadership, by Bill George, M.B.A. ’66, Yale. She was once this magazine’s “Un- McCormick remembers, “signed by a mix professor of management practice, with dergraduate” columnist and remains on of people who had gone into the arts and Peter Sims (Jossey-Bass, $27.95). Based its board of incorporators. others who were management consultants, software developers, policy people with

18 May - June 2007 MONTAGE Join our online Reader Panel!

Share your opinions COURTESY OF HEATHER WATTS Clockwise, from far left: Provide three muses, all Harvard us with feedback juniors—Madelyn Ho, Claudia Schreier, and Joanna Binney— in Balanchine’s Receive Apollo; Heather Watts with exclusive offers Mikhail Barysh- nikov; New York City Ballet HARVARD CRIMSON and promotions star Damian Woetzel aloft. COURTESY OF HEATHER WATTS MARIAH S. EVANS/ Make the World Health Organization—all advo- cover the basic principles of breath and cating for dance at Harvard.” A planning weight and energy as she was discovering a difference! committee led by associate dean of Har- them in the 1930s. They loved it!” vard College Judith Kidd worked quickly. Personal connection with dance profes- In September 2005, Harvard cut the ribbon sionals has made all the di≠erence for some on a new $4.5-million facility, designed by Harvard students. Kate Ahlborn ’07 took Your opinions are Bruner, Cott & Associates, a stand-alone the initiative to cold-contact Damian crucial to our success. structure that sits inside one-half of the Woetzel, an NYCB star (after trying seven existing multipurpose Quadrangle Recre- likely permutations of his e-mail address). Here’s your chance to ational Athletic Center (see “Big Step,” Ahlborn had “heard through the grapevine” tell us what you think. January-Feburary 2006, page 70). that Woetzel was earning his master’s in Proximity between studio and class- public administration at the Kennedy Go to: room space makes it possible for an in- School of Government with an eye toward structor to shift easily between discussing preparing for a future career in arts policy HarvardMagPanel.com dance and presenting it. When Christine or international a≠airs after his dancing and join today! Dakin, former principal dancer and artis- days were done. Would he be willing to tic director of the Martha Graham Dance teach a class occasionally for the Harvard Company, taught a course on Graham’s Ballet Company? Woetzel wrote back to oeuvre last spring, she was able to combine say that he was settling into student life, intellectual and embodied methods: “Each but that perhaps his wife, former NYCB week I showed a ﬁlm of one of Martha’s principal dancer Heather Watts, would be works and discussed it from historical, available. On a Sunday night a few weeks political, sociological, and literary direc- later, Watts taught a ballet-technique class. tions, as well as what I had discovered Ultimately Elizabeth Bergmann convinced about the work, what Martha had told me her to teach both technique and the Balan- about the work, and what the students chine seminar. When, with the approval of saw in the work. Then we did some move- the Balanchine Trust, Watts set excerpts ment explorations to let the students dis- from Balanchine’s Apollo on the students,

20 May - June 2007 MONTAGE Woetzel was on hand to coach Adam A handful of dancers carry their Har- after she graduates. For many more, danc- Singerman ’09 in the title role. vard degrees into professional dance ca- ing will be a compelling avocation for the “I grew up idolizing these people,” says reers. Elizabeth Waterhouse ’02, a former next decade or beyond. sociology concentrator Claudia Schreier physics concentrator, now dances with Nonetheless, enthusiasm for dance at ’08, who signed up for both Dakin’s and the Forsythe Company in Dresden, Ger- Harvard is not restricted to serious Watts’s courses. “I grew up in Stamford, many. Marie “Molly” Altenburg ’07, a win- dancers. Watts talks about the lessons of Connecticut. Damian would guest as the ner of Harvard’s Suzanne Farrell Dance Balanchine’s career: lessons of prepared- Cavalier in our Nutcracker, and I’d be an Prize, who danced with the Washington ness, of versatility, of patience, that have angel or a soldier. I never imagined that Ballet before enrolling at Harvard, ex- as much relevance to aspiring CEOs as I’d be working with them at Harvard.” pects to audition for ballet companies they do to those bound for the world’s

SCREEN Flexible Movies

“You never see cartoons where there are bad outcomes,” says Michelle Crames, M.B.A. ’03, founder and CEO of Lean Forward Media in Los Angeles. “But bad outcomes are often the result of bad decisions.” Last year, Crames’s company released its first product: a new kind of storytelling vehicle, the interactive movie, that lets viewers make freighted decisions and then face their consequences.The DVD, ti- tled The Abominable Snowman after the eponymous book by R. A. Montgomery (from the Choose Your Own Adventure series), is an animated film for 5- to 11-year- approaches the little group and says he will take them directly olds that tracks the adventures of three youngsters who go to the yeti. Go with him or stick to the plan of meeting Uncle off to meet their Uncle Rudy in Katmandu and search for Rudy? You decide, but if you take the big guy’s offer, the film the legendary yeti. ends with the protagonists at the bottom of a pit, about to be- But along the way they face choices, like staying on a falter- come dinner for a group of hungry tigers. ing airplane or parachuting out. Using the remote control, a “Parents love these movies because it’s a real window into viewer can choose what the characters will do, and watch the their child’s mind,” says Crames. “They see how their chil- story unfold along the chosen narrative path. Decision points dren make decisions, and [that in turn] can be a way to help generate 11 possible stories within the 80-minute film— them with their critical thinking.” In fact, Lean Forward’s web- and most of the choices turn on issues of character, emo- site (www.choosemovie.com) includes resources to help par- tional intelligence, ents discuss the film with their offspring. The Abominable and even moral- Snowman has won awards for excellence in family entertain- ity. Early on, for ment, including a KIDS FIRST! All Star Award from the Coali- example, a huge, tion for Quality Children’s Media. “There is so much more smooth-talking, thinking, active participation, and listening than in standard but vaguely sinis- cartoons, which are pretty mindless,” says Crames. “Most ter Nepalese man video games are very violent, with little cognitive or develop- mental value—the bulk of them are about thumb-twitching, Above: The winning and losing, and shooting things. The decisions aren’t Abominable Snow- much more than ‘Go left, or go right?’ ” man’s animated Lean Forward is developing a suite of interactive movies, in- character Marco North leads his cluding a live-action thriller for teenagers. Crames says her siblings into a products fall between traditional entertainment and video Himalayan adven- games. Although the former market is contracting slightly, the ture that can have several latter is a fast-growing industry whose $12.5 billion in hard- outcomes—both ware, software, and accessory revenue for 2006 was up 19 positive and percent over 2005.The interactive DVD, a format that Crames negative—depend- is helping to pioneer, may anchor a new product category in ing on the viewer’s choices. Left: the home entertainment, where the trend in content, she says,“is interactive DVD. only toward more interactivity.” craig lambert BOTH IMAGES COURTESY OF LEAN FORWARD MEDIA

Harvard Magazine 21 MONTAGE

stages. “Engaging non-dancers is a major institutions that determine arts policy.” the-art facility to enjoy, but a sense of part of what we do here in the Dance Pro- “When you think of dance, you don’t dance’s own place to grow on campus. We gram,” notes dance program assistant automatically think of Harvard,” says Kate have a space to exist.” Joshua Legg. “It’s about expanding per- Ahlborn. “But that there is a program in ceptions. We’re mindful that some of place, with performance opportunities Boston dance critic Debra Cash earned a master’s these students will have an opportunity and now credit courses, is something peo- degree in design studies from the Graduate School to be board members of foundations that ple should know—that, in and of itself, is of Design in 1995. A former scholar-in-residence might be in charge of ﬁnancing arts in our an accomplishment. Our beautiful new at Jacob’s Pillow, she teaches dance history at society, or perhaps work with government dance center not only created a state-of- Emerson College.

tionary theory or “Intelligent Design” in schools; or in the sensationalist press dis- Twin Passions cussions of the assaults of Richard Dawkins and Daniel C. Dennett on reli- Two scientists explore science and religion. gious belief; or, even closer to home, in SARAH COAKLEY the seemingly ill- by fated attempt to in- E. O. Wilson, sert a requirement Pellegrino University oth these elegant little books less tired thinking about the disputed re- on “reason and faith” Professor emeritus, on science and religion are by em- lationship between science and religion into the successor to The Creation: A Meeting inent Harvard professors emeriti— than has recently been the case in the the Harvard College of Science and Religion much-revered researchers, writ- United States. More heat than light has “Core” curriculum. (W. W. Norton, Bers, and educators. Both authors hope indeed been produced in the political de- But both Owen Gin- $21.95); and Owen their monographs may stimulate some bates about the teaching of secular evolu- gerich and E.O. Wil- Gingerich, professor son believe, in their of astronomy and di≠erent ways, that of the history of sci- religion and science ence emeritus, God’s need not be at such Universe (Belknap/ logger-heads—in- Harvard, $16.95). deed, that they can, and should, harmoniously cooperate. Wilson, the sociobiologist, a Baptist in his youth but long a religious agnostic, fashions his book on creation and the ecological crisis into an imaginary dia- logue with a fundamentalist pastor. His stated hope is to harness conservative Christianity into a shared passion with science to save the earth from impending ecological disaster. Gingerich, the as- tronomer and historian of science, who is also a ﬁrm Mennonite believer, has stronger intellectual ambitions, ostensi- bly: not merely to declare a truce between science and religion for the sake of an ur- gent practical end, but to demonstrate the intrinsic compatibility of the two realms. God, for Gingerich, is alive and well and sustaining the cosmos purpo- sively from Big Bang to contemporary moments of personalized salvation. Both books have the great merit of being attractively and accessibly written: no obfuscating jargon or confusing theo- retical complexities will distress the sci- entiﬁc novice. Indeed Wilson devotes an entire excursus to the damage he sees

Illustration of E.O. Wilson and Owen Gingerich by Joseph Ciardiello