$2 Spring 1979 Printemps F /, CJ ansG The Crunch Cometh · Dwindling Funds For Ballet

.. Performances Only!

Wednesday March 28 8:30 p.m. Jewels

Thursday March 29 8:30 p.m. Ballo della Regina Dances at a Gathering YORK· Stars and Stripes Friday March 30 8:30 p.m. Jewels

Saturday March 31 2:30 p.m. Swan Lake Sonatine Ballo della Regina CITY Who Cares? 8:30 p.m. Interplay Sonatine Chaconne Stars and Stripes

Ticket Prices: BALLET March 28, 29, 30, 31 $15, 9, 7, 5 March 31 Matinee $12, 8.50, 6, 4 (Group Discounts Available)

Ti ckets available at: Shea's Box Office (716) 847-0050

Shea's Bu f alo Theater 646 Main St. Buffalo, New York Dance in Canada IS SU E NUMBER 19 SPRING 1979 PRINTEMPS Hanging Loose in Havana The Lauretta Thistle at the 1978 C uban Dance Festiva l George Brown The Open Eye UNDERSTANDING DANCE College Grant Strate 'I dance the things that move my life' MARGIE G ILLIS M ich ael C rabb 10th Annual TRAINING TH E DANCER: VII The Arms in Motion Rhonda Ryman The Crunch Cometh DWINDLING FUNDS FOR BALLET Summer IN REVIEW NOTICEBOARD LETTERS TO THE EDITOR School EDITOR: Michael Crabb ASSISTANT EDITOR: Holl y Small BUSINESS MANAGER: Nikki Abraham ADMINISTRATIVE AS SISTANT: Edward Clark of Dance DESIGN: Dreadnaught

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Ministry of C ulture a nd Recreation, Ontario The Canada Council Lois Smith BC Cultural Fund COVER: Karen Tessmer a nd Raymond Smith of the National Ballet of Canada in Artistic Director Si r Frederick Ashton's The Two Pigeons, firsr performed by the company, February 28 , 1978. Ph otograph by Andrew Oxen ham.

PH OTO CREDITS July 3-August 10, 1979 Tom Taylor, p. 6;Ormsby Ford, p. 7; J ack Udashkin, pp. 9, 10; Andrew Oxenham, p. 2. 0; Ben Holzberg, p. 22; Deni Eagland, p. 27 ; Un ited Artists p. 28.

Dance in Canada is published quarterl y in Danse au Canada est publiCe rrimestrielle­ Toronto, Canada by Dance in Canada As­ menr a Toronto, Canada par {'Association de Ballet • Pointe • Modern •Jazz sociation. la Danse au Canada. The publication Dance in Canada is included L'Association de la Da nse au Canada est Pas de Deux • Repertoire • Character with membership in Dance in Canada Associ­ enregistrCe com me orga ni sme beneficiai re. Le ation. numero d'enregistrement est 00441 -22-1 3. Dance in Canada Association is registered as Les dons fairs a !'association seront admis en Faculty Includes charitable organization number 0044 1- deduction. 22-1 3. Donations are tax deductible. Les mem brcs de /' Associa tion de la Danse au The views expressed in the articles in rhis Canada recevront d'offi.ce le revue Danse au Winthrop Corey publication are not necessarily those of Dance Canada. in Canada. The publication is not responsible Les opinions exprimCes clans les articles de Christine Hennessy for the return of unsoli ci ted material unless cette publication ne sont pas obligatoirement accompani ed by a stamped self-addressed ce lles de Danse au Canada. Donald Himes envel ope. · Le redaction n'assume aucune responsabilite Dance in Canada publishes in rhe language of quant au re nvoi de materiel non solicitC, a Earl Kraul origin, English or French. We will be returning moins que cel ui-ci ne soit accompagnC d'une to ou r complete bilingual format whenever enve loppe-reponse affranchie et adressCe. Angela Leigh funds become avai lable. Oanse au Canada pub lie !es articles dans leu r Subscription: $7.50 per year. Single copy langue d'origine, anglais ou fran~ais. Nous $2.00. retournerons a notre formule bilingue des que Kenneth Lipitz All rights reserved. No part of this publica­ nous disposerons des fonds nCcessa ires. tion may be reproduced without prior written Abonnement: $7. 50 par an. Pri x du numero: Shelley Zeibel permission of the individual conrribucor and $2.00. the Dance in Cam1da magazine. Tous drois reserves. 11 est defendu de repro· Elena Zhuravleva Back iss ues of Dance in Canada are available dui re toutc partie de ce tte publication sans in microfil m from Micromedia Li mited, avoi r prCa lablement obtenu le consentement Box 502, Station's', Toronto, Ontario ec rit de tout auteu r et de la rev ue Danse au MjM 4L8. Canada. To celebrate the 10th anniversary, the ISSN0317-9737 Pour recevoir \es vieux numeros de Danse au Summer School wi ll conclude with a Second class mail registration 11umbero3874. Canada en microfilm , ad ressez-vous a Mic­ fu ll length performance of "Coppelia" Return postage gua ranteed. ro med ia Limited, Box 50 2, Please send notifi cation of change of address, Statio n 's', Toronto, O ntario M5M 4L8. subscription orders and undelive rable copies ISSN 03 I 7-973 7 For further information , contact the to: Le numero recommande de la posre deuxieme: cl asse 03874. School of Dance, George Brown Le frai s d'envo is paye. College, PO Box 1015, Station B, S'i l vous plait faites parvenir vorre change• To ronto MST 2T9 ment d'adresse, !es abonnements et les; Telephone (4 16) 363-9945 numCros non livres 3.: Dance in Canada/Danse au Canada 100 Richmond Street East, Suite 3 25, Toronto, M5c 2P9 Study Dance in Toronto at York University

Dance students enrolled in Honours Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts degree programs may choose courses in ballet and contemporary dance, teaching, composition, notation, repertory, dance therapy, history and criticism. Graduate Studies: students follow a 2-year program in dance history and criticism (and dance notation in 1980/81), leading to a Master of Fine Arts degree. Summer Studies: intensive Dance Studio classes are offered, credit and non­ credit. Courses are also available in Film, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts; Summer Studies in all Departments.

For further information, contact: Department of Dance, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Downsview, Ontario, Canada M3J 1 P3 Telephone (416) 667-3243

TORONTO DANCE THEATRE 80 Winchester Street GROliING Toronto M4X 1 B2 GROW (416) 967-1365 March 6·8 RO",- .....-,_,. -...... , IN RESIDE NCY l CARLTON UNIVERSITY C OTTAWA OWI?,lG lb,_ March9&10 PERFORMANCES WIN DA'N NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE OTTAWA ING DJ\-N ~-l ( March 15, 16 & 1 7 OPENINGS G D1\NCI NEW STUDIOS TORONTO ~l\'.i March 30 & 31 D-~~} PERFORMANCE WITH FESTIVAL NCE SI NGERS CONVOCATION HALL TORONTO ·~·- ,~,CE IS April 13, 14 & 15 EASTER EIS PERFORMANCES NEW STUDIOS TORONTO IS GROWING IS A pril 25·28 T ORONTO SE ASO N ST. LAWRENC E GRO'tvING ::s CENTRE :{ w l,•c TORONTO N DANCE IN CANADA 3 DANSE AU CANADA

Hanging Loose in Havana Lauretta Thistle at the 1978 Cuban Dance Festival

The biennial dance festival in Cuba (last held in 1978, from cept when Alonso was dancing, there were empty seats. late October to mid-November), is an event worth keeping Various theories were propounded for this - blocks of your eye on. First, it gets you to a warm climate in what is tickets were given out to party members, to factory usually a miserable season for Canada. Second, this is a workers, or labourers, who then did not turn up. festival still trying to find its identity. Press repres_~ntatives from other countries, who had It's an international festival. It's built around the 30- only press cards, would be assigned to seats by ushers, only year-old National Ballet of Cuba, but it does bring in to be 'bumped' by a family of Cubans bearing tickets with guests, and not just from socialist countries. The Cuban numbers for those very seats. company is not wealthy (it is said to be half a million So, if you do go to a future Cuban festival, be prepared dollars in debt, in hard currency), so it does not spend large to hang loose and stay flexible. Don't believe the pro­ sums importing foreign companies, but rather, brings in motional brochure handed you by the travel agency-half soloists, pairs of dancers, choreographers, and some critics the dancers mentioned won't be there. But be prepared: and special friends. the curtain usually goes up on time at 8 .30 p.m. Whether Cuba (for that, read Alicia Alonso) is ready yet Havana sees its own ballet companies perform all year to open the festival freely to tourists is questionable. Better round - about eight times a month - but with all these organization and advance publicity about programmes, visiting artists promised, it is not surprising to see a small and above all, availability of tickets, are prime requisites black market in tickets flourishing near the box offices. before the dance world will flock to Cuba. What the visitor sees (I was there for the first week), is, A group of Quebeckers, booking a tour supposedly built first, a fair sampling of the Cuban repertory. Thus, you around this festival, were told they could get tickets any could watch three performances of an interesting produc­ night they wanted them, as well as special transportation tion of Giselle, and the Carmen created to the Bizet­ to and from their beach resort in Megano, about a Schredrin score.Alonso herself dances in both of these.You 30-minute bus ride from Havana. This arrangement did can see Alonso choreography in Genesis, an elaborate but not function very often. rather distasteful depiction of the reproductive process, I had gone to Cuba with this tour, prepared to buy my amid masses of shimmering plastic streamers; and you can tickets, but within a day realized that it was not going to see Antonio Gades' Blood Wedding, which is hardly ballet, work, and had to seek out emergency routes to getting but a fairly tense drama, (except for a final duel which goes press accreditization, and, incidentally, moving into the on too long) involving Spanish-style movement and mime. fe stival hotel, the 'Havana libre', so that I could keep up But what of the visiting artists, and the premieres? Since with the fast-changing schedule. There were many worth­ it's not made easy for tourists to witness the festival, we while daytime events: rehearsals or classes (Youskevitch can perhaps assume that the main object of the festival is to gave an excellent class - at only five minutes' notice), press keep Cubans abreast of developments abroad. But you conferences and learned lectures, or seminars, or panel have to keep in mind that many of the promised choreog­ conferences, with contributors such as Walter Terry, Ann raphers and dancers did not appear. Barzel, and South American and European journalists. Some of the guests brought conventional showpieces. When Canadian tourists turned up on their own at the There was the opportunity to see two different European rwo box offices of the Garcia Lorca Theatre and the Mella, couples tackling the Don Quixote Pas de Deux; and - ey were told flatly, 'No tickets'. though the Hungarians have no long tradition in classical The Mella box-office attendant suggested that it might ballet, Ildiko Ponter and Gebor Hevehazy proved to have ' ea good idea to hover around the doors at five o'clock, in more style than their Roumanian counterparts. If you were case any tickets were turned in. Presumably the Canadians lucky, you could see a couple of Cuba's principal soloists, were to do this 'on spec', then find the two buses which Josefina Mendez and Andres Williams, performing the ·ould take them to their dinner in Megano (paid for in the same work with still more style. ::- a kage tour), then take two buses back to the theatre. But the visitors didn't limit themselves to pot-boilers. I ~a x.i s in Megano? The promises range in descending dropped around to the Mella Theatre one morning and : 'er: ten minutes; five minutes; never. found Maina Gielgud (who's danced with Bejart, the Cubans who were assigned as interpreters to visiting Royal and the Festival Ballets, and is now free-lancing) reographers or dancers said that they'd not been able wearing a peacock skirt and working on a solo, Orgullo - " u: tickets for their families. Yet on many nights, ex- (Pride), created by Dame Ninette de Valois for herself DANCE IN CANADA 4 DANSE AU CANADA

Bri an Macdonald with Alicia Alonso when she was with the Diaghilev ballet. How on earth did almost-unison movement assigned to the two Cuban this obscure item get to Cuba? Well, it seems that in 1977 dancers, Mirta Garcia and Caridad Martinex, was pre­ the new Spoleto Festival of Charleston, South Carolina, sumably supposed to be crisp and aggressive. The bodies was scouring the earth for dance pieces using Scriabin and temperaments of the two girls were, however, so music. Someone remembered this solo, and de Valois different that it was like looking at two different solos taught it to Miss Gielgud. So one festival feeds another. simultaneously. Garcia's thin, lean body made the move­ Gielgud also did a Bejart solo, Parma e linea, to music by ment look more classical, while Martinez's well-rounded Pierre Henry, and she and her partner Jonathan Kelly were body and more phlegmatic temperament gave quite a to dance the Black Swan Pas de Deux. different slant on the work. Question: was this ambiguity What did the Cubans see of American ballet? Well, deliberate, and really the point of the work? early in the festival, Judith Jamison danced her famous Very little really experimental work from Europe was on solo Cry. Jerome Robbins sent his ballet In the Night, display in that part of the festival I saw. True, there was a to Chopin nocturnes. During the first week, Eleanor touch of Alwin Nikolais in the plastic womb that appeared d' Antuono of American Ballet Theatre gave a fine perfor­ in the Finnish choreographer Margareta von Bahr's bal­ mance of Kinderscenen, by Paul M ejia, with the Schumann let, El Milgrado de la Vida (The Miracle of Life). It was music played on stage. disconcerting, however, to see that the beautiful blonde Of the world premieres from Latin American choreog­ twins, Ritta and Soile Heinonen, who eventually emerged, raphers, I saw half of a pedestrian solo choreographed were wearing toe-shoes. What an uncomfortable preg­ by Ivan Tenorio using the most popular of the Villa­ nancy, with wooden blocks pounding your abdomen for Lobos Bachianas Brazilieras; (only half of it because I the final four months! Surely this was a ballet for bare feet. was in a box far to the side; perhaps the other half was The other ballet, Dobles Realmente, again by von Bahr extraordinary!). for the Heinonen twins, was mildly funny at first, when the Gloria Contreras, of Mexico, contributed Gravita­ twin who was supposed to be doing mirror image work, cional, an uneventful group dance to an undistinguished behind the bar, mischievously rebelled. But the centre electronic score of squeaks and hisses. The reaction was work which followed was not demanding enough to show cool. Cuban audiences, one deduces, are mature and off their virtuosity, beyond proving what good extensions sophisticated enough to be confident about their likes and they have. dislikes. I saw them dance these ballets twice and began to Hilda Riveros, a Chilean choreographer, had more than wonder about the oppressive psychological effect of one work scheduled. The one I caught at a rehearsal, always dancing as twins. I was reminded of Elisabeth Positron, used a pounding, percussive score, and the Kuebler-Ross, who, when about 15 years old, substituted DANCE IN CANADA 5 DANSE AU CANADA for her twin sister on a date. She had been briefed on how more subtlety and nuance in projecting his affection. This far her sister had allowed the boyfriend to go, but when she ballet will probably be brought by the Cuban company to realized the boy didn't know she was a different person she the Met in New York, to Washington and, possibly, to was so disturbed she left home. Toronto this spring. Of the new ballets set on the Cuban company, one of the The major events of the festival were the political most impressive was Rara Avis, by Cuba's own Alberto statement made opening night, and the evening when \lendez. It uses rather hackneyed music by Handel (even Alonso danced the 3 5th anniversary performance, to the the celebrated Largo) and it has no plot, except that a day, of her first Giselle. different bird (ballerina with headdress) is used for each of The political statement stressed the achievements of 30 the three movements, and a large or small male corps years' work, establishing the ballet in Cuba. However, accompanies each one. certain facts in Cuban ballet history appear to be ignored. The first ballerina, Cristina Alvarez, seems to need As Chicago critic Ann Barze! reminded us in a lecture, protection (though sometimes the situation aspires to the Fanny Elssler danced Giselle and La Sylphide in a Havana abstraction of Ashton's Monotones). The second, Mirta theatre during the 1840s - on the same spot where the Garcia, whose music uses a perky positiv organ solo, is pert Theatre Garcia Lorca now stands. While the official and vivacious. This movement was the favourite with the history of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba begins with the audience. I preferred the third, when Rosario Suarez, in founding of the Ballet Alicia Alonso in 1948, it is worth plumed headdress, dominated a large group of men, and recalling what Vancouver writer Leland Windreich has was carried off with her body held in a beautiful trium­ recorded concerning a Vancouver dancer, Pat Meyers. As phant curve. The turmoil and strife are implied, rather Alexandra Denisova she danced with de Basil's Ballet than spelled out, and we're not encouraged to think of Russe, taught in Cuba from 1941 to 1944, was briefly anything as crude as Amazonian subjugation of men. The married to Alberto Alonso and was prima ballerina of regality of Suarez banishes banality, and Mendez knows a Havana-based company for whom she restaged several how to use masses of bodies to good effect. of Fokine's ballets. The Canadian contribution to the festi'val was large and The Giselle anniversary performance was composed of has been well publicized. Montreal choreographer Fer­ two carefully choreographed parts: first the ballet - then nand Nault provided solos and a pas de deux, and he was the curtain calls. After several minutes of conventional well served by Sylvie Kinal-Chevalier and Jacques curtain calls, the parade of former partners began. First, Drapeau. Annette av Paul and David La Hay, also of Igor Youskevitch, with kisses and flowers. Then Azari \lfontreal, danced the balcony pas de deux from Brian Plisetski, who was not only Alonso's partner, but a \lfacdonald's Romeo and Juliet, with the Shakespearean valuable teacher for the company. Finally, that master text read in English. showman, Anton Dolin, who taught Alonso the role and Macdonald also created two new works for the Cubans, was her first partner, (in Ballet Theatre). He brought a a pas de deux, Remembranzes, (music: Tchaikovsky - laurel wreath, placed it on her brow, and knelt gracefully Arensky), danced on opening night by Alicia Alonso and before her. her partner Jorge Esquivel, and a work for the company, Then came the showers of rose petals from the heavens. Prologue. I missed Remembranzes, but I am told it was a When Alonso moved downstage for a solo call, her partner loving tribute to Alonso's achievements with perhaps a Esquivel scooped up a double handful of the petals and niled hint that she stop dancing. Apparently she danced it showered her head with them. The audience roared. well: but nobody believes she will quit! It all lasted for 2 5 minutes, according to the official As for Prologue, which I saw only at a rehearsal, it is a newspaper Gramma (my watch said 20 minutes, but who distillation of the Othello story and differs from the Jose am I to argue?). And Fidel (as Gramma affectionately re­ Limon pas de quatre in that it uses a large corps, including fers to Castro) applauded for the whole time, then went Alonso's grandson, Ivan. The Desdemona, Amparo Brito backstage for a round of photo calls. It was at once bizarre 'wife of Jorge Esquivel) is enchanting. Andres Williams, and strangely touching. The Cubans certainly cannot be the Othello, is right for the role in that he is big, black and faulted for wanting a sense of theatrical occasion. burly, but at the rehearsal stage was still having to develop Toronto h I Sum~er5 coo BRANKSOME HALL 1n ance JULY2-JULY27,1979 DIANA JABLOKOVA-VORPS, Artistic Director An extensive 4 week dance program, for all levels of professionally oriented students. nine year■ and older. SUPERVISED RESIDENCE ACCOMMODATIONS DANCE CURRICULUM INCLUDES: Clauical Ballet Technique. Pointe. National Dances, Character. Variations, Partnering and Jazz Ballet. SPECIAL BODY PLACEMENT CLASSES FOR ADULTS

FOR BROCHURE WRITE TO: CARL D. VORPS, General Manager TORONTO SUMMER SCHOOL IN DANCE (416) 782-2292/489-7597 15 ARMOUR BLVD., TORONTO, ONT. MSM 3B9 DANCE IN CANADA 6 DANSE AU CANADA

Grant Strate e(

0..> 0.. z Under~ ... po ~ 3 "' <1> "--­> "---z 0..... 0 <1> 3 "' "'<1> As Canadian dance activity continue: directions and dancers continue to pro the time is well nigh for dance people t look at the plight of the spectator, so flood of creative exploration. All artis understood. They feel abused when t on fallow ground, as they so often .c implies a sender and a receiver and a, concept from one to the other. The aud a responsibility to comprehend but trn;:, H,e>pvu;:,w,ucy J_J..L.LE:,J..ll. LI..., J._J.\,.,...,l..J..1..1.6 .I.J...1..1.'-""b'--''-' .....,_.._ ...... ,...... , ...... - ...... ,.,..,.,.,.,.,,...,., ...... not greater than that of the artist as sender to convey his of Loie Fuller's voluminous fabrics. Many will connect concept clearly. Effective understanding of a dance re­ modern dance with profundity and obscurity. quires audience commitment. The making of an effective Now the truth is that categories in art, as in life, never dance requires sensitivity to the human condition. quite fit. We can only at best speak in general terms. Every Whenever we see a dance performance we carry with us time we attempt to label a dance or a form of dance it all of our past experience and a present expectation of eludes us. Yet it is a part of human nature to want to find what we are about to see. Our past experience is the the right pigeonhole for every one of our experiences. knowledge we have gained about dance. If we are dance Assuming that the result of our poll of 50 city folk was as people, that knowledge is considerable but ofttimes our I just described it, how can their expectations, based on technical concerns cloud aesthetic understanding. We fleeting impressions and experiences, cope with the reality might know a great deal about how to dance and very little Susan Macpherson of why we dance or how an audience appreciates the dance. On the other hand non-dance people are often victims of shibboleths and misconceptions about the nature of dance and its potential as a communicative force. If at random, we were to poll 50 people from the streets of any large Canadian city we would probably find that in the public mind theatrical dance breaks down into televi­ sion and film show dancing, accessible jazz dancing and snobby effeminate ballet dancing. From some people we might get a fourth category of dance; pseudo-intellectual modern dance. For those people who respond to quick impressions, and that includes most people, superficial flashes and images attach to these four categories and, once these attachments are established, expectations of particular dance perfor­ mances are determined by them, often to disastrous effect. From exposure to snippets of dancing on television, in film and as a part of Broadway musicals and sometimes even from dance divertissements at the opera, people associate show dancing with light entertainment, a secondary diversion to the main action. Jazz dancing is regarded as closel y akin to show dancing DANCE IN CANADA 6 DANSE AU CANADA

Grant Strate

e .______. en ____._____¥8 Understandmg Dance

As Canadian dance activity continues to shoot off in all with more emphasis on youthful erotic appeal and infec­ directions and dancers continue to propagate like amoeba, tious rhythms. the time is well nigh for dance people to take a hard-nosed Classical ballet suffers from a thousand myths no doubt look at the plight of the spectator, so often awash in this occasioned by its long tradition and relative inaccessibility. flood of creative exploration. All artists are anxious to be The laymen tends to think of ballet, with its lush nine­ understood. They feel abused when their best efforts fall teenth century music, its pointe shoes, pink tutus and on fallow ground, as they so often .do. Communication suspect male dancers, as an entertainment for the upper implies a sender and a receiver and a vehicle that carries a strata of society. concept from one to the other. The audience as receiver has For those who think at all about modern dance, there a responsibility to comprehend but this responsibility is might be fleeting images of Isadora Duncan au nature! or not greater than that of the artist as sender to convey his of Loie Fuller's voluminous fabrics. Many will connect concept clearly. Effective understanding of a dance re­ modern dance with profundity and obscurity. quires audience commitment. The making of an effective Now the truth is that categories in art, as in life, never dance requires sensitivity to the human condition. quite fit. We can only at best speak in general terms. Every Whenever we see a dance performance we carry with us time we attempt to label a dance or a form of dance it all of our past experience and a present expectation of eludes us. Yet it is a part of human nature to want to find what we are about to see. Our past experience is the the right pigeonhole for every one of our experiences. knowledge we have gained about dance. If we are dance Assuming that the result of our poll of 50 city folk was as people, that knowledge is considerable but ofttimes our I just described it, how can their expectations, based on technical concerns cloud aesthetic understanding. We fleeting impressions and experiences, cope with the reality might know a great deal about how to dance and very little Susan Macph erson of why we dance or how an audience appreciates the dance. On the other hand non-dance people are often victims of shibboleths and misconceptions about the nature of dance and its potential as a communicative force. If at random, we were to poll 50 people from the streets of any large Canadian city we would probably find that in the public mind theatrical dance breaks down into televi­ sion and film show dancing, accessible jazz dancing and snobby effeminate ballet dancing. From some people we might get a fourth category of dance; pseudo-intellectual modern dance. For those people who respond to quick impressions, and that includes most people, superficial flashes and images attach to these four categories and, once these attachments are established, expectations of particular dance perfor­ mances are determined by them, often to disastrous effect. From exposure to snippets of dancing on television, in film and as a part of Broadway musicals and sometimes even from dance divertissements at the opera, people associate show dancing with light entertainment, a secondary diversion to the main action. Jazz dancing is regarded as closely akin to show dancing DANCE IN CANADA 7 DANSE AU CANADA

To make an art symbol, the creator must transpose functional material (in the case of dance, the body) into non-functional statements and these statements are not They are art statements. I have no deeply into the theory of art; many 1ve dealt with this subject. I will only 1t anyone who wishes to create an art · compulsion or by calculation, does so Business 1eept he wishes to communicate. More Reply Mail cept or idea is not rational within our Postage Stamp his word and cannot be explained in ecessary if mailed y that if it is possible to articulate our - Canada there is no need then to create the art n and communication are important to ::i sage will be paid by ccess of this communication depends artists' objective skill, developed over

vhen we approach dance we tend to :ssing a spontaneous activity; joyous, sitory. Many dance people who should Dance in Canada about dance in this way as if all the 100 Richmond Street East, Suite 325 nto making dances is blown in a quick, spontaneous release of energy. This is Toronto Canada MSC 929 on and leads members of the audience 1 order to receive ultimate aesthetic .ave nothing more to do than park t and let the sea of dance impressions t no other field of the arts, except the ,try, do we assume that audiences have ward understanding the concepts of the ----.:rrc:rre-vr==~=x-i=iJTCJ=nr.c--rert:vr.,rumra:;,mVJJrcu-rn=-, an:r:rs,cc:ss.~Juonn:r11c::-vwvion1:... and some preparation is required of dance as a serious art form. Broadway is turning a large audiences for dance. Without a nucleus of knowledgeable art of its current seasons over to dance as the central and concerned people I doubt that Shakespeare, Ibsen, : eme and raison d'etre for its shows. Examples are Michelangelo, Stravinsky and Picasso would enjoy their Dancin' and A Chorus Line. exalted positions in the hierarchy of the arts. Why would it Jazz dance is mixed with classical ballet and modern be different for dance? dance in hundreds of permutations and combinations. I'm not trying to make a case for an intellectual _ lodern dance has directly influenced the repertoires of approach to understanding dance. That would be just as ;nost major ballet companies in the world and modern unproductive as the spontaneous emotion theory just ancers take ballet classes. Classical ballet is often danced mentioned. The best we can do is to try to face up to our o 'f pointe and I recently saw a whole evening of modern natural response mechanisms. ance performed in shoes. We see steaming hot erotic That means shedding many of our preconceptions in · allet pas de deux and comic modern dance. order to approach dance with all our faculties healthy and It also seems to me that all forms of theatrical dance are functioning. We must not turn off our minds in favour of :t iving for a purer, greater abstraction. I regard this as a our instincts or vice versa. We all have a kinesthetic sense. _ owing up of our field and heartily applaud. John Martin, the great apologist for modern dance, speaks The great German philosopher and writer, Goethe, once of 'inner mimicry' in his book Introduction to the Dance. aid that all art is trying to attain the same degree of This term applies to our inherent ability to respond to a straction as is found in music. Let's think about that for shapes, spaces and movement by our own kinesthetic or a minute. Goethe meant that the sounds that are created body memory. When a dancer moves in a particular way :n music are found only in music and have no other func- with clear purpose and controlled skill, our inner being has · on . Contemporary co~posers might quarrel with this the capacity to imitate that movement and to understand remise but for the most part throughout history it has its inner concept. This understanding remains on a sub­ een true. Music is the only art form where the materials conscious level. that comprise the music have no other function. A painter Throughout its brief history, theatrical dance has been ses paints that might be used to paint a doll or a house as given little aesthetic status in relation to the other arts. ~-el] as a masterpiece. A playwright creates a synthetic Many share the idea that dance is part of a composite art, world out of the impersonation of real people in real that dance shares with music, story, scenery, costumes and iruations. The artist who sculpted the famous David also lighting to comprise the theatrical event. Further I expect crafted buildings out of similar marble. Choreographers some would agree that dance has a responsibility to serve design from living human material, the body, the mind and by interpreting the music or the story. There is not space : e skill of the dancer. The dancer uses the same mind and now to argue effectively against this traditional stance ody to walk down the street, to play tennis or swim, to except to say that none of the other arts ride on the coat negotiate the myriad daily tasks he or she encounters. tails of another art and that dance must become more DANCE IN CANADA 7 DANSE AU CANADA

To make an art symbol, the creator must transpose functional material (in the case of dance, the body) into non-functional statements and these statements are not natural statements. They are art statements. I have no intention of going deeply into the theory of art; many excellent writers have dealt with this subject. I will only offer the theory that anyone who wishes to create an art symbol, whether by compulsion or by calculation, does so because he has a concept he wishes to communicate. More than likely this concept or idea is not rational within our usual meaning of this word and cannot be explained in words. We often say that if it is possible to articulate our concepts in words there is no need then to create the art symbol. So intention and communication are important to the art act. The success of this communication depends very much on the artists' objective skill, developed over long years of study. Unfortunately, when we approach dance we tend to think we are witnessing a spontaneous activity; joyous ephemeral and transitory. Many dance people who should know better speak about dance in this way as if all the work which is put into making dances is blown in a quick, sometimes glorious spontaneous release of energy. This is a great misconception and leads members of the audience to the idea that in order to receive ultimate aesthetic satisfaction they have nothing more to do than park themselves in a seat and let the sea of dance impressions wash over them. In no other field of the arts, except the entertainment industry, do we assume that audiences have Le Groupe de la Pl ace Roy al e no responsibility toward understanding the concepts of the of the present dance explosion? Television has dipped into artists. Some work and some preparation is required of dance as a serious art form. Broadway is turning a large audiences for dance. Without a nucleus of knowledgeable part of its current seasons over to dance as the central and concerned people I doubt that Shakespeare, Ibsen, rheme and raison d'etre for its shows. Examples are Michelangelo, Stravinsky and Picasso would enjoy their Dancin' and A Chorus Line. exalted positions in the hierarchy of the arts. Why would it Jazz dance is mixed with classical ballet and modern be different for dance? dance in hundreds of permutations and combinations. I'm not trying to make a case for an intellectual _ 1odern dance has directly influenced the repertoires of approach to understanding dance. That would be just a most major ballet companies in the world and modern unproductive as the spontaneous emotion theory just dancers take ballet classes. Classical ballet is often danced mentioned. The best we can do is to try to face up to our off pointe and I recently saw a whole evening of modern natural response mechanisms. dance performed in shoes. We see steaming hot erotic That means shedding many of our preconceptions in · allet pas de deux and comic modern dance. order to approach dance with all our faculties healthy and It also seems to me that all forms of theatrical dance are functioning. We must not turn off our minds in fa vour of rriving for a purer, greater abstraction. I regard this as a our instincts or vice versa. We all have a kinesthetic sense. ~ owing up of our field and heartily applaud. John Martin, the great apologist for modern dance, speaks The great German philosopher and writer, Goethe, once of 'inner mimicry' in his book Introduction to the Dance. said that all art is trying to attain the same degree of This term applies to our inherent ability to respond to ab traction as is found in music. Let's think about that for shapes, spaces and movement by our own kinesthetic or a minute. Goethe meant that the sounds that are created body memory. When a dancer moves in a particular way m music are found only in music and have no other func­ with clear purpose and controlled skill, our inner being has . on. Contemporary COIJ!posers might quarrel with this the capacity to imitate that movement and to understand remise but for the most part throughout history it has its inner concept. This understanding remains on a sub­ ' een true. Music is the only art form where the materials conscious level. · at comprise the music have no other function. A painter Throughout its brief history, theatrical dance has been u·es paints that might be used to paint a doll or a house as given little aesthetic status in relation to the other arts. ,,-ell as a masterpiece. A playwright creates a synthetic Many share the idea that dance is part of a composite art, ,·orld out of the impersonation of real people in real that dance shares with music, story, scenery, costumes and s·ruati ons. The artist who sculpted the famous David also lighting to comprise the theatrical event. Further I expect crafted buildings out of similar marble. Choreographers some would agree that dance has a responsibility to serve :.:e ign from living human material, the body, the mind and by interpreting the music or the story. There is not space the kill of the dancer. The dancer uses the same mind and now to argue effectively against this traditional stance dy to walk down the street, to play tennis or swim, to except to say that none of the other arts ride on the coat :r. otiate the myriad daily tasks he or she encounters. tails of another art and that dance must become more DANCE IN CANADA 8 DANSE AU CANADA independent of music, narrative, and other related ele­ The dance field will be the richer and the future for ments to become fully mature. That takes us back to dancers brighter when audiences expect to be meaning­ Goethe's statement about abstraction. fully changed by dance performances. When the large and To gain the most satisfaction from dance we must not growing public for dance looks for deeper values than only keep our inner response mechanisms freely open, we novelty, erotic appeal and visual diversion it will begin to must also regard any particular dance in the context of understand the full capacity of this expressive form to its conventions. Taste and aesthetic preference are not improve the quality of our lives. absolute qualities._They vary considerably within different Dance people also share responsibility for a more historical periods and geographic locations. Therefore, the informed constituency with higher expectations. Our craft classical dances of India appear strange to us on first is intended to free and increase our potential for expres­ viewing but become enriching when we learn something of sion; to take us beyond technique. More intelligent the conventions of this dance language. Classical ballet attention should be paid to our reasons for dancing. Better mime can appear ridiculous to those who have never trained bodies and greater physical discipline should serve encountered this convention before. Even the great Pav­ our aesthetic purposes - the communication of concepts, lova suffers the buffeting of time. When films of her be they comic or profound, romantic or mathematic. dancing are shown to a novice audience which does not appreciate the conventions of Pavlova's day, the reaction is Based on a presentation to the Dance in Canada Con­ painfully irreverent. ference, Vancouver, August, 1978. There are certain dance qualities usually incontrovert­ ibly acceptable on all levels. Virtuosity is a sure winner if used intelligently. For the most part audiences enjoy feats of strength, stretch and endurance which place the dancer above the m~n in the street. Grace, clarity of form, logical development, honesty of concept, pleasurable surprises; these are all elements which keep channels of communica­ tion open. If the communication of concept is effective the observer experiences an emotional response and this emo­ tion is a necessary part of the whole creative process. But we must think of emotion in its broad context here; as a feeling state. DANCE IN CANADA 9 DANSE AU CANADA

_ Iargie Gillis exploded onto the Canadian dance scene in There she found the process intensely frustrating and -· e ummer of 1977. It was in Winnipeg, during one of disturbing. 'We were told to smile a lot and to hold -~o e marathon evening performances traditionally ap- everything in. I simply freaked out. I used to run home :- e ded to the annual Dance in Canada Conference as a from class screaming. It was not a form of movement that ~ IT of penance for the sins of the day. There she was, all was healthy for me'. ...:.one on a big stage dancing out her anguished soul with a So, from the age of 12 and for the next six years, Margie - rce which sent the audience reeling. She was young, raw, Gillis stepped outside the formal world of dance classes oiled - a seemingly natural dancer, or to be more and became her own teacher, exploring forms of expres­ - :-re t , as Kati Vita has suggested, 'a body possessed by sion through movement unfetterred by the- strictures of -- need to dance'. classical ballet discipline. Although it was that Winnipeg appearance in 1977 Her problem however was more than one of not being · i h brought Margie Gillis widespread attention, she suited to ballet. Margie Gillis was, by her own avowal, - - in fa ct been around and dancing for several years: to 'insane'. 'I was afraid of people. I said little and didn't _ m·i cts, old people, children - whoever was willing to laugh for years and years. I nearly ended up in an asylum. I a ch. must have been a great worry to my parents'. he was born in Montreal, 26 years ago this July, but Margie Gillis survived to discover a way out when her ,-enr her early years in Oregon until the family returned dancer-brother introduced her to modern dance of whose - Canada in 1960. Her parents were Olympic skiers. existence she had somehow managed to remain unaware _.,,. younger brother plays professional hockey for the until she was 18 . She found a fresh avenue of expression 'ancouver Canucks. A cousin, John Eaves, was World and began to want to communicate her feelings about life. C:iampion freestyle skier last year and the year before that. 'My dance is very personal. Sometimes it's like tearing Her family's home is festooned with trophies. Although open my stomach and saying " See". I feel that by going _;-e herself is an enthusiastic gymnast and is currently inside myself I can touch that same space in others so that m·ement coach of the Canadian National Freestyle Ski we can go beyond, to where we're all just one energy. I Team like her older brother Christopher, (a leading guess all my shows are really about love. There's still not ~an er with the Paul Taylor company), she eventually enough love in the world. There's too much greed, people .:::o e dance as the physical and emotional outlet for the starve, they hide what they feel from themselves and r' letic energy which seems to be a congenital trait of her others. People are scared of emotional pain'. :.a;:nih·. There is a guileless naivety about the way Margie Gillis Like many other girls, she was sent to ballet classes talks of her work. It's almost like a voice from the sixties ~ ause she had a natural facility for moving to music. The when everyone was supposed to experience themselves ::: a es went well until the family's return to Montreal. and love everyone else - usually in communes or at rock DANCE IN CANADA 10 DANSE AU CANADA

as Waltzing Matilda but disturbed too. It touches nen·es and sensitivities we might sooner forget we had. It is virtually impossible to switch off the emotions and to watch Margie Gillis' dancing as abstract movement. Beautiful as that movement often is, especially the use o - the arms to achieve a sense of lightness and the grear bounding jumps with which she greedily gobbles up space, the inner motivation always hits home. Margie Gillis seems destined, at least for the immediate future, to remain a solo performer. Not for Gillis a company dancing her own choreography ('I don't feel I have the right to put words in other people's mouths'), nor appearance in too much of someone else's choreography ('to do someone else's work you have to empty yourself to let someone else enter'). Having experienced her own 'personal transformation' she sees the world and the people in it as a whole 'treasure Learning How To Die chest' - one to which she wants to both take and give. Her opinions are strong but she is not dogmatic. The overall festivals. But from Gillis' mouth it still has the ring of truth. impression is one of vulnerability, openness, and deep While the children of the Counter-Culture are now buying concern for human values. condominiums in Florida and eating TV dinners, she exists 'I don't think I'm right and everybody else is wrong. I as a self-evolved reminder of the passionate humanity don't feel I've cornered the world market in expression. I which believes in the possibility of spiritual improvement think I do have something to say - but I don't have through the search for truth. everything to say'. Margie Gillis went to New York to study modern dance, with May O'Donnell and with the Limon company. In the This is the first of a new series of personality profiles about technique of Jose Limon she discovered a set of body notable figures in Canadian dance. If you have suggestions tensions which were much like her own. Yet, through the for people you would like to read about in these columns, process of training, she did not attempt to impose on her let us know. body any specific technique. 'Technique is a tool important for clarity of communication but it should be a means, not an end. I do have a sort of technique. I work from inside out to bring my body to neutral - then I can start adding whatever I want. I used to think there was a gaping black York University emptiness behind me and I kept trying to get back into it. I Faculty of Fine Arts had a great abandon in my dancing'. She still has it. Since 1973, she has performed across Canada and in Summer Studies in Dance New York, sometimes with others, even in the work of other choreographers, but usually solo, dancing her own July 3 - August 10, 1979 things. She sees Canada as her base and is inspired by its dance activity. 'The work is so raw here: it's really Special Dance Studio attempting to go somewhere'. Studio classes in dance technique feature an Audiences react to Margie Gillis. There is no alternative. international roster of dancers and dance instructors. For You cannot remain passive. This owes less to the choreog­ university credit: 3 classes daily. Non-credit: 1-3 classes raphy, which after a while often seems in itself repetitive, daily, anytime during session. than it does to her manner of dancing. Her body is strong Creative Dance for the Child This course, designed for teachers and therapists working yet flexible. She has a gift for dramatically swift changes of with children or with prior experience in children's dance, direction and pace. She is daring and takes risks. Her long is taught by Betty Stedman. brown ~air is usually left to hang freely but leaps into Summer courses are also offered in Film, Music, Theatre, action as soon as she moves. It becomes an extension of the and Visual Arts. dance, trailing behind her and providing an echo of the For further information, brochure and application form, contact: movement she has just made. She confronts her audience Ms. Janis Roy , Summer Studies Coordinator with blazing eyes which at times are almost demonic. Faculty of Fine Arts, York University, 4700 Keele Street Sometimes her hands claw the air in despair or are softened Downsview, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 into gestures of great tenderness. She uses music (mostly Telephone (416) 667-3615 popular and often with lyrics) in a very literal way and approaches poetry with a similar directness of interpreta­ tion. In some dancers this would appear immature and simplistic: for Margie Gillis it almost invariably works. The innocence and conviction of Margie Gillis' dancing, her apparent willingness to align herself with human suffering at a universal level, can become a strain on the audience. People have not only been moved by a work such DANCE IN CANADA II DANSE AU CANADA

Rhonda Ryman Training the Dancer VII C[Jie Anns in Motiori In her last article, Rhonda Ryman explained the structure of the arm and shoulder girdle. Here she discusses what happens when the arms move.

• oYements of the Shoulder Girdle and Arm outward within the hip socket, without disturbing hip placement. To sense this, apply the image of bottle caps -::-Je arm-shoulder girdle unit can be thought of as a linked discussed in a previous issue (Fall 1978). The action of : ;seem in which movements occur at three fulcrums: the rotating the humerus inward solely at the shoulder joint is :'"?.oulder joint, the acromioclavicular joint and the sterno­ critical to the aesthetics of classical ballet, since it causes ~~- i ular joint. In everyday movements these joint actions the elbow to face outward in fifth en bas, fifth en avant, -.1 rally overlap. Dance training, however, focuses on fifth en haut, and their composite positions, and to face - a · ng each and retraining their coordination, for backward in second position. This rotation produces a _es·hetic reasons. The arms can move forward and side- curved line of the arm but, when not isolated at the ... y about 60 degrees by rotation of the humeral head in shoulder joints, is often associated with a hunching -:..e ocket of the scapula, without visibly involving the forward in the shoulders and tension in the front of the -~o Ider girdle. Greater range of movement, however, neck. - r involve the shoulder girdle with the fulcrum being, In order to sense the correct arm placement in second .: - • the joint between the shoulder blade and collar­ position, continue the previous exercise as follows. Using e, then, the articulation between the collarbone and the images of bottle caps or spiral coils, Person A re­ --eastbone, (see Diagram r). In order to sense both the peatedly rotates the arm inward and outward, simul­ - a ed and the cooperative action of the arm and taneously opening that arm slightly further outward with ·- ou]der girdle, work in pairs and try the following each rotation until the arm is not quite parallel to the ~ e ses. ground. End with the arms rotated inward, so that the Person A stands or sits on a stool, thinking of images for thumb points down and back. The elbow should be pointed body alignment and, especially, efficient rib-cage­ back, slightly curved, not 'locked', and positioned just in - oulder girdle alignment. Person B positions himself front of the shoulder joint. Person B should sense no distur­ -e ·nd and places his right palm over Person A's right bance in the shoulder girdle. Finally, the forearm twists fo r­ - oulder blade, the heel of the hand pointed downward ward without disturbing the elbow, so that the wrist faces ·er he apex of the blade. His left index finger contacts the front. Wrist and fingers are slightly relaxed, completing ..:rerrnost surface of Person A's right collarbone, and his the long curve of the arm . le finger rests just below on the knob-like corocoid In order to sense the opposite twists in the upper and ;· ess. Person A then attempts to move his arm solely at lower arm, imagine the arm as a long rubber tube with two -~e boulder joint, without disturbing the collarbone or segments projecting outward from the shoulder, (see -· o Ider blade. Let the shoulder girdle hang freely in good Diagram r). One segment extends from the shoulder to the = ance, without fixing the blades. Think of the images elbow, and one extends from the elbow to the finger tips. .::__ cussed in the last issue (Winter 78/79). Sense just how Watch the closer segment rotate inward, so that the elbow - uch movement can occur and in which directions. In moves backward and slightly upward. Watch the farther :: - · ular, try to rotate the whole arm inward without segment rotate outward so that the wrist moves forward. .:.:·placing the shoulder girdle forward. This will cause the Be sure to keep the elbow and wrist slightly relaxed . - arbone to press forward against Person B's fingers, and To sense the integration of the shoulder girdle and the ·"e apex of the shoulder blade to press back against the arm in this position, use the image of the arrows, (see :. eel of his hand. Isolated rotation at this joint can be Diagram 2). Watch the two arrows (the collarbone and .: pared to the action of turning the legs inward and spine of the shoulder blade) feed obliquely into the third . DANCE I N CANADA 12 DANSE AU CANADA

As the arms move higher than shoulder level, it i­ impossible to prevent movement in the shoulder girdle although the aim of good training is to minimize or -- camouflage this movement. This masking effect is achieYe by stabilizing the collarbone and allowing the shoulde blade to move freely along the ribs, extending the range o · the arms. This cooperative arm-shoulder girdle action can

Diagram r be sensed as follows. Working in pairs, take the same position as describe before, Person B lightly contacting the shoulder girdle o: Person A. With the humerus rotated inwards, that is, the elbows opened outward, Person A slowly traces an ar sideways, while Person B senses the movements in the shoulder girdle. In a well trained dancer, the collarbone will remain visibly immobile throughout the port de bra . lightly resting atop the first rib. But, as the arm passes about the horizontal, the apex of the shoulder blade will begin to glide outward, forward and upward around the rib-cage. Note also the movement of the knobby corocoid process indicating action at the acromioclavicular joint. This scapular rotation redirects the socket which receives the humerus, allowing the arm to continue to rise. Kinesiology texts state that movement past about 6 degrees occurs as a result of one degree of scapular rotation accompanying every two degrees of shoulder joint movement. A similar sequence occurs when the arm traces an arc forward to the overhead position. In untrained arm movements, this pattern is slightly different. Repeat the previous exercises with the humeru rotated outward, that is, with the palms initially facing Diagram 3 outward for the sideward arc and front for the forwar arc. Notice how much less scapular movement is involved. Imagine a current of water or electricity surging along both The outward humeral rotation is aesthetically incorrect in arrows and out along the third to its very end. Try this fundamental ballet positions and ports de bras. But, image again, with both arms in second position and anatomically, it facilitates a greater range of shoulder joinr imagine the current running up a central arrow (the movement by changing the relationship of the bony vertebral column) and flowing outward through the projections and soft tissue. This is comparable to rotatin fingertips. The image can be further modified by picturing the thigh outward to increase its range of motion sideways. the flow continuing up the neck and out the top of the back Whereas this action is aesthetically correct in the legs, i of the head. is not in the arms. But it may help us understand the There is considerable variation in the exact positioning beginner's tendency to drop the elbows during overhea of the arms among various schools of dancing. Some arm movements. emphasize a slightly wider arm spread with the elbow and Once these bony actions are fully comprehended, the wrist almost directly out from the shoulder joint. Others teacher can begin to understand how the muscles must be prefer a slightly forward carriage. From an anatomical re-educated to accomplish this sophisticated patterning. point of view, the socket which receives the head of the Stretching and strengthening the appropriate muscle humerus faces outward and slightly forward, analagous to groups normally occurs gradually as correct placement i­ the hip socket which receives the femur. Sideward limb established, except in cases where poor posture or struc­ movements, therefore, naturally occur just in front of the tural problems have created muscular imbalances. It i­ median lateral plane of the body. beyond the scope of this article to suggest correctiP· exercises, but several c,an be found in Raoul Gelaben·­ Ports de bras (Diagram 3) Anatomy for the Dancer. The novice dancer has not yet learned the sophisticated One very important point must be made, howeve . coordination required in classical ports de bras. As he lifts regarding the familiar direction to 'Use your arms from rh his arms overhead, the entire shoulder girdle may be hiked back!' We have seen how large arm movements natural upward and thrust forward, giving the impression of a involve shoulder blade actions and how the scapula sen-es short neck and narrow shoulders. In an attempt to curve as a stable base from which the arm operates. There is n the elbows outward, the shoulder tips may fall forward, bony connection between the shoulder blade and spine. and the shoulder blades poke back, producing a hollow in Strong muscle coimections join it to the spine and rib-cag . front of each shoulder. The following descriptions explain providing powerful control as well as range of motio ~­ the anatomical actions involved in good ports de bras, and Therefore, arm movements are indirectly governed 1:-: also suggest why certain common faults occur naturally as muscles of the spine and thorax. One muscle in particular. a result of the normal functioning of the arm-shoulder the Latissimus Darsi or 'broad muscle of the back', exten · girdle unit. from the lower thoracic and lumbar spine, the sacru . DANCE IN CANADA 13 DANSE AU CANADA

wer three ribs and apex of the scapula diagonally :irward and upward to the inner and upper end of the - ..1merus. Arm action may be compared to that of a whip :- lariat in which the force is applied close to the handle. o •erful arm swings are initiated in the back, just as :o-ceful leg kicks are initiated in the trunk. Contrast these George Brown ;:o :he unsophisticated actions of a young child throwing a ~all from the elbow or kicking from the knee. College On a final note, it is interesting to consider just how :nportant the arms can be in improving the dancer's School of Dance ;e-hnique. A powerful use of the arms greatly enhances :urning and jumping movements, if their action is properly .:oordinated with other body parts. To demonstrate this, :-and on a bathroom scale, which acts as an indicator of -· e fo rce which your body mass exerts against the ground. Dance Training -·owly and smoothly lift then lower the arms, noting how An intensive two-year -· e indicator remains quiet. Now, suddenly lift both arms diploma program .;, ward. The scale should show that you have momentar­ ~:- gotten 'heavier'. That is, your body has exerted more rorce against the ground. Do the opposite action by --arung with arms overhead and jerking them strongly Lois Smith :oward your thighs. The scale will register a temporary •· u tening' or 'deweighting' effect. Subsequent articles Artistic Director -v-tll deal with the specific ways to achieve the proper :nning and direction of arm actions. But the first step Yolves proper alignment and integration of the arm­ A professional level program for ".:ioulder girdle unit. students who aspire to performing careers. Primary training is in ballet, pointe, modern and jazz. Students will gain experience through 00 frequent performances. Faculty include: Earl Kraul, Patricia Upcraft, Elizabeth Leyds, Maureen Consolati, Guest Teachers.

Admission requirements: Ontario Secondary School Graduation The Diploma (Grade 12), advanced level ballet training. An audition is CCT mandatory. J Fee: $420.00 per academic year. (September to fune). Students may Silhouette be eligible to apply for assistance under the Ontario Student There's never a dull moment, at the Bolshoi Assistance Plan or the Canada Moscow, the Lido Paris, the Sydney Opera House, Student Loan Plan. La Scala Barcelona, Orpheum Vancouver and our New National Theatre and many other well known places of entertainment. For further information, contact the CCT lighting emphasis is focused on somebody for George Brown College School of 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Dance, P. O.Box 1015, Station B, Proof enough that the Silhouette is simply years Toronto M5T 2T9. ahead. WILLIAM F. WHITE LTD 356 MUNSTER AVENUE, TORONTO, ONTARIO MBZ 3C7 (416) 231-9295 DANCE IN CANADA 14 DANSE AU CANADA

The Crunch Cometh Canada Council assesses the gloomy financial prospects for our three big ballet companies

A bleak future for Canada's three major ballet companies poverty line - som(;! on as little as $3 ,ooo a year. Principal was depicted in information considered by the Canada dancers-and there are very few of them -count themselves Council at its meeting early in December. Unless inflation lucky if they pass $20,000. The Royal Winnipeg gave stops or subsidies grow, the National Ballet, Les Grands its corps de ballet a r% salary increase in 1977-78. Ballets Canadiens and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet will be Companies cannot operate for long on these pay scales fo rced to reduce their seasons of employment to the point without losing talent to other types of employment or to at which their survival is threatened. The grace period, the emigration. Council concludes, may be as short as three years. At the best of times, a dancer's career is uncertain and Why the crisis in dance - a sphere in which, after short-lived. Most dancers estimate that ro years must be dedicated and painstaking work over a period of four spent in training; the time needed daily for rehearsals decades, Canada has finally developed performers and practice and studying makes 'moon-lighting' difficult and companies- of international calibre and a large, diverse haphazard; the career of a successful dancer is brief and it audience all across this country? can be interrupted or destroyed by accident or injury; once Three-quarters of a million tickets were sold for ballet a career is over, of course, the dancer has no job security, performances by the three major companies last year, but pension, or training which can be applied in another line even this popular success was not enough to avoid serious of work. financial shortfalls. In 1977-78 the accumulated deficits There are no alternative economies through reducing were: $129,000 (National Ballet), $326,000 (Les Grands the number of new works introduced into the repertoire. Ballets) and $303,000 (Royal Winnipeg Ballet). These 'creation' costs are in any event relatively minor; At a time when all the arts are caught in the double bind they range from 2 to 5% of the total expenses of the major of rising costs and falling subsidy, ballet companies are ballet companies. Even if the savings were significant, particularly vulnerable. Everyone suffers from inflation, Canadian choreographers and composers would lose but these companies suffer more because there is no opportunities, and audiences would stay away if they practical way for them either to cut their costs or to could not see new repertoire. increase their revenues sufficiently. The cost of performing includes publicity and promo­ tion, travel and transportation, the hiring of musicians, Costs road crew and non-staff technicians, theatre costs, and local taxes. A ballet company has two kinds of costs: the cost of being The companies are faced with a dilemma here. Most of available to perform, and the cost of performing. them can cover their costs of performing, and even make If it is to be available to perform, a ballet company some contribution to overheads, when they appear in their cannot employ talent on an 'as required' basis. Because home cities. The problem is that they cannot appear in it must support a repertoire and a daily class and rehearsal their home cities for a full season. To find sufficient or performance routine, a company's payroll is a fixed audience, they must tour. When they tour, they always expense. Overheads such as rent and maintenance of fa­ lose money. cilities, subscription campaign expenses, royalties, equip­ The major companies have toured extensively, and ment and supplies, costumes, set and property mainte­ played to good houses in all provinces. Over the past nance, and certain promotional costs are also required to three years, they have performed 270 times beyond their maintain the company. Even pointe shoes can cost as much home provinces, and 500 times within them . . For the as $49,000 annually for a major company. National Ballet of Canada, average attendance on tour Salaries cannot be reduced. Dancers are already poorly has been over 80% of capacity (over 90% at home) and paid. In 1977-78 members of the corps de ballet earned the Royal Winnipeg and Les Grands Ballets have done between $7,900 and $rr,500 at the three major companies. almost as well. At smaller companies they exist on wages far below the Next year the companies will probably be forced to cut DANCE IN CANADA 15 DANSE AU CANADA

- - · on their service outside their home provinces and 1977-78, they represented 6% of the budget of the . .::entrate on local markets. For the sizable public National, 15% of Les Grands Ballets, and4 % of the Royal - -·ested in dance- and the larger public concerned with Winnipeg. Municipalities contributed 4 % in Toronto, 6% e ichment of Canadian culture in this large country in Montreal, and 4 % in Winnipeg- the latter a creditable ~ 3' road - the loss will be deeply felt. For the dancers, figure, given the relative size of the cities involved . .:: with even shorter seasons, it represents a _further Finally, in 1977-78, private fund-raising provided rr¾ annual earnings. of the budget in Toronto, 6% in Montreal, and 15% in Winnipeg. A survey undertaken by the Council for Busi­ E.amed Revenues ness and the Arts in Canada shows that corporate support for the dance more than doubled between 1972 and 1977. - -; cally, the National Ballet, with the largest audience in This is a very encouraging trend, but it woultl not be e city of the three companies, covered just over half reasonable to expect total private contributions in the near e.cpenses at the box office. Les Grand Ballets and Royal future to cover the cumulative effects of increasing costs -:"' peg earned about40%. and the reduction in real terms of public sector support. 'd they do better? Probably not very much. Audi­ To sum up, a rational person in another business or --· n the home cities are finite, and touring, as indicated profession, faced with the economic prospects of dancers • ""T, never recovers its costs. Seat prices (now $17.50 and dance companies, would long since have sought some - Toronto, $12.00 in Winnipeg and $10.00 in lucky other line of work. The fact that the major Canadian --eal) were raised before the 1977-78 season. Despite companies have to the present survived economically and :; · ons with the inflated costs of other goods con­ flourished artistically, testifies to the talent and dedica­ uy, tickets could hardly be raised again without tion of company managers, public supporters, and most - _ :i. the audience and total revenues, and opening the particularly of the dancers themselves. - .::e co unjustified accusations of elitism. Subsidy is Financially, the dance has survived for years on a - al if the dance is to continue. shoestring. Now the shoestring is near to breaking. No enterprise can sustain the deficits faced by dance com­ idies panies without some prospects of restoring the balance, whether by increasing revenues or reducing costs. From . for the ballet has been provided by the three levels their own resources, the major dance companies can do =- ··ernment and the private sector. neither. Substantial growth in subsidy, from both public • .:.era! funds through the Canada Council are available and private sources, will be required if they are to continue. • ~-o main purposes: general support, and as an offset to Even in economic terms, it makes no sense to allow • :-es incurred in touring. Some federal funds have also decline in a labour-intensive industry which employs not . - ro,·ided through External Affairs to partially offset only dancers but a whole range of technical, administrative ':IA:...--::n g shortfalls in foreign countries, where the dance and musical support staff, and generates additional 'spin -:-anies have been welcomed as cultural ambassadors off' income in the community. The Canada Council .;: _.::claim ed as artists. At best, these grants come once in estimates that its investment of $2. 3 million in the three •• ·,·ears to any given company. major companies has added an extra $9.7 million in - 19 -78, the Canada Council provided general economic activity. :: rr grants amounting to 18% for the budget of the In artistic terms, the arduous work expended on the al Ballet, and 24 % each for Les Grand Ballets and creation of a vibrant Canadian ballet for enthusiasti •• oyal Winnipeg. When Touring Office and External audiences will go by the board. The public at large, all -- :.-s grants are added, these percentages increased to levels of government and the private sector should be • . 6%, and 30% respectively. aware that, without increased support for the dance this ~e general support grants were increased by only 5 % possibility is all too real. ~- -78 . This was less than the loss of purchasing through inflation. The outlook for 1979-80 is for a Reprinted with the kind permission of the Canada Council -~ e· 5 % , which means once again falling behind. Information Service. - ring grants, whether from the Canada Council or - - h.:ernal Affairs, rarely cover direct touring losses. --•. · arional Ballet played to near-capacity audiences on SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY -· of Canada and Europe last season, but nevertheless :- ned a deficit, partly because the decline in the CENTRE FOR THE ARTS - _ ·an dollar could not be anticipated when the - - nean tour was committed. . e oral budget of the Touring Office will drop in SUMMER DANCE WORKSHOP - · o. In current dollar terms, support of the major - companies cannot increase; because of inflation, MAY 7 - JUNE 1 eans a reduction in the real value of Touring Office -:::: n. External Affairs has indicated that budget cuts PETER BONEHAM · educe and perhaps eliminate their sponsorship of MARIA FORMOLO ances in other countries. Thus the already slim JUDITH MARCUSE iliries for company managers to organize financially le year-round seasons are substantially reduced. For Information Contact: Mr. Tony Besant, Centre For The Arts, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. -o ·incial grants fall far below federal contributions. In cn%tbf!f(b-uancewear ceiitre Leader in Dance Fashions 1922 Avenue Road, Toronto, Ontario MSM 4Al • (416) 782-2292 Footwear, Legwear and Bodywear For Dance, Theatre and Gymnastics by Capezio®and cAiondor DANCE IN CANADA 17 DANSE AU CANADA

In Review

Octobre en Danse new works. That set the keynote for the Although only 420 people paid to get in, - ~nraur Theatre entire festival. Afraid to fritter away their their impact was undoubtedly felt. Not all regular audiences, companies jealously of them worked equally well of course . .:i. -e des Arts guarded their small repertoires. The first one brought together choreog­ rreal The gala featured celestial bodies from rapher Nancy Ferguson and four dance • - 21 October 1978 the Big Three: The National, The Royal of the Toronto Dance Theatre v,itb Do · Winnipeg and Les Grands Ballets Cana­ May, a local artist who works with woo,. ::o re en Danse was a Johnny-come­ diens, which won hands down. Mac­ to create great nobbly ropes and bul _­ - ,. to the Canadian dance festival scene donald's Double Quartet, slightly re-cast carapaces. It was so rampant with imagi­ : de pite initial attacks of chauvinism and more compact on a smaller stage, still nation that it raised expectations fo r the - ~ acute cases of primadonnaitis, or- looked wonderful. And I finally caught up rest of the week which were never again - zer Jacqueline Lemieux delivered an with Sylvie Kinal's Varna award-winning realized. The dancers improvised to a _ 0-clopaedic array of 26 different com­ solo. This lady is pure dynamite, anything home-made soundtrack of crashing surf, - - es in 3 8 separate dance events over r 1 but the Incoherence of the title. It's time for twittering birds, African chants and . Only one artist, Margaret Dragu, a change of scene though. Faint heart ne'er Handel's Water Music. Their permutations -: died at the last moment and her spots won fair lady anything. were endless and extremely revealing, like e:-e fill ed by Margie Gillis and Judith Next day Judy Jarvis proved a dis­ Rorschach tests translated into motion. .x-cuse, two talented soloists, a genre we appointment: pure Dada, a series of ex­ There was a timelessness about the ex­ eldom enough elsewhere. Everything pressionist jokes. She showed two new perience, a sense of organic growth and of ,vent like clockwork, stamped by works. The Hairy Edge was a sandwich. witnessing the instant of creation, framed ame Lemieux's graceful imprimatur. Two girls in exaggerated thirties manne­ by Doris May's Norn-like presence, as - - ouncements were made in both official quin attitudes lounged against a table, she sat coiling and twisting and plaiting -'°: uages (a rarity in Quebec these days) , were draped over a ladder. A long re­ the strands. --ere were flowers for the artists and corded interview with Jarvis about cos­ Linda Rabin's consciousness-ra1smg "C zen Clown' for unobtrusive crowd mic womanhood ensued ... and back to session ('let it all hang out ... feel your nrrol. She revealed a wicked sense of girls, table, ladder, and a double ending thighs breathing ... say 'hi' with your our in the frequent juxtaposition of to unbalance us. Jarvis caught the era in left eyebrow'), conducted in a suggestiYe. c...;1. ers from opposite ends of the spec­ the first 3 o seconds, but what of the next insinuating, almost hypnotic tone va m and her smile did not falter even when 10 minutes? practically self-parody. Groupe de la Pia e -::e irate lady stormed out of a perfor­ Chester, a Portrait, to Stravinsky and Royale's workshop fizzled because o .­ ance and demanded her money back. electronic blips, had three girls and a boy in two dancers turned up to participate. - ::: e got it.) ·she gave way to craven cowar- hockey sweaters and Adidas; occasional they demonstrated excerpts of their ,-o-.._ - ce but once when her entire Organizing narration in tones reminiscent of Peter and and talked, instead. Harro Ma ·o ,-·s Committee fled into the night at the pros­ the Wolf; attempts at horseplay and end­ workshop was a rambling historical :ec­ ; of having to sit through Groupe less recitations of 'the night was dark and ture, impeded by his fluent but unidiomati . -ouvelle Aire. Who could blame them? stormy, the wind was howling hollow, the French. He did give a hint or two on The schedule, exhilarating in its variety, captain told a story, the story goes as technique, for example that movement " enough to tax a marathon runner in follows ... ' Humour? I must have missed must be repeated in order to sink in, but no ;:,ea· fo rm. the joke. insights. Anna Wyman's efforts to impro­ · .;nde r the aegis of Henri Barras' tenderly Jarvis' workshop shed more light than vise to Marcel Barbeau's painting, and vice ured I' Art du Mouvement series, we her performance on the nature of the versa, came to naught because her method ..3;:hered each noon at the confluence of choreographic impulse: the circular cur­ is too authoritarian. The best her dancers - ace des Arts' impressive v-shaped marble rent connecting dancer and choreog­ could do was to mimic Barbeau, a slight :~case for determinedly didactic samples rapher. She divided her group into pairs figure who literally danced alongside his : things to come. At 2.30 p.m., in the and asked them to play follow the leader. mammoth yellow canvas, drawing convo­ recently completed catacombs beneath The results made us instantly aware of the luted lines with a mop dipped into paint. ace des Arts, there were workshops, two lynchpins of dance: interdependence Wyman's company certainly redeemed ·emonstra tions and inter-disciplinary im­ and the calibre of invention. Some people itself in performance. Her dancers looked :s:-m·isations. After dark we all moved oozed movement through their pores; kooky and projected discernibly different he Centaur Theatre in Old Montreal some were total duds. Jarvis picked the personalities. Wyman herself showed great : : 6.3 0 p.m. recitals of soloists, avant­ most moronic of bodies for her demon­ economy of means, imagination not con­ =ardists and other less than commercially stration but despite that the process was strained by habit, clarity above all and a able entities, and stayed on for the main crystal clear: keep a movement going until felicitous touch thattied up each piece with o at 8.30 p.m. it bears no repetition and naturally changes a flourish. October en Danse got off to a flying into something else. Deflection ( 1977) was neat, joyous, · arr wi th an unorthodox gala on October Workshops were generally fascinating bouncy, full of whimsical clown elements. II. The programme was unexpectedly for the glimpses they afforded the lay Quicksilver (1977) was athletic, symme­ b tantial but conspicuously lacking in public into the inner workings of dance. trical, fluid, the structure somewhat un- DANCE IN CANADA 18 DANSE AU CANADA dermined by a Moog-dominated score. possessed by dance. The young Isadora that, the show was amusing. Once. Two People (1977), two pools of light and must have been like this! The Quebec contingent, 12-strong, fell passion, was a pas de deux serene on the And then back to earth with a thud. Or, into three distinct categories: recogniz­ surface but fraught with uncertainties. more precisely, out to pasture. Ladies with able dance working in the present, abstract Tremolo (1977) was elegance incarnate. Cows is an elastic choreographic event narcissism in some arid never-never land Like everyone else this year, Wyman which depends for its length on the quality and- Pointepienu. used rope, not as a prop but as an es­ of inspiration generated by a variable Pointepienu is the brainchild of Mudra­ sential design element. The dancers wove number of soloists participating in Jean trained Montrealer Louise Latreille and giant cat's cradles; were fireflies whirling Pierre Perreault's bucolic theme. One ver­ her husband, linked (says the press release) through op-art foliage. Sixes and Sevens sion had eight ladies and ran on-no, that's in friendship with moonlighting GBC prin­ (1977) and Dance Is (1973) revealed an overstatement - meandered around for cipal Alexandre Belin and his wife, Barbara Wyman as a people-watcher with Laban 40 minutes. Another had five and lasted Belinski, Pointepienu can be described as training. Her movements grew from per­ about 20 minutes. The cows, real live ones old hat neo-classic1sm. ceptive studies into abstracts and in Vancouver who herded the dancers 'Les Dieux de /'Olympe', the pro­ broadened into caricature. The evening off at the end, became slides in Montreal, gramme confides, 'has, as yet, no real was a hit, a hit, a palpable hit - and the just a point of departure. Against these form.' Nor has it dance vocabulary, let audience erupted with the first standing constantly changing cowscapes, ladies alone language. It has five bodies in togas ovation of Octobre en Danse. There was dressed as Japanese water carriers, accom­ of varying lengths, moving about behind a a small, still voice which whispered that panied by tinkling gamelan sounds, backlit screen, in front of reflecting foil, Wyman is an ice maiden, her choice of hoisted skirts, shook heads, reclined - disappearing into the jaws of a revolving music shallow, she is missing an element of sometimes as cows, at others more like mirror. The spoken text identified these essential humanity - but the dancers are odalisques. Each worked alone, eccentric deities as 'Zey-uss' and 'Afro-dzitt'. terrific, the show is great, what is she doing graces responding differently to similar Later, Marlbrough Goes Off To War, a here anyway? Why aren't scalpers making stimuli. It was an interesting notion, not duet for Belin and Anthony Bouchard, a fortune off her on Broadway? All she yet a performance, but it had a certain made friends with its simplicity and needs right now is a flashy press agent. small charm. True to form, Louise Garfield heart-on-sleeve sentiment but also rein­ Wyman arrived at a point in the festival grabbed the bull by the horns: shooing forced the initial impression that this group when I had turned into a dance-logged away imaginary flies, she brought down is fishing in fished-out ponds. I agree, war :o-yo, stricken with cumulative indiges­ the house. is a dreadful thing; we would not kill each tion from all the disconnected bodies, Garfield also teamed up with Susan other if individuals met face to face ... but ge rures, styles and music - much of it Swan, a writer, in an attempt to break us of Pointepienu's was not a statement, only a unforgettable mediocrity. So perhaps I am the habit of facile pigeonholing. They were child's primer of theatrical effects. over-reacting. Prior to Wyman the only witty and inventive in support of their Axis is not a cohesive group but a loose artist to survive in the mind's eye, unclut­ thesis but the classical mind/body split banding together of subculture choreog­ tered by overlays of subsequent images, remained. Swan's contribution consisted raphers whose styles straddle several de­ had been Margie Gillis. This was the girl of some R.D. Langish, and longish, word cades. Peter George specializes in ersatz who had made the last Dance in Canada games and a crude 'pome'. Garfield stop­ Cyd Charisse numbers; Iro Tembeck Conference sit up and take notice: a free ped the show with a brilliantly conceived plumbs the depths of contemporary neu­ spirit, a fresh wind from the East. The reductio ad absurdum of what inter­ roses. The good news is Christina Coleman grapevine was right. There she was: small, pretation is all about. She repeated the whose two pieces: Vehicule I, an austere sturdy body, cascading dark blonde hair, same choreography to six different taped concentrated duet for two women, and a stillness, growth, unexpected bursts of readings of the same brief John Lennon highly dramatic though restrained trio to movement communicating her extrava­ poem. It was literally insight made visible, Brel's Valse a Milles Temps, had form, gant pain. Less a dancer than a body worth a dozen workshops. Apart from style and punch.

Marion North Ph.D. Director II Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, at University of London, Goldsmiths' College, 11 New Cross, London SE 14. 6NW. Centenary 1979 ti t Auditions: Dance in London Toronto• 24 March 1979 Contemporary Ballet. Composition• Repertory. J New York -14 April 1979 Labanotation. Dance Analysis. Dance History. Aesthetics. Music for Dance• Anatomy• Production. Dance Education Laban Centenary Degree Courses: B.A. (Hons.) Dance• Full time 3 year course Diploma• Full time 1 year/ Part time 2 years 10-27 July1979 Theatre Dance: Certificate Courses• Full time 3 years International Summer School Advanced Study -1 year postgraduate and Symposium Introductory Dance Courses: Full and part time DANCE IN CANADA 19 DANSE AU CANADA

~e seeds of Quebec's affair with ab­ .:~ ·on were sown in the mid-forties by . · Automatistes' at !_'Ecole des Beaux "7. under the leadership of Borduas and -ielle. The movement embraced all dis­ ;:- ..nes including dance and Octobre en -se succeeded in enticing two of its - -eers back into the limelight. :::an~oise Riopelle and a group of dis­ presented a single work, Phan­ ·-;e., which she pegged halfway between __;_rre and dance. It was surrealist gloom doom, fragments of words, barely nguishable shadow people, all adding arresting images that could have • .....::ig from Munch, Grosz or Kollwitz. It meticulously lit and the soundtrack of _ - 'es sighs and cacophony of idiot :: rer was a stereo freak's delight. It as it had begun, with a girl standing Groupe Nouvelle Aire: Remous :e entre, peering searchingly out into · .mdience. It was no use. We didn't have Toronto Dance Festival the company through the rest of the answers either. Toronto Workshop Productions programme. f-arn;:oise Sullivan, later in the week, Theatre Entre-Six is a ballet company with i claimed authorship and wished to similarly good-natured, highly acces­ ::. ought of as no more than a catalyst. 18 September to 220ctober 1978 sible choreography. In Dances Formal and _ resented a six-part essay, each sec­ Lighthearted, the dancers, attired in - oncentrating on a single idea - the Summer had turned to winter by the time English riding habits, cantered about, ulum effect, pushed to its outer limits, the five-week Toronto Dance Festival had assembled into pretty patterns, disas­ onal walk across stage by two people presented 19 companies from across the sembled to flirt with each other and slap • marely supporting and impeding each country. Although the festival was spo­ their riding crops against their thighs. The - . ·Sylvie Pinard, inspired by Rodin's radically plagued with difficulties from a character of their work is better exempli­ .: pnue, Celle qui fut la Belle Heaulniere' lack of ventilation, to an abrasive sound fied in Lawrence Gradus's Excursions, ,_ imply put, Sylvie Pinard in a white system to a series of late-night shows which where classicism and formally patterned :::.:.n suit, seated, contemplating her apart from Margaret Dragu's Sunset Strip­ sequences contrast with athleticism and - . Another minimalist. There was an per's Show sold poorly, it did manage to calisthenic solos. The dancers paralleled -e. ectedly funny finale as Sullivan, draw, overall, a 70 per cent capacity au­ each other's movements, played children's -:. ed on a high stool, with her back to dience. One overwhelming impression left games or moved en masse across our field audience, read out a litany of action by the Toronto Dance Festival is that of vision. _-- . faster and faster, leaving the dancers Canada's women dancers are its greatest The Anna Wyman Company, although - aps of laughing disarray. strength and resource. I remember the fes­ ostensibly a modern dance company, i in - ',hough the festival was top-heavy tival as a series of immensely satisfying per­ some ways similar to Entre-Six. They have Quebecois abstraction and short on formances: the swiftness of Winnipeg the same consciously theatrical presen,a­ vorks, 6,500 people did come to the Contemporary Dancer's gamine, Debbie tion and their movement style ha :ron ·heatres and an estimated 4,000 shop­ Smith; tall Anne Harvie who contorted her balletic roots. Wyman's dancer pa e :r • _ aused to watch Karen Kain and other way through Paula Ross's post partem the nervous intensity of purebred race­ .-=-= ies' at a shopping centre on a rainy depression dance Embraceable You; the horses. Quicksilver is perhaps the "deiini­ ·. -dav afternoon. The next Montreal cold elegance of Le Groupe de la Place tive Anna Wyman'. The dancers in par h -ce f~s tival is planned for May, 1980, Royale's Elaine Rudnicki; and the impish­ died black and white tights, perform a - a,·oiding a repetition of the conflict ness of longlegged Sara Shelton, brainchild tortured, aggressive series of movements - Yorn Kippur and the National's an- of the Halifax Dance Co-op. Another over a background of constantly changing - ...-i it here. Having given Quebec dance overriding impression left by the festival is slide projections. The Anna Wyman Com­ .::.2.y . the organizers are hoping to open how clearly the established companies of pany attracted the same well dressed, • doors to international participation this country are divided between those middle-aged audience as Entre-Six did, • : rime. If budgetary constraints don't intent on pleasing their audience and those and, whipped into a fervour by the cease­ ~do plans altogether, that is. This time who are intent on pursuing innovation. less motion and pulsating music of the - -:td the Canada Council gave $4,000 The Toronto-based Ballet Ys is a prime piece, they too stood up atthe end to cheer. -;:- blicity; theTouringOfficechippedin example of this first category. One of the The Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers ~ ~. ::,oo for travel; the Bronfmans pledged few groups who had to turn people away at are a repertory company. Moving from _ -:::io; the City of Montreal donated the door, it performs in a style that is one dance vocabulary to another requires - ;;::x, and La Belle Province gave zero. immediately accessible and choreographi­ enormous versatility and compromises of office receipts yielded $20,619 and cally simplistic. Their programme opened stylistic purity are bound to occur. David - ·- aising brought in $4,900. Private with Echoplex, a work full of bright cos­ Earle's Baroque Suite, for instance, was -tr}· contributed flowers, beer and tumes, genial solos and duets, entrances performed without its intended content. - :: free balloons ... not quite enough to and exits. The dancers jazz up classical The powerful Graham back from which all - another dance festival. ballet technique with chicken struts and motions emanate was replaced with cute postures, all the while smiling with going-on-a-picnic facial expressions of -.: '1TA purposeless glee. The one redeeming fea­ frozen joy. Contemporary Dancers do ture was the presence of dancer Marnie dance some works that have been choreo­ Cooke, who, with statuesque regality, led graphed especially for them, Rachel DANCE IN CANADA 20 DANSE AU CANADA

Browne's Just About Us, about a mother's relationship with her daughter, among them. Debbie Smith played the quick­ footed daughter who contests and eventu­ ally communes with her gentle, slow­ moving mother, Rachel Browne. A handful of companies at the festival, however, were intent on exploring the innovative. These companies were for the most part the least well known and least well attended. Le Groupe Nouvelle Aire presented a very forceful and provocative programme. Their masterwork Remous, by Edward Lock, was an austere and powerful piece. In it seven dancers glide and slide about, shine spot lights at each other, call out the name of one of the dancers and drape their skirts over the lamps to create eerie sil­ houettes. Suddenly orchestral music cuts through the silence and gives the piece an ecstatic tone. In the end one of the women climbs on a table, removes the top half of her leotard and lies down to sleep. Karen Tessmer and Sean Boutilier: Elite Syncopations Paula Ross's Venturi, a solo in which But one should not lay all the blame on Leslie Manning calls on the spirit of Emily The National Ballet of the corps; most of the soloists, with the Dickinson, is another arresting piece. Canada possible exception of Mary Jago, looked Wearing an unwieldy plastic collar over O'Keefe Centre slightly out of place. Too few of the her white leotard, the dancer executes a Toronto National's dancers possess that flexibility eries of extravagant leaps, interspersed 8 -18 November 1978 in the upper torso that Ashton's work so ·with chirpy little runs, nervous balances often demands: as a result those sudden and spasms of silent giggling. Surprisingly the National Ballet's new shifts in direction come as a jolt rather than H alifax and Regina are two cities in production of Les Patineurs was not a huge a surprise or a pleasure. And too frequently which modern dance is still a fledgling art. success. On opening night its recep­ the dancers' arms look thin and ungener­ Yet the Regina Modern Dance Works and tion was mild to say the least; clearly the ous. This fault is especially noticeable in the Halifax Dance Co-op, neither of which audience, a good humoured one, felt let the women. Peter Schaufuss danced the had performed in Toronto before, did so down. Since Patineurs is one of Ashton's Blue Boy in such a cheerless manner that with considerable flair. The Regina com­ most skilfully structured and durable bal­ one wondered if he was happy with the pany presented Goose, a revisionist telling lets, with charming postcard decor and company. For a dancer with such an inter­ of the mother goose rhymes by a group of costumes by William Chappell, one must national reputation, Schaufuss' Toronto troubadours armed with song, a trunk full look at the performance to find out just performances have often been slack - of clothes and ecological slogans. what went wrong. After all, Toronto has though one moment in Giselle with A week later the Halifax Dance Co-op taken La Fi/le ma/ gardee and Monotones Veronica Tennant might persuade one to burst on stage, shattering all logical narra­ II to its heart; why not Les Patineurs? forgive all. Very early in the first act tive and structure. This year-old company One can start with the music, or more he suddenly reached for Giselle just as headed by American Sara Shelton was the precisely, the playing. The score, a hodge­ she quickly moved away. With that single one company at the festival that moved podge of tunes by Meyerbeer with a large gesture Schaufuss said more about Al­ in the loose-limbed, quick-changing-di­ chunk from Le Prophete, was grudgingly brecht and his tragedy than could a dozen rection style of contemporary American conducted by George Crumb and just as performances. But his Patineurs was dance. The last piece of their program, grudgingly played by the curmudgeons in routine. Perhaps everyone will feel more in R, was crammed full of crazily jux­ the pit: no sparkle, no wit - certainly no the mood for these skaters in Februarv tapositioned images. Oversize alphabet pulse for dancing. In fairness, a tiny bit when the snow whistles around th~ blocks are piled atop a stepladder as a anyway, the band, with another new ballet O'Keefe. sound collage is interspersed with baroque on the programme and a major revival, Elite Syncopations, the other new pro­ music. Some dancers move in slow motion may have had insufficient rehearsal. But is duction, was an entirely different matter. unison while others somersault and a tap Constant Lambert's arrangement of The moment the curtain rose to reveal the dancer clicks away in the background until Meyerbeer's music all that difficult? dancers lounging about the stage in some finally, just as one's overloaded senses cry From the band to the dancers: they kind of seedy jazz spot - the musicians out for an ending or at least an editor, it looked rushed, nervous. The corps espe­ behind, John Goss at the piano-one could ends with Sara Shelton being pelted with cially looked cramped in their breathless sense the audience's delight. Elite, without the blocks. search for space and anxious lest there be decor but brilliantly costumed by Ian Canadian dance companies work in a collision or, worse, a pile-up in the Spurling, gives at first the impression of the such geographic isolation that it is an wings. For some reason, the National has dancers letting down their hair. Nothing historic and rare treat to have them doubled the number of couples, from four pleases an audience more, so the crowd gathered under one roof for a festival such to eight. One hopes that in future perform­ at the O'Keefe applauded the solos, pas as this. The Toronto Dance Festival also ances the management will use a smaller de deux, and ensembles almost indis­ fulfilled an ecumenical role. It allowed number of dancers, as was first the case criminately. In all this, Vanessa Harwood everything from the staid to the anarchistic some forty years ago. Then these patineurs managed a huge success, Frank Augustyn both time and space in which to perform. and patineuses might have some space to and Karen Kain a slightly smaller one, dance in, and the audience might see the and Peter Schaufuss enjoyed himself KATHRYN BROWNELL glow on th eir faces. enormously. (Perhaps he is happier after DANCE IN CANADA 21 DANSE AU CANADA

• . The dancers' enthusiasm was infec­ new repertoire, in preparation for its The main bout of the evening was Fer­ ; and by the time the gold curtain fell, performances in Montreal over two con­ nand Nault's adaptation of the Brecht­ u knew the National had another hit on secutive weekends late last year. Weill zeitkunst work, The Seven Deadly :- hands. There had been a good feeling about Sins. Advance reports had been so negative Lest, in all the excitement, it be forgot­ the company all summer. Many dancers that it was unofficially dubbed the Eighth :~ . let me state that Elite Syncopations is who'd left a season or two ago, had re­ Deadly Sin but the wits had overstated -e of Kenneth MacMillan's minor works. joined; there were exciting new cho­ their case. -;- , ill serve well as a finale to triple bills, reographies in the works, going outside Seven Deadly Sins is a modern morality - .:.: I hope the management does not trot the circle of old stalwarts; and Colin play, the last collaboration between Kurt - out night after night. Who wants McIntyre's touch, as general manager, Weill and Berthold Brecht, a bitter con­ - that Scott Joplin anyway? had begun to be felt. Here was someone demnation of American materialism. Like Between the appetizer, so to speak, and with definite plans, one could almost say Karl May, the prolific German writer of :-e dessert came the entree, that heavy­ with a vision for Les Grands Ballets, and westerns who preceded them by a genera­ :-..:.sted tortiere, Mad Shadows. That too one cautiously began to hope that in its tion, neither Brecht nor Weill had been to been an enormous success for the 21st year, hovering on the brink of matur­ America yet when Sins premiered in I 9 3 3. ·a ·onal, though this piece is all about ity, the company was about to resolve its It is typical of the love-hate relationship ~ :ual repression, murder, attempted identity crisis and choose a viable path. German intellectuals have always had with - angulation, and God knows what else. There is no doubt that there is a recog­ America and it continues to chi dav with - ce the ballet is based on the novel by nizable intelligence at work; a man with Gunther Grass and Hans Werner H~nze. :..ari e-Claire Blais, what we see must be taste and connections. It is also true that The Brecht-Weill fable is simpliciry i·­ .1ebec before the Quiet Revolution. the company is dancing incomparably self. Two sisters, both named Anna et out at we hear are some boringly repetitive better than this time last year. But for all from Memphis to earn enough money to nds by Andre Gagnon, reorchestrated the carefully picked components: the best build a house for their family back home. , the second time since the first perfor­ costume designer in town, the best Brecht They are away for seven years and in each -ance in such a way as to dilute whatever singer in the country, they lack the raw city Anna r, the realist, sung by Pauline ion the piece ever had. Why bother? material, the stuff ballet companies are Julien, forces Anna n, danced by Sylvie _ -onetheless, the dancers take to the made or broken by: the dancers. Despite all Kina!, to surrender yet another principle. et heroically. The principals could the high hopes, the formula so far has The musical counterpoint is a quartet of - 1: be faulted for their performances. turned out to be the same mixture as males, representing the family, who egg ::C:· ·eryone is almost driven, and this says before: a ragged Balanchine; a slight, the girls on. The quartet, with Pierre -·.zch for Ann Ditchburn as a producer. whimsical piece with poor production Charbonneau singing a bass mother quite .,... e so-called mad lady inspires her col­ values and a big block buster with no outstandingly, was a highlight of this ::agues to dance full out, proving, if proof substance. production. needed, that the company desperately Passing over Serenade to the new works There have been several productions -e-ed.s dramatic works. Why doesn't the in the repertoire, Lynn Taylor's Sonata for since Balanchine's original one in Paris -arional revive Dark Elegies or Winter Cocktail Piano seemed less endearing than with Tilly Losch and Lotte Lenya; Balan­ • ·ight, because truth to tell, Mad Shadows it had been in rehearsal. Somewhere along chine himself tackled it again later, as did - rrash, pure and simple. The book does it the way it has lost its innocence and Harald Lander, Birgit Cullberg, and most so much better. intimacy and gathered a hard gloss. It's a recently, Kenneth MacMillan. The text small work, a little lost on the huge stage of gives the main stages of the journey with­ -~WRENCE HASKETT the Salle Wilfrid Pelletier, and the muddy out always tying the choreographer do , colour-scheme of the costumes did not to specifics. In Nault's version Anger. o­ altogether help to define it. The kooky of the seven deadly sins, is arou eci •;. en Les Grands Ballets third movement worked best because of its Anna joins a circus and sees the rin~ ·-:e­ Cana di ens zany clownish elements, a playful upside mistreat a horse. Other choreo ap-..e. · ace des Arts down waltz among others, but for all that, have set the scene in a theatre where. . 1ontreal it's a faceless work. That's what I felt after has been bypassed for an important rnie y _ -ovember 1978 opening night. Curiously enough, sub­ the director's girlfriend. When it comes ro sequent casts did a lot to bring it to life by scenario, the sky, or the imagination i the -es Grands Ballets Canadiens had been on recapturing the playful improvisational limit. I saw the work four times. The design - e road since mid-October, running-in quality I had remembered. elements are so strong that it wasn't until

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Terrill Maguire in which the performers passed back and forth gestures and movements. But the grid - ·. ersity Co!Tege Playhouse dissolved to a vigorous series of falls and - mo rolls which culminated in a marvellous December r 978 ending. The dancers rolled with their feet together, making a muscular wheel which 1 a touch of onomatopoeia to Terrill increased speed in rhythm to the music - ;c=e's name. Its sound suggests the Michael Byron's halting, dissonant piano ubtle flow of her dancing and chords - and then stopped when the maxi­ aphy as displayed in Selected mum speed of rotation was approaching. :e:, a December retrospective of her A strong piece, well danced by Francisco ~ ··nee 1975. Alvarez, Sonia Delwaide, Christopher - =-· U teaches dance at York University, House, Holly Small, Pierre LaChasseur, -e a fe w of the pieces were first staged. Isabelle de Pelteau, and Anita Shack. ;erformer, she is most assured in a In Marrow (1978), Terrill seemed to , arion which allows room for some draw at times on the style of Indian dance -- ··· arion. Four of the six dances and Oriental dance generally. One of her were of this nature; the others trademarks is a quick change in focus from ~ a duet with Francisco Alvarez, a large movement which involves her en­ - :e. and Tempes Fugit, performed tire body to a subtle flick or shake of an en present or former students from isolated part-head, hand, foot. In .\fa77ou, · r • dance program. she held at one point an almost votive - .1 soloist, Terrill Maguire has a com­ position, palms pressed together in from of presence. Her long limbs are her, but quickly went to a less literal pose. ~ e of impressive extensions. She gives Her program notes said 'the marrow is the - • .i: sense of fluidity in many of her core of the bone ... some say it is the • ents, seeming to send a wave of choicest part'. In fact, the theme might ;-; through an almost boneless body. throughout in dim blue light; we barely see have been the paradox of the body's . e is obvious strength and control in her slow transitions from a foetal position construction, in which soft-cored bone cing, ye t seldom any overt display to a single travel across the floor. supports soft flesh ; or of the dancer's . Everything is subordinated to her In fact, we barely saw the beginnings of a consciousness, where the most vague im­ · grace. number of the evening's program. Terrill pressions and ideas are transformed into ..:e;: concentration seems somewhat re­ seems, logically enough, to show the initia­ discrete physical events . ._ as if it went over the audience rather tion of a piece as rising out of the contact Eclzpse, by contrast, occasionally sug­ - :o it. Few of the tactics of avant-garde between dancer and floor, but the poor gested the stylizations of flamenco. At - ::e artists - direct encounters with the design of the bleachers at the University first, Terrill was concealed behind Fran­ - e ce or studies of the acoustics of flesh College Playhouse in Toronto made any­ cisco Alvarez. She appeared slowly at his - _ hard surfaces - appear to have in- thing at floor-level obscure. side, and they faced each other, stamp­ • -ced her. She makes little use of her First on the evening's card was Run ing, arms flung back and up. At the end ad voice, and nearly always performs Ragged, a 1976 work performed to James Francisco was eclipsed into the wings as _ -~er live or recorded music. Interaction Tenney's music. In clown-like suspendered Terrill remained on stage. -- ·1 deo, large-scale props or outrageous pants, Terrill began to circle the stage, and The final dance was titled Kali, after _mes did not appear in any of the six increased velocity throughout the piece the Hindu goddess who is the force o • without ever reaching the absolute exhaus­ simultaneous creation and desrrucrion. --:er onception of the role of the dancer tion suggested by the title. Sea . Changes Terrill remained vertical, spinning, and a.­ ·-.is conservative. What Terrill has to followed. It really did evoke an underwater ternatively embracing the space around er • • 1 simply dance, of a rather austere environment, in which Terrill seemed a and negating it. She reacted to Gordon - .: :, · en mystical quality. The only con- protean form gradually evolving while Phillips' music in an implicit manner, - on her· work might have with recent exploring the ocean's flo or. incorporating its rhythms in her dance -:: • 1mental trends is an occasional The group piece, Tempes Fugit, was without particularly stressing them. - :nalist attention to a single movement developed between 1975 and 1977. It had In Sea Changes she is bathed suggestions of a grid piece in the opening, JOHN OUGHTON

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The Joffrey Ballet typical 'greaser' that appears in so many Lucinda Childs City Center 5 5th Street Theater satirical ballets of the period and which Universite de Montreal reflects the general British awe and horror New York of the Mediterraneans. Bonnie Wycoff le 7 decembre 1978 October 1978 doesn't convey the sternness of Webster, the maid to the bride and task-mistress to Danser peut etre lyrique, dramatique, hu­ City Center has a fresh coat of paint and a the peasants. De Valois created the role moristique, tragique, acrobatique, geome­ new curtain, and the Jaffrey Ballet has and would be a hard act for anyone to trique, esthetisant, et cetera, mais c'est another Ashton masterpiece in its reper­ follow. Beatriz Rodriguez is downright avant tout rythmique et une danseuse tory. The Jaffrey seems to be the only catatonic in her portrayal of the demented newyorkaise est venue nous le rappeler company dedicated to restoring pieces Julia: I rather expect that Fonteyn and eloquemment le 7 decembre dernier a from other eras. The American ballets - Shearer were less clinical in their handling Montreal: Lucinda Childs. Rodeo, Interplay, Cakewalk - present of her betrayal. Invitee par le Musee des Beaux-Arts et le fewer problems in restorations because Lisa Slagle shows us with wit what departement d'histoire de !'art de l'Univer­ the dancers are closer to the modes they Ashton does when he has people portray­ site de Montreal, Lucinda Childs est venue offer. With the Ashton works, few Ameri­ ing animals. Her Pepe, Julia's Mexican seule, accompagnee du musicien George can companies can relax and surrender terrier, is as sassy and jittery as the hens in Andoniadis a l'orgue electrique. naturally to the stylistic requirements. La Fi/le ma/ gardee. To let us know that Elle a presente clans l'ancien gymnase du When Sadler's Wells Ballet made its first she's really a girl, he puts Pepe in a short pavilion Mont-Royal de l'u de M, trois American tour I was an impoverished tutu for the finale, and we are aware of the choregraphies d'un meme cycle basees sur student who chose my first full-length pun: a woman playing a Chihuahua in !'exploration de la diagonale - Plaza ecrit Sleeping Beauty with Violetta Elvin over drag. Similarly attired and ready for action en I977, Katema en I978 et Work in a mixed program featuring Ashton's A (with the embellishment of a saucy garter Progress with Philip Glass, oeuvre encore Wedding Bouquet. Over the years I've on her thigh) is Lynn Glauber as inachevee qui sera presentee en totalite a treasured an eight-minute excerpt from its the bride. Before this, the guests have l'automne I979 a New York avec le con­ score, in which the nasal voices of an disported with varying degrees of dignity, cours de !'artiste Sol Lewitt. English operetta chorus enunciate with and the gorgeously appointed Josephine Lucinda Childs travaille seule clans une fai ry lightness and clarity Gertrude Stein's (Jan Hanniford) drinks entirely too much sorte d'ascese de la forme et du contenu qui dotty words over the strains of an insin­ champagne and is requested to leave. en elle-meme est assez fascinante. Elle se uating, voluptuous tango. The expected The piece seems a bit sharp but may presente clans un maillot et un pantalon silliness of a Ronald Searle cartoon or a mellow as its subtleties become clearer to blancs, chaussee d'espadrilles qu'elle Hoffnung concert is ab~ent in the Joffrey the dancers. City Center audiences, who change au cours de la soiree selon !es revival, but it's full of fun and delightful love the home team, seemed puzzled by this oeuvres presentees. Grande et severe avec surprises. The oval cut-out of a lakeside sophisticated trinket from the past. son petit chignon serre a la nuque et son village is a sepia monotone, and the vivid regard ardent, elle arbore des allures tres colours I expected came out in the bright LELAND WINDREICH 'professionnelles'; tout clans sa tenue re­ cerise and canary gowns of the lady guests spire le controle, la maitrise de soi, la clarte at this nuptial celebration in provincial du propos. II faut dire que Lucinda Childs France. n'est pas nee d'hier. Diplomee en danse du Anthony Dowell narrates the text (the Sarah Lawrence College en 1962 elle danse mixed chorus was abandoned after the et choregraphie depuis ce temps (dont six war) and his presence is smashing as he annees avec le Judson Dance Theatre de expectorates each syllable like an olive pit. N ew York). Avec le presentation au Met­ Elegantly attired, with slicked-down hair, ropolitan de !'opera Einstein on the Beach he guzzles champagne from an iced bottle dont elle a signe la choregraphie en r 976 et at stage right and comments in chant on the interpretait le role principal, Lucinda antics of the guests. Childs a commence a explorer la diago­ Gary Chryst, as t.1e groom, who has in nale comme cadre spatial a ses phrases the recent past made love to most of the rythmiques. lady guests, has a marvellous command of Childs determine la diagonale choisie en the character that Ashton etched - the projetant sur le sol au moyen de deux

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rythmiques repetees inlassablement selon Eurythmeum Stuttgart des variantes infinies. Queen Elizabeth Theatre Dans la derniere piece qui prolonge !es deux premieres, Lucinda Childs est Vancouver accompagnee d'Andoniadis a l'orgue et October 1978 presente des variantes plus longues et plus complexes mais toujours avec cette pre­ When I asked David Randolph, tour man­ cision absolue qui est !'unique fac;:on de ager for the Eurythmeum Stuttgart, why degager un rythme clair et identifiable de Else Klink, the artistic director, did not cette cybernetique. La musique de Glass include any humorous pieces in the first toute en petites cascades de notes cou­ half of the programme, he replied: 'She just lant sous les doigts du musicien a une ca­ won't compromise'. That artistic integrity dence prodigieuse ti:ouve un echo clans which placed such a demand and a chal­ la choregraphie de Lucinda Childs qui lenge on those of us who attended the n'arrete pas de 'bouger' pendant pres Eurythmeum performances suggests a very d'une demi-heure! Le tonus requis pour ce high artistic aim. It is towards an under­ faire est proprement exceptionnel et la dan­ standing of that aim that these notes move. seuse ne laisse jamais percevoir la moindre defaillance. In eurythmy we are not dealing with body Cette recherche rythmique, malgre movement. It is a kind of breathing toute sa rigueur et sa froideur de 'sciences through the soul. The body is only an pures' presente neanmoins quelque chose instrument for the soul. de quasi enfantin et de nostalgique en raison de l'acharnement de la demarche, la For the record: The Eurythmeum Stutt­ repetition et l'insistance du mouvement. gart's first North American tour included, L'effet produit sur le public est tres inte­ in order, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, ressant: hypnotise litteralement par le jet Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal, to­ de lumiere et la silhouette mouvante qui gether with about a dozen u.s. cities. The s'en detache, le spectateur participe irre­ advance representative, Alice Stamm, sistiblement a l'energie rayonnant de la spoke not only with the media but to danseuse et ressort de la soiree avec un groups at the Waldorf schools in Toronto enthousiasme peu commun. and Vancouver, part of a varied promo­ nes de projecteurs une aire de lumiere Avec le passage a Montreal depuis deux tional campaign aimed at attracting as ::i:erieur de laquelle elle se deplacera. ans de Trisha Brown et Simone Forti, !es much interest as possible for the . ..:.za est une recherche sur un rythme a amateurs - venus tres nombreux au spec­ Eurythmeum's important visit. - · remps et une diagonale nord-sud; tacle de Lucinda Childs, compte tenu de In Vancouver, apart from the fo rmal - ma par contre est elabore sur une la nature de l'evenement-commencent un appearances, there was a special children's • =-onale est-ouest et un rythme plus long. peu a 'tater' de !'avant-garde en danse show, a morning workshop at the Teacher ,-k in Progress .. . utilise enfin les deux contemporaine grace a ces merveilleux Centre and a demonstration by Else Klink s:onales croisees et un rythme beaucoup danseurs qui n'hesitent pas a rencontrer le and company members at UBC. - _- ;ong et complexe. public pour discuter de leurs concepts et Sarah Burton was the main speaker for -.··ec le martelement de ses chaussures techniques au cours d'ateliers. Maintenant the performances, reading short poem __ le parquet mais surtout ses mouve­ que le mouvement est bien amorce clans la and extracts from longer works. After r e precis qui ont la rigueur du pendule metropole par des animateurs eveilles et first evening performance she told me tha1 du metronome, Lucinda Childs nous creatifs, ii ne faudrait surtout pas qu'il for Else Klink's solo, Robert Frost's T e :·aine clans une aventure rythmique s'eteigne. II est bien agreable quand New Road Not Taken, she had to \·arY e · '.ucinante. Ses balancements des bras, York vient a nous ... le mouvement a ete rhythm from lyric to epic 'becau e ai: er rerours continus a un meme point trop longtemps en sens inverse! movements are epic'. • depart, ses petits tours et pivots sur The reactions to the visit varied consid­ .-rneme, ses sautillements, et cetera, ANGELE DAGENAIS erably from the ro percent who walked -- groupes en sequences ou phrases out at intermission to the dancer who said

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she enjoyed the pure flow of the movement. Today that word has been supplanted by through transparent paper. By moving one My own reactions were mixed. The 'industry' and 'technology'. Could it be gesture to the next, the flow of movement Schubert Unfinished, which started the that the machine has eliminated this service in the gestures is continued into a whole ­ first evening performance proved most element? eurythmy, or visible speech and visible convincing and satisfying - more of a So it is through our hands and arms that music. gesamtkunstwerk than anything else I have we relate to and serve others. In that sense This shows that Steiner took an objec­ experienced. The classical, completely eurythmy is a celebration of the hands, an tive approach to movement. Some idea of geometrical T,I,A,O,A,I,T was less acces­ emphasis of our relationship to all other this may be obtained by looking at Theo­ sible as was the Steiner verse 'The weaving people. dore Schwank's book Sensitive Chaos, essence of the Light rays forth'. I also felt where he has photographs of columns of satisfied by Thornton Wilder's Hast Thou To enter into a real understanding of smoke in vacuum tubes. When sounds are Considered My Servant Job? Here, a eurythmy we must go beyond sense made near the tubes the smoke columns triune, calm Christ in pale pink confronts perception. We must experience a assume shapes specific to the sound. a triune, fidgety Devil in black, as I2 performance with the soul. Of course, in creating a eurythmy per­ eurythmists, representing the zodiac, formance words and music are not 'spelled weave inexorably around them. What were the other main approaches out' literally. The eurythmist may choose Many people were probably also put off to movement in the early years of the to emphasize vowels or consonants, or the by the gentle humour of the second half. century when Rudolf Steiner first provided mood or rhythm of a poem or a piece of The fare we are served on the idiot box the basic gestures of eurythmy, in 1912? music, although the elements are all taken together with the general violence of our Dalcroze, Laban, Delsarte. into account. The end result is the flow of society make such gentleness seem mild Jacques Dalcroze, a professor at the movement and colour which is built up indeed. And with confused ideas of what Geneva Conservatory, considered that the into whole poems and even such a work as Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan must have musical preparation of his students was , Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. looked like, the 'flapping hands' and float­ inadequate. So he devised a series of The flowing costumes and veils are used ing veils appeared too 'old fashioned'. Add movement exercises, based on the elements not only to add colour but to emphasize the to this a religious, a spiritual 'content' of music, which five-year-old children movement by prolonging it. which the company dared to present on the should be taught so that they would have a contemporary stage and it is no wonder good basis for musicianship when they Eurythmy is not perfect yet. that many audience members, dancers in­ started lessons at seven. He called these It is still a very young art. cluded, reacted as strongly as they did. exercises 'eurythmics' and they still have I could sympathize with these attitudes: some influence in music teaching but little Although eurythmy has found applica­ I prefer doing eurythmy to watching it. in dance. So Dalcroze started and ended in tion in Waldorf schools and in curative Somehow I feel that eurythmy as a stage art music and never thought of his exercises as homes and clinics, Steiner insisted that it has not yet reached its 'form'. a performed art. can develop only as an art for the stage. So Rudolf von Laban's approach was to it must be judged as an art. But today such Eurythmy is something between ballet make a thorough analysis of the elements a judgement is the most difficult to make. and mime. of movement. From this he built up a Even though we are heirs to cubism, dada method of notation for movement which is and surrealism we still seem to demand Many observers were puzzled by the used successfully in dance, but it was Mary some kind of re-presentation judged by the concentration of movement in the hands Wigman who developed the stage art. old classical standards of Beauty, Good­ and arms. Why are they given this impor­ Frarn;:ois Delsarte constructed a science ness and Truth, or the old Romantic ca­ tance? If we watch an animal, one descrip­ of gesture, as it relates to the whole gamut nons of individual and social relevance. In tion of it might be something like this: the of human emotion, from detailed observa­ eurythmy we experience a presentation, animal is mainly a trunk with four limbs tion of human beings. But again, Delsarte not a representation; so all the old intellec­ and a mouth at one end. The limbs move thought of his work only as a theoretical tual and emotional baggage has to be the trunk and mouth around so that the basis for speakers and actors. abandoned at the door. mouth can feed. It seems the prone position And what was Steiner's approach to To experience this new art in its still locks the animal into that pattern. movement? He started with sounds, those developing stages makes great demands Now suppose the animal becomes up­ of speech and music, and asked, 'What are upon us, especially upon our imaginative right, as with the human being. Im­ the gestures of these sounds?' Now we faculties. Perhaps Delsarte was near the mediately we see that two of the limbs are must be mindful of Else Klink's warning mark when he said, 'Art and Prayer so fr_eed from the pattern of a feeding body. to go beyond sense perception if we are to confound themselves in one ineffable unity These limbs can be used for other things, come to grips with eurythmy. So by using that I cannot separate the two things'. which can relate· the animal to the wider 'supersensible perception', as he called it, world.Thi~ realization was the basis of Rudolf Steiner discovered the gestures ap­ JACQUES GOLDMAN industry and technology which, originally propriate to each sound in speech and termed 'manufactures', (i.e., hand-made), music. These he then made visible through The statements in bold print are all by Else allowed us to serve other human beings. body gestures, almost like tracing a map Klink.

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e Royal Winnipeg Ballet financial crises- all is carefully unravelled. Next, Wyman devotes a shorter section e First Forty Years to the company itself, including the Board yman of Directors. Naturally enough, one of the ·o:Doubleday most telling chapters in this section is devoted to Arnold Spohr, the lanky Saskatchewan-born eccentric who, from yman, music and dance critic of 19 5 8, has steered the company through ~ .couver Sun describes his book as, depression to triumph. The portrait is . =:ectionate exercise in curiosity'. The perceptive and sympathetic . ;;e of adjective is apt: in Max Wyman, Last, and perhaps least effectively, oyal Winnipeg Ballet has found the Wyman discusses the choreography. If you · chronicler. The enthusiastic, vivid, study the list of ballets performed by the ·: breathless way in which Wyman Royal Winnipeg Ballet, usefully appen­ • : about the Royal Winnipegers ad­ dicized in this book, it is astonishing to find --~ · reflects the character of the com- that of 13 7 ballets, excluding classical pops - elf. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is and pas de deux, 103, or 7 5 percent, have the same kind of excitement and been original works. That, in any com­ 5 _.- .:hat makes Wyman's book so much Max Wyman pany's annals is impressive. As Wyman - : read. admits, not all these have been great bal­ . in the best sense of a somewhat Although Max Wyman only gives a lets, but they have helped to maintain an ·e word, journalistic, in its concern to general indication of the sources he has artistic freshness and vitality within the engrossing and to cover all the used for this narrative, it is clear he has company. :- .rant .bases. Wyman has tackled the been tireless in sorting out a great deal of If Max Wyman's account is 'affection­ em of organizing his material by complicated history. No doubt there are ate' it is certainly not clouded by a star­ ~ ng the book into three major sec- still a few loose ends, but anyone corning struck vision. The tone is positive but - -. each sub-divided into chapters. after him will have an easier task as a result incisive. There is no papering over cracks. ': ;:st, there is a colourful history of the of his researches. For example, at last, after It is simply that Wyman sees no need to -;,any from the days when it was little more than 20 years, we have a clear gloat at the cracks: rnalignance does not ·:= han an amateur club putting on analysis of what really happened during have to be the congenital disease of the .2sional performances to its present the turbulent period following the destruc­ critic. on as a significant international con­ tive fire of 1954. The conflict of strong ;:,orary ballet company. personalities, the flurry of resignations and KEVIN SINGEN

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should have been a dancer in the first place. Slow Dancing Furthermore, if she dances in the per­ in the Big City formance she is painfully rehearsing for Directed by John G. Avildsen she may lose her ability to walk, let alone dance, again. If this isn't enough tragedy: parallel to Sara's dilemma, Lou is involved with a young heroin-addicted Puerto Rican punk who he thinks has the musical talent to be DANSKIN & CAPEZIO the next Gene Krupa. All of which goes to bodyweor &a

·before the princess all the earthly riches PROVINCE ______that slop from the untethered loins of New James Orr is a Canadian film director and POST AL COD•~ ___P hont ______York. Sara is attentive but she is more writer. Proceeds from the sale of these books wi ll assist interested in her own loins, for, you see, her THE NATIONAL BALLET OF CANAD~. muscle structure is such that she never JAMES ORR DANCE IN CANADA 29 DAN SE AU CANADA

ational Ballet Ballet - she was that good. She does not James Kudelka's A Party). To her credit, go back to the thirties and forties when Miss Franca does mention many of the ada: Gwen Osborne, in Ottawa, was producing honorable failures in the fifties and sixties; ebration dancers such as Nesta Toumine, (of the it was not for want of trying, she says, that Ballet Russe), Norah White and Patricia we did not get Canadian ballets. But she :iotographs by ... ]J Wilde (later to become one of the does not give any coherent explanation bf most formidable technicians the New York why it took her so long to go shopping for City Ballet ever had). ballets by George Balanchine and Jerome She does not tell us that the reason the Robbins, who were next door. Instead, she Toronto company was founded in 19 51 went harking back to Britain and imported - :o: University of Toronto Press was that Toronto socialites could not some already out-dated works. bear the thought that a prairie city like Finally, she could not resist telling an Winnipeg had had a ballet company since interviewer at the time of the book's publi­ , .; ~ional Ballet of Canada: A Celebra­ 1938. But she does enliven her bland text cation, 'I still think the compan·y has the .1 handsome book, one you should by telling us that Lady Tupper, backer of cleanest line in the world'. Well, yes, .,.,....- ,,,-,·1,_· have in your library. It is not a the Winnipeg Ballet, called the Franca perhaps, though this judgment might more ·:e history of the company nor an company 'Toronto upstarts'. gracefully have been left for an outsider to aphy of Celia Franca, though the Her discretion makes the book tantaliz­ utter. But I know a critic who was puzzled gives us snippets of both. ing. Perhaps she is saving the best stories by what that 'clean line' reminded her of; - course, a major attraction of the for her next book (there are conflicting she finally remembered that it was exactly the collection of 300 photographs, reports as to whether there is to be a next the way the Sadler's Wells corps looked in · n by Ken Bell, spanning the years one), or until some of the people concerned the late forties. New York critics too have -· e co mpany's inception in 1951. are safely dead. begun to hint that the National's dancers ..:gh the quality of reproduction is We think she is beginning to be open lack some of the plasticity and fluidity -,nent and some of the captioning when she reveals the secret (scandal, some which other companies boast as a result of - .: or obscure, it does provide an called it) that the Nureyev production of working with a wide variety of the new · -:cally valuable visual record. The Sleeping Beauty was outrageously breed of classical-modern choreographers. .:or the text, what it chiefly lacks is expensive ($400,000) . But she defends it, Indeed, this is a provocative book. It sets _ ~nderpinnings and a brave look into because the company got a lot of mileage you to wondering in what state Miss . re. What we are given is a discreetly from this production; perhaps it was worth Franca left the company, and where it has - .:. version of the hardships, the fights the cost. been heading since. ·ew of these) and the successes and But then one immediately thinks of - of the years of Franca's reign. Kraanerg, the disastrous Roland Petit LAURETTA THISTLE ··ou want to categorize, it belongs ballet that opened the National Arts a e Two of books about ballet in Centre in 1969. It had a commissioned - .:a. Phase One consisted of books score, commissioned decor, commissioned -_e ,- devoted to text - Herbert Whit- choreography, and imported male star, all laudatory history of the National from Europe, and she does not even hint at JUDY JARVIS e: vas a good example; the book (in the cost. (Perhaps it is not her secret to tell; about Les Grands Ballets Cana­ perhaps it is locked in the fortress called the -- was another. Phase Two reflects our NAC.) But neither does she tell us how INTENSIVE SUMMER COURSE -hers' view that what we need is lots quickly it was dropped from the repertory. DAILY CLASSES, MON. - SAT. ~ rure books about ballet, with a She implies she had to wait until it had been - um of text. This Bell-Franca book is taken to England, at great expense, and Modern Dance Technique _ ·cellent example. had been roundly panned by the British Composition, Choreography .:- we have already moved into Phase critics, before she realized what a dud it -_ . with Mal{ Wyman's history of the was. Canadian critics had been saying the Improvisation, Dance Pedagogy o years of The Royal Winnipeg same thing for months. e-r. This has some errors, but it sets the She is strangely selective about choosing 3 WEEKS ound, speaks frankly about disas­ among the many amusing anecdotes avail­ -- .1nd di sagreements,· as well as succes- able. Thus, she relates a good story about 6 JUNE to 26 JUNE /79 • ~ rakes a stab at distancing, and offers the architecture of the Lord Beaverbrook 1 assessment. Theatre at the University of New For more information, registration e solid underpinnings department, Brunswick. But she omits what was to - - ;:a rill basically takes the attitude that many of us one of the funni est things we TELEPHONE (416) 368-3729 ·as invited to Darkest Canada, found ever saw on stage. WRITE - Suite 301 - et here, and established a company, It was during a National Ballet perfor­ 100 Richmond St. East - t enormous hardships. She does have mance of Romeo and Juliet at the NAC Toronto, Ont. MSC 2P9 . ::cace to tell us that Ernie Rawley, opening festival. In the ballroom scene, a -er manager of the Royal Alexandra section of the orchestra pit, complete with -~ earre in Toronto, _used to invite her into conductor and some players, rose to the ■ ■ ■ ■ SEE ■ ■ ■ ■ · ce and lecture her on the old days, level of the stage and stuck there. After • :n Canada had many visiting ballet some time, it sank again, ignominiously Judy Jarvis Dance Co. -;canies, such as the Ballet Russe, and and mysteriously, with one player gallantly e~ Theatre. waving a handkerchief tied to the end of his Spring Performances _ -e does mention ballet festivals, too, bow. • -e he got dancers fo r her fledgling Over the years the National was casti­ May 23-26, 8:30 p.m . -pany. But she gives no hint that Lynn gated by critics for not developing native HART HOUSE THEATRE our, discovered at a ballet festival in choreographers (this was before the days Toronto 0 ,va went almost directly to the Royal of Ann Ditchburn'~ Mad Shadows, and DANCE IN CANADA 30

To Dance In most cases the warning was heeded, Valeri Panov with George Feifer though not necessarily as the KGB had en­ Mississauga: Random House (Knopf) visaged it. Nureyev (a year ahead of Panov at the Academy) took the trouble to estab­ 1978 lish what Panov's 'sin' had been before he made his own spectacular grand jete to George Feifer is a London-based So­ freedom. Makarova and Baryshnikov were vietologist who gained overnight fame cautious bystanders. Yuri Soloviev com­ in dance circles when he published an in­ mitted suicide, 'an internal defection which terview with Plisetskaya. During the single could be added to the list of those who moment when her KGB shadow had been escaped abroad.' out of earshot, Plisetskaya's polished sur­ Denial of access to the West - meaning face had cracked to reveal her self-disgust the fame and contraband which could be for not having taken a stand on human converted into Shangri-la living back home rights issues. It was the classical Soviet di­ - was not the ultimate frustration. The lemma of conscience versus career. Had issue which finally drove all of them over she signed the petition, she feared she the edge was the need for artistic freedom. would never be allowed abroad again. 'When nothing new is permitted, a dancer Feifer's paragraph kicked off a furious can only repeat himself, which is a form of response in the press. Critics held that cannibalism.' Feifer had played god and, in the name Panov saves his greatest scorn for Rus­ of truth, had sentenced Plisetskaya to sian ballet 'tradition' which he equates Siberian exile. Others maintained that with learning by rote rather than pushing the conspiracy of silence to protect artists for individual development. Conversely, merely played into the hands of the KGB his book is suffused by the mixture of by keeping the West ignorant of its bravado and inferiority complex which is methods. Feifer's article eventually came to characteristic of self-made men. Endowed be regarded as a landmark decision. If with non-pareil technique, he perceived to publish was to perish, more and more himself as a rough mechanic and worked SoYiet artists were willing to risk it in order like a demon to achieve the purity of the to stave off artistic death. aristocratic Kirov style. Having dazzled, he In the case of the Panovs, Feifer had no wanted to move; to wed demi-caractere to such soul searching to do. Panov sought his danseur noble. help once he was already out of the USSR. Dancers are born narcissists. It is the The result is To Dance. His rendering of very narrowness of their focus that enables Panov's tale into English has all the Feifer them to reach greatness. Panov is not hallmarks of sobriety, clarity and nuance, your natural dissident hero, the stuff of while allowing Panov's own personality Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. For years he full rein. simmered like a samovar and in the end Panov (ne Shulman) was born in Vitebsk almost blundered into his defiant stand. 40 years agb to a committed Communist He had heard that other Jews were being father who hated all Jews, including him­ allowed to emigrate so he also applied. It self. A precocious youngster, his childhood was the full brunt of official displeasure was shaped by Bilibin, Miinchhausen, which hardened his resolve. The Soviets Pushkin, Johnny Weismuller, and war­ stopped at nothing. They threw him into a time evacuation to the Urals. At the age of jail cell with amputees; the subtlety was eight his natural flair for movement and not lost on a dancer. When all else failed, early coordination had already propelled they attempted to poison him. He had a him to the top of his local dance class heart attack; Galina miscarried. In the end, and a chance encounter with the legendary bowing to unprecedented support abroad, Vaganova gained him entrance to the the Soviets ejected them, sure that their Leningrad Ballet Academy. days as dancers were over. Fortunately, He was to be a square peg in a round despite false starts, the gloating has been hole all his life. Periodically he would be proved premature. succoured by inspired teachers but with I was in Budapest the week after the their death or fall into disfavour, Panov Panovs landed in Israel and none of my would find himself out on his ear again. ballet acquaintances there had even heard Nonetheless, by the age of 21, he was good of the Panovs. That is where this book enough to be included in an American tour should, but of course won't, be published. during which he made the youthful mis­ It is immensely useful for its insider's view take of not camouflaging his enthusiasm of Russian ballet but one hopes its reader­ for an alien society. He was flown home in ship will not be restricted to the captive mid-tour. dance audience. It was to be Valeri Panov's last glimpse of the West for 15 years. Though he rose to KATI VITA stardom at the Maly, the Kirov and the Bolshoi, and despite technique so incred­ ible that certain steps were dubbed '!es pas-nov', his main function was to serve as a living reminder to other dancers that no talent was big enough to buck the system. DANCE IN CANADA 31 DANSE AU CANADA

eat Male Dancers movements yet remains synoptic enough to seriously insulted. Many pages are taken be fully intelligible and informative to the up with dutiful instructions about how the Ballet general reader. programme notes and souvenir booklets T erry Generally, the Philp and Whitney book must be read. • -:·o: Doubleday is better illustrated than Terry's book The photographs too are uninspiring, which can be faulted on other counts as some of them so tiny and obscured as to well. The writing is maddeningly sloppy, resemble bad photocopies. Still, the ap­ full of graceless constructions, inapt terms pended glossary of ballet terms is smooth w To Enjoy Ballet and syntactical convolutions. Most irritat­ and accurate and the section on 'Teachers - . k Donagh ing are the sticky little personal anecdotes and Steps' is full of useful and engaging - -ro: Doubleday about contemporary superstars, all of information. Nevertheless, as fair warning whom are referred to by their first names so to prospective buyers, this book should be that the author can imply his cosy personal subtitled, 'For Novices Only'. ·e-:er its causes may be, the boom in familiarity with them. It is the sort of thing eon this continent rolls on in full and you might expect from some palpitating CONRAD ALEXANDROWICZ _ mished swing. As an activity com­ stargazer at a party, who ·flutters and ,-n mass attention, it now ap­ whispers along after you, name-dropping .:hes both organized sport and com­ himself into a breathless fever. Perhaps, centre de danse -. 31 fil m in the breadth of its popular­ instead of repeating a literary exercise done "!1-i e surge has, quite predictably, already far more competently by others, he Jeanne Marler d its way through the publishing might usefully have directed his investiga­ presents , . bringing the production of books tion towards a more valuable topic such as · dance and dance personalities to an great ballet partnerships. There is no ques­ -·ecedented extent. Everyone who can tion that Walter Terry is a man of wide ·: ·o cash in on some of the magic that experience and knowledge. His latest in a FOCUS ON JAZZ tantalizingly about this most long line of books simply does not do him · ·ghly glamorized of the performing justice. Aug 20 - Sept 1 Don McDonagh's How To Enjoy Ballet wever, when professedly serious does at least avoid the humid self­ ::e writers align their interests with indulgence of Terry's book and attempts two weeks of classes -e of the producers of coffee-table glos- instead to provide useful information to and seminars with a workshop 3nd dispense with the obtrusions of the untutored. A history and anatomy of performance in the charming - nsible journalism, the results can be classical dance are compressed into a hand­ rass mg. ful of chapters which are, as a result, full of Quebec village of .:i.lrer Terry's Great Male Dancers of drumskin-tight definitions of conventions Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue .:illet, which appeared last November, and practices that really require more located 20 miles from Montreal aothing more than repeat, in a sort of careful consideration. From McDonagh's ering sentimental garble, all the same capsule account one would think that ~- ion undertaken a year earlier by ballet dancers were as precious and as -.:i.rd Philp and Mary Whitney in Dan­ immediately classifiable as show-dogs or Artistic Director: Peter George "!he Male in Ballet. That long overdue whooping cranes. Faculty including: Peter George ~ e was a comprehensive and discip­ The histories of those ballet companies and Real Lamb .: a count of the shifting fortunes of the McDonagh believes to be primary are - ancer in the Western cultural tradi­ excellently rendered but the few members for information write to: . The authors traced the male dancer's of this exalted group are drawn exclu­ ,ng ascendance in the court of Louis sively from America, Europe and Britain. Jeanne Marler his eclipse during the Romantic era, Predictably, Canadian ballet history is P.O.Box 36 the development of the pointe shoe ignored. Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue - ly li fted the ballerina to a complete The chapter, 'Critics and Publications' is Quebec, H9X 3L4 • . rnacy. laced with such simplistic generalizations TEL. (514) 457-2106 .;,iseur deals incisively with historical that only rank beginners will not feel

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Letters to the Edi tor

Scarborough, Ontario only as 'Firebird'. In fact, Jackson's criti­ Ottawa cism is directed not to the 'Fire bird', but to Dear Mr. Crabb, a modern, made-for-TV 'Firebird' by the Dear Sir, As the publisher of Graham Jackson's Royal Danish Ballet. As a footnote to the review of Graham book Dance as Dance, reviewed in the The anti-gay slur in the review only Jackson's Dance as Dance which ap­ Winter '78 Dance In Canada, I find it confirms the bias displayed in the rest of peared in your Winter issue, may I draw curious that you should publish so malig­ the piece. 'Perhaps Jackson needs to come your readers' attention to an unfortunate nant and wilfully inaccurate a review of to terms with himself', she sniffs - the misstatement on page 129 of this book. one of your most regular and important standard phrase stuffy matrons use about Mr. Jackson attributes to Peter Brinson the contributors , especially one whose work young gay men. responsibility for the size of Canada Coun­ has been very favourably received by dance The gist of your review seems to be: cil grants to the National Ballet School writers of the first rank, such as Deborah Jackson is young, therefore he is stupid; he and the schools of Les Grands Ballets Jowitt, Oleg Kerensky and Jack Anderson. is gay, therefore he is prejudiced; he is Canadiens and The Royal Winnipeg Ballet. A critical look at a contributor would be published, therefore he is infuriating. The Council asked Mr. Brinson to assess quite in order, and might be a refreshing The unresolved contradiction involved the quality of the teaching at these institu­ change from the usual pal-boosting. But in the presentation of this piece is obvious, tions. He was not asked to advise on the Dance in Canada's piece, signed by an and leads one to wonder what is behind it­ amount of Council grants and did not do otherwise unidentified Lyn Roewade, at­ professional jealousy perhaps? so. The responsibility for such decisions te mpts to characterize Jackson's writing as rests entirely with the Council. ,·irtuall y worthless. If this is your opinion, Sincerely, The substantial increase in the Council 's why on earth do you continue to present Ian Young grant to the National Ballet School in r 97 5 his work as a major feature of your Director was based on an analysis of the salaries magazine? If you value his writing enough Catalyst paid to the School staff in comparison to to publish so much of it, why run an those paid to similarly qualified staff at obviously biased review that deliberately The editor comments: other institutions. In the sixties and early Writers' views do not necessarily represent misrepresents the text of the book? seventies there was a rapid rise in the salary To list all the inaccuracies and faux pas those of either the editor or the Dance in scales of teachers in the Toronto public Canada Association. While every effort is of your review would take more space than school system and at post-secondary in­ I care to give this matter, but I would like at made to ensure accuracy and fairness of stitutions such as York and Ryerson. It least to draw readers' attention to a few reviews, the critical ;udgment of the writer became evident that unless the National points. remains his or her own. Mr. Jackson has Ballet School could upgrade its salaries, it Roewade accuses Jackson of 'overmuch had as much freedom to express his ideas in would lose many of its best teachers to jargon', and cites - but does not quote - this magazine as had Ms. Roewade in competitive employers. The entire increase page ro8 of his book. Page ro8 is in fact reviewing his book. As for that review, in the Council's grant was absorbed into Jackson's discussion of the ways some interpretations of its tone and implications staff salaries which make up about 70% critics abuse ballet vocabulary. Thus there are bound to vary according to the of the School's budget. Even with this standpoint and sensitivity of the reader. are many ballet terms. Roewade would increase the School has been unable to lead us to believe that this selection of other offer salaries which match those paid by writers' jargon is typical of Jackson's own other educational institutions. writing. Montague, P.E.l. Mr. Jackson tells me that his criticism Jackson makes 'an occasional daring of Mr. Brinson was based on informa­ side-trip to New York'. Now there is of Dear Dance In Canada, tion contained in a newspaper article. In course nothing daring about going to New Thank you for your magazine which I view of the unfairness of the comment, it is York and Jackson is not idiotic enough to find really informative. It is filled with regrettable that he would rely on such a suggest there is. But Roewade throws that interesting articles about everything to do source. in on her own, just to try to make Jackson with dance. look silly. Thank you again. I love it! Keep it up. Yours sincerely, Claiming that Jackson cannot write well Timothy Porteous about ballet, Roewade implies that he A dance fan, Associate Director cannot understand a work she identifies Karen Micher The Canada Council

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Ye rs who have given up hope of has received a $5,000 prize for a ballet The Alberta Ballet Company's spring ing the New York City Ballet entitled Piano Concerto from the Boston season featured the world premiere of in Canada will at least be Ballet Choreographer's Showcase. Pat­ Three-part Invention, a new ballet by -e to know that the 97-strong salas has been a member of the National Brian Macdonald set to music by Edmon­ -y will be within shooting distance Ballet for six years, and a number of his ton composer Malcolm Forsyth. -· em Ontario audiences when it works has been included in the repertory. --: · om March 28-31 at the Shea's The company's 1979/ 80 season will open Theater. A selection of works from The Eighth Annual Dance Video and Film next October with the National Ballet of -:em repertoire will be performed, Festival will be held June 2 and 3, 1979 in Canada. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet will George Balanchine's famous New York. Film and videotapes of all present The Nutcracker in December and : and his more recent Ballo della dance forms as well as dance therapy, the Houston Ballet will present Giselle and dance education, mime and experimental Coppelia in January '80. The Alberta performance art may be submitted for Ballet's own performances this fall will Centenary of Rudolf Laban's birth pre-screening. The deadline for application feature new choreography by the Artistic celebrated in July 1979 with an is March r. Films and tapes must be Director, Brydon Paige. rional Symposium to be held at the submitted by April I 5. Contact: Dance - Centre, London, England. The Films Association, Inc., 250 West 57th -mm will provide an opportunity to Street, New York, N.Y. 10019. SASKATCHEWAN Laban's work, its history, present Western Canada has a new dance organi­ ~ • ons and future developments and .:: ' e an exciting and stimulating BRITISH COLUMBIA zation- Prairie Dance Lab. While members - nee for everyone interested in of the newly formed Regina group do give movement. Send enquiries to the The Vancouver Ballet Society have, dance performances, the main focus of - Centre for Movement and Dance, perhaps, found a solution to the shortage their programme is to offer an educational of male dancers. They are offering free _ irv of London, Goldsmiths Col- and community service. They give courses, . · Cross, London SE14 6Nw, ballet classes to interested young men . workshops and demonstrations in schools,. Former Principal of the China Ballet of universities and colleges, Regina City Peking, Mr. Chiat Goh, has been engaged Parks and Recreation and other social to teach these classes at the Scottish service organizations. - , ·er to the prestigious International Auditorium, 12th Avenue and Fir Street, - Conference in Varna, the first Vancouver, Wednesdays at 8 p.m. can-sponsored ballet competition David Adams will be conducting the MANITOBA - ·e place in Jackson, Mississippi, Vancouver Ballet Society's 1979 Ballet · • - 23 , 1979. In conjunction with the Contemporary Dancers premiered another Seminar from March 22 to April r. - .rion will be a dance film festival, Judith Lander/Lynne Taylor collaboration ~ dance exhibit, international dance Better Bodyworks Dance Theatre is a in their January season at Winnipeg' . · ecture demonstrations, and dance newly formed Vancouver dance group Playhouse Theatre. The new work Diary. - • ops. presenting jazz, contemporary and is the story of Lander's childhood 1 improvisational dance. Director Valerie Winnipeg and is dedicated to Winnipeg Savanah, and seven young women gave teacher Sara Udow. their first concert in early December. During March the company will be touring the United States. Included on their itinerary are performances in North and ALBERTA South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin. Year-round programming for The Banff A specially commissioned work by Centre School of Fine Arts has been ap­ Judith Marcuse will be premiered in their proved in principle by the Alberta govern­ spring season in Winnipeg, April 12 - 14 . ment. The transition·to a year-round con­ Former company member Stephanie servatory is expected to take five years. In Ballard has been appointed Director of the addition to the existing year-round Visual Apprentice Programme of Contemporary Arts programme, there will be extensive Dancers. programmes in Music, Theatre, Dance, Opera, Design and Electronic Media. Ad­ Sundance is a new modern dance theatre mission is to be based on talent. The dance company in Winnipeg that is bound to programme is envisioned as an intensive enliven the Manitoba dance community two-year programme for 20 exceptional with its concerts, classes and presentations dance-artists (ro in each year) with the in schools and community centres. Found­ potential to be creative leaders in dance. ers of the new company are Odette Heyn, History of Dance, Notation, Musicality, Sybrig Dokter, Joanne Tokaryk and Choreography, Technical Theatre and musician/ composer Fred Penner. Their atin Patsalas, soloist and choreog­ Visual Media would all be integrated into dance/ theatre presentations combine nar­ of the National Ballet of Canada, this advanced performance programme. rative, song, music and movement. Two DANCE IN CANA DA 34 DAN SE AU CANADA

works in their repertory, Blunder and Lisa Lang, Chairman of the Canada Council, and the Owl are based on fairytales and Bella Lewitsky, Artistic Director of the assume audience participation. Bella Lewitsky Dance Company, of Cali­ fornia and Lukas Fosse, composer and musician. ONTARIO The initial response to the call for Yves Cousineau has been appointed the papers, teachers, speakers and performers new chairman of the York University has been enthusiastic and it is expected Department of Dance. Professor Cousi­ that more than 700 delegates will take part neau was a member of the National Ballet in a conference which may well come to be of Canada for 19 years and is well­ recognised as a crucial turning point in the remembered as a principal character history of Canadian dance. dancer for the company. He joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at York in 1970 On February 28, a fund-raising gala was teaching in both the dance and theatre held in the opera house of the National departments and has also taught at the Arts Centre, Ottawa, for the proposed National Ballet School and at Quebec Ete Capital Ballet of Canada. Carlos Arduh Danse. In 1972 he assumed a full-time and his wife Beatriz Mora, both formerly position in the Dance Department. He of the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, have succeeds Professor Grant Strate who plans for a company that will present founded the department and was, for six full-length ballet classics. Arduh and Mora years, its chairman. have been in Ottawa since May last year and have already established a ballet school. They hope to liegin work with a For the third consecutive year, the Univer­ troupe of 14-20 dancers and an operations sity of Ottawa has hosted a free dance budget of $200,000. series in the University Centre aimed at Danny Grossman, winner of the 1978 bringing a diverse selection of Canadian Chalmers Award for Choreography, has During October Missing Associates (Peter solo artists and companies to the commun­ moved his young company into its Dudar and Lily Eng) presented perfor­ ity. Participating in the series this year were own studios at 507 King Street East. The mances, film and video showings in Italy, Pointepienu, Fulcrum; Muna Tseng, Ter­ company performed at the National Yugoslavia, Austria, Belgium and Great rill Maguire, Judith Marcuse, Chatouile, Arts Centre in Ottawa in January and Britain. This is the third European tour Chocolat et Bezom, Lise et Gilles Paquin. in February they visited Hamilton, since their formation in 1972. The series will finish with Mime Omnibus St. Catharines, Guelph, London and· of Montreal, March 13 and Menaka Waterloo. Toronto modern dance company, Rinmon Thakkar of Toronto, April 13. have provided an unusual diversion for Elizabeth Chitty, the Toronto-based shoppers at the Eaton Centre. Late in dancer-choreographer will be in residence January they gave a series of dance per­ Ann Ditchburn's ballet Mad Shadows was at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary formances and classes at the Centre. made into a film this January by the CBC. from March 12 to 17 and then, for a March 1-3 the company will participate in The one-hour film, produced by Don month, at Western Front in Vancouver. Eaton's 'Uncrate the Sun' promotion. Richards and directed by Eric Till, will be aired on CBC-TV's Musicamera Series in the In January and February Ballet Y s hosted a fall of 1979. Choreographer Paula Ravitz and dancers Denise Fujiwara and Joe Bietola embarked 'Song 'N' Dance Series' featuring perfor­ on a small tour this winter with musicians mances by Ballet Ys dancers, Daisy Debolt A dance concert will be held March 8-10 Paul Hodge and Tina Pierson. In February and Mendelson Joe, Pointepienu modern in Burton Auditorium, York University. the group performed at Peter Robinson dance company from Montreal, Marie­ Choreography by students and faculty of College, Trent University in Peterborough, Lynn Hammond with Jack Grunsky, An­ the Dance Department will be performed. and in the Art Gallery of Ontario dance drew Harwood of Fulcrum Contact Im­ series. They will visit Kingston, March 1, provisation and Dance Plus Four. The Y.M.H.A. Programme in Dance is pre­ give a workshop and performance March 2 Late in the fall Toronto dancer and senting a Sunday Concert Series this year in and 3 at the Musee des beaux arts, choreographer Susan Cash presented a full the Studio of the Leah Posluns Theatre. The Montreal, and March 4 they will perform evening of her own work at 15 Dance Lab. series began with The Toronto Dance at the SAW gallery, Ottawa. The various dance and music talents of 11 Theatre, January 28 and Dancemakers, performers were featured in Susan's first February 4. The Ottawa Dance Theatre The 7th National Dance in Canada concert since her graduation from York's will appear on April 1; Ace Buddies will be Conference, to be held at the University of Dance Department last spring. in residence at the Studio April 23 - 29, Waterloo from June 27 to July 2, is well giving workshops and school performances underway. This will be the last dance Elaine Bowman, former principal dancer through the week and evening perform­ conference of the seventies and therefore with the now-defunct Marchowsky Dance ances April 23 - 29. On May 6 the looks towards the future. 'The Future' will be the main focus of conference sessions Theatre Company, currently teaching Judy Jarvis Dance and Theatre Company Graham technique for the Toronto Dance will perform. which will examine the following topics: Dance/Creative Thought and Expression; Co-op, is co-ordinating the dance division Dance/Physical; Dance/The Arts; Dance/ of Curtain Call, a festival promoting Theatre in Motion is a new mime company Our Role in Society. Speakers, teachers women in the performing arts in Canada, founded by Naomi Tyrrell, formerly of the and panelists noted for their progressive February 23-25. Paul Gaulin Mime Company. Working and innovative ideas will address them­ with her on the company's first show-Birth selves to these areas. Studio 10 Summerhill Ballet is a new dance of a Motion-are Scott Smith, Brenda Carr group in Toronto directed by Teresa Kow­ and Pete Muir. Confirmed key-note speakers are Gertrude all, former dancer with the Harbinger DANCE IN CANADA 35 DANSE AU CANADA

~e Company of Detroit. In late February 20-25 the company was in the museum will be held the first week of ember Kowall, in collaboration with Paris to perform Three Pieces Taken From March. dra Langham and Joseph Starr, a Children's Program and Peter and the _ a oncert of original dance, mime and Wolf at Le Theatre du Jardin. This first Le Groupe Nouvelle Aire, now in their :re works at 15 Dance Lab. overseas appearance of Entre-Six is part of tenth season, presented new works Feb­ the International Festival of the Year of the ruary 23-25 at the Theatre Centaur 2. The 3llll Balay, editor of Performing Arts Child. programme included Fil d'images by Mar­ ..;11ada has announced the appointment From February 27 to April 7 the com­ tine Epoque and Reve 1 by Paul-Andre Graham Jackson as dance editor. Mr. pany will tour Quebec and New Bruns­ Fortier. - --on is a well-known Toronto dance wick. Plans are in the making for a tour - author (Dance as Dance being his to Paris, London and Germany in the : recent work) and frequent con­ spring of 1980. NOVA SCOTIA :or to this magazine, Onion arid sev­ other publications. The Halifax modern dance company Sekai Guest teachers at Quebec Ete Danse this and Company gave a performance on year will include Olga Merinova, Elaine February 4 at Immaculata Auditorium. EC Werner, Lee Ann Griffiths, Michael Maule Company member Jeanne Robinson pre­ (Ballet), Walter Nicks, Poli Rodgers (Jazz), sented a concert of her own work on Grands Ballets Canadiens is currently February 9 at Odin's Eye Cafe. g the details of a tour which will take Phyllis Lamhut (Modern). This intensive ~ompany to several cities in different summer dance session which takes place annually in Lennoxville, Quebec, will be :-rs of Europe for a month, starting in late Correction held July 14 to August 18, offering a two­ In our last issue a Dance Series was attri­ week Teachers' Curriculum, followed by a -ne company has also signed a contract buted to the sponsorship of the University three-week Dance Technique Curriculum. • Columbia Artists Management Inc. of Western Ontario. In fact, the University • .a tour of the United States during the of Waterloo are the sponsors. Our - - 180 and subsequent seasons. 'Qui danse?' an evening of new dance at apologies to both universities. the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts fea­ . anuary and February Entre-Six toured tured the work of independent choreog­ th Western Ontario including per­ raphers Iro Tembeck, Margie Gillis, Daniel ances in Hamilton, Niagara-on-the­ Leveille, Le Grand Jeu, Ilana Schwartz, ·e and Oakville. For the first month Marie Chouinard, Angie Frank, Daniel - e tour Karen Kain and Frank Augus­ Soulieres, Fiona Griffiths, Monique Giard \vere guest artists. and Amarelle. The next new dance series at

Bahar The The School presents Donald Himes' production of Babar - The Little Elephant, based on the book by Jean de Brunhoff with music by Francis Poulenc. St. Lawrence Centre, Town Hall. School March 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25. 1:00 p.m. & 3:00 p.m. Children $2.50 Adults $4.00

of the Summer School '79 A four week intensive course in modern dance. Guest teachers Toronto to be announced. May 28th-June 22nd

Dance Accompanists Workshop A two week symposium/workshop for professional dance accom­ panists with Gwendolyn Watson and Ricardo Abreut. Theatre June 4th-June 16th

80 Winchester Street, Toronto M4X 182 For further information contact Richard Mortimer, ( 416) 96 7-688 7 DANCE IN CANADA 36 DANSE AU CANADA

Dance at a Glance

Humber College School of Ballet & Related Arts Sun•Ergos, a Company of Theatre and Dance Dance-at-a-Glance is a new advertising feature in 1669 Eglinton Ave. (at Oakwood) Toronto Dana Luebke & Robert Greenwood, Directors Dance in Canada Magazine. Its aim is to provide our Director: Sarah Lockett ARAD 2205-700 9th St. sw, Calgary T2P 285 national and international readership with a quick Beginners-Advanced; Ad ults & Children Tel. (403) 264-4621 Performances-Classes guide to resources in dance which are available Ballet & Jazz Tel. 675-3III ext. 506 Tom Taylor, Photographer throughout Canada. To arrange your listing in the Jacqueline Ivings Studio Recognized for performing arts Dance-at-a-Glance section, just write or phone: (Formerly Principal Dancer, National Ballet Co.) 171 Howland Ave., Toronto M5R 3B7 Nikki Abraham, Business Manager, Dance in Ballet, Yoga, Dance-Yoga, (416) 067-3591 Canada, 100 Richmond Street East, Suite 325, Breathing practice for more energy, relaxation. Toronto, Ontario M5c 2P9 (416) 368-4793. York University: Dance Department 681 Markham St. Toronto 534-2998 Yves L-Ph. Cousineau, Chairman; B.A. (Hons), Le Groupe de la Place Royale B.F.A. (Hons), Performance, Notation, Teaching; Classes in modern dance, ballet, music & History and Criticism, Dance Therapy; Bayview School of Ballet movement, voice & movement. Beg. to prof. M.F.A. in History and Criticism or Notation; Bayview Dancers . 130 Sparks St., Ottawa (613) 23 5-1492 SUMMER SESSION: Credit or Non-Credit. 130 Willowdale Ave., Willowdale, Ont. M2N 4Y2 Kyra Lober Modern Dance Studio (416) 667-3243, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario. M. Sorrell, Director, 222-51n Technique and Improvisation Elaine Bowman 6 Church Street, Toronto Toronto Dance Co-op. Classes in Graham technique Telephone 368-1222 100 Richmond St. E. Suite 309 Lumitrol Theatre Lighting Toronto, Ont., M5C 2P9 Info. tel. 466-8954 Spotlights & Dimmers. Classified Professional system design, manufacture, sales. Canadian College of Dance-Ryerson Theatre Dep't. Dance Position Dance Teachers Training Course 400 Don Park Rd. Unit 23, Markham, Comprehensive study of all forms of dance including Ontario L3 R 1 c6. Simon Fraser Universiry expects to appoint a Lecturer related performance/production skills Bruce Whitehead, P. Eng. (416) 495-1762 in Dance, to begin teaching duties in September, 1979 Heather Menzies Studio of Dance Arts for a two year term. Responsibilities will include Chissamba Chiyuka 702 Burnhamthorpe Rd. East, Mississauga teaching contemporary dance technique, improvisa­ Classes in interpretive dance of West Indian & tion 'and composition within a developing dance African origin. Exercise to music; children's Jazz, Classical Ballet, Tap, Modern Tel. (416) 277-8346 program. classes. Telephone Toronto 44 7-9 590 or 63 3-7466 Lynda Middleton, Photograp_her Qualifications should include substantial training and The City Ballet . Specializes in Stage and Dance Photography experience in contemporary dance and a demonstrated 23 Brentcliffe Road, Unit 352, 69 Wells Hill Ave., Toronto, Ont. M5R 3A7 abiliry and interest in teaching. Professional dance Toronto, Ontario M4G 4B7 Tel. 421-8223 Tel. (416) 929-5010 experience, university degrees, and competence in M. Bayer, Director other areas of dance study are desirable but not Roberta Mohler essential. Salary base: $18,600. Classical Jazz Dance Company Advanced Modern Technique Classes Hal Mischka, Director The availability of this position is subject to budgetary Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:00-u:30, St. Paul's constraint. Simon Fraser is particularly interested in Blending Ballet with contemporary jazz movements Centre, 121 Avenue Road, Toronto Tel. 923-2908 429A Queen St. w. Toronto M5V 2A5 receiving applications from Canadians or individuals New "Academy of Dance" (416) 364-9876 with substantial Canadian experience. on University of Windsor Campus. Letters of application should be sent to Professor Evan Contemporary Dancers, Winnipeg Ballet, (Cecchetti), Creative Movement, Alderson, Director, Centre for the Arts, Simon Fraser For information regarding fees & bookings, Dance Fitness. Teachers: Madelyn Weingarden and University, Burnaby, British Columbia, v5A 1s6. contact: David Tucker, Box 1764 Winnipeg, Florence King Proulx. 404 Huron Church Road, Manitoba R3C 2z9 (204) 943-4597 Windsor, Ontario (519) 252-7882 Creative Movement Center Andrew Oxenham, Photographer Casting: Males and Females Ballet Jazz & Tap Stage Fencing Specialist in Dance, Theatre and Portrait 18-29 all races in Canada and the United States to train 71 King St. East, 3rd floor, Toronto 54 East Lynn Avenue, Toronto, Ont. M4C 3x2 for service industry and show business. Send photo(s) Tel. 868-0064 Tel. (416) 698-0092 and profile to: Employment, Talent Specialists, Head Office, M.P.o. Dance Concepts Studio Pavlychenko Studio BOX 1016, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8N 3R1. Dance movement and technique: Yoga, Dance-yoga: Classes in Graham technique-Mornings & Telephone: 416-522-2126. Earn while you study. Body-awareness exercise; Ballet; improvisation: Evenings. Adult Ballet-Evenings. Children's Casting new feature for major studio. Production date Children's ballet; Dance-drama-music; Pre-ballet movement/music/painting-Sat. Morn. early 1979. Yes, the star system is still alive and well. Mother and child "Let's bend together." 625 Yonge St. Toronto 922-1771 681 Markham St. 533-2103 or 494-3936 Russian Academy of Classical Ballet Dancemakers Mary Aslamazova, Director Teaching Position Offers open company classes in Limon & Graham 93 5A Bloor Street West (at Ossington) Canada (Edmonton, Alberta) techniqueMon.-Fri. 9:30A.M.$3 per Adv.& Prof.only Toronto, Ontario M6H IL5 (416) 532-2993 Professional ballet school with a Performing Arts 736 Bathurst St. Toronto 535-8880 The Bonnie Sandison Dance Studio Program and large student enrolment requires a Senior Jazz, Tap, Ballet, Modern & Dance Mechanics Dance Orientale School Teacher with a professional background and thorough Director, Diane Calenti Beg. to Adv. for amateur or professional dancers knowledge of an acceptable training system (RAD, Classical Egyptian Dance & Music 18Adelaide St. West, 3rd floor, Cecchetti). Salary range between $10,000-$12,000. 100 Richmond St. East, Suite 309 Toronto M5H IL6 (416) 362-6784 Usual company benefits. Please enclose a complete Toronto, Ont. M5C 2P9 (416) 368-8412 Joseph Shulman, Publicist resume. Ecole Nouvelle Aire 1179A Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ont. M6H 1M9 Cours de danse moderne: placement au sol et Telephone (416) 532-6519 Alberta Ballet School, 10058 MacDonald Drive, technique Limon. Tous niveaux. Tel: (514) 286-9690 Lois Smith Edmonton, Alberta, T5J 287 1276 Saint-Andre, Montreal, Quebec H2L 3s9 George Brown College School of Dancing Canada 200 King Street East, Toronto (416) 363-9945 L'ecole Superieure des Ballets Jazz du Quebec Telephone: (403 ) 428-7808 1231 0. Ste. Catherine 514-849-6071. Jazz Classique Ballet, Pointe, Character, Modern, Jazz. Junior, Qanse Moderne Claquettes Debutants Intermediaires Senior and Adult Classes. Two-year diploma _Avancees Pre-professionnel Cours d'enseignement program-professional level. Dancemakers will be auditioning male and female Hoofers Club- Tap Dance Studio SPILL - Canada's dance newspaper dancers for the 1979-80 season the week of March Tap Classes all levels amateur to professional. subscription: $10/yr (12 issues) $20/yr institution 26th. Interested dancers should submit a resume by Official school to the National Tap Dance Company 15 5A George St. March 15th to Dancemakers, 736 Bathurst Street, of Canada. 193 King St. E. Toronto (416) 363-5707 Toronto M5A 2M8 Toronto M5S 2R4. ·

~DANSKINS ARE FOR DANCING

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