America dancing: some highlights in the history of American regional ballet.

It was early in January 1972. As I crossed Broadway at Forty-seventh Street, the pockets of my coat gave out a soft, chinking sound. They were full of dimes.

We had just opened the first office of the National Association for Regional Ballet (NARB, subsequently to be renamed Regional Dance America) in the Palace Theatre Building, a delightful old New York landmark. The telephone installers were on strike. In order to make our calls, we had to dash to a nearby hotel and set up shop in one of the lobby phone booths.

Somehow we did not see this as an inconvenience. "We," incidentally, were administrative assistant Beverly D'Anne [now director of the New York State Council on the Arts Dance Program] and myself. We were excited to be establishing the first clearinghouse for the association's five regions. We knew that our 120 member companies were ready for national publicity and representation. And as their budgets and performing schedules increased, they would require specialized services. It was a heady challenge, and the National Endowment for the Arts Dance Program, headed by June Arey, was ready to help us with the first in a series of annual grants.

In one sense, it had taken sixteen years to reach this point. In another, it had taken forty-three. Either way, it involved Dorothy Alexander, founding artistic director of Atlanta Ballet. Like Isadora Duncan, she had foreseen "America dancing." Unlike Isadora, she had devoted her life to doing something about it. She had realized instinctively that if dance in our country was to be equal in stature to music and theater, it would have to put down roots and become part of the daily life in every American community, large or small. Most important, what it offered to the public had to be of prime quality. Her own company, founded in 1929, epitomized this.

In the summer of 1955, Alexander was having lunch at New York's Russian Tea Room with her friend Anatole Chujoy, publisher of Dance News. He had just returned from Canada, where he had attended a ballet festival. With great enthusiasm, he suggested that she organize one in the Southeast. He even promised her seed money from Ben Sommers of the Capezio Foundation.

The following April, 1956, the first regional festival took place. Eight companies performed, and there were classes and imaginative social events.

The idea promptly caught fire. By 1959 the Northeast had its first festival cohosted by Wilkes-Barre Ballet Guild under Barbara Weisberger and Scranton Ballet Guild under Alexi Ramov. Then came the Southwest in 1963, with Barbara and David Carson of Austin Ballet at the helm. In 1966 the Pacific Region was set in motion by Deane and Barbara Crockett and their Sacramento Ballet. Finally, in 1972, the Mid-States had its first event hosted by Tom Steinhoff of Kansas City (Missouri) Ballet. Companies that had previously worked in isolation were now offered a wider horizon. They could observe their peers and were exposed to audiences outside of their home communities.

Almost from the beginning it became apparent that the artistic directors needed help with choreography. After all, they were primarily teachers who made ballets because they couldn't afford to hire choreographers. If they were to continue this procedure, they needed to improve their own skills.

Josephine Schwarz, who, with her sister Hermene, had founded Dayton Ballet in 1937, launched a five-day choreography conference in 1960 for the company directors of the Northeast. [For more on Schwarz's involvement with NARB, see "Remembering the Membership Evaluation," page 60.] She conducted the choreography sessions; Juli Nunlist (later associated with the Carlisle Project) was in charge of music. Dan Butt taught lighting, and the participants took turns teaching and discussing technique.

The project was so stimulating that by 1967 all four existing regions had choreography conferences assisted by NEA funding. Schwarz and her staff traveled from region to region. Over the years such choreographers as George Balanchine, Bella Lewitzky, Glen Tetley, Birgit Cullberg, and Lynne Taylor-Corbett became involved. The emphasis gradually shifted from the artistic directors to the young choreographers emerging through their companies.

By 1975, more than five hundred ballets had been seen at the principal performances of the festivals. They were a potentially valuable resource. The sixty-four most viable ones were assembled in a descriptive catalog called National Choreography Plan, and over the next few years forty-six member companies received works of their choice. Choreographers' fees and transportation were defrayed by funds from foundations and state arts agencies. New works were constantly added to the list, and the existing ones were reevaluated as they were performed. Planned for the future was a repository of videotapes.

Additional choreographic riches waited to be mined. The festivals began to present programs by the young choreographers, and in 1978 the first of a series of grants was obtained from the Monticello College Foundation to enable ten female (a foundation stipulation) choreographers to attend the conferences each summer.

If regional dance was to achieve national recognition, the companies had to be seen beyond the context of festivals and conferences. A bold step was taken in September 1972. Atlanta, Dayton, and Sacramento ballets, all of which had achieved Major Company status (the organization's highest qualitative level at that time), appeared at New York City's Delacorte Theater. Five years later Tulsa Ballet Theatre and two members of Minnesota Dance Theatre performed on a New York program assembled by NARB president David Howard.

The calendar turned all too quickly to the NARB twenty-fifth anniversary in 1981. It was preceded by a Lincoln Center kickoff party, which honored Dorothy Alexander and feted Lily Guest, chairwoman of Friends of the Kennedy Center. She presented a generous check to be shared by the regions. That same year, NARB became the only service organization to receive a development grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

By the time the hundredth festival was celebrated in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1983, the climate for the arts in America was beginning to change. A downslide in federal and state funding had begun, and artistic directors were under new pressures from their boards. With the aid of the Mellon and L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs foundations, an Artistic Directors Seminar was launched in 1985. I often wonder what the seminar's full influence would have been if it had continued beyond that initial year. Would today's rift between boards and directors be less acute?

We were not to find out. In 1987 the national office for NARB was discontinued, as was the vigorous thirty-two-member board.

Much has changed since 1956, when the audience first filed into Atlanta's Tower Theatre to watch those modest pioneering participants. America's regional dance companies have made bold strides. Have they reached the sustained prestige of regional theater and symphony orchestras? Yes, some have, but by no means all. In a memorial tribute to Alexander, Barbara Crockett admonished, "Don't go where the path leads, rather, go where there is no path and leave a trail." That was the talisman for the National Association for Regional Ballet, and it must continue to be for Regional Dance America.

THE 1994 CHOREOGRAPHY CONFERENCE

One of the most exciting Regional Dance America (RDA) programs is the annual Performance/Choreography Conference. For two weeks each summer young dancers and practicing choreographers work intensively together. The mornings consist of two classes, ballet and modern dance, while the afternoons are devoted to developing choreographic assignments and experimentation. Choreographers have the rare opportunity of working daily with both dancers and composers, while dancers benefit from the inventive and stylistic challenges of working with a variety of choreographers and composers. All receive expert evaluation and criticism from the illustrious staff and often make important career connections.

This year's conference, partially funded by the Monticello College Foundation and by Dance Magazine, was helf from July 25 through August 6 at the University of lowa, staffed by Kay Braden, director of choreography, Rob Kaplan, director of music, Maria Vegh, director of ballet and the teachers' seminar, and Armando Duarte, director of modern dance. For the last eight years, the conference as a whole has been organized and led by Glenda Brown, artistic director of Houston-based Allegro Ballet.