Attitudes.

What is so American about American dance and how did it get that way? Or did it? The subject of nationalism in dance has forever raised questions more vexed than simple. Nationalism in music, nowadays often used in a disparaging sense-slightly grubby if not downright dirty--is fairly easy to recognize. It comes fundamentally from folk music. At least it does in Europe. The folk dances finding their accompaniment to this music--the Hungarian czardas, the Polish mazurka, the German waltz, the Russian trepak, and even English Morris dancing--have a recognizably formalized shape.

North America is another matter. Here we don't have much in the way of folk dance traditions, although folk music (admittedly of European origin) remains alive and well. Also, at least in many rural communities, the square dance and hoedown are still around, even if chiefly on that life support of a special evening of "Western" dancing. Swing yer partners! Yet, North America also has jazz and jazz dance, both with African roots but now deeply embedded in the American soil and soul. The music, from King Oliver to Monk, Coltrane, and beyond, is virtually the only music indigenous to the United States and has now spread, albeit often thinly, into all of our vernacular musical forms from pop to hip hop and, for that matter, also into American classical music.

So where does this leave American theatrical dance? Does it speak with an American voice? And, whether it does or not, should it? Nowadays, like Caesar's Gaul, American theater dance is divided into three parts: classical, modern, and all those thirdstream currents in between. First, let us recognize that American dance differs from most European varieties (Britain and Germany are notable exceptions here) in that it is virtually a child of the 20th century. A hundred and ten years ago, apart from the stirrings of Isadora Duncan, there was no American theater dance.

The founding fathers and mothers of American dance had a conviction that America was totally different from Europe and needed to discover a specifically American voice. This found strong proponents in the likes of Lincoln Kirstein as well as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey, who were, of course, busy developing a new dance idiom, style, and vocabulary that became modern dance.

So today what is American about American dance? Nationalism, I think we can agree, can be expressed in two ways: form and substance or, if you prefer, style and subject matter. As Kirstein himself admitted as early as 1938, "It is not easy to find efficient subjects from American sources which are suitable for presentation in the idiom of classic traditional theatrical dance." And this was said when Ire had temporarily abandoned Balanchine for his own all-American company, Ballet Caravan, and he was talking about Billy the Kid, a work for which he himself had provided the libretto.

Kirstein went on to explain--even to justify--the American nature of Eugene Loring's choreography, Aaron Copland's score, and using "real cowboy" songs as melodic material. He also extolled the "realistic" nature of Jared French's "clothes" for the ballet.

Yes, Billy the Kid is obviously an American ballet, as are Agnes de Mille's Rodeo and Graham's Appalachian Spring (all three, by the way, have scores by Copland-a coincidence?), but not too many other clearly "American" ballets still exist, or were even made. Think of the other survivors: Lew Christensen's Filling Station, perhaps Ruth Page's Frankie and Johnnie, and, of course, Jerome Robbins' Fancy Free.

Wait a minute. Apart from its World War II, Times Square setting, there is nothing much more "American" about Fancy Free's subject matter than two other ballets about three sailors: Leonide Massine's Les Matelots and Sailor's Fancy by the German-born Sigurd Leeder. Of course, standing out like a thumb among fingers, there is still Robbins' jazz-tinctured choreography and Leonard Bernstein's jazz-tinctured score. And Robbins, who followed up Fancy Free a year later with the equally jazzy Interplay, is perhaps the key to intrinsic American dance.

We've talked about subject matter. But what about style? What is American style? It is a distinctive accent, an openness of spirit that flavors our dance and music. Perhaps it is also a way of looking at the world--a fast-changing imperialist attitude. America, in the 20th century, was different from the rest of the world. Yes, there is a special American accent defining some American culture. In Agon, for instance, American men perform that jazzy strut more comfortably than Europeans.

But when the chips are down, American dance must be regarded simply as dance danced by Americans. That, rather than any vision of horizon-staring cowboys or gum-chewing sailors, must always be the bottom line.

Senior Consulting Editor Clive Barnes also covers dance and theater for The New York Post.