Citizenship.

Nobody will be surprised when I say that the future of American dance depends on the national companies that have taken root outside the traditional dance centers on both coasts. It is now possible to train, find employment, and make a career in many areas of dance without setting foot on Manhattan Island. Great for the dance business, but bad and sad for New York City. There are many reasons for the growing success of the national companies, which we once referred to as "regional." Many have secured solid high ground within their communities despite the financial and artistic headaches that plague every arts organization.

When discussing repertoire favorites among national companies these days ("Company Survey: Cross-country Repertoire," pages 66-71), senior editor Doris Hering reports that there are about three dozen national companies that "are at the heart of professional ballet across America." In addition to sharing resources, productions, and nationwide support organizations in an effort to survive, these companies also have some problems in common:

Recently, I enjoyed spending time with a dance company that had developed a very healthy profile in the local community's arts structure. I had the good fortune to visit with the chairman of the board of directors who talked with considerable passion about the necessity of somehow "bridging" the gulf between the members of his board and the artists, among whom he included the musicians, dancers, and artistic director. For all his good intentions, the chairman did not, I believe, know what to do in order to "bridge" the gap in communications he felt so keenly; nor is his difficulty unique.

A well-intentioned man--intelligent, eager, a family man with a wife and two children--his was a world of high-powered finance. Desiring to be of "service to the community," he found himself on the local dance company's board of directors; wishing to use his gifts wisely for the benefit of others, he was soon elected chairman. His profile, I suspect, may be similar to those of other board chairs; his communication dilemma, endemic and universal. The gap he could not bridge between his board and his dancers was one of life-style, deeply embedded in his point of view about the restricted role of art; his nine-to-five job, despite his abundant success, was very different from the world of the stage and studio.

Most successful artists I have known--success measured in terms of being able to work and create, not in terms of dollars--are artists full-time; their art is the core experience of life, regardless of what they may do to earn a living. Many people who describe themselves as successful, in fact, tend to think of their lives as works of art--like a garden, never completed, always growing. People whose lives do not require the degree of absorption that is demanded of artists often do not understand this point. Mixing these two basically different approaches to living can be like combining oil with water. And that was my chairman's dilemma: He just didn't understand.

What could he do? Other than taking on a dancer as an alternate life partner or going to work in a dance company for four years at the low salaries and endless hours such jobs offer? Well, to start with, every successful businessman knows that empires are built out of the dreams of a very few people who have the gift of vision. Thomas Edison or Bill Gates, both visionaries, come to mind. Dance companies are no different, and the person entrusted with that vision, the person who is able to see the future, the person who will make something out of nothing, is the artistic director. Supporting him or her wholeheartedly would get all the major players on the same team, even if they aren't playing the same game.

I told the board chairman about a speech I had heard given by the former NEA director Frank Hodsell that contained, I thought, good advice: "All of this reorganization in Washington is fairly useless," Hodsell contended, because the problems that any organization develops probably aren't the result "of its structure, but are enmeshed in the people who run it."

Wise words. And there are two additional facts that artistic directors and board members would be wise to consider: (1) people tend not to blame themselves when things go wrong but rather inanimate things, such as abstract structures or even bad luck, thereby losing the benefit of learning from their mistakes, and (2) a great deal of damage can be done by seeking causes where they don't exist and then doing something inappropriate to "fix" the "problems" (like Congress has done with the NEA).

We also discussed the controversial presence of Philip Morris Companies Inc., whose largest profits are made from tobacco products. PM benefits immeasurably from exploiting the radiantly healthy image of dance by having turned itself into the field's largest private donor. PM money, it is no secret, can now make the difference between survival and extinction for some companies, but for many people PM is also a barometer of humiliation that exists because of the desperate need in dance for money--any money.

New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis wrote recently, referring to the tobacco industry's cover-ups and distortions: "Tobacco people live a dilemma. They merchandise death, and they want to prosper in their business. But they also want to look--and feel--like decent citizens. We may appreciate their dilemma. But we do not have to believe them." Other private sources for funds in dance have been surfacing, however, and at least one artistic director I know now proclaims his company free of cigarette money. But the topic of actually daring to refuse much-needed PM guilt money is now openly discussed by members of such prestigious boards as Dance Theatre of Harlem and Joffrey Ballet of Chicago.

And that's the good news, according to a recent survey released by the Business Committee for the Arts: small- and medium-sized companies are more involved than ever in contributing to the arts, contradicting the widespread impression that corporate support has remained flat, or even declined, over the last several years. The reason for this increase? Seventy-eight percent of the businesses polled reported wanting to "demonstrate good corporate citizenship." This is not opportunism or parasitism or paternalism. But a new spin on citizenship.

What a great idea.