Dancing through Washington.

It was a curious kind of capital city, Washington, D.C. Of course, all these invented capitals - Canberra or Brasilia or New Delhi or even medieval Bern - are all rather peculiar, aren't they? God and geography never meant them to be real cities; governments did, and all such invented seats of government tend to have the chilly feel of bureaucracy instead of a human-style atmosphere.

Only a few decades ago Washington was surely in many ways one of the most unlivable cities in North America - at least in normal urban terms. And that was saying something. There were a few picturesque spots - Georgetown, of course, and that area so oddly known as Foggy Bottom had its moments. But there was little in the way of architecture; it had a lot of fairly modern monumental monuments, but Paris it wasn't and isn't. And while the zoo was excellent and the museums were good (the National Gallery has gotten even better over the last few decades), there was really no other culture.

There certainly was not much in the way of performing arts - no concert hall or opera house, for example - and there were even precious few restaurants of any respectable aspiration, let alone distinguished cuisine. All in all, it was a cultural desert, fit only for politicians and the functionaries who serviced them. In fairness, the performing arts tried to perform. There was already the Arena Stage, and there was even dance to be found in Washington, frequently at the Lisner Auditorium. Then, suddenly - after years of soliciting, planning, working, and, I suppose, considering the place where it happened, lobbying - the Kennedy Center sprang up overnight on the banks of the Potomac, and Washington was never to be the same again.

I remember going to the first night of the Kennedy Center on September 8, 1971; in fact, I even possibly had a very tiny part to play in that first night. Leonard Bernstein had telephoned me - it was one of those rare occasions where we were on speaking terms - to ask advice about a dance company to participate in the staging of his Mass, the premiere of which was to provide the opening. I suggested the Alvin Ailey company because first, it was good; second, it came with its own in-built choreographer, Ailey himself; and third, it was black, which seemed no bad thing for our nation's capital.

Probably dozens of other people gave the same advice; but, anyway, the first company to dance at the Kennedy Center was the Ailey. Of course, it wasn't all perfect - Mass was something of a mess. So, by chance, the Ailey company happened to have been part of two major premiere debacles in a row, for they had earlier appeared in Samuel Barber's disastrous Antony and Cleopatra for the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House. Oh, well - nothing is all moonshine and roses.

I must admit that at that first night I myself was none too sanguine about the Kennedy Center's future. I hated the look of the place - especially from the outside. But eventually, like most people, I suppose, I grew accustomed to its face, and even developed a particular fondness for the opera house with its good acoustics, fine sight fines, and that odd curtain with what has always looked to me to be a bunny rabbit motif on it. The effect of the Kennedy Center on Washington has, I think, been vast and salutary - and it is surely no accident that since its arrival the whole pattern and tempo of cultural life in Washington has picked up miraculously. There are even places to eat there now - and one or two after the show!

Kennedy Center is totally unlike New York's Lincoln Center in that it does not house and support a species of resident dance constituents. In a sense, for dance, Kennedy is a glorious rental house, or rental complex, but more and more the Center has acted as a producer, and its activities in this area have made it a major player in the dance world.

For foreign dance companies, the Kennedy Center has slowly but surely become perhaps the most important, and regular, port of call in North America. Although during the current season no foreign visitors are scheduled, in recent years quite a few international companies - including Australian Ballet, Ballet National de Marseille, Royal Danish Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, and Stuttgart Ballet - have all visited Washington on trips that bypassed New York.

Even more significantly, the dance programming at Kennedy is making it our national center, especially for classic ballet. Major American ballet companies, locked out of New York by economics and logistics, that have appeared in Washington in the past five seasons include Joffrey Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Ballet West, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Fort Worth Ballet, and Houston Ballet, not to mention New York familiars American Ballet Theatre, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and San Francisco Ballet. It has also, of course, played host over the years to many American modem dance troupes, but these companies can still find performing opportunities in New York; and in modem dance, at least, New York remains the national hub and mecca.

However, Kennedy Center nowadays does not restrict itself merely to presenting dance - and incidentally, in addition to its other dance activities, it maintains an ongoing yearly relationship with Washington Ballet. It also funds various programs and productions. This season, for example, it offered its own specially funded presentation of "Suzanne Farrell Stages Balanchine." It also has its Ballet Commissioning Project, which has created seven new ballets for seven specially selected American companies, and this season it has inaugurated a five-year survey of American modem dance, which it calls "America Dancing."

Many people have contributed to Washington's dance performance - Roger Stevens, the Center's founding father, who originally envisaged Ballet Theatre as its resident company; Martin Feinstein, who brought his Hurok-garnered expertise to the international picture; and most recently, Marta Istomin and perhaps particularly Sheldon Schwartz. Now, under the new direction of the Center's president, Lawrence J. Wilker, the Kennedy Center seems happily on its way to providing national dance leadership. New York may still be the dance capital of the world, but is it the dance capital of the nation?