Ethnic Exchanges, at Home and Abroad.

Eric Nielsen, head of the dance department at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, has just returned from Syktyvkar State University in the Komi Republic, 900 miles northeast of Moscow. Sponsored by VSU's International Studies Program, which encourages faculty and students to participate in exchange programs, Nielsen was the first American to teach and choreograph at the College of Arts, for the Komi Song and Dance Company and the school's Ballet Theatre.

Nielsen was able to help the students attain an informal and relaxed style in performing American jazz despite their many years of formal training. "That was a feat in itself," he explains.

Students at VSU can emphasize dance under the school's B.F.A. degree in theater and may join the Repertory Dancers, a school-based company that Nielsen directs.

Murray Louis was a recent participant in Phi Beta Kappa's Visiting Scholar Program. Louis, during the spring of 1997 and the winter of 1998, made two-day visits to twelve universities in the United States, where he met informally with students, led master classes and classroom discussions, and gave lectures open to the entire academic community.

The Murray Louis and Nikolais Dance company celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, is planning a repeat of a course in bharata natyam, classical Indian dance, as offered by the Mason Gross School of the Arts at the Douglas campus in Rutgers. The course, taught by Ramya Ramnarayan, a renowned performer and teacher at the Nrithyanjali Institute of Dance, is open as a credit course for both dance and non-dance majors.

Nine dancers from Taiwan, all over the age of thirty, are currently earning their master's degrees at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. The students are spending one year away from home to study ballet and modern dance taught in English, a language they have barely spoken, in a place they've never seen. A modified degree allows these students to focus on the knowledge in the degree. According to Ellen Page Garrison, associate professor of modern dance and chair of the ballet and modern dance department at TCU, the students will probably take part in public performances later this year.

Sixteen events held October 15 to 17 celebrated the Five College Dance Department's twenty-year partnership in teaching dance. Five campuses and ten graduates returned to teach master classes, conduct workshops, participate in a panel discussion, and perform their works for the three-day Alumni Dance Festival.

As the second largest dance department in the country, the Five College Dance Department, through the inter-institutional cooperation of Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is a national model for the artistic, educational, and practical values of collaboration. The department offers students more than 100 courses annually.

As part of the festival, ten master classes were held on the five campuses. Two panel discussions were held on alternative careers in dance and careers in dance performance and choreography.

Hope College in Holland, Michigan, began its dance department in the mid-1960s with one class. Today the department offers majors in dance performance, choreography, and dance education, as well as preparatory programs in dance therapy, dance medicine, and dance engineering. Department chair Maxine DeBruyn is especially proud of the school's Strike Time Dance Company, a lecture and demonstration group for young audiences. To schedule a Strike Time performance in a Michigan school, contact Maxine DeBruyn, P.O. Box 9000, Holland, Michigan 49422-9000; [phone] or [phone].

Send your college dance items to Marian Horosko, Dance Magazine, 33 W. 60th Street, New York, NY 10023 or e-mail at [e-mail]. You can also find us on the web at www.dancemagazine.com.