Improvisation.

Recently backstage at Pittsburgh's Benedum Center Theatre. musician Pete Seeger, known for his songs of social conscience. said. "A slogan for the entire world for our times is: Plan for improvisation." We had been talking craftsmanship, in fact, but he was quick to expand the scope of his remark to include dance. The first dance work choreographed to Seeger's music had just received a memorable premiere by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and Seeger was delighted, as were local dance audiences.

Dancers know about improvisation. But Seeger was referring to survival skills, not stagecraft. And Pittsburgh seemed a good example of what he was advocating.

Some of us may still remember Pittsburgh's reputation as a town encased in rime and clogged with pollution from mills and foundaries along two rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela, that join up downtown. But these relics of an unregulated, untaxed, industrialized America have almost entirely disappeared. The first of what would be three major renaissance projects began after the Second World War. Eventually more than $1 billion was pumped into the city's downtown "cultural" district, home to the symphony, opera, theater, and ballet. Pittsburghers realized the necessity of rethinking their city and its values, and the arts became an important segment of the new structure. A cleaned-up town, after all, which offered a culture-rich quality of life, might draw young blood to the area. This was helped by the presence of vast fortunes in the hands of local boys and their foundations - Mellon, Carnegie, and Frick, for example. (For another solution, see the Denver arts tax story on page 64.)

The Pittsburgh Ballet grew out of the performing unit of one of the area's many universities and colleges, Point Park College. The name was changed to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in 1969, and since 1984 the company has flourished under artistic director Patricia Wilde, a former Balanchine ballerina remembered for the brilliance of her technique. A master teacher who headed up the Harkness and American Ballet Theatre schools, she is a rare combination of talent, energy, grace, knowledge, diplomacy, courage, creativity, and vision - those very qualities that could have put her at the head of any ballet company anywhere in the world.

She chose Pittsburgh in an era when most dancers would rather have been in New York City. The need to be in New York in order to forge a professional dance career has changed in the last decade, making it possible, even preferable, to seek other locations - particularly when so many dance schools in New York City have closed owing to high rents, and dance students, most of them poor, are unable to afford city living. (Companies run by Ralph Lemon, Susan Marshall, and Lar Lubovitch - all New Yorkers - have shut down recently, for example, the result of battle fatigue over the high costs of survival, reducing performance opportunities and morale.)

The Seeger ballet, called The Ballad of You and Me and choreographed by Lynn Taylor-Corbett, was Pat Wilde's idea, conceptualized along with two other works, one choreographed by Monica Levy and the other by Lisa de Ribere (reviewed next month). These three premieres together make an exceedingly well-balanced and satisfying evening. Working within a strict budget, using primarily local artists, Wilde shaped a glorious celebration of dance - one of those occasions that lifts the heart like a rocket and reminds you why you chose this crazy business in the first place.

On solid foundations such as these, Wilde has improvised (in the Seeger sense) creative ways to reach, teach, and touch a great many people in her community. Hers is a first-rate school that turns out professional dancers who can perform in a range of styles, have learned a large repertoire of "classics," and are trained to be quick at picking up new steps, time being money in the creative process. Because touring the main company costs so much, Wilde has reassigned outreach to the school's advanced pre-professionals, who dance in available performing spaces - schools, shopping centers, senior centers - building all-important audiences. As money for arts education continues to be withdrawn in America - against the stated wishes of the people who pay the taxes - it is more important than ever that we all shoulder the jobs connected with education and outreach. (See DTH story, page 34.)

Local audiences for the main company, however, are a finite group of hard-core dancegoers which needs to be expanded - a problem shared by many national companies. After only four performances of the three premieres, the abiding wisdom was that the audience had been reached. It was over. No more. The audience perception that needs changing is that once you see a dance there's no reason not to see it again - to see another cast, for example, or to uncover more in the dance itself on a second viewing. New solutions to old habits need to be found. Improvise.

During Wilde's tenure, the company has gone from an old regional status with all the eccentricities and instabilities that accompanied dance in those days to a respected national status, with a fully professional standing, an $8.5 million budget, and the ability to offer pension plans and decent packages of health care (including the innovative work of orthopaedic surgeon Freddie H. Fu, M.D.).

Wilde has announced that she is going to retire in two years, although she plans to stay around to oversee things from a short distance. Although all dance techniques are in a constant state of evolution (see the interview with Anthony Dowell on page 54), Pat Wilde's deep concern for the Balanchine aesthetic suggests that finding somebody with a similar mind-set might be, for the sake of continuity, a logical choice for a successor.

Hers will be a hard act to follow, requiring the gifts of vision and leadership, as well as flexibility to meet the future with the grace to improvise as needed. You can plan on it.