Kickoff: community.

Last January the Prix de Lausanne, a prestigious Swiss competition that awards scholarships to talented young dancers, celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with various gala events and a symposium that addressed a question: What is the future of classical dance? For audiences in America, where the classics are deeply rooted in the economy and aesthetics of dance companies all across the country, the question is less compelling than it is for audiences in Europe, where ballet classics more frequently meet with hostility and taunts of irrelevancy. The Prix symposium concluded that Western classical dance--performance, as well as training--has a sound future and plays an essential role in the preparation of dancers of all styles for professional careers. But there was also a lingering air of concern: What are the actions we must take to ensure its survival into the next century? More particularly, what attitudes must we embrace to make the most of what promises to be a vigorous, progressive, new era for dance--an era which some would characterize as a renaissance? There are some very specific answers.

It is a curiosity that ballet is alone among the arts in having at its core such a small repertory of standard classics. Think of the "classics" available to a concert pianist or a lieder singer, for example, and then think of the dancer's "classics" such as Giselle or Swan Lake. Precisely. These works are beloved and define for many the word ballet--but the standard repertory is really very small. (Clive Barnes addresses this condition on page 130.) These classics, if they are to be useful to us, require regular maintenance, and this includes training performers to the highest possible standards. This introduces corollary issues of education, health, finances, job opportunities, audience development, and new choreography. Most of all, there is a driving need to put aside divisiveness and overweening self-interest, to pull together as the small but highly productive community of like-minded people that we are--people who have chosen to live the life-style that is dance. Without this sense of community, without respecting one another, without defining and working toward common goals in the professional forum, dance faces a diminished and impotent future.

In the news section of this issue is a sad story ("We Want To Be Treated As Adults," page 34) about the first-ever unionized dancers' strike, which has now been settled but at a cost to management. Although Dance Theatre of Harlem's director Arthur Mitchell denies it, the circumstances certainly look as if he were trying to audition new dancers to replace those who had gone on strike in order to get a fair contract. And that look is a variety of not-so-subtle intimidation that none of the DTH artists could misunderstand. Does Mitchell's calling this audition suggest respect for the men and women who have made their professional careers in his company?

One of the dancers on the picket line expressed another familiar fear: Black dancers would have nowhere else to go if they dared leave DTH. Mitchell probably knows this fear well--he founded his company almost thirty years ago on a premise that addressed this issue, among others; but by isolating black dancers still, today, in one company, doesn't he make it almost unnecessary for other ballet companies to act responsibly while ensuring his own survival? It is well known that Mitchell promotes himself as a father figure, but this antique posturing reduces his artists and staff to the roles of children, his children, and a kind of old-world paternalism locks in. Mitchell's mentor, Balanchine, used this paternalistic stance shamelessly to control his dancers, but Balanchine's successor, Peter Martins, would not and cannot do the same--because the times and the rules have changed. Because the DTH dancers fear for both their jobs and their psyches, their actions on the picket line are therefore very courageous indeed! A segregated ballet company--DTH is mostly black, while many other companies remain mostly white--is a seldom-addressed anachronism in 1997, but one that ensures a certain level of control for Mitchell at DTH. None of this suggests much respect for the artists as capable adults who have voices and minds of their own.

Even the Lausanne symposium on classicism had its show of professional disrespect, however, and many were embarrassed by it but too polite to say anything at the time. There were nine speakers asked to deliver prepared speeches of about a half hour each. One of America's older well-known choreographers got up on the speaker's platform without any visible preparation, made a brief statement about the importance of video, and then called for questions from the audience of several hundred hard-core dance people. The identity of this person is not as important as the attitude projected--arrogant, jut-jawed, razor-tongued--reinforcing an unfair impression of rude Americans abroad. That bad image backfires on all of us eventually.

Things happen, people burn out, life leaves us behind--all tough on the egos of people used to being at the center of things. But behavior that shows disrespect for others in the profession--if not for the profession itself--is what the symposium in Lausanne warned against. This is a great new time full of potential for dance, and we must go forward together. Hardened self-interest satisfies only temporary personal needs, while serving the needs of the larger dance world ensures, we hope, that it will be around for a long time to come.

Richard Philp, Editor in Chief