The view from Washington, D.C.

PART 4

The sixth national performance of the American College Dance Festival Association was held in April at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. During a discussion with professors of dance, the topics of concern were, the preparation of students for a major in dance, diversity in the curriculum, the dropout rate, the place of repertory in dance programs, and teacher certification. Participants included Loa Mangelson-Clawson, charter member of Repertory Dance Theatre, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, choreographer, and teacher for twenty-seven years at University of Utah; Alcine Wiltz, cofounder, codirector, master teacher, choreographer, and performer of the Mid-America Dance Company in St. Louis, and professor of dance at University of Maryland at College Park; Nada Diachenko, former soloist in Erick Hawkins Dance Company, choreographer, certified muscular therapist, and director of dance at University of Colorado at Boulder; Judy Allen, choreographer, active with Dance Notation Bureau and National Association of Schools of Dance, and currently vice-president for memership and nominations for the American College Dance Festival Association, as well as professor of dance at George Mason University; Joan Schlaich, chair at the California State University, Long Beach.

PREPARATION

Nada Diachenko: I've been giving a lot of thought about preparing students. And I think the whole traditional way we've been preparing them needs to be looked at and possibly changed. At the University of Colorado it's been pretty much a modern dance emphasis, but I've been trying the last few years to broaden the whole definition of dance. We offer other things that get the students thinking in a much broader way about dance and about what they can do in dance.

We have a lot of students who stay in the field. Several fall into that class of choreographers who have some artistic success, but who make no money. A larger percentage go into teaching; it's what a majority of our students end up doing. Now, we have more students interested in body therapies, combining dance with movement education, reeducation, and alignment work. We have a Pilates-based and Alexander Technique certification program in Boulder, and students in those programs earn credit toward their degrees. I would say that over half of our graduates do that simultaneously while obtaining their M.F.A. degrees. They know the difficulties in the job market, and certification in body therapies make them more marketable.

On the undergraduate level we are trying to give students a solid dose of reality: to know what the field is like; what options they have; how to deal with media, business, and marketing. We don't have a lot of specific courses that do that, but we try to cover some of the information in other courses. I'm beginning to look at resources on our campus where students can take courses that will broaden them and give them other skills and information that can be combined with dance. Building that flexibility into the undergraduate curriculum is our next step.

JOAN SCHLAICH: I think we're right now at a stage of redefining. For a lot of years our students had stars in their eyes, and we supported them in thinking that most would go into the professional world. The evidence is that many do, but a large number do not, so many things have to be part of their education and preparation. I think we're probably now all opening the many worlds of dance for them. Performance and choreogaphy are wonderful careers for some, but there are all these other things--dance therapy, teaching, technical theater, dance management, and notation careers. I think it is critical that we see to it that our students know about these and other possibilities and that we encourage a broad experience in dance, and for some a minor in another field or a double major. There are so many fulfilling jobs in the broader dance world. And those who do become performers need to consider how they will support themselves while dancing. Will it be by waiting tables because they haven't been realistic in preparing themselves while in college? And there is the group for whom dancing will be an avocation with financial support coming from a different area of expertise. All the things that a university can offer are theirs if they choose to go after them. And this is the time. They simply have to be prepared for many worlds now. I think we're all doing a much better job of helping them with this than we used to do.

JUDY ALLEN: At George Mason University the faculty feels that it is preparing its majors for a livelihood in dance. That is the big picture. The specifics underneath that picture are the curriculum, the kinds of experiences we can provide, the resources on the campus,t and faculty strengths. We learn from our students what their strengths are and try to support those strengths in as many ways as possible. When they leave us, we try to help them find a connection to a career. Of course, not every student leaving an institution with a dance degree will work in the profession, nor can we predict who will and who will not be successful. Therefore, our dance programs are obligated to offer our degrees to any student who meets its standards. Oftentimes the students who do not fit a mold are the most interesting and the most exciting to watch go forth in the profession. There was a time when dance departments all wanted and fostered strong B.F.A. programs because there were lots of jobs with performing companies. We all now know that it is a different picture.

Some of the most wonderful student-faculty relationships are with non-majors as well as majors. The strong non-major component to the dance division's curriculum supports the mission of GMU to make the arts pervasive in the lives of students. I believe dance does this exceptionally well. Last year more than 4,000 students (majors and non-majors) had a contact with a professional dance artist. We are committed to this goal and feel that we are changing attitudes, shattering the elitist image about the arts, and making the general student population feel that experiencing the arts is a valuable and enriching part of their lives.

DIVERSITY

J.A.: How does a diverse world-community campus population find itself relating to the modern dance genre in our colleges? This has been a question put to all of us. I've heard my colleagues struggle with this over the years and through experience I believe there is not a clear path to a solution. Although we are in a large metropolitan area, with a large minority population on campus, there are few minority students in the dance division. Although we work hard to invite all students to become involved in our program, most minority students relate more easily to dance forms of their own cultures rather than to western dance forms--modern dance or ballet. I believe jazz is an exception. All young people seem to relate to that dance form; it's the common ground of the youth culture.

LOA MANGELSON-CLAWSON: We were so very specialized at one time in our curriculum offerings. And in the 1960s and 1970s, not many universities and colleges were offering degrees. At the University of Utah, during this period, we were excited because we could place our students immediately into companies, or, through our teaching certification, they could teach in the high schools. It was a kind of glory time; classes were large. But times have changed and many universities offer degrees. Where do all the graduates go? I believe that our school faces the same problems as you have all addressed. We need to be more diverse, although in Utah we don't have a lot of ethnic diversity. We are now pursuing recruitment and scholarships for students of color and ethnic diversity, bringing in students from the Asian, Hispanic, and African-American population. It's wonderful because for so many years we had no students of color at all in any classes.

Another thing we would like to offer is more ethnic dance, interrelated arts programs, and arts management. I think we need to encourage students to have other interests within the field of dance and related arts and should leave time in the curriculum for other interests across the campus.

CAREER

L.M.-C.: After teaching for many years, I feel that those who want to have a dance career usually do. I'm always amazed when I hear students say they want a career. I can almost see in their eyes those that will and those that won't be successful. That drive hasn't changed, nor has tenacity, or spirit. But I do think that we need to look very differently at what's happening.

N.D.: The dance boom is clearly over. When there were many companies in the NEA touring program, university classes were packed. I remember when I first started teaching you'd have thirty students in technique classes. The economics of our time require that we build more flexibility and multiple-skill offerings into our curriculums. People are nervous about going into the arts as a financial support for the rest of their lives.

PARENTS

Alcine Wiltz: I try to tell parents: "Look, a dance major is just as valid as an English major or a history major. What do those students do with a B.A. in history? Or English? Or philosophy? They don't walk into jobs. Actually, the dance major, if they've had some teaching courses and they've gone into the community and done some performing, have more transferable skills that they can use than those with other degrees."

Dancers are survivors. That translates into other fields. We have to let parents know that you cannot guarantee jobs by going through a university program regardless of the major. None of us have enough faculty to cover all of these concerns, so you have mini-workshops and courses and little extras that give them some additional information to broaden their options.

J.S.: A dance department chair in Los Angeles surveyed a number of companies in the area and asked, would you prefer a business major? Dance major? A something-or-other major? They all said the particular degree really didn't make any difference; they train their employees on the job anyway. And those who had had experience with dancers preferred them because they are self-reliant, disciplined, and work-oriented. So those not going into the profession will become very valuable employees. Through dance they're learning such an enormous range of skills.

A.W.: Dancers are team players and individuals at the same time. And it's probably one of the professions in which students think about the excitement it can give them, rather than how much money they're going to make. Salary is number one elsewhere. Dance people don't ever ask that. They should, in a sense, but they want to dance and it doesn't matter. It's always secondary how they're going to live. That in itself is what is beautiful about the human spirit.

DROPOUT

N.D.: I see a lot of dropout, at least at the University of Colorado. The freshman year's the tough one. I think many of them come in very naive and without experience. Then suddenly the demands on them to be in school, dancing, learning about what's going on, can be overwhelming. Those don't come back. But the ones that really want it are committed.

Most decisions for a double major have been made with parental pressure. Many try that, but it's very difficult. It kills them.

A.W.: I tell them that if you don't like it here, if you have other priorities, you shouldn't be doing a dance major because the discipline is going to be very demanding. When you leave the university setting you will not have the support system of a faculty teacher every day, a space to work in, or production support. If they aren't strong enough to make that commitment, they'll never make it. If they think this is tough, it gets tougher. And most of them, I think, do listen and are enlightened. Otherwise, if we didn't tell them how tough it is, we really would be just taking their money and wasting a soul out there. Or giving them expectations that will never happen for them.

L.M-C.: Something that we do at the University of Utah, and I'm sure that you all do, is lengthen the audition process for freshmen. As a state-owned university, we have to admit everyone. We take a full year--three quarters--to counsel and accept. They know themselves if they are committed and dedicated, and their grades reflect that. A lot of them want out. They realize this is too difficult a commitment to make. We sometimes lose or counsel about forty percent of our freshmen out of the program.

J.S.: I think that it has to do with the previous dance experience and training as much as it has to do with desire. Their previous experience may have been very different or limited. It isn't necessarily a matter of minimal experience or talent; it's also a question of desire.

REPERTORY

A.W.: I don't think we do enough of that at all. I don't think there's any school that does enough of that. And it bothers me because, as a notator, I respect the literature of the field. For students not to know their historical past disregards it. Students don't see their connection to it. I'm so envious of our sister performings arts--music and theater--because they have a body of literature to reference, understand, and dissect. They can see how composition happened and changed over a period of time. We have nothing like that to offer our students, so we're constantly carving out the future without looking at the past. Fortunately, we have some video and film documents for our dance history courses.

L.M-C.: We are lucky in a sense because we have Repertory Dance Theater in Utah. And because they are a repertory company, it's been a good thing for us. When they bring people in to notate or to restage all the Humphrey works, as they just did, we have the advantage of that. Notators and dancers come to teach our students and often set sections of those works on them. It's been a wonderful resource over the years, but still not enough.

J.A.: I think for those programs which have strong modern dance departments, the emphasis on creating new work can consume the faculty and students. They just don't have time to invest in learning the history of our discipline.

N.D.: We added a freshman course--Dance Is A Universal Language--a multicultural dance course and general introduction to contemporary dance. It's for the freshmen who don't know anyone from the past. You say "Jose' Limon" and, shockingly, they don't know who that was. Or you bring in a guest artist, who danced with such-and-such a company, and they don't know what you're talking about. The introductory course serves as a way of showing a global approach and providing them with major names. And it certainly has helped.

A.W.: At one point in my career I was involved in a program that was very much more a conservatory approach. I was so concerned that those fine dancers were not getting enough technique classes, enough this, enough that, or enough solid training. But over the years I have learned that the really fine dancers continue to find a way to be the cream of the crop. They choose, select, and get more, whatever the program. We sometimes get too concerned that we have to make it happen for them. They make it happen.

CERTIFICATION

J.A.: It is amazing to realize that, in order to cut somebody's hair or to be a manicurist, you have to get a government license. There's more potential bodily harm and injury in dance training, yet we don't do anything about requiring a license to teach.

L.M-C.: At the University of Utah we have a dance-training program for teachers who teach children--the Virginia Tanner Children's Dance Theater--a kind of a specialized program. And we do have students who study this creative method. But they usually have a degree in dance education as well as other specialties. It's the way they're accrediting themselves to teach dance to children. Of course, if they go into public schools, they are certified.

J.A.: If we were to establish teacher certification through the government, it would increase their esteem and respect for us as teachers of dance. A certification program would bring a lot of problems, but it would be worth it. The final test for certification should be given in writing and with professional dancers observing the teacher in the classroom. Writing a good class is not enough.

BEFORE you commit yourself to a full-time dance program at a college or university, ask yourself the following questions.

1 Have I been taking dance classes on a regular basis?

2 Am I self-motivated to dance or am I trying to please someone?

3 What is my goal in dance?

4 Do I want to get into a program where I will have to work hard?

5 What is a typical freshman dance schedule? Are there any academic electives?

6 How much performance opportunity does the program provide?

7 What kind of flooring does the school have in the studios?

8 Who have been the guest teachers?

9 What method of technique taught?

10 How many classes in technique are given each week?

11 Are other forms, such as character or historical dance, given as well?

12 Where do most graduates go afterwards?

13 How many graduates are there? Undergraduates?

14 Have I checked on the credentials of the teachers?

15 Do I have any past injuries that might interfere with a full program?

16 Do I have options such as notation, administration, physical theapy or design should I choose not to dance full-time after graduation?

17 Are scholarships available?