True to the Founder's Vision.

Dayton Contemporary Dance Company steers a steady course after Jeraldyne Blunden's death

When a dance company changes artistic direction, chaos can result--especially if the founding director dies. Just look back at the Jose Limon Company before Carla Maxwell entered the picture--or look at the Martha Graham Company today.

And then we can look with satisfaction at the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Before her untimely death at the end of 1999, the Ohio company's founder, Jeraldyne Blunden, had the foresight to include two of her outstanding company members in her future planning. They are Artistic Director Kevin Ward and Associate Artistic Director Debbie Blunden-Diggs.

Today, both are leading the company in the best possible way. They work together harmoniously; they reflect the philosophy of their founder, and yet they are bringing their own individuality to this 32-year-old repertory company.

Ward began with the company twenty years ago as dancer and apprentice choreographer. From the beginning, Blunden saw the potential in this sensitive young man. She taught him to respect craftsmanship. "Jeraldyne was concerned," he remembers, "with how well the company looked doing the work, but she was also concerned with timelessness. She didn't lean toward the trendy. The `flavor of the month' wasn't for her. She wanted works that would last."

From the outset, Ward provided a valuable contrast in the company's repertoire. The contributions of choreographers like Lester Horton, James Truitte, George Faison, Talley Beatty, Ulysses Dove and Eleo Pomare were usually danced to jazz or traditional music. But Ward, with his strong classical training, often turned to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers.

He had another valuable asset. Like George Balanchine, he was an accomplished pianist. He was also a gifted composer. One of the company's current works, the poignant "Can Cry if Where Would I," from a larger piece called Job's Kitchen, is a mating of Ward's choreography and score.

His artistic background is also distinctive. He grew up in Dayton, where his parents and some of his grandparents were involved in the arts. As a child, he begged for a piano.

This eventually led to three solo concerts and a scholarship to the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. There, although he was already of high school age, he fell in love with dance and graduated with a double major. It led him briefly to the Juilliard School and then to the Cincinnati Conservatory, where he continued his training and joined the Cincinnati Ballet.

Summers were spent at Jeraldyne Blunden's alma mater, the Schwarz School, conducted by Josephine and Hermene Schwarz, founders of the Dayton Ballet.

Another scholarship lured him to the Dance Theatre of Harlem and its school. But he was not happy in New York and soon returned to Cincinnati. An injury took him back to Dayton--and to the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.

Like Ward, several members of the DCDC staff have been with the company almost since its founding. Leading dancer Sheri "Sparkle" Williams has racked up twenty-eight years; Dawn Wood, who has shifted from the artistic staff to administration, has served the company for twenty-seven years. So has Debbie Blunden-Diggs. In fact, her connection might be called atavistic, for she is Jeraldyne Blunden's daughter.

Like Ward, she has stopped dancing and concentrates on choreography. Unlike Ward, she has a penchant for administration. Debbie directs the company school and oversees the second company, which she ran for ten years. It is now directed by former company member Shana Hickman Matlock.

Both Blunden-Diggs and Ward are responsible for one piece of choreography per year. For the remainder of their repertoire, they rely on the best modern choreographers, many--but not all--of them black. Ward would love to have Martha Graham's Cave of the Heart, and he also hopes to acquire another Limon piece to add to The Unsung, already a valued part of the company's collection.

In the meantime, the company is adding the bricks, one by one, for an impressive new project, the "Centennial of Powered Flight." The Wright brothers, Dayton natives, invented the airplane, and the hundredth anniversary of its first flight falls in 2003. The celebratory dance works already include Dianne McIntyre's Takeoff from a Forced Landing and Warren Spears' On the Wings of Angels. This season the company added Sky Garden, dedicated to Blunden's memory, by former company member Dwight Rhoden. And by 2003 it will also have theme works by Doug Varone, Bill T. Jones and Garth Fagan.

The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company has twelve dancers on a thirty-seven-week contract. It hopes to have eighteen to twenty dancers and to give them longer contracts. It also wants to engage its visiting choreographers for at least a month, giving them time to get their previous assignments for other companies out of their systems and to produce wholly original work.

DCDC has also made life-enhancing economic and structural strides in the past five years. The last time I visited Dayton in 1993, the dancers and repertoire were impressive, but the infrastructure was precarious and the deficit substantial. The artistic and business sides are in better balance now, thanks to the Ford Foundation's Working Capital Fund for Minority Cultural Institutions.

When this elaborately titled plan was initiated in 1997, DCDC was the only dance company accepted. Christine Vincent of the foundation's Arts and Media Program felt that despite its shaky fiscal position, DCDC had sound community and board support. But a bumpy ride lay ahead.

Stevens Group of Minneapolis was assigned to come up with a series of comparative studies that would lead to a strategic business plan and increased touring. That took all of 1997.

When implementation began in 1998, things got worse, rather than better. The number of dancers decreased, as did the number of performance weeks. A new executive director was sought. She is Phyllis Brzozowaka, a vivacious young woman who clearly loves the company.

The following year the leakage slowly began to abate. Now the company's budget has reached $1.3 million and the administrative staff has been fortified.

But the artistic mission remains unchanged. It stands shoulder to shoulder with Jeraldyne Blunden's initial dream: "To be rooted in the African American experience and to produce the best possible dance for the broadest audience."