Dancers in cap and gown: some leading California professors discuss what the present and the future hold for dance students

Dance Magazine, May, 1994 by Muriel Topaz

Some leading California professors discuss what the present and the future hold for dance students.

Last September we brought you the results of our round-table discussion with deans of dance departments in the New York area. The feedback from that discussion encouraged us to take the idea out to the West Coast. Once again four department chairs, chosen for both the quality and disparity of their programs, were invited to speak out frankly about their problems and their passions. Those participating in the animated discussion were: Cristyne Lawson from California Institute of the Arts, a very small private conservatory with about sixty-five dance majors; James Penrod from the University of California at Irvine, with one hundred sixty dance majors within a huge state-supported university; Judith Scalin from Loyola Marymount, a medium-sized Jesuit liberal arts institution with thirty dance majors; our hostess for the discussion, Joan Schlaich of California State University at Long Beach, a state-supported megauniversity with ninety dance majors; and moderator Muriel Topaz. Here are some of the things they talked about:

How are we preparing our students,

and what are we preparing

them for? Are there any jobs out

there?

Schlaich: We really are preparing them to do just about anything. Dancers' discipline, focus, and willingness to work hard make people love them as employees.

Scalin: We try to train our students to be "awake dreamers." Because a lot of students at Loyola come from parental backgrounds in which they are expected to be practical and productive, they tend to abandon their dreams very much too soon. Being an awake dreamer means cultivating the skills that you need, finding out the talents you have, and yet not letting go of your dream of dancing. You have to be able to speak and write, not be a moron about technology, be able to work equipment, and connect to the community. Being a sleepy dreamer does not produce anything, either. For example, if I wanted to be a Las Vegas showgirl with my four-foot, eleven-inch body, that would be a sleepy dream. We try to keep them awake and planning concretely for careers.

Penrod: There are jobs out there in dance, but not all of the students have the necessary talent to get those jobs as dancers or choreographers. It is our obligation to prepare them to move in many different directions.

Lawson: We are really going into technology in dance, having computerized lighting boards to work with, giving the opportunity to be stage managers and even lighting designers. And we are moving towards having a computerized choreography program like the one Merce Cunningham uses.

Schlaich: Watching large companies fold is scary. Now our graduates are creating many small companies all over. That doesn't mean that they are supporting themselves by dancing - they couldn't possibly. But they are supporting themselves in other ways, sometimes dance-related, and are still dancing and choreographing.

Lawson: There are a lot of people who want to do their own work. They are going to do it anyway, no matter what happens.

Do you think we are changing the

field by helping our students to

make things happen themselves

instead of trying to walk into an

established situation?

Schlaich: Partly we are doing that, but I think a lot is the nature of the students. They are very determined.

Penrod: What is the university, college, or conservatory giving to its students? We are educating ours to think, to write-probably changing the nature of what dance is all about on some level. Not in terms of the big companies, however. The other thing we concentrate on is the science connected to dance. There are jobs out there for dancers who know about the human body and how it works. Some of our students find employment as rehabilitative people or specialists in dance injury prevention.

Lawson: Most of my students don't want to be in anybody's company. They really want to do their own work - the very good ones, the ones who are really interested in creating. It stopped being a dream for a majority of them about ten years ago. Maybe they don't see much that they want to be in.

What is the place of repertory in

your program?

Schlaich: It's critical for our students and is basic to whatever we do. We bring in at least one guest every semester.

Penrod: When I first came to Irvine, only original works were done. I shifted to reconstruction through notation and bringing guest artists in to create new ballets. Also, a number of faculty and many students are choreographers who produce new works all the time.

Lawson: We don't do repertory at all. We do have guests choreograph for the graduating dancers, but not repertory as course work. All the faculty choreographs and students audition to work with them on student concerts. We don't reconstruct dances. We look at them on video and we talk about them a lot, but we don't do them. I just don't believe in it because I feel that most of modern dance is a very personal thing. I don't know how much anyone gets out of doing something that Doris Humphrey did, in this day and age. This policy gives our faculty a chance to be creative; otherwise, they would not have anything to do. They want to create on the students whom they have trained.