Problems of success - concerns of the American College Dance Festival Association

Dance Magazine, July, 1994 by Marian Horosko

"One substantial impact on what we're seeing today in the college dance scene," says Paul Organisak, executive director of the American College Dance Festival Association, "is the result of more professionals working in and coming back to the academic dance community: our pioneers have succeeded in dispelling the |physical education' image of dance in the schools - a twenty-year battle."

American College Dance Festival Association ended its 1994 season and sixth national festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Terrace Theater in Washington, D.C., April 28 to 30. Its three gala concerts featured twenty-eight works by twenty-seven different schools representing sixteen states. The works performed were selected from each of American College Dance Festival Association's eight regional festivals. In addition, classes were offered by Shapiro & Smith, members of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Ron Brown, and Martha Myers. Discussion groups addressed issues and findings by Dance/USA's National Task Force on Dance Education, "Dancemakers" (the report of the National Endowment on the Arts), and presented an update on standards and assessments by the National Dance Association.

"A common issue addressed at many of our meetings," Organisak explains, "was the need for a dancer to have several skills - administration, counseling, publicity, for example. If college can give a student vital dance-related expertise, it may prove just as important as performance skills. Why shouldn't our students take a marketing class, work with the music department, learn about fund-raising, and expand their resources beyond dance technique? It's a question of survival.

"In the eighties, when we rode the crest of our golden age by touring, performing, and expanding the audience, the dance world did little to shore up its tenuous support. We now see that you can't just arrive as a company, rehearse in a theater in the afternoon, perform, and then move out. We have to be more responsible than that. There must be community outreach and visibility in the grade schools. We have to instill an awareness of the richness of dance history in the audience as well as in our students and demonstrate dance's relationship to other arts." Although the meetings covered a great many subjects. a goal voted upon with enthusiasm by American College Dance Festival Association's board was to pursue its national connection with its host, the Kennedy Center's Education Program, to the year 2000.

Crowded regional festivals this year turned people away; the Northeast festival had over five hundred participants. "These figures present the problems of success," adds Organisak. "No school can accommodate such a large response; it's wonderful, but difficult. Ironically, it also makes it more difficult for American College Dance Festival Association to address larger issues facing the association and dance in higher education." American College Dance Festival Association's role in the international college scene may also expand its 250-school membership. Two schools from Mexico participated in the Southwest festival and there are sister associations in Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, France, and Australia for future contact. Venezuela is about to enroll its college dance program in the American College Dance Festival Association.

"Many teachers are only too aware of the time restrictions imposed by semesters in the education of the dancer," Organisak admits. "Ideally. there would be more time for dance-related subjects as well as administrative and production training. And we have to consider the impact of future students coming from the K-12 programs in the high schools as a connection to our colleges. It's an exciting future. Complex. But we have good minds and willing hands to work it all out."