From Living Treasures,
Coins of Artistic Wisdom
LAST year a list of "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures" was announced by the Dance Heritage Coalition, a Washington-based alliance of major dance libraries and archives, which is seeking to advance the cause of dance preservation. The 100 "treasures" were selected for their artistic excellence, their impact on dance as an art form, their enrichment of the nation's cultural heritage, their national and internation recognition and their potential to enhance the lives of future generations. Now a commemorative booklet has been published featuring descriptions and photographs of the honorees.
The list runs the gamut of genres and generations, from the tapper Honi Coles to the early Balanchine ballerina Alexandra Danilova, from the film director Busby Berkeley to the bharata natyam guru Balasaraswati, from the New Dance Group of the 1930's to the Judson Dance Theater of the 1960's, and from The Nutcracker to the hula. The booklet offers a useful historical perspective on choreographic careers and accomplishments. But how might the living treasures speak about their own work? The list provides an occasion to solicit the views of the artists themselves — to hear them sum up their legacies and say how they might explain their work to an audience 50 years from now. Their responses, below, range from the earnest to the whimsical. Each artist's language, concerns and sense of history are as distinctive as what they have created.
CHARLES (CHOLLY) ATKINS
Motown choreographer and performer with Coles and Atkins
I would tell them the same thing as I'd tell them today. My work,
if learned well and executed well, will endure decade after decade after
decade.
TRISHA BROWN
Artistic director, Trisha Brown Dance Company
My purpose is to communicate through choreography that meets the standards
applied to visual art. I work in cycles to address a question or an
unknown. This system perpetuates me forward through a wide range of
concerns. I play with meaning and nonmeaning in abstraction, depiction
in opera and formal ideas always.
WILLIAM CHRISTENSEN
Founder and special adviser to the board, Ballet West
I fought like hell and they always wanted to do it their way, but I
outwitted them and got it to go my way. That's how it's always been
and still is. I'm honest and kind, and I wouldn't hurt a flea, but don't
get in my way. Did you know I used to box?
CHUCK DAVIS
Artistic director, African American Dance Ensemble, and founder,
Dance Africa America
I would share with them something I wrote during my morning's meditation:
"The sounds of time caught in the heartbeat is reflected in dance
that honors the universe." I want to be acknowledged as one of
many, many dancers in this century who opened a safe path for others
to realize the beauty of dance and its place in our world culture.
JANE DUDLEY
Choreographer, New Dance Group
I try to filter through my dance what I feel about the period I am living
in — positive or critical. I work from the music. I choose music
that speaks to me in a meaningful way. I hope by doing so I convey my
own aims and healthy wishes.
KATHERINE DUNHAM
Choreographer, performer and founder, Katherine Dunham Centers for Dance
and Humanities
I hope that they do not look at the work as something
stationary, something that happened and was finished when I go. I hope
that they think of it as a continuous and ongoing thing. I'd feel good
about that.
ANNA HALPRIN
Founder, San Francisco Dancers' Workshop, and co-founder, Tamalpa
Institute
I work toward a future where more of us call ourselves artists, working
together to make art concerned with the primary issues of life; a future
where art is honored for its power to inspire, teach, transform and
heal. I work for a future where all the people, creatures and landscapes
of the world are dancing together.
BILL T. JONES
Artistic director, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
At a time when the piercing wail of anxiety and discontent at the loss
of a true moral voice was at a fever pitch, I felt like a cultural mendicant
faced with two choices: to go into the cloistered order of individualism
and art as aesthetic research or to become the warrior engaged in the
pursuit of art as an instrument for social change. I moved forward with
uncertainty and some joy, equipped only with a gnawing desire to create
a belief in the beautiful and the true.
BELLA LEWITZKY
Founder, Bella Lewitzky Dance Company
I never had so much fun doing anything else in my life. Dance is irreplaceably
wonderful.
SOPHIE MASLOW
Choreographer, New Dance Group
My choreography was attuned to what was happening in the world, in terms
of individual relationships and larger issues such as war and Southern
race relations. The work was about my own responses and the fact that
there was not enough response coming from other people and that nothing
much was done about these things, until it was too late. They were concerns
that hovered over me, that I couldn't shake off. I didn't think that
a dance would make the situation better. It was about a feeling I had
that I wanted to share with other people.
MATTEO
Artistic director, Foundation for Ethnic Dance
I was especially fortunate to have Carola Goya, famous American pioneer
of classical Spanish dance, as my partner, wife and spiritual mentor,
who believed that one was born with a dual purpose — to think and
create. We did what was called "ethnic" dance, which comprised
the classical dances from countries around the world. I'm eternally
grateful to my first teacher, La Meri, and the many gurus and maestros
who taught me their classical dances to pass on to my fellow Americans.
DONALD McKAYLE
Founder, Donald McKayle and Company, and professor, University of California
at Irvine
My work has always dealt with the human spirit and resonated
within the aspirations, physicality, dreams and reality of vibrantly
alive people.
MARK MORRIS
Artistic director, Mark Morris Dance Group
Since I will most probably be dead in 50 years, I am happy to imagine
thousands of 75-year-olds who will still be in love after meeting on
a blind date at one of my shows when they were young.
FAYARD NICHOLAS
Choreographer and performer with the Nicholas Brothers
My brother and I started out in 1930. I first started performing in
colleges, theater, benefits and plays. I just picked it up. I never
had a lesson. I saved a lot of money. We created a new style. We called
it "classical tap." It had a combination of a little ballet
with the tap. The thing of it is, we used our whole bodies, especially
the hands. It had class, grace and personality.
JENNIFER TIPTON
Lighting designer
I would tell them that I always tried to give dancers an environment,
a place to be that was special for that particular dance. I tried to
illuminate the ideas of the choreographer as well as the movement. I
paid particular attention to the structure and the rhythm of the dance
and created light that was either in sync with that structure and rhythm
or in counterpoint to it. I would tell them that I loved all dance no
matter what its style and that my aim was to make beautiful dancers
beautiful even if they were doing an ugly dance.
EDWARD VILLELLA
Artistic director, Miami City Ballet
I had the great pleasure of working with the masters of the 20th century
— George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Igor Stravinsky and my teacher
and coach Stanley Williams. I believe the works done by Balanchine and
Robbins will still be in the active repertory at that time, just as
the works of Petipa are still current and active in today's repertory.