In Defense of Mr. Ford

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

May I urge you to reconsider the position of your editorial of January 11 on dancing? It is based on an evident misconception of an important effort.

Anyone who feels the extravagant ugliness of contemporary returns to the jungle in modes of dancing must welcome an honest attempt to recover the genuine line of advance by reverting to forms far less aboriginal and admittedly graceful. It is not the barn dances that are wanted at present, but the waltz, polka, quadrille, gavotte, varsovien, etc. And these are not proposed as substitutes for all present modes, but as forms to be interspersed with them. In a well-devised musical program, the architectural music of Bach or Mozart is likely to appear with that of Debussy or Stravinski; the formless needs a background of form to make it so much as interesting to an intelligent enjoyer. The barn-dances, upon which you dwell, are of course merely the play-boy accompaniment of a period and have a folklorist sort of interest; they are not justly taken as typical of the movement you comment on.

Editorial fairness will recall that Mr. Ford is one personality and Keich's Theater quite another. CRIMSON editors, in the nature of the case, must be even more in a hurry than most editors; but here, surely, is a chance not to be overlooked to recognize a good move and support it. X. Y. Zed.