Don't Talk of Love, Show Me

NO HARVARD student can act, dance, sing, or--except in rare instances--perform on his musical instrument--for credit. More importantly, only in recent years have limited numbers of students gained the privilege of learning from teachers who are experienced performers.

These deficiencies in Harvard's attitude toward arts curriculum and faculty are only one part of a larger indictment that the performing arts at Harvard are bad. Questions of good and bad are ugly and difficult in almost any context, but the personal nature of art makes such questions even messier. Yet it would not be breaking any code of objectivity to write that the arts at Harvard were bad; President Bok admitted as much when he authorized a committee on the arts six years ago to suggest improvements for Harvard's arts programs.

Today, "bad arts" cannot be so easily determined as a missed cue or a wrong note. Finding the role of performing in art education and finding qualified teachers are problems of assessment that send University administrators scurrying to far easier tasks like budget-balancing and tuition-raising. It is one thing to decide that learning from performers is a valuable experience for students. It is quite another to decide which performers are valuable enough to 'society" to merit a tenured teaching post at Harvard.

Traditionally, Harvard has never felt the need for performing professors, so assessing them was not a problem. In recent years, however, student pressure and a greater national enthusiasm for the performing arts has softened that stance. Still, President Bok firmly asserts that Harvard will not be transformed into a school that trains professional artists; and he is right to do so. Transforming Harvard into a conservatory or a professional arts school would swing the emphasis on performing art too far in the opposite direction, away from Harvard's commitment to a complete liberal arts education."

PERFORMING ART is an itellectual reprive from intellectualizing. It is necessary as such. Yet the great performer needs the stimulation of intellectualizing as well, and some of Harvard's best artists--musicians, actors, painters, film-makers--will explain that this is why they attend Harvard instead of an arts school. None of them, however, enjoy the relegation of the performing arts to an aside in the drama of the liberal arts education.

Actors have always been forced to learn and ply their art extracurricularly. They are much like college athletes, some say, and deserve no better and no worse. Surely the actor is more a part of the Western intellectual tradition that Harvard embraces than is the athlete. The future of Harvard drama is moot for several years, however, until the curtain rises on Robert Brustein's innovations. Despite the tempest over the undergraduate's loss of control of the Loeb Theater caused by the Brustein appointment, no one denies that there is much ado about the possibility of good, innovative theater and theater classes at Harvard.

With 55 shows vying for audiences last year, Harvard theater is obviously not dead; but a sense of amateurism pervades. Brustein may not bring professionals, but he will inspire professionalism among Harvard's top actors.

Musicians have somewhat easier access to performing than actors. The individual musician does not need a stage, lighting, or even fellow players. His need for performance coaching is no less than the actor's, however. The music department--a small faculty consisting primarily of musicologists--began on the initiative of composer Leon Kirchner several years ago, to offer a course in analysis through performance. Organized for the premier musicians at Harvard interested in discussion and criticism of weekly ensemble performances, Music 180 was a bold step at instituting performing into the arts curriculum at Harvard. Music 180 is now over-subscribed and diluted by lesser musicians who have no recourse. Kirchner has pleaded with the department and administrators to hire at least one additional composer to the music faculty, but here again arises the question of assessing the merit of teachers and the newer problem of a severly limited University budget. Humanities professors fear a drain of funds from their departments to the arts; the arts faculty fear a further channeling of money to performance classes, away from their scholarly, critiquing courses. The performing arts always lose out in the scramble for dollars.

Louis Bakanowsky, chairman of the Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) department, cites dwindling resources as the primary weakness of the film studies branch at the Carpenter Center. Film students concur. They point out the limited 16mm equipment, remarking on its fragility and suggesting that the department reinvest in simpler 8mm machinery and videotape. Additionally, film students complain of professors who are overbearing, non-objective, self-important critics and not themselves film-makers. Real-life film-makers as part-time professors, some students say, would greatly improve the department.

Harvard recognizes the value of learning from doers." To circumvent the problem of assessing artists for tenure, Bok is promoting ways of bringing students into contact with artists, even for short term exposure by encouraging activities like the "Learning from Performers" series.

JAMES S. ACKERMAN, professor of Fine Arts, who headed the faculty committee on the arts, proposes establishing fellowships for visiting artists. But these are temporary, extra-curricular plans that would avoid the tenure and credit problems. They are unsatisfying.

The University's greaftest faux pas is made at the expense of Harvard's dancers, who still remain in limbo. They have felt the worst aspects of both the Harvard arts tradition and the modern budget squeeze. Dance and choreography, unlike drama or music, cannot be studied without performing. Dance, which has forever been a part of man's culture, has only in the past year come to be represented in the Harvard curriculum, and then only as a pirouette into cultural history. In their defense, Radcliffe and the Council for Performing Arts have strongly supported extra-curricular dance efforts; dancers deserve more.

As yet, there exists no equivalent to Music 180 in drama or in dance. Hum 15 is a commendable introduction to studio arts for interested students; but due to budget constraints, its enrollment is limited. More and better performing courses integrated with analysis and history, are necessary.

And what of the student whose talent does not put him in the top ranks of artistic performers? There must be classes that incorporate performing (for credit) for him as well. Students want less and less to work for non-credit courses; in the interest of their education, they must somehow be accomodated. Exposure to performing--to creating and to expressing--is nearly as essential to the "liberal arts education" as is the exposure to analyzing and to critiquing, which is more heavily stressed in today's curriculum. Bok and many faculty members recognize this need and are working within time and budget constraints to achieve change in some areas. They must work harder to sooner integrate the performing arts into the curriculum, because Harvard has not yet made a solid commitment to performing artists. Only then will arts at Harvard pass the audition.