'Elegance, Distinction, Aristocracy,' and Variety: The Dance Center

"Remember...elegance, distinction, and aristocracy!" The last tense words of a renowned New York choreographer before the curtain rises, opening his last ballet? Almost. Helen McGehee, visiting instructor at the Harvard Summer Dance program and former soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company, preps her students before they perform a piece from her own repertory. But these students are Summer School students, and the stage is a second floor studio in Agassiz.

The piece follows the Graham technique. Two dancers stand on stage, bodies rigid, hands clasped around their waists, expressions stony. One faces two high-backed chairs, back to back, seating two onlooking dancers. The other faces an empty wooden stocks, a dancer behind. The music begins, slow at first but full of potent emotion. Their bodies become expressions of the music.

A scene of despair follows: turmoil, pain, struggle, death, resurrection and death again. Tension radiates between the dancers and their audience. McGehee and the surrounding students follow the dancers' movements consciously and unconsciously with their own bodies. They live the dance. For many of the students, this is their first exposure to performance. Already, in one week, McGehee's vision and dynamic personality has led her students this far towards the creation of a dream.

Over at the Loeb dance studio, Indrani, an instructor of Hindu dance, leads her students in an entirely different form of dance. India has sponsored her summer trips for three years. In a vibrant red sari, her jet black hair coiled behind her head, and her black eyes sparkling, she stands before a class, teaching the fundamentals of her technique. With colorful leotards, jingling anklet bells and intent expressions, the students respond with amazing results.

Back in the Radcliffe gym, Christine Temin, faculty director of dance activities at Wellesley College and a dance critic for the Boston Globe, leads a class in beginning ballet. Faces flicker from frustration to intense concentration, to joy at a move executed a little better than before. Eagerness and optimism pervades: "Don't watch the floor," says Temin. "You can convince me that, even if you're wrong, you're right--if you don't watch the floor." Even before the class ends, students for the next class come in to warm up. One remarks "bodies everywhere."

Downstairs Pamela C.R. Jones, a percussionist with the Jerusalem Symphony, teaches a course on "Music for Dancers." Across campus in Memorial Hall, Leon Collins, the great '40s tap dancer, leads students in the study of his art. And Iris M. Fangar, a dance critic and director of the Harvard Summer Dance Center teaches two courses, "Writing for Dance," and "Dance History." And this is just a sampling of the variety the Harvard Summer Dance Program has to offer.

Nelson Goodman, former professor of philosophy at Harvard, originated the Harvard Summer Dance Program seven years ago, Fanger said.

Goodman felt that the University was an appropriate setting for creative activity and dreamed of a dance center, now realized in the summer dance program, Fangar said.

Students can work with a choreographer in action, see their own teachers perform, and perform themselves, Fangar said, while the teachers can experiment on many eager bodies. The Summer School appreciates the activities generated by the dance program, she added.

Because "Harvard is an experience," Fangar said it needs an active arts program, not just classes and libraries.

Dance related activities include Monday evening lectures, Tuesday night movies at the Science Center, performance workshops on Wednesday afternoons in Agassiz, and weekend concerts by such big names as Fred Matthews, Zeeva Cohen and Leon Collins.

The student response is also enthusiastic. One student who wants to dance professionally said yesterday the summer program offers her a nice break from the rigors of New York. She said the atmosphere here is friendly with an emphasis on the learning process.

Shauna Miller '81, a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Company said yesterday that although she does not plan to dance professionally she enjoys the exposure to professional people.

Dancers are everywhere. As Fangar said yesterday, "wherever there are floor-boards, we're dancing."