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Performing a Public Voice: The Emergence of Six Organizations, 1956–1970
- Wesleyan University Press
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Performing a Public Voice TheEmergenceofSixOrganizations,1956–1970 In the years between 1956 and 1978, federal emphasis on democracy and cultural freedom, economic investment in education and the arts, and the national climate of social ferment combined to create the context for modern dance to re-imagine itself. These factors stimulated radical aesthetic investigation and deconstruction in dance, most famously by the Judson Dance Theater, introducing everyday pedestrian movement, dancing in everyday spaces such as walls, rooftops, living rooms, and challenging limits and audience expectations in every imaginable manner (described in detail by Banes 1980, 2003; Jowitt 1988; Johnston 1998). They also stimulated the development of the field on another level, its infrastructure . Dance educator and director of the National Council on the Arts in Education, Gertrude Lippincott, in her article, “A Bright Future for Dance,” published in the inaugural issue of Dance Scope in 1965, heralds the period following World War II as “the beginning of a large-scale cooperation new to modern dance” (Lippincott 1965a:12). Her statement reflects a “belief in collective action,” described by Bernice Rosen in her interview in the American Dance Guild chapter, and acted upon by the individuals interviewed in this book. This organizational and political surge in dance lasted through the 1970s. Like the development in choreography , it was stimulated by the air of social activism and enabled by political -economic circumstances following the war. In the Fall 1965 issue of Dance Scope, Esther M. Jackson, former theater education specialist in the Arts and Humanities Branch of the U.S. Office of Education, and advocate of modern dance, wrote, One of the most significant changes in the cultural life of post-war America is the newly emerging relationship of the arts to the political, economic, educational , and social structure of the nation. . . . Clearly, the growing disposition to admit artists to responsible levels of power and action in America of the sixties marks a major adjustment, not only in the general attitude of the nation, but in the organizational structure of our society. (Jackson 1965:7) The growing disposition took form in increased communication and cooperation between people in the field of dance, academic administra39 tors, and state and federal government agencies. Indeed, this period was characterized by a number of seminal conferences on arts in education, a proliferation of dance organizations and arts education governing agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, and a growing recognition of the need for curricular and programmatic standards for dance in higher education (Hagood 2000:231). This wave of activity included the formation of the six organizations described within this book. In this chapter, I draw on the following interviews, and on early documents and publications from each organization, to present the problems facing dancers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and to delineate the ways in which they began to address those problems collectively and gradually define the unique nature of their work within a broader social context. Perhaps the most obvious problem was that there was no place for people working or interested in the field of dance to share ideas. “We all felt the need for ongoing workshops that would help us learn from each other. We needed a clearinghouse for information” (Bernice Rosen, ADG interview). Genevieve Oswald describes the informal networks that had supported research in dance previously. The great researchers of the past, Lillian Moore, Ivor Guest and several others , had formed a little support group. They didn’t get together but they wrote letters. They would go to a library and then come back to their hotel and write a long letter about what they saw. They kept a tremendous correspondence . (Genevieve Oswald, SDHS interview) John Martin addressed the lack of formal networks for communication about modern dance in February 1929 in a New York Times article, asserting that, “Our dancing is beginning to acquire substance and character, and the sooner its existence as a unified entity, a national expression—if such a term can be used without chauvinistic implications—is recognized, the more rapid will its progress be” (quoted in Siegel 1987:4). He suggests a national dance congress similar to those held annually in Germany “where all denominations of dancers would come together for lectures, performances , and a public airing of philosophies” (quoted in ibid.).1 40 Movable Pillars 1. A few potent dance organizations formed during the 1930s garnered the collective political spirit of the modern dance community and, though they did not last, established important ethical...