They assigned each other specific pitches to present to Summers and, Minster says, their timing was uncannily precise. “There was a moment when he cut us off and said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ And just at that moment we were ready to go into that part of the presentation.”
Summers, Yamaguchi recalled, “gave us credibility and backing.”
That night, they celebrated with big hugs and dinner at Spice. “Nothing had been resolved, but we knew we had the ears and the respect of the administration,” Alaly says.
On to a Solution
“I was impressed with the work they had done putting together a report on the dance program, and their informed level of interest in a solution to the space issue,” said Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71.
The group also enlisted the help of alumni in the arts, writing letters to prominent graduates asking them for support. They won the help of John Rockwell ’62, the former editor of The New York Times arts section, who agreed to enlist the Harvard’s Board of Overseers–of which he is a member—to influence the administration.
The dancers began to invite administrators to dance performances, hoping to draw them into the community.
“They were really impressed,” Alaly remembers. “You could sort of see the wheels turning. It’s such a beautiful space and it seemed to have a profound effect on them.”
Hilby, Alaly and Weiss stayed in Cambridge last summer and continued the groups’ efforts.
“Our concern was that while we felt confident, we still hadn’t heard the announcement of one potential space,” Hilby explains.
But behind the scenes, Bergmann and Cathy McCormack at the Office for the Arts had been working to brainstorm potential spaces. They met with Hilby, Alaly, and Weiss as well as Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd, over the summer about the possibility of moving into the QRAC.
Hilby and Alaly will sit on a committee that will work to devise the appropriate renovations for the QRAC, ensuring that dancers have a continual influence in the evolution of dance space.
Council President Chopra, who is forming a committee of students to address space issues in the Quad, says Quad residents are not upset at the dancers because they realized the dancers also lost valuable space.
“I hope that students are focused now on how to improve the space in the QRAC not taken over by dance,” Chopra says.
According to Minster, winning space in the QRAC “is just one step” in a more-than-century long process. “It’s a turning point in the history of dance at Harvard and we are looking forward to watching it thrive,” she says.
—Staff writer Wendy D. Widman can be reached at widman@fas.harvard.edu.