Alaly doubts that such support would be enough to keep student dance groups from becoming restrictive. She maintains that even the chance to perform in student-run dance groups has become increasingly competitive due to the higher-level dancers Harvard continues to attract in greater numbers.
“There’s more classes open to students, but there’s not as many performing opportunities for everyone because most are by audition,” she says. For instance, Harvard Ballet Company (HBC), a student group with which Alaly has been significantly involved, has responded to Harvard’s growing numbers of increasingly talented student dancers by becoming more selective about who gets to perform which kinds of dance pieces, and in deciding who gets to perform at all.
As a member of HBC, I have been generally satisfied with the roles in which I have been cast. However, every semester I hear the complaints of friends who desire to perform more complex roles than the ones which they have been given, and thoroughly believe they are capable of doing so. They bemoan the fact that that the prominent, technically demanding roles often go to the same small group of elite dancers, even when they say many other company members are equally capable of performing these roles.
Though numbers of dance students and performers grow ever larger, the question remains as to whether demand is exceeding supply.
Performances by HBC and Dancer’s Viewpointe regularly sell out, while less prominent groups have seen their fair share of empty seats. The fact that many dance performance runs do not sell out even tiny venues like the Adams Pool Theatre makes me wonder whether few people at Harvard are really interested in viewing student-produced dance works, or if inconsistent audience sizes are simply a result of varying levels of publicity for each show.
TAPPING TEACHERS
Aside from the increase in performances and technical training, academic dance classes have also been added in the past few years: Dramatic Arts 14, “Movement Design;” Dramatic Arts 15, “Movement for Actors and Directors;” and Dramatic Arts 16, “Dance as a Collaborative Art.” The experience I had when I took Dramatic Arts 16 last year fully satisfied my expectations for the aims of these courses: to educate through experience and experimentation.
Needless to say, I supported Larson and Bergmann’s desire to expand these academic offerings. Bergmann has already discussed the possibility of creating interdisciplinary performance studies classes with other faculty members, including Hans Tutschku, Associate Professor of Music and Director of the Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition, and various Dramatic Arts and VES professors. She said she received a positive, enthusiastic response to the idea, but the other faculty members all said they were already too busy to add such classes to their schedules.
Another obstacle to expanding Harvard’s academic dance offerings is student enrollment, which has been “disappointingly low,” according to Bergmann. There are six students currently enrolled in Dramatic Arts 16, and during the 2003-2004 school year, 11 students enrolled in Dramatic Arts 14, and 12 students enrolled in Dramatic Arts 16.
Bergmann believes this may be a result of too many concentration requirements, lack of interest in dance scholarship, or the fact that the courses do not fulfill any concentration or core requirement. I saw one clear reason for low enrollment last year, when several students enrolled in my Dramatic Arts 16 class dropped out of the course after several weeks, citing the unexpectedly heavy workload.
Nobody ultimately can account for the enormous disparity between the enrollment in dance courses and the expansion of participation in dance groups all around campus. Nevertheless, the overall growth of participation in dance speaks volumes about the need for this community to have its voice heard. That the administration has at last picked up the other line to hear the desperate cries of space-hungry performers is a hopeful sign; I can only hope that now we can keep them on the phone.
—Staff Writer Marin J. D. Orlosky can be reached at orlosky@fas.harvard.edu