State

Dance Transplant On Duke Campus The unique dance community comes to life again June 19 - July 28. By MARGUERITE SCHUMANN BEFORE BANKERS (Continued from page N) arm. why there wouldn't be a heathen on earth by breakfast time. And one assumes that modern banks have solved the problem of wedding pres¬ ents for all time to come. The smallest deposit, even if borrowed, can be translated into everything from free china to living room furniture. As "Mr. Dooley" said of Senator Beveridge's oratory. "Ye kin waltz to it." and so it is with banking commer¬ cials. But today.thc old railing is gone and the "mourner's bench" was used for kindling long ago. Nothing makes bankers happier than a borrower. As a matter of television fact, one gets the decided feeling that if one doesn't come and borrow a bale of the bank's lovely kale, one will be guilty of griev¬ ous social offense. The bank's feelings will be hurt irrevocably. They not only stand to serve as gleeful conveyors of legal tender but as friends, buddies, pals. You can take your burdens and leave them with the bank the way a former generation put issues in the laps of the benevolent gods. From what one hears on TV. one assumes that banks give away so much loot it is as if a single crackerjack comes in a huge box of prizes. And one is not to lose any sleep over repay¬ ment. "Tut. tut. let us worry about that. You go and have fun and don’t bother your pretty head about un- glamorous details." And with the aristically designed check, the old goat must be butting in limbo. Once I was in a poker game on a blanket, along a creek bank. A big pot came down to two contestants. One man. a notorious devotee of tennis balls. Filled out a check for a large amount, threw the check onto the blanket and said. "I raise." His oppo¬ nent reached for a handful of dry leaves. He threw the leaves onto the blanket, as he said. "I call." "What the hell do you mean, saying ‘I call,* with leaves?" "Well, the leaves are just as good as your damn goat." Except for the sparrows one wouldn’t know the old home town today. Anyone who can make his mark can buy anything his wife thinks she fancies or that her neighbor has. In¬ deed. we are convinced that we shall live long enough to see the day when some irate, disputatious man says, "Well, put your credit-card where your mouth is." John Wesley, sculptured in stone above the portal of Duke University's awesome gothic-style chapel, seemed to be wearing a puzzled look. Many times before he had seen in¬ termission audiences spilling out of Page Auditorium onto the chapel greensward. But this audience, on a fine warm summer night in 1978. looked different. Mingled with the conservative citizens who keep Duke's cultural events going were sev¬ eral hundred dancers. Dancers look different, even off¬ stage. Intensely proud and conscious of their lithe bodies, they adorn them¬ selves dramatically and unconven¬ tionally. Some girls wore skirts slipped over leotards; some swathed them¬ selves in long-fringed shawls, cither exotic or plain. One young woman hid beneath an immense brown floppy velour hat, while a young male sport¬ ing a broad-brimmed Panama was barefoot. There were dancers in caf¬ tans. dashikis, all sorts of Asian, South American and .African costumes. Be¬ tween sips of diet soft drinks, conver¬ sations were intense — always about dance, often about the dancing of the speaker. The scene was the American Dance Festival, 1978. newly transplanted to the Duke campus after nearly thirty years at Connecticut College in New London. The American Dance Festi¬ val, 1979, now putting down roots at Duke, will celebrate forty-five years since its founding at Bennington Col¬ lege by Martha Graham and others. Director Charles Reinhard calls the festival "the only gathering of the whole dance arts clan in one place and at one time." More Than New York June Batten Arey, festival consul¬ tant for North Carolina operations during its initial year enthusiastically agrees. “There is no other dance community like it in the world." she says. "The Festival has always pre¬ sented the highest achievements in dance and encouraged future creativ¬ ity." Reinhart goes on: "You can see more in six weeks here, meet and work with artists, choreographers and teachers, find out what is really hap¬ pening in American dance, than is pos¬ sible anywhere, even in New York." (Reinhart's wintertime office for the festival is in New York.) The Festival's public face — the six weeks of dance programs by the na¬ tion’s leading professional companies, presented in Page Auditorium between June 17 and July 28 — is only the tip of the iceberg. The Festival is also a school and a series of workshops that attract all manner of professionals and aspiring professionals. Here is what will happen in Durham this summer: — About 250 dancers of college and post-college age will test their skills to see if they can become professionals or enter some related Field. They will work with a faculty of 35. Some out¬ standing recent faculty names include Balasaraswati, Arthur Hall. Lucas Hoving, Betty Jones. Pauline Koner. Pearl Lang, Daniel Nagrin. Don Red- lich. and Ethel Winter. — About 500 persons — educators, movement specialists, and represen¬ tatives of performing companies — will attend a conference for the Artists-in-the-Schools program, spon¬ sored by the National Endowment for the Arts. — A dozen working journalists (perhaps from the U.S., Canada, En¬ gland. and Israel, if last year is any THE STATE, AMU. 1ST» 24