Inaugural Year in Harvard Dance Center: A New Chapter
The Harvard Dance Center, 60 Garden Street, opened its doors to students for the first time in September, 2005. Higher enrollment numbers—400 undergraduates and 296 graduate students and Harvard community members—affirmed that the OFA Dance Program’s move to its new facility has been an energizing change. The new Dance Center provides an additional teaching studio, as well as improved support spaces and technical configurations, including the ability to quickly transform the main teaching space into a studio theater.
This season the Dance Program produced two open houses to welcome the community to the Dance Center, as well as eight concerts, four guest residencies, six master classes, plus workshops and informal showings. Two new staff members joined the Dance Program: Joshua Legg, Dance Assistant, and Jessica Flores, Dance Production Supervisor.
In preparation for the Dance Center’s inaugural concert in December, Jennifer Scanlon, formerly of José Limón Dance Company, auditioned and taught Harvard students Limón’s Suite from A Choreographic Offering. Completing the inaugural concert program were works by alumna Rebecca Alaly ’05 and Ebonie Hazle ’06, instructors Jodi Allen and Brenda Divelbliss, OFA Dance Director Elizabeth Bergmann, and former Boston Ballet dancer Gianni DeMarco.
In November, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, in conjunction with the Harvard Law School, was in residence. Creating a new work in the new dance space, they performed for Law School symposium guests, and concluded their visit with a performance for the general public—the first in the new dance studio/theatre.
The student-run companies Expressions and Harvard Ballet Company produced
performances in the Dance Center at the conclusion of the fall term.
Three FAS courses in movement were sponsored by the Committee on Dramatic Arts in collaboration with the Dance Program. In the fall, “The Art of Movement Design” (DA 14), taught by Bergmann, included a collaboration with the Department of Music. Bergmann and Associate Professor of Music Hans Tutschku brought together their classes for two improvisational workshops, which resulted in a January performance of original choreography and music composition. For that event, electronic music-making devices lined the lobby, inviting the audience to try their hand at improvisation before entering the theater.
In the spring, a view of 20th-century modern dance master Martha Graham was offered in the curriculum for the first time. Visiting Lecturer Christine Dakin, who is former Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, taught “The Artist Revealed: Martha Graham” (DA 25). “Teaching and working with the Harvard students was the best kind of exploration,” said Dakin. “The students in the course came into contact with Martha Graham’s body of work with their intellect, their bodies and their emotions. Learning an excerpt of Graham’s helped them connect more deeply to the work. It was exhilarating and gratifying to watch them enter into Graham’s work, letting its depth and complexity challenge their thinking and creativity.” “Movement for Actors and Directors” (DA15) was also taught in the spring by Claire Mallardi, Dance Program Artistic Director Emerita, Radcliffe College.
