Dance Takes Off

DANCE TAKES OFF

New Energy

The 1960s were an important era for dance, with innovative work from New York City Ballet choreographers George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, the emergence of Rudolf Nureyev as a major star, and the critical and popular acclaim of Martha Graham's company. But dance (especially ballet) was a minority art, considered too highbrow for mainstream American tastes and little viewed outside of New York. That image changed abruptly in the 1970s. With bursts of new energy from Broadway (Bob Fosse and A Chorus Line), movies (John Travolta), popular music (disco), and modern dance and ballet (Mikhail Baryshnikov, Twyla Tharp), dance was suddenly everywhere. By the end of the 1970s it had taken its place as one of the most popular art forms in the United States.

Boom

Attendance at U.S. dance programs was about one million in 1964-1965. Attendance shot up dramatically in the early 1970s, reaching eight million by 1973, then leaping to an incredible twenty million by the 1978-1979 season. Officials of the National Endowment for the Arts estimated in 1964-1965 that only 32 percent of the audience for dance was outside New York City; by 1978-1979 that figure was 80 percent. By the late 1970s there were more than 125 professional dance companies operating across the United States, compared to only a handful in the mid 1960s. The American Ballet Theater had a record paid attendance of more than five hundred thousand during the 1978-1979 season, up more than three hundred thousand from the previous decade. And children—including droves of boys—were signing up for dance classes in record numbers.

Baryshnikov

The 1974 defection of former Bolshoi Ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov was largely credited with the popular resurgence of ballet in the United States, and with good reason. Baryshnikov's athletic grace, good looks, and amiable persona combined to make him big at the box office and a new superstar. His pyrotechnic style redefined the role of the male dancer in ballet and helped dancers to be correctly seen as athletes as much as artists. Because of Baryshnikov, other male dancers such as Fernando Bujones and Aleksandr Godunov (who defected in 1979) enjoyed greater success. With Baryshnikov as their major new star, the American Ballet Theater rebounded in the mid 1970s, with sold-out houses and long ticket lines for the first time in its history. Baryshnikov's simultaneous Time and Newsweek covers in May 1975 were the proof, if anyone still needed it, that dance had finally arrived in the United States. The success two years later of the ballet-themed film The Turning Pointy for which Baryshnikov received an Oscar nomination, only sealed the reputation of dance. In 1979, after a year of dancing for Balanchine and the New York City Ballet, Baryshnikov became the director of the American Ballet Theater.

Accessibility

There were other causes for the dance surge of the 1970s, however, as evidenced by its huge increase in popularity before Baryshnikov's defection. Tours by major companies earlier in the decade made dance accessible to large segments of the country it normally never reached. Substantial grants from the federal government and organizations such as the Ford Foundation, plus increased funding for college dance programs, meant dance productions were more accessible. The National Endowment for the Arts spent almost $4 million on dance in 1973 alone. Meanwhile, modern dance and ballet began to take on a new identity as an American (rather than European) art form as more companies experimented with newer, jazzier, and more athletic dances. The continuing work of Robbins, Balanchine, and Graham, whose company was a hit in London, and star performers such as Gelsey Kirkland created a new appreciation of dance among American audiences.

Regional Shift

Even when there were no tours, American audiences had thriving new regional companies to satisfy their dance cravings. Anatole Chujoy formed the National Association for Regional Ballet to foster intercompany collaboration and festivals and saw more than one hundred companies join. The Dance Theater of Harlem, originally formed by Arthur Mitchell in 1968 to increase opportunity for black dancers, toured throughout the 1970s. Cleveland and Washington were among the U.S. cities to launch successful companies during the decade. The San Francisco Ballet, after a record-low attendance of 45 percent of capacity in 1974, rebounded to 92 percent of capacity after a successful marketing campaign. The blossoming of regional dance companies fostered the development of American talent, reducing the reliance on imported stars.

BARYSHNIKOV DEFECTS

Russian-born dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov was twenty-six when he arrived in Canada in 1974 as part of a touring troupe of the Kirov and Bolshoi ballets. Unhappy that his government would not allow him to dance with other companies throughout the world (his lifetime ambition), Baryshnikov decided to defect to the West. On 29 June 1974 he abruptly left his troupe and sought political asylum with the Canadian government.

There was an instant furor in the American press. Baryshnikov made his American debut in New York with the American Ballet Theater (ABT) in July, dancing Giselle with Natalia Makarova, who had defected in 1970. His reception was nothing short of adulation. Within a week he was a super-star, selling out houses, earning thirty-minute standing ovations, and giving the ABT the biggest box-office season in its history. He also caused a stir when he persuaded ballerina Gelsey Kirkland to leave the New York City Ballet to dance with him.

Baryshnikov was everywhere in the next three years. He danced in more than twenty roles, including The Nutcracker and Twyla Tharp's dynamic hit Push Comes to Shove. When he appeared in Don Quixote, the ABT sold a record fifty-two thousand dollars worth of tickets in the first day of its spring season. In May 1975 he appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek simultaneously. He was Oscar-nominated for his appearance in the film The Turning Point (1977). In 1978 Time called him "the John Travolta of high culture." With his athletic style Baryshnikov had single-handedly redefined the role of the male dancer in ballet and created an unprecedented level of interest in dance across the United States. He had become an American phenomenon.

But Baryshnikov was not satisfied. He was home-sick, for one thing, and the glamour of stardom was not the challenge he sought anymore. So he "defected" again—this time to George Balanchine's New York City Ballet. He danced for a year in twenty-two new ballets by Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, earning mixed critical and popular response. He was unsure of his next move when he was offered the directorship of the ABT in 1979. Now thirty-two and needing another challenge, Baryshnikov "defected" a third time, moving into the 1980s as dancer-director for one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the world.

Source:

Barbara Aria, Misha: The Mikhail Baryshnikov Story (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989).

Choreographers

Several innovative choreographers emerged in the 1970s, including Merce Cunningham, who originally danced under Martha Graham. In frequent collaborations with the avant-garde composer John Cage, Cunningham developed dance as an expression of the body parallel to, rather than dependent on, the accompanying music. Travelogue (1979) subverted the dance's logic and sequence by using an accompaniment that changed from performance to performance. Paul Taylor, who worked under Cunningham and Graham, formed his own company to develop new, highly personal pieces. Taylor's dances displayed an impressive range of

focus, from humorous satires to dark, disquieting explorations of human relationships. Taylor's company was the training ground for a dancer who emerged as the most prominent modern dance choreographer of the 1970s—Twyla Tharp.

Tharp

With her successful dance troupe, Tharp introduced a highly creative, highly experimental style of dance that drew from a variety of popular social dance forms. In Sue's Leg she used jazz elements to create dances of controlled anarchy, which were intricately structured but appeared fluid and effortless. Baker's Dozen (1979) also featured eccentric, high-energy moves tinged with a tongue-in-cheek nostalgia. Her trademarks—fast steps, popular music, cheeky humor, and flippant tone—led to assignments with the Joffrey Ballet (Deuce Coupe, 1973) and the American Ballet Theater. The second collaboration, Push Comes to Shove (1976), became her biggest success of the decade. The show, developed as a virtuoso vehicle for Baryshnikov, was a playful classical ballet set to ragtime music. Tharp and Baryshnikov became innovators of a new fusion between ballet and modern dance.

Sources:

Barbara Aria, Misha: The Mikhail Baryshnikov Story (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989);

"Ballet Leaps into the Big Leagues in America," U.S. News and World Report (12 February 1979): 71-73;

Mary Clarke and Clement Crisp, The History of Dance (New York-Crown Publishers, 1981);

"Dance: The Growth Industry of the Arts," U.S. News and World Report, 76 (21 January 1974): 80-81.