SAN DIEGO DANCE IN THE EIGHTIES : During Decade, San Diego Dance Took Big Step Forward

SAN DIEGO —  The 1980s will be remembered as a major turning point for dance in San Diego. Although Terpsichore has yet to attain the status enjoyed by her sister arts, the passing decade was marked by progress throughout the dance community.

San Diego State University dance professor Patricia Sandback has been observing the dance scene from both sides of the footlights since the 1960s. Totally bullish on the changing scene, she said the ‘80s were marked by growth.

“It was a time of growth in dancers’ technique, in the ability to make choreography and in the number of dance companies,” Sandback said.

Victoria Hamilton, executive director of the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, said: “We have a lot of companies and an international presence. We’ve more than tripled dance support, and the new degree program in dance at San Diego State University will prove very important to this growth.”

Dance in the ‘80s has been a rich melting pot of local and imported products. Home-grown efforts from both organized troupes and independent artists mushroomed. Educational opportunities at every level increased by leaps and bounds. More organizations got into the act of importing dance events during this dynamic decade than ever before in the annals of San Diego dance.

The city’s dance card began to overflow in 1987 with two major presenters (San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts and San Diego Performances) booking a bumper crop of big-league dance attractions, and a profusion of other purveyors--Sushi and UC San Diego’s University Events program among them--offering a variety of smaller-scale imports and locally produced concerts. The explosion of dance on home turf ran the gamut from name-brand ballet companies to cutting-edge avant-gardists.

The San Diego Area Dance Alliance, a collective representing dance troupes and independent dance makers, brought the splintered sectors of local dance together for the first time in 1981, and began its concerted effort to encourage excellence and improve the image of San Diego dance.

Since then, the alliance has been an active catalyst for growth by providing services and a communications network never before available here. The organization even took on a new role as sponsor of the Georgian State National Singing and Dancing Ensemble during the Soviet arts festival this year.

Tom Corcoran, executive director of the alliance, is convinced that dance is moving on a steady upward course, despite what he considers its second-fiddle status in the arts community.

“The city is now making more funding available than ever before,” he said. “But remember, the city provided facilities for the symphony, the opera and other art forms. What really kept dance from developing even more during the ‘80s was the lack of facilities.

“There’s a real need for (dance) theaters,” he said. “Music and the institutions in Balboa Park have benefited directly or indirectly from public support. They’re further along because they’ve had the facilities.”

Maxine Mahon, who founded California Ballet 22 years ago, watched the amount of dance increase tremendously during the ‘80s, but she shares Corcoran’s frustration.

“We haven’t grown enough to keep pace with the size of the city. The three major dance groups should have full-salaried dancers by now, and we don’t,” she said. “Sacramento and Louisville can pay for a small company, but we can’t. People say if you’re good you’ll get support, but that’s not true.”

None of the local bellwethers has any serious doubts about past gains in the dance community. However, as choreographer James Kelly (who left town for greener pastures in the early 1980s) observed: “Yes, there’s been a lot of growth, but when I came back, I was surprised how much the theater had grown in that same time. Dance had only made an inch of progress compared to theater.”

“Dance never keeps pace with the other arts anywhere ,” said former Twyla Tharp dancer John Malashock, a native San Diegan. “But we’re doing in dance now what (other art forms) were doing 20 years ago--we’re starting the exodus from New York.

“New York has become an oppressive atmosphere to work,” Malashock said. “They put you on a pedestal one day and then you’re out. (Artists) want to come to places like this now.”

Some of the best programs of the decade were presented by organizations dedicated only to sponsoring--not producing--major dance events.

But the successes were tempered by some disappointments as well. The era critics hailed as a renaissance for dance took a few steps backward--right on the heels of its most ambitious forward leap.

Two movers and shakers played prominent roles in the imported dance revolution--Danah Fayman and Suzanne Townsend. The duo began working as a team (under the name San Diego Arts Foundation) in 1982-83, with a four-attraction season of name brands, such as the Joffrey Ballet.

By 1986, the foundation’s budget was more than $1 million, but the two founders parted company. Fayman changed her organization’s name to the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts, and Townsend went on to create San Diego Performances--a rival presenting organization that whisked away some of the biggest draws on the foundation’s ticket.

However, San Diego Performances began to feel the pinch of megabuck budgets and sluggish funding. Last October, the San Francisco Ballet canceled its “Nutcracker” performances, calling attention to serious fiscal problems that plague the organization. Reports that some of the troupes on last year’s roster, and the musicians who played for them, have not been paid have tarnished the organization’s image, and the organization has yet to announce any major funding sources to wipe out its debts or ensure its continued existence.

With the newly formed San Diego Performances sponsoring the name brands, the Foundation for the Performing Arts moved into riskier attractions, such as Laura Dean and Dancers. But the lesser-known bookings, along with the competition from the rival presenting group, took a toll on the foundation’s box office, so two of the more avant-garde events on the 1988-89 schedule--the Jose Limon and Trisha Brown companies--were canceled in a drastic attempt to balance the budget.

Although the foundation came back with a balanced budget this season, present uncertainties and recent fiscal woes might signal a bumpy road ahead for dance in San Diego.

“The setback is more embarrassing than damaging,” said William Fark of Dance magazine. It’s not a disgrace. It’s been a good decade for dance. It’s been the most promising decade San Diego ever had.

“We have national and international exposure now for local companies. And just the fact that we have so many more dance schools tells us something. They wouldn’t be here if there weren’t plenty of potential customers.”

In sheer numbers, there were more gains than losses to record among dance companies during the ‘80s. But numbers alone can be deceiving. San Diego Ballet--the city’s only professional ballet company--went belly up right at the start of the decade. And that was a tremendous blow to San Diego dance, because no other ballet troupe ever came along to fill its shoes. As former company dancer Susan Wingfield pointed out, “It didn’t just mean the end of a professional ballet company, it meant we lost most of those trained dancers to other parts of the country.”

San Diego Ballet had been on shaky financial ground even before its director John Hart, formerly of the Royal Ballet and current director of Salt Lake City’s Ballet West, decided to put a full roster of dancers on salary in the fall of 1979. Early in 1980--with no money to pay the contracted dancers--the company was forced to close its doors.

Thereafter, attempts were made to merge San Diego Ballet with California Ballet. And in 1984, a proposal to form a bi-coastal arrangement with the Hartford Ballet received serious attention.

Neither bore fruit, however, and the company’s charter was given over to David Shields, a dance instructor who tried vainly to muster support for a born-again company from San Diego Ballet’s downtown studio. But Shields cashed in his chips and returned to London. It appears the dream of resuscitating the professional ballet troupe has been put to rest.

Fortunately, many promising dance groups have evolved in this fertile 10-year period. And all the other established companies that were prominent at the beginning of the ‘80s continue to progress.

Leading the pack is California Ballet, founded by Maxine Mahon (an ex-San Diego Ballet dancer). The troupe’s 22-year survival is the school-based company’s greatest claim to fame. Only a small handful of others around the country have achieved such a milestone. And, despite the troupe’s failure to garner strong financial support or a reputation for artistic excellence, Cal Ballet has reached some impressive high-water marks.

In the mid-’80s, the company began beefing up its repertory with works by leading choreographers, including George Balanchine and Jose Limon.

It broke new ground by importing a Soviet danseur, Stanislav Issaev, to star in its 1986 “Nutcracker”--well before glasnost.

In 1988, the troupe boasted another first in East-West relations when Soviet choreographer Mikhail Lavrovsky mounted a world premiere for the company. And earlier this year, a California Ballet student, Calvin Kitten, began a year of study in the Soviet Union as part of a cultural exchange program.

California Ballet will start the decade with another major coup: the first U.S. appearance by members of the Leningrad State Ballet for a six-week residency to teach the troupe dances never seen in this country.

The decade’s biggest success story in local dance is Three’s Company, which grew from a trio that added pickup dancers for every concert to a relatively stable chamber-size company with a national profile, including critical acclaim in New York in addition to its several performances in Western cities.

In 1987, Three’s Company was selected for the California Arts Council’s touring roster, and it focused on the works of its two resident choreographers, Jean Isaacs and Nancy McCaleb.

The 16-year-old modern-dance company has been active in presenting as well as performing from its earliest days. In 1981 the company included the likes of Martha Graham and Bella Lewitzky on its subscription series. Summer concerts at the troupe’s studio have played host to hundreds of artists--local, national and even international--throughout the decade.

Betzi Roe, co-founder of Three’s Company, emerged as a major figure in her own right during the ‘80s. Along with her dancing and occasional choreography for the company, Roe created a showcase for the work of female California dance makers, and performs solo around the country.

Jazz Unlimited bowed in at the end of 1977 as Strictly Jazz. By 1982, under its present name, it had gained wide popularity--but not respect for its artistry or much financial support. However, from its earliest days, the company served as a launching pad for some of the city’s finest jazz-based dancers--including Barry Bernal of Broadway fame.

The troupe has changed artistic directions somewhat over the years, importing choreographers, collaborating with other artists and, most recently, experimenting with mainstream modern styles.

In 1980--the same year San Diego Ballet expired--the American Ballet School opened its doors under the direction of former Balanchine ballerina Lynda Yourth. Within three years, the school created a performing ensemble (American Ballet Ensemble) and a children’s group to showcase the emerging dancers.

By 1985, ABE was attracting attention as “the other” ballet company, and performing its own full-length “Nutcracker.” The ensemble formed ties to Mexico and became the first American ballet company to perform at the Centro Cultural in Tijuana, where the group still dances on a regular basis.

San Diego Dance Theatre, a modern-dance group that debuted in 1967, had a seesaw existence until the latter part of the 1980s, when it performed on home turf and in several Mexican venues. An ambitious attempt to concertize at the Lyceum Theatre in 1988, however, spelled fiscal disaster, and the organization has been in limbo ever since.

Stage Seven Dance Theater, the brainchild of European-trained ballet teacher Marius Zirra, made a promising debut in 1981, but has undergone two major administrative changes and some rough times financially since. Now, under Kathryn Irey’s direction, Stage Seven has begun to carve its own modest niche as a group devoted to diversity and to commissioning new works.

Two major additions to the local dance scene have emerged in the latter portion of the decade, along with several collaborative efforts by independent artists.

Malashock Dance and Company made its official debut in 1988, and proved that John Malashock was more than just a dynamic dancer. His dark choreography and hand-picked dancers earned immediate critical acclaim, and the Twyla Tharp alumnus was welcomed as the brightest new star on the local horizon.

Al Germani is another choreographer who created a company in his own image recently. The Al Germani Dance Company gave its premiere performance in April, and has already announced three dates for 1990.

Independents often team up in San Diego to showcase their work, but these mini-alliances seldom last beyond a single concert. Not so with Big Ladies, a threesome formed by Ellen Segal, Patricia Sandback and Marta Jiacoletti in 1986. The trio gave three performances, but an injury to Jiacoletti sidelined the group indefinitely.

Sandback formalized her own company (Patricia Sandback and Dancers) in ‘89, and Segal continues to pop up in concert settings around town.

Ethnic dance has been alive and well throughout the ‘80s, but much of it exists outside the mainstream. Two Philippine troupes--the Samahan and the Pasacat Dance Company--make regular appearances on local stages. However, Mexican folklorico and flamenco groups rarely make it to the concert stage.

Aside from the major presenters, other organizations have also been involved in importing dance to San Diego.

UCSD’s University Events Series has been presenting imported dance on the home front for years. In fact, it was the first to feature Twyla Tharp (1980), Lar Lubovitch and Paul Taylor (1981) and other important artists.

SDSU had no formal program for presenting dance, but it managed to host many important dance events during the period, although it has lagged behind in the past couple of years.

Sushi has not only been a major importer of experimental dance, it has become a haven for local dance as well. The gallery began as a venue for performance art. But founding director Lynne Schuette added cutting-edge contemporary dance--and reasonable rates for local dancers in need of performing space.

Dance received another boost in 1984, when the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art threw its hat in the ring. Its Performance Parameters series spotlighted leading fringe artists in the museum’s Sherwood Auditorium. Several local troupes have performed there and the museum has served as co-sponsor for several important events.

Dance education has made enormous strides in the ‘80s at every level. From public schools to college degree programs, the availability of dance education has skyrocketed. The city now has two high schools devoted to the performing arts.

SDSU has offered dance study throughout the decade. However, this year, the university approved a bachelor of arts degree in dance, which should be a magnet for attracting aspiring dancers to the area.

United States International University has a strong dance and musical theater program, and the university’s own dance troupe, established in 1987, performs here and in Mexico.

UCSD’s dance program does not offer a degree, but its contribution to the local scene has been significant, providing dancers and choreographers for many local companies.

Dancers Workshop, the brainchild of Wendy Ellen Cochran, was founded in 1980 to import dancers from top New York companies for summer workshops with local dancers. Cochran’s long association with ex-Martha Graham star Tim Wengerd brought dance students from around the country here to study.

The San Diego Institute for Arts Education, a nonprofit organization founded in 1986 in response to cutbacks in arts funding in city and county schools, has introduced dance and other artistic disciplines to students of all levels. From 14 participating schools in its first year of programming, the institute has grown to service 26 schools, reaching 30,000 students.