Just Give Us Another 4,000 Words

As a core member of Circle Modern Dance and a charter alumna of the Tennessee Children's Dance Ensemble, I would like to thank the Metro Pulse for its efforts in producing a feature article on dance in Knoxville ["Light on Their Feet" by Adrienne Martini, Vol. 8, No. 48]. Unfortunately, as the Dance Director of Austin-East Performing Arts and Sciences Magnet School, I must say that the article itself proved to be another manifestation of the "poor PR" Ms. Martini described. While I disagree with the author's decision to cover The City Ballet (Tulsa, Oklahoma) instead of our own Appalachian Ballet (I guess it comes down to the "size of our Nutcrackers"), and wished that Melinda Brown's accomplishments at the University of Tennessee had been more than an afterthought, what really caused me to break out in a cold sweat were the omissions...

Herschel Pollard's "handy guide of other dance options" was too oversimplified to be handy. The list left no room for the myriad of collaborations that take place in alternative venues and facilitated by the Knoxville Museum of Art, the University of Tennessee Art Department, Perspectives in Modern Dance, or the Old City—certainly a sign of a healthy climate for dance. "Mostly Performance" failed to include the Kuumba Watoto Dance Company, a high-energy West African dance and drum company led by Malaika Guthrie, and "Mostly Instruction" omitted Lisa Hall McKee's Studio Arts, a respected producer of serious dancers in Knoxville for almost a decade. Wouldn't it also serve to mention Bruce Alan Ewing, a both local and award-winning choreographer, in conjunction with his Repertory Dance Theater?

Certainly there are others that were omitted after years of battling to gain respect; but to write an article about the dance scene in Knoxville and to ignore the fact that Knox County Schools is one of the few school systems in Tennessee, or even the Southeast, to offer dance in its daytime curriculum is a travesty. Students at Beaumont Academy are exposed to dance as an multi-cultural form of creative expression. Beaumont's Dance Works, under the direction of Deborah Whelan, is a remarkable company of fourth and fifth grade students which has performed locally for seven years, and has represented the school system as a featured performer at the Tennessee Association of Dance Annual Conference. Vine Middle Performing Arts and Sciences Magnet School, under the direction of Malaika Guthrie (Kuumba Watoto Dance Company) and assisted by Kimberly Matibag (Circle Modern Dance), has offered an extensive performance program for three years in modern, tap, West African, and ballet, and cannot fill all of its requests to perform around the city. Austin-East Performing Arts and Sciences Magnet High School is a professional, performance based program in its second year of existence, with one whole floor of its new Fine Arts wing devoted to dance and the newest, state-of-the-art theater in the city.

Students round the corner from their English or Chemistry class and "waltz," "skip," or "time step" down the hall toward the locker rooms to change for their one-and-a-half hour modern dance technique class (a triumph for block scheduling). Student dancers watch over the shoulders of other student technicians to set light and sound cues in the computer for their own original compositions... Having danced in some of the most prestigious dance schools in the country, I can honestly say that Knox County has invested in dance for their students what most universities and colleges only invest in their sports teams. This, I feel, is a major indicator of Knoxville's attention to the art form of dance. And if you are curious or skeptical about the work being produced by our city's public school students, please join us at Austin-East on the evenings of April 29 and 30 for our first combined Beaumont Dance Works, Vine Dance Company2 and Austin-East Dance Company concert, and prepare to be enlightened.

Karen Nunley
Knoxville