UT students appeal for safe facilities
by Paige M. Travis
A recent clamor at the University of Tennessee raises some important questions about the future of dance at the school.
When the Alumni Memorial Gym closed for renovation in January 1999, the large dance studio in the east wing became a staging area for the remodeling in the west and center wings. Since then it has been inaccessible to students in the dance department and other groups who used the space for rehearsals and performances. The studio, which has sprung wood floors, wall-sized mirrors and a barre, was designed for dance. The "temporary" rooms assigned to the students, however, were not. They have wood floors laid on concrete, a surface that doesn't give in the way that dancers, like runners, need to avoid injuries and undue stress on their joints.
Recently, a group of student dancers led by Leah Willis has been on what Willis calls a "fact-finding mission" to discover why, since renovation in the west and center sections of Alumni are complete, the dancers haven't been allowed to move back into the studio. The room suffered some broken mirrors and plenty of dust, but to a dancer's eyes, that room is still better than what they've been using for four and a half years. The HPER buildings' unyielding floors have been blamed for several dancers' injuries. To add insult to that injury, the new recreation center contains five aerobics rooms that dancers aren't allowed to use; academic programs aren't permitted access to spaces allocated to student activities.
Regardless of the department, any students at the university whose needs aren't being met, and whose physical health is in danger, deserve some answers and action.
Willis and other dancers haven't had an easy time finding answers. Finding the right person to address a problem at UT can take a dozen phone calls over several days. And in the meantime, a student is supposed to be taking classes, doing homework, and living her life. This red-taped bureaucratic nightmare won't surprise anyone who goes to UT or has to deal with any major company. Even a system with the best of intentions can get bogged down by its mass.
But Willis, who is taking her first dance class this semester, is taking a passionate stand on the situation. First and foremost, she doesn't want her teachers or the dance program to suffer because of her inquiries. It's a sensitive situation. She doesn't want what she honestly intends to be a respectful and well-meaning discussion of students' needs to be perceived as an attack on a harried, defensive administration.
After years of being downsized, under-budgeted and shuffled through the university system, the dance program suffers a kind of paranoia that's familiar to the arts at universities. Dance classes have been taught at UT since the 1930s, and a dance major was finally established in the College of Education in 1979, then unceremoniously discontinued in 1988. The program had a solid enrollment comparable to recent numbers, and it was graduating an estimated 30 to 35 dance majors per year. A recent merger of the College of Education and College of Human Ecology has created the College of Education and Health and Human Sciences. The dance program exists as a division of the Department of Sport and Leisure Studies (although it garners no mention on the UTK web site). Although how long it will stay in this department is questionable.
For its practitioners and the people who love it, dance is an art form, more akin to theater and painting than an exercise or hobby. Dance is by no means more important than sports management or therapeutic recreation, but by being included in this department, the dancers and dance instructors at UT aren't being given their due attention, praise and funding as a performing art.
The suggestion has been made several times over the years to combine the dance program with UT's celebrated theater department. The Theater department has protested that Dance would drain Theater's less-than-plentiful resources. The only way to keep this from happening would be if a large donation or endowment were created to fund the merger and give the dance program a certain amount of financial independence.
There's no doubt that the Dance Program and the UT Dance Company, a student performance group, consist of talented dancers and instructors. In 1998, a dance piece called "My Ascension," choreographed by instructor Melinda Brown, won the Southeast Regional American College Dance Festival, held in Montgomery, Ala. UT's dancers were chosen to perform the piece at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the National College Dance Festival. Angela Hill, a student who danced as a soloist in the piece, left UT to attend Arizona State University, where she majored in dance education in the ASU's College of Fine Arts. The award-winning choreographer is now back in Knoxville, as a dance instructor at UT and other dance studios. Another UT dance instructor, Laura Gagnon, was a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company before coming to UT to teach dance and pursue her doctoral degree in biomechanics.
Hill, Brown and Gagnon are examples of how devoted dancers benefit UT and Knoxville. As they dance and teach, they create a network of artists, strengthen our creative community and develop Knoxville as a place that welcomes and nurtures the arts. Dancers in training at UT lend their talents to local dance groups and theater productions. If UT reinstated the dance major, even more dancers would graduate from the school and continue contributing to our local culture.
In the meantime, dancers at UT need proper facilities. Imagine if athletes at UT were told to "make do" with shoddy equipment that might put their health at risk and threaten their future career in sports? Such negligence would raise the ire of Volunteer fans everywhere. But dance students continue to dance on bad floors because they have to—they'd rather risk injury than not dance at all.
As of Monday afternoon, construction debris was being cleared out of the Alumni Gym studio, motivated by an article in The Daily Beacon and a student meeting with Vice President of Operations Phil Scheurer. Scheurer assured Willis and other dance students that the space will be refurbished with new carpet, lights and treated floors, and ready by Spring 2004 if not earlier. After creating an email list of 100-plus students who care about dance, Willis plans to start a student organization that will continue to promote the dance program and activities.
But even if the dancers get back their space, their worries might not be over. With budget cuts impending at UT, rumors have arisen that the dance program may cease to exist, when demand for classes is increasing. Seventy-five dancers auditioned for only 59 available spaces in the UT Dance Company. Devoted instructors continue to nurture future talent, albeit in under-par facilities. It would be a real shame if UT caused Knoxville to lose even more dancers to other schools' dance departments and other cities' more supportive arts communities.
September 25, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 39
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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