learned the very first part of the tapes doesn't quite record. Mm hmm.
Okay. I think I'll go ahead and identify on the tape that, let's see. I'm
pam Stevenson. I'll be doing the interviewer. Manny Garcia is our
videographer and we are conducting a living history video interview for
the Arizona State University Retirees Association. And today is january
the 30th of 2000 and six. And we're at the visitor information center at
issue at rural and Apache and I'll let you introduce yourself. I'm beth
Lassard
and for just for some background, tell me when you were born and where you
were born. I was born on 16 January 1943 in Camden south Carolina
and lived there for two years and then moved to Augusta Georgia. So you
grew up in Georgia pretty much um, was that a rural community or in
Augusta? I, we lived what we thought was sort of a little bit out in the
country. It was a little bit rural but Augusta was a pretty good size city
even as I was growing up because they had a fort Gordon military post
which brought quite a bit of population and it's the medical center of the
south. So there was a lot of and they had a four year black university or
pain college at the time and a two year community college. So it was a
pretty, pretty good sized town. You were born during the war years. Mhm
parents there because of the military. Actually my father was given the
choice of serving or becoming a civilian flight instructor and he, because
my sister was three when I was born and when all of this was going on, he
opted to take the civilian flight instructor position and we still have
his flight log books of the men that he trained who went to war. So that I
know that being in Camden was part of his flight assignment, but being in
Augusta is because that's where home was for both your parents pretty much.
Did your mother work outside the home? Not really know. She was, she was a
devoted mom. What do you remember about your life? They're growing up? Um
, just being one of four Children, being very shy, um, being wanting to do
anything and everything in the arts from the time I had consciousness I
wanted to sing and dance and act and paint and write poetry and draw. You
know, those were the things I wanted to do.
I went to several elementary schools, the sort of country junior high
school and we only had one large high school actually, there were 31. And
, and these, these were days of segregation. And so the black Children
went to a particular school, the catholic Children went to a particular
school of everybody else went to the Academy of Richmond County. So that's
where you went. Mhm. And, and that was in high school, you said you liked
the arts. What were you active in, in high school? The only thing I did in
high school was, uh, sing in the chorus and I acted in two or three of
their musicals. But you have to realize I was so shy that for me to do
that even was, and I, I took art in junior high school, but I don't think
I didn't do any art in high school. I don't know why. I think I just had a
full academic schedule and wanted to sing.
When did you get interested in dance? Had you been athletic? I think what
happened in dance was this very long stories and I promise I'm going to
write them up one of these days, but to make it short, I I had a cousin
who was adopted and she was about a year and a half younger than I, she
wanted, her mother wanted her to take dancing lessons and basically she
wouldn't go unless I went and um, I got three years of ballet out of that
deal and that was enough to make me want to be a dancer, but I never
considered being a dancer seriously because I knew that um, looking around
at, at my family and my role models, I knew that I had to get an education
and be able to support myself and it never occurred to me that dance would
be an avenue for that ever. So what did you plan to do? I uh, went finally
went to a community college when I got out of high school and um, you know
, you could pay $100 and go for a whole quarter. So I, and I had a
scholarship, so I managed to get two years of college out of the way. And
then um, I had a, a life change. I mean I, I realized I wanted to finish
school, I didn't seem to have any way of going about it, there was no
money. Um, so I had a few really fortuitous um occurrences like I call
them angels who appear and make things happen for me. And one of them was
a guidance counselor at the community college and she said if you want to
finish college you will. And she helped me fill out the applications for
loans and scholarships and I went to the woman's College of Georgia in
Milledgeville and my first week there they said, well what are you going
to major in? And I burst into tears because I had no idea, but I knew that
I would get a degree in education. It was just a matter of what would my
field b and I said, well I'm not that good in sports, so I don't know if I
can remember, I think I'll do Math. So I majored in math. That's kind of
unusual. Yeah, I was going to be a high school math teacher.
So how far did you get along that career path? Well I did my student
teaching in math and was getting ready to graduate. And another little
fortuitous thing happened. We had a new dance teacher come to the college
and she said you should dance and I said okay. Um I don't know quite how
you think that this is going to happen, but she paid for me to go with her
and two other students to texas, woman's university, That's a long story,
but I'll leave out most of the details. And um enrolled me, paid for
everything, my dorm, my meals, my transportation, And there was six
credits that I earned. Post back served as uh kind of a an audition for me
to get into a master's degree program. So I went straight into a master's
degree program and dance with no training and dance.
What did she see? What made her think that you were a dancer? Well I had
um I had the body of a dancer number one. Um I had loved ballet so much as
a child, even though I wasn't studying, I continued to want to be a dancer
and I thought it, I ate it, I dreamed that I slept it. So when I walked
into her class in college I already looked like a dancer. I looked like I
had training modern dance modern dance. I had never heard of modern dance
. I just said well if they wear leotards, I want to do it. So
that was a junior, I was a junior in college when I started dancing. I say
that I started dancing as a junior in college
and you were doing it just more for a fun thing to do. I did it because I
loved it. And it's still never occurred to me that I could be any kind of
dance professionals, even a teacher. Until my senior year in college when
she said you should dance. And all of a sudden I'm in a master's degree
program studying dance.
Mm hmm. I finished in a year and a half. What did your family think of
that after you already prepared to be a math teacher? My father kept
saying girl get your degree in mathematics and Physics make a lot of money
and I'd say well daddy, I think I wanna dance. They were sort of kind of
not minding, they were so caught up in life. I had two younger brothers
who were you know struggling in their own ways and my mother was focused
on them and my father had his own issues and I kind of just did what I
want to do. And I had a lot of support from family and friends and people
just kept walking into my life to make things possible. What were your
plans of getting a Master's in dance? I was going to teach in the
university the minute, the minute I knew that that connection was
happening because she she said to me, you know you can teach in the
university, She said there are people who are teaching in universities now
who are not nearly as qualified as you are because a lot of programs were
in physical education and many times people would be teaching beginning
modern dance and they only had one beginning modern class themselves. It's
just the nature of the beast in those old days. So it was hard for me to
believe and build the confidence in my dancing because I was saying I'm
too old to start, I'm too old to do this. But I did it. So have you ever
thought about being a performer? I wanted to perform and I started
choreographing immediately and I was performing right away. But it again,
it never occurred to me to try to be a professional performer. I felt like
I had started way too late. So no, I was very content that I, if I could
teach and if I could teach in the university and this would be a real
dream come true for me. So that's what I did. And then my first job was at
the university of florida. I just fell into it. I mean, I didn't even, I
didn't even have to try, I just was performing at a national convention in
Dallas. And the Dean of the college had made sort of an arrangement with
the Dean at the University of florida. She says, well I've got somebody in
tennis, somebody in aquatics and somebody in dance. Do you want them all
three? And he said, sure I'll take them.
So I ended up at the University of florida didn't ask you about it. Well I
had to apply of course, but you know, for me to get a job period was to me
it was like a miracle. So I was very wide eyed and you know, kind of
pretty naive. What year was that? That was 1965,
I was 22 years old and I taught at the University of florida for four
years and I was married. By the way, I got married, I finished my degree
and got married and we went to florida together and In four years the
circumstances sort of encouraged us to look somewhere else and I applied.
And one of the uh faculty members at the University of florida was Betty
graham and Betty said, oh I'll write to judges and see if she's got any
openings out at Arizona state. And I said Arizona, I think I'd like
Arizona. And so she just either wrote to Margaret or called her and said,
have you got anything? And she said by all means have her apply here. So I
sent her a letter and a little photograph of me flying through the air and
she hired me sight. I mean they hired me, you couldn't do that today. I'm
saying, I'm glad this was, you know, I got in on the early days. So I came
here in the fall of 1969,
that's when Margaret and my history start to meld because um the the
degree programs had been approved and I thought it was just the most
wonderful thing in the world to be able to come into a dance major program
,
had it been a degree program in florida, That's what it is called, a
service program, people had to take P. E. And if they wanted to take
aquatics or modern dance it was their choice. And I taught eight sections
of modern dance usually. But um I did teach the physical education majors
and that was a lot of fun. I got to teach them choreography and technique
and I even choreographed a lecture demonstration and put it on for the
college and they were like wow! Because a lot of those youngsters were shy
too and a little self conscious about their ability to dance. But it was
very, it was a lot of fun. So what you came to Arizona in 1969, what was
your first impression of Arizona? Well I was my husband and I were in a
Volkswagen beetle pulling a trailer and we were driving from Tucson to
phoenix in the heat of the day and I was looking everywhere and I said
there's no shade, what would we do if we had a flat tire? Oh my God,
there's no shade, what are we gonna do? How are we going to live in this?
And so I mean I was beginning to panic and I haven't even seen Tempe yet.
We were so we pull into Tempe and we immediately go find some kind of
little motel so that we can um regroup. And the first thing we do is we
just fell asleep. The heat just zapped us, we fell asleep. And then the
next um what time of year was that? This was august, it was in the middle
of august and not only that, it was the year that the monsoons washed out
all the bridges. And I said I feel like I'm having an out of body
experience in the first place. I'm in the desert and there's no shade. Now
I'm I'm in these floods. What kind of a place have I chosen? But it was,
it was. And then to balance it out, I don't know if the name Don Robinson
rings a bell. He was a gymnastics coach for years. And terry sin graph was
a part time faculty member. And they were kind enough to invite my husband
and me to go camping with them. So then we did this all happened within
two weeks. We're in Civic, You Creek Volkswagen climbing over boulders and
crossing streams behind their four wheel vehicles there. We were trying to
keep up. There were eight people. So I had quite an introduction. My first
two weeks was quite an introduction
and I mentioned those Volkswagens didn't have air conditioning, you know,
I don't, I think it did because I bought it in florida, I think I think it
did, but I do remember um loving it and, and Margaret would take me around
and we'd go to lunch or something. She drive me around to the periphery of
the desert. She showed me the care center, she showed me everything. She
had taught me the names of all the cacti and the plants within like three
weeks. I still, you know, and people come, they said, well how did you
learn all that? I said, Margaret taught him to me the first two or 3 weeks
I was here, but I loved it. I've always loved it. What was the issue like
in 1969?
The campus, we were in um, the physical education building east because
that one was opened in 1965, damage opened in 1965. So I came in after a
couple of major, some major things had happened. But I do remember that we
had about 24,000 students. And at that time it was kind of a big thing to
be a member of the faculty women's group. And Margaret made sure she
mentored me and took me to the meetings. My picture was in the paper, you
know, and I met Katherine Nichols and a lot of the people who were friends
of Margaret's at that time. And um, I felt very welcome. Um of course the
student union and all the old buildings were there. Um
How many women were there in the faculty at that time? And the dance
faculty? We were Margaret, gigolo. Peg desk garden. Now Peg was an A. S.
You from 1949 two,
she is no longer with us and she was in a lecturer position and actually
became a full time, she played for classes and gradually she began to pick
up some music literature, I mean music theory for dancers and pretty soon
she had a full time lecturer appointment. So she was, she was a lecturer
emeritus. So Peg and Margaret were the mainstays. Um Then when I came in I
was in that third full time position. Then there was a halftime dance and
uh pe position, terry scene graph, she coached gymnastics and she taught
some dance
and I do believe that was it. What about campus in general? Were there
many other women in other departments in the faculty?
I don't have any awareness of them being not so many. My awareness became
a little sharper as I began to move more towards administration and had to
meet and be on committees and I would find that it was very heavily male
in composition. The committees and any of the administrators I had to deal
with. I don't think I ever dealt with a female. I don't remember ever
dealing with a female. I mean up to a certain point, so a lot has changed
I think. So what was your first, your job title when you came here
actually when I was at the university of florida, I was an assistant
professor of dance and I have to talk a little bit about am Pittman dr
Pittman because technically she was head of women's PE and Margaret was
the dance faculty but Margaret didn't really have a degree or I mean a
program as such. So an Pittman is the one that hired me. And when I found
out about the job, she says $7,000, take it or leave it instructor. And I
was already making like 93 in Florida and I was assistant professor. That
was a tough decision for me to make very tough. And I I said well you know
let me think about it because I really wanted to come here. I wanted to be
part of a dance major program. I saw history being made. So at the time my
husband, the reason we were leaving florida was because he was ready then
to get a master's degree and we were looking for a place where I could
have a job and he could get into a master's program. And we picked Arizona
state out of three or four offers that we both had and I took the cut in
pay and I took the reduction in rank and then um lots of administrative
things changed, women's and men's pE went together and I became
a dance faculty member in a uh like a college, I mean a department of
health, physical education, recreation and dance dance was added. And um
Dean Richardson, who was one of the uh chairs of Physical education, found
out that I had been reduced in rank and reduced in pay and he just fixed
it, he just said no, no no no this won't do. And so he reinstated
everything. And I don't remember having to do anything. I don't remember
having to put together any kind of big portfolio or anything to justify
the change in rank.
And then over the years I was surprised too, from time to time be
identified as a female who was underpaid or to get some kind of a merit
thing. And to me I never asked for anything, it was just like, oh that's
really nice, thanks. And Margaret had a way of um I don't even know how I
was on sabbatical leave when I went up for promotion
and I'm sure that I put together something for her. But I was working on
my PhD I think at the time. And somehow I got promoted and I didn't even
realize how, you know, it's kind of like magic. It's I've had wonderful
experiences here and wonderful support at all levels mm mm. Talk a little
bit about what your responsibility is, what you did as a dance instructor
or Yeah, well let's call me an assistant professor at the the biggest
thing was um that because there were so few of us,
the everybody had to teach a lot of different classes and Margaret was um
my first semester and Pittman gave me two levels of ballet to levels of
modern production, dance history or kisses.
Um
I think there was seven or 8 preparations
and I had been teaching in a program where you taught technique and yes, I
know and choreography, that was number eight and I had taught some
choreography and I had done productions. I had never taught dance history
, I had never taught dance production. I didn't, I mean there's all kinds
of, I mean you have to know costuming and lighting and sets.
So when I got there I went to Margaret and I said I don't know if I can do
all of this, I had eight different classes and I didn't even know how I
was going to make the course outlines or anything. So she, what did she do
? She um she took the dance history back
to give me a little bit of a break and I managed to get through that first
semester. It was a strange because it was also choreographing and
directing the performing group and
I was very conscientious and I was totally aware of my shortcomings, so it
made it even harder for me emotionally to push myself through all this and
say I felt like an imposter, but the first year was the hardest. Then it
got, it got better and better. I just had to do it all again. Yes, yes.
And I did. Um, as a faculty member, I served on all the committees, you
know, we had committees for curriculum, we had committees for policy,
student advisory boards. I was on all of those. I directed the performing
group, took the students out on tours, took them to Mexico and a state
department tour took him to el paso, I took them to Albuquerque. I was all
over the map. I mean still, you know, this is a lot of fun, but there was
no no funding for it. That's another one of those long stories. But we
managed to do a lot with very little money.
When did the dance program move out from the physical education department.
It all happened in my tenure. I took over in 1977, Margaret was really
burned out. She had been doing this for so many years and things were
getting much more complicated in school at the university. The financing,
the budget, the administrative stuff, it was just layers and layers and
layers and she wasn't used to that and she was tired. So I, we sort of
drew straws and all put our
a little bit sometimes there in the distance, but that one sounds like
it's right outside. We're right in the stream of a lot of those fire fires
and stuff
because I know this is gonna be a good story, remind me which one I was
about to tell
1977.
Okay, Margaret was very tired and we decided that one of us would run the
department about now. We were six faculty members. We had added one here
and one here and one here. And um put in a couple of extra, we had put in
a few more degrees as well. We have been very busy, But in 1977, um, I
became chair of the dept and the first, my first year, I um, my first
semester I, I was working on chapters one through three of my dissertation.
I had to get those in by December. We were doing a 10-year program review.
So that was my job jules. Dean Heller. He said, I mean Dean jewels teller
, that was, that was weird. Dean jewels Heller said I'd like to have, I'm
gonna reorganize college fine arts, I'd like to have dance, but I can't do
it for you. I said, I'm with you. Give me a few minutes to think this
through and talk to my troops and then we were feeling kind of proud of
what we were doing. We had, we had a national reputation already By 1974,
1975 we were known and a lot of the visiting artists told us we were in
the top three, top five, whatever and we were thinking this was really
neat. So we decided we wanted to be a department and
yeah, we wanted to have department status, we wanted to be in the College
of Fine Arts and we wanted an M. F. A. Degree, We didn't want much. And we
were also going through a 10-year program review and I was doing the the
first three chapters of my dissertation, that's what I did my first
semester in administration.
So the first year was pretty rough, I think I cried a lot but we did it,
we we got all those proposals together, we handed them in um um page
Mulholland was the provost and for some reason he sort of was kind of
fascinated by dance. I don't know why um jules was extremely supportive
and kept reminding us, don't worry about your space. We kept saying, you
know, we're in physical education, all of our space belongs to them. If we
leave physical education, how are we going to fight these battles? How are
we going to carve out territory just for ourselves? We share the gyms, we
do this, he says, well just um we'll take it, you know, as it comes. So we
did and got all those proposals written um by spring of 78 they went in,
they went to the Dean, they went to the College of Liberal Arts because we
were in liberal arts and a chuck Wolfe and um guido wagon, I don't
remember exactly whose tenure was where, but they were very wonderful and
interested in dance as well. So by this July I think of 79 all of those
proposals were approved. The FAA was approved. And that was an interesting
little thing because we had written an M. A proposal. Dean Wolfe said,
you're not a research oriented unit, we're not going to support this, he
says, but if you want to go back and rewrite it as an M. F. A. We would be
happy to support that. Of course, you're not in the College of Fine Arts,
but we would support that. And so with jewels here and Dean Wolf here, I'm
saying, okay, this is our moment. If we're going to do get approval for an
M. F. A. Degree, this is our justification to move for fine arts. Nobody
would argue with us on that. I was a little nervous about it because we
had good ties with physical education, kinesiology and all kinds of stuff
, but that's kind of what happened. So we moved to the College of Fine
Arts as a full department of dance with an M. F. A degree in 1979
it was huge and we was we were like six of us. And paige Mulholland says,
well, you're quite the politician. He says, when you want something, you
say you only have six faculty members, but then when you want to be a
department, he says, you have six faculty members says, yeah, that's the
way we operate, I guess. But it was a wonderful time. Why was it an
important move to make because the trend was national trend was that dance
is a fine art. It is a performing art. It is not a sport. And as many
times as we have with education and with um physical education because my
PhD is in biomechanics, I I wanted to be a dance scientist and I love that.
You know, I mean I love the research aspect of it but that was not our
thrust. I was the only one in the department that was interested in that
piece. Everybody else was performance, choreography, theater. Um you know
production and all of that. So it was important because all of the really
wonderful programs around the country had moved out of physical education.
There was only one left that was University of Wisconsin Madison and they
thrived. They had they had good, you know, good luck there. I think they
did move eventually. But everybody else. And another little piece of
history that people wouldn't ordinarily know was that there was a group
called the council of dance administrators. It's just a little group of
friends that said, hey you're the head over at Ohio State. I'm at U. C. L
. A. And let's get the whoever she was. Um, her name will come to
agreement from the university of Illinois and nancy smith from florida
state. And let's get this Pearson from temple and let's meet. So in 1965,
a group began to meet in California by 74, they invited Margaret to join,
They invite. And that was, that was the moment when we knew that program
was nationally recognized because there were only about 10 or 12 members.
Margaret was invited to join. So we, we wanted to be part of that main
thrust, that movement to get dance as an art really taught by
professionals and to give the students professional experiences, bring
guest artists in, get the students to new york, get them. You know, it's
just, it was just a wonderful, wonderful time.
And why was it important to have the masters level? We felt that there at
that time there was a need for really highly qualified people to go into
the universities. We saw that there was a trend in the old days. Sometimes
people would be teaching with master's degrees and they were not as
qualified as our bachelor students because they came in certain, you know
, locations where they didn't have the benefit of the professional
training or whatever. And the trend was, let's get some really highly
qualified people into these university programs, even into these high
school programs. And um,
and no matter what the field is, dance is a passion for a lot of people,
they want to make their life in dance. And it was, if they thought that
they had a recognizable degree that would give them an opportunity and a
credential to offer themselves at a community college or university or
even a high school or even an academy, then it's worth doing. And the
benefit of coming to university is where else are you going to learn about
philosophy of dance, how to write, criticism of dance, how to produce in
terms of the costuming and the designs, and how are you gonna learn about
the body? We required them to take anatomy and physiology and kinesiology.
We required them to take music. They had to learn to do in the old days,
they had to take piano and voice, but we ended up dropping that because
the music faculty, we're just about ready to kill us. Uh because a lot of
the students didn't want to do it. They felt really shy about it. They
didn't have any skills. So, but they had to be literate in music. You
can't teach dance if you don't know music and you you have to be able to
count and read music and you've got to be able to listen to music.
Otherwise
it comes off looking like somebody in junior high school did it. So there
was a whole body of knowledge that needed to be available to dancers. The
era of just being a body who did tricks was long gone, dancers are
exceedingly intelligent and well educated today.
I'm sure some people would wonderful why that's important to have that
degree at all.
No, it's not a record like you said. It's it's fairly new. It's not so new
anymore. But I mean at least we've been doing this now for 20 years 30
years. I mean different schools have had them in under different names. M
. A. M. S. But eventually the M. F. A. Was the thing. And I was really
fortunate because because Margaret had been invited to join this group the
very year that I came into that group we started writing national
standards for the dance major programs from off all over the country and
those national standards. Then I was on the committee that put them into
accreditation standards. So that era 1977 through 1980-85
was a really fertile time of bringing people together and saying what's
important here what should I should r students be able to do, what should
they know? And I was really happy to be part of all that.
Are there any particular things during those years that happened at A. S.
U. That you want to be sure remember I think there were some things um I
think that tour that I we did a state department tour of Mexico in 1973
and we took I believe we took eight dancers and I had a part time faculty
member who was fluent in Spanish, she went as a translator and we had a
state department official with us the whole time. What a wonderful. Oh
that was. It was like seven or eight days. And that was a great thing for
me to do. Another wonderful thing happened in 1973.
This is 1978. We began to realize that Doris Humphrey, It was a 50th
anniversary. I mean she died in 19 She was born in 1928. She died in 1958.
And this was 1978. We began to put all these anniversaries together and
we had been bringing out, we were part of a national grant. We were one of
five schools selected to be part of a laban notation project. So every
year they send a lot of rotator two and a choreographer. Uh laban notation
is a form of writing dance. It is a vertical, you have columns for all the
parts of the body. There's energy, there's time, there's head, there's
fingers, you can know Tate the movements of a spider or a flea or a body.
But that was, that was one of the ways of preserving dance. How do you
archive dance? Well, there was a lot of interest in laban notation and we
were part of this pilot project. So they, the choreographer would come in
and make a dance on our students. They would send a no tater along to know
Tate every gesture. Every roll. Alright. And they videotaped everything.
Then we produce it the next year they would take the score and send it to
another school and they would reconstruct it and check the score and we
will then. So we got on a circuit of three or four years of getting these
wonderful pieces and having artists come check the scores uh in 1978
because we had already done two or three Doris Humphrey works, we decided
to do a dance tribute to Doris Humphrey Channel eight did the documentary
on it. We brought in Ernestine Steidl who was very, very prominent
historical figure who did the commentary live. She was present. We showed
a film of Doris's um Air for the G. String, which was an experimental film
done in like 1929 by Westinghouse. It was glorious. It was glorious. And
we got written up in Dance magazine, had a feature article in dance
magazine, that was, that's a high point. Uh these may not be in order, but
another one is uh we did a national in 1992, we did the National American
College Dance Festival.
We had over 600 people come and it's the biggest thing I've ever been part
of and tried to produce. And One of the things we did was we honored
Daniel Negrin. I hired Daniel in 1982
at age 65 and he's a famous solo artist and hopefully his DVD is through
the institute. Well used to be called Institute for Studies in the Arts
now it's the um arts and media Program at eight am something. I'm sorry, I
don't know the title, But there's a DVD coming out on Daniel. But we did
this as a 75th birthday and a retirement party for Daniel. And people
began when they found out it was for Daniel. Really prominent artists
began to call me and say, can I come, I'd say we can't fly you in, we
don't have the, no, I'm coming, I'll teach a class for you, you can, you
know? So anyway, we had a panel discussion with all these people whose
work, his work had influenced them. So that was a wonderful moment. I've
had some wonderful times. I've had some sabbatical leaves. I did a six
month uh, stent in europe with the Ludwig Dance theater. That was great.
I've been to brazil to teach workshops a couple of times. I went to
Mexico to teach a workshop. I've had the great times, sounds like
are there any particular challenges that you face other than, I mean to
move into the Department of Fine Arts was huge. Other than that any other
challenges that you can think back on that. I think the hardest thing for
me was um times when the university had to take a hard line on budgets and
We were such a small program that we were like 95% salaries. So when
Seymour Rosen tells me, I have to cut X number percent out of my budget?
I'm saying this is a human being, what am I gonna do, I can't do this. And
I made myself physically ill. I ended up stepping out of the chair in 1994
because I just had a really hard time dealing with that. I couldn't be
cavalier about it When it because it involved human beings. I ended up
giving up all of our production money. We ended up when I started, we had
a $300 production budget and I managed to build it to $40,000 a year so
that we can videotape, we can pay music royalties, we could buy costumes,
we could bring in. I gave it all up most of it anyway, so I didn't have to
fire people, So they recuperate id some of it, but my tenure ended in 1994.
So it sounds like you didn't really want to leave at that point. I did.
And I did. I had I had reached a point where I was not effective. I I just
I was not, well, I was just not, well, I was completely burned out. And
you know, that's been over 10 years and I still sometimes feel, but I'm
still a little bit burned out. That's that's that's a sad thing to say.
It's like, I think I I was so emotionally and totally committed to that
work and the vision of that program for so long. Um it really it took its
toll, But Syros and who retired in 94 with me, he began to see what was
happening and, and he was one of those Dean's that it was very, you know,
he was really hard on you. Um, but it was kind of like, yeah, you can't,
it was just, you have to know Sy Rosen, okay. But he said, he says, you
need to, he says you need to get out of the position. He says, you need to
get out of the chair and then you can, you can stay on and teach for a
while. He says, you just need to give up the, the responsibility and And I
was a little concerned about the finances and this and that. And anyway,
said finally, he says, look, I'm retiring in 1999. And if it's the last
thing I do, I'm taking you out with me. I want your resignation by April.
It was really the best thing. I was too, you know, I was too embroiled in
it to see the, you couldn't see the forest for the trees. So once the
decision was made, I stayed and taught, I taught five more years and then
I retired and then I taught three more part time, just little bits and
pieces of specialties that that people wanted me to do. So I eased out of
it and I'm happy, what are you doing now?
Taking care of a couple of 2 91 year olds. And I mean really taking care
of them managing every aspect of their lives. And uh, I still dance with
the, and Ludwig dance theater, a Ludwig dance theater. Um, I do Pilates
twice a week. I did competitive ballroom dancing for about, I just really
recently let that go. It was just the most fun I've ever had. Um, the
costumes and the shoes and the competitions and the jewelry. It was just a
hoot. I really, and I was good and I had a great time at that. Um, I read
, I do a little bit of sewing. I'm just trying to do less. I'd like to do
a little less yet because I still, I still feel uh, on anxiety in here and
I don't like that. I'd like to get rid of that. And it, it's connected to
responsibility and being worried about other people and making sure
they're okay. So I'm moving in that direction
of all the things that you accomplished in the issue. What are you
proudest of that you want to be remembered for? I want to be remembered
for being very compassionate
chair I want because this was like my family. And um, we were very, we
were very careful about hiring in those days. You know, you could have 10
really good candidates and I could say, mm Hmm, this one's a stinker. We
can't, it would destroy what we have here. You can't do that now. You have
to do it very carefully. But we had a sort of an intuitive sense about
what would be a good fit for the program. And I think one of the reasons
the program flourished and developed as quickly and as well as it did was
because we weren't fighting with each other, We weren't competing with
each other, we were assisting each other. We were doing things together.
We loved each other. And I say, these are my family. I'm, I'm doing, I
can't tell you how many memorial services and retirement parties and
things that I've done. I've planned because this is my group. So I think
that's my legacy, is that I I think I will be known as the, the chair who
cared.
Mhm. You talked about some of the people that you've worked with, but in
particular we would like to talk about some of the ones that had the
biggest impact upon you. You mean in my formative training or particularly
here at issue here. The issue.
Mm hmm.
Well, of course Margaret, she was my mentor from day one and um, madams in
your closest ova. She recently passed, we did a memorial service for her
between christmas and New Year's and um she was a remarkable human being
and quite eccentric and I mean she was best friends with Gina Lollobrigida
for crying out loud in Italy growing up in Italy, I mean, she was an adult
, Very interesting and Daniel Negrin, what a supreme intellect.
Well, I hired her as our Russian ballet specialist in 1980
81 I think it was either 80 or 81 Madam. Xenia clashed over X E N I A. She
was born in Lithuania And when she was selected at the age of 8 to dance
with the Kirov Kirov School in Russia. And when she was 15, because of the
war and everything, she ended up having to defect back. She sneaked across
the border, went back to Lithuania. A lot of her life is a mystery and she
only has one child, one living relative that we know of in this country.
She has a daughter that was lost during the war And they reconnected in
the 70s. And by then she was not interested in having a relationship with
her mother, but her son has promised me that he will write down all of the
anecdotes that he can. And we've collected all kinds of photographs and um
I begged her, I gave her a computer and I begged her to just sit down and
write her stories. No,
she was, should we call her our wild Russian, but she was really an
extraordinary person and who else? Daniel Daniel, I'm just, you know, I
just love Daniel and I just think he's so remarkable and he's yeah, just
ask him a question, he can, he can ask more thought provoking questions in
five minutes than most people can in a lifetime. And he's he's just
extraordinary, hired him in 19 82 At 65. So he retired in 92 at 75. And
what made you hire somebody that when he was 65 and most people would say
, well he's over the hill, he was famous, he was famous and the department
needed a little bit of you know jazz. And I went to jules and I said jules
guess who has applied for this job? It was Margaret Maslow's job. She had
retired. We filled it with a dance educator with a PhD, it didn't work out.
There was just no spark, no real intellect and it was a bad mistake and
we just didn't keep her and it was problem a little bit of a problem,
wonderful human being. But we thought that the papers accurately
represented and it didn't. So we were in trouble. We loved her as a person
, but we got in trouble with that one. So Daniel then saw the job notice
and we had him booked to come in for a concert that fall and he called me
up and we were negotiating what he's gonna come and he's gonna perform,
he's gonna teach a master class. He says, this may come as a surprise to
you, I'm interested in the job you have open. I said you are because we're
talking teaching pedagogy dance history, maybe some technique. And he said
, well I could, I think I could do those things. And I said to jules guess
who was applied for this job. He said, who? I said Daniel magazine. He
said, you're kidding. He said, do you want him? I said, I think so. He
said then go get him, go after him, bring him in as a full, a tenured
professor. And I talked with Daniel and of course we had to change the
schedule. You know, I wasn't gonna have him teach pedagogy, he could have
, but he, he's so brilliant and he needed to be teaching repertory and
jazz dance styles and technique and choreography and other stuff. And we
did have him teach uh, some dance history and he'd come into the faculty
meetings, he'd say these students, I don't know what the middle ages are
they say, but Daniel, we don't know what the middle age, what do you mean
by the middle ages? He was flabbergasted at how poorly informed a lot of
the students, wow. He really, he really added a tremendous um
element to that program.
Very, very powerful. And I have to mention an Ludwig and Ludwig came in in
1979 when she was um, she has just been, she recently retired, but she has
been the most, I mean, I think if the students could pick one person that
they feel was the best, all round intelligent, creative caring human being
able to be an electric, I think so somebody needs to get her words too
string.
What about the changes you've seen in a issue since 1969.
It's been pretty amazing. And I think the wake up call for me was the day
the day that I one day I call over to physical plant and said mike, this
is mike in the in the plate in the paint shop and in the physical plant I
said somebody put something in our dryer and I've got die all over the the
drum of the diet dryer. Do you think we can fix this? And he said, I'll be
right over and he comes over and takes it apart, cleans it up, puts it
back. Did I fill out a form? No, did I pay for it? No. Very shortly
thereafter a man named Lloyd means was hired and he was hired to design
forms. And so from then on every day of my life I had to get new forms
made for everything, every curriculum check sheet, every work order. It
had to be a form and it had to be in x number of copies. And so I was, I
had the before and the after on that and it became almost a joke. And then
they'd say, oh well physical plant fill out this form. Oh well then it's
going to cost you this much money. Hello, you're charging. And yet they
haven't added any budget to my money. How am I going to keep my machines,
my computers and all this other stuff going. That was the change that I
thought was so bizarre. Is that all of a sudden there's so much technology
all of a sudden there's all this equipment and no money to keep it going.
I think things must be better now, but I'm talking, I'm talking about it
that transition period and I think, I don't know the university today, I
don't know the campus. I get, I try not to park, you know, on campus if I
can avoid it. Although I do have my little maritime past, which is very
nice. Um,
I have to be say that I'm excited about what's happening on campus. I it's
like a runaway train. Um, but I'm surely something good is happening. I'm
not sure where dance is. I'm not sure what's happening with dance. I think
we've had some, some difficulties. You have a
little bit, but mostly from the perspective of, um, mentoring people,
faculty or people need to talk to me, um, or people calling still to say,
well, when you were chair, did we do it this way or that way? And I'd say
, well, to be honest with you, we did it this way, but you might want to
try this. I still get emails and calls and then I started an organization
called Friends of Dance around 1985
and there's a little group of members that I have held onto. And so we
still get together for lunch about once every three months Margaret stage
path and the friends of dance group was just sort of kind of, what do you
say that it was just dismissed or they just decided not to have it anymore.
Uh 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago. And then this past year there was talk again
about resurrecting these kinds of support groups, you know, But I think
the damage was sort of done with this group, but I held on to about eight
of them and we've just been friends. So I am peripherally involved because
that little group is now looking at trying to decide how to resurrect the
group and broaden the scope and and make it more of a powerful a support
group for the department. I don't know whether it's gonna work or not. I
need to bow out. I'm tired of holding everything together. And so I think
that there will always be new people come along with good ideas, new
beginnings. So I'm, I love the department and I love the department of the
university and I, I'll always be supportive and they're in my will, they
have to wait a while? I got a few things I want to do?
Um, I guess just one last question I always have to ask is, do you have
advice for young people that are starting off and trying to decide what to
do with their lives. I'll give the same advice that I always gave uh, to
the students and to the parents and that was you have to do something you
love. You have to do something you love because if you intellectually
decide you're going to go into engineering, you might be successful at it
, but I'm not sure you'll be fulfilled. And so I would say to the parents
, you know, there's no guarantee that this student is going to make a lot
of money in dance. But look at it this way. If he or she majors in dance,
that liberal education is is not any less valuable than one in psychology
or english or history. Those are not tickets to get jobs and neither is
this, but it is a good education and it's doing something you love and if
you love what you are doing, you are going to be happy. And if you are
happy, you are going to just attract what you need, you're gonna be okay.
I feel really sorry um about the fact that a lot of students are pushed
into fields that they don't necessarily have an affinity for or maybe not
even much ability they flunk out for One thing. I think that's the
toughest toughest order and that is find something you love. I don't know
what, what I would say if somebody doesn't love anything has no passion
for anything, everybody has to have a passion for something. Don't you
think? Yeah, me too. Anything else you wanted to share with us that I
didn't ask you about.
Mhm. Oh, I'll think of it when I leave. But I think we've covered a lot of
territory don't you?
Okay. All right okay.