This past Sunday, there was a meeting (as a part of senior Jamie O'Brien's theater and dance senior project, "Amherst Works") addressing the issue of theater and dance opportunities at Amherst and beyond. The main impetus for the meeting was the large body of students that is frustrated with the difficulties they face accessing the kinds of dance experiences they seek.
First, I would like to take a step back to suggest why there are so many frustrated dancers here. For one thing, most of us have just graduated high school, where, for the most part, dance was an extracurricular activity; dance was my "art" and my "sport" before Amherst. At the College, there is a theater and dance department that is here to approach these fields academically.
As a liberal arts department, they should have no obligation to use their resources to field the demands of students who are pursuing non-academic goals (though they graciously have, in a few instances in the past, terms of performance space and technical support). There is a unique physical and cultural (dare I say emotional) role that theater and dance play in student life which needs to be supported by resources outside of those that the theater and dance department allocates for the program.
No one came to Amherst expecting a dance conservatory. However, I, as have others, felt misled by the advertised "Five-College Dance Department." The combined resources of five institutions sounds great on paper, but then there's the travelling time and the fact that Amherst has the least number of dance technique classes of all the colleges. The number of technique classes for spring '02: Smith, 16; Mount Holyoke, 9; UMass, 9; Hampshire, 2; Amherst, 1. There are only one or two technique classes offered here each semester, due, in part, to the fact that there is only one dance studio on campus.
Although we have the choice of taking dance classes at any of the four other colleges, scheduling a class on another campus is very difficult if you don't have a car. The PVTA is great, but then it takes three hours to take an hour-and-a-half dance class at Mount Holyoke.
People who "need" to take dance classes don't need the credit; we just need to move. We're here because the admissions office recruited students with a wide array of extra-curricular passions. But dancers are often left without the resourses that say, soccer players and musicians are given. If I understand correctly, there are fields and soccer goals available for intra-mural sports and pianos in various dorms and practice rooms that students can obtain keys for through the music department.
Student dance groups that have been formed recently, such as Amherst Dance and DASAC, and theater groups, such as Amherst Cabaret and Amherst Group Theater, all struggle for funding and rehearsal and performance spaces. What I want to see in the future are adequate facilities for theater and dance groups that have shown dedication and persistence through the student-run performances that have been put on in the last four years.
Funding limitations aside, I want to come back to my five-year college reunion and see a studio with mirrors and a marley floor that students can rehearse in. I want to see that an outdoor platform has been constructed to serve as a stage for bands and theater and dance performances. I want to see a theater space with simple stage lighting and a sound system with a 150+ seating capacity for student-run performances. And, to address the problem of administering the use of such spaces, another idea that I've discussed earlier with Amanda Thomas '00, and recently with Jamie O'Brien '02, is the creation of a "Theater and Dance Fellow" position for a graduating senior. In addition to supervising the proper use of facilities, they would be a resource for students because they would have first hand experience with accessing five-college resources and, preferably, technical knowledge of theater equipment and production knowledge.
I can only speak for myself, but I bring up these points because these are thoughts, experiences and frustrations that I share with a significant number of my peers. By "significant," the only numbers I have on hand to point to are the 134 students presently on the Amherst Dance e-mail list and the 48 performers in last fall's Amherst Dance Concert. I don't have numbers for those involved in DASAC or either of the two student theater groups, or for those who are discouraged from working with any of these groups due to the lack of facilities.
I bring up these points because I am confident that this situation can be improved. For now, I hope there will be more conversations with the theater and dance faculty and deans present to discuss possible forms of support before new facilities can be constructed. I hope to see more students channeling their frustrations into constructive letters to the deans and architects, urging the construction of additional student rehearsal and performance spaces.