New venue, new vistas for Princeton's dancers

The Program in Theater and Dance will present its inaugural dance performance, "Spring Dance Festival 2004," in the new Roger S. Berlind Theatre at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 20-21. It will be the first time in the 35-year history of formal dance instruction at Princeton that students will perform in a space especially designed for theater and dance. The University shares the facility, which opened last fall, with McCarter Theatre.

It's quite a change from the first time students showcased their work for the University community: On Earth Day in 1970, 40 long-haired, bare-chested, body-painted men and a few women performed before a large crowd on Poe Field. They were accompanied by conga drums and a rock 'n' roll band.

Ze'eva Cohen, now a professor in the Council of the Humanities and head of dance, had been hired as a visiting lecturer the previous fall. A professional modern dancer with first-rate credentials as a performer and choreographer, she was recruited with the advent of co-education to offer more classes of interest to women students. That first fall, 50 of the 60 students enrolled in the noncredit course were men.

Eight months later, the students presented "To Dance Is To Live," starting a tradition of spring dance festivals at Princeton. "The creative movement was intended to express the exuberance of life in organized forms," Cohen said. From Poe Field, the performances moved to the lawn in front of Nassau Hall and then to the University Chapel. And from a noncredit course to address the interests of women students, the curriculum progressed to classes for credit and then to today's certificate program, which includes the study of choreography, dance history and criticism. The modern dance courses are now supplemented with extracurricular ballet training on the intermediate and advanced levels. The skills of the dancers evolved from simply expressing emotions to also incorporating higher-level technique and professional dance repertory.

Read the full story and see additional photos of the dance program's history in the Weekly Bulletin.