- Welcome to our place our Time.

It's the art form that shows the human body can be a paradigm of beauty and power.

We're going to look at dance and ballet, what's happening in our place and what time may bring.

We'll swing also in musical time to the jazz of Bernie Jacobs and his trio.

And here's your host, Vianne Webb.

- Welcome back to our place, our time of the professional performing arts in Hampton Roads.

Until now, dance has been the most underrepresented.

Oh yes, we have dozens of dance schools and dance companies for young apprentices, but little in the way of consistent professional dance and ballet.

Well, that situation is changing.

We're having in Hampton Roads this spring, an extraordinary season of high quality dance and ballet, and it's time.

We made an assessment of the state of the Art of dance in Hampton Roads.

A little later on, we'll look at a young and innovative modern dance company, but Tim Morton will begin with a survey of dance and ballet and a preview of some exciting dance events coming soon.

- This is the year.

This is the season for dance and ballet.

In Hampton Roads.

Springtime always brings us a sunburst of dance, but look what we've got this season.

The great Alvin Ailey Company led off the parade a few weeks ago, coming in April is the Jaffy Ballet, one of America's finest classical companies.

And a little later, the unpredictable and hip Twila Tharp dance company will come to Norfolk's Chrysler Hall and there will be more dance.

What does it mean?

It's the finest season of dance and ballet and Hampton Roads?

Anybody can remember?

We wondered what does it mean and will it mean Dance and ballet?

Here have always been the stepchildren of the professional performing arts.

We have no professional dancers or consistent professional dance companies.

What will it mean these visits?

What will it mean to dance and ballet?

And that question gave rise to others.

What is the state of the art of ballet and dance here?

Where have we come from?

Where are dance and ballet going?

What are the problems and needs?

What are the strengths?

And - Five and six - To get at answers.

We talked with more than a half a dozen people who have participated in led and observed ballet and dance here for many years.

Double you.

Threw yourself back, you back.

Keep your back straight.

You gotta get all this up.

Let's see.

Lia and Lia, we began talking with Gene Hammett, the Johnny Appleseed of dance in Hampton Roads, founder of the Tidewater Ballet, and the teacher of more than a hundred students who have gone on to dance with major companies around the world.

I asked Hamit what he thinks The visits by the major professional companies will mean.

- Well, the more good dance will promote a larger dance audience.

And this has been proven within the larger cities.

The New York City Ballet is paying to capacity audiences at the Joffrey Ballet.

- I hope it will help raise the consciousness, the civic consciousness of the community to what we aspire to.

The Alvin Ailey Company and the Joffrey Ballet both are professionals of the highest caliber quality.

It's world class, what you're seeing, you know?

And I'm hoping that people will be moved and that they will enjoy what they experience and want it to come back.

- Glenn White was a Hammett student who went on to dance for more than a decade with the Joffrey Ballet and has now returned to teach at the Tidewater Academy and the Arts Magnet School.

- When I began, gene Hammett was about the only serious person.

There were a lot of dancing schools where I guess girls learned to wear gloves and men learned to bow and ladies learned to curtsy, and you went to socials, but there wasn't, if anyone wanted to pursue a career someplace to go to really study, you know, that was like you went to somewhere out of here.

Not in, it didn't happen in Norfolk.

Coming back as I did, after being away for 20 years, working in New York and in Hollywood.

I am struck by the fact that A, the area has grown so large as that there are many more professionals who are here now, and that there are more choices and a greater artistic community.

- I think the biggest change is that I think quality-wise, dense, produced locally is much better than it was 15 years ago.

When I came in this area, audiences has grown, but ODU when I came here had a little nutcracker at run in the University theater, which seats 300 people.

Who dear today, has an Nutcracker, which runs in Chrysler and the Pavilion Theater attracting annually between 14 and 15,000 people.

- Another Hammett pupil was Albert Watson, who went on to be a lead dancer with the Alvin Ailey Company.

And in Europe, he never thought he'd come back to Hampton Roads.

- When I initially said I was gonna be a dancer, most of the comments I got were things like, dancers don't make any money, or dancers are or not a good job.

And when I came back in 81, you'd say, are you a dancer?

They'd say, well, what is it that you really do?

I mean, you're a dancer, but what is it that you really do?

And now that's changed a lot.

I think the media, the companies coming in, the whole outlook on dance is changing.

- There are more companies, there is more competition, there are better dancers.

There's a higher technical level.

We have access to more guest stars because of the different dancers that have come in from the area.

- I'm finding work lecturing.

I'm finding work choreographing.

I'm finding work, dancing.

I'm finding work coaching.

I'm finding my schedule is packed with dance things Good.

Use your arms now - Your turn.

No one knows how many children are taking ballet classes in Hampton Roads.

But dance teachers estimate as many as 8,000 for the schools.

The classes for children as young as five and six years old are major sources of income.

They could not survive without them.

Another source of income are stretch and exercise classes.

There's nothing wrong, of course with dance schools doing these, but they do tell us that dance and ballet and Hampton roads have yet to be liberated from programs that take away time and energy from professional pursuits.

- If you'll remember the development of the theater, the opera, the orchestra, even the museum, you had a central pioneering figure, mainly someone who could really go out and raise a fundraiser.

The ballet has never, ballet and dent have not entered, entertained such a person.

- Unfortunately, if you do not work in, say, a large theme park like Bush Gardens, for example, it is you cannot make a living wage.

Though many places around here claim that they are professional and they pay their people, they don't pay their people enough, or they don't work often enough that you could actually make a living off of what you - Do.

I love dance.

I became a dancer because I adore it.

And I think it's one of the greatest means where physical activity and arts can be combined, which is a fabulous challenge for every young boy, for instance.

And here is a stigma for a young boy to start dancing.

It's, and it's unreasonably so, and dance gets a second rate or the third rate, but the treatment in the high schools and in elementary schools, and I think that's bad for the children.

- Certainly the most interesting development in professional dance here in recent years has been the association with Hampton Roads of the fully professional and ambitious Richmond Ballet.

It's an association that started not in Richmond, but here, a former dancer and now director of Young Audiences of Virginia.

Kim Vincent, two years ago for the Norfolk Commission of the Arts and Humanities did a survey of dance companies, including the Richmond Ballet.

- One of the big problems that all of the artistic directors told me in the survey was the fundraising or the lack of funding to support a a full blown dance company.

Dance is one of the most expensive art forms, and I think people forget, not only in terms of the technical production, but the creative time needed to develop a professional company.

Richmond Ballet was the only company that had approximately 16 dancers on contract at the time, a budget of 1.4 million, a strong board, fully professional staff, and they were the leader in, in presenting professional dance to the state of Virginia.

- And with the help of Old Dominion University and some financial support from the Norfolk Commission, the Richmond Company brought to town a much admired production of Carmina.

Barna.

Stoner Winslet is the director of the Richmond Ballet.

- We hired a professional company of dancers in 1984, and what we have found is that maintaining that resonant company of professional dancers who dance all day.

And a lot of people don't realize that that's what they do for a living.

They take class, they rehearse, they perform.

That's all.

They're professional dancers.

- It takes a lot of money, a lot of money to build a big ballet company.

Or do you think you're going to be able to have the money to reach the kind of goals you want?

- When I first came to the Richmond Ballet in 1980, we were raising just under $35,000 a year.

This year, our goal is close to half 1,000,400 65,000, and we will probably reach it.

So in a relatively short amount of time, we have built that much.

No one in 1980 would've said that that was possible.

So I don't think anyone should say now that what we need to do isn't possible.

- And the Richmond dancers will return to Hampton Roads in April with the classic La Sifi, one more ballet in a season that may be marking a change for dance in Hampton Roads, a season that will be remembered - For all of us who love dance.

This season of dance and ballet in Hampton Roads is the most exciting and recent memory.

A dancer, a ballet company of consistent professional excellence has been the one jewel lacking in our performing arts crown here.

Perhaps we can begin now to get out the polish.

You'll see in our choices segment.

Coming up next on our place, our time, a listing for forthcoming performances by the Joffrey Ballet.

Just one of several events that will enliven our time the next few days.

We're going to look more closely now at a dance company, which in just two years, has found in Hampton Roads a growing audience for its innovative ideas.

Deborah Leviton worked with the Eric Hawkins Dance Company in New York before she came here and established the on the Edge dance company, composed of five young dancers who worked to original choreography and to live and oftentimes original music.

Kim Simon visited with the On the Edge company and prepared this report, - 1, 2, 3, cross push off three.

And - Some of it's really interesting, some of it I don't understand.

- Ready, and - One, everybody wishes they were in that kind of condition.

It's beautiful and it's enlightening, uplifting, and I think just the sensuality of it, that's really great.

1, 2, 3.

I prefer ballet because it's more graceful.

It's more graceful overtone to it than your modern dance.

Your modern dance kind of puts you in into mind of something that's kind of harsh.

Tat t do you like to - Dance?

- Ah, I do.

Some of it's enjoyable, but I guess my age gets in the way and some of it's a little too interpretive for me and, and I don't understand.

A lot of it makes my lack of education - Dance as any art form is a matter of personal preference.

On the Edge is an exclusively modern dance company, comprised of four resident artists, founder and artistic director, Deborah Levitan, Heather Nye, Anna Wheelie, and Jennifer Golden.

Augmented by guest choreographers and composers on the edge presents a varied spectrum of modern dance styles.

But what exactly is modern dance - Exploration?

Oh, curiosity, expression of oneself.

Wide open spatial - Awareness.

Modern dance is movement.

A body language set to music, expressing conditions of the human spirit, confusion, anger, abundant joy, and outgrowth from classical dance.

Modern has its own language.

It is a very personal exploration of movement, unencumbered by prescribed rules and - Structures.

One of the ways to distinguish modern dance and classical ballet perhaps, would be in, in terms of movement vocabulary, generally saying that the classical ballet works from a very strict vocabulary that's been passed down over many hundreds of years.

Whereas the modern dance with all the different styles that is modern dance comes from perhaps a more intuitive place, a more expressive place.

- Helen Pelton is guest choreographer for on the edges.

Third season of dance, inviting guest dancers and musicians to choreograph and compose for the company has become a customary practice established by artistic director Deborah Levitan.

- When on the Edge commission's new works by choreographers, the company then gets a chance to experience a whole new style, a whole new vocabulary, - New approaches, new techniques.

These modern dancers are literally dancing on the edge as each visiting choreographer takes them a step beyond their own familiar realms of expression.

The challenge is in translating that expression into motion.

- When a choreographer gives a dancer movement, he or she does that, knowing that that movement will not exactly the way that they did it on their own particular and peculiar body.

And that's okay for a particular piece of choreography.

It might not matter that we all look exactly alike and that our arm and our finger is exactly alike.

We are individuals, individuals dancing together, not, we don't pretend to be one person.

I am still in the process of formulating and designing and discussing aesthetic philosophies.

I have been very influenced by the work of Eric Hawkins in that the work does not need to be always psychologically oriented, nor does it always need to be literary, literally oriented, so that I can do work that is done just for the beauty of movement and the craft and the skill and the process of finding beautiful and interesting and, and new movement vocabularies - On the edge continues to expand, stretching its horizons, both in its artistry and its popularity.

There is, however, a shared frustration for now they must practice as part-time professionals working odd jobs to support their art until such time that audiences are comfortable with new and unfamiliar dance forms.

- We're going to keep on swinging in time on our place in time to the music of jazz man, Bernie Jacobson, his trio.

Bernie and his flute have delighted night spot audiences in Hampton Roads for many years now, and it's a pleasure to have him with us.

- The reason I started playing flute was Raan Roland Kirk.

I never heard anyone deal with the instrument in that fashion ever in my life.

I, it was a complete shock just to see him or to hear him rather vocalize on the instrument.

And it gave it a very powerful masculine sound because at the time that I started listening to music musicians, you know, like we're eh type guys, you know, it's specific instruments, piano, flute had an effeminate attachment.

And as a result, I avoided taking piano lessons, you know, and I, I, I played football and stuff like that with my friends.

Well, improvisation for me is, is, is simply coming up with my own song on those changes, on that particular tune.

So if I did Stella by Starlight, I would try to make it Bernie by Starlight or however I might wanna switch it around.

I believe that you should know the song.

And, and as Charlie Parker said, knowing the words doesn't hurt.

Primarily though, I'm, I'm more interested in actual swinging and the tradition that is behind that aspect.

That's what got me into playing jazz, was the feeling it gave me.

So I wouldn't, I might become exploratory in some, in some phases, you know, and take it way outside.

But generally, I want to swing, I like to see people nodding their heads and snap in their fingers when I play.

- Thank you for joining us.

We'll be back in two weeks when Tempe Fis will interview and profile one of the most popular young recording artists in the country right now, Williamsburg's own Bruce Hornsby.

I hope you'll tell all the teenagers you know about Bruce Hornsby being here on our place, our time, and we'll recall the days when Hampton University was a school for educating Indians from the Western Plains.

Join me then.

I'm Vianne Webb.