Dancers' Needs Often Ignored

In "The Art of Dance Reborn at Harvard" (December 3), Aparajita Ramakrishnan touched upon some of the problems dancers encounter at Harvard. She neglected, however, many of the more pressing issues that affect the broader dance community.

In concentrating on the Radcliffe Dance Program and making only cursory reference to a student company, Ramakrishnan painted a distorted portrait of dance on campus.

The article stressed only two dance forms, ballet and jazz, and it omitted any reference to the many other dance companies on campus, including various ethnic companies as well as our modern dance company.

Although the dancers interviewed expressed dissatisfaction with the restricted availability of space, limited performance time and small scale of the Radcliffe Dance Program, these problems are not uniquely theirs.

The lottery system instituted to remedy the problem of limited rehearsal and performance space for companies in the Radcliffe Dance Center prevents some companies from access to the space. As a result, though the space often lies unused, many groups are still prohibited from dancing there.

There are many dance companies at Harvard, each with equally valid claims, which must compete for insufficient facilities. Not only are we confronted with limited space, but despite the efforts of the Office for the Arts, funding for university affiliated dance companies is minimal.

Furthermore, while Harvard offers course credit for visual arts, music and drama, dance classes cannot be taken for credit and must be paid for in addition to our academic tuition.

More fundamentally, while most universities and colleges have a dance major, Harvard is slow to acknowledge this art as a legitimate area of study.

We hope this can demonstrate that there is an active and diverse dance community at Harvard/Radcliffe that is struggling for support and recognition. In spite of these problems, Harvard is fortunate to have so many dedicated dancers and we do encourage those interested to join the dance community. Rachel Katzenellenbogen '94   Melissa McKirdy '93   Teddi White '94   Co-Directors, Harvard/Radcliffe Dance Company