Small shoulders to carry a big burden; that's the task of diminutive and exuberant Mary Ann Lee, artistic director of the Children's Dance Theatre, who is general chair of the International Dance and the Child (daCi) Convention, to be held in Salt Lake City July 29-Aug 3.
This will be the fifth meeting of the group, and its first in the United States. Gathering for the event are some 1,000 delegates, 450 of them children, from 34 states and 14 countries, including the Netherlands, Finland, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Canada, England, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, China (tentative), Jamaica, India, Indonesia and Mexico.Utah has about 120 dancing, including kids from CDT, BYU's children's program, Ballet West, Life Arts Center, Filipino Performing Arts, the Indian Walk-in Center, the Korean-American Community School, Han Le's Vietnamese Dancers and Junior Goya young Greek dancers.
Ceremonies will begin at the Pioneer Memorial Theatre at 9 a.m. Monday. There a Parade of Nations will feature more than 800 children and adults in native costumes, carrying their countries' flags, with Gov. Norm Bang
erter officially welcoming daCi to Utah.
The convention will then get under way, with a full slate of performances, workshops, lecture demonstrations and reading of papers.
On Tuesday morning at 8:45 in Pioneer Memorial Theatre, Pearl Primus will deliver the keynote address. Born in Trinidad, she has long been noted as an authority on West Indian, African and primitive dance, has choreographed Negro spirituals, and performed evenings of special ethnic dance. Primus now teaches anthropology at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
The convention provides a forum for international exchange, and a chance to keep abreast of developments in children's dance. "We want to establish a network that goes 'round the world," said Lee, who also directs the Virginia Tanner Creative Dance program at the University of Utah.
"Dance is a common bond for both kids and adults, and it's interesting to see the similarities in dance everywhere, no matter how differently children are trained. We want to foster universal respect, and we would never intimate that what we have here is better than what others have.
"When war broke out in January, we held our breath for fear that all our planning would come to naught," she said. "We are very glad it was a short war! It's so important to meet internationally; ever after, these children will know what it means to be together in a world community."
Help in preparing has come from a host of local assistants. "We have had 200 volunteers, including CDT parents and community helpers, and even my own mother working on this. Without them we would be nowhere," she laughed. "The dance community has all come under this umbrella, even our adult companies who work a lot with children - Ririe-Woodbury and Repertory Dance Theatre.
"We all know that when you work together ecumenically, you get further. That's one thing that Utah can provide - a good example of how people can work together."
There can hardly be too much help with this project, which features the care and feeding of a host. For example, did you ever try assigning hundreds of kids, one by one, to specific dormitory rooms?
Also, children up to 12 must have chaperones, and translators must be available. (International Visitors is helping with this.) While many delegates will stay at the University Park Hotel, more than 100 children from abroad will stay in private homes of CDT members, and transportation must be provided for many others.
"Snowbird has helped with our closing party on Saturday, and the University of Utah has contributed in kind, with facilities and staff, though daCi must rent the Pioneer Theatre building, and maintain a full technical crew at the theater and dance center - fortunately not at union wages. We will be using the Pioneer Theatre building and the Marriott Center for Dance every hour of the day, for classes and performances," said Lee.
Lee has had to raise a $100,000 budget, which will be offset somewhat by the registration money, she said. In many countries government funding is available for things that must be privately supported here, but she takes a laid-back attitude. "When you work with 200 kids regularly, as we do in CDT, you learn to be flexible," she laughed. "We will not be rigid about rehearsals, or housing.
"The incredible thing is what we will be able to do with the wonderful Marriott Center facilities. We will integrate children and adults into laboratory groups according to age and technical ability, but mixing all nationalities and backgrounds. As many as 17 teachers will function at once, teaching groups of about 30 in each class. Each group will rotate through different teachers during the week, to acquire as wide-ranging experience as possible."
There's a surprising lot of children's dance around the world, said Lee, even more so in many other countries than in America. "It's an unlimited field," said Lee.
"For the first time, we will have representatives from Japan, and from China," she said, holding out a small sheaf of faxes in Chinese script - the result of frantic efforts to get the group from Beijing here. Lee has come up with their air fare from San Francisco and back, with help from Morris Travel to keep the cost minimal. (At press time, their appearance was still tentative.)
Lee has taken a children's group to all but one of the four previous daCi conferences, since the first one in 1978. At that time CDT sent 60 children to Edmonton, Canada. In 1982 a group traveled to Stockholm, Sweden; and in 1988, CDT children went to London, England. In 1985 CDT was dancing at Wolf Trap Farm in Virginia, so it did not attend the convention held in Auckland, N.Z.
The next daCi convention will be held in Australia in 1994. Though it was originally projected to take place every four years, participants have since settled upon the comfortable interval of three years.