A dance marathon staged by New York's City Center? Was that doughty cultural impresario succumbing to the nostalgia craze reviving the 1920s stunts in which competing couples danced away the night—and the day, and sometimes the night again? Not quite. The City Center American Dance Marathon '72, which ended last week at Manhattan's ANTA Theater, was devoted more to the delights of diversity than to endurance. Over a period of six weeks, 20 of the most ruggedly individual dance companies in the U.S. matched style and idea in stalwart succession.
Most of the companies were already sufficiently established to be active throughout the U.S. at festivals, in smaller cities or on college campuses. By bringing them together in one big bash, and by risking the inevitable flops along with the successes, the City Center hoped to give the companies a kind of exposure and impact that otherwise would be beyond their reach. Alas, ticket sales were disappointing, and the City Center (which tried a similar venture on a smaller scale two years ago) has no immediate plans for another marathon. All the more reason to cheer the companies that most enlivened this one. Items:
> Inner City Repertory Dance Company, based in Los Angeles and led by a studious black named Donald McKayle, is a well-knit company of young black and white dancers. One of the best of them is Leslie Watanabe, who danced a leading role in McKayle's new Sojourn as though the work were not about a few visits, but about all time. Set to a wryly dissonant musical trifle, Rapsodie á Sept by André Jolivet, Sojourn sent the dancers back and forth in changing patterns like travelers meeting briefly at a crossroads. Another Inner City star is Michele Simmons, who brought a simple dignity to her Caribbean mujer eternal in McKayle's Songs of the Disinherited, then portrayed three faces of woman (sweetheart, wife, mother) in McKayle's mournful ode to the chain-gang life, Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder. If McKayle's choreographic style shows a knack for quick, deft blending of styles (such as modern, jazz, calypso, ballet), that is largely because he has spent much of the past decade tailoring dances to the tight demands of TV shows (Ed Sullivan, Bill Cosby).
> Lotte Goslar's New York-based Pantomime Circus demonstrates a rare and precious conceit: dance can be funny as well as fashionable. One of the best of American mimes, Goslar is a dumpling of a woman with a turned-up nose and a turned-down figure that often resembles a lightly squeezed tube of toothpaste. Gnome is where her heart is, especially when spoofing flowers, inch-worms and swishy ballet masters, or imitating a katydid rubbing its legs (Splendor in the Grass). When four of her dancers somehow managed to portray a cowardly lion encountering an equally cowardly clown in a cage (Circus Scene), it became clear that she is not the only one who wears the pantaloni in her deliciously zany company.