Spain's contribution to the evolution of theatrical dance is acknowledged within the categories of ballet and ethnic dance. Spanish folk dance elements have been incorporated into the classical ballet vocabulary, and exotic adaptations of dances from Spain have enriched the established ballet repertory: Fanny Ellsler's Cachucha, Petipa's “Spanish Dance” divertissement in Swan Lake, and Leonide Massine's Tricorne (The Three Cornered Hat) are wellknown examples. Soloists such as Pastora Imperio, La Argentina, José Greco, and Carmen Amaya have popularized around the world what has become known as the Spanish style of dance (for example, fandango, bolero, seguidillas, flamenco). However, Spain has not been associated with the history of early modern dance, a phenomenon largely attributed to a handful of American and German dancers.

Tórtola Valencia (1882–1955) claimed Spain as her country of origin, and made a flamboyant contribution to early modern dance in western Europe, Spain, and Latin America from 1908–1930. Her vast, eclectic repertory of Oriental, classical, and Spanish themes echoed the preoccupations of her contemporaries with whom she was favorably compared—in particular, Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, Ruth St. Denis, Mikhail Fokine, and Anna Pavlova (1). In her time she received critical acclaim as one of the most famous dancers in Europe, yet she is not cited in the English language history of dance (2). This is only part of the mystery that weaves through the fabric of Tórtola Valencia's intriguing life and career.

In a relatively well-known article, Monroe Beardsley defines dance as a sequence of motions that is designed primarily for the pleasure given through either rhythm or expressiveness (1). In reply, Sally Banes and Noël Carroll graciously, but firmly, reject Beardsley's account by claiming that he further requires a “superfluity of expressiveness” and by arguing that this feature is neither necessary nor sufficient for dance (2). Their reasons for denying the sufficiency option are ones that we can easily accept, it seems to me. However, their reasons for denying the necessity option are problematic. In brief, they invoke post-modern dance practice, and cite as a counterexample to the definition Yvonne Rainer's Room Service (1964), which ostensibly comprised nothing but pedestrian movements and tasks such as mattress carrying (3). Because Room Service for post-modernists is a “task dance,” conveying no more expressiveness than one usually finds in such activities, Banes and Carroll conclude that a superfluity of expressiveness cannot even be a necessary condition of dance, at least from the 1960s onwards. Furthermore, anticipating the retort that Room Service may not really be a dance to begin with and thus not a true counterexample, they offer four different criteria that would cause the work to be categorized positively. My primary intent in this article is to reveal that those criteria misfire and actually cause it to be excluded from dance.

The history of the Works Progress Administration's short-lived Federal Dance Theatre embodies many of the aspirations, achievements, ambiguities, handicaps and frustrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Like the other Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief programs, the Federal Dance Theatre (FDT) was created with federal funds to help alleviate the hardships brought on by the Great Depression. The FDT was established in January 1936 as a distinct artistic entity within the WPA relief organization. It employed professional dancers, choreographers, musicians, designers, and technicians, and set before them the task of producing socially relevant dance pieces for the American people, in particular, audiences that had not previously had access to the theatre. That the Federal Dance Theatre came into existence at all and managed to stay afloat and produce a few critically acclaimed productions of social portent and artistic merit was largely due to the perseverance of modern dance maverick, Helen Tamiris (1905–1966).

Ever since the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), educational literature and the popular press have been filled with concern over low achievement levels among students in this country. One of the more recent responses has been the development of rigorous national standards, including standards in all the arts (National Standards for Arts Education, 1994). At the same time, there is recognition that far too many students are not motivated to meet even existing standards. The September 1995 issue of Educational Leadership, a publication whose themes reflect issues of current significance to public school administrators, was devoted to strengthening student engagement. Editor Ron Brandt opened the issue with a description that is familiar to almost anyone who walks into a typical high school class in any community:

Some [students] see no connection whatever between their priorities and what teachers expect of them, so they refuse lessons and even refuse to try. Others realize they must play the game, but go through the motions with minimal attachment to what they are supposedly learning. Teachers, thwarted by resistance or passivity, complain that students are unmotivated, and either search valiantly for novel approaches or resign themselves to routines they no longer expect to be productive. (1995, 7)

Certainly this dismal picture does not apply to young children, who arrive so eager to learn in kindergarten. It is reasonable to ask what happens to children, especially as they move through adolescence, to leave so many so unmotivated and disengaged.

One of the most heated debates in modern literary and aesthetic theory concerns the relevance to criticism in general, and to interpretation specifically, of information about an author/artist's intentions in creating a particular work. This intentionalist/anti-intentionalist debate is an important one for dance educators to examine and discuss with students, since teachers' beliefs about the relevance of an artist's intentions determine in large part the way they interpret and judge dances (and other works of art), and mentor student choreographers and critics. The critical advice of mentors who hold intentionalist assumptions naturally tends to be quite different from the input of those holding anti-intentionalist views.

The debate over artists' intentions began in earnest in 1946 with the publication of a provocative and now famous essay entitled “The Intentional Fallacy” by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley. In this work the authors attacked the intentionalist idea that to achieve a valid, or true, interpretation of a work we must ascertain whatever meaning its maker intended it to possess. The essay laid the groundwork for a rigorous anti-intentionalism, which held that works of art and literature are autonomous entities whose meanings are carried entirely by their internal structures and do not depend on the so-called meaning-intentions of their creators.

As western theatrical dance has developed through the centuries, dance educators, artists, and researchers have sought methods to improve dance skills and to refine the quality of dance performance. In the pursuit of ever-increasing technical skills, improved alignment, freedom from injury, and enhanced artistic capabilities such as expanded dynamic and expressive range, dancers have explored numerous training systems developed for these purposes. These systems are often used in conjunction with dance technique classes, and they explore a range of approaches addressing different aspects of the neural and motor mechanisms underlying dance skills. In general, the systems can be seen as operating within two large concerns. The first includes systems using imagery and/or mental practice designed to affect alignment and dance performance on the subcortical or neurological level, with minimal or no physical action (Bartenieff 1980; Dowd 1990; Sweigard 1974; Todd 1937). The second emphasizes consistent and specialized exercise programs designed to encourage muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and/or cardio-respiratory endurance, with the claim that these physical changes will enhance alignment, dance technique, and performance (Clippinger-Robertson 1990; Fitt 1988; Kravitz 1990; Lauffenburger 1990; Pilates 1945; Russell 1992; Solomon 1990; Stephens 1990; Trepman, Walaszek, & Micheli 1990). While there is often overlap in these two categories, the first group emphasizes neuromuscular repatterning to alter alignment or movement habits, while the second addresses muscular/structural alterations to affect change. For example, the body therapies, including the work of Bartenieff, Alexander, Feldenkrais, and Sweigard, attempt to alter the way muscles pattern themselves, stressing whole body activity, connections, and awareness, not exercises for specific muscles (Myers 1980). Conditioning programs, on the other hand, do engage particular muscles, in order to make gains in muscular strength and range of motion.

Those of us who have made a lifetime commitment to professional careers in dance have come to know the intrinsic rewards and difficulties of this field. Do dance students perceive these same factors, and if so, how are they influenced by them? This article considers these questions through a review of studies of dance students from 1953 to 1993. The research first presented in 1988, “An Interpretive Study of Meaning in Dance: Voices of Young Women Dance Students,” by Sue Stinson, Donald Blumenfeld-Jones and Jan Van Dyke, was the stimulus for this new dance student study and review of recent literature. In the Stinson, et.al. (1990) study the dance students' attitudes toward their future in dance were fairly pessimistic (1). In spite of their deep love of dance and their identity as dancers they felt powerless in a highly competitive field, thought they would never be good enough to be professional, battled constantly with bodies they considered inadequate, and regarded teaching as an activity only for failed performers. This article places Stinson's work in the context of previous studies of dance students' attitudes in a comparative overview of research conducted from 1953 to 1993. This paper also presents the results of a recent study of dance students conducted in nine colleges and universities in southern California.

A recent, inconspicuous story in the newspaper, one of our most revered keepers and transmitters of traditions, added to our cosmology. It reported “galaxies formed at high rates when the universe was half to one-fourth its current age—earlier than thought. If one assumes the universe is 15 billion years old … this discovery would put the galactic baby boom at about 8 billion—11 billion years ago…. Astronomers are able to witness galactic births because light takes so long to reach Earth, but they've not seen them on the scale reported in the new findings—namely, 40 cosmic infants” (Anonymous 1995).

This carrier of tales, the newspaper, also reports “America Online has been offering Road Trips since June, with customized interactive trips through its own areas and sites on the World Wide Web. The service allows users to designate favorite places while being able to chat in real-time with friends about the experience…. The Internet is a kind of strange, scary place and [Road Trips] can make it more friendly” (Haring 1995 ).

Theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking writes that “life, at least as we know it, can exist only in regions of space-time in which [there are] one time and three space dimensions” (1988:165) (1). Space-time is ever fascinating to us humans because it is where we live, and its dimensions continue to expand.