Harbinger Dance Company

Contemporary dance has firmly taken root in the Motor City since 1971, the year The Harbinger Dance Company was formed at the Detroit Community Music School as the area's first modern dance troupe. Today there are more than a dozen dance companies active in metropolitan Detroit, many internationally-famous companies stop here regularly, and several Detroiters (including the highly-respected Clifford Fears and Rod Rodgers) have achieved wide recognition for their dancing and choreographic talents-making this one of the hottest dance scenes in the country.

True to its name, Harbinger (which means "forerunner," "precursor," or "first") is still one of the most active and visible members of the Detroit dance community. Currently the only modern dance company operating here on a fully-professional basis, Harbinger will be the featured company at the 1976 Dance Festival presented by the National Association for Regional Ballet in Des Moines, performing an original piece dedicated to Detroit and titled "Belle Isle Days." Besides celebrating its fifth birthday (see inset), this season Harbinger debuted its very successful children's play "Ebenezer Is a Geezer," another unique, original work that got rave reviews in its pre-Christmas run at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

A youthful, bright-eyed Lisa Nowak is founder, director, and choreographer for the Harbinger Company. A native Detroiter, Ms. Nowak studied dance under Jose Limon and Valerie Bellows at New York's Julliard School of Music and graduated from Adelphi University on Long Island. After performing with New York's Dancers' Theatre she travelled to Europe, teaching dance at the Warsaw Ballet School and creating several original works for Polish television and for concerts.

She describes what Detroit dance was like when she returned to the city in 1966: "I couldn't make my living in dance when I first carne back. I worked as a secretary for a couple of years. . . put aside my career completely. There really wasn't anything happening here in dance at the time. There was Wayne State University and a lot of interest in dance, but really nothing like what's happening now.

"The music school (The Detroit Community Music School) did not have a dance department - they had a voice teacher who wanted someone to teach dance to her students, and that was me. I took the job and taught the class once a week for a couple of years, and then I decided I would like to do a summer workshop, but they didn't have the facilities. It meant renting facilities and so on and I did, and that's really how the dance department got started, with that one summer workshop.

"The following year I did another one and then we finally started a department, which was in the fall of '69. The dance company came out of the department in the fall of 70."

The Harbinger Company first practiced and performed on the concrete stage at Wayne's Deroy lecture hall. Since then they've been able to move to a more suitable rehearsal facility (at the new, expanded music school) and performing center (at the comfortable Detroit Institute of Arts Auditorium).

Slowly, recognition of the company and the usefulness of modern dance has grown. Partially aided by a grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts, Harbinger has played extensively throughout Michigan and Ohio. The reaction to modern dance in places like Albion, Port Huron, Flint, Cadillac, Algonac? Lisa explains:

"I was surprised wheh we first started touring several years ago. We went to Cadillac, which s a resort town - l have the feeling it's also a retirement community, very conservative -and the audience, I would say fifty per cent of the audience were of retirement age. And we did works like "Quandrant"  and a couple of serious abstract pieces which I thought they would have a great deal of trouble with - and they were a very warm and receptive audience, and very enthusiastic.

"Every place we go. . . l'm amazed at the response we have from people who have never seen dance."

Harbinger's most important trip to date will be to Des Moines, lowa June 5, 1976, when their "Belle Isle Days" will close this year's dance festival of the National Association for Regional Ballet.

"I felt for a long time that we needed an affirmative statement," Ms. Nowak told us, explaining why "Belle Isle Days" was conceived and presented as Harbinger's bi-centennal gift to the city of Detroit and its people. "I have a real problem with media in this town. l'm very upset about the fact that when you turn on the television, the first three stories are about murders. It's bad enough that it's happening, but do we have to dwell on it, and make it sell newspapers, and sell our city? And that's the way our city is sold.

"I just happen to love Belle Isle and l've got a whole feeling for it. My husband (attorney Dennis James) and my son and I were out there last June, and when we came back from the park I decided l'd like to do a work that kind of epitomizes the feeling I have about Belle Isle as an urban oasis. And it s very much a part of the scene, it's an urban park but it's still an oasis and it's the only one a lot of people have.

"I really believe we need an affirmative statement and I don't mean, I could never celebrate the bi-centennial by putting a bunch of dancers in red, white, and bluestriped outfits. We have to celebrate it as what we are because the bi-centennial doesn't mean the past, it means the present and the future. So I wouldn't do a square dance, you know, or a cowboy dance . . ."

As far as Harbinger's future is concerned, Ms. Nowak explained that the success of their "Christmas Carol" adaptation - "Ebeneezer is a Geezer"- has inspired a whole new project. "I would like to do it again," she said. "I think the show has real challenge for us. It really wasn't dance, it was theatre. Children's theatre is a whole field in itself - it's different.

"It did motivate a lot of youngsters I know personally who went to see it, to get interested in dance and study it- it really was effective. That was the point of it, one of my big arguments for doing it . . . the whole idea of the thing was to present children with a live theatre experience that would stimulate them.

"We want to tour with it . . . we're trying to figure out what to do with it but we need a lot of money. We need $5,000 for a new set, for example - the original set was built very cheaply and it can't be put up again anywhere but at the Art Institute, because it was built for that space only.

"We have a grant application in and we could, if we get the grant, very easily tour with "Ebeneezer," but we still need the money for the set, because they will not fund what they consider 'capital expenditures.'"

Like almost everything else in Detroit, Harbinger has been threatened by the economie depression we're still going through here. Ms. Nowak frankly explained, "The music school is desperately hurting for money, and if they don't pull themselves out of this financial stress, we get axed.

"We've been operating under that threat for some time and it's serious, first of all, because we're at a crucial point in our development. We need more money. . . the dancers are being paid too little, they can't continue earning $42.50 a week-that's what's left when they take the taxes out of $50 a week. They all have part-time jobs doing other things.

"So we are in trouble, we don't know what's going to happen next. We need to get a 'Friends of Harbinger' set up, and this is what we're hoping to do shortly; they would serve as an adjunct of our Board of Directors here at the school, help raise money for the company and help generate interest in activities and such. Detroit has never had a publicly-supported professional dance troupe.

"I really feel we can pull through somehow, though. l've watched the company from year to year and l've been involved in its growth, and we have very high standards for ourselves. We really work at what we do, it's not the kind of thing that we take for granted . . . the discipline is tight and we work very hard at maintaining that discipline.

"I think we're finally making the switch over to a professional company in terms of attitude, and that doesn't happen automatically. People have to really decide to do this, they really have to be committed.

"You have to want it very badly and you have to understand, especially with a company like this, that we are in such a life and death struggle all the time-and there are many things that inconvenience everybody in the company. You have to be ready and willing to accept that, be patient and ready to deal with it."

UPDATE

The Detroit Community Music School has withdrawn its support from the Harbinger Dance Company due to the lack of funds. As of July 1st, they are desperately in need of financial support. Anyone wishing to support this important dance troupe can make contributions to the Detroit Community Music School, c/o Harbinger Dance Company or call 831-2870.