When the red pimple on SMU dance major Megan Crichton’s forehead continued to grow, she got the feeling it was more serious than acne.
“It started getting really big and pussy, so I went to the doctor and he said I had staph,” said Crichton.
One of three dance students in two months to get the infection last year, Crichton suspects dancing and sweating on unclean studio floors were to blame.
“I think we (SMU Division of Dance) definitely have a budget problem,” she said.
Crichton is not alone.
Many SMU students and some faculty and administrators say the SMU Division of Dance is under funded, particularly regarding facilities’ and production costs.
“The production budgets we have here are lower than those at the competition, and that’s not right,” Dr. Jose Bowen, dean at the Meadows School of the Arts, said.
The SMU dance division is one of the founding members of the accrediting body, the National Association of Schools of Dance, according to dance chair Myra Woodruff.
Two primary budgets keep the division going: operations and production. Operations covers costs of guest artists, adjunct salaries and basic expenses for keeping the division running. Production costs are those used to pay for performances, such as costuming, scenery and the rights to perform master works. An office that oversees all facilities in the Owen Fine Arts Center pays for the cleaning and upkeep of dance studios. In addition, Myra Woodruff determines the use of an unrestricted account, which usually goes toward productions and summer study.
Carleen Naugle, Meadows director of business and finance, acknowledges hearing questions from dance faculty about budget problems. But she doesn’t see a problem with the division’s budget.
“We have better (funding) than most, but of course it’s not good enough,” Naugle said.
What do most have? Travis Waldschmidt, a senior dance major, transferred to SMU after a year in the Purchase College Conservatory of Dance at the State University of New York.
“The facilities were 20 times better than these,” he said.
According to Waldschmidt, in addition to 15 studios, Purchase has four saunas, better costuming, a staff physical therapist just for dancers and its own dance building.
SMU has three studios, one of which is too small to be used for main stage rehearsals. The division sends dancers to the Health Center or off campus for physical therapy treatment.
Purchase also uses natural lighting in its studios.
“It gave the studios an identity,” Waldschmidt said.
Two of SMU’s three dance studios are in the basement. The third, studio 1430, is a converted television studio. It has no windows, dim lighting, a slick floor and peeling seafoam-colored walls, making one feel like he or she is dancing under the sea in a wrecked ship.
Myra Woodruff said the division needs new studio space. She would like to see two large studios and a dance wing added to the current dance facilities.
“Additional spaces will make a lot more things possible that are challenging right now,” she said.
The studios are booked at all hours of the day, so additional ones could provide rehearsal space for class and independent student projects as well as varied class times. Now an onlooker can find sweaty dancers exiting the building past midnight, following a late-night rehearsal.
Is staph still infecting the facilities? According to Woodruff, facilities hired a professional cleaning service to thoroughly clean the studios every Sunday.
When the studios appear unclean “the only thing that we can do is report it,” she said.
Woodruff said studio maintenance, which is controlled by the same people who maintain all the facilities in the Owen Fine Arts Center, saves the division money because those costs aren’t coming out of the division’s budget. But facilities has responsibility for multiple departments, so it can’t focus all its attention, or money, on dance.
“Facilities is probably a $10-and-a-half, $11-million problem,” Bowen said. “Dance is probably more under pressure in all of those resources . . . in terms of facilities, operations, production budgets.”
Bowen said the theater division has more money allocated for performances because it chooses to put on larger productions. Woodruff said the main stages, which are shared between theatre, music and dance divisions, are used to build scenery when a performance is not in progress because of a lack of space to do it elsewhere. This scenery is never used for dance.
Crichton said the dance division couldn’t afford to make one more costume for a main stage performance of “Lucid Dreams” in fall 2006. As a result, two dancers had to share a costume, which allowed one fewer dancer onstage who otherwise would have had the chance to perform.
“We didn’t even have enough funding to get the fabric to make another dress,” Crichton said.
For advertising, Woodruff says the division must rely on word-of-mouth and recruiting to attract students. Advertising costs are high and the division can’t afford to advertise in the college guide in Dance Magazine, a popular publication for dancers and teachers.
The division, however, has been recently quoted in articles in the magazine as a place where the Graham Company, one of the oldest and most respected modern dance companies, gets its dancers.
The theater division advertised its 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons on four large banners hung outside the Greer Garson Theatre in clear view of passing traffic on Hillcrest.
“We can’t even imagine having the amount of money to do that,” Crichton said.
Woodruff is optimistic despite the state of the dance facilities. She said faculty salaries have seen a 3 percent increase per year over the last 20 years, and recent grants from the Meadows Foundation have made new projects possible.
The Meadows gift provided the $13,500 cost of bringing in Douglas Becker of Ballet Frankfurt for one month this semester to set William Forsythe’s “Vile Parody.” Fall 2007 will welcome Yuriko Kikuchi for a similar residency to set Martha Graham’s “Primitive Mysteries.” The cost will be $25,000, an amount the division couldn’t afford without a grant.
“Things take time,” Woodruff said.
(Editor’s note: the author of this article is a double-major in journalism and dance.)
