Calvin News

Add a new educational offering to the list of more than 80 majors, minors and programs at Calvin College. The school has just approved a new minor in dance.

Interestingly, the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church -- the denomination with which Calvin is affiliated -- passed a report in 1928 which condemned card playing, movies and dance as sinful worldly amusements. The injunction against card playing simply fell by the wayside over the years. Movies were okayed in 1966, but dance did not receive official denominational approval until the 1982 Synod.

Calvin physical education professor Ellen Van't Hof, who spearheaded the proposal for the new minor and will teach many of the classes, says the approval is "the realization of a dream."

Van't Hof was an art major at Calvin and then went on to earn a master's at Western Michigan University in communication arts and sciences. Following that she did post-masters work in dance education at Temple University. For the last two decades she has studied, practiced and taught dance. Her interdisciplinary background and approach to dance will be reflected in Calvin's new minor.

"I wanted this minor to be integrated," she says. "It will be a multi-discipline, multi-cultural program. It is not likely to turn out professional dancers -- at least that's not its goal -- but it will create students who are informed about an important cultural activity and who can think about it from a Christian perspective. I hope the minor's multi-disciplinary approach will enlarge their understanding of whatever discipline they go into."

Van't Hof sees dance as universal, but also cultural. "Dance is a powerful force in the world and Christians have often denied or misunderstood its power, even though the Bible gives evidence of the power of dance. From the dawn of time, cultures have danced. Its power to reflect and change cultural values is apparent. The beliefs that people hold dear are reflected in their dance. Dance communicates, it reflects society and societal mores. Our minor will look at dance within that context of culture and society, both past and present."

She notes that most dance minors focus primarily on the "craft of dance." The Calvin minor will include that element, but also place dance in the broad context of culture and society while making application to the life of the Christian.

"Each course," Van't Hof says, "is grounded in cultural and artistic history."

The new minor will incorporate existing courses such as Anatomical Kinesiology as well as technique courses in modern, ballet, jazz, tap and sacred dance. It also will see the addition to the Calvin curriculum of three new courses: Dance History, Dance in World Culture and Dance Composition and Performance.

Van't Hof says she knows of no other dance minors which have a course like the Dance in World Culture offering. "That course," she says, "is unique to Calvin. It will look at the role and power of dance to reflect community, societal and religious values within culture and also the role of dance within the arts of diverse cultures."

The course will look at the philosophy of dance; the sociology of dance; the history of dance as worship (including the history and role of sacred dance); dance in the Old Testament and New Testament; the role of the arts in Christian liturgies; music and dance; and drama and dance, including theater.

The Dance History course will be offered for the first time as a January 1999 Interim course. It will include dance in ancient Israel, Egypt, Greece and Rome; dance in the Middle Ages, Renaissance dance and the rise of ballet; modern ballet; dance in America; modern dance; the development of jazz and tap dance; and Christianity and contemporary dance.

The Dance Composition and Performance course will begin with an approach to choreography and then move onto such things as concepts of time and rhythm; musical structure; space and visual design; energy and dynamics; theatrical aspects of production; and costuming.

In each of the three new classes the theory and academic study will be combined with practical studio work.

Van't Hof says that Calvin has had a student-run Dance Guild since 1970 and notes that this semester about 170 students are members. Some of those students, she says, are apt to consider a dance minor.

The Calvin Dance Guild does two performances annually, one in the fall and one in the spring. The spring 1998 show is scheduled for Friday, May 1 at 8 p.m. in the Calvin Fine Arts Center Auditorium and will include a variety of styles -- everything from tap to ballet to funk to Irish step dancing. About 120 students will participate in the show, which annually is an early sell out in the 1,100-seat Fine Arts Center.

SIDEBAR ON KLOMPEN DANCING

Calvin College professor of physical education Ellen Van't Hof will travel to Amsterdam on April 13 for an international conference on dance. At "Dance in the Netherlands, 1600-2000" she will deliver a paper entitled: "The Netherlands/West Michigan Connection. Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan: The Klompen Dances." Van't Hof says she is excited about the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam and present her findings. She is inviting comment and critique from the conference participants and hopes to hear first-hand from the Dutch about the traditions of dance in their country.

The product of over six months of research and scholarship, Van't Hof's paper draws some interesting conclusions as it asks such questions as "Where did the dance come from?" and "Is it authentically Dutch?" Van't Hof, who comes from Dutch lineage and not only knows the Klompen Dance, but danced at Tulip Time for six years, has been intrigued by the Klompen Dance since she was a child growing up in Grand Rapids.

Her recent research took her to archives around Holland, Michigan, and in the course of her work she collected many unpublished, undated and unknown-authored documents on Klompen Dancing at Tulip Time. She traced the Klompen Dance back to 1933 when it was introduced by a physical education teacher at Holland Junior High School. That teacher, Ethel Perry, choreographed movements based upon her idea of Dutch traditions such as windmills, scrubbing streets, fishing, carrying buckets on yokes, playing games and flirting. New dances were choreographed each subsequent year until 1953 when the current dance was first performed and since has remained virtually unchanged.

Van't Hof's paper traces the dance, the music and the costumes which make up the Klompen Dance. She found that while the costumes and footwear of the Klompen Dance are indeed authentic, the combination of music, dance steps, costume and footwear which creates the Tulip Time Klompen Dance is a distinctly American product. She says the Tulip Time Klompen Dance is, in fact, a terrific example of a new style of folk dance -- one which combines elements of the old world (the Netherlands) and the new world (the U.S.) to create a product which is colorful, lively, exciting and enduring.

She also notes in her paper that the Klompen Dance is largely a product of non-Dutch residents of Holland. For many Dutch immigrants, dance was counter to the ways of the church. It was left to non-Dutch who were intrigued with the Dutch culture that permeated Holland to create the Klompen Dance. In fact Van't Hof notes that many of the Tulip Time organizers planned and promoted the celebration for educational reasons, using the planting and growing of tulip bulbs as a hands-on lesson in biology, the sewing and study of authentic Dutch costumes to enhance home economics classes, the scoring and playing of music in music classes and the dance itself as part of an expanded physical education curriculum. "The descendants of Dutch settlers," says Van't Hof, "have surely embraced Tulip Time and the Kompen Dance, but it was ‘the Americans,' as the early Dutch called them, who created the event."