L.A. DANCE COMMUNITY STARTS NEW SUPPORT GROUP

Members of the local dance community, left adrift without a unifying service organization since last summer, began collecting funds Monday night to launch a new support structure.

They’ve named it the Dance Resource Center of Greater Los Angeles.

After a two-hour meeting of dancers, choreographers and other dance enthusiasts at the Japanese American Community and Cultural Center, volunteer organizers of the developing nonprofit dance organization took in at least $1,000.

The funds, to be used immediately for a newsletter and other projects, will be applied toward membership fees, valid for one year, once the center exists legally with incorporation status, according to Gary Bates, a spokesman for the organization’s steering committee.

“I’m positive we have more than $1,000,” Lori Du Peron, a dancer/choreographer and chairman of the center’s 10-member ad-hoc steering committee said Tuesday. “I know the (Bella) Lewitzky Dance Company joined (with a $100 payment), and several people made $100 pledges they intend to match with other $100 pledges.

“I think that money is enough to get us started and get our organizing committees working and the legal process going.”

A group of local dance professionals that includes Bates, an independent choreographer and dance teacher, Darlene Neel, executive director of the Lewitzky company, and Brian Gormley, a marketing consultant and dance community activist, have met informally since last August to develop the resource center, hoping to fill a gap left by last year’s collapse of the 10-year-old Los Angeles Area Dance Alliance.

The alliance, which produced dance concerts as well as providing support services, was plagued by administrative and financial troubles and dissolved in substantial debt, according to Gormley, who acted as an alliance adviser.

Hoping to avoid these problems, resource center organizers are creating the new organization to function as “a service organization for dance. The primary objective is to support community-based, professional dance activity by providing its members with access to information, resources, services and to promote the visibility of greater Los Angeles dance on a local, state and national level.”

What it won’t undertake is the production of dance events--a much-desired, but expensive enterprise that Gormley has said largely contributed to the alliance’s demise.

The committee, which defined the center’s geographical reach from San Diego to Santa Barbara, also outlined a structural plan that received unanimous support at the meeting.

Working with a still-theoretical 1987 budget of about $50,000, center organizers proposed a roster of services to include a newsletter with a calender of local dance events and audition notices, workshops on topics ranging from dance medicine to grant preparation, mailing and telephone lists, a job bank and a video unit.

The center would also act as a clearing house for performers and presenters, for example, connecting dance groups and solo artists with universities or other local performance venues.

While some attending Monday’s meeting expressed concern over the center’s plans not to produce dance events, Bates, a former alliance adviser, pointed out that the alliance’s annual “Dance Kaleidoscope,” which presented works by more than 150 dance companies and solo artists from 1979 to 1986, “always caused problems we were never able to solve,” including large debts and a competitive, divisive atmosphere within the dance community, caused by a controversial audition process.

“We want this (center) to be a service organization for the entire community, not for a select, elite population,” Bates said.

Center organizers plan to establish a 15-member board of directors, though they have not decided whether that board will be elected or appointed. Organizers also said Monday that they hope within a month to hire an administrative secretary.

While center organizers plan to incorporate as an independent entity, they also are considering aligning with the Los Angeles Theatre Alliance, another service group. Among other things, organizers envision that such a relationship could offer the center a temporary home and might grow into a multi-discipline performing arts alliance.

Center organizers say state and national arts funders are more likely to award grants to groups of organizations that have banded together.

Bates said he thinks the center will begin the process to obtain legal incorporation within the next two weeks and will probably obtain nonprofit status within six months. He predicted that nominations for the center’s board of directors will be ready in one month.

Proposed annual membership dues range from about $85 for dance groups with budgets over $50,000 to $10 for individuals who only want a resource center newsletter. The next public resource center organizational meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Japanese American Community and Cultural Center.