I write to praise home-grown, local art - the kind of art that typically gets little respect, the kind we Americans have traditionally felt could not be as good as anything that comes in from out of town. I also write to make a case for the positive and important role local art can play in regular, sequential dance education at the K-12 level. This article grew from an exchange that I recently had while defending a grant proposal, an experience that made me think through my ideas about American culture and the preconceptions and indifference the arts regularly encounter on a local, everyday level.

Because in my professional life I am a modern dance choreographer, the administrator of a dance festival, and a dance educator, my analysis necessarily includes all three perspectives. I had written a proposal for funds to pay the fees of local artists participating in a statewide modern dance festival in North Carolina. The panel was evaluating requests for Grass Roots Grants, state money designated for distribution at the local level, and I had been asked to participate in a fifteen-minute discussion about my project.

Perhaps it is time to reexamine how we define the field of professional modern dance and how we relate audience development to modern dance education for all students in our schools. At the same time, we might consider the possibility of a relationship between decreasing audience numbers and the traditional double standard that shows respect and provides funding for out-of-town professionals but not for local/regional artists. This double standard may have a profound influence on respect for local modern dance teaching and inclusion of dance in the K-12 curriculum.

Taking a cue from sports, by helping others to participate locally in both experience and study, we are taking steps toward creating demand. By simply making creative work physically accessible we help to make it more broadly attainable and meaningful on a deeper level. To find the meaning in art, we must first find our own relationship with it. Our culture is our construction. If we can bring the values inherent in the process of making and viewing art to the fore, give them importance, and teach about them seriously, I think we will see a powerful change.(p. 36, 37, 39).

(Bibliographies).

Jan Van Dyke is an associate professor of dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is the author of Modern Dance in a Postmodern World and has been coordinating the North Carolina Dance Festival since its inception in 1991.