THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
where she has been an instructor for
26 years.
One of her typical days goes some-
thing like this: at 9 a.m., a modern
dance class for nursery school-age
children at the Jewish Community
Center in Oak Park; at 10, an adult
class; at 1 p.m., another nursery school
class; at 4:30, a class for first and sec-
ond graders; at 5:30, a class for third
and fourth graders. At 7:30, home for a
quick supper, then "very often" out the
door for a rehearsal in the evenings, a
work-out or a performance.
She spends much of her time
working with several dance groups she
has founded, especially the Renais-
sance Dance Company of Detroit, and
the Madame Cadillac Dancers. Re-
naissance Dance, formed in 1970, fo-
cuses on dances of the Elizabethan era
in England. One of the company's most
popular performances is at the Was-
sail Feast at the Detroit Institute of
Arts each December, with Harriet
Berg, in red wig and authentic 16th
Century costume, as Elizabeth I.)
The Madame Cadillac Dancers
came into being three years ago when
Harriet received a grant from the
Michigan Council for the Arts to re-
search the dances of the early French
settlers in the Detroit area.
"I kind of gravitated toward dance
as a very late bloomer," she says. "I
took my degree (from Wayne) in Art
Education. But the wonderful woman
— Jane Betsy Welling — who was
head of the Art Education Department
then, encouraged her pupils to diver-
sify. So, I decided to go into the Dance
Workshop. I started dance only then—
after I was grown. I guess, in a way, I'm
still trying to catch up.
"I'd like very much to do more
choreography and more performing,"
she says. "I love performing."
Her next performance, scheduled
for March 24 in Flint, at Temple B'nai
Israel, will be with the Festival Dan-
cers — an all-female group from one of
her advanced classes at the Jewish
Community Center. "We're reviving a
work we did about two years ago, dedi-
cated to the victims of the Holocaust,"
she says. The story of the dance is
based on the life of Irving's aunt, who
perished in the Holocaust. The work
was choreographed by Sophie Maslow
of the Martha Graham Co. in New
York.
In addition to all her other activi-
ties, Harriet is dancer-in-residence at
Camp Maas for several weeks during
Benyas-Kau man
Friday, March 29, 1985
53
the summer and, on an average of once
or twice a year, travels to New York for
a round of dance classes, usually
studying with modern dance in-
structor Merce Cunningham.
Together, the Bergs like to travel
and have made several trips to Europe
and Israel. As newlyweds, they lived
in Mexico for a year in 1949, where
Irving studied at the Escuela de Pin-
tura y Escultura in Mexico City.
During their most recent trip to
Europe, in 1983, they visited France,
where Harriet researched some of the
background of Madame Cadillac and
Irving photographed churches and
sculptural art.
An avid amateur photographer,
Irving spends much of his time photo-
graphing sculpture and other artwork.
Several of his photos have been dis-
played at a number of Wayne State
University alumni exhibits.
Presently, he's involved in compil-
ing a photo-history of art, using the
collection at the Detroit Institute of
Art from the Egyptian period to the
present. He estimates he's taken more
than 800 photos for the project, which
he'll use as a teaching aid in his
classroom.
"It'll be a history of world art,
using our own museum as a resource,"
he says. "I'm enjoying the project so
much, I feel like I'm ready to start a
new career (in art history)."
The project was begun shortly
after the Bergs moved to a new apart-
ment in Detroit's Cultural Center last
summer. Both Detroit natives, and ar-
dent city boosters, they had previously
lived in a home in northwest Detroit
for 35 years, where son, Martin, now a
news reporter for the Charleston
(West Virginia) Gazette, and daughter,
Leslie, a dance student, grew up.
The new apartment, with its im-
pressive view of the city, is filled with
family photographs, paintings, books,
mementoes, sculpture, and is fur-
nished mostly with tables and chairs
made by Irving.
"We've always enjoyed the
museum, but never with the intensity
and depth we do now, since moving
here," says Irving.
Though the Bergs enjoy travel-
ling, they say they have no plans for
any far-flung trips in the near future.
"There are so many wonderful
things going on here at the Cultural
Center," says Harriet, and her hus-
band adds, "We're planning to do De-
troit for awhile."[I]