editors: mary long jo marcotty barb cornell Sunday mctgazine inside: page four-books page five- perspective AL. L _ *I n T i Numoer IU Page Ihree November 23, 1975 FEATUR ES Why Two By MARY LONG. N THE EXTERIOR, Elesa Cher- ,nin is right out of Louisa May Alcott: a fragile and dreamlike Beth ready to cough her way through angher snowy winter. In her pink leotard and pink hair rib- bon, she is dancing by herself in a corner of the Barbour Gymnasium. Watching her, you realize just how quickly she must move and just how many steps there are to the inch. After each mistake, she swallows a lump in her long throat and begins again. She knows the steps andis running them togeth- er well enough but it is late and there is no audience and not even a piano for an orchestra. Her calf muscles distend the blue knit socks she wears as leg warmers; one bra strap escanes the white blouse she wears under the trin-strapped pale leotard. The bones in her back and chest stand out clearly, the dark-goid skin swinkles with sweat, the thin face is sharpened by concentration. She seeri.9 to be following an endless imaginary thread around the room, but the pattern is becoming clear, even as she tires. She will be the soloist, the star, the prima ballerina, on Friday night when she performs these steps with the University Dancers at the Power Center. Right now, It is late on Tuesday afternoon and the ugly room is nearly empty and everyone else has gone home. FOR THE THREE DAYS before the Power Center opening, through the gymnasium rehearsals and the miserable yogurt dinners and the running out for cold cof- fee and the nerves exploding on the air, Elesa brought to it all a certain noticeable lack of stress, a they dance: explana tions concentrated calm, the fe another time, another plac 26 years old and when sh the young Juliet role in t duction, she thinks she's vincing and that makesr comfortable. 'After all, she eling of e. She's Le plays again, an amoeba practicing fis- sion. 'She bends her tiny, ed, farmer's daughter and reaches her leg c his head and shoulders stretch. They contrac courtship rite devoid he pro- The other dancers divide into uncon- three groups. Heads are serene, her un- shoulders squared, feet directly in insists, front of noses. The rehearsal picks up pretty much where it left off a day ago. A group of dancers in the middle of a large gymnasium ...... make curiously feline movements while counting to twenty. When the sequence doesn't time out, there is a bit of nervous laughter, squar- and everyone stops counting and baCk, stretching and joins a huddle try- ing to figure out what went wrong. around They look like a bunch of engi- neers trying to decide why the 5. They bridge fell down. Elizabeth Berg- mann, the director of the dance t. In a department, steps into the sea of performers, which parts for 'her of ro- the way the waters did for Moses. She points out paths for the cou- t h e y ples to follow and they move away, o. with the big, energetic steps she ng on. prescribes. mantic trappings, search, assault and hai Dancers Elesa Chernin and Gary Schaaf in rehearsal she is 26 and a married woman separated from her husband. She bends her tiny, squared, far- mer's daughter body back into a crab, comes out of it on the count of four and reaches her leg around Gary Schaaf's head and shoulders. They stretch. They contract. They move like kids playing, but kids don't have to count beats as they play. In a courtship rite devoid of romantic trappings, they search, assault and hang on. Then they're facing in opposite directions, mov- ing away from each other, finrers snlayed, heads up, thighs pulling. Gary is having difficulty timing. his movements. They go back to the center of the room and start rfESA'S FACE ISN'T coy and flirtatious enough, the chore- ogranher claims. And the dancer couldn't agree more wholehearted- lv. "I feel so cynical - here I am, the young lover with the gray hairs" she says, looking all of six- teen. "I can't pretend to be in- volved in this fantasy of young love. And it's not even my fantasy of voung love. it's Liz Bergmann's fantasy. I don't even buy the va- lidity of the whole dreamv idea anymore. I feel so uncomfortable." Well, what could be so difficult about nretending? Hadn't she felt that way at some time? The hands push away your words. "My God, I have that kind of a thing as a memory, but things have changed. I was a 'young love' a long time ago, when I first met my husband. And that -was a hor- rible time in many ways-I was certain that I had given up on dancing." In an offhand manner she be- gan to describe that time seven years ago, in Chicago, when she found herself blinded by non-stop tears,in the middle of a rehearsal. She talks about the pain of invest- ing too much emotion in ballet, of finding that her hands could lit- erally knot into claws with repres- sed tension. And the harder she tried, she says, the worse every- thing became. The flatness of her voice grows flatter, yet the emotional pitch as- cends until one can discern, like a sound within a sound, a wound- ed bewilderment. "So, I was stand- ing there one day in rehearsal, The Bi Game : A town goes crazy in the hope of smelfing Blue roses By BARBARA CORNELL The chancre of antagonism be- tween the Buckeyes and Wolver- ines surfaces periodically. to rav- age unsuspecting individuals like a dreaded social disease. Most peo- ple believe the roots run only as deep as the infamous Rose Bowl Robbery last season. But the his- toric tentacles of the rivalry could be traced back to the last cen- tury. So before looking at the ef- fects of this year's Big Game hula- baloo, take a quick trip into the past. The year was 1835. The Univer- sity was a sprout in the woodland that was Ann Arbor, and high- powered college athletics were less than a gleam in the University's eye. The Big Ten title's counter- part was a border dispute between Mic igan and Ohio. Bo Schembech- ler was General Joseph Brown, Woody Hayes was General John Bell, and the Tartan Turf was the city of Toledo. The first bloodless war between the states was about to begin. In the final account, the Buck- eye Boys walked away with part of southern Michigan (which included Toledo) and, in exchange, Michigan got its hands on the upper pennin- sula. The only casualty was a low- ly cabbage patch that had been trampled by a bunch of inconsid- erate soldiers. IN RETROSPECT there are, of of morning mouth the entire inci- dent left in its wake. Then, with the advent of foot- ball, the mid-west melee was form- alized. Michigan chose to inaugur- ate its new stadium in 1927 with a gridiron clash against Ohio Wes- leyan. The Wolverines winged their way to a 33-0 victory witnessed by 40.000 spectators who braved the pouring rain. Rose Bowl mania has only served to heighten the antagonism. Prof. Emeritus of astronomy Hazel Losh was at that inauguration game in 1927, and she has been to three Rose Bowls. "I always say I won't go," says the stalwart soldier of the Michigan cheering section. "But when the time comes, the fever gets you." And the fever struck Ann Arbor this year with more virulence than Green Slime. Stricken individuals took to publically displaying but- tons, banners, and bumper stick- ers advocating the annhilation of Ohio State. Residents of Markley partook in a "Kill Woody" ban- quet, and Betsy Barbourites unab- ashedly admitted to a diet of Buck- eye-butter sandwiches. Books were mysteriously forsaken for beer de- spite impending final examinations. Hoardes of screaming "Go Blue" fanatics swarmed the streets Fri- day night. And amidst the season- able snow flurries, deluded stu- dents could be heard babbling about roses. doing plies, and I couldn't stop crying. I ran out of there, imme- diately, and I never went back. I worked as a waitress, at various menial jobs. I was certain that I was finished with dancing," But right now, she's dancing again and she's separated from her husband and she is concerned first, last and always with being able to support herself. "I have to plow ahead" she says, "I'm aging. I'm very tired of being in school. I need this degree and I know what I have to do - everything is real- ly quite clear and definite as far as that goes." Yes, she says, she would rather be a professional performer than a student working toward the Mas- ters degree that will get her a job as a teacher. But she says that really doesn't matter. Elesa is de- termined without being stony and there is no doubt at all that she means just what she says. She has already fought too many battles with the windmills of disappoint- ment. "After I quit dancing in Chi- ca go and had worked for over a year, I tried to go back to school. I had always hated school as a kid and I very seldom used to go to class. So to start college scared me witless. My husband filled out my annlication, wrote my autobiogra- nhv, took me every day to classes, I was terrified. But at Michigan. It's far from intolerable. I'm not scared anymore, that's for sure. I'm reel- sassy - but if you want enthusiasm, you'd better talk to someone else. Talk to John" she says, indicating a young man leap- ing high and soaring wide a few feet away. He's pouncing on every step like a cat playing with a cock- roach. JOHN DEMSICK LOOKS like an all-American athlete, like a ha sktball player due to inherit his father's business somedav. The grin is bovish, like maybe he'd like to choke down a handful of girrergna-ns with a glass of cold milk. Ne sells ballet the way that ctr mqin in a credit oeration sells furniture. with as much confidence and panache, and as many tricks. John jumns and soars and flies thrnnh the air with the greatest of ease. carrving his audience with him. He really wants you to like him too and he wants to succeed so hnd1v that he drives full-sneed all the time. And it's all for the sake of the honor and glory of God. John. a member of the Word of that it gives him a deeper sense of a new life, of the experience of first finding God's love. He gave up a promising career- in-training with the Alvin Alley dancers in New York when he felt the spiritual desolation of realiz- ing that he could not truly serve God and his people in a life as a professional dancer. He's happiest dancing for small groups, for peo- ple who know him. "I love dancing for those people who know I'm dancing in my joy, r God, and in my gratitude to him. When that's known, that's so great for me. I don't regret giving up the chance to become a profes- sional. I'm using dance as a beau- tiful and sensitive tool, as a gift that I've been given, to give some- thing back to God. That's what dancing means to me, but I sup- pose" he says with incredible nai- vete, "that most people don't think of dance that way." 'SIGHT NOW, HE and Elesa are, ready to try the whirling ath- letics of a waltz-like mvement. You can see that John is going to be more exuberant but less polish- ed than Gary Schaaf, Elesa's reg- ular partner, would have been, but the dance looks very good. Elesa is almost as lovely to watch in rehearsal as in performance. Her spine is arrogant, her neck is ungiving, but the hazy tumble of dark hair softens the image. She rehearses with conviction, attack- ing each of the stens and showing them who's boss, controlling her muscles so that they know too, She is young and light-honed that her determination is attractive - like that of a young animal insisting on learning to forage for itself. John is not a pretty dancer the wav she is. but he dances with prore conviction and intensity than anyone else in the group. He puts as mouch energv into this plavful rpehoarcal as if he were on stage. Mot would steP lightly through it. John gnes full out. singine a he goes, chanting the names of steps, counts and the da-vas-da-vas. 11E COMMUNTATES HIS enthu- siasm and he's quick and clear and Flesa nicks it all up like a p'a'net nicks un nins. The two of them work tngether like experi- eneri craftemen. John does part of wn ounnce. then stens back. and wthen Flesa go through it. John, dancing for the glory of God. does a march forward, as if ho were 'rring to his coronation. Elena. dancing for Elesa, repeats $7V7.