Burtner, Elizabeth: Oral History, August 24, 1989

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The following oral history of Elizabeth Burtner, who began the dance program at GW, was done August 24, 1989 by Lee Bielski for The George Washington Oral History Program:

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BIELSKI: This is August 24, 1989. The interview is taking place at the George Washington University. The person who is about to be interviewed is Elizabeth Burtner and the person who is going to interview her is Lee S. Bielski. Elizabeth, you are the woman who founded the dance department at George Washington University. Now there are probably two really glamorous jobs on a college campus. Now, one of them would be the director of theatre and the other would be the director of dance. And since you are willing to talk about what you have done with your students, but very little about yourself, you have become somewhat of a mystery woman. Would you today take a special time and tell me a little bit about how you became a dance teacher?

BURTNER: Well, thank you for this opportunity. I like the idea of being sort of a mysterious person, but as far as when I decided to make dance my career, I had a few previous thoughts about other careers, simply because dance opportunities as far as careers are concerned, other than the stage, were nonexistent. Universities and colleges at the time I attended just did not have dance. Even ballet was not offered. Small towns had no dance studios. I came from a small town in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. That is where we lived there for a while, about thirteen years. My father was a minister and traveled about. That may seem that maybe I was not allowed to dance. That was not the case.

However, so when I got to college, which was Hood College, again, no dance. As far as majoring, I would love to major in philosophy or aesthetics or English, but I thought I’d better know something about life, so I decided to major in zoology, thinking all that lab, I’d do that now, but maybe once I got out of college, I would never get back to a laboratory, but I could take post courses in what I preferred. While I was in college, I would like to say that movement always fascinated me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, whether it was ice skating on a canal along the Swatara Creek near Harrisburg or Hershey Pennsylvania, or riding a bicycle, roller skating, I just loved going from one town to another, spreading my spirits and letting the wind blow me. Also, my father was more or less of an outdoors person, and also interested in the arts. He devoted every Monday to his children, and we hiked all over the countryside, along toll paths and canals, observing flowers and other aspects of nature. When I got to college, Hood being near Washington, it was quite usual for us to come in for concerts. I remember seeing Ruth St. Denis, one of the last, probably, concerts that was done as a company, and also it was a time when the Russian Ballet was sort of grouping its forces. This was shortly after the death of Diaghilev, who had been in command, but left without him. Colonel Basil took over a company, and I was simply thrilled with the Russian ballet. Folk dancing, I’d experienced a lot of, well I, well this was while I was a student at heart.

After I left Hood, this was during the Depression, I envied piano movers. I would like to have had a job. I finally got a job substituting and then later in the public schools, a permanent job teaching English and history. This was in a junior high school. While there, for two years, I was offered a job at Hood, but it was again, again it was, in this case, physical education. I first turned it down because of various reasons, and then I changed my mind and went back to it. In the meantime I became very much interested in dance, went over to Washington to see more dance, and Baltimore too, and took some work with Marian Chase. I ‘d heard about Evelyn Davis who was in Washington, and Hood then got the graduate from Wellesley College, like myself had to teach physical education, but was allowed to teach some dance courses, uh, start dance. It was then I decided that I would get my masters degree with a major in dance, so I went to Columbia University, and that was a very exciting time. I went during the summer, and then also took a whole semester off from Hood College and while in New York . . . New York was most exciting then, because there was, in drama you had the group theatre, with very exciting people in drama, and in theatre, and also the work was laboratory theatre. Communism was on a rampage and there were, there was much to be said by people in favor of the Russian way of going about things, the Communist way. I would, of course my major emphasis was in dance at the university, and I took advantage of everything offered in ballet and modern. Modern was new. I remember seeing Martha Graham in a solo concert at the Columbia University Theatre. Exciting. I remember going to a, I followed an announcement about John Martin and Helen Tamiris talking about dance. John Martin was then the editor, first editor of Dance, in the country, and he was at the New York Times. They were exploring it. Everybody was exploring this new movement in dance.

BIELSKI: And now, when you came to George Washington University, of course we had no program at all, and you were introducing a new program. And you know how difficult it is to get an administration to accept anything that they don’t know. Could you tell me some of the interesting things that must have happened in order for you go get the program off the ground?

BURTNER: Well, I was new at GW, and I had a new kind of dance, called modern dance, which was new also. That meant, well all dance, any dance, needs a space in which to work. I found that there was practically none, either to hold class or meeting of the production group, and then it was called Orchesis, or a place to perform. Ruth Atwell, head of the department of physical education for women, the department in which dance was then located, was most supported all throughout, always, maybe always not on ideas but that is typical, and that you would expect. The first place assigned to me was in the basement, a room in basement of Stockton Hall, the law school. Cement floor, I arrived, and the Orchesis group of dancers was there. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. The lawyers were coming in for their night classes. They wondered about me and I wondered about them. I wondered why I was here. Once was enough. The next place was top of Strong Hall. That was a beautiful studio-like room with a roof terrace on either side. We had one man, that was a little problem, but the orders were express up and express down. No stops anywhere. We were there for a while.

Classes then began for dance. These were classes offered by the department of physical education for women, and they were on a program, according to the seasons of the year, which I thought was odd. Dance to me was for all seasons. In other words, we were in the category of an activity, and along with sports as an activity, offered as activity offered, dance, modern dance was offered. But it did not begin until the winter season. Outdoor sports took precedent in fall and spring. Classes, that was a problem. They cleared a hall in Corcoran Hall of chairs, putting in an upright piano, and with a drum for accompaniment along with the music, we operated daily. That was annoying, I would think to the science departments that were located there. Then we were given building L. That was the building to the rear of 2129 G Street, between 20th and 21st, and it was ours, nobody else. It was small, two floors. The second floor was a mezzanine, where people dressed. We operated there for a while and then moved to the building next door – J, which was much larger, complete, though, with six pillars. All floors from now on were cement, with a thin coating of tile. Difficult, but still, the space was our own. Building J and L were formerly the art department and really very romantic buildings. The art department moved to Corcoran Art Gallery. We took over; before the art department had it, it was the workshop of Washington District D.C. noted sculpture, which sculptured facades for the buildings in Washington. Well, building J is still in operation. I did try to get a floating wooden floor, and on one occasion when I was leaving for the summer to go out west to study with Balisar Swarty for eight weeks, I left instructions to have a wooden floor, floating floor. I came back, and nothing about the floor, but they lowered the ceiling, much to my dismay, because while I needed the wooden floor, I also wanted to keep the high ceilings we had. It’s less compressing when you’re trying to soar in dance. Also it cut off about four lovely skylights.

So I should jump ahead, way ahead to 1971. The dance production groups, no longer called Orchesis. But we had many groups working, and it was a name for downtown press. Just had to explain a lot about it, a lovely idea, and very apropos for dance, but, which being a Greek word meaning to dance. It was better to be direct and call it dance production groups, and also type typified the dance, most dance production groups. That could include anything, ballet, folk, etc. In 1971, we’re in a dance theatre, The Betts Marvin Theatre in the Marvin Center. We were honoring twenty-five years celebration of the existence of Lisner Auditorium. That dated, the opening of Lisner Auditorium was 1946. I must preface this by the fact that not only did we not have a space for classes to meet in the dance production groups, we had no space for performance.

And for nine years until Lisner opened, Lisner Auditorium, we danced in the high schools of Washington D.C., particularly Roosevelt High School, which was, had a very nice theatre, way out. We were offered this providing we did not charge admission to the performance. It was sponsored by the Community Center of Washington recreation center, and furnished us a light man, dress rehearsal night and performance night. It worked out very well. We paid only fifty dollars for that. We also at one time, Roosevelt was already scheduled, we performed at Wilson High School auditorium and Gordon Junior High nearby.

So when Lisner opened, 1946, although my records show we performed 1945 in Lisner, I revered the place. I loved it. I entered it and left it spotless. I knew what it was to be deprived of a place to perform. Lisner added a rich dimension to George Washington University. The manager would call me up and say “the Royal Ballet is rehearsing at two o’clock; Margot Fonteyn will be on stage. Bring your people over to observe“ Or, on our own doorstep, we had performances by Marcel Marceau, the National French Theatre, Martha Graham, the Russian Ballet; I could go on mentioning all those marvelous performing organizations, institutions. Or I could wander into, on our own doorstep, I could wander into the auditorium four o’clock in the afternoon, and there’d be students there, and faculty from all the universities in the area, as well of course our own to hear the great theologian Paul Tillage, and at another time, man of literary form C. P. Snow. The space, people like that were hard up for space. Space was a problem, always. And what it offered was a matter of gathering together by people who had a mutual concern which had to do really with creativity in the arts or literature or religion.

In 1956, three people were looking for space. One of them was from American Council of Learned Societies, UNESCO, and a representative from Doris Humphrey. What they wanted was a space to dance, to perform. This was an unusual performance planned by those people that I just mentioned, and it was to be a culminating performance, a dance performance, and it was in dance that was used because the people coming to this were leaders from the Asian and South Asian countries of Europe. They were professional people in all calls, lawyers, doctors, science, the arts, and they were attending smaller conferences planned all for three weeks, all over the United States. They came to Washington for the last week, and it was to honor these leaders from these countries that a performance and one that, because of many languages and cultures, one thing that they had in common, therefore, a performance was planned titled “Dance as a Universal Language.” “The Drama of Dance,” I’m sorry. That was it. “The Drama of Dance as a Universal Language,” subtitled.

This was, well to get that space, they came to me, because Pauline Koner, noted dancer and choreographer, was sort of back of this, also Doris Humphrey. They knew me because of dance. And so I took the representative of UNESCO and we went to see Dean Colclough, who was then acting president of the university, and he did not like the idea, at first because the university was new, I mean, Lisner was relatively new, that is on the scene, Washington scene, and many people wanted to use it free. And, many times it was granted, but they never gave GW credit. So, anyway, that was solved. It was the George Washington University in collaboration with UNESCO and the American Council of Learned Societies, State Department invite you to a performance, the Drama of Dance as a Universal Language. Invitations were sent out to all of the embassies and to people of note.

The result was that we had a full house plus. We had extra seats. It was the most exciting evening. There were three people who did the preliminaries of introducing before, Doris Humphrey, who was the guest artist, one of the guest artists, who spoke. The president of the American Council of Learned Societies greeted the audience, very notable audience really. Dean Colclough extended the greetings of the university in his impeccable and charming way, and then we had no dance critic at that time in the press, the newspapers of Washington. So we asked Paul Hume, who of course was the music critic, I think of the Star. And he of course is an excellent speaker. Looking back, I’m grateful to him. In fact, he was my suggestion. I guess I was a fan of his really. Looking back, I’m sorry we couldn’t have added to it Kriegsman, our current critic in the Washington Post, who is tops.

Doris Humphrey, who was then suffering very much from arthritis and no longer performing, was beautifully placed on a marble bench, and spoke about dance. Her particular theme was gesture, and that was a good theme, I would say, for this particular performance. And the first part of the performance was how different gestures were expressed in movement. One, how you walked, and how you sigh, how you greet someone, and possibly how you laugh. Well, these were demonstrated in different cultures as represented by the dancers from various cultures. This was then followed by a performance of dancers from India and from Indonesia, and the United States. The gestures were fascinating expressions in different cultures, and pointed up the commonality. And then the performances again gave the true essence of dance and the use of gesture.

I would say that Lisner and through the initiation and inauguration of President Marvin did a wonderful thing when Lisner became a reality and a place where people of all nations could gather and present their concerns in speech, in language, dance, music. . . . . exciting. And then here I was making a comment about this and the dance production groups were about to perform, honoring twenty-five years of Lisner and its marvelous presentations, and this, the Betts Marvin was presented by another member of the Marvin family, President Marvin’s wife.

BIELSKI: Elizabeth, I wonder if you would comment just a little bit now about the fact that you did come on the campus, you brought a new program, and it’s so very easy on a college campus to get lost and nobody ever knows you’re there. So, would you comment for just a moment or two about the many things that you did to introduce to the university faculty and community what your program was all about?

BURTNER: Well, that’s a big order, and I’ll try to cover years of how you had to make your presence felt, and yet not be obvious about it. First, one had to, well my aim eventually was to have a Bachelor of Arts in dance. That means moving it from physical education department and school of education into the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. That was back in my mind. That was in 1937. It wasn’t until 1987 that this really happened, and we moved into the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.

First place, I was always grateful for anything, and I appreciated the students. They were marvelous. The small group of Orchesis, performing group, were all women. I felt that had to be increased, and eventually I hoped we’d have some men. The first man we had was an accompanist, but he got so involved in the dance that he said he would rather dance. So that was the opening as far as men in dance. As far as classes were concerned, we had beginning and intermediate classes in modern dance.

You had to have a lot of things going. One would be a very good performing group, dance performing group. Well, something has to attract students to come into this non-curricular activity, no credit, and whatever that was, the group grew from one group to three production groups. I think not having auditions helped. In other words, if they were interested and they had a lot of experience, then naturally they would be in the top group. Not much experience, but they wanted to get into it would be the second group. And then, no experience but interested, the beginning group. So, there’s no condition in which they had to really make an application, sort of entrance into the dance production groups.

And the sources were many for people. One for the regular classes who met for credit, physical education credit. From folk and square dance classes. This is one thing that I went to the head of the men’s department and asked if it could be offered for the men in the university, in other words, a co-ed group. And we got some very good men from that. From the folk art and the square dancing and so on they wanted more dancing. And believe it or not, from cheerleading. After the war, we got very collegiate, and began to have, what do you call them, that lead the cheers? Cheerleading. And I know one of the girls, some of the top dancers wanted to go, helped to train the cheerleaders and gave them . . . Charles Wideman techniques. And there was one handsome man, I was told, that was terribly interested, and where could I get more of that. Well, that was Tom Pence. And he came into the production groups, and what a find. He had just returned from the wars, had been on numerous bombing missions over Germany, escaped, came back, and came to GW to do master’s work in government. He was a very fine performer, and was also much interested in folkdance. He played a terrific important place in dance as a student, and later he became affiliated, sort of an assistant to the dance production groups and led in the folk dance groups that we would have every week, once a week. With a live orchestra.

So, eventually, we had a pool of skilled dancers, both men and women. At first, we had a men’s group also. Dance Production Groups one, two, and three, and then a separate men’s group. Well, pretty soon the men got melded into the other three groups and were listed as performers. We, all over the country, there was a scarcity of men in dance, for some reason or another. We had them at GW. And they were, some of them were Phi Beta Kappas, they were from the Engineering Department, Law. One very outstanding man, young man was Leonard Hanocheck, who was a philosophy major, very sensitive, wonderful personality. I could go on. I fell in love with all of them, and so did the women. They were real men.

When I would go to do a lecture demonstration to high school group, and maybe my theme was movement as a means to accomplish something . . . get a ball in the basket, beat your opponent in wrestling match, or do for recreation, do the square dance. And then movement as a means of expression. Well that was, then again, on the art form, and we would perform dances. But when you have an audience, like a high school audience with boys and girls, you have to reach those boys that think that dance is sissy. And so, it just happened that some of the men worked in wrestling, and you’d have them come out to do a short bit of wrestling to demonstrate movement used in a sport, or in basketball, jumping for the ball to kick off, Well, they could jump. So, men, well life are made up of men and women, and here is dance. In the art level, using it as a medium for expression, you have to have both men and women. I know Martha Graham started out with just women. Finally, Eric Hawkins became her partner and other men came into the group.

It seems to me that dance at GW mirrors what happened in the performing groups as well as what happened in dance groups all over the country. Except I think we had an exceptional lot of men. Well, around war, as I said, during war time I got to the point where if a man came in and said he wanted to join the production groups, I would say, do you really want to dance, and I could afford to be expansive about it. Performances were very exciting, and at first, for nine years until we got into Lisner, even after that, we listed ourselves as lecture, as demonstration recitals, and it wasn’t until, as I say, we had highly skilled dancers who had learned about composing, who thought in terms of creating with the medium of movement, and you get to that point if you start simply and work with movement, which is the material with which you work.

Three people that influenced the American dance were Doris, Charles and Martha. They were giants, and, as I said, I went to Bennington College Summer School of the Dance, and to be able to work with them was my great inspiration. At Bennington, Bennington was new, the college. And so was this new form of dance that was being intensely taught during the summer by the people who were really creating this dance. We added another one, Hanya Holme, from Germany. She came over here to open up a Wignam school in New York. She did, but she became so influenced by the American way of doing things that she sort of had to drop that, and became one of the four that were at Bennington. During the war time, when the alumni association felt that they did not quite have the money to offer the alumni a free banquet, and food was scarce, they decided to offer the modern dance concert at Lisner free admission to anyone, but it was particularly billed as free admission to the alumni. So, I thought that was a very nice gesture on their part. I considered that a compliment to the dancers and performers.

In the fifties, it was very important that you go into the hinterlands and tell them about dance. And so lecture demonstration performances were done by the performing group, the dance production groups. And, again, to go out to high schools, where you had the whole school, men and, boys and girls, you had to give them something that appealed to them that was highly skillful. I remember we went to McKinley. As we went up the steps there were boys there throwing pennies at us. At the end of the performance, they were the same boys who were up talking to our men in dance, and the women.

One of the exciting places we gave a lecture demonstration performance, and that was followed by other kinds of performances and workshop sessions, different years was at Middleburg. They had recently built two community centers. Again, were still segregated. One for the blacks and one for the whites. That was soon to be changed, of course, thank goodness. The person, one person in Middleburg who gave a lot of financial support to these community centers was Mrs. Hollis Jackson. I came back stage one performance. This is in nineteen, early nineteen-fifties at Lisner backstage, and there was this woman with a man who was showing her around, and she was simply thrilled with the place. She thought, well, she said this is like the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and she was enthralled with the performers. They had just finished a dance that was called Military Ball. It was just expressive of performance in good times in Vienna at a period when royalty was in state, and the result of that was that we were invited to perform there in a lecture demonstration performance to high school seniors and juniors of all Loudoun and Fauquier County. Also, that involved a lovely luncheon with at Mrs. Hollis Jackson’s estate, and there you got quite a vision of her activities, including racing her horses in Paris in the racetracks there instead of in America because the turf was softer of grass. A lovely time all around.

Dance led you into many places. One exciting time was when dance, we were, first we, a B.S. was offered in Physical Education with emphasis on dance. Later that led to a B.A. in Education, with a major in dance. A year later, that was 1964. Later, 1965, the Masters of Art in Dance was offered. This was not in Columbian College of Arts and Science but it was in the School of Education, and the emphasis was in teaching. But dance is primarily a performing art, and it, as a performing art is at its peak as a creative medium of expression. And when you have a strong performing art program, that leads to a very excellent teaching program also.

So we were all very happy and grateful for that. In the Master’s program, one of the first offerings was dance notation. That was completely new to this community, in the area. It happens that Sarah Mannoh was here with her husband who was doing his stay as a musician in the Marine Band, I think, and she was a notator, certified notator and teacher of dance notation. Certified by the Dance Notation Bureau in New York. I was able to get six hours of notation into the masters of art program, but to get that seemed to get a change. You had to move mountains. Again, I went to Dean Colclough, because the permission came from there. And, oh, I forgot. Sarah Mannoh’s husband had completed his roll of duty and went back to New York. That was before, just before we were to open in the fall with the master’s program. So, I had to have Sarah Mannoh. There was nobody else who could teach dance notation in the area. So we had a new dean of The School of Education. Together we went to Dean Colclough and he said “I know what you’re coming for and you’re not going to get it,” but he gave me a kiss on both cheeks anyway, to sort of soften the blow. But anyway, we walked out of there with two semesters, once a week, three-hour sessions. Sarah Mannoh, transportation portal to portal. That means to the airport, both ends, expenses, and of course a salary. Well, this added a whole new dimension to the dance program, because at the end of the six hours we did a reconstruction of notated work, choreographic work of Dorothy Humphrey called Partita 5. This was a beautiful work to Brahms. We invited two-hundred high school students who were part of a humanities seminar extracurricular course offered by the high schools, a collaboration of all high schools and Washington and Virginia . . .Fairfax County, Fauquier, and so on. They came by bus an hour early for the dance concert that this particular work was going to be performed, and Sarah Mannoh told them all about dance notation and explained a little bit about modern dance.

BIELSKI: Before we finish the tape, Elizabeth, I would like for you to talk a little bit about something which I know is dear to your heart, and that was the carnivals that they had at the university for several summers.

BURTNER: Oh, and that’s an order for nine summers of a recreation program which, well, anyway, President Marvin called Virginia Kirkbride, Dean of Women’s Activities and myself into his office. This is spring of 1952, the end of the season, and said he wanted something, some activity for students that came to the summer school. This is before air conditioning. I talked to, said something to Virginia Kirkbride on our way to his office and, as I was saying, I said to, turned to Virginia Kirkbride and said I knew he wanted some sort of recreation program. About the only thing you can do is have a carnival. I mean that very facetiously. And sure enough, one of the first things President Marvin mentioned was a carnival. The program was to include also weekly meetings of the dance production groups. I was very glad for that because the summer, I hated to drop things. Usually some of the dancers stayed on and worked on a choreographic work of their own with permission to use facilities. But in this case, I would be there and we could have regular meetings of the dance production groups. I’d also included square dancing once a week on Lisner terrace. Now when I mention Lisner from now on, I mean the library, what was then the library, Lisner Library, which had a terrace in the back of it, which faced the university yard.

The carnival was approached by having the two deans, Dean Faith of Men’s Activities, the heads of drama, the head of the art department, Don Klein, and the new student council president. We all met and chose a theme of a carnival. This left us two months. The student council was able to use a network of student council representatives from the two colleges, Columbian of Arts and Science and the Junior College. At that time, instead of four year, we had two Junior Colleges and two Columbian Colleges. And then there were four schools in operation at the University . . . Law and Medicine, Engineering, Education, and representatives from them. We worked on a format, which meant, which was to have a midway which would begin at 7:30. At the same time, 8:00, later, square dancing, square dancing and folk dancing, mostly square dancing. That began at 8:00. At 9:30, there would be a show.

Now each school and each college, and also other various groups in the university, plus the dance production groups, plus the glee club, plus the art department, all of them, each representative was responsible for a booth in the midway. A square on the terrace, a square of four couples, and a part in the show. And everything was geared to the theme. Such as the first one was an American folk festival and hoedown. In the midway was an Appalachian mountaineer’s hut in which tall tales were told, and the people telling them were taking turns. Vera Mar, from the Department of English and Paul Legget, telling tall tales. There was a small dance hall, which had a little stage and an orchestra part for seating, all enclosed. It really was a building in which Can Can Girls, three girls, were doing the Can Can. Of course, admission was paid to each. I think the School of Government was doing that one. This is a booth, now, and there were other typical booths. Don Klein, art department. There was a Limner booth, in which you had your portrait painted by Don Klein or someone in the art department. In other words, the midway had some of the usual but dealt into folklore and traditional forms of popular show dance. The square dance, we had our live orchestra going on. So there was a lot of music and festivity. For the show part, each school had a script, so you can imagine working on, all these scripts were being worked on and ideas, all rich in delving into whatever the particular theme, whether it was Steamboat, Mississippi Riverboat, Mississippi Steamboat was one, Riverboat was one theme, Caribbean Cruise, Manhattan Merry-Go-Round. All of them, the Glee Club, dance production groups doing choreographic works, all depending on what the script was, and the Art Department doing much décor. The network of skills, and delving into the arts, folk arts, such as for Southwest Fiesta, where you delved into the Spanish influence, with a court dance, the Pavane, done by four couples, done in a stately manner, and that was with accompaniment, singing a French song, although it was Spanish, and a drum beat along with the piano accompaniment.

And, it was all very exciting. I think one of the people that was so basic to this was George Eckert. He constructed the midway. He did all the general lighting. The theatre, Lisner, was dark. He drew current from the Law School, from Corcoran Hall, from Building C, D, all over the place. His construction, or workshop, the carpenters did fabulous pieces of construction. We worried about the cost and he would say, “oh, I can use the lumber again.” The thing was, he was so interested. He also told me that President Marvin liked the carnival, and at one time, a carnival, he would have a carnival come and operate for a few days or a week at the place that the School of Government operates at the corner of G and 21st Street.

The last, these carnivals went for nine months, nine summers, 1952 to 1960. I would say that the network that was organized, that this went off, it was produced, that operated, was absolutely phenomenal. I know that the students got involved and carried away. We had as many maybe as three-hundred involved in the production of one of these at any one time. Fathers of daughters, who maybe were having their summers at GW while they were year-round students, I mean winter students, the regular college level from Vassar or Wellesley. I can’t begin to explain how she still . . . and just came out of the woodwork. Well, 1960 was the last one. A new mood seemed to come into, be injected. The School of Engineering in their particular part of the show scripted an unusual one. The last part of it, of their part, was The Voice Of Doom. It was at the time of the Vietnam War coming on, the sixties. Um, the Glee Club, uh, the dance production, did a choreographed work. They asked us. Each school representative or manager of each part of their program or the booths and so on, with all their assistants, asked us to do, to do something that fitted in with the whole theme, USA 1960. And we did a dance called, titled Questioning, um . . . (End of Tape)

See also: Elizabeth Burtner Papers/MS2150[1]

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