Art Chowder January | February, Issue 25 | Page 34

The Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center Stage and Proscenium
photo: RocketHorse Photography
“Love’s
Proper Exercise”:
DANCE AS SERVICE
By Melville Holmes and Kathryn Brogdon
T

“Dauncing (bright Lady) then began to bee,
When the first seeds whereof the World did spring,
The fire, ayre, earth, and water — did agree,
By Love’s perswasion — Nature’s mighty King —
To leave their first disordered combating;
And in a daunce such measure to observe,
As all the world their motion should preserve.
This wondrous myracle did Love devise,
For Dauncing is Love’s proper exercise.”
Sir John Davies (1569-1626)
From “ORCHESTRA, or a Poem expressing the
Antiquity and Excellency of Dancing,”
first published 1596
he Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center at Gonzaga University (Spokane, Washington) opened its doors in April 2019
with its maiden performance, “A New Season,” based on Alec Roth’s 2012 cantata “A Time to Dance.” The program closed with
his beautiful setting of selections from the Davies poem above. Hearing the phrase “Love’s proper exercise” first reminded me
of the 1963 song “Lord of the Dance,” set to the Shaker melody known as “Simple Gifts,” but this is something much older. This
in the poet’s mind was the stately, ordered grace of dancing as was done in the Elizabethan court, but it also speaks of dance as
something primal, an elemental art form, and here a fitting precursor to the potential role of the Woldson Center as premier dance
education and performance venue for the Inland Northwest.
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ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE