Dance Program

With little fanfare, a long-running tribute to a pioneer Maryland dance educator celebrates its 21st birthday this weekend at Morgan State University.Eighteen dance companies from the Baltimore region and several out-of-state guests will converge at Morgan State's Murphy Fine Arts Center for a two-day event that raises money for the Dorothy P. Stanley Scholarship Fund.Sankofa Dance Theater is among the performers. The group is directed by the husband-wife team of Kauna Mujamal and Kibibi Ajanku, with assistance from their extended family.

More than 100 dance students at Glen Burnie High School will take to the school stage at 7 p.m. today in a program that ranges nTCfrom ballet, tap and jazz to '50s and Caribbean dance styles.The dancers are under the direction of teacher Diane Rosso.Highlights will include solo performances by five of Rosso's senior students: Kristen King, Wendy Robinson, Amber Hughes, Brianne Burkhead and Christine DeGuzman.A group of school sports stars will perform two dances, "Cool" from "West Side Story" and a perennial audience favorite, Rosso's "Dances for the Athlete."

GREAT FAMILY entertainment has been the reason for the sold-out, standing- room-only performances by the dancers in the North Carroll Recreation Council dance program.There are bouncing pre-school ballerinas in tutus, pre-teens in glitzy spangles hopping to jazz tunes and sensitively choreographed adults.Every sort of dance and melody, including cartoon tunes, are woven into a steadily building two-hour performance designed to showcase the effort of every student in the rec program.Even before the finale, when more than 300 dance students cram the stage, chances are you'll have discovered plenty of talented friends and neighbors in this annual production by dance director Michelle Stricklin.

NOTE TO editor(s) and all interested parties: In a cruel twist of perversion, I shall be forced to board a plane and fly to Denver (located uncomfortably close to mountains, I've been told), where I will be subjected to a week of indoctrination by the insurance industry that will most likely make the brainwashing efforts in George Orwell's "1984" look hospitable.I offer this information to allow The Sun the luxury of preparing for my May 15 column, which will either be forwarded early (stop laughing)

I admit it. Halloween gives me the shivers.Even as a child, it was not one of my favorite events. Oh, I thought the candy was great, but having to dress in some silly outfit and go door to door asking for the goodies was not really my idea of fun.After all, you didn't have to look silly to receive candy from the Easter bunny.As a mom, this event looms even larger on the horizon. Although I no longer put on a costume and ask for candy, I must now provide the candy for countless neighborhood children.

Count almost 300 pairs of dancing shoes tapping, whirling, leaping every week, and you'll be in the midst of the dance program of the North Carroll Recreation Council.The dance program opens spacious new quarters this fall in the North Carroll Shopping Center. The new air-conditioned studio takes the place of a pet shop between the Eastern Chinese Restaurant and the former Ames department store."The location is very good, between Hampstead and Manchester," says dance program director Michelle Stricklin.

The Howard County school board last night heard more pleas to spare some programs, including high school golf and the gifted and talented dance program, that are being considered for elimination.Avid golfer Richard Rhodes suggested cost-saving ideas that could raise enough money to cover the golf program's $18,000-a-year price tag: Charge students who want to play a $50 green fee every year and shave $75 from each sport team's budget.To cut such a small program to come up with enough money to cover the $5 million the county is trimming from the $200-plus million budget for next school year is ridiculous, Mr. Rhodes said.

The Towson State University Department of Dance is presenting its first annual alumni-faculty dance concert this weekend at Burdick Hall's intimate Studio 104.TSU faculty member Jaye Knutson has brought together four alumni -- Scott Rink, Karen Muccioli, Mino Micolas and Pamela Peoples -- and their dance associates, along with faculty members Karen Cohn Bradley, Dennis Price and herself, to share choreographic and performing accomplishments in a brief yet...

There's a sense of urgency in the midday rehearsals in the dance studio at Glen Burnie High School, where teen-age girls leap and stretch to the music of New Order."

Jamison Johnson's classmates said it was the 8-year-old's crush on dancer Marilyn Banks that gave him the courage to get up on stage with six members of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre.But Jamison, whose previous close encounter with live dance was attending a concert by rap star Hammer, raised his hand to participate in a dance program yesterday at school because "I thought it would be interesting. . . . They have good techniques, like for stretching your bones."The third-grader at Bedford Elementary in northwest Baltimore County was one of about 400 students who were invited to see members of the internationally acclaimed African-American dance company perform at Milford Mill High School.