|
THE STRAIGHT STORY |
|
The following summer, the Straight was ready for public dance concerts after the installation of a 5000 sq.. ft. dance floor, sound, lights and extensive renovation. An application was made for permits covering health, safety, and public assembly. After thorough inspection, the city permits were quickly granted.
Finally, we were ready to apply for a Dancehall permit. This hundred-year-old process brought Dancehall proprietors under the direct control of the Police Department (making bribery and collusion a likely part of the process) but this time, it would be a story of the "King Who Couldn't Dance", with the Chief of SF Police playing the role of the little mouse king. We were young entrepreneurs and plowed through the red tape. After several postponements, the hearings dragged on throughout the Summer of Love until finally the Chief denied the permit stating that, "Dance would be bad for the neighborhood".
Front-page stories followed the proceedings
as we applied to the Board of Permit
Appeals to overturn the Chief's inexplicable
decision. Dame Judith Anderson testified to the positive nature of
the Straight Theater and its Performing Arts Workshops to the deaf ears
of the all-white Board of aging political appointees. The politics
of the neighborhood's real estate and merchants stacked the deck as "The
Straight on the Haight" reveals in detail. After several more postponements,
which kept dancing illegal during the first few months of the Theater's
existence, The Board of Permit Appeals let the Chief's denial stand.
Outside the hearing room in city hall's marble corridor, Caitlin again pointed out that one did not need a permit to hold a dance class. Caitlin, Bill and I had discussed this previously as a possible strategy. We now agreed that with The Straight Theater Dance Workshop in business for over a year, it was time to bring these very popular classes to the Big Floor of the Straight, complete with live musical accompaniment.
We began the "dance classes" the weekend of Sept. 29 and 30, starring the Grateful Dead and featuring The Sons of Champlin. The predominately red poster showing the Grateful Dead flying had a banner simply stating "Dance" on both sides of the dates but there also was a companion handbill more to the point featuring a Courier and Ives man shouting the words" Straight Theater Dance Class". Caitlin led the first public "dance class" at the Straight by inviting the audience/class to warm up and then led some stretches and brief exercises in dance improvisation. She then suggested that the class practice improvisation to the music of the Grateful Dead. Luther Greene's friend. Ann Halprin, the world-renowned director of the San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop and originator of public "Happenings", brought her troupe providing a kinetic segue into the "Sons" set the following week, "Environmental Dance Classes" were featured on the poster along with "Caitlin Huggins, B.A. Head Instructress". Two weeks later The Ann Halprin Company returned to lead a three-part Kinetic Movement Happening series. This continued to enhance our claim that these were "dance classes".
The police never challenged our claim
that these were dance classes. After a few weeks, the claim disappeared
off the posters, yet everybody kept dancing til the day the Straight closed.
A year later, when Jane Lapiner and the Living Theater took the floor of
the Straight to present cutting-edge works, one of which was danced nude,
it still did not bring the police to stop dancing at the Straight.
Semantics Rule and Art Rocks.
photo by STE
\ IME
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(L-R) Steven Virgil, Eric,
Kevin, Caitlin Huggins Dance Director, James D Wilson,
Ama the Poet, Actors
and Directors Joe Gostanian and Oscar Criner
"Haight
To Straight Theater"
SF Examiner 6/28/67