This continues to be the year of exits.

        Oleg Sabline, longtime ballet teacher at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, retired after 37 years.

        Sheila Cohen retired as head of the dance department at School for Creative and Performing Arts after 23 years.

        Now Carol Iwasaki has announced she's resigning as head of the dance department at CCM to take a similar post at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

        “I'm going home, but I'm torn. I'm really going to miss CCM,” Ms. Iwasaki said at her farewell reception in May. She's returning to the city where she grew up, went to college and danced with Ballet West. She left there 22 years ago to teach, the last 11 at CCM.

        With two children and two grandchildren living in the Salt Lake City area, she was eager to apply for the opening in Utah's ballet program.

        With Ms. Iwasaki's exit at the end of this month, we asked CCM Dean Douglas Lowry if he'll put the search in high gear to find her replacement.

        “It would be imprudent of me to fast-track her position. I need to sit down with the faculty to decide where we want our program to go — what's happening in American dance and finding our niche. . . . Given the stature of CCM, we owe it to take a hard look at these issues,” he said.

        When asked if the department will continue in its primarily ballet vein or take a more modern approach (as many universities do), he said that would be a decision reached between the faculty and him.

        He's considering looking at dance background as seriously as academic credentials.

        “I'll look at the quality of the individual and what they've brought to the world of dance. If we're so lucky as to have someone with academic pedigree, we'll have hit a home run,” he said.

        Generous readers: Last month in this column, we mentioned that there were School for Creative and Performing Arts students who had earned dance scholarships for the summer, but because of travel and boarding costs, weren't using them.

        Some generous readers have picked up the tab for at least four of those students.

        Gerald Haynes and Cira Robinson are going to Dance Theatre of Harlem; Precious Gilbert to Oleg Briansky's Saratoga Ballet (N.Y.); and Ashley Robinson to an American Ballet Theatre program in Detroit.

        Three separate donors came through in varying amounts; all wish to remain anonymous.

        Fine Arts grant: Contemporary Dance Theater received $15,000 from the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts Community Arts Fund to form “Inside-Outside.”

        The program will allow CDT to continue work begun earlier this year with incarcerated women. The workshops and performances are aimed at helping these women develop confidence and guide them in building life-management skills.

        “Our goal is that "Inside/Outside' will become a regularly scheduled program at River City Correctional Center, possibly expanded to include male residents,” artistic director Jefferson James said in a prepared statement.

        French ballet: Cincinnati Ballet principals Alexei Kremnev and Anna Reznik are staging “La Fille Mal Gardee” for the ballet tech ohio performing arts association, a pre-professional group directed by Claudia Barrett.

        The comic 18th century French ballet will feature Mr. Kremnev as the mother Martcelina, a role traditionally danced by a man.

        8 p.m. Friday and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater. Tickets $15; call 241-7469.

        Italian trip: The Tristate's Forget Me Not Historical Dance Company has been invited to compete at Dance Grand Prix in Cesena, Italy, June 20-25.

        The group, which performs period dance at area schools, museums and historical societies, specializes in dance from the late 19th century to rag-time. Director Steven Percer says they'll be competing with 24 groups from around the globe.

        On TV: Dayton Contemporary Dance Company will be featured in Free to Dance, a PBS Great Performances “Dance in America” special at 8 p.m. June 24. The special chronicles the influence African-American choreographers have had on the development of modern dance in the United States.

        E-mail webers@one.net.
       

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