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Steve Harmon (Cont'd) acted out the whole sequence in a kind of choreographic counterpoint. "I mimed the scene with my body, but the important thing is I didn't do it by pantomiming my primary dramatic intent. Just the opposite. My body performed movement quite disassociated from replacing one object with another. It worked in deliberate contradiction to my primary intent. This kept me in character. It also made the scene funnier and more effective, at least, so I'm told." Steve's choreographic counterpoint was an elaboration, refinement and extention of a fairly familiar dramatic device: Playing an interrogator, an actor slowly, casually lights a cigarette while intent on tra^piiigjinother into a confession . . . An actress makes incidental moves from stove to sink to refrigerator while carrying out her aim of flirting with the man she asked to dinner . . . Madame Defarge knits while concerned with thoughts of a falling guillotine. All these subordinate actions ostensibly have nothing to do with the primary purpose of the scenes in which they occur; all are counterpoint to set off and enrich the more direct melodic line of a dramatic situation. Steve calls his own adaptive integration of dance with straight realistic acting "the Carol Haney technique of acting through dance movement." Said he, "My first experience with it came when Carol had me do a beatnik number in an Oldsmobile show. She and her arranger Luther Henderson and I talked out every idea until each could be lucidly conveyed without words. The result was a blend of dance and acting." Brooklyn-born Steve tapped his way into the dance world, starting with lessons from Toni Neu (now Dunbar). When she encouraged him to study ballet he went to Fedor Lensky's Carnegie Hall studio. Frank Wagner taught him jazz. At New York's unique High School of Performing Arts he had his first exposure to modern concert dance, along with years of ballet work. After graduation he put his versatile training to commercial use as a chorus dancer on Broadway and in New York television. Soon he felt ready for specialties. "But," he recalled, "nobody would hire me for specialties because I was pigeonholed as a chorus dancer. Still, I finally managed to get some featured spots. Carol Haney liked my work and let me partner her on TV, and I also worked with Gwen Verdon and Juliet Prowse. Most of all, though, I wanted to do acting-dancing roles in musicals. Yet the only way I could get to act was via the specialty dance route. And the only way I could get a specialty was by working in a chorus. But then I was pigeon-holed, etc., etc. . . . "I decided I'd rather sit at home and do nothing. I guess I out-sat the people who insisted on categorizing me as a chorus dancer, because one day, after about a year, I got a call from Carol Lawrence. I wound up partnering her in an act at the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel." It was while singing, dancing ?╟÷ and acting ?╟÷ in the leading male role of Cindy, a very charming and successful little off-Broadway show, for- which Marvin Gordon did the inventive choreography, that Steve (nee John) had a chance to audition for the Pulver role in "Mr. Roberts." With whimsicality, Fate arranged to let Steve break both ankles (climbing up a wall in Cindy) prior to his Warner Brothers audition. He walked in on crutches, walked out on air. Next thing he knew, he was headed toward a prime time Friday night show on NBC-TV. While the show is not one of the season's great hits, it still manages to garner a weekly audience of 15 million. "It's only fair for me to mention that my dance background isn't an invariable asset in my present assignment," Steve said. "As a matter of fact, I have to guard against using dance to the point of diminishing returns. Like lots of other dancers, I find it hard to divorce physical movement from the expression of ideas. I have to be especially careful not to overact with my body. But most of the time I can make very good use of the motor responses that set a dancer apart from a person whose body is more of an encumbrance than an asset." On the set of "Mr. Roberts" Steve is immediately identifiable as a dancer. He's the member of the ship's company who is always doing big second position stretches on the floor, or flexing his back muscles, or trying a bit of balance in prolonged suspension ?╟÷ anything to avoid letting his muscles get cold. His dancer's ways do not pass unnoticed by cast or crew of the shipboard comedy. "There goes Twinkletoes," grins a master electrican when Steve doodles a few steps off-camera. "Come on," a burly grip urges, "let's see an 'entreohangejeteo.'" Or words to that effect. Commenting on the byplay during these interludes, a member of the production staff remarks, "Usually, the working areas of our sets are small because most of our action goes on in places like a narrow corridor or a corner of a cabin and so Steve Harmon partners Carol Lawrence in her act at the Plaza's Persian Room. He credits Miss Lawrence as being the first to stop categorizing him as a "chorus dancer." on. That means our camera lines are tightly limited. Cast and crew work crowded into close quarters for long periods. By the eleventh hour of a rough day in physical setups like ours tensions are bound to build. When we tend to show a touch of claustrophobia, I've seen Steve create a change of atmosphere and relax the whole company by doing some tricky little exercise step while we're changing our setup for another tight camera angle. Sometimes he'll have the other actors or crewmen trying it too." According to Steve, a dancer should aim to be more than a one-facet talent. He should balance his central art of dance with supportive accomplishments in the fields of music and drama. "My own overall plan," he explained, "is geared to musical comedy. When I couldn't follow a straight line to my goal in New York, I shifted to approach it in a roundabout way through acting in Hollywood. "Today it's harder than ever for dancers to make a career in only one thing, and right now is the time to begin the transitions that can broaden our careers. Without worrying too much about what's 'in' at any given moment, we should absorb all we can of every dance form ?╟÷ ballet, modern, ethnic, even the latest crazy fad. "For me, it would be a mistake to work in only one style or only one art. I want always to be ready for any chance to go in any direction that will lead ultimately to my main goal." END 136 DANCE MAGAZINE December 1965