Every Sunday, more than a dozen Penn students push aside chairs to make room for tap rehearsal on the wooden floors of the Hillel building.
And twice a week at 11 p.m., 14 dancers dedicated to hip-hop finally get their chance to use the rehearsal room in Houston Hall.
For these dance groups, starting out at Penn has been made more difficult by being shut out of the Performing Arts Council, which coordinates the use of rehearsal and performance space, helps allocate funding and contributes to publicity efforts.
Without PAC, an umbrella organization for all performing groups on campus, these two groups, and a third devoted to Asian dance, essentially have to go it alone in their early years.
PAC members say the decision not to include these three groups stems from space and budget crunches, and with rehearsal and performance spaces becoming increasingly scarce, almost all campus performing arts groups have been forced to cut back this year.
All three groups applied to PAC but received negative recommendations on the grounds of a lack of rehearsal and performance space. Destination Hiphop and Soundworks Tap Factory, two of the groups rejected, both appealed to PAC but were not admitted.
As PAC searches for ways to compensate for the space and budget crunch, performance and rehearsal times have been cut back and new spending restrictions are being enforced. Member groups from theater to dance have suffered cutbacks.
"As much support as student performing arts gets, it's not enough," said College senior Rudy Ramirez, a member of the Intuitons Experimental Theatre executive board.
"There was a time when we could all get the performance space we wanted, even for multiple weekends," Ramirez said. "Now, because there are so many groups, but also because it's so much harder to get access to performance and rehearsal spaces, we can't do that."
The issue of both rehearsal and performance space has been especially frustrating for many groups. While in past years groups had access to all of the space they requested, now about only 60 percent of all requests are granted.
"It's not so much an issue of cutting space as an issue of space having to be used by various clients," Performing Arts Coordinator Ty Furman said.
The Annenberg Center and other campus venues have raised the cost of renting their spaces to performing arts groups. The few spaces available to students are are regularly booked until 1 a.m.
Dance groups have been particularly affected by the cutbacks because of their specific rehearsal needs, such as mirrors, bars and particular flooring. But there are only three dance studios available to student groups, and dance groups lost even more rehearsal time this semester.
According to Penn Dance Chairwoman Virginia Graham, her group regularly encounters problems when rehearsal spaces are double-booked. They also had trouble with the recently renovated and supposedly soundproof rehearsal studio in Irvine Auditorium as groups are barred from the space whenever events take place in the main auditorium.
"They told us the day before that we were going to have to cancel our rehearsal because the room is not soundproof like it was supposed to be," said the College senior, who is also the Dance Arts Council chairwoman and PAC financial coordinator.
The PAC executive board, the Vice Provost for University Life and Furman are together searching for ways to solve space issues. One possible solution mentioned at Undergraduate Assembly meetings was the use of a portion of the now-closed Stouffer Dining Hall.
But even if additional rehearsal space becomes available, the cost of renting performance venues and producing shows can still be prohibitive. Last year, the Student Activities Council threatened to cut performing arts groups down from two shows each year to only one. While the number of shows was not cut, spending caps were put in place for performing arts groups.
"What we did... was create a compromise," said SAC Chairwoman LaToya Baldwin, a College senior. "You can still have two shows a year, but you just have to be more frugal about it."
According to PAC Chairman and College senior Ryan Baber, it was an issue mainly of space, not budget problems, that prevented PAC from admitting the three dance groups, Destination Hiphop, Soundworks Tap Factory and Penn Asian Dance. Once admitted, groups would have the same rights to rehearsal and performance spaces as all other member organizations.
"As it stands we have eight or nine dance groups that have basically maxed out all the rehearsal space on campus," Baber said.
"From a money standpoint, letting more groups in means less money for the rest of us," Graham said. "The administration has been putting pressure on us to have less groups or to stay the size we are.... We thought that admitting three new groups to DAC would compromise the quality of all our performances."
Members of new groups on campus said they were frustrated because it is particularly difficult to maintain organization without PAC support and publicity. But, they added, the support of student government may not be the only way to survive.
"I've learned a lot about PAC, and I've liked it less and less, so I might not want to get involved in it at all," said College junior Katherine Sledge, president of three-year-old Soundworks. "It seems like there are other options, plus it seems that we've been doing pretty well without it."
"Look at the Underground Shakespeare Company. They're new and the decided not to join PAC. They got [Harnwell House] to fund them and they're doing extremely well, so that's something we might do."
Destination Hiphop President Nkechinyere Nwaobasi said she thought her group could survive without administrative support.
"With any group, it's really the dedication of the members that" sustain it, the College senior said. "It's not money or anything else."
