An American’s Vision

I would like to clarify a few points made in Lewis Segal’s review of the Aman Folk Ensemble dance concert (“Around the World With Dean, Aman,” June 21).

As one of the unnamed founders of Aman, indeed I believe that I did have a “uniquely American vision” because I am an American, but there was never any intention to “offer a world-dance panorama on every program.” I did not consider myself then, nor now, sufficiently versed in the worldwide scope that Aman, by all accounts, currently espouses to represent on the stage the kind of potpourri repertoire that Segal describes.

Perhaps Segal did not mention my name as a founder of Aman because the company did not put it in the company’s biography. My current company, AVAZ, continues the aesthetic framework laid out by me during my tenure as one of the founding artistic directors of Aman: to perform the dances of a region linked by aesthetic and historic ties--the Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

ANTHONY SHAY

Artistic Director

AVAZ International

Dance Theatre Inc.

Los Angeles