September 6, 1985

Friday MAKING WAVES ON A FERRY Staten Island Ferry riders were stunned last year when leaping forms and tapping toes greeted them on their evening commute. Local dance companies were using the boat's decks and railings as a stage. They will be doing it again this weekend, to open the second Staten Island Council on the Arts Making Waves festival. Appropriately, Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks, a troupe noted for pieces celebrating urban transportation, will be among the companies performing on the two upper decks, on crossings from 5:30 to 7:40 P.M. tonight and 2 to 3:30 Saturday. Also pirouetting above the waves will be the American Ballroom Theater Company, NYC Tapworks, Marta Renzi and the Project Company and the Clive Thompson Dance Company. Admission is simply the 25-cent round-trip ferry fare. The number for information and detailed schedules: (718) 447-4485.

Because of an editing error, a Chicago dispatch yesterday on an agreement that ended a teachers' strike in that city incorrectly named the parent group of the Chicago Teachers Union. The union is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, not the National Education Association.

A Spanish company pleaded guilty in Federal court here today to providing Cuba and the Soviet Union with almost $2.5 million in valuable American manufacturing equipment. Prosecutors said the equipment was probably being used to make semiconductors for weapons systems. ''There is absolutely no doubt that the principal purpose of this equipment was the manufacture of national security and defense equipment,'' said Joseph E. diGenova, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Mr. diGenova, whose office handled the case, said that the company illegally transferred the manufacturing equipment to Cuba and the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1982. Under a plea agreement, the company, Piher S.A., has agreed to pay a $1 million fine, although the Federal judge in the case would be permitted to impose a larger fine.

Saying that the nation's system of more than 800 cooperative farm banks faces ''the most severe crisis since the Depression days,'' the system's top regulator today asked Congress and the Reagan Administration to begin laying plans for a Federal rescue that he said could run to ''multibillions of dollars.'' If the deterioration of the farm economy persists, Donald E. Wilkinson, governor of the Farm Credit Administration, said at a news conference, parts of the Farm Credit System - as the loosely connected network of farmer-owned lending institutions is known - would face liquidation in 18 to 24 months without Federal aid. The nonfarm economy would suffer as well, he added. Mr. Wilkinson said the system was the farmers' biggest creditor, holding more than a third of all farm loans, or $$77 billion of a total of $213 billion.

THE beginning of September is the starting gun for New York's fall street festival season. This weekend there will be festivals all over town, drawing large crowds with their popular blend of ethnic foods, free entertainment, crafts sales and civic-minded spirit that manages to turn the big city into a network of small neighborhoods. West 46th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues - the block that has become the focal point of New York's lively Brazilian community - will be the site tomorrow of the First Brazilian National Independence Day Festival. ''We want to promote Brazil and celebrate the new democracy in our country,'' said Jota Alves, publisher of The Brasilians, the English-and-Portuguese newspaper that is sponsoring the event.