Segal’s Back and Kicking : Dancer Turns Disease to Her Advantage

Ellen Segal has looked at life from both sides, from the pinnacle of success with the legendary Martha Graham, to the depths of despair as the victim of a debilitating nerve disease.

Back in the 1950s, Segal traveled the world with the first lady of modern dance, performing major roles in Graham’s internationa lly acclaimed company. When illness struck a few years later, it took the dancer out of the limelight for eight years.

Segal, stricken with myasthenia gravis, was not expected to walk, let alone dance. But she did get her legs underneath her again, and when she came to San Diego to begin the healing process about 13 years ago, she was determined to make a comeback as a dancer.

“When I first started making solos, I was happy to stand on two legs, let alone on one,” she said recently. “I still have some limitations in my arms and hands, but I turn them into something I can use on stage.”

Myasthenia gravis is a progressive disease that causes the withering of muscle tissue, but Segal has fought it on pretty even terms.

“It was the combination of drugs, my spirit and mostly because I love dance, and that kept me going,” said Segal, who continues to take medications for the disease that she feels is under control.

Now, in her early 50s, an age when most completely healthy dancers are content to work from the sidelines, Segal is gearing up for another concert in San Diego, in which she will perform a mixed bag of modern and balletic works wryly titled “Garage Dances.” The all-female company of nine, plus actor Bill Roberts, will perform Friday and Saturday evening at Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Segal choreographed three pieces for this weekend’s program and teamed up with an unlikely kindred spirit, Erling Sunde, former ballet master of the Royal and San Diego ballets, on a new solo for herself. Sunde also contributed his lyrical ballet, “Movement,” because it’s one of Segal’s favorites.

Although Segal pops up regularly on local stages, both on her own and with other independent choreographers (she’s best known as part of the “Big Ladies” collaborative team), it has been well over a year since her last appearance. This concert represents quite a departure for the willowy dancer.

“I usually have a lot of funny stuff in my pieces. In fact, it was my crazy sense of humor that Martha liked so much about me. But I was depressed when I started working on this. And I didn’t want to make a dance about aging.”

Instead, Segal came up with “Visionstreak,” a group dance that explores the healing process. It served as a catharsis for her own illness and gave her a chance to look back on her career.

“I’m proud of my life,” she said matter-of-factly, “and I have a lot to work from. I don’t look better or jump higher than the younger dancers, but hopefully there’s a maturity in my work.”

Segal didn’t completely forsake her comic side on this occasion. In fact, she is reviving one of her wittiest and most successful works for the concert. “Martha Says,” a barbed send-up of Graham and her technique, will feature Roberts doing a deadpan narration while Segal moves gamely through its paces.

“I also made ‘Baby Boy,’ ” said Segal. “It’s a celebration of peace inspired by Marta (Jiacoletti) and her new baby, Max. What better pledge to future peace is there than being a mother?”

Segal says that like others who have worked with Graham, she isn’t going to say anything bad about her.

“I did a takeoff on her once at a party, and suddenly no one thought it was funny any more,” she said. “When I looked up, there was Martha. She just turned around and walked out. But she never said anything to me about it.”

However, when Segal and Paul Taylor, her one-time dancing partner, created a duet that deliberately poked fun at Graham’s classic “Clytemnestra,” Graham insisted on integrating the spoof into her tragic dance drama.

Some of Segal’s memories are not very funny, such as the time Jerome Robbins fired her from a Broadway show for alleged drunkenness.

“I was in ‘Mother Courage’ and Robbins called me over and said, ‘You’re not acting right.’ He was right, I wasn’t myself,” she acknowledged, “but I wasn’t drunk either. I found out later that it was the beginning stages of my illness. The problem was the doctors kept telling me the symptoms were all psychosomatic.”

Robbins, whose reputation for emotional outbursts against his dancers is legion, was particularly unpopular with the cast of “Mother Courage.” As Segal tells it: “He was directing us in a scene one day, and he kept moving backward, closer and closer to the orchestra pit. We all looked at each other, because we knew Jerry was headed for a fall, but nobody said one word to warn him. Of course, he fell into the pit, and, when he got up, he just glared at us and walked off.”

Although Segal’s forte is Grahamesque modern dance, ballet is a regular part of her routine, and Sunde has been a source of inspiration for her on and off for years.

“This woman stepped out of my life, and then stepped back again,” said Sunde.

Segal describes their collaboration as “a good marriage,” and adds, “He watches me do the Graham movements, and then picks out what he likes. He has a good eye for what’s right for me.”

In this post-modern age, many choreographers are hellbent on trendy dances. Not so Segal.

“I’m not concerned about being avant-garde. I can’t worry about being with it, and I can’t be Twyla Tharp. I’m just doing what I do best.”