Choreographer Rejects NEA’s $72,000 Grant : Arts: Bella Lewitzky says she will also file suit against the agency, seeking a court decision against the no-obscenity pledge.

Acclaimed choreographer Bella Lewitzky said Thursday she will reject $72,000 in National Endowment for the Arts funding and file suit against the federal agency, hoping a court will invalidate a requirement that NEA grantees sign a pledge not to create obscene work.

The announcement by Lewitzky at a Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel press conference attended by Mayor Tom Bradley was the latest development in a broad protest within the arts community over attempts by conservatives in Congress to rein in the NEA. The grant rejection represents the largest amount of NEA support turned back so far in a protest in which at least five other artists or arts organizations have rejected grants or filed suit over NEA restrictions.

Lewitzky and Michael Hudson, vice president and general counsel for the liberal organization People for the American Way, said the 74-year-old dance legend would file a federal court suit in either Los Angeles or Washington within the next two weeks. Hudson said the action will seek an injunction against the endowment’s enforcement of a current provision that prohibits funding of work that is obscene. The NEA’s own general counsel has suggested the language is unconstitutional.

“I decided that I could not, in good moral conscience, accept the fact that a trampling on the rights of the First Amendment was good or even legal,” Lewitzky said in her remarks at the press conference. The meeting with reporters, which was also attended by the 12 dancers in Lewitzky’s company and about 50 arts community supporters, was held at the same hotel where Lewitzky refused to answer questions of the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy scare in the 1950s.

“Sen. Joe McCarthy, after damaging endless lives, was . . . declared a madman,” Lewitzky said. “I am witness to (Sen.) Jesse Helms’ (R-N.C.) destructive attacks on the NEA. All (these) incidents take down artists and art. How many times must history repeat itself? We must act. Having been witness, I must act.”

Hudson said the court suit would also ask a judge to declare the controversial NEA provision unconstitutional. He acknowledged that the Lewitzky court action would be similar to a suit already on file in federal court in New York in which the New School for Social Research is asking a judge for essentially the same ruling. A hearing on a New School request for an injunction is tentatively set for July 31.

But Hudson and Lewitzky said the legal action by the Los Angeles-based Lewitzky Dance Company would make legal arguments slightly different from the New York action and attempt to broaden federal court review of the controversial statute. The litigation and Lewitzky’s decision to reject the $72,000 grant come as the NEA faces increasing difficulty in its attempts to fend off even greater regulation of artistic subject matter as Congress works on legislation to renew the arts endowment for another five years.

Lewitzky said it was not certain how her company would make up for the financial shortfall. The NEA grant in question, from the endowment’s dance program, represents about 8.5% of Lewitzky’s 1990 operating budget of about $850,000. She said private donations would be sought, but said no substitute money had yet been received--although at least one arts supporter in the press conference audience publicly offered to make a contribution.

Bradley called the crisis over the continued artistic freedom of the arts endowment “one of the most critical issues facing freedom-loving people in this country.” “All of us need to say the same thing. We cannot and will not accept this intrusion on the rights of freedom of expression in this country,” Bradley said. “If we permit this kind of thing to happen, political decisions will determine which artists receive support. We’re here to say we cannot permit it.”

The arts endowment declined to comment on the Lewitzky announcement.

Adolfo V. Nodal, the city’s director of cultural affairs, said his agency last week rejected a proposal by the NEA’s visual arts program to participate in a national homeless artists program. Nodal said the NEA plan was turned aside because the city agency--at Bradley’s urging--has adopted a policy of refusing to accept restrictions on the content of municipally financed art.

“There is no way the city is going to accept money that will require us to throw an obscenity clause on our artists,” Nodal said.

Lewitzky said she was sensitive to potential criticism that her decision might play into the hands of Helms and other conservatives, who have argued that valid art forms can survive in the private financial sector without government support.

“It’s standing on my personal convictions,” Lewitzky said. “I don’t feel that notes of protest are going to affect Jesse Helms at all.”

Lewitzky said her company originally struck out anti-obscenity wording in its NEA grant letter and returned the edited version to the endowment, but NEA officials notified the company no money would be distributed unless Lewitzky signed an acknowledgement of the obscenity clause.

Lewitzky’s action followed decisions by New York theater producer Joseph Papp, the University of Iowa Press, Los Angeles choreographer Ferne Ackerman and a Seattle arts group to reject NEA funding.

Officials of national arts organizations, who said Lewitzky’s decision may have mixed effects in the endowment crisis, supported the stand taken by the famed choreographer, who has been an NEA grant recipient since 1972.

“You have to do what you have to do,” said Anne Murphy, executive director of the Washington-based American Arts Alliance. “She lived through other eras in this country where people questioned loyalty and freedom.”

Bonnie Brooks, director of Washington-based Dance USA, said, “I think that this is such a delicate situation right now with the arts endowment that each artist and administrator involved needs to address the question from their hearts.”