Graham Co.: Can Troupe Carry On?

The Martha Graham Dance Company will perform tonight for the first time since its founder’s death at 96 on April 1.

The free performance at City Center (all dancers and staff are donating their services) is one Graham herself envisioned in lieu of any funeral or traditional memorial service, and the program--ranging from the 1931 “Primative Mysteries” to “Maple Leaf Rag,” her final work, which received its premiere last October--will span six decades of her fertile, unpredictable output.

The performance will also mark the Graham company’s first public steps towards an uncertain future. Many observers of the company wonder how an institution that evolved to express the vision and fulfill the needs of such a dominant, iconoclastic artist will manage to outlive its raison d’etre. They worry about the standards of her distinctive technique and the caliber of performances in her absence.

Graham’s company always performed only her own works, and her dances almost never entered the repertory of other troupes. Will there be changes on these crucial fronts? Will the glamour and attendant money associated with such loyal Graham devotees as Liza Minnelli, Calvin Klein, Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna still be available to the company now that the charismatic central figure is gone? Will the company continue to tour regularly (its itinerary this year included a run at the Orange County Performing Arts Center)?

Most significantly, in whose hands will the proprietorship of her 180 dances be left?

Their guardian, the trustee named by Graham to oversee her repertory, turns out to be not one of the many dancers who had lengthy careers with Graham (even though some of them continue to work with the company staging revivals). Final control over the Graham oeuvre falls to Ronald Protas, who worked closely with Graham during the final 22 years of her life and who has been company general director and associate artistic director since the late 1970s.

Protas is now firmly focused on the company’s future, which is filled with projects and new directions.

“There is a structure here, and I think a lot of people are amazed how well it functions,” he remarks.

“For the last 15 years, we’ve been planning for this. Martha knew her mortality. She ensured the transition she wanted.”

Protas, who shares the title of artistic director with veteran Graham dancer Linda Hodes, has the final say on all matters--selecting new dancers, licensing Graham’s works, casting and supervising the company’s performances.

In a signed, notarized 1988 statement, Graham outlined the structure and future of her company and school, expressing her trust in both Protas and Hodes but making it clear where the ultimate authority would lie:

“It will be for Ron Protas, after working with and consulting with those with whom he now works, to make the final artistic decision as to the rightness of things artistically for my company and my school.”

While acknowledging the financial difficulties that plague all dance companies in these difficult economic times (the company has reduced its deficit but it is still close to $1 million), Protas says he has seen a reaffirmation of support from the company’s backers in recent months.

Protas views his task with quiet assurance and sees his mission as a continuation of his longtime service to Graham.

“As long as I feel I’m doing what she wants, I feel comfortable. Nothing else matters to me, as long as I’m true to what she told me to do,” he says. “The legacy Martha left is not just for us. If we can go on--and we want to--it’s for another 100 years.”

There are bookings into 1993; there are continuing discussions about establishing an ongoing residency in Santa Barbara that would create a second home for the company. There is also the question of a $500,000 commission received from the Spanish government for a Graham work of which she was able to choreograph only a fragment.

The company’s repertory will consist of Graham works--current repertory and revivals--for the coming season, but the following year Protas hopes to begin inviting choreographers to work with the dancers.

“Martha left a directive that the only constant is change, and she left a list of choreographers whom she would accept to work on the company.”

Graham’s works are likely to begin turning up in the repertories of ballet companies; initial talks have begun with the Royal Danish Ballet (for “Acts of Light”) and the Paris Opera Ballet (for “Primative Mysteries”). “Martha had never been against her ballets being done elsewhere, she just wanted them done well,” Protas points out.

Doubleday will publish Graham’s memoirs, “Blood Memories,” in September. Protas is producing a documentary on Graham’s life and work, which will incorporate a great deal of rare, unfamiliar archival material. (Tonight’s program will include a fragment from the documentary--scenes of Graham in the studio at 96, rehearsing “Maple Leaf Rag.”) Also in the works is a feature film about Graham starring Madonna; the two women met in September, 1990, and hit it off, Protas reports, and Graham gave her blessing to the project.

Protas is confident that with sufficient time and the proper personnel, outside stagings of Graham’s works can be artistically successful. “We have a process that will work--we have films, we have teachers, there is video. . . .”