A Curtain of Legal Trouble Drops on Young Performers From Russia : Dance: The ‘Fantasm’ troupe had visions of a one-year American tour, but a dispute over who was paying the bills killed the show after seven performances.

The Russian performers are scattered in homes throughout the Fairfax District. The German producer is staying with a new-found friend in Torrance, pressing grand theft charges against the performers. Each side says the other vanished into the Los Angeles woodwork.

And here come the lawyers.

This, the New Moscow Dance Theatre is finding out, is capitalism’s darker side.

The 22 young women and one actor/writer came from all over the former Soviet Union to the United States to show off the florid blend of gymnastics, poetry, ballet, native music and complex symbolism they call “Fantasm.” Plans called for a one-year American tour, starting in community theaters and, if all went well, moving into major commercial centers.

The dream began, and ended, with seven shows in Torrance last month.

Now the troupe and its producer find themselves entangled in American, Russian and Latvian legal tentacles neither side fully understands.

The German producer, Robert Schedel, holds contracts he says prove that his Nevada corporation owns all rights to the troupe, including its costumes, props and creative product. The troupe, following instructions from its administrator, Anatoli Ioda, believes Schedel is a former business partner, not an owner, and that he has given up any rights he once had.

Ioda has hired an American attorney whose partner speaks fluent Russian. Schedel is trying to hire a Russian-speaking attorney in the same Wilshire Boulevard office building but has not yet found the money to do so.

Even if one side sues the other, it is not clear whether the case would be handled under the laws of California, Nevada, Russia, Latvia or the former Soviet Union.

What it all boils down to, both sides agree, is money.

Schedel says he had the first two months’ worth of shows in five different cities worked out and an Armenian jeweler in Los Angeles ready to invest $65,000 in the tour, in return for 50% of the profits. Ioda and the show’s actor/writer, Ilya Reznik, Schedel said, talked him out of making that deal, insisting that they had found loans in Latvia that would not cut into the show’s profits.

Through his attorney, James Clemons, Ioda denied discouraging Schedel from accepting the $65,000 investment. Ioda said he had established a $25,000 line of credit in Latvia only as an emergency back-up in case Schedel failed to find enough backing in the United States.

When the troupe arrived in early May, Ioda said, Schedel began asking to draw off the $25,000 to fund the tour’s first few weeks. Ioda refused, but says he has discovered he cannot get the money out of Latvia anyway.

Schedel paints a different picture, saying that Ioda promised several times that at least $20,000 was on its way from Latvia to cover the group’s initial expenses. When the troupe’s two-week stint in Torrance ended and the money still had not arrived, Schedel said, he had no choice but to halt the tour.

About $2,500 of the group’s ticket profits from the poorly attended Torrance shows were turned over to the dancers as salary, Schedel said. A check from the Torrance theater for the remaining $5,300 was endorsed to the troupe’s hotel as partial payment on a $9,000 lodging bill, he said.

During a tense confrontation at the hotel May 18, Schedel wrote a brief letter ordering the tour to end. He then canceled the tour’s contracts at theaters in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Tucson and San Diego, he said.

“I told Anatoli: ‘We cannot go on without any money. You told me you’d bring the money over and you didn’t,’ ” Schedel said. “I had a contract and a responsibility and I did everything I could to fulfill it. I’ve lost a lot of money in this too.”

Reznik called Schedel’s contention that he and Ioda blocked the $65,000 investment “totally absurd.”

“We would have been more than happy to have investors put money into the production,” Ioda said.

Troupe members claim Schedel abandoned them, leaving them with no money, no bookings and no way of reaching him. But Schedel said he remained in contact with the troupe, even making flight arrangements the next day to get everyone home.

Reznik and Ioda, who holds the troupe’s return plane tickets and their passports, refused to go, Schedel said. The two men rounded up the 22 dancers at their hotel and drove off without leaving word about where they were going, he said.

“They vanished. They disappeared,” Schedel complained bitterly. “I’m responsible for them, but no one will tell me where they are.”

Within days, Schedel filed grand theft reports with the Torrance Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department for the costumes and props. He also filed missing-persons reports on the three dancers younger than 18, for whom Schedel says he is legally responsible.

Ioda’s attorney, Clemons, contends that Schedel and Ioda were partners in a joint venture bringing the troupe to the United States. He said Schedel does not have the unilateral power to halt the tour and order them home.

“It is very confusing and when you go through all the Russian contracts and try to interpret them it becomes even more confusing,” Clemons said. “The key to it is that he did abandon them. And he breached all of the contracts he had . . . by doing that. Anatoli Ioda is under no obligation to follow Mr. Schedel’s instructions and the girls are under no obligation to follow his instructions.”

Instead, the troupe has begun rehearsing again in a donated hall. A show has been scheduled at Fairfax High School at 8 p.m. on June 13 and discussions are underway for more performances at other locations.

Schedel said he does not plan to block the June 13 performance because he holds rights to all of the troupe’s U.S. performances.

“I’m not against this group making money. The opposite is the case,” Schedel said. “If they make money, I make money. They are using my property and the contract is still valid. I hope it goes well.”