Dance Group’s Cash Problem Imperils Tours : Funding: Major dance companies’ West Coast trips would lose an important stop if San Diego Foundation for the Arts goes out of business.

At the same time that the San Diego Foundation for the Arts is battling for survival by scheduling an emergency fund-raising campaign, other California dance presenters are beginning to worry that the organization’s demise could threaten future West Coast tours.

The foundation, which since 1982 has been one of the few West Coast stops for tours by major dance companies, including the Kirov Ballet, Martha Graham, the Joffrey Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, announced last week that it will cancel the rest of its 1992-93 season and cease operations permanently if it is unable to raise $200,000 in two weeks.

After disappointing ticket sales for performances on Oct. 2-3 of the Lyon Opera Ballet’s “Cinderella” at the San Diego Civic Theatre, plus several other recent financial setbacks, the organization faces a $265,000 deficit, Executive Director Fred Colby said.

Colby said he had given layoff notices to his 10-member staff and decided to announce the possible cancellation of the season, which includes the Mark Morris Dance Group, Nov. 17-18; the Kodo Drummers, Jan. 29-31; the Paul Taylor Dance Co., Feb. 26-27, and the Miami City Ballet, April 23-24.

Responding to the crisis, two major dance presenters in Southern California emphasized the foundation’s role in sustaining a network of touring dance venues on the West Coast. “It takes a number of presenters to create a strong West Coast tour for major dance companies,” said Michael Blachly, acting director of the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts. “The more cities that can be a part of a tour, the more likely it is that the tour can occur.”

“We all try to coordinate tours so that a company has as great a chance for success on the West Coast as possible,” Blachly said. “There are probably eight to 10 principal West Coast presenters right now--presenters with access to major municipal facilities that could do Graham, Ailey . . . that caliber of company. There are others coming on line, such as Cerritos, but you’d need four or five to sustain a West Coast tour.”

Blachly called the San Diego foundation crisis “serious because they’re one of the strongest presenters of dance in the southern part of the state. They’ve been an anchor on a number of tours.”

Tom Kendrick, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, said the foundation’s failure would cause “an impact on dance in general and on California in particular, which had limited venues to begin with.”

“It would further increase our difficulties,” he added, “and dramatically increase the difficulties of any company touring here. Already the (recession and lack of venues) have forced many companies to become their own booking agents, searching for halls that may have no (organizational) structure to present dance.

“If (the San Diego Foundation) goes under, it is one more presenter out of the picture and any presentation of dance of that magnitude in San Diego would have to be done on an individual basis.”

Coordinating tours with “major presenters in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego would give us at the (Orange County) center a real shot at international tours,” Kendrick said. “But because costs and fees are just too high, we can’t continue to be individually presenting international companies.”

Meanwhile, Lyon Opera Ballet will return for a benefit performance in an attempt to raise $90,000 in ticket sales for the foundation. The benefit, which will take place Tuesday at the Spreckels Theatre downtown, will include performances by the 35-member company of recent works by U.S. choreographers Bill T. Jones and Ralph Lemon, plus the French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj.

All of the costs for the performance are being covered by various donors, including the theater rental, services by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and hotel rooms for the dancers.

The company hopes to raise the rest of the $200,000 goal through donations. As of Sunday morning, donations stood at $7,200, with the largest single donation $2,000. The foundation finished its 1991-92 season with a $140,000 deficit; it has an annual operating budget of $1.4 million.

Yorgos Loukos, artistic director of the Lyon company, which tours six months a year, offered to help because “we live in a very small world.”

“So far, we have everything donated for Tuesday’s show,” Colby said. “Our only hard costs will be $3,000 for extra transportation for the dancers from San Francisco, where they are performing at UC Berkeley this week, plus we’ve spent about $3,000 on advertising. That’s compared to the usual $80,000 that it takes to present a company like the Lyon Opera Ballet.”

The foundation is doing extensive mailings, Colby said, targeting “about 5,000 people, including our subscriber base.” By Sunday morning, 345 tickets had been sold, totaling $17,250.

He said the first response from the companies that would be affected by the canceled season “has been great concern for us, secondarily for what effect this would have on their own companies. In this cynical world, it’s helpful to know they (the dance companies) care enough to call and send letters of support. And they’re not just calling us, they’re calling the press, they’re calling each other.”

Among the written statements of support, modern-dance choreographer Paul Taylor said: “It is devastating” that the foundation “could so easily disappear. Their vulnerability is a barometer of our country’s own, and without them, the lessening of the arts, dance in particular, is that much closer at hand.”

Ballet choreographer Eliot Feld also placed the foundation’s predicament in a larger perspective: “The fates of not-for-profit dance, music and theater groups are inextricably hitched to the survival of the presenters.”