Fame, Yes . . . but Fortune?

In the mid-1970s, Lula Washington and two other African American students at UCLA created the Black Dance Assn. in an effort to ensure that their work was seen. The faculty was reluctant to showcase pieces set to R&B;, pop and blues, she says, suggesting the more traditional classical music instead.

Nearly a quarter-century later, Washington has come full circle--and is taking the advice of her professors. On Friday at UCLA’s Royce Hall, she’ll premiere “Rites 2000,” set to the music of Vivaldi, Stravinsky, Chopin, Bach and John Tavener.

For the 49-year-old choreographer, the performance marks a “personal rebirth”--an ideal way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of her Lula Washington Dance Theatre.

This is a gratifying stretch for Washington, after two decades of hanging tough. Her troupe--already one of Southern California’s best-known African American dance institutions--is on the verge of establishing a national reputation, last month drawing critical raves for its run at Manhattan’s Joyce Theatre. The community outreach program she launched in 1983, “I Do Dance Not Drugs,” continues to receive honors. And her studio is churning out talent, with alumni going on to perform with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Donald Byrd Dance Company, Dance Theatre of Harlem and in several Broadway shows.

Still, her success has not been without trials. Washington continues to struggle with the aftereffects of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which toppled her studio--and with it, the company’s financial stability. The $800,000 in damage has forced the group to move to pricier quarters. Local engagements don’t pay the bills, so touring--35 cities last year--is a necessity.

“My mind is always split,” Washington says by phone from Florida, where she is a choreographer-in-residence at Palm Beach Community College. “One eye is on the work, the other on keeping the doors open.”

Washington’s goal when establishing the troupe was to fill a void--what she perceived as a lack of opportunity for choreographers with an African American focus. Over the years, her repertory has featured works by Donald McKayle and Donald Byrd, two of America’s premier African American choreographers, as well as emerging talent.

Still, 80% of the offerings are original Lula, a theatrical mix of modern, ballet, African, tap and jazz elements--often with social and political themes. “Check This Out” (1992), for example, was inspired by the Rodney King beating and “What About Watts?” (1996) by her nephew’s gang-related murder. Others range from works dealing with abused women and abortion to those paying homage to Duke Ellington and Bob Marley.

Affinity for the underdog comes naturally to the Arkansas-born Washington, the eldest of eight children raised by a steelworker father and a mother who cleaned houses. The family moved to Los Angeles when Washington was 5, living in the Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts. Dance didn’t enter the picture for several years.

At Washington High in South-Central L.A., the future choreographer met Erwin Washington--whom she married in 1970 and who now serves as executive director of the dance company.

Enrolling in Harbor College in Wilmington proved to be a turning point in her life. It was there that she took her first dance class, which included a trip to watch the Ailey troupe perform at UCLA. Seeing Judith Jamison in “Cry,” Washington says, inspired her to pursue dance as a career.

She applied to UCLA’s dance program, but the university turned her down. Unwilling to take no for an answer, she wrote a passionate letter to the dean, who reversed the decision. She entered the program at 22--an age when many dancers have peaked. She left with a master’s degree in 1985.

Serendipity played a role in the 1980 formation of the troupe, called the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre until the mid-1990s. When a podiatrist organized a symposium on the foot-related problems of dancers, he asked Washington to assemble a group to entertain the participants.

Rather than dissolving the pickup company, Washington decided to keep it going for one year. At that time, she was making money dancing in television, movies and in a Las Vegas act featuring Cher. Did she want to forgo all that for the rigors and uncertainty of the concert dance world?

Ailey and others warned her that the venture was an uphill proposition--especially in Los Angeles. Washington today acknowledges that her mentors were right.

“Critics in Los Angeles aren’t supportive of dance,” she said. “And getting bookings is very hard. This is the first time we’re playing in Royce, a place few home-grown artists have penetrated. Local companies rarely have the reputation it takes to fill the house, so booking us is a gamble.”

Michael Blachly, director of UCLA Performing Arts, agrees that the upcoming Washington engagement is a crapshoot. But he’s decided to roll the dice--twice. UCLA is not only presenting “Rites 2000” but is also the lead commissioner.

Washington is someone who has used dance to better the community, Blachly explains, someone “taken for granted” on her home turf. Giving her a commission “is one way of giving back.”

Washington has long emphasized the social potential of dance. Her children’s and youth ensembles and after-school and weekend classes in downtrodden areas proved a lifeline for neighborhood kids. Locally, her troupe performs in public schools as part of the L.A. County Performing Arts Center’s education program. Nationwide, she’s an active participant in community arts outreach.

Unfortunately, Erwin Washington notes, these pursuits have always overshadowed Lula’s artistic strengths.

“Lula is one of a historic cadre of African American women with a strong sense of their roots who put their lives into their work,” says Salli Ann Kriegsman, former director of the National Endowment for the Arts dance program. “It’s that much harder for them to get funding, however, since unlike the heads of ballet companies, they have to prove the value of their art form itself.”

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“My ballet teacher, Stephan Wenta, said in the 1970s, ‘Lula, my girl, you need a rich lady to give you lots of money. Hold a tea and have some come,’ ” Washington recalls. “He was right. We do need more people who put us as line items on their budgets, . . . but we’ll settle for 1,000 who’ll give us $5 apiece.”

In recent years, Washington’s serious financial woes have intensified. Unless she can pay dancers more money and offer them long-term contracts, she’ll continue losing them to larger dance companies or to Hollywood, she says.

She faced an enormous financial setback after the Northridge earthquake. Tremors left a hole in the wall of her West Adams studio--which she and Erwin had finished renovating only the night before the Jan. 17 disaster. Even with a $1.3-million grant from FEMA, they have yet to receive clearance to rebuild from the city. Until then, Washington must pay a whopping $3,500 a month for her temporary quarters at 5041 W. Pico Blvd.

“We’re in negotiations for another building on Crenshaw,” Erwin Washington says. “But unless we’re reimbursed for our existing site, we can’t move ahead.”

Blachly cites the quake as an example of her fortitude. “Lula kept her dancers engaged and her school going,” he says. “Lesser spirits would have folded. But to regard her simply as a ‘person with a mission’ is to underestimate her as an artist.

“Lula has always been a good listener and observer, shaping what she heard and saw. Now she’s displaying a new maturity and is part of the dialogue.”

Washington’s profile should get a substantial boost from the recent New York engagement. Her troupe’s first appearance in the Joyce Theatre’s “Altogether Different” series triggered impressive reviews in a cultural mecca. It was, as Washington puts it, “the stamp of approval.”

The New York Times was particularly effusive about the 12-member interracial group, which includes Washington’s daughter, Tamica. “At a time when flashy technique often seduces with surface dazzle, the Lula Washington Dance Theater projects a remarkably vivid mix of purity and dynamism,” wrote critic Anna Kisselgoff.

Even though Washington was overwhelmed by the experience, she has no time to bask in the glory. The premieres of “Rites 2000,” along with her mentor McKayle’s “Death and Eros”--which her company is also performing at Royce--are fast approaching.

“Taking on two world premieres simultaneously is a high-wire act without a net,” Blachly observes.

McKayle and Washington each received $30,000 fellowships from the James Irvine Foundation, stipends for mid-career choreographers. Washington plunged into the classical realm; McKayle unearthed “The Legend of the Skeleton Woman” from the Inuit culture.

McKayle turned to Washington, largely because of the evolution of her troupe. “Each of her dancers is very individual, though they can also dance as one,” he says. “And since several studied with her as children, there’s a wonderful shorthand there. I wouldn’t have approached them five years ago, though. They weren’t in the place that they’re in now.”

Washington’s choreographic skills have improved, but there’s still a distance to travel, he suggests. “A number of her dances are too attenuated,” he says. “All your ideas don’t have to be in the same work--it’s a matter of editing, stepping back.”

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Washington’s “Rites 2000” pays tribute to marriage, spirituality and dance pioneers. The piece, which she has been working on for a year, marks a 180-degree turn for her. “Because I had never been able to connect emotionally with classical music,” she says, “I never considered pursuing that path.”

That’s why, Washington says, this project is both “frightening and exciting.”

“Rites 2000” is still a work in progress, which the choreographer is shaping during her residency at Palm Beach Community College. The college’s Duncan Theatre received an $80,455 grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation and the Doris Duke Trust, part of which paid for the development of the dance. Right now, “Rites 2000” is a series of stand-alone pieces that may be supplemented by spoken text.

“Rites” has received $20,000 in backing from AT&T; and two grants totaling $32,700 from the National Dance Project, a division of the New England Foundation for the Arts. Six commissioners--Cal State Chico, UC Santa Cruz, Pittsburgh Dance Council, Utah’s Summit Institute and the Duncan and UCLA--contributed an additional $7,000 apiece.

Washington’s experiment with classical dance has increased her artistic range. After 20 years of ups and downs, it was a vote of confidence, a coming of age.

“Though it hasn’t been easy, I’ve had a good time and touched a lot of people through dance,” she says. “In the end, it’s your choice: how much of a price you’re willing to pay.”

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The Lula Washington Dance Theatre will perform “Rites 2000,” “Mahal Dancers” and “Death and Eros” at UCLA’s Royce Hall, Friday at 8 p.m. $15-$30; $10 for UCLA students. (310) 827-2101.

The troupe will also perform at Cal State Long Beach’s Carpenter Theatre on March 18, the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on Aug. 5 and the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State L.A. on Dec. 30.