M. Delamo; Dancer for Martha Graham

Mario Delamo, a prominent member of the Martha Graham Dance Company in the 1970s, died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of hepatitis and liver failure. He was 55.

Delamo was born in Havana on Jan. 30, 1946. He began his association with Graham in 1972, after working with Norman Walker’s modern dance company in 1969 and the Alvin Ailey troupe starting in 1970.

Delamo’s early studies with such modern dance pioneers as May O’Donnell, Gertrude Schurr and Walker gave him a technique remarkable for its purity. In the Graham repertory, he danced such major roles as St. Michael in “Seraphic Dialogue”; the Penitent in “El Penitente”; Jason in “Cave of the Heart”; and the dual assignment of a fierce messenger from the underworld and the nasty, seductive Aegisthus in “Clytemnestra.”

In 1978, Graham choreographed the star duet “Ecuatorial” for Delamo and Yuriko Kimura. A Times review later the same year praised the “maximum force and conviction” they gave the work in performances at UCLA. In addition, Delamo was reportedly the only dancer of his generation to receive a letter from Graham officially authorizing him to teach her dance technique.

Graham periodically assigned Delamo to work with important guest stars on their roles--Rudolf Nureyev in “Lucifer” (1975) and Liza Minnelli in “The Owl and the Pussycat” (1978)--and sent him to Israel in the mid-1970s to restage her dance drama “Circe” for the Bat Dor Company.

After leaving Graham’s company in 1979, Delamo ran a successful glassware boutique in West Hollywood, but sources at the Martha Graham Trust said he recently renewed his interest in the dance world and made plans to again teach, coach and restage Graham’s works.

Ron Protas, Graham’s heir and the artistic director of the trust, said it will establish a scholarship in Delamo’s name this year as part of the celebrations of the Graham diamond jubilee.