A SOLOIST'S STEADY PARTNERS.

As teacher and performer, Risa Steinberg honors giants of modern dance

When Risa Steinberg dances, you are drawn into the power of her focus. She is a soloist who is never alone on stage; the ancestors of modern dance come to life in her sensitive performances. At five feet tall, her stature belies her emotional power as a dancer and passionate voice as a teacher. At 51, with a dance career that spans thirty years, she comes from another time, far from the experiences of most young dancers today. But she is deeply in touch with what is current, and her repertoire extends from the beginnings of American modern dance to the present.

Steinberg is not a choreographer. Enlivening the work of other artists through teaching and performing is her gift. She is internationally known for setting Jose Limon's works on dance companies, but never has felt the urge to make her own dances. While many dancers view choreography as the next step in their professional development, Steinberg has relied on the relationship between teaching and performing to continually challenge herself as a dancer. This is evident in "A Celebration of Dance," Steinberg's concert of solos that spans almost a century of dance. It will be presented in New York City for the first time by The Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, March 22-25. Looking both to the past and to the future, the program is a testament to Steinberg's tenacity and performing range.

Steinberg attended New York City's High School for the Performing Arts (now LaGuardia) from 1964 to 1967 and the Juilliard School from 1967 to 1971. When Martha Hill suggested to Limon that Steinberg would look marvelous as the young girl in Doris Humphrey's Day on Earth, she joined the Limon Company upon graduating and soon danced solo roles--for adults. Recalling her reasons for leaving, Steinberg said, "You get quickly typed. For practical reasons, it's important to the company to be able to work quickly." After eleven years, she felt there were other parts of herself that needed to be explored. "Those were the days of seniority and succession," she said. "I was 33 years old, and the repertory for the next season had just been decided. I was going to be doing the same thing I had done the previous season. I chose to leave right then. Even I was shocked at my decision. But it felt almost embarrassing to do the same thing again. I was no longer learning from the works, so there was no reason to stay."

After Limon, Steinberg worked with Annabelle Gamson, who encouraged her to investigate the art of solo dancing. Gamson, a well-known interpreter of the works of Isadora Duncan, became Steinberg's mentor. According to Carla Maxwell, artistic director of the Limon Company, "Annabelle dramatically changed Steinberg's performance career. She helped Risa focus on her talents in a new context and helped a marvelous artist find her own voice." For Steinberg, the most important lesson learned was that solo performance must have a strong point of view, a context based on the dances, not the performer.

Steinberg's first solo concert, in 1986, consisted of works by Duncan, Eleanor King, Limon and Anna Sokolow, whom she worked with while she was at Juilliard. "She was my artistic mother," said Steinberg. "While I am influenced by many people, there is something about Anna's work I feel born into. It speaks of the way I see the world. The density of emotion, the delicate balance between pain and pleasure. I loved having to arch my head back almost to the point where it hurt."

After several years Steinberg began to feel tired of herself on stage. "I was feeling like a museum. I didn't want to be an educational project. I was either going to retire or figure out a way to push the performing envelope." She and Wally Cardona, one of her former students from Juilliard, decided to work together and see what their different perspectives could generate. "I had this distant memory of Risa doing `Limon arms,'" said Cardona, "so I put her flat on her back and asked her to do something that was already in her body." Cardona created a new solo for Steinberg, a rigorous postmodern piece that challenged her in new ways and renewed her excitement for performing.

Steinberg has taught three generations of dancers. Today, she is a member of the guest faculty at Juilliard. She has taught all over the United States and Canada, as well as in Europe, Israel and Taiwan. "Teaching has kept me engaged in performing more than anything else; it's always been parallel to my performance career," she said. "When I teach, I am who I am, inside-out, and I love sharing that." Benjamin Harkarvy, director of the Dance Division at Juilliard, said Steinberg "has the capacity to make a dancer feel as if he or she is alone in the room with her. She doesn't try to imprint herself on her students, but teaches them how to learn." Indeed, for Steinberg dance is about communication: "I enjoy the physicality, but only if it is really communicating something, breaking the wall."

The program for "A Celebration of Dance" reflects this philosophy. The repertoire for the New York season tentatively includes Duncan's Bacchanale (1904), Doris Humphrey's Two Ecstatic Themes (1931), Limon's A Choreographic Offering (1964) and Sokolow's Kaddish (1945), as well as works choreographed for Steinberg by Colin Connor, Cardona, Sean Curran and Ann Carlson. Carlson, an experimental choreographer and performance artist, was delighted to note that "it will be the first time that Risa will speak on stage during a performance." Laurie Uprichard, executive director of Danspace Project, said she feels it's important, particularly for younger audiences, to see this program because it "imparts dance history as a living thing."

One of Steinberg's favorite parts of performing is the question-and-answer sessions following her concerts. During a recent Q&A, Steinberg said, she realized she'd been dancing for thirty years. "I used to be the same age as my students, then like an older sister. Now I am older than their mothers. If I could teach one thing to young dancers, it would be that when you make your first hundred dollars, put ten away. This is a profession you can do for a really long time if the fates are with you, but it's not a profession that takes care of you financially." There is no doubt that the fates are with Risa Steinberg.

Brian McCormick is the dance editor for LGNY (Lesbian and Gay NY).