Better, Not More.

IT IS ONE of the virtually unquestioned shibboleths of our world that what dance really needs nowadays is more choreographers. Where have all the choreographers Gone? they wail. Where is the creativity of yesteryear, melted like snows? Let's have more choreographic workshops! Let's give young choreographers a better deal! New ballets, new programs--that's the ticket to sell tickets. That is the way to maintain the health, the very lifeblood of dance.

Well, yes ... I suppose so. But might there not be a contrary voice? Might we not have too many choreographers rather than too few? Of course, there again, to get those few good choreographers you may have to winnow them out from under an awful lot, indeed a positively deplorable lot, of bad choreographers. It's a problem, isn't it?

Let's take a quick look at history--or at least the late lamented twentieth century. One of the most important dance companies of that century was the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, which functioned, in effect, for twenty years, from 1909 to 1929. During those two decades Diaghilev substantially used only five choreographers--Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Leonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, and George Balanchine. New York City Ballet's Diamond Project can get through that number in six weeks! The better-funded Stuttgart Ballet can move through them even faster!

Take, then, modern dance. From its beginnings in 1929 until Martha Graham's death in 1991, the Martha Graham Dance Company had only Graham herself as choreographer, with the exception of two works in the 1950s by Erick Hawkins. The repertory of the Jose Limon Dance Company was, until Limon's death, provided entirely by Limon himself and the company's original artistic director, Doris Humphrey.

Perhaps these two examples are a tad unfair, for American modern dance has always functioned creatively as if it were the atelier of a Renaissance painter, with students learning their craft and leaving to pursue their own ways. Thus Merce Cunningham, Hawkins, and Paul Taylor, among others, left Graham, while Pauline Koner, Louis Falco, and others came from Humphrey and Limon.

Still today, right now, the theaters, large and small, all over the country, are inundated with choreographers and choreography. Count up, simply in New York, the number of choreographers who ply their wares over any average year. And truth to say, are the general standards of all that bountiful choreography particularly high?

Admittedly the quality of dancing is often terrific. Sheer technique, especially perhaps in modern dance, has improved exponentially over the last thirty or forty years. However, has the benchmark of choreography kept abreast of it? Certainly a few of what we might call the post-Cunningham/Taylor generations have proved impressive. But for every Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones, and Garth Fagan there seem to be dozens of choreographers, often, handled gently by fans and critics alike, whose work in somber truth is merely an extension of their egos and an imposition upon the public.

Look sanely at all the choreographers of the twentieth century --classic and modern. Very few have left much of a mark, and even fewer have left a heritage. There are special reasons for this--the works of choreographers are infinitely harder to preserve than those of writers, painters, and composers. All the same, let's be frank about it, the number of works we would want to preserve is not enormous, and even the number of choreographers deemed worth considering for a classic dance repertory is hardly vast. Still ...

There are two points to be made here. The first is about workshops. Yes, of course, I was cheeky to City Ballet's Diamond Project--it's admirable. Young choreographers must have an arena in which to learn their craft, particularly as they are dealing with those most expensive of all materials: the human body, rehearsal time, and studio space.

I think it would also be helpful if modern dance had some kind of pool of splendid dancers, upon which choreographers could work and experiment. The present system by which they go off and form their own companies is wasteful of resources, dilutes the quality offered audiences, and often confuses amateurism and professionalism.

One of the difficulties the dance faces--and here comes my second point--is the very idea that something new is almost invariably, intrinsically better than something old. Imagine what would be the result if our orchestras and concert halls, or opera companies and opera houses, adopted the same policy. The results would not be happy. Yet that is virtually what happens in dance.

Of course we need new choreographers, more choreographers--always. But we need choreographers of genius, if possible, and, failing genius, a certain competency would be welcome, men and women with something to say rather than the mere wish to say something. Meanwhile we should also jealously maintain and preserve our choreographic past.

It was interesting that on the occasion of the millennium and all the lists it launched, surely so many more than even Helen's ships, those dealing with the great names of classic ballet in the twentieth century were almost always all agreed upon, tactfully alphabetically: Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Antony Tudor. City Ballet and the Balanchine Foundation have done miracles for the preservation of Balanchine, and the company seems geared up to do the same for Robbins.

Ashton and Tudor are not in such good shape, and how about Fokine and Massine? It seems as though Martha Graham is going to be passed on as a heritage repertory, and perhaps Jose Limon. Why don't we have modern dance companies across the country that are not the playthings of some ambitious yet not notably talented choreographer and an attendant, rather more talented fundraiser, but troupes dedicated to showing a range of modern dance classics as well as some new works, from various people, blended into a repertory, as it might be in a classical ballet company.

Before we cry bitter salt tears over the lack of new ballets, why don't we make certain that we take better care of our old ballets?

It's just an idea.

Senior editor Clive Barnes, who covers dance and theater for the New York Post, has contributed to Dance Magazine since 1956.