GRAHAM SCHOOL MAY REOPEN WITH $750,000 OFFER.

Amid the stalemate between the Martha Graham Center and its former director, Ron Protas, the promise of a grant could allow the Martha Graham School to reopen in temporary quarters as early as this winter. At a press conference October 30 at the New York site of the former Martha Graham School on East 63rd Street, board member Francis Mason revealed the encouraging news. New York State Senator Roy Goodman proposed a state capital-fund grant of $750,000 to help the school reopen, provided that private donors could match that figure.

"My impression ... was that Martha Graham's teachings are perishable," said Goodman. "They have a limited shelf life." To keep the school going, he said, "it is imperative to try to do something as best we can."

Board president Marvin Preston expressed confidence that the private grant money could be raised. Mason said the state funds would be used to remodel the new school space, which will include three studios and administrative offices, in the basement of the new building where the Martha Graham School once existed. Architect Hugh Hardy, who designed the Joyce Theater in Manhattan, will oversee the project, which may be ready for dance classes as early as June.

The conflict between Protas (who controls the rights to Graham's dances) and the Martha Graham Center is still not resolved, leaving open the question about the center's rights to teach and perform those ballets. Attorneys from both sides were working to resolve the matter, Mason said. "There is no black and white answer to who owns what here," he said. "Martha Graham knew that what she taught was in the bones of the dancers she worked with and that the dancers themselves were the best conveyors of that art."

The Graham company has requested an international boycott of the licensing and performance of all Graham ballets until Protas has come to an agreement with the Graham company. In an effort to inform the dance public about their request, the troupe's twenty-two members sent out a letter outlining their intentions to major dance companies in July. (The letter is posted on the Web site, www.marthagrahamdancers.org) "What has emerged since July is an enormous groundswell of support which every day continues to grow," said Graham dancer Christine Dakin. Letters championing the dancers' cause have been received from as far away as Turkey, Israel and Brazil, according to Janet Eilber, the Graham company's designated artistic director.

In addition, Eilber said, "our dancers are planning an informational leafleting, stating their position and asking for support." Members of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) distributed leaflets at Chicago's Auditorium Theater during the October performances of Appalachian Spring by the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. American Ballet Theatre's management has agreed to supply inserts with statements about the company's decision to perform Diversion of Angels into ABT's fall programs.

Former Graham dancer Takako Asakawa, who set Diversion of Angels on ABT, had signed the boycott letter and has since issued a statement to the artistic community to explain "what appears to be a conflict of interest on my part," as she put it. Asakawa already had been contracted to mount Diversion of Angels for a specific period of time when she signed the boycott letter, an act prompted by what she called her "complete agreement with the goals of the dancers to preserve the Martha Graham Center," including the Graham company's need to set the standard for all other companies that license Graham works. Upon completion of her duties with ABT, Asakawa said, "I plan to honor my signature by refraining from participation in the mounting of any Graham work until the Martha Graham Center is revived." Former Graham dancer Yuriko, who set Appalachian Spring on the Joffrey, had no comment at press time.

In order to help preserve the Graham tradition during a difficult period for the company, Eilber has initiated a thorough documentation of interviews with former Graham dancers for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. "I have been telling the Library that their collection was incomplete," said Eilber, "because they had the physical attributes of Martha's legacy, but until they had the emotional images and the directorial images that Martha used, a real overview of her creative way of thinking, their collection really would suffer." Eilber emphasized that the generations most in need of documentation are the dancers who worked with Graham at the height of her creativity in the 1940s and 1950s, many of whom have been exiled from the company by Protas for almost thirty years. Among those to be interviewed are Mary Hinkson, Bertram Ross, Ethel Winter, Pearl Lang, May O'Donnell, Helen McGehee, Peter Sparling and Sophie Maslow.