GRAND DAME OF DANCE DESPITE FINANCIAL WOES, LULA WASHINGTON STAYS ON HER TOES.

Byline: Reed Johnson Staff Writer

It's been one of those mornings - no, one of those years, for Lula Washington and her husband, Erwin.

A few hours earlier, one of the family cars stalled, forcing Washington to rent a set of wheels to drive to her Mid-City dance studio.

When the award-winning choreographer arrives, 45 minutes late and apologizing profusely, her handsome young troupe is well into its warm- ups, shedding clothes as they bend and stretch to Stevie Wonder's ``As'' followed by a smattering of New Age harp.

The sprawling studio, which rents for a hefty $3,500 a month, is homebase for Lula Washington Dance Theatre, though it wasn't intended to be. Six years ago, the Washingtons were preparing to inaugurate their dance company's new permanent residence in the West Adams neighborhood when the Northridge Earthquake leveled the building.

Now, as Lula Washington Dance Theatre prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary with a Friday performance at UCLA's Royce Hall, its founder and namesake faces a paradox: Coming off a highly successful year in which it toured 35 cities and reaped accolades from The New York Times and other publications, the company is still struggling to cope with financial straits stemming from the 1994 temblor.

Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded it a $1.3 million grant, Lula Washington Dance Theatre is still wading through bureaucratic red tape before it can start the rebuilding process. Meanwhile, other commercial developers have been ambitiously eying the vacant lot.

``We should have a movie about the saga of this building,'' says Washington, 49, managing a rueful laugh.

But if the company's financial future still is on shaky ground, Washington herself is determined to keep moving artistically.

After working for most of her career in an Afrocentric dance idiom that merges modern, jazz and tap techniques, Washington will use the UCLA appearance to unveil ``Rites 2000,'' her first piece set to a classical score. The roughly 30-minute, non-narrative work - another departure for Washington - explores various life rituals, including love and marriage, through the music of Vivaldi, Bach, John Tavener and Stravinsky (though not the composer's ``Rite of Spring,'' to which Washington's work is unrelated).

``Alvin Ailey, before he died, told me I should do something classical and I just brushed it off,'' Washington says, referring to the modern dance icon.

`` 'Rites 2000' is almost a personal rite of passage in a sense because it's me challenging myself choreographically to work to classical music, because I've never done that before. I wanted to see if I could connect to classical music, if I could put my movement style to classical music. This is something outside of the box for me, outside my comfort zone.''

The UCLA program also will include the world premiere of ``Death and Eros'' by Donald McKayle, a choreographer whose works Washington's company has performed frequently. (Both Washington and McKayle recently were awarded $30,000 dance fellowships by the James Irvine Foundation, which they partly used to develop these new pieces.) Set to original music by Jon Magnusson, McKayle's work is based on an Inuit tale, ``The Legend of the Skeleton Woman,'' about a fisherman whose love restores a woman to life.

The evening will conclude with Washington's 1998 ``Mahal Dances,'' which she describes as ``a fun, earthy piece'' set to music by Taj Mahal. Later this year, the company will mark its anniversary with additional performances at California State University, Long Beach's Carpenter Theatre (March 18), the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre (Aug. 5) and the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at California State University, Los Angeles (Dec. 30).

An Arkansas native, Washington migrated to Watts with her family when she was 5 years old. Raised in the Nickerson Gardens housing project, she was the eldest of eight siblings, whose parents were a Bethlehem Steel worker and a house cleaner.

After graduating from high school (where she met Erwin, her future husband and the company's executive director), Washington enrolled in junior college and took her first dance classes. It was during that time she first saw Ailey's company performing at UCLA, including his striking protege Judith Jamison. Washington says she knew then she had to become a dancer.

``They were like me,'' she recalls. ``I had only seen dance on television, and there were no black dancers on TV.''

Washington went on to earn a master's degree in dance from UCLA and to found Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre (as the group originally was known) in 1980. Initially, it had been formed to choreograph dances for a dance medicine symposium at Royce Hall, but Washington persisted in keeping the company together after the symposium ended.

While the company has always been multiethnic, the African-American experience has been the keystone of its aesthetic. Washington's signature works include ``Tasting Muddy Waters,'' a 15-minute solo piece inspired by the life of the Gullah slave descendants of the coastal Carolinas, and ``What About Watts?'' a 1996 piece triggered by her nephew's gang-related murder. A more whimsical work, ``L.A. View,'' playfully spoofs local customs, making use of Hula-Hoops and snatches of marathon dancing.

During the company's recent outing at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan, New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff praised its ``remarkably vivid mix of purity and dynamism.'' Kisselgoff also noted the ``star presence'' of ``two eye-riveting performers,'' Nabachwa Ssensalo, and Tamica Washington, Lula and Erwin's 29-year-old daughter. A number of Washington's young performers have since moved on to productive careers with other modern dance companies and to Broadway shows like ``Ragtime.''

As for Washington and her husband, they remain hopeful they'll be able to rebuild in West Adams.

``When we first moved in there, we had to climb over the drug addicts,'' Washington says. ``So we were instrumental in cleaning up that area.''

Now if they can only get their sometimes inattentive hometown to notice what the rest of the world already has.

``Because it (L.A.) is such a busy place, in order for something to have an impact, it's like television - I can see why they have commercials,'' Washington says. ``I think the arts have to be like that. I think we have to be hitting on people all the time.''

THE FACTS

--What: Lula Washington Dance Theatre.

--Where: Royce Hall, UCLA, Westwood.

--When: 8 p.m. Friday.

--Tickets: $30, $22, $15; $10 for UCLA students with ID. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) ``It's me challenging myself choreographically to work to classical music, because I've never done that before,'' says Lula Washington of her new work, ``Rites 2000,'' which will have its premiere Friday night at UCLA's Royce Hall.

(2) The Lula Washington Dance Theatre rehearses for its UCLA performance, a celebration of the troupe's 20th anniversary.

Lilly Barrett/Special to the Daily News