OBITUARIES.

Viola Farber, 67, modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 24, 1998.

Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Farber was reared in the United States, where she studied ballet with Margaret Craske and Alfredo Corvino and modern dance with Merce Cunningham and Katherine Litz. She was a member of the Cunningham company, performed with Litz and Paul Taylor, and was the artistic director of the Viola Farber Dance Company from 1968 to 1985.

From 1981 to 1983 she was the artistic director of the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, France, and then taught at the London Contemporary Dance School from 1984 to 1987. She returned to the United States in 1988 to direct the dance program at Sarah Lawrence College.

Alla Shelest, 79, a major Russian ballerina of the 1940s and 50s and the former wife of Yuri Grigorovich, died in St. Petersburg on December 7, 1998.

She graduated from the Kirov's school in 1937 and spent twenty-six years with the company, taking solo roles from the start.

Nancy Van Norman Baer, 55, curator of theater and dance at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, died there of cancer on October 27, 1998.

A San Diego native, she studied dance at Mills College and received a bachelor's degree in art history from Berkeley. She organized exhibitions on Loie Fuller (1970) and Anna Pavlova (1981) at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Further shows included "Bronislava Nijinska: A Dancer's Legacy" (1986), which led to Baer's receipt of the first of two "Izzy" awards; and shows on Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Russian avant-garde design, and the Ballets Suedois, among many others. A book of essays, edited with Lynn Garafola, The Ballets Russes and Its World, will shortly be published by Yale University Press.

Lynn Garafola

Kyra Nijinsky, the oldest daughter of Vaslav Nijinsky, died in San Rafael, California, on September 1, 1998.

Born in Vienna in 1914, she danced with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, appeared with the Max Reinhardt theater company in Berlin, and was a ballet mistress and choreographer at the Budapest opera and in Florence, Italy. Divorced from the noted conductor Igor Markevitch, she moved to California in the 1950s, where she painted and wrote poetry. She was the subject of Robert Dornhelm's 1981 documentary film She Dances Alone, featuring Patrick Dupond and Max von Sydow.

Nina Youshkevitch Johnson, 77, dancer, ballet teacher, and reconstructor, died in New York City of complications from cancer on November 3, 1998.

Born in Odessa, Ukraine, she studied with Olga Preobrajenska and others in Paris and became a leading dancer for Bronislava Nijinska. In the United States she was a ballerina of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and danced Aurora in the first American full-length Sleeping Beauty. She began teaching in 1947 for Nijinska and taught in New York City for many years, as well as choreographing extensively. She reconstructed lost works of Nijinska, including Bolero and Chopin Concerto, whose central role she had created.

Marilyn Hunt

Enrique Martinez, 72, dancer and regisseur, died on November 17, 1998.

Born in Havana, he was engaged by Lucia Chase for American Ballet Theatre, where he remained for 33 years. Starting in the corps de ballet, he advanced to soloist, eventually becoming assistant ballet master, ballet master, regisseur, and assistant director. He later staged and choreographed ballets around the United States as well as in Europe and Latin America.

Aleksandr Bogatyrev, 49, a former Bolshoi star who was until recently the company's acting artistic director, died in Moscow on October 11, 1998.

Clayton (Peg Leg) Bates, 91, a tap dancer who became a star despite having only one leg, died in his hometown of Fountain Inn, South Carolina, on December 6, 1998.

ALSO NOTED: Protima Gauri Bedi, 49, dancer, actress, and founder of the Nrityagram dance ensemble and school in India, in a mudslide there, August 19, 1998; Nancy Topf, 55, choreographer, dancer, and teacher, in the crash of Swissair Flight 111 over Nova Scotia, September 2, 1998; Marius Goring, 86, the British actor best known as Moira Shearer's romantic interest in the film The Red Shoes, in West Sussex, England, September 30, 1998; Gary Lisz, 44, ballet, theater, and film costume designer, in New York City, August 11, 1998; Bill Cratty, 47, choreographer and dancer, in London, September 9, 1998; Renate Schottelius, 77, doyenne of Argentine modern dance, in Buenos Aires, September 27, 1998; Elfriede Mahler, 81, American dancer, choreographer, teacher, and artistic director, in Guantanamo, Cuba, June 1, 1998; Evelyn Sabin, 90, who performed with the Martha Graham dance company in the mid-1920s, in New York City, October 29, 1998; Eva Rolf, ballet dancer and teacher, in Santa Rosa, California, May 2, 1998; James C. McIntyre, 49, arts fund-raiser, in Saylorsburg, Pa., May 15, 1998; Harrison Muller, 71, Broadway dancer, choreographer, and sales and marketing executive, in Valhalla, New York, June 10, 1998; Gwynne Ashton, dancer, teacher, and choreographer, in Tallahassee, Florida, August 30, 1998; Patricia Richards, Canadian modern dancer, teacher, and choreographer, June 24, 1998; Jayne Turner, 62, dancer, choreographer, and actress, in New York City, February 13, 1998; Fred Golden, 83, Tony Award--winning theatrical advertising man, in New York City, July 3, 1998; Dorothy Samachson, 83, writer on dance, October 26, 1997; Alicia Parla, 84, who had a brief career as International Queen of the Rumba, in Miami, October 6, 1998; Clifford Ferre, 75, a dancer, in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, summer 1997; Zelda Cameron (Selma Cohen), 80, dancer and dance critic, in Baltimore, September 2, 1998; Tommy Gomez, 77, soloist with Katherine Dunham, in Chicago, October 29, 1998; Lucille Ellis, 79, founding member of Dunham's company, in Chicago, November 12, 1998; Gina Blau, 92, classical Indian dancer, in New York City, October 23, 1998; Ted Hershey, 40, former principal dancer for Hartford Ballet, in New York City, November 16, 1998; Anatol Joukowsky, 92, dancer and teacher, in Menlo Park, California, October 5, 1998; Alexandra Sawicka, 85, ballet dancer and teacher, in San Rafael, California, November 2, 1998.