TRANSITIONS.

DR. INGRID BRAINARD, 74, distinguished musicologist and dance historian, died in West Newton, Massachusetts, on February 18. Born Ingrid Kahrstedt in 1925 in Gottingen, Germany, she came to the U.S. in 1960. Since 1983, she had taught dance history and music history through the dance division of the Boston Conservatory.

Her chief interest was the study and reconstruction of early Renaissance dance performance, but her writings included articles on the history of dancing in the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, along with the costumes, theater and iconography of the periods. Her articles were published in Die Musikforschung, the Dance Research Journal and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. She was an advisor to the International Encyclopedia of Dance, published by Oxford University Press, and contributed twenty-eight articles to the volumes.

As founder and director of the Cambridge Court Dancers, a position she had held since 1969, she delighted in performing as well as setting the dances, designing and sewing the authentic costumes. The troupe's repertory included dances from the court, ballroom and theater, c. 1400 to 1850.

Brainard received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Gottingen in Germany. She was also a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Studies, an artist-in-residence at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and guest teacher for many of the Early Music and Dance Institutes. She served on the board of directors of the Congress of Research in Dance, prior to being elected its chair in 1978. She is survived by a son, Christopher.

Iris Fanger

NIKOLAI KOVMIR, 53, a former principal dancer with the Kirov Ballet and a contemporary of Mikhail Baryshnikov, died from causes related to severe multiple sclerosis in February. During his career, Kovmir danced leading and character roles in numerous ballets, including Le Corsaire, Creation of the World, Giselle, La Sylphide and Roland Petit's Notre-Dame de Paris.

Kovmir was born in 1947 in Sverdlovsk Russia; he and his family later moved to Kiev where he studied at the Kiev Choreographic School from 1956 to 1966. Initially, he was not rated among the best pupils in junior classes, because of a bad back. It took only a year for Kovmir to strengthen his back without special equipment or treatment. For the next two years, he worked in the Kiev Theater of Opera and Ballet. At age 21, he began advanced studies at Leningrad's Vaganova Choreographic School. His teacher was Alexander Pushkin, who was also Rudolf Nureyev's teacher.

In 1969, Kovmir won third place in a ballet competition in Moscow. In 1970 he joined the Kirov Ballet. He first performed as Basil in Don Quixote. Kovmir danced with Nureyev when he returned to Leningrad after a twenty-eight-year absence.

M. JEAN TEPSIC, Ph.D., 51, the artistic director of Atlantic Dance/NY, died of cancer December 24, 1999, at New York's Bellevue Hospital.

"Dr. J," as she was known, served as dance professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and as an artist-in-residence with Project R.E.A.D. and Ta Da! in the New York City public schools. A respected lecturer on dance education in the public schools, she recently addressed the World Dance Alliance in Vancouver, B.C.

Tepsic's works were showcased in two regional ballet festivals, and her choreography remains in the repertories of six dance companies. As a director, she choreographed, staged and directed over 100 dance works, operas and musicals. Tepsic operated Atlantic Dance Studios and Atlantic Dance Company in Volusia County, Florida, with her partner, the late Mary W. Hall, and choreographed the first two seasons at Florida's Summer Music Theater (now Seaside Music Theater in Daytona Beach).

Born in Sanford, Florida, Tepsic received early dance and music training at the Cincinnati (Ohio) Conservatory of Music. She earned a B.F.A. in dance and theater from Texas Christian University, an M.M. in dance composition/performance from Florida State University, and a Ph.D. with distinction in aesthetics and dance history from New York University.

She held a professorship at Minnesota's College of St. Teresa and chaired the dance program at Georgia's Brenau University, tripling the enrollment and creating the Brenau Dance Ensemble.

She is survived by her mother, Marjorie Cogburn Tepsic of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and by her companion of 25 years, Sarah W. Timberlake of New York.

SUZANNE GALLO, 46, a longtime costume designer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, died of cancer February 19 at her home in Manhattan.

Gallo, a Brooklyn native, earned her bachelor's degree in theater and textiles from the State University of New York College at Oneonta. Shortly after graduating, Gallo plunged into the entertainment scene in Atlantic City, New Jersey, taking a position as head of the costume shop for Resorts International.

In 1982, after several years of fashioning skimpy outfits from feathers and rhinestones, Gallo returned to New York and joined the Cunningham troupe as a costume builder and wardrobe supervisor. During the winter of 1992-93, Cunningham gave Gallo her first opportunity to design the costumes herself, thus marking a period of transition for the company. Cunningham had customarily employed artists from outside the theater world to handle design, with Gallo supplying construction expertise, but for the 1993 premiere of Doubletoss, he took a chance on Gallo as a creator.

After the success from that gesture of trust, Gallo's career took flight. Following Doubletoss, she also designed Ground Level Overlay, Windows, Installations, Rondo, Pond Way and Biped, and was frequently asked to build costumes for companies and artists, including the White Oak Dance Project, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Hispanico, Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk and others. Aaron Copp, a longtime collaborator in his role as lighting designer for the Cunningham company, said of Gallo: "Her costumes had a natural affinity for light and movement." Pond Way, in particular, was hailed by critics and colleagues alike. The New York Times's Anna Kisselgoff called it a work of "unabashed visual impact," in which images of a watery wonderland join the "kinetic and the painterly ... into one of [the Cunningham troupe's] most inventively poetic works."

Another of Gallo's prominent achievements, and one Copp speculates that Gallo cherished most, was the phenomenally experimental Biped, which combines computerized, animated figures with live dancers. Gallo and Copp worked closely with digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar for more than a year before Biped's New York premiere in 1999.

"She was a creator," said Copp. She made clothing, even wedding dresses, for friends and was "legendary in the kitchen," finding joy in serving Italian feasts for loved ones. She also was a legend behind the scenes at the Cunningham company, where she was known affectionately as "Shazam."

Gallo is survived by her parents, Frank and Joan Gallo of Lakewood, New Jersey, and three brothers, Anthony of Levittown, New York, Steven of Lindenhurst, New York, and Philip of Manhattan.

Susan Dyer