Latest News, Reviews, & Views

The Buzz, 6-1 (Headline Corrected): Point of Crossing
Graham Debate: 'Inflammatory Writing' or Terminal Patient?
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006 The Dance Insider

Responding to a recent column in which I proposed dissolving the troubled Martha Graham Dance Company to concentrate on preserving and promulgating Graham's dances, Francis Mason, chairman of the Graham board, writes to complain of "inflammatory writing at long distance about an American treasure."

I stand by my column, and by its fidelity to the Dance Insider's mission of giving a voice to dancers, building the dance audience, and telling stories not told elsewhere. Click here to read the full article..

The Buzz, 5-30: Deaths & Entrances
For Martha to Live, her Company must be Dissolved
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006 The Dance Insider

It's time to face an uncomfortable reality: The Martha Graham Dance Company -- at 80 the oldest modern dance troupe in the world -- has more or less been cursed since its founder died 15 years ago. Instead of being able to devote 100 percent of their efforts, talent, and money to simply preserving Graham's work, the dancers, funders, and administrators that guard her legacy have seen their energies dissipated and distracted by legal battles, fratricidal struggles for control, and more. Under its current leadership, the company has been reduced to lecture demonstrations -- if we have to explain the work of Martha Graham, God help the rest of modern dance -- and, soon to come, the cruise ship circuit. Its artistic director cannot even be bothered to live on the same coast as her dancers, and disdains rehearsing them. The company stands on the brink of extinction and -- let's be honest -- there are people, including dancers, who have no idea who Martha Graham is. This is the reality. Click here to read the full article..

The Buzz, 5-16: Canticle for Innocent Artistic Directors
Graham Chronicles: The Banished Mothers & the Absentee Parent

"At base this seems to have been a power struggle, which we did not know was being fought. We were too busy working, and we have lost."

-- Christine Dakin & Terese Capucilli, former artistic directors of the Martha Graham Dance Company, in ArtsCure.

"Janet... is in New York at least once a month."

-- LaRue Allen, executive director, Martha Graham Center, on current artistic director Janet Eilber.

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006 The Dance Insider

For nearly a year now, we have been waiting for Francis Mason, chairman of the board of directors of the Martha Graham Center, to explain to the world why the board fired the legendary Graham dancers Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin as artistic directors and replaced them with a director, Janet Eilber, who would not even commit to living in the same town as her dancers. (Initially, the board tried to spin the firing as an 'elevation,' a claim quickly torpedoed by Capucilli and Dakin.) Now we finally have a response from LaRue Allen, executive director of the Martha Graham Center. Her statement below is followed by a response from Capucilli and Dakin, and one from me. Click here to read the full article..

The Buzz, 5-10: Diversion of Acolytes
The Graham Debt & the Protas Enablers
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006 The Dance Insider

Lewis Segal of the Los Angeles Times, presumably responding to a recent column critical of the current administering of the Martha Graham Center, sends this note: "Very nice, Paul. All you missed was the fact that the Martha Graham Center had no legal expenses in its battles with (former artistic director Ron) Protas; their attorneys were working pro bono.... Check on it. And look up the salary of their recently departed executive director -- the one responsible for the departure of (artistic directors Christine) Dakin and (Terese) Capucilli."

Unfortunately, my respected colleague is wrong on at least two and probably all of his points. For starters, the Graham Center has been obligated to pay $3 million of the close to $10 million in direct legal charges it incurred defending its -- and the dancers' -- rights to the name and work of Martha Graham from Protas's lawsuits; the rest were donated. Second, the myth of Marvin (Preston)'s exorbitant salary as executive director was a canard thrown up during the trial by a plaintiff, Protas, who didn't have a case on the merits. I'm so sorry that Mr. Segal, perhaps the last reporter in America whose ear Ron Protas still has, has evidently been suckered into believing it. Click here to read the full article..

Flash Review, 4-21: Part Here, Part Gone
Clinging to History with the Graham Company

By Chappelle Chambers
Copyright 2006 Chappelle Chambers

NEW YORK -- The stage at the Skirball Center for the Arts, a venue at New York University's fancy new student center just south of Washington Square, is flanked by two gynormous gold columns. Many artists who play there drape the pillars in black, as they tend to dwarf whatever's going on between them. The Skirball auditorium is steeply raked and has no handrails, a circumstance which posed challenges to the many senior citizens, Graham fans all, who ventured out to the Martha Graham Dance Company's 80th anniversary gala evening Tuesday. For this show, the gold columns just stood there and luminesced. Click here to read the full review..

Flash Response, 4-14: Misdirected
Defending Janet Eilber
A Letter from Christine Jowers
New York City

Dear Paul,

I so strongly disagree with your rant, "Same ol' Lamentation: Vision of the Latest Graham Apocalypse"..., I am compelled to rant back. I think your editorial does a huge disservice to (Martha Graham Dance Company artistic director) Janet Eilber as a person, and as an artist who has dedicated her life to dance and this work in particular.... I read Elizabeth Zimmer's Voice article. I don't see Janet pointing fingers at anyone. She did inherit a mess. That is the truth. That is not putting down former directors Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin at all. They didn't make the mess.... Click here to read the full response..

The Buzz, 4-11: Same ol' Lamentation
Vision of the Latest Graham Apocalypse
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006 The Dance Insider

Well, this is great. Janet Eilber, the artistic director du jour of the Martha Graham entities, is now inferring -- to Elizabeth Zimmer in this week's Village Voice -- that Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin, the Martha Graham Dance Company's strongest pillars during the dark Protas decade, did not have the stuff to change with the times. No, it took Eilber -- who wouldn't even commit to live in the same town as the dancers when she replaced the fired Capucilli and Dakin as director last year -- to lead the oldest and arguably most important modern dance company in the world into a future that quickly assumed the contours of the dustbin of history. Click here to read the full article..

Martha Graham Company and School on Film

The Dance Insider Photo Album
The Martha Graham Dance Company
Photography by Julie Lemberger
Album design by Robin Hoffman

In January 2003, after 17 months of court battles over its very right to exist, the Martha Graham Dance Company returned to the stage for its first full season in close to three years. Our Julie Lemberger was there, at the Joyce Theater in New York City, to record new images from these famous dances. Click here to view the complete Photo Album...

Flash Video, 8-14, 2001: Back to School
Dancers of the Martha Graham School's Summer Intensive
Video courtesy of the Graham School
Music by Geoffrey Armes

The Martha Graham School captured in session in New York City, just after a federal court confirmed its right to its name. Click here to view the video clip...

Martha Graham Onstage

Flash Reviews and essays listed in reverse chronological order, the most recent first.

Flash Essay, 4-6: Shape Shapes Meaning
A Tale of Two Marthas: The Play's the Thing
By Janet Eilber
Text copyright 2005 Janet Eilber
Photography by Cris Alexander and others

NEW YORK -- Martha Clarke's mother, in a prescient moment, decided to name her daughter after Martha Graham. Martha (Clarke) did indeed grow up to become a dancer (and early member of Pilobolus) and choreographer, and to join forces with Martha Graham, whose dance company premieres her "Sueno" for tonight's City Center opening of its New York season. The work, based on etchings by Goya, may seem to be more theater than dance. But those of us who worked closely with the woman who brought dance into the modern era understand that Clarke not only inherited Martha's first name but, like others in dance and theater, her aesthetic legacy. Having observed the previews of "Sueno" in Austin, I was impressed with the way that Clarke broadens our understanding of how contemporary choreographers draw upon and extend Graham's vision.

The actor Tony Randall, a Graham student and devotee, once told me, "People don't realize that Martha changed the course of American theater." He was right. Click here for the full essay...

Flash Review 2, 3-23: Everything's Coming up Marthas
Martha is Back, and Richard's Still Moving
By Brian Schaefer
Copyright 2005 Brian Schaefer

SAN DIEGO -- On a video screen, scenes from dance numbers throughout history are interspersed with dialogue from a variety of films all saying one word: Martha. She is everywhere. Her presence is felt from the voice of Walter Matthau to the hips of Elvis Presley. Charles Atlas's film collage, which opened the March 6 performance of Martha @ the Lyceum Space Theater in downtown San Diego hinted not-so-subtly that Martha Graham's influence is widespread. Her name, her movements, her image, and her persona have endured for more than three quarters of a century and Richard Move is eager to bring them into the next century in his charming homage to the mother of modern dance. Co-presented by La Jolla Music Society and Sushi Performance and Visual Art (whose artistic director, Allyson Green, is also my professor), the performances were part of a three-week American Movement Festival that honored both Martha and Aaron Copland and preceded the actual Martha Graham company by one week. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 1, 3-16: Martha, More than Ever
Making Graham Resonate in 2005
By Allyson Green
Copyright 2005 Allyson Green

SAN DIEGO -- Martha! Martha! Martha! For three weeks the name Martha Graham seemed to be everywhere here. After too long an absence, the La Jolla Music Society (LJMS) presented the Martha Graham Dance Company for only two nights (March 11-12) in the cavernous Copley Symphony Hall. However, the performances were brilliantly couched within the American Movement Festival, celebrating two of the US's most esteemed cultural icons, Graham and Aaron Copland. An array of events produced by various cultural partners took place from February 21 through March 12, giving San Diego audiences a wealth of experiences including chamber music, dance, lectures, master classes, film and even the Richard Move cabaret Martha @. By placing the performances of the company as the finale of the festival, the producers provided audiences with a range of references and experiences to shape the viewing. So by the time the actual company appeared, there was a buzz of anticipation in the air. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 2, 4-27-04: A Graham Primer
The Many Masks of Martha
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2004 Gus Solomons jr

NEW YORK -- Like Program A, Program C of the Martha Graham Dance Company in its two-week City Center season, seen April 21, also closed with "Sketches from Chronicle," a sure winner; "Chronicle" could become for the Graham Company what "Revelations" has become for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater -- its "sine qua non." Click here for the full review...

Flash Review, 4-20-04: The Legacy, Reborn
Ribbon-eating Graham takes Center stage
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2004 Gus Solomons jr

NEW YORK -- It's a good thing Ralph Lauren makes plus sizes. He furnished the elegant gray tweed suit and cape larger-than-life Andre Leon Talley (in his day job, editor-at-large for Vogue Magazine) wears for the current Martha Graham Dance Company City Center season as the narrator in Graham's 1978 ballet "The Owl and the Pussy Cat." (Liza Minnelli originated Talley's role.) Although no one was larger-than-life than Martha Graham herself, this ballet, set to music by Carlos Surinach, is a trifle. Graham's signature movements appear: contracted turns, knee crawls, et al, but as parody in service of a literal miming of the Edward Lear verse about the barnyard pair who elope in a pea-green boat. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review , 11-21-03: Errand Out of the Maze
GRAHAM COMPANY TAKES LONDON IN RETURN TO EUROPE
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2003 Josephine Leask

LONDON -- While London is less than enthusiastic about George Bush's visit this week, it was a different story for the Martha Graham Dance Company. People flocked into the historic Sadler's Wells theater Wednesday from the tense atmosphere on the streets to lose themselves in Martha Graham's renowned emotional landscapes. Graham had a huge influence on dance in the UK and directly inspired the founding of London Contemporary Dance School in the 1960s, so her work has a very special place in the hearts of London dance as well as non-dance audiences. After all the company's trials and tribulations of recent years, it was heartening to see the dancers looking fresh and strong as they took us on a journey back into dance history. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 1, 2-6-03: Of These, History and Hope
Graham Season: And Now the Work
By Alicia Mosier
Copyright 2003 Alicia Mosier

NEW YORK -- The dancers in the Martha Graham Dance Company, which just concluded its two-week season at the Joyce Theater, had an unmistakable look in their eyes: they were making history. For the first time in years, after a harrowing legal battle, some of the most important works of art of the twentieth century were seen again at last in their full glory, before an audience that was as hungry to see them as the dancers were eager to perform them. On each of the three nights I was there, the mood in the jam-packed Joyce was ecstatic. These ballets were being born again before our eyes. They had, at times, the qualities of a newborn; but they are here again, being danced and seen, and that is history and hope. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 1, 1-23-03: Deep Songs
The Martha Graham Dance Company is in the House
By Tom Patrick
Copyright 2003 Tom Patrick
Original Art by Robin Hoffman

NEW YORK -- It was a full supper of dance last night at the Joyce, opening night for the Martha Graham Dance Company, and the program/menu was expansive! The company's repertory for this two-week run is large, and there are plenty of program choices. Act One last night was a quintet of dances from the 1920s and '30s, mostly solos, which were presumably Martha Graham's proving-ground. Ground-breaking stuff, which I'll break down for you by dance: Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 1, 5-10-2002: Indisputably Martha
Graham Company Rises From the Embattled Garden
By Tom Patrick
Copyright 2002 Tom Patrick

NEW YORK -- Wow, what an event this was!

My first dance teacher in college, trying to impart some sense in me regarding the studio-to-stage transition, told me to dance a piece as if it were the first time, with all that life of a spontaneous act, and as if it were the last time, to be savored and honored. In a long-overdue return to the stage, the Martha Graham Dance Company lived on that razor's edge last night at City Center, for a fantastically rich two-and-a-half hours that was over all too soon. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 1, 8-18-2000: Keeping Martha's Spirit Alive
Graham Dancers Without Graham Dances
By Nolini Barretto
Copyright 2000 Nolini Barretto

This is not really a review, just as the free performance at Union Square Park Wednesday by the dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company was not so much a concert as it was a statement of the dancers' position, and a celebration of their unity. Fourteen dancers and seven choreographers from the Graham Company and Ensemble presented their own work to a large and enthusiastic audience of dancers, students, board members, Graham supporters, curiosity seekers and random Union Square wanderers. Tadej Brdnik, Graham Company member and the curator for the evening's performances said the idea and impetus for the concert was not political. However, the title of the evening ("Keeping the Channels Open"), and the opening statement on the program ("We, the dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company, are determined to continue to do what we know and love best -- dancing. This performance is an act of faith for each of us. It represents our collective effort to build a future, in spite of the fact that we have lost our artistic home, are without studio space and lack financial support"), clearly suggests otherwise. Click here for the full review...

Martha Graham in the News

Except for the first entry, articles are listed in chronological order, the earliest first.

Flash Document, 1-18-2001: Who Owns Martha Graham?
Last Will and Testament
By Martha Graham
(As taken from public probate records)

(Editor's note: On Friday, as reported in Flash News, 1-15: Protas Sues, Ron Protas, executor and principal beneficiary of the Martha Graham estate, sued the Martha Graham Center and School over the use of Graham's name, and other claims. In the upcoming case in Federal District Court, just who owns the rights to the works of Martha Graham is likely to be the central question. What follows is Ms. Graham's will, from public probate records. Certain words are unclear in the copy provided to The Dance Insider by the Graham Center. In such cases, we've written "unclear" in parenthesis.)

I, MARTHA GRAHAM, of the County, City and State of New York, make, publish, and declare this to be my last will and testament. Click here for the full article...

Flash Report, 5-27-2000: Graham in Turmoil
Seasons Cancelled, Union Suing
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2000 The Dance Insider

The ongoing tragedy afflicting the Martha Graham company took another dramatic turn yesterday, when the dancers' union announced it will file an unfair labor practice complaint against the company with the National Labor Relations Board after the Graham board announced it was suspending operations and canceling upcoming performances. Click here for the full article...

Flash View, 11-2-2000: Boycott the Graham Trust
Destroying Martha's Legacy
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2000 The Dance Insider

PARIS -- One of the reasons I cried to see Isadora Duncan's ever-so-humble, almost anonymous urn at Pere Lachaise cemetery here was its reminder of the historic lack of recognition accorded Modern Dance. Besides Duncan, only one name is universally recognized outside our circle of dance professionals and afficianados: Martha Graham. Martha's importance goes beyond that of symbol. If Duncan made natural movement legitimate, Graham gave it a technique that guaranteed it would be more than just a form of expression, but one with its own artistic language, equal in technical demand and expressive potential to ballet. A grounding in that technique has become as important to becoming a qualified modern dancer and giving justice to interpreting the works of modern choreographers as ballet training is to ballet dancers. Thus, when the Martha Graham company board suspended operations of both the company and school last summer, citing financial reasons, as tragic as it was to see dancers out of work and audiences deprived of their performances, dance insiders knew that the bigger longterm danger to the field was the closure of the school. So the news this week that the board had found the financial wherewithal to re-open the school at its old headquarters seemed indisputably good. However the board and former director Ron Protas, who owns the ballets, resolved their dispute, at least the training would continue.

So when a press release from the Martha Graham Trust, which Mr. Protas directs, arrived in the e-mail this morning questioning the legitimacy of the school and announcing the trust's plans to try to launch an "authorized" school of its own, it became clear that, whatever he thinks are his intentions, Mr. Protas's actions can have only one result: to destroy forever the legacy of the woman whose work he claims to prize. Click here for the full article...

Flash News, 1-5-2001: But First, a School
Hodes Flies One More Mission for Martha
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001 The Dance Insider

Ask any dancer who spent time at the old Martha Graham School on East 63rd Street, and they'll tell you how special the floor was: smooth, untrammeled by pointe or jazz shoes, easy on the knees -- as you might expect of a floor on which only bare feet had danced for so many years. When the Martha Graham Center sold the building a couple of years back, the dancers were given chunks of that floor, it was so special to them.

Last night, a gathering lead by wily board chairman Francis Mason; foxy executive director Marvin Preston; new head of school Stuart Hodes, a feisty World War II bomber pilot who went on to dance with Martha Graham in the trenches for 11 years, and to chair the dance program at New York University; and at least three other Graham legends christened the spanking-new floor at the Graham Center's newly-leased temporary home in Chelsea good to go. Click here for the full article...

Flash News, 1-15-2001: Protas Sues
Graham Heir Takes Center and School to Court
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001 The Dance Insider

In a showdown as dramatic as any archetypal battle Martha Graham might have dreamed up, the man who owns the rights to her ballets Friday filed suit in Federal District Court in Manhattan to stop the Martha Graham Center and School from using Graham's name, also seeking unspecified damages, The Dance Insider has learned. Click here for the full article...

Flash News & Analysis, 3-24-2001: Who Owns Martha Graham?
Protas Gets His Close Up, and Dancers Get Their Day in Court

"Can you yourself perform the Martha Graham technique?"

-- Dale Cendali, attorney for the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, questioning Ron Protas

"What do you mean, perform?"

-- Ron Protas, Martha Graham's heir, currently suing the Graham Center to stop it from using Graham's name

"You have tried to elicit from Mr. Protas some definition of her technique, without success."

-- Federal Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, to James McGuire, lawyer for Ron Protas

"This trial is going to influence us in our lives: If we can perform the Graham work, or if we should leave: We are still young, we need to dance. That influences our lives now, not the past."

-- Yuko Suzuki, Graham dancer

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001 The Dance Insider

After nearly ten years as the artistic director of the most famous modern dance company in the world, Ron Protas finally got his close-up yesterday on the witness stand in Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, and he wasn't ready for it. And the dancers of the Martha Graham company and ensemble finally got their day in court, as Protas was forced to admit under oath that he could not perform the Martha Graham technique to whose name he claims exclusive rights. Click here for the full article...

Flash News & Analysis, 4-18-2001: Smoking Guns & Low Blows
At Graham Trial, Truth is Outing

"The new corporation purchased on 12/1/56 the existing school of dance which Martha Graham had been carrying on. The corporation agreed to pay Ms. Graham $50,000, and Ms. Graham agreed not to permit the use of her name...in connection with any other school or company."

-- Louis Goodkind, attorney for the Martha Graham Foundation, in a 1957 letter to the Internal Revenue Service

"This is a tremendous New York City-based institution that we believe is the true owner of the rights."

-- Marla Simpson, assistant attorney general, the State of New York

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001 The Dance Insider

Dancers and choreographers, themselves with little financial resources, have often relied on the kindness of strangers: Doctors, dentists, lawyers, publicists, chiropractors, psychotherapists and accountants willing to provide free or discounted services to support the arts. One such unsung hero is Rubin Gorewitz, accountant to Merce Cunningham, Katherine Dunham, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, Twyla Tharp, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg -- and Martha Graham. On Tuesday in a Manhattan courtroom, 45 years after he helped Graham ease her personal tax burden by convincing her to sell her school to a new not-for-profit Martha Graham School, in the process giving it exclusive educational rights to her name, Gorewitz returned to help the school hold onto that name. Click here for the full article...

Flash Analysis, 8-14-2001: Martha is Dead; Long Live Martha
Judge's Ruling Returns Martha to the Dancers

"...Protas is not Martha Graham."

-- Federal District Court Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, August 7, 2001

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001 Paul Ben-Itzak

PARIS -- In rejecting non-dancer Ron Protas's claim that he and he alone owns the name "Martha Graham" and the term "Martha Graham technique," Federal District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum in one swift incision excised a cancer that had gnawed away at the body Graham for years and threatened to destroy the greatest legacy in modern dance, returning that body to the dancers in which Martha truly lives and through which she truly speaks. Click here for the full article...

Flash News, 8-14-2001: The Graham Ruling
Reasons and Reactions
By Darrah Carr
Copyright 2001 Darrah Carr

Though it rained heavily in Manhattan last Friday afternoon, the atmosphere inside the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance was sunnier than it had been in months. "We're out from under a cloud, a malignant cloud," explained Stuart Hodes, Head of School, "A dark force existed and it suddenly appears to no longer exist." Hodes was speaking about the initial outcome of a lawsuit brought against both the Martha Graham School and the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance by Ron Protas, sole heir to Martha Graham, as well as the artistic director of the Martha Graham Trust. The lawsuit, filed last January, challenged the School and Center's right to use Graham's name to describe themselves and the technique that they teach. Protas cited trademark infringement, among other claims, because he had been granted trademark registration for "Martha Graham" and "Martha Graham Technique" in 1995, four years after Graham's death. Click here for the full article...

Flash News, 4-1-2002: Protas Settles
Cedes Graham Ballet Ownership to Company
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

NEW YORK, April 1 -- In a stunning development announced early this morning, April 1, Ron Protas, the principal heir named in Martha Graham's will, announced that he would relinquish his legal claims to Graham's ballets "for the good of dance, and because Martha told me to do so." The last stumbling block to the unexpected concession, dance insiders say, was removed when the Martha Graham Dance Company agreed to let Protas stage a previously undiscovered revision of Graham's 1958 classic, "Clytemnestra," with the heretofore unknown title, "Faster, Clytemnestra! Kill! Kill!" Click here for the full article...

Flash News & Analysis, 4-23-2002: Who Owns Martha Graham, Chapter Two
Judge Tells Courtroom: "I don't know what assets mean with respect to a dance company. The major assets are the dancers."
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

NEW YORK -- The Martha Graham Center entered the trickiest phase of its fight to remain principal custodian of the Martha Graham legacy Monday, setting out to prove in Federal District Court that works created by Graham after 1956 were works for hire, and 22 ballets were in the public domain because films of them don't contain copyright notices. And the retention by Graham heir Ronald Protas of a kinder, gentler lawyer than represented him in the first phase of the trial could make the defendants' sailing over the next two weeks anything but smooth. Click here for the full article...

Flash News & Analysis, 4-25-2002: Protas Takes the Stand
Center: Protas "physically aggressive" with Graham
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

NEW YORK -- The Martha Graham Center has accused Martha Graham heir Ronald Protas of being "physically aggressive with Graham," depriving the mother of Modern Dance of nurses for two days and leaving her "unable to feed or clean herself" after he "learned that Graham had contacted a lawyer in an attempt to change her will." It has also accused him of removing "some of Graham's possessions from her home as she lay dying." Click here for the full article...

Flash News and Analysis, 4-26-2002: Errand into the Legal Maze
If Protas is Defeated, Would Dancers Win the Battle but Lose the War?
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

NEW YORK -- When the Federal District Court trial known as Graham v. Graham resumed in lower Manhattan Monday, the attorney for Ronald Protas emphasized that the trial was about who owned the works, not who deserved to own them. But while lawyers for defendant the Martha Graham Center have produced mountains of documentary evidence meant to support the claim that the former center director does not own many of Graham's ballets, Protas's erratic, ingratiating, spiteful, dissembling, un-mindful, vindictive, simpering and quite possibly demented personality has also been on trial. Click here for the full article...

Flash Responses, 4-29-2002: DI Graham Coverage
Hodes, Swinston, and Helpern Respond

(Editor's note: The following are in response to Flash News and Analysis, 4-26: Errand into the Legal Maze, Friday's report and opinion on the Graham v. Graham trial continuing this week in Federal District Court in Manhattan.)

From Stuart Hodes, legendary Martha Graham dancer and current Dean of Students at the Martha Graham school: "Your excellent trial coverage was marred by its ill-thought-out commentary, posing a scenario with good guy/bad guys roles reversed. Whoever wins, choreographers should learn to do what writers routinely do, mark their material with a copyright symbol. They can also work with their boards about ownership, and specify who inherits what they do in fact own. That will happen whatever the outcome. But if Protas wins, the U.S. loses a precious cultural heritage, make no mistake about that." Click here for the full article...

Flash Opinion, 5-7-2002: The Graham Case
If Protas Wins, Martha Will Die a Second Death
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

SAN FRANCISCO -- Of the 191 ballets created by Modern Dance pioneer Martha Graham over eight decades, only 70 survive. And those ballets could perish forever and Martha Graham's name with them if a federal district court declares former Martha Graham Center director Ron Protas the owner of the ballets. But if Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum buys the Martha Graham Center's argument that it owns the ballets -- or at least those created since 1956, when the center was formed and Graham became its employee -- the rights of other choreographers to the work they created could also be in danger. Click here for the full article...

Flash Preview, 5-9-2002: Beyond Dispute
The Real Owners of Martha Graham Take the Stage
By Nicole Pope
Copyright 2002 Nicole Pope

BENNINGTON, Vermont -- In high school I was told that Martha Graham was the "Mother of Modern Dance." I was shown a video of her classic "Lamentations." That was proof enough for me. The mere mention of Martha Graham's name is what made me decide to attend Bennington College, where Graham was a member of the founding faculty of the summer dance program launched by Martha Hill. Now, I eat dinner one floor below Graham's old studio, which is filled with musical instruments, dusty and unused, and closed off because it is considered a fire hazard. But with the aid of old photographs taken during Graham's time here, I have stepped inside the studio and imagined a scene here. Click here for the full article...

Flash News, 5-10-2002: Back to the Future
Dancers, Audience Take Back Martha

"It was exactly as I remember it."

-- Tony Randall, actor and former Martha Graham student

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

NEW YORK -- They say possession is nine-tenths of the law, and long before the Martha Graham Dance Company's first performance in two years concluded last night at City Center, it was clear who possesses the dances of Martha Graham: the dancers and the audience. Or, as Jacob's Pillow director Ella Baff put it when asked who owns the work: "We all do." Click here for the full article...

FLASH NEWS, 8-24-2002: EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA!
CEDARBAUM RULES FOR GRAHAM CENTER
45 DANCES TO CENTER, TEN TO THE PUBLIC, AND ONE TO PROTAS
By Paul Ben-Itzak
with Darrah Carr
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

NEW YORK -- The Martha Graham Center owns copyrights to 45 of the ballets created by Martha Graham, Ron Protas owns one, and ten are in the public domain, a Federal judge ruled Friday, in a landmark decision that saved Modern Dance's greatest legacy by placing it securely in the trove of the Martha Graham Dance Company. Click here for the full article...

Flash News & Analysis, 10-24-2002: Graham Moves
New Artistic Directors, New Money, and Season Repertoire Announced
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002 The Dance Insider

For the first time since the death of Martha Graham in 1991, the Martha Graham Dance Company will be directed by dancers, veteran principals Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin, a company spokesman said this week. The company also announced a $1.5 million challenge grant from its board, including $1 million from Delores Barr Weaver, and the repertoire for its first season in nearly three years, a line-up spanning more than 60 years of Graham work demonstrating the sheer breadth of her choreographic canvas. Click here for the full article...

The Buzz, 5-30: Fissures & Fusions, Romance & Cigarettes
Eilber Replaces Capucilli & Dakin as Graham Cuts Staff; Brouk & Co. Meet Turturro, Gandolfini & Co.
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2005 The Dance Insider

Graham Cracks

As initially reported Friday by the Dance Insider to its e-mail list, the board of the New York-based Martha Graham Dance Company has inexplicably replaced artistic directors Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin with West Coast-based Janet Eilber, a Graham veteran who currently directs the Martha Graham Resources and who did not commit to moving full-time to New York nor to being at every rehearsal or performance. Acknowledging a cash flow deficit, it also eliminated eight full-time positions from its 36-person full-time administrative staff. (The company's web site lists 28 dance artists). Beyond insisting Capucilli and Dakin would remain with the company to "focus on and foster the classic Martha Graham works through performance and special projects," board chair Francis Mason declined to explain the board's decision.

At presstime, neither Capucilli nor Dakin had responded to an e-mailed request for comment. Asked if they would remain on salary, Eilber said details were still being worked out. "I hope Christine and Terese will continue to guide many of our artistic projects," she said. "We invited them to direct two projects at Jacob's Pillow and Bard. They do not feel comfortable taking on that role until our transition is better defined." Click here for the full article...

Flash Statement, 6-2: Letter to the Dance World
"On May 19, 2005 our employment as Artistic Directors of the Martha Graham Dance Company was terminated."
By Terese Capucilli & Christine Dakin
Copyright 2005 Terese Capucilli & Christine Dakin

For three decades with the Martha Graham Dance Company, we have danced for Martha, been associate artistic directors, artistic directors, taken the company through a boycott to win the rights to dance Martha's work and struggled to revive the company in the face of ongoing legal and financial challenges. Our allegiance to Martha Graham's great work and the quality of our own work is well known. Click here for the full statement...

The Buzz, 3-28: Graham Grovels
Board Leaves Dancers to Beg for Money
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006 The Dance Insider

So the board of directors of the Martha Graham Dance Company, which in its infinite wisdom last year fired as artistic directors the two people arguably most responsible for keeping the company together during the Ron Protas years and replaced them with a director who would be commuting from the other side of the United States, has now reduced its dancers to begging for money from journalists in order to make it to its 80th birthday and a series of celebrations planned in New York next month. Click here for the full article..