>>Money and art
>>Are far apart
>>
>>Langston Hughes *****
>
>Shakespeare would be surprised to hear it. He was a businessman in
>the business of providing popular entertainment for money.
Shakespeare was a genius on whom fortune smiled. The majority of artists today -- even many well-known ones -- can seldom make a living by making art alone. Most of them must teach, chase grants, and/or have day jobs.
If you are a poor poet, you should count yourself lucky, for it costs little to write poems. Film-making -- especially documentary film-making -- has to be one of the toughest fields; it costs a lot to make a film; and documentary films seldom find producers willing to invest in & distributors ready to market them. Documentary films are rarely shown in commercial theaters.
Modern dance fares very badly in the market also:
***** The New York Times May 27, 2000, Saturday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section B; Page 16; Column 4; The Arts/Cultural Desk HEADLINE: Careers Teeter in the Graham Troupe BYLINE: By JENNIFER DUNNING
Katherine Crockett's body began to shake when she hung up the telephone on Thursday night after learning that the Martha Graham Dance Company was suspending activity indefinitely because of financial problems.
"This is my life," Ms. Crockett, a leading dancer with the troupe, said yesterday afternoon as she arrived for the last scheduled class at the school the company operates in the East Village. "This company is everything I have and everything I am. I came because I had to say goodbye. There can be no closure. Martha's work is timeless. You can close it, but there can be no closure."
The decision to suspend operations in the face of dire financial problems, which also affects the school and the company's junior troupe, was made at a board meeting on Thursday afternoon. Ron Protas, whom Graham had chosen to direct the company after her death in 1991, abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote. In reaction to the board's decision, Mr. Protas, who licenses Graham's dances as the director of the Martha Graham Trust and who has been feuding with the board over the company's direction, withdrew permission for the works to be performed by the troupe. Robert Solomon, a trustee and the lawyer representing the company, said the troupe was contesting the withdrawal.
The company was flooded with calls of support yesterday. The decision jolted a dance world accustomed to Graham's towering presence even after death and to the legacy of works that helped shape American modern dance. The shock was felt in ballet as well as modern dance circles. The suspension pointed up the vulnerability of a field where money is scarce and careers are short.
The company, which was founded in 1929 by Graham, has an accumulated deficit of $500,000. The sale of its longtime headquarters on East 63rd Street in 1998 enabled it to pay off a deficit of $2.4 million but left it with no major assets. The troupe was scheduled to move into quarters in a new building on the site this month, but the board was unable to raise the $750,000 needed to convert the raw space into studios and offices.
The company is to meet with Marvin Preston, executive director of the troupe, on Tuesday to discuss the situation.
The dancers were to begin rehearsals on Tuesday for an engagement that would open the American Dance Festival season in Durham, N.C., on June 8. Other canceled performances include an appearance in "The Legacy of Martha Graham and Paul Taylor," a two-week festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington in September. A three-week season at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea in November has not been canceled in the hope that the situation will improve.
The news of the suspension was received with surprise and sadness in other dance companies. "It's a damned shame," Kevin McKenzie, artistic director of American Ballet Theater, said yesterday. Peter Martins, artistic director of the New York City Ballet, said he had been saddened by the news.
"It only made me realize how frail our world is," Mr. Martins said. "This would never have occurred in France or Germany or Denmark. They would not let this happen. The arts flourish in this country because of the people who pay for it. But it's not enough."
Ken Topping, the director of the Martha Graham Ensemble, broke the news to his dancers on Thursday. The group, which is made up of advanced students at the Graham school, was to have performed at Marymount Manhattan Theater on the Upper East Side in mid-June. Mr. Topping walked in on a rehearsal of Graham's "Night Chant," a rarely seen 1988 piece set to American Indian flute music.
"I didn't want to stop them," he said. "We waited a few minutes. It was so painful to watch them dance so beautifully. They were just bewildered." The school, which had been operating in rented space at 440 Lafayette Street, draws students from around the world.
Some dancers choked back tears as they arrived for the last class yesterday. "I feel very empty and numb," Claudia Spahr, a 21-year-old dancer from Switzerland, said. "But I'm not angry. I have great hope." Several teachers have volunteered to teach without pay next week.
Pearl Lang, who started dancing with the Graham company in 1942, called the news devastating. Ms. Lang, a major interpreter of Graham roles, teaches at the school, the prime source of training in the Graham technique.
"This is a crucial, crucial moment," Ms. Lang said. "It's the first time since 1926 that there will not be a Graham school. It's a question of saving the school, because out of the school later there can be other activity."
The Graham technique, Ms. Lang said, uniquely trains "the inner, visceral muscles" to motivate movement from the center of the body to its extremities, adding a dramatic third dimension to Graham dance. "It takes years of training for that center to illuminate the rest of the body," she said. "It cannot be learned just by watching."
Some dancers were angered by the suddenness of the decision. "There was not even two weeks' notice," Ms. Crockett said.
It is late for dancers to find work for the summer. "The hard part is, yes, I can always teach, but the life of a dancer is so precious in terms of time," said Elizabeth Auclair, another Graham dancer said. "There is no time to waste." *****
Capitalism rewards a few stars lavishly while impoverishing the rest of artists. Many worthy potential projects never get produced; even the lucky ones that do get finished do not find audiences easily.
Yoshie