Martha Graham Dance Company comes to Stony Brook

A performance by Martha Graham's company would be among the dance highlights of any season. But particularly so this year, when few modern dance troupes are performing on Long Island.

Blame the economy. Blame all the entertainment options that didn't exist 10, or even three or four years ago. "When I put together a season now," says Alan Inkles, director of Staller Center, where the Martha Graham Dance Company performs tomorrow night, "it has to be something you can't miss."

Until three years ago, Inkles would book at least two, sometimes three modern dance companies a season. Paul Taylor, David Parsons and Merce Cunningham, along with Martha Graham, might be among the names blazoned on the season brochure sent to subscribers or stacked at the box office to lure single-event ticket buyers. "But now I'm sort of competing with myself," says Inkles, with the Metropolitan Opera Live simulcasts and the ever-popular Friday night film double features. "If I book just one pure modern dance company - which isn't to say we don't offer more dance," Inkles says, citing last week's Groovaloo street-dancing show, plus the Cuban and Ukrainian dance concerts last fall, "we will fill the house. It'll be a can't-miss event."

In April, it will be 19 years since Martha Graham died. With the momentum of her legacy and the necessity to plan seasons in advance, "We've never really had a chance to figure out who we're going to be without Martha Graham," says artistic director Janet Eilber. "We decided to offer audiences more points of access to who she was, what she did. Even current choreographers who use her techniques don't know she originated them. So we've put together the dance equivalent of a museum audio tour - except ours is multimedia."

'PRELUDE AND REVOLT' The collective title for six solos from Graham's groundbreaking, foundation-laying career speaks to the breadth of her accomplishments. "These iconic solos represent her innovation, her revolution," says Eilber. They range from Graham's student days at the Denishawn School - pieces dating as far back as 1906 - to her expression of Great Depression devastation and homelessness in "Steps in the Street." The company's post-Martha years are represented in 2007's "Lamentation Variations," a 9/11 commemoration conceived by Eilber and choreographed by, among others, Hofstra alum Larry Keigwin. Graham classics "Suite From Appalachian Spring" and "Diversions of Angels," cap the "tour."