Picture comes from, and is linked to, the Library of Congress Martha Graham collection Ballet.co on trial background "Indisputably Martha" gala Library of Congress collection Ismene Brown’s 1996 interview with Ron Protas Trial Coverage Martha Graham’s will Who owns a dance? Graham Company Reviews

The Martha Graham Dance Company is preparing to give its first performance in more than two years. Five of its founder's works are being performed at the City Center in New York on May 9th with their original sets and costumes. As they rehearse for the gala programme, titled "Indisputably Martha," the dancers will have very much on their minds the impending outcome of the bitter court case about the rights to her work. US Federal Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum finished hearing submissions on the 29th of April and her judgement is imminent.

In her will, Martha Graham left her possessions to her late-life confidante Ron Protas. However the will did not specify what she owned. At the heart of the court case is Graham's ownership of her own choreography. There is a dispute over whether, during her lifetime, she had transferred her copyrights to the Martha Graham Center, which operates the Graham Company and school, and which from which she drew an income. Ron Protas, on the other hand, asserts that he alone has the rights to Graham's work. Protas is a controversial figure. His enemies characterise him as a controlling and abusive manipulator intent on destroying the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance. "He is so reviled, it's a wonder nobody's shot him yet," a veteran Graham dancer told the New York Post, only half-jokingly. The company itself has not performed for more than two years. If it loses the court case, Protas has vowed to "bury" the company to prevent it performing Graham's choreography.

Whatever the outcome, the court's decision will set an important precedent for the copyrighting of ballets. Lawyers representing Protas have attempted to establish that the board of the Graham Center accepted that he owned the works right up to the time it began legal proceedings last year. Francis Mason, the chairman of the Graham Center, described the organisation as an informal family that existed to enable Graham to create and maintain dances. "We trusted Ron," he told the court.

The legal team representing the Graham Center has sought to establish that some ballets may effectively be in the public domain already. It has sought, crucially, to prove that Martha Graham was an employee of the Center, and that her choreography was not her personal property.

The court case was marked by bitter claim and counter-claim. The Graham Center alleged that Protas had Martha Graham sign blank pages on company letterheads, that he "practiced her signature" and that he sometimes "wrote letters to third parties" on the blank letterhead that she had signed. It alleged that Graham had attempted to change the terms of her will, which left Protas in control of an estate then worth $350,000. It offered evidence that Graham had attempted to change her will, that Protas got to hear of it and sent her nurses home, leaving her "alone in her apartment for two days, unable to feed or clean herself." However, Judge Cedarbaum ruled that the standing of the will should not be an issue. "The question is what the will left, not whether the will is authentic."

Lawyers acting for Protas offered in evidence a letter written by Graham in 1989, stating: "I wish to have Ron have complete control and ownership of [my] works . . . I want Ron to have clear title and no problems in the future." Protas's counsel emphasized that the trial was about who owned the works, not who deserved to own them.

Whatever the verdict, it will raise difficult issues. Should Judge Cedarbaum rule in Protas's favour, he is likely to find that he continues to be boycotted by North America's dance community. Although he would be the undisputed owner of Graham's work, the ballets would remain unperformed and within years would be effectively lost. If on the other hand, the Graham Center wins the case, there could be troubling implications for choreographers' rights to their own work. Despite this, there is overwhelming sentiment among dancers for the Graham Center's case. Companies and institutions have rallied to the Center's call to refrain from making any agreements with Protas to perform Graham's work.

On the evidence of the court proceedings, Judge Cedarbaum will make her decision on the strict technical merits of the case. This could mean that some of the later work may be awarded to Protas, some to the Graham Center, and much of the earlier choreography may be deemed to be out of copyright. There is an additional public interest dimension. After the earlier court case in which Judge Cedarbaum had ruled against Protas's efforts to prevent the Center from teaching her technique, New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer described the decision as a milestone. Martha Graham, he said, had "obtained crucial public support for her creative enterprise by forming corporations that could take advantage of tax exempt, tax-deductible treatment. It is important that the public also receive the benefit of this bargain, so that her great achievements can be perpetuated by the charities she founded."