General
Marvin Preston IV, 80, Dies; Saved the Martha Graham Dance Company
An expert at rescuing distressed companies, he took over the struggling organization in 2000, leading it through a painful restructuring and a lengthy legal battle.
Marvin Preston IV, who brought his expertise in saving distressed tech companies to a new role as the executive director of the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2000, and went on to lead that storied group back to solvency through a series of bold budgetary and courtroom maneuvers, died on Sept. 30 at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 80.
His son, Christopher, said the cause was primary progressive apraxia, a neurodegenerative disease.
When Martha Graham died in 1991, at 96, she was widely considered one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century. She left behind a vast repertoire of dances as well as the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, which includes both a school and the performing company.
Ron Protas, her close friend and heir, took over operations. But the organization struggled financially through the next decade, with many observers wondering whether it could survive into the 21st century. In 1998, the company sold its longtime headquarters on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to pay off debts, a move that left it with virtually no capital, and relocated to the West Village.
Enter Mr. Preston, a business consultant with a passion for music but no experience in arts administration. Taking over the company, he promised swift and necessarily painful steps to recovery — and quickly delivered.
Among his first actions was removing Mr. Protas from various roles within the organization. This was followed by the board of trustees’ decision to pause operations and withdraw from several scheduled performances. Other expenses were cut, several staff members were let go, and the organization went into a sort of suspended animation.
“We have to be responsible,” Mr. Preston told The Times in 2000.
In retaliation, Mr. Protas cut off the company’s access to Ms. Graham’s repertoire, which he claimed to control as the executor of her estate, the Martha Graham Trust. Under the terms of a 1999 contract, the company had been paying the trust $1 a year for the rights to her work, along with a $100,000 annual salary for Mr. Protas.
