Most writers are vulnerable and insecure, and Kay Graham was more so than most.

'The Sleeping Beauty' is the greatest, most challenging and most vulnerable of classical ballets. Everything can go wrong with it, and all too often, everything does.

There's no point pretending that all of Martha Graham's pieces are equally strong.

Gelsey Kirkland has had more than her share of demons, as her two distressing memoirs - and her violently checkered career - attest.

Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than I am, her genius as a performer will have to be taken on faith - and on the always-suspect evidence of film. What will last, if things go well, is her genius as a choreographer, as a woman of the theater.

Nothing is harder to create than brilliant comic ballets, except maybe brilliant full-evening comic ballets.