Mark Ryder, a prominent dancer in Martha Graham’s company in the 1940s who went on to form his own company and to teach modern dance at several colleges, died July 13 in Columbia, Md. He was 85.
His death was announced by his wife, Mary Ratcliffe.
Mr. Ryder was on the faculty of the dance department at the University of Maryland for 14 years. He served briefly as the chairman of the department in the 1970s and retired in 1988. In the 1960s he taught at Goddard College, an experimental college in Vermont, where he strongly encouraged one of his students, David Mamet, to become a playwright.
Trained and influenced by mentor Graham, Mr. Ryder broke away to perform his own choreography. After dancing with Graham’s company for a decade, he formed the Dance Drama Duo with his first wife, Emily Frankel, in the early 1950s. The popular touring troupe expanded into the Dance Drama Company and also featured works by other choreographers.
He was born Sasha Liebich in Chicago and grew up in New York, where he began studying dance as a child at the Neighborhood Playhouse, a settlement house where Graham taught. She invited him into her company, which was in residence annually at the Bennington College summer school and dance festival in Bennington, Vt. Mr. Ryder first danced with the Martha Graham Group, as it was called, in 1940 and then at Bennington in 1941 and 1942.
After service in the Army, which included taking part in the Normandy invasion, Mr. Ryder returned to the company and danced major roles in premieres.
