The Martha Graham Dance Company returned to the New York stage Tuesday night not with the opening of a new season, but with a one-night-only gala at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. A two-hour program without intermission that never dragged, it offered heartening proof of the pleasures of the Graham oeuvre, and of the company’s exceedingly strong current roster of dancers. But the gala, a retrospective of Graham’s choreography over 70 years, was also a disheartening reminder of what we’re missing.

After the legal wrangles over the ownership of the Graham repertory were resolved in 2002, the troupe has had annual New York seasons – engagements that ran for at least a week – with live musical accompaniment. These seasons were artistic bliss. Now the company finds itself in dire financial straits; to wit, a deficit in the neighborhood of $4 million. As a result, the stage time has been scaled back considerably.

The evening opened with greetings by Francis Mason, chairman of the Graham board, who then introduced a former guest star with the company during Graham’s lifetime: Mikhail Baryshnikov. For the occasion, Mr. Baryshnikov adopted one of George Balanchine’s pet whimsies. Balanchine used to say that he had parleys with the recently departed Stravinsky and others; Mr. Baryshnikov claimed to have seen Graham backstage moments before the performance. She looked “much younger and kind of taller.” Mr. Baryshnikov was followed by Judith Ivey, delivering remarks that put Graham’s life and work into context and focus.

The retrospective began with Graham’s early participation in the Denishawn troupe during World War I. In Ruth St. Denis’s “Incense,” from 1906, a dancer’s hand ripples and floats back down to earth: She is both lightheaded and devotional.Ted Shawn’s 1919 solo, “Gnossienne (A Priest of Knossos),” is something of a derivation from Nijinsky’s “Afternoon of a Faun.” It is an easy segue from Denishawn to Graham’s own initial choreography, which was deeply indebted to her former employers. Close to vaudeville turns, these early pieces from Denishawn and Graham herself provide a fascinating window on American popular culture of the WWI era.

Performances of Graham’s 1929 “Heretic” and 1930 “Lamentation” provided a look at the choreographer as she found her own voice, which was radically more severe and angular than anything in the Denishawn culture. Here Graham was a lone heroine struggling with fate, internal demons, or an adversarial community. Gradually, she began to choreograph individual as well as choral roles for other dancers, and eventually she accepted men into her company.

“Steps in the Street,” from 1936, demonstrated space-devouring amplitude that opened up the more rooted early pieces, while duets from 1944’s “Appalachian Spring” provided an opportunity for her to compose in longer and more flowing phrases.Around this time she started to transfer legends of Greek mythology to the stage. On Tuesday night, Cassandra’s solo from Graham’s full-length 1958 “Clytemnestra,” was given a searing performance by Fang-Yi Sheu. A trio of couples danced an excellent excerpt from 1946’s “Dark Meadow.”

About midway through Tuesday night’s program, Ms. Ivey ceded the floor to Richard Move, a female impersonator who has incorporated a portrait of Graham into his recent theater work.The shift was slightly jarring. Although Mr. Move appeared tall and husky, he was so convincing an apparition that non-initiates might not have been initially sure that he was indeed a female impersonator.

But Mr. Move is also a dancer and choreographer, and he proved his ability to walk the walk. He danced the woman’s role in a lovely duet from Graham’s 1965 “Part Real-Part Dream,” performing opposite guest Desmond Richardson. Mr. Move skimmed through the steps instead of fully executing them, but he was not bad.

Graham’s works have enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, and one thing that has become apparent is the unsuspected variety she gave to men’s presence on her stage. It is rare in women’s choreography to sample a sensibility that objectifies men so completely. Throughout the homoerotic currents in Graham’s 1963 “Circe,” which the company revived in New York in 2004, it seemed possible that Graham herself was entertaining fantasies of watching men have sex together. In the past, men’s role in Graham’s work may have seemed unduly restricted as personifications of strength and potency, but in recent years the full scope in the men’s roles has become apparent. It may be that today, without Graham’s domineering presence, her male interpreters breathe a little easier.

In 1940’s “El Penitente,” young people in a sun-baked culture disport themselves in an antic re-enactment of Christian lore and rite.The excerpt the company performed Tuesday night was a light-hearted seduction episode by Alessandra Prosperi as a would-be Eve. In the past I’ve seen her wield her apple before the wonderfully elfin Christophe Jeannot. Last night David Zurak took the role instead; he supplied an entirely different energy,more the stern John the Baptist.

The evening closed delightfully with “Maple Leaf Rag,” Graham’s final work, in which she proved her ability to spoof herself wryly but lovingly, without self-denigration.Ghost figures from her work over the previous decades make reappearances, and the full troupe cavorts on a bouncing bungee suspension belt that restates the horizon lines that were a sine qua non of her early stage pictures. Maxine Sherman returned to dance the role she performed at the 1991 premiere, a send-up of Graham’s oracular and tutelary matriarchs. Ms. Sherman seemed fit as a fiddle, as did the entire troupe throughout the performance.