Deborah Zall, a dancer and choreographer who studied with Martha Graham and went on to make her own mark with solo works depicting extraordinary women, died on Dec. 11 in Manhattan. She was 84.

The cause was pneumonia, her sister Rona Nadine Affoumado said.

Ms. Zall was known for vivid portrayals of women drawn from history, including Mary Queen of Scots and the French author who wrote under the pseudonym George Sand, as well as fictional characters, like Amanda Wingfield from Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie.” Lean, small of stature and angular of build, she gave performances that were praised for their commitment and focus. The British critic Judith Mackrell described her as bearing “an almost unnerving resemblance to Graham herself.”

In a telephone interview, Penny Frank, a former colleague on the faculty of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, recalled Ms. Zall’s intensity. “She was small,” she said, “but she made this up with the force of her dancing. And her choreography was the same.”

Ms. Zall also appeared in dances taught to her by choreographers from the Martha Graham circle, including Graham’s teacher, Ruth St. Denis, and Anna Sokolow, a founding member of the Actors Studio. Ms. Zall was even given permission to perform the famous 1930 Graham solo “Lamentation,” in which the dancer expresses her grief through anguished movements magnified by a cloaklike costume — a rare occurrence for a dancer not in the company.