Martha Graham is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th Century alongside Picasso, Stravinsky, James Joyce, and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1998 TIME Magazine named Martha Graham as the “Dancer of the Century,” and People Magazine named her among the female “Icons of the Century.” As a choreographer, she was as prolific as she was complex. She created 181 ballets and a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Many of the great modern and ballet choreographers have studied the Martha Graham Technique or have been members of her company.
Martha Graham’s extraordinary artistic legacy has often been compared to Stanislavsky’s Art Theatre in Moscow and the Grand Kabuki Theatre of Japan, for its diversity and breadth. Her legacy is perpetuated in performance by the members of the Martha Graham Dance Company and the Martha Graham Ensemble, and by the students of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.
In 1926, Martha Graham founded her dance company and school, living and working out of a tiny Carnegie Hall studio in midtown Manhattan. In developing her technique, Martha Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with the most elemental movements of contraction and release. Using these principles as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would “increase the emotional activity of the dancer’s body.” Martha Graham’s dancing and choreography exposed the depths of human emotion through movements that were sharp, angular, jagged, and direct. The dance world was forever altered by Martha Graham’s vision, which has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for generations of dance and theatre artists.
Martha Graham’s ballets were inspired by a wide variety of sources, including modern painting, the American frontier, religious ceremonies of Native Americans, and Greek mythology. Many of her most important roles portray great women of history and mythology: Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Medea, Phaedra, Joan of Arc, and Emily Dickinson.
As an artist, Martha Graham conceived each new work in its entirety – dance, costumes, and music. During her 70 years of creating dances, Martha Graham collaborated with such artists as sculptor Isamu Noguchi; actor and director John Houseman; fashion designers Halston, Donna Karan and Calvin Klein; and renowned composers including Aaron Copland, Louis Horst (her mentor), Samuel Barber, William Schuman, Carlos Surinach, Norman Dello Joio, and Gian Carlo Menotti. Her company was the training ground for many future modern choreographers, including Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp. She created roles for classical ballet stars such as Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, welcoming them as guests into her company. In charge of movement and dance at The Neighborhood Playhouse, she taught actors including Bette Davis, Kirk Douglas, Madonna, Liza Minnelli, Gregory Peck, Tony Randall, Anne Jackson, and Joanne Woodward how to use the body as an expressive instrument.
Her uniquely American vision and creative genius earned her numerous honors and awards such as the Laurel Leaf of the American Composers Alliance in 1959 for her service to music. Her colleagues in theater, the members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local One, voted her the recipient of the 1986 Local One Centennial Award for Dance, not to be awarded for another 100 years. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford bestowed upon Martha Graham the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, and declared her a “national treasure,” making her the first dancer and choreographer to receive this honor. Another Presidential honor was awarded Martha Graham in 1985 when President Ronald Reagan designated her among the first recipients of the United States National Medal of Arts.
Appalachian Spring
In 1942, Martha Graham received a commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation for a new ballet to be premiered at the Library of Congress. Aaron Copland was to compose the score. Graham called the new dance
Appalachian Spring, after a poem by Hart Crane, but for Copland it always remained “Ballet for Martha.” Choreographed as the war in Europe was drawing to end, it captured the imagination of Americans who were beginning to believe in a more prosperous future, a future in which men and women would be united again. With its simple tale of a new life in a new land, the dance embodied hope. Critics called
Appalachian Spring “shining and joyous,” “a testimony to the simple fineness of the human spirit.” The ballet tells the story of a young couple and their wedding day; there is a Husbandman, his Bride, a Pioneering Woman, a Preacher, and his Followers.
In a letter to Aaron Copland, Graham wrote that she wanted the dance to be “a legend of American living, like a bone structure, the inner frame that holds together a people.” As Copland later recalled, “After Martha gave me this bare outline, I knew certain crucial things – that it had to do with the pioneer American spirit, with youth and spring, with optimism and hope. I thought about that in combination with the special quality of Martha’s own personality, her talents as a dancer, what she gave off and the basic simplicity of her art. Nobody else seems anything like Martha, and she’s unquestionably very American.” Themes from American folk culture can be found throughout the dance. Copland uses a Shaker tune, “Simple Gifts,” in the second half of his luminous score, while Graham’s choreography includes square dance patterns, skips and paddle turns and curtsies, even a grand right and left. The set by Isamu Noguchi features a Shaker rocking chair.
Appalachian Spring is perhaps Martha Graham’s most optimistic ballet, yet it does contain a dark side. The fire and brimstone Preacher and his condemnation of earthly pleasures recalls the repressive weight of our Puritan heritage, while the solemn presence of the Pioneering Woman hints at the problems of raising families in remote and isolated communities. In this newly cleared land life was not simple, and Graham’s vision pays homage to that as well.
—Ellen Graff
Credits
Choreography and Costumes by Martha Graham
Music by Aaron Copland
Set by Isamu Noguchi
Original lighting by Jean Rosenthal, Adapted by Beverly Emmons
Premiere: October 30th, 1944, Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Cast
The Bride: Laurel Dalley Smith (June 7), Anne O’Donnell (June 8)
The Husbandman: Jacob Larsen (June 7), Lloyd Knight (June 8)
The Preacher: Lorenzo Pagano (June 7), Alessio Crognale (June 8)
The Pioneering Woman: Leslie Andrea Williams (June 7), Natasha Diamond-Walker (June 8)
The Followers: So Young An, Devin Loh, Marzia Memoli, Kate Reyes
Immediate Tragedy
Dance of Dedication
Martha Graham created this solo in 1937 in reaction to the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War. We see the woman in Immediate Tragedy as a universal figure of determination and finally, resilience. The dance was notable and well received, but when Graham stopped performing it in the late 1930s, the solo was forgotten and considered lost. In 2020, Janet Eilber reimagined the choreography for Immediate Tragedy using recently discovered photos of Graham in a 1937 performance, and many other archival references. A new score was created by Christopher Rountree inspired by pages of music hand-written by composer Henry Cowell, which were found in the Graham archives. Martha described her inspiration for this dance in a letter to Cowell, "...whether the desperation lies in Spain or in a memory in our own hearts, it is the same. I felt in that dance I was dedicating myself anew to space, that in spite of violation I was upright and that I was going to stay upright at all costs…"
Credits
Choreography by Martha Graham reimagined by Janet Eilber
Costume by Martha Graham
Original Music by Henry Cowell
Music for reimagined
Immediate Tragedy by Christopher Rountree
Music performed by Richard Valitutto, piano
Lighting by Yi-Chung Chen
Danceturgy for reimagining by Neil Baldwin
Premiere: July 30
th, 1937, Bennington, VT
Music produced and mixed by Lewis Pesacov
Cast
Xin Ying (June 7), Anne Souder (June 8)
Canticle for Innocent Comedians
Martha Graham created Canticle for Innocent Comedians in 1952, taking the title and inspiration from the 1938 poem by Ben Belitt, her old friend and colleague at the Bennington School of the Dance. The multifaceted work was built around eight virtuosic vignettes for the stars of the Graham Company, each celebrating a different element of nature: Sun, Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Moon, Stars and Death. The work was well received, reputed to have been magical; however, there is only a fragmented record remaining, and it is considered lost.
This 2022 Canticle for Innocent Comedians is a reimagining of the original. The choreography is completely new but draws upon Graham’s stylistic blueprint. The vignettes have been re-made for today’s Graham stars by eight dance-makers from diverse backgrounds. Fortunately, Graham’s staging of “Moon” was filmed in the 1950s and is included in the new production.
A lyrical, percussive, ruminative score has been created by the great jazz pianist, Jason Moran.
The lead choreographer, Emmy and Tony award winner Sonya Tayeh, has designed the connective tissue for this eclectic assemblage – in the words of the original poem, “that binds the halves of first and last. To single troth, in time” -- for the dancers of the Ensemble, weaving in and out of the sections in a manner reminiscent of a Greek chorus, and resonating with many Graham classics.
The costumes by Karen Young are inspired by voluminous, swirling shapes that Graham often used for the costumes she herself designed. They are fabricated from recycled plastic bottles to add to the conversation about the eternal values of nature -- and our responsibilities to the planet.
Credits
New production conceived by Janet Eilber
Lead Choreographer: Sonya Tayeh
Choreography for vignettes by Alleyne Dance, Sir Robert Cohan,
Jenn Freeman, Martha Graham, Juliano Nunes, Micaela Taylor, and Yin Yue
Music by Jason Moran
Costumes by Karen Young
Lighting by Yi-Chung Chen
Associate Choreographer: Jenn Freeman
Premiere: March 19th, 2022, The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts at California State University, Northridge
Cast
Opening Dance and all Interludes for the Ensemble
Choreography by Sonya Tayeh
Performer: Ensemble
I. Sun
Choreography by Sonya Tayeh
Performers: Lorenzo Pagano (June 7)/ Leslie Andrea Williams (Jume8)
II. Earth
Choreography by Alleyne Dance
Performers: Anne Souder, Natasha M. Diamond-Walker (June 7)/ Lloyd Knight, Richard Villaverde (June 8)
III. Wind
Choreography by Sir Robert Cohan
Performers: Laurel Dalley Smith (June 7)/ Anne O’Donnell (June 8)
IV. Water
Choreography by Juliano Nunes
Performers: Alessio Crognale, Lloyd Knight (June 7)/ Anne Souder, Xin Ying (June 8)
V. Fire
Choreography by Yin Yue
Performers: Marzia Memoli, Anne Souder, Leslie Andrea Williams (June 7)/ Jacob Larsen, Lorenzo Pagano, Richard Villaverde (June 8)
VI. Moon
Choreography by Martha Graham
Performers: So Young An, Jacob Larsen (June 7)/ Anne O’Donnell, Lloyd Knight (June 8)
VII. Stars
Choreography by Micaela Taylor
Performers: Alessio Crognale, Marzia Memoli (June 7)/ Laurel Dalley Smith, Lorenzo Pagano (June 8)
VIII. Death/Rebirth
Choreography by Jenn Freeman
Performers: Jacob Larsen (June 7), Xin Ying (June 8)
Closing dance
Choreography by Sonya Tayeh