The Martha Graham Dance Company celebrated their 100th season in a series of performances at New York City Center — just a few blocks from the now-shuttered 48th Street Theatre where the company debuted in April of 1926 — reviving several of Martha Graham’s iconic masterworks and debuting two guest works.
The Graham Company is a modern dance company founded by Graham (1894-1991) and is the oldest working dance company in the nation.
During the preview performance on April 8, the all-Graham triad — “Appalachian Spring” (1944), “Chronicle” (1936) and “Diversion of Angels” (1948) — was punctuated by a talkback with Artistic Director Janet Eilber and conductor David Hayes detailing the collaborative process of setting dance to live music. This behind-the-scenes format showcased the give and take required for the orchestra to set the necessary tempi and adapt to the dancers’ needs.
The rest of the show’s run, from April 9 to 12, featured various combinations of the three aforementioned pieces as well as another of Graham’s classics, “Nightwork” (1947), the world premiere of “Untitled Solo” by Jamar Roberts and the New York City premiere of “En Masse” by Hope Boykin.
The Company’s 100 Year History
Though Graham’s 1926 debut was initially met with shock and ridicule, her work would go on to revolutionize the art of dance, gradually gaining acclaim through the 1930s and beyond.
The company, then made up of 15 women, embarked on their first transcontinental tour in 1937. This was just after the premiere of “Chronicle,” an anti-war, anti-fascist piece and one of Graham’s few explicitly political works. Graham had just refused Adolf Hitler’s invitation to perform at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.
The Graham company later became the first integrated dance company in the U.S. with the hiring of Yuriko Kikuchi — who had just been released from a Japanese internment camp — in 1944, and later, Mark Hinkson and Matt Turney — the company’s first Black dancers — in 1952.
There is also a certain spirituality embedded in the artistic world of Graham. Graham spoke of the life of the artist as a state of “queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
Graham technique centers around contraction and release. Movement is guided by breath, originating from the pelvis, core and back. It is characterized by spirals, angular shapes and dramatic, sweeping movements. Like other modern dance styles, it emerged as a rebellion against the soft, rounded shapes and rigid rules of ballet.
There is also a certain spirituality embedded in the artistic world of Graham. Graham spoke of the life of the artist as a state of “queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” Her instructional method focused not only on the shaping of the body, but on “the cultivation of the being.” Through a twofold physical and intellectual practice, “one becomes, in some area, an athlete of God,” Graham said.
This ethos is carried on by Graham’s dancers or, perhaps more accurately, devotees. In a press release for the centennial, Eilber described today’s Graham dancers as “the current — but temporary — custodians of an ephemeral body of work that has reached its 100th year by the grace of Martha’s ‘Athletes of God.’”
“Appalachian Spring”
“Appalachian Spring,” arguably Graham’s most well-known work, opened the show. It tells the story of a young bride and her husband on their wedding day on the American frontier. The angular, starkly minimalist set is composed of simple lines, creating the image of a prairie house that hangs together only in fragmentary form. The set was designed by sculptor Isamu Noguchi — a collaboration that shaped Graham’s work for decades.
“Appalachian Spring” was created during World War II as a testament to American optimism, determination and hope for the future. Eilber said that Graham saw the piece as “her contribution to the war effort.”
It features eight dancers: the bride, the husband, the pioneer woman, the preacher and his four followers. Eilber noted humorously that it is unclear if the followers are “in love with religion or in love with the preacher.”
The entire piece ends quite simply. It has the feeling of the town settling down for the night, the kind of thing that happens when one hears a call in the twilight, the voices of children in the distance, a dog barking and then night. Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer
During the piece’s premiere in 1944, Graham played the bride and the role of the preacher was played by Merce Cunningham, one of the pioneering figures of modern dance whose career was launched by the Graham Company.
The young couple are filled with joy and enthusiasm, leaping and embracing to an elegiac score as they imagine their future together. The preacher and pioneer woman, in contrast, are much more reserved, with the preacher often pointing to the newlyweds in chastising motions.
“Appalachian Spring,” like much of Graham’s work, features a lot of repetition. Somewhat unusually, the dancers largely move in a diagonal from downstage right to upstage left and do not enter or exit the stage for the entirety of the piece.
Graham characterized the end of “Appalachian Spring” this way:
“The entire piece ends quite simply. It has the feeling of the town settling down for the night, the kind of thing that happens when one hears a call in the twilight, the voices of children in the distance, a dog barking and then night,” Graham said.
Working with the Orchestra
Once the applause died down, Eilber and Hayes discussed the process of setting dance to live music. Graham had a particular relationship with new music, working exclusively with commissioned music for over four decades.
“Appalachian Spring” was originally set arbitrarily to the tempo of Graham’s rehearsal pianist when she first received the score from the composer, Aaron Copland. In the years since, the tempo has slowed because “conductors love to wallow,” Hayes said.
Hayes described the biggest challenge of such a process as eliminating musicians’ habits from practicing on their own. Giving some insight into this process, the dancers repeated a couple short segments from the piece, communicating with the orchestra to increase the tempo.
In line with the theme of the evening — inviting audiences into the making of artistic work — the curtain was left up while stagehands reset the stage for the next piece.
“Chronicle”
“Chronicle” (1936) was created in reaction to the rise of fascism in Europe prior to World War II. It is not meant to depict actual events, but rather to represent the universal tragedy of war. It was originally divided into five sections and has since been reconstructed into three. The first is a solo titled “Spectre” which expresses the foreboding prelude to war. The second, “Steps in the Street,” depicts the devastation that war leaves in its wake, and the final part, “Prelude to Action,” is a call to action against war.
“Chronicle” opens with a woman in a long black dress seated on a stool. Her skirt is trimmed in red, creating the image that she is caged within a red circle. The stage is otherwise empty. The tense, shrill violins and militant rapping of the snare drums create a haunting atmosphere as the stage is slowly backlit by a red glow. The choreography is jerky and defensive, at times erupting to reveal the skirt’s blood red underside, which the dancer wraps around herself like a cloak.
The conclusion of “Chronicle” is frenetic and almost triumphant. The piece was met with raucous cheers and applause, which was the most dramatic audience reaction of the night.
“Steps in the Street” begins in silence, with only the sound of nine dancers’ shuffling feet as they take halting backward steps across the stage.
“Prelude to Action” is dramatic and effusive, with a faster tempo and larger, energetic jumps and movements, shifting between dimensions of space. Unlike “Appalachian Spring,” it is rich with formation changes and contrapuntal movement sequences. The conclusion of “Chronicle” is frenetic and almost triumphant. The piece was met with raucous cheers and applause, which was the most dramatic audience reaction of the night.
“Diversion of Angels”
“Diversion of Angels” wrapped up the night on a euphoric note. The piece has no plot and is an abstract expression of love, taking place in an imaginary garden created by love itself. It was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky’s bold use of color, specifically a painting with a streak of red across a blue background.
“Martha wanted to create a world without gravity, topsy-turvy. The movement is often off balance and the space on stage is constantly shifting with geometric patterns. You can watch for the phrases ‘falling in love’ or ‘head over heels’ brought to life,” Eilber said.
The piece features three couples representing the different forms love can take. A dancer in yellow represents adolescent love, the red mercurial or erotic love and the white spiritual, enduring love.
The girl in red, true to Kandinsky’s painting, dashes across the stage. Her movement is fiery and angular, somewhat indicative of flamenco.
The differences are represented choreographically. The girl in yellow is playful and upbeat. She takes small, running steps, loose hair streaming behind her, and jumps into her partner’s arms for a vivacious pas de deux. The girl in red, true to Kandinsky’s painting, dashes across the stage. Her movement is fiery and angular, somewhat indicative of flamenco. The girl in white’s movement is softer, rounded and almost classical. An easily identifiable contrast between red and white is, in any flourish of the leg, the white is in arabesque (one leg is lifted backward in the air) while the red is in a grand battement à la seconde (one leg is lifted to the side).
Reflecting on the milestone that is the Graham Company’s centennial, Eilber looked forward to what she hopes to be another 100 years of the company.
