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58-407: The TDT was co-founded in 1968 by Martha Graham disciples Patricia Beatty , David Earle , and Peter Randazzo . All three formally shared the artistic directorship of the company during its first 15 years, although Earle played a more dominant role as a leader for the company. The trio created more than 60 choreographed works during their tenure; often with original scores by Canadian composers. At

116-423: A dancer made up to look as you did thirty years ago, dancing a ballet you created with someone you were then deeply in love with, your husband? I think that is a circle of hell Dante omitted. [When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I

174-420: A landscape to move in. Without it, I should certainly have been lost." Graham resisted requests for her dances to be recorded because she believed that live performances should only exist on stage as they are experienced. There were a few notable exceptions. For example, in addition to her collaboration with Sunami in the 1920s, she also worked on a limited basis with still photographers Imogen Cunningham in

232-739: A mere form of entertainment. This motivated Graham to strip away the more decorative movements of ballet and of her training at the Denishawn school and focus more on the foundational aspects of movement. In 1925, Graham was employed at the Eastman School of Music where Rouben Mamoulian was head of the School of Drama. Among other performances, together Mamoulian and Graham produced a short two-color film called The Flute of Krishna, featuring Eastman students. Mamoulian left Eastman shortly thereafter and Graham chose to leave also, even though she

290-496: A more base aspect of human movement led Graham to create the "contraction and release", for which she would become known. Each movement could separately be used to express either positive or negative, freeing or constricting emotions depending on the placement of the head. The contraction and release were both the basis for Graham's weighted and grounded style, which is in direct opposition to classical ballet techniques that typically aim to create an illusion of weightlessness. To counter

348-572: A pillar of the modern dance revolution. 1938 became a big year for Graham; the Roosevelts invited Graham to dance at the White House , making her the first dancer to perform there. Also, in 1938, Erick Hawkins became the first man to dance with her company. He officially joined her troupe the following year, dancing male lead in a number of Graham's works. They were married in July 1948 after

406-526: A short silent film by Hugo Riesenfeld that attempted to synchronize a dance routine on film with a live orchestra and an onscreen conductor. Graham left the Denishawn establishment in 1923 in order to become a featured dancer in the Greenwich Village Follies revue for two years. As a result, she felt a strong urge to make dance an art form that was more grounded in the rawness of the human experience and orientalism as opposed to just

464-529: A staple of the revue. Popular stories, such as Oscar Wilde ’s “The Nightingale and the Rose” and Edgar Allan Poe 's “ The Raven ,” provided inspiration for these wordless interludes. By the late 1920s, the Broadway revue was losing patrons to story-driven book musicals like Show Boat . Anderson left the show after 1924, and the franchise went into hibernation during the seasons of 1926 and 1927. The last year

522-680: A woman's point of view. In 1936, Graham created Chronicle , which brought serious issues to the stage in a dramatic manner. Influenced by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , the Great Depression that followed, and the Spanish Civil War , the dance focused on depression and isolation, reflected in the dark nature of both the set and costumes. The same year, in conjunction with the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin,

580-399: A work I thought was only fairly good, after years of neglect for work I thought was fine. I was bewildered and worried that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy. I talked to Martha. I remember the conversation well. It was in a Schrafft's restaurant over a soda. I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me, very quietly: "There

638-407: Is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It

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696-424: Is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than

754-709: The Graham technique , reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She was the first dancer to perform at the White House , travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US: the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction . In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of

812-741: The Legion of Honour by then Minister of culture Jack Lang . Graham was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1990, the Council of Fashion Designers of America awarded Graham with the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award . In 1998, Graham was posthumously named "Dancer of the Century" by Time magazine, and one of

870-938: The Saratoga Performing Arts Center in June 2008. The company also performed in 2007 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago , with a program consisting of: Appalachian Spring , Embattled Garden , Errand into the Maze , and American Original . Graham's original female dancers consisted of Bessie Schonberg , Evelyn Sabin, Martha Hill , Gertrude Shurr, Anna Sokolow , Nelle Fisher, Dorothy Bird, Bonnie Bird , Sophie Maslow , May O'Donnell , Jane Dudley , Anita Alvarez, Pearl Lang , and Marjorie G. Mazia . A second group included Yuriko , Ethel Butler, Ethel Winter , Jean Erdman , Patricia Birch , Nina Fonaroff, Matt Turney , Mary Hinkson . The group of men dancers

928-1039: The Trojan War rages. Upon Agamemnon's return after 10 years, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon to avenge the murder of Iphigenia. Clytemnestra is then murdered by her son, Orestes , and the audience experiences Clytemnestra in the afterworld. This ballet was deemed a masterpiece of 20th-century American modernism and was so successful it had a limited engagement showing at the 54th Street Theatre on Broadway , conducted by Robert Irving , voice parts sung by Rosalia Maresca and Ronald Holgate . Graham collaborated with many composers including Aaron Copland on Appalachian Spring , Louis Horst , Samuel Barber , William Schuman , Carlos Surinach , Norman Dello Joio , and Gian Carlo Menotti . Graham's mother died in Santa Barbara in 1958. Her oldest friend and musical collaborator Louis Horst died in 1964. She said of Horst: "His sympathy and understanding, but primarily his faith, gave me

986-521: The 1930s, and Barbara Morgan in the 1940s. Graham considered Philippe Halsman 's photographs of Dark Meadow the most complete photographic record of any of her dances. Halsman also photographed in the 1940s Letter to the World , Cave of the Heart , Night Journey and Every Soul is a Circus . In later years her thinking on the matter evolved and others convinced her to let them recreate some of what

1044-734: The Danny Grossman Dance Company, Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers and the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre in the Canadian Dance Spectacular, a dance show at Ottawa's National Arts Centre which was filmed by the National Film Board of Canada for the 1982 documentary film Gala . Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer, whose style,

1102-614: The German government wanted to include dance in the Art Competitions that took place during the Olympics, an event that previously included architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature. Although Joseph Goebbels , Reich Minister of Propaganda, was not appreciative of the modern dance art form and changed Germany's dance from more avant-garde to traditional, he and Adolf Hitler still agreed to invite Graham to represent

1160-536: The New York premiere of Night Journey . He left her troupe in 1951 and they divorced in 1954. On April 1, 1958, the Martha Graham Dance Company premiered the ballet Clytemnestra , based on the ancient Greek legend Clytemnestra and it became a huge success and great accomplishment for Graham. With a score by Egyptian-born composer Halim El-Dabh , this ballet was a large scale work and

1218-553: The Precious Crown . She said, in the 1994 documentary The Dancer Revealed : "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable." Founded in 1926 (the same year as Graham's professional dance company), the Martha Graham School is the oldest school of dance in

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1276-608: The Theatre when it opened in 1928. One of Graham's students was heiress Bethsabée de Rothschild with whom she became close friends. When Rothschild moved to Israel and established the Batsheva Dance Company in 1965, Graham became the company's first director. Graham's technique pioneered a principle known as "contraction and release" in modern dance, which was derived from a stylized conception of breathing. Contraction and release : The desire to highlight

1334-746: The United States. First located in a small studio within Carnegie Hall , the school currently has two different studios in New York City. Graham was born in Allegheny City , later to become part of Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, in 1894. Her father, George Graham, practiced as what in the Victorian era was known as an " alienist ", a practitioner of an early form of psychiatry . The Grahams were strict Presbyterians . Her father

1392-476: The United States. However, the United States was not represented in the Art Competitions as Graham refused the invitation by stating: I would find it impossible to dance in Germany at the present time. So many artists whom I respect and admire have been persecuted, have been deprived of the right to work for ridiculous and unsatisfactory reasons, that I should consider it impossible to identify myself, by accepting

1450-432: The beautiful girls who had no other obligation than to be beautiful proved to have beautiful voices as well. The following season, another newspaper critic extended high praise to the show's choreography. A year after that, however, a critic decried the show's over-reliance on dance. For nearly a decade, popular composers of the day, including Irving Berlin , Cole Porter , and Richard Rodgers , contributed tunes; but to

1508-414: The dancers clothed unglamorously, the piece centered on the theme of rejection—one that would reoccur in other Graham works down the line. As time went on Graham moved away from the more stark design aesthetic she initially embraced and began incorporating more elaborate sets and scenery to her work. To do this, she collaborated often with Isamu Noguchi —a Japanese American designer—whose eye for set design

1566-516: The evening of May 25, 1968, in Time of Snow . But in A Dancer's Life , biographer Russell Freedman lists the year of Graham's final performance as 1969. In her 1991 autobiography, Blood Memory , Graham herself lists her final performance as her 1970 appearance in Cortege of Eagles when she was 76 years old. Graham's choreographies span 181 compositions. In the years that followed her departure from

1624-867: The female "Icons of the Century" by People . In 2015, she was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame . On May 11, 2020, on what would have been Graham's 126th birthday, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts announced it had acquired Graham's archives for its Jerome Robbins Dance Division. The archive consists mainly of paper-based material, photographs and films, including rare footage of Graham dancing in works such as "Appalachian Spring" and "Hérodiade"; her script for "Night Journey"; and her handwritten notes for "American Document". Greenwich Village Follies The Greenwich Village Follies

1682-498: The final draft of her autobiography, Blood Memory , which was published posthumously in the fall of 1991. She was cremated, and her ashes were spread over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico . Graham has been sometimes termed the "Picasso of Dance" in that her importance and influence to modern dance can be considered equivalent to what Pablo Picasso was to modern visual arts. Her impact has been also compared to

1740-520: The history of Off-Broadway musicals, this annual revue actually spent very little time in its original downtown home. The first edition moved uptown soon after its opening, as did the second. By the third year, the revue simply skipped its native venue and opened at the Shubert Theatre . Typically, after a run in New York, an adapted version of the show toured the country. To the dismay of rival impresario Florenz Ziegfeld , Anderson changed

1798-547: The influence of Stravinsky on music and Frank Lloyd Wright on architecture. In 2013, the dance films by her were selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the registry's owner, the Library of Congress . To celebrate what would have been her 117th birthday on May 11, 2011, Google 's logo for one day was turned into one dedicated to Graham's life and legacy. Graham has been said to be

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1856-420: The invitation, with the regime that has made such things possible. In addition, some of my concert group would not be welcomed in Germany. Goebbels himself wrote her a letter assuring her that her Jewish dancers would "receive complete immunity", however, it was not enough for Graham to accept such an invitation. Stimulated by the occurrences of the 1936 Olympic Games, and the propaganda that she heard through

1914-481: The last word of his title from “Nights” to “Follies.” Ziegfeld did not take Anderson to court, but in the decade to come, the two Broadway moguls were often compared. Like Ziegfeld's famous Follies , Anderson's revue boasted of lavish curtains, original scores, comedy sketches, and, of course, a bevy of beautiful girls. Other peers included George White , with his Scandals ; and Earl Carroll , with his Vanities . The first star of The Greenwich Village Follies

1972-446: The more percussive and staccato movements, Graham eventually added the spiral shape to the vocabulary of her technique to incorporate a sense of fluidity. Following her first concert made up of solos, Graham created Heretic (1929), the first group piece of many that showcased a clear diversion from her days with Denishawn, and served as an insight to her work that would follow in the future. Made up of constricted and sharp movement with

2030-434: The nonliteral set. As she did often, Graham placed herself in her own piece as the bride of a newly married couple whose optimism for starting a new life together is countered by a grounded pioneer woman and a sermon-giving revivalist. Two of Graham's pieces— Cave of Heart (1946) and Night Journey (1947)—display her interest in not only Greek mythology but also with the psyche of a woman, as both pieces retell Greek myths from

2088-618: The one that brought dance into the 20th century. Due to the work of her assistants, Linda Hodes, Pearl Lang, Diane Gray, Yuriko, and others, much of Graham's work and technique have been preserved. They taped interviews of Graham describing her entire technique and videos of her performances. Glen Tetley told Agnes de Mille , "The wonderful thing about Martha in her good days was her generosity. So many people stole Martha's unique personal vocabulary, consciously or unconsciously, and performed it in concerts. I have never once heard Martha say, 'So-and-so has used my choreography. ' " An entire movement

2146-532: The only full-length work in Graham's career. Graham choreographed and danced the title role, spending almost the entire duration of the performance on the stage. The ballet was based on the Greek mythology of the same title and tells the story of Queen Clytemnestra who is married to King Agamemnon . Agamemnon sacrifices their daughter, Iphigenia , on a pyre, as an offering to the gods to assure fair winds to Troy, where

2204-530: The others." In 2021 actress Mary Beth Peil portrayed Graham in the Netflix series Halston . The Martha Graham Dance Company is the oldest dance company in America, founded in 1926. It has helped develop many famous dancers and choreographers of the 20th and 21st centuries including Erick Hawkins , Anna Sokolow , Merce Cunningham , Lila York , and Paul Taylor . It continues to perform, including at

2262-716: The performance, excerpts from the U.S. Declaration of Independence , Lincoln's Gettysburg Address , and the Emancipation Proclamation were read. These were passages that highlighted the American ideals and represented what made the American people American. For Graham, a dance needed to "reveal certain national characteristics because without these characteristics the dance would have no validity, no roots, no direct relation to life". The beginning of American Document marks modern concepts of performance art joining dance, theater and literature and clearly defining

2320-419: The perpetual disappointment of the backers, the revue never seemed to produce any notable hits. True to its bohemian roots, the revue came to be distinguished by its socially- and intellectually-provocative content. Even so, the material appealed to the eye as well as the brain. Anderson was often noted for his striking stage pictures and his novel lighting effects. Not surprisingly, the ballad ballet became

2378-479: The radio from the Axis Powers , Graham created American Document in 1938. The dance expressed American ideals and democracy as Graham realized that it could empower men and inspire them to fight fascist and Nazi ideologies. American Document ended up as a patriotic statement focusing on rights and injustices of the time, representing the American people including its Native-American heritage and slavery. During

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2436-542: The revue was produced on Broadway was 1928. At the onset of the Great Depression , the modest and short-lived Greenwich Village Theatre was demolished. In July 2011, the Manhattan Theatre Source reimagined The Greenwich Village Follies as an exploration of local history. Like its predecessor, this production paid homage to members of the cultural avant-garde, such as Edna St. Vincent Millay and Jackson Pollock ; it also tackled gritty subjects, such as

2494-427: The roles of the spectator and the actors/dancers. The narrator/actor starts with "establishing an awareness of the present place and time, which serves not only as a bridge between past and present, but also between individual and collective, particular and general". Together with her unique technique, this sociological and philosophical innovation sets dance as a clear expression of current ideas and places and Graham as

2552-532: The stage, Graham sank into a deep depression fueled by views from the wings of young dancers performing many of the dances she had choreographed for herself and her former husband. Graham's health declined precipitously as she abused alcohol to numb her pain. In Blood Memory she wrote, It wasn't until years after I had relinquished a ballet that I could bear to watch someone else dance it. I believe in never looking back, never indulging in nostalgia, or reminiscing. Yet how can you avoid it when you look on stage and see

2610-558: The time of TDT's founding, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre was also established as part of the organization. In 1978 the school became its own separate institution under Earle's leadership, but the two organizations still maintain an affiliation. In 1981 the company participated alongside the National Ballet of Canada , Les Grands Ballets Canadiens , the Royal Winnipeg Ballet , le Groupe de la Place Royale,

2668-400: The wire-walking Bird Millman ; female impersonators, such as Bert Savoy ; and even blackface comics, such as Al Herman and comedy team of Moran and Mack . In later editions, aspiring dancers Martha Graham and Agnes DeMille made appearances. In 1919, a critic for The New York Times commended the collective singing talent of the cast: not only did a male quartet provide harmony,

2726-650: Was Ziegfeld-veteran Bessie McCoy Davis . She made several appearances in the first edition, including one as a marionette. While singing “I’m the Hostess of the Bum Cabaret,” she spoofed the recently ratified Eighteenth Amendment . The names at the top of the marquee changed from season to season. In a 1924 number titled “The Dollies and the Collies,” trained dogs danced alongside vaudeville's celebrated Dolly Sisters . Specialty acts included circus veterans, such as

2784-473: Was a musical revue that played for eight seasons in New York City from 1919 to 1927. Launched by John Murray Anderson , and opening on July 15, 1919, at the newly constructed Greenwich Village Theatre near Christopher Street , the show's success has been credited in part to its timing: as a non-union production, it was unaffected by the then-current actors' strike . Though considered a pioneer in

2842-410: Was a third-generation American of Irish descent. Graham's mother, Jane Beers, was a second-generation American of Irish, Scots-Irish, and English ancestry, and who claimed to be a tenth-generation descendant of Myles Standish . While her parents provided a comfortable environment in her youth, it was not one that encouraged dancing. The Graham family moved to Santa Barbara, California , when Martha

2900-620: Was asked to stay on. In 1926, the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance was established, in a small studio on the Upper East Side of New York City. On April 18 of the same year Graham debuted her first independent concert, consisting of 18 short solos and trios that she had choreographed. This performance took place at the 48th Street Theatre in Manhattan . She would later say of the concert: "Everything I did

2958-557: Was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by President Gerald Ford (the First Lady Betty Ford had studied under Graham in her youth). Ford declared her "a national treasure". Graham was the first recipient of the Samuel H. Scripps / American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in modern dance in 1981, presented by Betty Ford. In 1984, Graham was awarded the highest French order of merit ,

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3016-430: Was complementary to Graham's choreography. Within the many themes which Graham incorporated into her work, there were two that she seemed to adhere to the most—Americana and Greek mythology. One of Graham's most known pieces that incorporates the American life theme is Appalachian Spring (1944). She collaborated with the composer Aaron Copland —who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the piece—and Noguchi, who created

3074-409: Was created by her that revolutionized the dance world and created what is known today as modern dance. Now, dancers all over the world study and perform modern dance. Choreographers and professional dancers look to her for inspiration. Agnes de Mille said: The greatest thing [Graham] ever said to me was in 1943 after the opening of Oklahoma! , when I suddenly had unexpected, flamboyant success for

3132-572: Was fourteen years old. In 1911, she attended the first dance performance of her life, watching Ruth St. Denis perform at the Mason Opera House in Los Angeles. In the mid-1910s, Martha Graham began her studies at the newly created Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts , founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn , at which she would stay until 1923. In 1922, Graham performed one of Shawn's Egyptian dances with Lillian Powell in

3190-467: Was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma. Graham not only survived her hospital stay, but she rallied. In 1972, she quit drinking, returned to her studio, reorganized her company, and went on to choreograph ten new ballets and many revivals. Her last completed ballet was 1990's Maple Leaf Rag . Graham choreographed until her death in New York City from pneumonia in 1991, aged 96. Just before she became sick with pneumonia, she finished

3248-504: Was influenced by Denishawn ." On November 28, 1926, Graham and others in her company gave a dance recital at the Klaw Theatre in New York City. Around the same time she entered an extended collaboration with Japanese-American pictorialist photographer Soichi Sunami , and over the next five years they together created some of the most iconic images of early modern dance. Graham was on the faculty of Neighborhood Playhouse School of

3306-511: Was lost. In 1952 Graham allowed taping of her meeting and cultural exchange with famed deaf-blind author, activist and lecturer Helen Keller , who, after a visit to one of Graham's company rehearsals became a close friend and supporter. Graham was inspired by Keller's joy from and interpretation of dance, utilizing her body to feel the vibration of drums and of feet and movement moving the air around her. In her biography Martha , Agnes de Mille cites Graham's last performance as having occurred on

3364-566: Was made up of Erick Hawkins , Merce Cunningham , David Campbell, John Butler, Robert Cohan , Stuart Hodes , Glen Tetley , Bertram Ross , Paul Taylor , Donald McKayle, Mark Ryder, and William Carter. During her career, Graham was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography three times- one in 1932, one in 1943, and one in 1944. In 1957, Graham was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . She

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