Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991)[1] was an American modern dancer, teacher and choreographer responsible for creating theGraham technique.[2]
Graham was born inAllegheny City, later to become part ofPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1894. Her father, George Graham, was an "alienist", a practitioner of an early form ofpsychiatry.[3] The Grahams werePresbyterians. Her father 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[4] ofMyles Standish.[5][6] While her parents provided a comfortable environment in her youth, it was not one that encouraged dancing.[7]
The Graham family moved toSanta Maria, California, when Martha was fourteen years old.[8] In 1911, she attended the first dance performance of her life, watchingRuth St. Denis perform at theMason Opera House in Los Angeles.[9] In the mid-1910s, Martha Graham began her studies at the newly createdDenishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded by Ruth St. Denis andTed Shawn,[10] at which she would stay until 1923. In 1922, Graham performed one of Shawn's Egyptian dances withLillian Powell in a short silent film byHugo Riesenfeld that attempted to synchronize a dance routine on film with a live orchestra and an onscreen conductor.[11]
Graham left the Denishawn establishment in 1923 in order to become a featured dancer in theGreenwich Village Follies revue for two years.
In 1925, Graham was employed at theEastman School of Music whereRouben Mamoulian was head of the School of Drama. Among other performances, together Mamoulian and Graham produced a shorttwo-color film calledThe Flute of Krishna, featuring Eastman students. Mamoulian left Eastman shortly thereafter and Graham chose to leave also, even though she was asked to stay on.[citation needed]
In 1926, theMartha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance was established, in a small studio on theUpper East Side of New York City. On April 18 of the same year[10] Graham debuted her first independent concert, consisting of 18 short solos and trios that she had choreographed. This performance took place at the48th Street Theatre inManhattan. She would later say of the concert: "Everything I did was influenced byDenishawn."[12] On November 28, 1926, Graham and others in her company gave a dance recital at theKlaw Theatre in New York City. Around the same time she entered an extended collaboration with Japanese-Americanpictorialist photographerSoichi Sunami.[13] Graham was on the faculty ofNeighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre when it opened in 1928.[14]
One of Graham's students was heiressBethsabée de Rothschild with whom she became close friends. When Rothschild moved to Israel and established theBatsheva Dance Company in 1965, Graham became the company's first director.[15]
Graham's technique pioneered a principle known as "contraction and release" in modern dance, which was derived from a stylized conception of breathing.[16]
In conjunction with the1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, 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.[17] AlthoughJoseph 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 andAdolf Hitler still agreed to invite Graham to represent 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 the invitation, with the regime that has made such things possible. In addition, some of my concert group would not be welcomed in Germany.[18]
Goebbels himself wrote her a letter assuring her that her Jewish dancers would "receive complete immunity". Graham nevertheless rejected the invitation.[19]
Stimulated by the occurrences of the 1936 Olympic Games, and the propaganda that she heard through the radio from theAxis powers, Graham createdAmerican 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 the performance, excerpts from theU.S. Declaration of Independence, Lincoln'sGettysburg Address, and theEmancipation 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".[20]
In 1938, theRoosevelt family invited Graham to dance at theWhite House, making her the first dancer to perform there.[21] In the same year,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 the New York premiere ofNight Journey.[22] He left her troupe in 1951 and they divorced in 1954.
On April 1, 1958, theMartha Graham Dance Company premiered the balletClytemnestra, which would become a success.[23] With a score by Egyptian-born composerHalim El-Dabh, this ballet was a large scale work and 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.[24] The ballet tells the story of QueenClytemnestra, who is married to KingAgamemnon. Agamemnon sacrifices their daughterIphigenia on a pyre, as an offering to the gods to assure fair winds to Troy, where theTrojan 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. The ballet had a limited engagement showing at the54th Street Theatre onBroadway, conducted byRobert Irving, voice parts sung by Rosalia Maresca andRonald Holgate.[25]
Graham resisted requests for her dances to be recorded because she believed that stage performances should only be experienced live.[28] There were a few notable exceptions. For example, in addition to her collaboration withSunami in the 1920s, she also worked on a limited basis with still photographersImogen Cunningham in the 1930s, andBarbara Morgan in the 1940s. Graham consideredPhilippe Halsman's photographs ofDark Meadow the most complete photographic record of any of her dances. Halsman also photographed in the 1940sLetter to the World,Cave of the Heart,Night Journey andEvery Soul is a Circus. In later years her opinion changed. In 1952 Graham allowed taping of her meeting and cultural exchange with famed deaf-blind author, activist and lecturerHelen 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.[29]
In her biographyMartha,Agnes de Mille cites Graham's last performance as having occurred on the evening of May 25, 1968, inTime of Snow. But inA Dancer's Life, biographerRussell 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 inCortege of Eagles when she was 76 years old. Graham's choreographies span 181 compositions.[30]
In the years that followed her departure from 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. InBlood 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 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 hellDante 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 was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.[31]
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'sMaple Leaf Rag.
Graham choreographed until her death in New York City frompneumonia in 1991, aged 96.[32] Just before she became sick with pneumonia, she finished the final draft of her autobiography,Blood Memory, which was published posthumously in the fall of 1991.[33] She was cremated, and her ashes were spread over theSangre de Cristo Mountains in northernNew Mexico.
Graham has been sometimes termed the "Picasso of Dance" in that her importance and influence to modern dance can be considered equivalent to whatPablo Picasso was to modern visual arts.[34][35] Her impact has been also compared to the influence ofStravinsky on music andFrank Lloyd Wright on architecture.[36]
Graham has been said to be 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.[37]Glen Tetley toldAgnes 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.'"[38] An entire movement 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.[39]
Agnes de Mille said:
The greatest thing [Graham] ever said to me was in 1943 after the opening ofOklahoma!, when I suddenly had unexpected, flamboyant success for 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 aSchrafft'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 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 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 the others."[40]
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.[41]
Among the dancers who passed through her company in 1978 was the singerMadonna, a few years before she became famous. The singer, who greatly admires Graham, was nicknamed "Madame X" by her, which would be the name of her14th studio album in 2019.[47]
On May 11, 2020, on what would have been Graham's 126th birthday, theNew 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".[60]
This excerpt fromJohn Martin's reviews inThe New York Times provides insight on Graham's choreographic style. "Frequently the vividness and intensity of her purpose are so potent that on the rise of the curtain they strike like a blow, and in that moment one must decide whether he is for or against her. She boils down her moods and movements until they are devoid of all extraneous substances and are concentrated to the highest degree."[61] Graham created 181 ballets.
OldBreton song,Tetus Breton, as arranged by Charles de Sivry; added to the United StatesNational Film Registry in 2013 along with three other Martha Graham dance films[62]
^Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom – An Exploration of Consensus Across Theory and Practice, Karen Hosack Janes, Critical Publishing Ltd, 2022, p. 31, quoting Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity seen through the lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi, Howard Gardner, 1993 (rep. 2011), p. 250
^Bondi (1995) p. 74 quote: "Picasso of Dance ... Martha Graham was to modern dance what Pablo Picasso was to modern art."
^de Mille 1991, p. vii"Her achievement is equivalent to Picasso's," I said to Mark Ryder, a pupil and company member of Graham's, "I'm not sure I will accept him as deserving to be in her class."
Hawkins, Erick (1992).The Body Is a Clear Place and Other Statements on Dance. Hightstown, New Jersey: Princeton Book Co.ISBN978-0-87127-166-2.
Helpern, Alice.Martha, 1998
Hodes, Stuart,Part Real – Part Dream, Dancing With Martha Graham, (2011) Concord ePress, Concord, Massachusetts
Horosko, Marian (2002).Martha Graham The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida.ISBN978-0-8130-2473-8.