How should Martha Graham's work be danced today?
The year 1936 was indeed a difficult time, with a depression and political ferment in our country and the specter of fascism abroad. Modern dance choreographers, who saw themselves in the vanguard of American art, rightly expressed their concerns with society's ills. The massed movement and group solidarity of this work's last two segments evoke the social realism that would have us all marching to a brighter future.
The work also did something else. It reminded us that Graham was remarkably attuned to the art movements of her day, both music and visual art. The architecture of Sketches of Chronicles, the way that dancers are arranged in lines and on differing levels, seems very connected to the design sensibility of this Art Deco period. In looking at the dance, I was reminded of the clean lines and symmetry of buildings, automobiles, and furniture of the time. This too, seemed like a vision for a bright future, uncluttered by the detritus of the past.
So what does become a legend the most? In the case of Graham, it is always good to see her work, though I wish there had been fewer reconstructions - there were at least three on this program, and that is not including Serenata Morisca, which had no attribution as to how it had been documented or reconstructed. The lighting for the works, mostly original designs by Jean Rosenthal, seemed a bit tired and might be revisited by new eyes. It also would have been good to see at least one work that moved the company to a new vision. They have had mixed success in commissioning new works that complement the Graham repertory, but it would have been good to have seen at least one.
What becomes this legend the most however, is to remember what a revolutionary Martha Graham was in creating a new movement language, a new form of dramatic theater, a new way of training dancers, a new way to express myth, religion, and the deepest recesses of the human psyche. Some of what she does may now look old-fashioned to our eyes, as if we've seen it many times before. But sometimes we forget that 50, 60, even 70 years ago, Martha Graham did it first.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Oct 4, 7:17 p.m. inappropriate
Art is not binary: Your basic premise, the frame of your question is skewed; the Arts are abstract, not an either/or - black/white - up/down - yes/no - right/wrong order.
The answer to your question is: Both.
It's a big world out there.
Posted Fri, Oct 5, 9:38 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Art is not binary: Of course we can do both. But the question really was, what would Martha have wanted, and then what would have honored her most? And by some accounts, Graham might have preferred that her dances, as performed by a Martha Graham Dance Company, not be done after her death, no matter how much an homage to her, or as part of a preservation of a national heritage treasure. It is the works that are the treasure, not the company. But her true feelings will likely never be known. My own sense is that there is no Graham company after Graham, and that the dances, and Graham the artist, would be just as well served by being performed by companies all over the world if they are to be danced at all, reinterpreted by new dancers and observed by new audiences. There was a Martha Graham Dance Company when Graham was alive. There is only a name and memories now.