Martha Graham & the Art Form of Modern Dance

Martha Graham single-handedly created the art form known modern dance. Many authors have written about her life, her art and her influence in order to provide some insight into her creative genius. One of the most intimate and extensive of these offerings is Agnes DeMille's Martha, The life and work of Martha Graham.

DeMille met Graham in the early 1920s, just as Graham was gaining fame as a professional dancer. Her first impressions of Graham were of a woman whose presence was one of dignity, absolute fastidiousness in manners and speech, and a ready courtesy (DeMille, 1984, p. 13). Graham had a majestic stage presence that was due to the forceful intensity of her gestures. Offstage, however, she was, physically, almost tiny. Her spirit was immense. She had a unique awareness, an attention that seemed always receptive. She spoke with an authority that sprang from the depth of her observations. She was passionate and would not allow herself to be controlled by anyone.

Graham's father had had a great influence on her. He was a physician and was used to looking at the human body for clues concerning a person's health. He once told her that she could never lie to him because her body language would tell him the truth, bodies never lie. Intrigued, she learned to study the movements of people and animals.

Graham was an excellent student who had a remarkable feeling for words and language. Her English teachers hoped that she would make creative literature her spe

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her choreography, and to share a program with no other company (DeMille, 1984, p. 81). In 1926, Graham started her own company. Her creativity, both in the amount of work she choreographed and in its intensity, was enormous. In her first year, she produced 29 dances. They were short but difficult pieces that earned the attention of the dance critics that were becoming popular in the major newspapers of New York. Two of these critics, John Martin, of the New York Times, and Mary Watkins, of the New York Herald Tribune, hailed Graham's work. She continued to develop her vocabulary, a process which would not reach its full maturity until 1928. As this maturity approached, her work continued to get stronger. In 1930, Graham produced Lamentation. It one of her many early masterpieces. Performed with a score by Kodaly, the piece consisted of a series of grief stricken postures. Graham remained seated throughout the performance with her feet firmly planted on the ground. The impression was one of absolute woe. After the performance, a woman came backstage to speak with Graham. Weeping openly, the woman told her that, a few months before, she had watched helplessly as her son was run down and killed by a car. She had not

Category: Arts - M