Saturday, October 24th I attended the Martha Graham Dance Company performance at the Aycock Auditorium on campus. The performance was a chronology of Martha Graham’s works through history including her most famous pieces. A narrator introduced each piece and described Graham‘s inspiration behind them while incorporating film clips and recordings of Martha Graham herself.
Martha Graham is recognized as a prominent figure in the artistic world during the 20th century alongside Pablo Picasso and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1998, TIME magazine named Martha as the “Dancer of the Century.” She is known for creating unconventional, modern ballets where the technique is rooted in the basic human movement and the elemental movements of contradiction and release. Martha Graham’s dancing and choreography exposes the depths of human emotions such as in her most famous pieces Serenata Morisca ,Lamentations, and Errand into the maze. This innovative concept forever changed the dance world and continues to be an inspiration for future generations.
Steps in the Street is an anti-war piece written in 1936 in response to World War II and was my favorite number in the performance. The piece included three movements beginning with “Devastation” then moving into “Homelessness” and ending with “Exile.” The ensemble was classified into soldiers and civilians not by their costumes which were simple black dresses, but by their movements. The “soldiers” were characterized by their stiff, jerky movements, while the “civilians” threw their hands up in submission and moved across the stage like they were being taken off to an unknown destination. Of course this is just my interpretation. All of Martha Graham’s choreography is abstract and therefore the storyline is left up to the imagination of the viewer. However, knowing beforehand what the inspiration was behind the creation I found myself clearly developing a story around Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in my mind.
Even though Steps in the Street was written in 1936, the piece is timeless and can still be relatable in today’s society. This performance could easily be translated into the civil war in The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the religious conflict in Israel, or even the United States’ war in Iraq. Martha Graham’s work is certainly admirable in the sense that her choreography challenges the imagination while displaying basic human emotions that will always be appreciated by audiences.
Martha Graham is recognized as a prominent figure in the artistic world during the 20th century alongside Pablo Picasso and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1998, TIME magazine named Martha as the “Dancer of the Century.” She is known for creating unconventional, modern ballets where the technique is rooted in the basic human movement and the elemental movements of contradiction and release. Martha Graham’s dancing and choreography exposes the depths of human emotions such as in her most famous pieces Serenata Morisca ,Lamentations, and Errand into the maze. This innovative concept forever changed the dance world and continues to be an inspiration for future generations.
Steps in the Street is an anti-war piece written in 1936 in response to World War II and was my favorite number in the performance. The piece included three movements beginning with “Devastation” then moving into “Homelessness” and ending with “Exile.” The ensemble was classified into soldiers and civilians not by their costumes which were simple black dresses, but by their movements. The “soldiers” were characterized by their stiff, jerky movements, while the “civilians” threw their hands up in submission and moved across the stage like they were being taken off to an unknown destination. Of course this is just my interpretation. All of Martha Graham’s choreography is abstract and therefore the storyline is left up to the imagination of the viewer. However, knowing beforehand what the inspiration was behind the creation I found myself clearly developing a story around Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in my mind.
Even though Steps in the Street was written in 1936, the piece is timeless and can still be relatable in today’s society. This performance could easily be translated into the civil war in The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the religious conflict in Israel, or even the United States’ war in Iraq. Martha Graham’s work is certainly admirable in the sense that her choreography challenges the imagination while displaying basic human emotions that will always be appreciated by audiences.
