NEW@Graham: Celebrating a decade of "Lamentation Variations"

Lament not. Janet Eilber plans to keep dreaming up ways to revivify America's longest-running dance troupe, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and Graham's famed solo, Lamentations, continues to show the way.

Last evening, the company celebrated the 10th year of Lamentation Variations, its unusual commissioning project launched in 2007 as artistic director Eilber noticed that the season's opening night would fall on the anniversary of 9/11. Since then, Eilber has invited dancemakers, representing a diversity of aesthetic approaches, to respond to or re-imagine the Graham solo. So, Yes to Judson genius Yvonne Rainer rethinking Lamentation or tap genius Michelle Dorrance remixing it!

The commissioned artists pledge fidelity, more or less, to a set of spartan rules limiting length (no longer than Graham's four minutes), rehearsal time (10 hours tops) and sets (absolutely none allowed). Even given these restrictions, each has managed to re-envision the original in signature ways--for instance, turning the spare, tense, wrenching angularity of Graham's grieving into something eerily luxurious for soloist Katherine Crockett (Richard Move, 2007), bringing the entire company onstage (Larry Keigwin, 2007), turning the solo into an interracial male duet (Kyle Abraham, 2015) or teaching Memphis Jookin to a cluster of nine young Grahamites (Lil Buck, 2017).

"The question became 'How to put new choreography on the stage next to Graham classics," said Eilber as she opened the evening in the company's studio at Westbeth, former home of Merce Cunningham's troupe. "Would I get run out of town?" Ultimately, though, she found that introducing new work helped audiences "appreciate Martha Graham more and remember what a radical she was."

A radical, indeed. Throughout these opening remarks, an early 1940s video of Graham dancing Lamentation played behind and loomed over Eilber, proving her correct. Graham worked that solo. Her concept and vision for it, along with her fierce performance, remain unmatched. Last evening's program featured Variations by Abraham, Keigwin, Gwen Welliver (preparing for a 2018 Tallahassee premiere), Bulareyaung Pagarlava as well as Lil Buck's New York premiere. Each offered elements of interest...and yet...and yet...Graham remains queen.

Lamentation Variations concludes this evening with another informal toast and studio showing at 7pm, featuring Variations by Aszure Barton, Doug Varone, Richard Move, Larry Keigwin and Lil Buck. Click here for information and ticketing.

Martha Graham Studio Theater
Westbeth, 55 Bethune Street (11th Floor), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Halim El-Dabh, 96

Halim El-Dabh, Composer of Martha Graham Ballets, Dies at 96
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, September 8, 2017

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Brendan Connelly and Scotty Heron at JACK

In Appalachian Spring Break, composer Brendan Connelly and performance artist Scotty Heron collaborate at JACK for an hour of mayhem triggered--let us not say "inspired"--by the collaboration of Martha Graham and Aaron Copland on Graham's Appalachian Spring. Here, with each artist continually invading the other's territory, the worlds of music and dance collide--let us not say "merge" or "overlap"--again and again.

The sonic assault starts right away. From on high, the pair train clarinets down upon the defenseless audience in a shrill and gurgly fanfare. You might notice that handlettered sheets of cardboard subtly bear the word "fanfare," a nod to Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man as well as a sign of the DIY spirit of the production. Music making employs stand-alone instruments (clarinets, kazoos), a snaggle of increasingly snaggled, endangered electronics and the whimsy of amplified stuff simply hitting or being dragged along the floor. Movement involves, among other things, whippet-thin Heron risking life while, strapped into pointe shoes, he laboriously climbs to the top of a stack of tables, or channeling Graham's iconic Lamentation, tense angles stretching the fabric of what a U Michigan arts blogger once called "The Infamous Giant Sock Thing."

No. Not Scotty Heron this time.
The real Martha Graham performs Lamentation.
(photo: Herta Moselsio)

Heron's centerpiece work as Graham is a thing of mystery and scrupulously contained drama, gorgeous in its own way.

Appalachian Spring Break concludes with two performances tonight: 8pm and 10:30 pm. For information and tickets, click here.

JACK
505 1/2 Waverly Avenue (between Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue), Brooklyn
(map/directions)

"Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter" opens January 23

Modern dance is not a system. It's a point of view. -- Martha Hill

Greg Vander Veer's 80-minute documentary, Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter, explores the visionary path of dance educator Martha Hill, from her Bible Belt upbringing and first sight of a Graham dance through her poignant final years at the Juilliard Dance Division. Bursting with archival footage, photographs and interviews, the film traces dance history through the many lives and careers influenced by Hill. It notes the significance of her support for America's early modern dance pioneers and her prescient insistence on building the total dancer, one grounded in both modern and balletic training.

Vander Veer gives Hill her due as an insightful, nurturing and inspiring leader, tough when she needed to be. He has not shied away from addressing the professional struggles she faced--a society that, when not damning dance as a sinful pursuit, considered dance training to be little better than Phys Ed and for girls only. And then there was Lincoln Kirstein's aggressive move to poach Hill's Juilliard studios for Balanchine and New York City Ballet. The going gets a little heavy here--moneyed, privileged, well-connected NYCB once again pulling focus--but you soon see this ugly episode's relevance to a narrative about fighting for what matters. It takes a strong woman, but it takes a village, too.

See Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter, starting Friday, January 23, at Quad Cinemas. A Q & A with Vander Veer and Coordinating Producer Vernon Scott will follow Friday and Saturday (7pm) and Saturday and Sunday (4:30pm) shows. 

Future public screenings are scheduled for Spokane, WA, Columbus, OH, and Boston.

Distributed by First Run Features. For more information on future screenings or purchase, click here.

Quad Cinema

34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan

(directions)

New film on dance educator Martha Hill

MISS HILL: MAKING DANCE MATTER

a documentary film 

by Greg Vander Veer

opens Friday, January 23

at New York City's Quad Cinema

Martha Hill
(1900-1995)

Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter reveals the little known story of Martha Hill, a visionary who fought against great odds to make contemporary and modern dance a legitimate art form in America. In a career spanning most of the 20th century, Hill became a behind the scenes leader of the field and the founding director of The Juilliard Dance Division. Stylistically weaving together over 90 years of archival footage, the film is a celebration of dance and an examination of the passion required to keep it alive.

Showtimes: 1pm, 2:45pm, 4:30pm, 7pm, 9:15pm

Running Time: 1:20

Q+As with filmmaker Greg Vander Veer and Martha Hill Dance Fund president Vernon Scott will follow the Friday and Saturday 7pm shows, and the Saturday and Sunday 4:30pm shows.

For additional information on this film and the Martha Hill Dance Fund--including the November 24 gala honoring Martha Myers and Mary Hinkson--click here.

QUAD CINEMA
34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Martha Graham Center receives Mellon funds to digitize its archives

Graham Center Gets $1 Million for Dance Archive
by Michael Cooper, The New York Times, February 20, 2014

Graham's surrealism on display at the Morgan

Along with its major exhibition of Surrealist works on paper--Drawing Surrealism (January 25-April 21)--The Morgan Library and Museum will present a performance of works by Martha Graham.

Inner Landscape: Martha Graham and the Surreal
Thursday, February 7, 7pm

The Martha Graham Dance Company will perform three of Graham’s masterworks that touch on surrealism and demonstrate how the choreographer made the workings of the mind visible in dance. Every Soul is a Circus (with Katherine Crockett performing the lead), Satyric Festival Song, and “Moon” from Canticle for Innocent Comedians will be featured with commentary by the Company’s Artistic Director, Janet Eilber. Drawing Surrealism will be open at 6pm especially for program attendees.

Tickets: $20; $15 (members)

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue (at 36th Street), Manhattan
212-685-0008 x560
(map/directions)

Historic loss for Graham company in hurricane crisis

Martha Graham Sets and Costumes Damaged by Hurricane Sandy
by Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, November 2, 2012

Legends, then and now: Graham and Bausch

What becomes a legend most...when she's gone?

For Janet Eilber, artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, what becomes her legendary mentor now is a mix of classic repertory works and new commissions designed to take a fresh approach to Graham themes. In seasons past, these themes have explored "Political Dance" and psychological "Inner Landscapes." For its 2013 program at The Joyce Theater (February 20-March 3), the company will offer "Myth & Transformation." This collection will include Phaedra--unseen for a decade--and other Graham works inspired by Greek myths and legends plus the New York premiere of Doug Varone's Lamentation Variation and a restaging of Richard Move's The Show (Achilles Heels), originally created for Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project. In addition, along with a new piece by Nacho Duato, the troupe will bring Graham's Rite of Spring to Carolina Performing Arts (Chapel Hill, NC) as part of a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the premiere of the Stravinsky piece.

From the original cast of The Show (Achilles Heels). Rasta Thomas (l) and Miguel Anaya (r)
photo by ©JulietaCervante

Yesterday afternoon, the troupe previewed samples from "Myth & Transformation" in its new home--the former, and legendary, Merce Cunningham studio at Westbeth. Varone's quartet for men--part of the company's commission of interpretations of Graham's iconic solo, Lamentation--evokes a sense of the early HIV/AIDS crisis, of dynamic interconnections, interdependence, loss, readjustment and healing within a community at a time when change is the only constant. The Show (Achilles Heels), with its snappy, game-show setting and androgynously-sexy protagonist (played now by Lloyd Mayor, a breakout talent hailing from the Isle of Man), will give freer play to its young dancers' expressive capabilities and seems pitched to draw younger audiences.

[And look what I found! Here's Lloyd Mayor in a video interview, a year or so ago, talking about life at the Rambert School and mentioning his dream of getting into the Graham company.]

BAM drew a decidedly mature, largely upscale crowd of fans of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch for last night's sold-out US premiere of Bausch's final work of surrealist absurdity and romance. "...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si..." unfolds across a stage floor glowing with cool, white light like a  lightbox or a polar ice sheet, which makes its imagery (and designer Marion Cito's elegant, sensuous gowns) absolutely pop.

With one intermission, the evening runs a giddy 2 hours and 40 minutes--a pretty steep commitment--but the Bausch ensemble rewards attention with alternately gorgeous, tender, clever and amusing scenarios and performances. The begowned women--and Bausch's movement for them as individuals--have always impressed me more than the guys darting around them in their serviceable black shirts and slacks; the luminous female standouts here in "...como el musguito" include Morena Nascimento and Ditta Miranda Jasjfi. But Fernando Suels Mendoza has a wonderful bit as a flirtatious fellow effusively greeting the ladies as they approach and pass. Once you watch him perform this segment, you continue to follow and welcome everything he does.

Mind the cracks, though--those "Antarctic ice" cracks opening up in that glowing white floor. Beneath all of that color and movement and beauty and fun and abandon lie completely ignored hints of disaster in the making.

The company premiered this work just a few weeks before Bausch's cancer diagnosis and shocking, sudden death. With 20/20 hindsight, it appears prescient, a farewell and a gift of mad, extravagant love to her dancers and her audience.

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch continues at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House tonight and October 20, 23, 24, 26, 27 at 7:30pm and October 21 at 3pm. Tickets are sold out but, for information, click here.

When Barbara Morgan photographed Graham

An Unforgettable Photo of Martha Graham
by Joan Acocella, Smithsonian.com, June 2011

Betty Ford--dancer--93

Betty Ford, Former First Lady, Dies at 93

by Enid Nemy, The New York Times, July 9, 2011

Betty Ford's dance background led her to Carnegie Hall, spurred her support of the arts

MyDesert.com, July 8, 2011

Google honors Martha Graham

Martha Graham Google doodle celebrates the dancer and choreographer's 117th birthday
by Laura Roberts, The Telegraph, May 11, 2011

What a difference...

...a dancer makes.

I'm thinking of Katherine Crockett, that tall drink of water, brightening my evening as she defined the prophetic Chorus in Martha Graham's Cave of the Heart. She works that broad-striped fabric of her costume, unfolds it like a condor's wings and radiantly projects over what seems a vast distance in space and time with dire, desperate gestures that, for all their silence, "sound" to me like trumpets. I saw her, I heard her. There was no one and nothing like her on stage, then or later. Everything else seemed carefully managed and remote--even Bulareyaung Pagarlava's brand-new Chasing, a work that sets out to prove that Graham standard bearers can cut loose and frisk around. (Martha Graham Dance Company at The Rose Theater, now through Sunday. Click here for information and tickets.)

Souleymane Badolo (photo: Julie Lemberger for 92Y)

Speaking of difference, curating is something new and different for the great Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women fame. With her lineup for 92Y, running this weekend, she's offering a chance to watch distinctive performers like Souleymane Badolo, Lacina Coulibaly (his Burkina Faso compatriot), Maria Bauman, Samantha Speis and surprise guest Christal Brown bring ideas and space to gleaming life. The program includes works by Badolo and Bauman and two works inspired by Zollar's "Blind Date" invitation in which she matches pairs of dance artists for a last-minute creative relationship, just hours before the actual performance. If you, as a dance fan, look for the cohesion and depth that long-term creative process allows, this sort of thing is certainly a gamble, but the intelligence and power of these select artists reward Zollar's risk and your time. Having a chance to see a program with so much Badolo and Badolo choreography in it made me notice his uncanny relationship to performance space, the way he habitually dwells in or treads its periphery, rarely occupying its center or sending his dancers there. If memory serves me, I've seen this sort of thing in much of his work. Now I'm eager to find out why. (Jawole Willa Jo Zollar Curates, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, now through Sunday. Click here for information and tickets.)

Graham company's new direction

A New Direction for the Martha Graham Dance Company

by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, June 9, 2010

Jane Sherman obituary

Jane Sherman, 101, Dancer and Writer

by Jack Anderson, The New York Times, March 20, 2010

In memory of Jane Sherman (1908-2010)

An announcement from Norton Owen, Director of Preservation, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

Although I don't believe any of you had the privilege of meeting her, I wanted to pass along the poignant news that the youngest and last of the Denishawn Dancers, Jane Sherman, passed away last night at the age of 101. She was a great friend to the Pillow, spending periods of time here in the early 1980s when she recreated Denishawn dances and helped us identify many of the vintage costumes in our collection. And she was a treasured friend of mine, exchanging countless letters over the years that were full of keen insights and feisty humor. She had very high standards and she could be quite tough, as evidenced by the many times I was taken to task for one reason or another, usually with clear justification. We collaborated on various ventures, most notably a cover article for Dance Magazine in 1995 about a previously unknown letter from Martha Graham to Ted Shawn and what it revealed about Graham's Denishawn heritage. Jane and I also worked closely on creating a paperback edition of Barton's autobiography in 2001 and on creating a video compilation of many Denishawn recreations that she had staged over the years. Jacob's Pillow plans to host a memorial celebration in her honor this summer. 

Norton Owen
Director of Preservation
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
358 George Carter Road
Becket, MA 01223
413-243-9919, ext. 50
Fax 413-243-4744
nowen@jacobspillow.org

Anne Bogart: the effort of balance

In connection with attending last night's conversation among director Anne Bogart, playwright Charles L. Mee, Jr. and other members of Bogart's SITI Company at Dance Theater Workshop, I discovered Bogart's interesting blog. Here's some of wonderful ruminating...

Instinct vs. Impulse
by Anne Bogart, SEE (SITI Extended Ensemble), February 2010

Last in the SITI Company Mondays@DTW series:

March 8 (7pm) SITI's devised creations--the why, what and how. Tickets: $10. Call 212-924-0077 or click here.

And coming up at The Joyce in June: 

American Document, by visionary choreographer Martha Graham, premiered during the summer of 1938. Her most theatrical ballet at the time of its creation, Graham’s piece incorporated vaudevillian structures, folk rhythms, and spoken text to examine Americana and the continual conflict between the rights of the individual and society. Although there is no complete record of Graham’s first
popular work, the Martha Graham Dance Company has enlisted director Anne Bogart, playwright Charles L. Mee Jr. and SITI Company to reinvent American Document using filmed excerpts, written descriptions and Graham’s handwritten notes. This stirring new theatrical work will feature a groundbreaking collaboration between SITI Company actors and Martha Graham Company dancers. American Document reflects our current cultural concerns by answering the same questions Martha Graham asked over seventy years ago: What is an American? And, what is America?

American Document (World Premiere)
June 8-13
The Joyce Theater
175 8th Avenue (19th Street), Manhattan
Box office at 212-242-0800 or purchase online

Matt Turney, famed Graham dancer, 84

Matt Turney, Longtime Dancer With Martha Graham, Dies at 84
by Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, December 29, 2009

Francis Mason, 88

Francis Mason, Voice of Dance for over 5 Decades, Dies at 88
by Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, September 26, 2009

Graham on...

Martha Graham quotes (from About.Com: Women's History)

• 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 be lost.
  

• No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time. It is just that the others are behind the time.
  

• I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination. There is a great deal of outer space, distant from our daily lives, where I feel our imagination wanders sometimes. It will find a planet or it will not find a planet, and that is what a dancer does.
  

• In 1980, a well-meaning fundraiser came to see me and said, "Miss Graham, the most powerful thing you have going for you to raise money is your respectability." I wanted to spit. Respectable! Show me any artist who wants to be respectable.

Martha Graham Dance Company at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, May 12-16