Martha Graham

Martha Graham (1894-1991)

Dancer and choreographer, a pioneer of modern dance. Born in Allegheny – later to become part of Pittsburgh, PA – she moved with her family to Santa Barbara, CA, in 1908, where she graduated from high school and studied in a drama School. She began to study dancing in 1916, at age 22, in the Denishawn school in Los Angeles, under Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, and later started to teach in the school and dance in the Denishawn Company. In 1923, she left Denishawn and moved to New York, where she performed in entertainment dances with the Greenwich Village Follies. In 1925, she began working as a dance teacher in drama schools. In 1926, she made her concert debut in New York, where she danced together with three of her students at the Eastman School of Music.

During that time, she began developing and teaching her technique. Graham’s technique was based on using the floor and standing with parallel position of the feet, absent in classical ballet.  The movement is based on inhaling and exhaling, contraction and release, at a high muscle tone. The Graham technique was created out of her dances, with new choreographic elements constantly introduced to the lesson programs, enriching the ever-expanding method. Graham had a comprehensive stage concept, according to which the music, set and costumes were intimately interrelated, and her joint work with American composers such as Aaron Copland contributed significantly to the development of American music. The same was true of her collaboration with sculptor Isamu Noguchi who designed many of the sets which were so integral to her dances. She designed most of the costumes herself, so as to articulate her concept of the powerful female body that is connected to the floor.

In 1927, she opened the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. In 1928, she founded her own company, composed exclusively of female dancers, which debuted in 1929. Graham choreographed for solo dances in which she danced herself and for group dances for her companies, often with her as a lead dancer. Other dances in her company included Anna Sokolow, Sophie Maslow, Jane Dudley, Lillian Shapiro, Dorothy Bird and others. In 1938, they were joined by the first man in the company, Erick Hawkins, who became her partner, and a year later they were joined by Merce Cunningham. Ever since then, the company included both female and male dancers. In 1952, with the support of Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, Graham’s school and company moved to a new building in New York, where dancers from all over the world flocked to study her technique.

Graham’s company toured Europe and North America. In 1956, it toured East Asia and with Rothschild’s support, it performed in Israel as well. Graham and her company returned to Israel again in 1958 and 1963, when she accepted Rothschild’s request to serve as Batsheva Company’s artistic advisor. In an unprecedented move, she allowed Batsheva to include seven of her dances in its repertoire: Herododia, Errand into the Maze, Learning Process, Saraband (from “Dark Meadow”), Diversion of Angels, The Embattled Garden, and Cave of the Heart. Most of the company’s dancers in the first decade were either her students or students of her students. In 1974, she choreographed Dream especially for Batsheva, the only dance of its kind. Batsheva continued dancing her pieces until 1975.

Graham’s relations with the company shaped its first decade in many ways. Her reputation, combined with Rothschild’s financing, brought Israel American choreographers such as Donald McKayle, Robert Cohen, Jerome Robbins, Norman Morrice, Glen Tetley and others. Batsheva’s first artistic directors where American, including Jane Dudley and Paul Sanasardo – some related to Graham directly and others attracted by the company’s growing reputation. The Graham technique became Batsheva’s leading technique, and was consequently adopted by the entire Israeli dance scene. The choreographies and subjects of modern Israeli dances throughout the 1960s and ‘70s were all influenced by her choreographic model.
In 1969, Graham retired from dancing but continued to teach and choreograph. She created over 180 dances for her company, which danced her choreographies exclusively.
Graham is the recipient of many awards and titles, including the first Guggenheim Fellowship given to a dancer (1932), Presidential Medal of Freedom (1976) and the Kennedy Center Honors (1979). She also received an honorary doctorate from Harvard (1966) and Yale (1971). In 1984, she was made a member of the French Legion of Honor. In 1998, time magazine named her Dancer of the Century.

Martha Graham died in New York in 1991.