Martha graham

 

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer, choreographer, and pioneer.  She was born in 1894 and passed in 1991(Wikipedia Contributors, 2019) . Over her lifetime as a working choreographer, she produced many works of dance and founded her own dance company in 1926. I personally had not heard/knew much about Graham other than the “Graham” technique. Upon research I found out that Graham technique is comprised mainly of contractions and release with heavy emphasis of moving the core with the limbs following (Pierce-Master, 2021). I was drawn to Graham as I believe she is one of the first females in dance to have such a huge and long-lasting impact on the art form, considering many of the greatest  pioneers in choreography are male and this area continues to be a male dominated area despite the high number of female dancers.   

 On YouTube I was able to watch a few of her most famous works. A clip that stood out to me was the performance of “Night Journey” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaCIpIcoz80) (SaintsDance, 2014).  The reason this piece of choreography stood out to me was because like most of her work there was a deep sense of emotion not only conveyed through facial expressions but the movement itself which was often sharp and rigid with physical expression and only moments of smoothness.  In the book Martha Graham Dance Company (White-Migure, 2021) the author writes “Graham sought to create an original American art form coming from the ferment of place. Cultural identity and oppression were early themes in her dances such as Heretic (1929), Immigrant (1928), and Imperial Gesture (1935)” I think her themes and motives for each of these pieces (and her overall work) link greatly to my own stimulus, which links to the current Palestinian oppression. Furthermore, I think delving further into her technique will help me create a clearer focus on the type of emotion I want my piece to portray and how I will be able to preform that only using my body and the music.

* Pierce-Master, A.D. (2021). What is Graham Technique? [online] Available at: https://danceparent101.com/what-is-graham-technique/.

* SaintsDance (2014). Martha Graham Night Journey. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaCIpIcoz80.

* Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Martha Graham. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham.

‌*  White-McGuire, B. (2021) The Martha Graham Dance Company. 1st edn. Bloomsbury Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3042772/the-martha-graham-dance-company-house-of-the-pelvic-truth-pdf (Accessed: 5 November 2023).