Martha Graham - A Pioneer (The Mother of American Modern Dance)

Martha Graham

Born - May 11th 1894 (Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Died - 1st April 1991 (New York)

Martha Graham was influenced by her father from a young age, he was George Graham a doctor who specialized in nervous disorders and used physical movement as a remedy. Her father believed that the body could express its inner senses, this was an idea that intrigued his young daughter.

In 1936 Graham created 'Chronicle' one of her most important dances. The dance was influenced by current events such as The Great Depression, the dance expressed sadness and loneliness and at this time showing emotion through dance was very rare, but Graham wanted to change this. She believed some emotions couldn't be told through words and that dance was a way to enable people to express their emotions through movement. She wanted her dances to be 'felt' rather than 'understood', she drew inspiration from the ugly side of life and the idea that life is not like a fairy tale which is what ballet conveyed in their dances at the time, this meant that people did not react well to her style at first.

Graham believed dance had the ability to express a range of emotions, and that the restrictions' in dance at the time conveyed an untruthful representation of life, she understood that life can be hard, upsetting and ugly at times and at times it can be difficult to convey the emotions we feel through words, so she wanted people to be able to use dance as their new form of expression.

The key elements of Grahams modern dance are contraction and release, this is giving into your body and releasing yourself and allowing your body to hang down and be loose, spiralling was letting your body move freely without constraints and another key element was shift of weight were the dancer transfers their weight from one supporting foot to another.

Martha Grahams approach to dance revolutionized the art form and her innovative physical vocabulary has influenced dance worldwide. She is considered to be the most important dancer of the 20th century as well as the 'Mother of modern dance'. Her unique and particular style of choreography and movement known widely as the 'Graham Technique' revolutionized the world of American dance.

Lamentation (1930)

                                                                       

Lamentation is a solo that Graham choreographed and premiered and is one of her signature works. 

The solo has been described as the 'dance of sorrow' as it conveyed grief, not the sorrow of a specific person, time or place but the personification of grief itself.

The most interesting elements of the solo are that she is sat throughout the entire piece and she wears a stretchy material round her body which indicates the tragedy that obsesses the body.

Heretic (1929)

Heretic is staged by 13 female performers, 12 dressed in black garments and one in a long white dress, Graham premiered the piece as the woman in white.

A heretic is someone who practises religious heresy, this person would have been shut out by society.

In the dance the women in black arrange themselves into various groupings that prevents the soloists entry.  

Chronicle (1936)

Chronicle was choreographed based upon 'the advent and consequences of war' which was impending in Europe. 

The piece is an hour in length and chronicles the time frame from 1914 - 1936, it was divided into 3 major sections - Dances before catastrophe, Dances after catastrophe and Tragic holiday in memoriam.