Opening image from the MGDC/WildUp production.
MARTHA GRAHAM’S DANCES FOR SPAIN Reviewed by Lourdes Dávila
In June, the Martha Graham Dance Company performed Immediate Tragedy, a long-lost solo piece that Graham performed in 1937 in support of the Spanish Republic. Its reconstruction was only possible thanks to a cache of recently recovered photographs of Graham’s original show. Together with Deep Song, inspired by Lorca, the piece marks a crucial phase in Graham’s development of a new language of dance.
“T
he battle of Spain is the immediate tragedy of our lives, far more so than the Great War.” This statement from 1937 by Lincoln Kirstein, co-founder of the New York City Ballet, reflects the overwhelming support among the US dance world for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. In fact, in 1937 and 1938 the American Dance Association (ADA)—founded in 1937 to secure dancer’s rights, promote world peace, and fight fascism—sponsored two fundraising events called “Dances for Spain.”
Kirstein’s words return in the title of one of the two solos that Martha Graham (1894-1991), one of the most influential choreographers in the United States, devoted to the conflict. Immediate Tragedy: A Dance of Dedication, premiered on July 30, 1937, in Bennington, Vermont. The second solo, Deep Song, inspired by García Lorca’s Poemas del Cante Jondo, was performed at the ADA’s second “Dances for Spain” event, held in January 1938 at the Hippodrome Theatre.
December 2020 THE VOLUNTEER 21
