Xiaochuan Xie and Ben Schultz in Rite of Spring; photo by Hibbard Nash Photography
THOROUGHLY MODERN MARTHA
True to the vision of its forward-thinking founder, Martha Graham Dance Company is embracing the future. By Michelle Vellucci
Katherine Crockett is dancing in her living room during our phone interview. She explains that moving is helping her to formulate her thoughts about Clytemnestra, Martha Graham’s masterwork about the notorious murderess of Greek myth. Crockett, who has been dancing with Martha Graham Dance Company since 1993, will perform the title role in a condensed, one-act version of Clytemnestra during the company’s engagement here at New York City Center this month. “The goal is to find an arrangement that
has a freshness but that maintains the structure and beauty of Martha’s vision,” Crockett says. She might as well be describing the goal of the company itself. In the two decades since Martha Graham’s death, the company has weathered financial troubles, a legal battle over the rights to Graham’s work, and the Hurricane Sandy–related loss of historic sets and costumes. Now, the company is focused on charging fearlessly into the future while continuing to honor Graham’s legacy as the founding mother of
Katherine Crockett as Clytemnestra in Martha Graham’s Clytemnestra; photo by Hibbard Nash Photography
American modern dance. Leading this effort is Janet Eilber, who has been artistic director since 2005. “Martha had a great intuition about the future. She was astute about how the audience was changing and what they wanted,” says Eilber, who worked closely with Graham during her time as a principal dancer with the company in the 1970s. “Although I try to say that I don’t know what Martha would have wanted, I do know what she would not have wanted. She would not have wanted us to freeze her dances in time.” The company’s City Center season offers evidence that they are doing no such thing. In addition to Graham’s Appalachian Spring (celebrating its 70 th anniversary this year) and Rite of Spring (celebrating its 30th), the program includes the new version of Clytemnestra, as well as two brand-new works by contemporary choreographers Nacho Duato and Andonis Foniadakis. “It’s been a slow build, bringing new works into our repertory,” Eilber says. “Just in the last year or so we’ve really felt the combination of new works and Graham works coalescing, and audiences seeing how the new work frames and resonates with the Graham work and vice versa. It gives people a perspective on the legacy of
American modern dance.” Eilber says the company was eager to work with Duato again after collaborating with him last season on Rust, a dance for five men. Duato had not yet begun setting the new work at the time of our interview, but the company had already performed a few sneak previews of Foniadakis’s piece, Echo, which is based on the myth of Narcissus and Echo. “He took the idea of one’s other self, of echoes in movement, and created an abstract work out of that,” Eilber explains. “It’s very high-energy dancing. And to have this flowing, constantly moving work is a great complement to Martha’s very structural Greek works.” “We’re absolutely excited to have these diverse choreographers,” Crockett adds. “Because we are mostly Graham-trained, it’s definitely stepping out into the unknown. But that is precisely what is important to growth. Martha Graham is not alive anymore, but the creative process is essential to the life of a company, and you have these living dancers who need a living choreographer to explore with. And how exciting to see what the offspring of these marriages will be.” In addition to the new dances, the classic Graham works also will get a fresh spin in one form or another. In the case of Rite of
Spring, whose sets and costumes were lost in the flooding of Hurricane Sandy, much of the set will now be created with projection. “We had to look at the opportunities that came along with the destruction, and one was to create a production of Rite of Spring that would be easier for us to tour with,” Eilber says. Works that are easier to tour means the company can perform for more audiences, and this was in part the impetus for creating the distilled version of Clytemnestra. And, Eilber adds, “bringing it down to one hour means there can be more works on the program.” Clytemnestra is a favorite role for Crockett. “First off, what a juicy, fabulous character to play,” she says. “There are so many layers to Clytemnestra. She’s this murderess, but she’s attempting to show what led her to do what she did. You feel for her. “I feel like Martha’s work touches something really deep inside of the person who’s doing it and the person who’s watching it. She said that ‘my work is not necessarily meant to be understood; it’s meant to be experienced.’” Rounding out the City Center season is Appalachian Spring, Graham’s 1944 paean to the spirit of the American frontier, set to Aaron Copland’s iconic score. And Ma-
ple Leaf Rag, Graham’s final work, shows the choreographer’s humorous side. “It’s about a choreographer who is blocked, so she asks her pianist to play the ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ to get her out of the doldrums, which is what Martha used to do back in the day,” Eilber says. “It’s a joke about her entire career. She makes fun of herself and how serious she was.” Eilber is happy to be bringing the company back to City Center, where it has a long history. “When I was a dancer back in the ’70s, of the things I remember is that Martha knew the names of most of the technical staff and she would come into the theater and personally say hello to the crew. And of course they adored her for it. “The combination of new works and Graham classics look so beautiful on that stage,” she continues. “It’s great for us to return to City Center and to let audiences see how new choreography frames and resonates with the Graham masterworks in a state-of-the-art operatic setting. And at the same time they’ll see that we have a lot of momentum and that we’re doing new and interesting things.” Michelle Vellucci, New York City Center’s communications associate, has written about dance for Dance Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, amNewYork, and Flavorwire.
(left) Mariya Dashkina Maddux in Appalachian Spring; photo by Hibbard Nash Photography (right) Martha Graham Dance Company in Rite of Spring; photo by Sinru Ku