Building Remains Closed Wed, May 1
All emails and voicemails into the Box Office will be answered. All events scheduled at Northrop today have been canceled or postponed.
In its 80th Anniversary Season, the repertoire of the Martha Graham Dance Company shows the staggering scope and beauty of Martha Graham’s work—the prominent antecedent to modern dance. Choreographing 181 works in her lifetime, Graham’s vision forever altered the dance world, and it continues to be a source of inspiration for dance and theater artists. Witness the style and glamour typical of performances that have featured beautiful sets, inventive lighting, incredible costumes, and original scores by American composers. Behold the charm of the dancers’ movements revealing the extracted essence of hidden emotions.
About the Company
Founded in 1926 by dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, the Martha Graham Dance Company is the oldest and most celebrated contemporary dance company in America . Though Graham herself danced from the company's inception until the late 1960s, the company has provided a training ground for some of modern dance's most illustrious performers and choreographers. Martha Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with the most elemental movements of contraction and release. Using these principles as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would "increase the emotional activity of the dancer's body." Martha Graham's dancing and choreography exposed the depths of human emotion through movements that were sharp, angular, jagged, and direct—easily related to the dissonance of modern time and American life. Elements of her technique are evident today as displayed in the Britain Royal Ballet’s use of the “Graham fall,” and the Graham body contraction in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats. Many of the great modern and ballet choreographers have studied the Martha Graham Technique or have been members of her company.
Critic's Comments
“Graham’s work is rightly acclaimed for its astutely stylized characterizations and tightly focused dramatic force.”
- The Washington Post
"One of the great companies of the world." - The New York Times
"One of the seven wonders of the artistic universe." - Washington Post
Evening's Program
Spoken Introduction
Errand Into the Maze (1948)
Pause
Diversion of Angels (1948)
Intermission
Appalachian Spring (1944)
Pause
Sketches from Chronicle (1936)
Performances at Northrop
1966, 1975, 1978, 2006