Martha Graham (1894-1991)

All the quotes on this page come from Martha Graham's Blood Memory (Doubleday). Thanks a lot to Walt Derk who sent me this wonderful book!

I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination. There is a great deal of outer space, distant from our daily lives, where I feel our imagination wanders sometimes. It will find a planet or it will not find a planet, and that is what a dancer does.

Cathryn had made a wonderful page about the ballets Martha Graham created in the 30s, including a lot of great photos by Barbara Morgan. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist any longer.

Some of her ballets

• Chorale (1926- Franck)
• Three Gnossiennes (1926- Satie)
• Three poems of the East (1926- Horst)
• Heretic (1929- folklore)
• Lamentation (1930- Kodaly)
• Harlequinade (1930- Toch)
• Primitive Canticles (1931- Villa-Lobos)
• Primitive Mysteries (1931- Horst)
• Dance Songs (1932- Weisshauss)
• Ekstasis (1933- Engel)
• Frenetic Rhythms (1933)
• Celebration (1934- Horst)
• Transitions (1934- Engel)
• American Provincials (1934- Horst)
• Frontier (1935- Horst)
• Imperial Gesture (1935- Engel)
• Chronicle (1936- Riegger)
• Deep Song (1937- Cowell)
• American Document (1938- Green)
• Every Soul is a Circus (1939- Nordoff)
• Letter to the World (1940- Johnson)
• El Penitente (1940- Horst)
• Punch and Judy (1941- McBride)
• Death and Entrances (1943- Johnson)
• Herodiade (1944- Hindemith)
• Appalachian Spring (1944- Copland)
• Cave of the heart (1946- Barber)
• Dark Meadow (1946- Chavez)
• Errand into the Maze (1947- Menotti)
• Night Journey (1947- Schuman)
• Diversion of Angels (1948- Dello Joio)
• Judith (1950- Schuman)
• Canticle for innocent comedians (1952- Ribbink)
• Seraphic Dialogue (1955- Dello Joio)
• Embattled Garden (1958- Surinach)
• Clytemnestra (1958- El Dabh)
• Episodes (1959- Webern)
• Acrobats of God (1960- Surinach)
• Alcestis (1960- Fine)
• Phaedra (1962- Starer)
• Secular games (1962- Starer)
• Circe (1963- Hovhaness)
• The Witch of Endor (1965- Schuman)
• Cortege of Eagles (1967- Lester)
• A Time of Snow (1968- Dello Joio)
• The Lady of the House of Sleep (1968- Starer)
• The Archaic Hours (1969- Lester)
• Mendicants of evening (1973- Walker)
• Myth of a Voyage (1973- Hovhaness)
• Holy Jungle (1974- Starer)
• Dream (1974- Seter) for the Batsheva Dance Company
• Lucifer (1975- El Dabh)
• The Scarlet Letter (1975- Johnson)
• Frescoes (1978- Barber)
• Judith (1980- Varèse)
• Acts of Light (1981- Nielsen)
• Andromache's Lament (1982- Barber)
• Phaedra's Dream (1983- Crumb)
• The Rite of Spring (1984- Stravinsky)
• Temptations of the Moon (1986- Bartok)
• Tangled Night (1986- Egge)
• Persephone (1987- Stravinsky)
• Night Chant (1988- Nakaï)
• Maple leaf Rag (1990- Joplin)

References:

• Blood Memory (Martha Graham, Pocket Books, 1992; ISBN 0-671-78217-7.) translated in French as Mémoire de la Danse (Actes Sud).
• The Life and Work of Martha Graham (Agnes de Mille, New York: Random House/ Vintage, 1991, ISBN 0-679-74176-3)
• Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training 1926-1991 (Marian Horosko)
• Martha Graham (Daniel Dobbels) (In French)