Martha Graham what is dance. Dancer and choreographer Martha Graham: biography. School and dance technique of Martha Graham. Unified movement system

The first dancer to perform at the White House was the American dancer Martha Graham. In a career spanning over half a century, she has revolutionized contemporary dance and created over 180 works as a dancer and choreographer. This woman believed in revealing the inner world of a person and considered the art of dance a means of expressing strong human emotions. Her influence on modern dance has often been compared to Picasso's influence on modern dance. art. This creative person looked at dance as a "language of movement" that allowed people to artistically express their inner desires, fears and ecstasies. As a choreographer, she collaborated not only with other dancers, but with artists, designers, and musicians to create works of art that were aesthetically pleasing as they were deeply moving. She conducted her experiments with social, political and psychological themes with entire generations of choreographers. She has worked with dancers such as Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp. Martha Graham founded a dance company that is today the oldest in America. The company has served as a launching pad for many of the great contemporary dancers and choreographers of the 20th and 21st century.

The famous dancer and choreographer was born on May 11, 1894. Her father, George Graham, worked as a doctor, practiced psychiatry and was interested in the bodily expression of human behavior. There were two more girls in the family, Martha's sisters. The dancer's mother's name was Jane Beers. The family lived in Pennsylvania. Martha enrolled at the Denishawn Dance School, founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in the mid-1910s. The newly established school studied different types dance styles, including folk, classical experimental, oriental, and American Indian dances, thus representing the rich cultural heritage of dance art from all over the world. Marta studied here until 1923. Ted Shawn, who was her mentor at school, saw Martha's potential and had her perform the Aztec ballet Xochitl. The performances of the dancer at various concerts and vaudeville were met with great success. Graham also performed an Egyptian dance under Shawn in a short silent film by Hugo Riesenfeld in 1922.

Martha made her debut as an independent dancer in New York in 1926. She loved to experiment with dance moves and this was reflected in her performances. In the same year, she founded her modern dance company, which became a very famous institution for dancers and choreographers. Over time, her ingenious mind and creativity attracted the attention of critics. By the time she choreographed American Document in 1938, her fame as an innovative choreographer had spread far and wide. She believed that dance was a powerful means of expression and revealed some of the social, political, psychological and sexual themes during performances. In 1927, Graham performed a program set to the avant-garde music of Arthur Honegger. It was an original dance that differed significantly from her previous work. Her work of the 1940s reflected the dancer's views on human society and its complexities.

A dancer named Eric Hawkins joined Martha Graham's company in 1939 and starred in many of her works. They eventually began a relationship and Graham married him in 1948. The couple divorced in 1954. At some point in her life, Marta became addicted to alcohol, this happened almost immediately after her last performance as a dancer. The woman was so depressed that she even tried to commit suicide. However, soon Graham was still able to give up alcohol and restored her career as a choreographer. She lived a long life and continued to choreograph until the very end. The dancer died of pneumonia on April 1, 1991 at the age of 96.

Martha Graham created her own technique, which bears her name, and is still fundamental in modern dance. Without the "Martha Graham technique" no professional dancer grows up. She was the first to try to structure movements into a certain system, which neither Duncan nor Saint-Denis had done before her. The basis of her technique, "contraction-release" - "compression and relaxation", dancers have been trying to comprehend for years.

In her creative search, she determined that movement is subject to three basic constants: time, space, energy. She believed that the internal energy of the performer is released and "splashes" into space during the dance. Like K.S. Stanislavsky, M. Graham emphasized that emotion provokes movement. Movement, she believed, should and could define emotion more accurately than words. “No matter what the words say, the movements never lie... the dance should not do anything that you can say with words. It must be expressed by actions, colored by deep feelings, which can only be expressed by movements. Having created her own school and troupe, she also created her own language of movements, developing its technique in detail. An important component of her technique was the so-called internal impulse: “She used not only our bodies, she also used our soul, our inner life ...”, her students recall.
M. Graham's technique lessons began with simple movements that turned into long dance chains with the addition of various positions of arms and legs and changing directions, levels of movement
She sought to create a language of dance that could express the human soul and spirit through myths, archetypes and frank emotions. It was a complex process of rethinking, combining new forms with existing forms. It was a path of total giving and expressiveness, filled with the confidence that dance can express everything in human life and experiences. M. Graham created performances, not exercises, and then, from the movements found for choreographic production, she formed exercises for the class. Some of the movements came from improvisation, some were inspired by classical dance movements, others were created as choreographic images. This is how her dance technique developed. Improving the technique, she developed her soul. This has become a top priority for her. Graham paid great attention to the inner world of the characters in her performances and expressed this inner life through movement.

The Graham technique is characterized by two basic concepts: contraction (contraction) - compression and release (release) elongation, expansion. It also has an impulsive nature of movement and the use of space by moving across the floor. Graham's vocabulary developed gradually as the range of themes and images in her productions expanded. “Her vocabulary was simple, strong, correct and percussive. It was both frightening and exciting. We walked, we jumped, we jumped, we squeezed, we released, we worked on the floor, we fell," recalls Besi Seanburn.
The main source of movement in Graham's technique is the center of forces, it opened up new possibilities for it. The body must be made manageable, the possession of the body must be constantly improved and obey the anatomical laws of motion.

This new technique was very bold and was not limited by conventional traditions and stereotypes. It started with Graham's own beautiful body and the extraordinary moves she performed. This dance technique was and is an opportunity to find a way of self-expression through the movement of the body in a dance, the appearance of which is largely breath. M. Graham found the answer to her own questions by discovering new movement possibilities of the body. She paved the way for creating her own dance style using contraction and release. Any movement must be motivated by the inner life of the dancer. Martha said that when the inner life is not developed, "sterility" develops, and the lack of motivation will lead to the meaninglessness of movement, the meaningless movement to decline. This is a completely new approach to the physics of movement, subject to breathing and anatomical changes during the respiratory process. M. Graham revealed the mechanism of movement - effort and relaxation, carefully hidden in classical dance. It has become essential elements her technique, her concept of movement based on "compression-release". It is an outpouring that fills the whole body. She said that movement should not be invented, but discovered in oneself. Martha Graham used all sorts of ways to awaken the imagination, including working on hundreds of animal images in her lessons. Marta taught in a free manner, fully concentrating on the subject. New movements were added to the classes every year.

American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham went down in history as one of the founders of American modern dance, as a person who changed the dance world. Meanwhile, the beginning of her life did not seem to portend a stage career. Martha Graham was born on May 11, 1894 in Pennsylvania into a deeply religious Presbyterian family, where dancing was not honored, considered a sinful occupation. However, already in childhood, Martha had the opportunity to get acquainted with other cultures: the girl's nanny was a Catholic, among the servants were Japanese and Chinese.

Highly interesting idea Martha learned from her father, a psychiatrist who used movement to treat nervous disorders: he was convinced that movement was capable of expressing a person's state of mind. Thanks to this, when a girl from a conservative family nevertheless got acquainted with choreographic art, fertile ground was prepared for her impression. It happened when Martha was almost twenty years old - she attended a concert of the famous dancer Ruth Saint-Denis. The girl realized that dance was her destiny, and entered the School of Expression in Los Angeles, and then the Denishawn School, founded by the same Ruth Saint-Denis, whose concert turned out to be fateful for Martha Graham.

In 1920, she made her debut with the Denishawn troupe in the play Xochitl, based on Aztec motifs. It was staged by one of the founders of the troupe - Ted Shawn - especially for her. He discerned the features of her talent and realized that the lyricism, which was initially required from the student, was not inherent in her. The true element of the young dancer was the "passion of the panther."

In those days, the art of dance was divided into two categories: ballet, recognized as high art, and dance numbers in shows, vaudeville and cabaret - and it was the second direction that flourished in America (ballet was more of a European phenomenon). Classical ballet was practically inaccessible to a dancer who began to practice at the age of 20 - but Martha did not aspire to it. The fate of a cabaret dancer did not attract her either - she wanted to be a real artist. She had to find her own way. After leaving Denishawn in 1923, she worked for Greenwich Village Follies for two years and then began a solo career while also teaching.

In 1926, Martha Graham founded her own troupe, the Martha Graham Dance Company. Initially, she was purely female, but in 1938 Eric Hawkins joined the troupe, and later another innovative choreographer,.

One of the directions of Martha Graham's creative search is the rejection of the gender conventions that prevailed at that time in the art of dance: men "relied" on straight and jerky movements, and women - curvilinear and smooth. Rejecting such traditions, she did not want to be on stage "neither a tree, nor a flower, nor a wave." By not politically campaigning for women's rights, Martha Graham - as the New York Times once wrote of her - "liberated both the woman and the dance." She presents on the stage not feminine, but conditionally impersonal characters embodying human strength.

Many productions by Martha Graham are devoted to tragic heroines: the ballet Cave of the Heart staged in 1946 to the music of S. Barber tells about Medea, Night Journey to the music of U. Shumen is about the mother of Oedipus, Queen Jocasta, in 1950 the ballet The Legend about Judith" to the music of the same composer, in 1958 - "Clytemnestra" to the music of H. El-Dabha, and in 1962 - "Phaedra" to the music of R. Starer. The play "Letter to the World" is associated with the work of the American poetess Emily Dickinson. Some productions - "Heretic", "Border", "Lament" - are associated with reflection on the place of women in society. Martha Graham also had such creations in which there are no human characters at all - for example, the play “Dark Valley” created in 1946 to the music of Chavez, revealing the theme of reincarnation.

During her creative life, Martha Graham created 180 performances, and each of them was distinguished by the utmost integrity - after all, she herself thought through all its details: costumes, scenery, choice of music. Not all contemporaries liked the creative searches of M. Graham - some critics of the movement in her productions seemed ugly, and yet the dancer captivated the audience with her special charm and expression. After touring Europe and the Middle East, her troupe has gained worldwide fame. The film Dancer's World, filmed in 1957, as well as the book Martha Graham's Notebooks, published in 1973, also contributed to the spread of Martha Graham's choreographic ideas.

The dancer last appeared on stage at the age of 60, and continued her activities as a choreographer until her death in 1991. The troupe founded by her continues its activity even now, having preserved many productions of Martha Graham in the repertoire.

Music Seasons

Great Martha... That's what the Americans call the brilliant dancer, innovative choreographer Martha Graham. If in our country Martha Graham known mainly only to professional dancers, and then in America this bright brunette with sculptural features and burning expressive eyes has become a truly national treasure.
Participating in the creation of modern dance, Marta made an invaluable contribution to the development of not, created unforgettable productions and images, and raised worthy students.

The formation of personality, the formation of talent

To the world of dance Martha Graham came quite late, only at the age of 20. Born in America in May 1894, due to her Puritan education, she was far from art and, moreover, choreography. However, when she saw the ballet diva Ruth Saint-Denis on stage, she was captivated by her and did her best to enter her school. Passionate, temperamental, exotic Martha did not take root in the school, where they demanded smooth and gentle grace from the pupils.

The young woman leaves school and in 1926 creates the Martha Graham Center of Contemporari Dance troupe, consisting only of dancers. Martha puts on talented performances designed to understand the role of a woman in society, in the fate of her beloved man, in the life of the country. One of the famous productions of that period was the work "Lament", in which Martha appeared as a sculpture that breaks the conventions imposed on a woman by society.

In 1938, two men appear in the troupe, one of whom, Eric Hawkins, becomes Martha's husband.

More and more new numbers appear on the stage, real dance dramas, in which not so much external events are explored as the deepest and most secret movements of the soul. It is not for nothing that the great Martha was called the "Shakespeare of the Dance".

Marta was inspired by ancient and biblical myths, the history of America, and turned to Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and the Bronte sisters in her work. Her productions became larger and larger, and their psychologism became deeper and more sophisticated.

Martha Graham technique

In a special, extraordinarily expressive technique, the dancer, in contrast to smooth movements, is dominated by sharp, angular movements. The tension and harsh frankness of the poses tear the viewer away from indifferent contemplation and call for thought and self-comprehension.
Martha's technique, based on the combination of "squeezing and stretching", is so expressive that it still attracts choreographers.

Variations on a theme

The tour of the Martha Graham Company is taking place in downtown Manhattan on the stage of the City Center for the first time after a fifteen-year break (past - rare after the death of Graham theater performances in New York - took place at other venues). Three programs are made up of Graham's ballets from different years.
These performances are a real treat for those who love the art of dance in all its manifestations.
Martha Graham (in Russian literature they used to write Graham) is a great choreographer, a great woman, a great creative person of the 20th century. As soon as she was not called in the American press: “Dancer of the century” ... “Icon of the century” ... everything will be fair, Martha Graham cannot be overestimated.
Let me remind you once again of her biography. Graham (1893-1991) is a native American Indian. Graham studied dance at the famous school of modernist dancers of the beginning of the last century, Ruth Saint Denis and H. Shawn. In 1926, Graham founded her troupe and school. She created the language of modern dance. From her school came many famous contemporary modern dancers, modernist choreographers, including Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor. Graham was not only a dancer and choreographer, she herself ordered music for her ballets from famous composers, in most cases she created costumes herself. In a word, Graham was a multi-talented creative person, like Diaghilev, Fokine and Benoit rolled into one.
Martha Graham staged dance numbers for artists from other theaters: Margo Fontaine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev. Together with her troupe and in the repertoire of the troupe, world ballet stars Makarova, Plisetskaya, Baryshnikov and Nureyev performed.
Martha Graham believed that movement should be a means of self-expression of the human soul (unfortunately, followers left this fundamental part of Graham's teachings unattended, being mainly engaged in “moving the body in space”). Graham believed that dance is “the instrument of life itself”, the language of the soul. The body, according to Graham, keeps the memory of the most important human states, it is in the dance that the essence of a person is revealed.
Martha Graham knew well not only European culture, but also the culture of the East. The fabric of her choreography, among other things, includes the poses and movements of traditional folklore dances of oriental cultures, oriental symbols.
Graham was interested in ancient Indian mysteries, legends, Greek mythology and literature. Tragic female image Graham is a constant character in Graham's ballets, she was for many years the first performer of her ballets (the text of Graham's "manifesto" is printed in the programs for performances).
Everything that Graham said, she carried out in her productions. I want to immediately highlight two ballets that again made a stunning impression on me, again - after a twenty-year break, when I saw them for the first time. First of all, this is “The Cave of the Heart” to the music of Samuel Barber (staged in 1946). The ballet is based on the famous Greek myth of Medea and Jason. Medea, one of the greatest sorceresses of Greek myths, fell in love with the leader of the Argonauts, Jason, and helped him get the Golden Fleece. As a result of a series of adventures, Medea and Jason settled on the island of Corinth, where Medea gave birth to two sons from Jason. But Jason decided to marry the daughter of the Corinthian king Creon. Medea gave the newlywed a poisoned veil, and she was burned alive. To top it off, Medea, so that Jason would not have any consolation, killed her sons and flew away from Corinth in a chariot drawn by dragons, which her grandfather Helios, the god of the Sun, presented to her. This is the plot of the myth in a nutshell. Graham brought Medea, Jason and the Princess, his bride, onto the stage. Another dancer plays the role of the Greek choir.
Graham's choreographic dance language is more limited than, say, the language of classical dance or the language of contemporary modernists. But combinations and compositions are infinitely inventive and subservient to meaning. Each gesture is precise and symbolizes the state of mind of the hero. No matter how many characters are on stage at the same time, they never dance in unison (I don't mean rare scenes with an ensemble), but the overall choreographic picture is mesmerizing. With the help of her dance vocabulary, Graham created images of such emotional expressiveness, gave her characters such an accurate description, which is not always found in choreographers of other directions. Jason (the only and excellent performer of the role is artist Kenneth Topping) is a narcissistic male who constantly demonstrates his pumped up biceps. Even in the jump, Jason's body remains motionless: as if a frozen statue was thrown up. And only after seeing the dead body of the bride, Jason forgets about his greatness. The body loses its monumentality, the profile lines resemble a falling statue that has broken into pieces: the plasticity fully expresses the hero's despair.
The dance of the bride is carefree, mostly we see her clinging to Jason's body. Ballet is not only movement, it is also a pose, a frozen moment. Graham often uses frozen groups of dancers in his ballets to enhance the semantic and emotional expressiveness of the performance. So, for example, a frozen group - victorious, monumental Jason, looking somewhere over the heads of the people around him, and a little girl clinging to his leg - contrasts magnificently with the suffering Medea rushing about the stage. When Medea runs up to Jason in the hope of tearing the Princess away from him, Jason pushes her away with his hand, without turning his head, without looking at his former lover. How not to remember the lines from the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva: “Kissed - to wheel: to kiss another”, - they answer.
The woman representing the choir is performed by a tall dancer in long dress, whose folds seem to dance along with her body. Graham liked to dress her heroines in such dresses, the folds of which complemented the aesthetic image, emphasized the femininity and beauty of the dance. Unfortunately, the performers of the two compositions that I saw were not equal: the majestic, expressive Katherine Crockett was replaced by Heidi Stoekley, a tall dancer who absolutely did not feel the peculiarities of Graham's plasticity.
The set was designed by Isamu Naguchi. The scenery in Graham's ballet is always laconic: these are several constructions that are essential for the idea against the background of a drawn (more often monophonic) backdrop.
In the center of the ballet is Medea. When the curtain opens, we see in the depths the frozen figure of the “woman from the choir”. And on the right, against the background of some fantastic silver “tree” with long branches-needles, stands Jason, behind him, embracing him, is the Princess. Medea, who stands behind everyone, is not visible to us, we see only her hands, which grabbed Jason and his bride: Medea is trying to keep Jason. But Jason and his bride break out of Medea's hands. Jason stands majestic and infallible. The bride froze, covering her face with her hands - she does not understand anything in this story and does not see her fate. It is impossible to list all the symbols used by the choreographer.
I saw two performers in the role of Medea: Teresa Capucilli and Christine Dakin. Both dancers started their careers under Martha Graham, and now they are the directors of the troupe. Medea Capuchilli - passionate, suffering, frantic. But Dakin, an actress with a hidden temperament, impressed me more. Her Medea is a strange, nervous, mysterious little sorceress. Medea Capuchilli is a woman, Medea Dakin is rather a creature of another world. Even when she is not dancing, but lies motionless on the floor behind an exotic silvery “tree” and looks into the hall, you cannot take your eyes off her. While the bride dances her childish, serene dance or fawns over Jason, Medea contemplates a plan for revenge. As if spellbound, I followed the change of spiritual states, hidden, coming from the depths of the offended soul, which were read on Dakin's face, in her huge, bright, almost unblinking eyes. And, of course, the height of Dakin's skill is the scene of witchcraft. Instead of a scarf, Medea in the ballet puts a crown on the head of the princess, which crushes her head. The Princess and Jason run backstage, and Medea is alone on the stage - she conjures, in fact, kills the Princess with her sorcery. This choreographic scene and the magic of the performer cannot be expressed in any words. When Medea-Dakin finished her witchcraft ritual, the hall burst into applause.
At the end of the ballet, while Jason is suffering, a woman from the choir silently “screams”, Medea picks up an exotic tree, carries it deep into the stage, attaches it to a dais and herself stands in the middle of this strange structure. So it stands in the midst of vibrating silver branches, triumphant and mysterious. Graham called this tree “spider clothes”, which Medea puts on for a magical transformation: according to the idea, Graham, having committed a crime, should lose the appearance of an earthly woman.
After the end of the ballet, the audience got up from their seats, applauded, shouted. Brilliant choreographer. Brilliant Martha Graham.
The program also includes other ballets on the theme of Greek myths with the main character - a strong, passionate woman. The ballet “On an Assignment in the Labyrinth” to the music of Gian Carlo Menotti (1947) is based on the myth of the Greek mythical hero Theseus and Ariadne. Theseus arrives on the island of Crete, he is doomed to be eaten by the Minotaur living in the labyrinth. Ariadne, falling in love with Theseus, helps him escape death. She hands the hero a ball of thread. After killing the Minotaur, Theseus, using a thread attached to the entrance, was able to get out. Graham made Ariadne the heroine of her ballet, Theseus is not in the ballet. The plot of the ballet is more like a legend about a girl sacrificed to a dragon. Ariadne descends into the center of the labyrinth, where she meets the Minotaur and kills him. Ariadne's eerie “walking” through the mysterious labyrinth, the dances of the Minotaur, the erotic duet-fight of the Minotaur and Ariadne, the return of Aridne from the labyrinth - all this was staged by Martha Graham on the very top level her gifts and skills.
Iradiad (ballet of 1944 to the music of P. Hindemith) also appears before us somewhat unusual. This suffering woman, found herself alone at the end of her life, spends her time staring at her image in the mirror. Instead of a mirror, the artist Noguchi put a rather peculiar design that resembles a skeleton or one of the images of Salvator Dali. For many nations, the mirror is a magical symbol. Perhaps, in this case, this mirror-skeleton is a symbol of the sins of Iradias. Looking at him, Iradiada cannot bear the severity of her crimes and decides to commit suicide.
One of the ballets, "Circe", is associated with the images of Homer's poem "The Odyssey". The 1963 premiere, with music by Alan Hovanes, is staged as a fantasy tale. The woman here is an evil sorceress, a seductress who turns men into animals. But Odysseus and his companion manage to avoid this fate. Erotic, but unkind world of Circe, they prefer their difficult lot - to be a man. One can only marvel once again at the endless ingenuity and resourcefulness of the choreographer, the clarity of the plastic characteristics, as always, precise, expressive and understandable.
One of the programs includes a merry comedy ballet about the love of a pussy cat and an owl (1978). In another, comic ballet of 1990, “Ragged Linden Leaves,” when Graham passed away, she composed a hilarious parody of herself and the theater she created.
The ballet of 1936 “Episodes from the Chronicle” stands apart in the program. This is one of Graham's few ballets with a political theme. In 1936, her company was invited on tour to Germany during Olympic Games. Graham canceled the trip. She did not want to perform in a country with a fascist regime, especially since some of the artists of her troupe could not go on tour because they were Jews. She was insulted for her fellow Jewish artists who had to leave their homeland, Germany. Graham created a ballet consisting of a series of temperamental dances. The mournful monologue of the female soloist (Miki Orihara) is interspersed or combined with mass dances, passionate, mournful, angry. There are no military scenes in the ballet, but the pain of loneliness, exile is conveyed in it. This performance has not been performed by the troupe for a long time. Now it has been restored from small video recordings of that time and from photographs by the famous photographer of the past - Barbara Morgan.
The ballet world of the 20th century changed, new directions arose and developed, new idols appeared and disappeared. But the great Martha Graham is still the great Martha Graham today. Great and immortal, because her ballets - both later and created more than half a century ago - have not become outdated.
For several years after Graham's death, it seemed that the theater was dying. But today we saw an excellently selected and properly trained troupe of dancers-actors. And today, artists in general perform her ballets with a full understanding of the style they reproduce. Passionate emotions, "encoded" in Graham's choreography, are still transmitted to the viewer today.
The last performance of the Martha Graham troupe is April 25th.
Photo by Nina Alovert