The Martha Graham Dance Company at Zellerbach, CAL Berkeley January 31

I decided to see Martha Graham's dance company as I had not seen them perform in years. Martha Graham felt dance could enable dancers to find sense of fulfillment through dancing itself.   Her favorite quote was from St. John Perse:  “You have so little time to be born to the instant”. I would agree with her; movement training has helped me immeasurably.  I remember taking ballet in graduate school "to keep my sanity", and the Hungarian dance master remembered me some years later at an Alumni Board luncheon, and when I asked him, how he recalled me among so many dancers(most professional ballet bound, such as Graham's company, the Toronto ballet and others)-- he replied, "I never forget a body."  I felt very complimented.  I used to be loyal to Graham , as she and her company came to the University of Wisconsin for a summer residency, and I used to go watch them rehearse in the dancing school.  UW Madison offered the only Phd in dance at the time. 

The dance lecture about Graham  was given at 6:00 pm in the Berkeley dance Durham Studio auditorium, by the founder of the department at Berkeley , Marni Wood,  who  is now Emeritus.  She is also a former  MGraham dancer who had  left the company in NYC to start the department at Berkeley in 1968, with her fellow dancer, John Wood.    MG was not pleased with Marni  at the time, but then grew to like the idea when young dancers went to NYC and joined her company.   Marni talks about Graham and her approach to dance, and then has two actors enact the dialogue in  correspondence between Aaron Copeland and Martha Graham in creating  “Appallacian Spring”.

 

 The Noguchi  sets were wonderful in the "Medea".  Marni had expounded on the issue that Martha Graham was difficult when it came to women figures and most are not happy figures.   Medea is danced by a tiny Japanese dancer  which seems incongruous with the character of Medea, but gives another interpretation.   “Cave of the Heart”, employing Medea and Jason and the princess, he plans to marry to improve his status in the kingdom, after succumbing to the skills of the sorceress, Medea, who enabled him to find the "Golden Fleece" .  The ballet   is a study of the dark passions in the heart, which remain coiled like a snake, ready to strike.  The sorceress Medea helps Jason get the golden fleece and leaves her homeland to marry him in Corinth.  Jason will exile Medea to marry Princess(danced by Chinese dancer)  who will advance his status...Betrayed and exiled Medea plots course of death of rival with poisonous gown(in this instance, a crown) and the murder of her own children(which is omitted from this dance).  .  MG has been surpassed by Modern Ballet...her moves and schemes are lyrical...the ballet of the Appalacian Spring was most interesting and successful.  A pioneering woman and a group of girls are building a dream in the promised land.  Preacher leads prayers and marries the couple, (white woman, black man) in the “Promised Land”.   Copeland says “MG is so American, straightforward, simple.  The American Quaker song, “Tis the Gift to be Simple” lives in the ballet.  He created the music and she choreographed the dance to suit it.  “Maple Leaf Rag” was the most modern, and set to music of Scott Joplin...with costumes by Calvin Klein, and was performed in 1990    Dubbed “mirthless Martha” would turn to Louis Horst,  when frustrated by a new dance and say, “Oh Louis, play me the Maple Leaf Rag “ that only song that could cheer her!  It also cheered me.   Wells Fargo sponsored the production.

 

 

 

This was my favorite costume, which the daughter of Creon wears.  The sets in Medea were done by Noguchi and were outstanding. It was a stretch to see a diminuative Japanese dancer dance "Medea"....