Her dance company, the oldest in the United States, celebrates its centennial in a series of mixed bills. But why aren\u2019t all the dances by Graham?<\/p>\n
From The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n By Gia Kourlas<\/p>\n Before Martha Graham officially arrived on the scene in 1926, dance had a reputation. It was pretty. In certain circles, there still remains a battle between pointe-shoe beauty and barefoot, tensile strength. To witness Graham\u2019s hard-won vision in action, though, is to see how she freed dance and the female body from conventional grace. In her work, there is \u201cthe grace resulting from faith,\u201d she once wrote, \u201cfaith in life, in love, in people, in the act of dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n Graham\u2019s dances, especially her early ones, have much to say about the steely wisdom of female bodies. It was startling, this use of austere, experimental shapes to address the oppression that was brewing in the world. This season, the Martha Graham Dance Company celebrates 100 years, and for better and worse, her early works are back in fashion.<\/p>\n Two are included in the Graham company\u2019s season at New York City Center: \u201cLamentation\u201d (1930) and \u201cChronicle\u201d (1936). (The group presents mixed bills through Sunday with live music by the Mannes Orchestra.) In those early works, Graham\u2019s choreography stirs the stage up as dancers demonstrate faith from the inside out.<\/p>\n Even though they are generations removed from Graham, who died in 1991, members of the current Martha Graham Dance Company, especially the women, understand this devotion as they use the pelvis as a motor of sensation and force. More than just a dance language, the technique of contraction and release reveals the tightening and liberation not just of a dancer\u2019s body, but of any body. Graham dancers just happen to be less repressed.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the blistering \u201cChronicle\u201d shared the program with \u201cAppalachian Spring\u201d (1944) and \u201cDiversion of Angels\u201d (1948), while Thursday\u2019s program included two new works. One, the world premiere of \u201cTo the Brink and Back,\u201d was an arresting solo by Jamar Roberts that stayed in dialogue with Graham \u2014 and not just because it was created for Lloyd Knight, a stellar Graham artist. Roberts, with a cool, subtle touch, excavated the Graham technique like a sculptor, patiently carving away excess and artifice to reveal new, shimmering bones.<\/p>\n Set to percussion by Stahv Danker, who performed onstage, \u201cTo the Brink\u201d had Knight, shirtless in sheer black tights, calmly crossing a diagonal line before pausing to shift his torso slowly, revealing his body\u2019s angles as he struck dynamic positions \u2014 feet parted wide in fourth position with his head thrown back \u2014 and then melted out of them.<\/p>\n Becky Nussbaum\u2019s amber light, medieval in feeling, brushed over his rippling muscles without objectifying them. Knight\u2019s plasticity was front and center as he moved to and against the beat, switching gears and directions, but always seeming to drift across the stage like a slow-moving mist.<\/p>\n In Hope Boykin\u2019s New York premiere, \u201cEn Masse,\u201d the score is the showpiece: a new arrangement of excerpted music from Leonard Bernstein\u2019s \u201cMass\u201d by Christopher Rountree<\/a>. There is also a snippet of music \u2014 49 seconds to be exact \u2014 that Bernstein is believed to have created for Graham in the 1980s. Roundtree creates variations on that theme in the final section.<\/p>\n The music flips around \u2014 dreamy and orchestral, upbeat rock, bluesy jazz \u2014 which gives the dance an episodic frame. Momentum is hard to come by, and throughout, Boykin\u2019s choreography relies on formations that pluck the individual from the group for solos, some more maudlin and long-winded than others. Boykin\u2019s finest muse is the formidable Meagan King, who spills onto the stage with clipped ferocity, rounding her arms and splaying her fingers as if she has electricity coursing through her veins. She\u2019s a find.<\/p>\n Read the full review.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Her dance company, the oldest in the United States, celebrates its centennial in a series of mixed bills. But why aren\u2019t all the dances by Graham? From The New York Times By Gia Kourlas Before Martha Graham officially arrived on the scene in 1926, dance had a reputation. It was pretty. 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