MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY
Graham wasn’t the first choreographer to reject classic ballet, to discard her toe shoes. Nor was she the only one intent on creating a new American dance. She was, however, the first to develop a vocabulary based on contraction and release that allowed her to explore the complex manifestations of the human psyche in movement. She commissioned outstanding composers and set designers (she designed the costumes), who contributed to the organic quality of her unique theatrical dances. Though her early, idiosyncratic works were derided for their stark stringency, she has long been honored for the richness of her dramatic choreographic canvases. Ironically Graham is now revered as an American classic: the two Ravinia programs offered by her company provided a partial retrospective, and gave some insight into her wide-ranging imagination.
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Graham was fascinated by rituals. In Plain of Prayer (a 1968 work that opened the engagement) she turned to a Tibetan mating ritual. The maiden bride (Kim Stroud), accompanied by three angels who skim the floor in long white cloaks, meets her groom (Kenneth Topping) and his entourage of five bare-chested priests. It’s not major Graham, though its lyrical eroticism has a certain appeal and the men show off some brilliant virtuosic leaps. The most innovative touch belongs to the angels, who reappear–some ten feet tall–to shed their beneficence on the stage. Inevitably they reminded me of the exaggeratedly tall antebellum ladies in Pilobolus’s famous untitled work: coincidence or not, Graham was there first.
A touch of irony: the original score, which must have been by Louis Horst, disappeared years ago, and the Wallingford Riegger music that now accompanies the piece was composed for Doris Humphrey’s New Dance, an optimistic humanist work; but the music suits this piece well.
The dancers are a pleasure to watch, and they’re obviously committed to Graham’s philosophy. But though many Graham works can and should be restored to the repertory, one can’t help but wonder whether a company can continue merely as a memorial, a museum. Will the powers that be at the Graham studio introduce new works by new choreographers? Should they? One must admit Martha would be a hard act to follow.
