DORIS HUMPHREY: LATE WORKS
Momenta is continuing its mission of restoring to life in the theater the lost dances of Doris Humphrey–along with Martha Graham, a founding mother of American modern dance. Last spring, Momenta reintroduced several of her lost early works; these offered both an artistic revelation and a fascinating glimpse of Humphrey’s creative growth during the 20s and 30s.
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One can only be grateful to Stephanie Clemens, the director of Momenta, for her unstinting dedication to the monumental task of returning long-lost works to life, not only Humphrey’s but works by her associates. Clemens could not have done this alone, of course. She has called on Humphrey’s former colleagues–Karoun Tootikan, a member of Saint Denis’s troupe, and Eleanor King and Jane Sherman, who danced with Humphrey–and on Mino Nicholas and Dawn De Angelo, young dancers who are devoting their careers to Humphrey’s works. The program they presented was not only an important historic event but a rediscovery of Humphrey’s humanist genius.
Humphrey’s famous solo–Scherzo Waltz, the Hoop Dance of 1924–then took possession of the stage. This enchanting piece was beautifully danced by Laura Schwenk, who looked like a Maxfield Parrish nymph come to life. Maneuvering a seven-foot hoop could not have been easy, but Schwenk controlled it with such ease and elan that one wished the dance were longer.
Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, created in 1946 for Limon, concluded the program. It is based on a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca, who was murdered by Franco’s army during the Spanish Civil War, that laments the death of a bullfighter. But Humphrey chose her excerpts and created the dance designs in such a way as to give the work a more universal meaning; she mourns all wasteful death.
