Articles from Ballet2000

The influence and impact of some artistic figures demand evaluation over the long term, an assessment of their importance based on the mark they have left on their art form and the way they continue to impact its future. Looking at the world of ballet and contemporary dance, we examine the nature of Martha Graham’s legacy and whether the passing of time has done her justice.
Martha Graham Dance Company was on tour in Europe this spring and seeing it in Madrid has, of course, evoked many memories and emotions from the past. Even today, it remains a quasi-religious experience to take one’s seat in a theatre to watch a piece of Graham choreography, as it is also with works by Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey and Merce Cunningham, the three other great figures of twentieth century American dance. Martha Graham completes a quartet of dance divinities born into a world of skyscrapers, hot dogs and bare foot dance.
Some 34 years after the death of its founder, Martha Graham Dance Company is much smaller than when the full ensemble populated the stage in Acts of Light or to the great chords of Nielsen’s Helios Overture. It does, however, continue to exist and perform, unlike other companies, such as Cunningham’s, which disbanded after their founder’s death in what may well be a natural and logical end for any ensemble which performs the work of one person.
At the fourth Lyon Biennale de la Danse in 1990, 11 ballets by Graham were performed as their founder and keeper of the divine flame was approaching the end of her life (she died in 1991). The esteemed American critic Anna Kisselgoff observed at the time that Graham was without doubt the greatest creator of images in the history of dance.
The memories of the interactions I had with her create images in my mind. Every phrase she uttered was a form of evocation, a pathway to the life of an artist: “The inner personality of the human being comes out into the open in dance” she once said, looking me directly in the eyes. For me, that was Martha Graham.
In Lyon, I saw performances of all of her works on the programme, but it was after Acts of Light that I found myself fixed to my seat, as if still waiting for something; it was at that moment I experienced my ‘epiphany’ concerning Graham movement and its meaning.
In my case, direct contact had come rather late: I saw the company for the first time in 1982, then again over the course of a decade, up until the year after her death when the company performed Graham’s unfinished opera The Eyes of the Goddess in Seville in 1992.
I met her on three occasions: the first in 1986, when the company was touring in Spain, then in New York in 1988 and in 1990, during the preparation period for The Eyes of the Goddess, a commission for the 1992 Seville World Expo by which date Martha had passed away. How much had she completed by her death and could it be performed to audiences? There was much debate; we were not talking about something like Puccini’s unfinished Turandot or Schubert’s ‘Unfinished Symphony’, not even de Falla’s Atlántida. The choreography itself is from another world; they went ahead with the show as scheduled but The Eyes of the Goddess is now almost completely forgotten.
Six years earlier, at Martha Graham’s press conference in Madrid, she was expansive and enthusiastic about being in Spain (she loved García Lorca and Goya and had once created a ballet about the Spanish Civil War). Almost ninety-two in 1986, she remained sharp and lucid. It was then that she gave me a long interview, her replies to my questions, as I read them now, acquiring greater importance as time has passed. One of the first things she said after I had pressed the record button was “Only change is eternal.” She added: “Let us follow its strength and truth.” Given nothing is immune from change, least of all dance or choreography, she observed “I don’t deny it, I see some of my works from 20 or 30 years ago and, while recognising their merits, I feel the desire to change them. I feel a restlessness, and I consider that normal. The works must be maintained as they were conceived, respectful of their time and original surroundings, but the artist’s mind does not stop. I don’t like to go back…”, and after a pause, “…when I do, it means something is wrong.”
By then, both during her visit to Spain and later, during the creative period for that last work, Ron Protas (Graham’s right-hand man, trusted confidant and heir, as she referred to him in her memoirs) was playing a central role. Protas’s zeal sometimes bordered on impertinence, as when he asked journalists not to wear strong-smelling scents which might bother Graham. There were subsequently lawsuits over the inheritance of the rights to her choreography and the ‘Martha Graham’ trademark, some of which are still ongoing, but current executive director of the Graham Centre in New York, Marvin Preston’s battle was central in restoring control over the rights to the Graham name and repertoire.
In 1992, Yuriko, a supreme Graham interpreter over many decades, declared to the international press in Seville that The Eyes of the Goddess was a song of death. I disagreed. What Martha had conceived and developed, and had explained to me during our last meeting was rather a search for light against a sombre atmosphere of ritual, a desire for hope, to become eternal through our work and what we leave behind. She already seemed to sense the approach of today’s ongoing crisis in theatre and its purpose.
The goddess’s journey was a dark one, but one which she wanted to be human. The project itself was on a huge scale and without a clear outcome. Back then, I wrote: “Life’s chariot has gently laid Martha by the side of the road, but the group of artists she has formed in both body and spirit, in terms of aesthetics and beliefs, journeys on, and must journey on.” The goddess is no longer with us, but we can walk in her footsteps.”
The severe rheumatoid arthritis she suffered from was the subject of one of our last meetings. Ron Protas did not want to talk about illness or death, as if to banish any sense of mortality, despite Graham’s clear difficulties in breathing and overall physical decline. She spoke with great difficulty, but it was clear that her mind was present, attentive and following the conversation. And I don’t quite know how or why, but another topic suddenly emerged: Narcissus. Martha said slowly: “It’s one of those subjects that men think is theirs alone, but it’s not like that. I didn’t have the time to put a dancer in front of a mirror, but I thought about it a lot.”
I believe she was aware that those visits were farewells, and that she saw herself as we saw her: a vision, a living, mummified goddess, dressed according to an archaic ritual of veneration and deification: an elaborate Alexander hairstyle, a Halston dress, Isamu Noguchi jewellery, a thick layer of white powder and bold black lines on her face, creating a mask from Ancient Greece. One couldn’t have asked for more. The icon was ready each time for eternity. That was the last time I took her hands, wearing in black satin gloves, into my own. I kissed the glove, and it was like kissing divinity itself. Sometimes, reverence is a form of communion.

Roger Salas - BALLET2000 n. 300 - Summer 2025

Photo: Martha Graham, 1961, ph. A.Newman