INTERVIEW: Martha Graham dancers celebrate female empowerment
Photo: Xin Ying and Anne Souder star in Martha Graham’s Chronicle at the Joyce Theater. Photo courtesy of Melissa Sherwood / Provided by the dance company with permission.
The Martha Graham Dance Company has taken over the Joyce Theater for the next two weeks with programming centered on female empowerment. By presenting both new routines and classic Graham pieces on this theme, the company hopes to explore many facets of both historical and contemporary ideas of the feminine.
At the helm of the company is artistic director Janet Eilber, who is the latest leader of the dance troupe, which has amazingly been in existence since 1926. Of course, the namesake of the company, one of the most important choreographers of the 20th century, still informs and inspires the dancers’ every move.
At the Joyce, where several programs will run in repertory, audiences can expect to see the world premiere of Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith’s Deo, the New York premiere of Pam Tanowitz’s Untitled (Souvenir) and Graham classics like Secular Games, Herodiade and Chronicle, among many other routines. The entire set of performances is known as The EVE Project, again coming back to that central theme of female empowerment.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Eilber about the New York season. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What are you most excited about for the upcoming New York season?
I think I’m most excited about the range of strong, nuanced female voices on these programs — the wildly different and particular expressions of Annie-B Parson, Lucinda Childs, Pam Tanowitz and Maxine Doyle with Bobby Jean Smith — and Martha Graham. The works of these renowned contemporary artists aligned with six diverse Graham masterworks create an electric multigenerational conversation. The individual works are marvelous — each and every one. But I’m even more excited about the combinations and interactions on each program.
The company is focusing on female empowerment as its theme this year. Why is this an important topic for you and the company?
We originally chose this theme about five years ago in order to feature Martha’s extraordinary, groundbreaking approach to creating women characters in dance.
She was the first choreographer to present complex, flawed, ambitious women on stage. She did this by choreographing the mind — she made memories, flashbacks and stream of consciousness visible — revealing in movement her characters’ complicated inner lives.
The EVE Project began because we wanted to feature this aspect of Martha’s creative discoveries, but we also wanted to surround her with other female voices. The new works help frame this aspect of Martha’s creativity, and Martha’s classics bring historical context to some of the most exciting work emerging today.
And finally, we chose The EVE Project to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment and women’s right to vote in 2020.
Deo sounds especially interesting. What can audience members expect from this world premiere?
Maxine Doyle and Bobby Jean Smith have created a highly emotional, visceral work that is entirely of today and yet evokes the past. They’ve taken inspiration from the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, but they do not retell this story.
The dance is a series of searing, visceral, magical images that reference such elemental subjects as mothers and daughters, birth, loss, grief and rebirth. A new electronic score by Lesley Flanigan accompanies the work and has the quality of ancient sacred music. The images, sound and cast of extraordinarily expressive female dancers give Deo timelessness as well as powerful, contemporary impact.
How do you know which of Graham’s works to revive and present for a 2019 audience? There are so many choices.
Yes, you are right! This is one of the great challenges of curating the Graham legacy. In the last several years, our programming has been driven and informed by an over-arching theme. The theme guides our selection of Graham works as well as our choice of artists who create new works for us.
This season’s theme, The EVE Project, allowed me to select classics by Martha that showcase very different aspects of being a woman — her heroines as well as her anti-heroines — and to feature a selection of works by some of today’s top choreographers who happened to be female.
Do you see your leadership as paving a new way for the company, honoring the past, both?
‘Both’ is the simplest answer! The Graham Company owns arguably the greatest collection of 20th century dance masterworks that exists. It’s my job to invite today’s audiences into those amazing works of art.
We use a wide variety of ways to offer our audiences more points of access to our work. We have experimented with new ways of presenting dance — of connecting with audiences — from contextual programming and narration and media onstage to the use of new technology and the commissioning of new work. So our path forward is definitely ‘both.’ We are propelled into the future by the past — by Martha Graham’s legacy of innovation.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Martha Graham Dance Company presents The EVE Project, a series of programs in repertory, at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan. Performances run through April 14. Click here for more information and tickets.
