Ancient Stories, Modern Storyteller: Celebrating Martha Graham
Martha Graham in the role of Medea in her dance work "Cave of the Heart." Set and sculptural elements were designed by Isamu Noguchi.
Stories act as powerful guides in our lives, inspiring us to connect with others and helping us to access our own emotions. Artists of all different mediums have sought to tell stories throughout the ages: they have written fiction, painted murals, filmed movies, or, as in dance, used their bodies to convey a narrative. Martha Graham (1894-1991), celebrated today as a trailblazing American modern dancer and choreographer, was one of those artists—fearlessly committed to telling stories through dance.
After spending the first fourteen years of her life in Allegheny City, Graham moved to Santa Barbara, California with her family; it was there that she first encountered and fell in love with dance. Graham began her training in 1916 at The Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded by modern dance pioneers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Eight years later, she moved to New York City where she founded her own dance company and school, both of which continue to thrive almost a century later.
Visible across Graham’s codified technique and her repertoire of 181 choreographic works is one of the pillars of her artistry: her commitment to storytelling. Most fundamental to Graham technique is the practice of contraction and release, or when a dancer tightens their pelvic muscles to create a curve in their spine before releasing those same muscles; contraction and release mimics the exhaling and inhaling of breath. Graham believed that by exaggerating basic human movements, dancers could access an expressive potential to convey deep and intense emotions.
Being able to communicate emotions with their bodies made Graham dancers especially suited to embody characters, something Graham often tasked them with. Embarking on a “Greek cycle” in the 1940s, in which she choreographed works about various women from Greek mythology, Graham was known for reimagining ancient characters and retelling ancient stories through dance.
Her work Cave of the Heart (1946) tells the story of Medea, who, after being betrayed by her husband Jason, takes revenge on him by killing their two children. Every aspect of the work serves the myth’s narrative: the movement, the music, the costumes, and even the set. Isamu Noguchi, a distinguished American sculptor, was a frequent collaborator of Graham’s, designing about 20 sets for Graham over three decades. Just as Graham was interested in the expressive potential of the body, Noguchi was interested in the expressive potential of abstract sculpture. In Cave of the Heart, a massive structure of metal wires can represent Medea’s status as the granddaughter of the sun god or it can represent the hatred that radiates from her by the end of the dance. Through visual art, Noguchi too takes up the task of storytelling, creating the spatial environment in which characters can be brought to life.
As we celebrate Graham today, we should honor the stories she sought to tell. We should honor her role as a storyteller and situate her within a larger community of artists—like Isamu Noguchi—who use their craft to tell timeless human stories.
Martha Graham Dance Company in Graham's "Cave of the Heart," 2023. Wikimedia Commons