Martha Graham Dance Company at 100—Strong Dancers, Dwindling Graham

Xin Ying in Letter to Nobody. Photo: Brian Pollock

Martha Graham Dance Company performed its annual New York run at the Joyce this year, part of the troupe’s 100th anniversary celebration. It was another step in its evolution, a balance of Graham and contemporary choreography. Program A offered just a short bit of Martha, Act 2 of Clytemnestra (1958), which has all the hallmarks of high Graham—fantastic sets by Isamu Noguchi, fabulous costumes by Graham and Helen McGehee, unharmonious music by Halim El-Dabh—but tilts toward kitsch in the absence of the larger context. As Artistic Director Janet Eilber had informed us in her by now habitual, concise, pre-show comments, Agamemnon’s Ghost (Jai Perez) wears high gold platform shoes to indicate he’s in the afterworld, but it still feels like drag. We do get a solid sampling of Graham in the womens’ dancing—the yearning diagonal stretches and twists with cupped hands—and in the final solo by Lloyd Knight, with his repeated, self-flagellating hinges to the shoulder.

 Xin Ying in Clytemnestra. Photo: Isabella Pagano

Baye & Asa choreographed the world premiere of Cortege, to music by Jack Grabow. Eight dancers are hidden beneath a tarp, which slides off them. We hear a voiceover, including, “In times of extreme violence…” The dancers hit vignettes, evoking postures and gestures of torture and incarceration. They cluster, spasming, moving in bursts, giving animalistic Gaga vibes. A woman melts to the floor. Some don burlap vests; are they members or exiles? The movement is hyper controlled and precise, disturbing in its relentless, underlying terror, and undeniably beautiful.

Graham appears on film in the premiere of Letter to Nobody, by Xin Ying, who co-choreographed it with Mimi Yin. Ying, solo, channels Martha in front of a film segment of Graham’s Letter to the World, projected on a giant screen. Shot at an angle from above, it includes segments of social dance, and feels lighthearted; Graham is heard in a voiceover. Ying dances elegantly in flowing and graceful phrases, at one point kicking, swirling, and spinning repeatedly in her circle skirt. The film cuts to Graham fixing her enormous signature bun in front of a vanity. As she turns toward the camera, her face morphs into Ying’s. The effect is chilling, a demonstration of what AI can bring to dance theater, and a reminder that Graham’s heirs must carry on her legacy while always increasing the distance to her.

Cortege. Photo: Isabella Pagano

The program ended with Hofesh Schechter’s crowd pleaser, Cave (2022). In murky light, to a pulsing beat, 14 dancers move subtly at first, like a sea anemone. The dynamic builds, the group peels apart, still beating in sync, throwing in some Irish step dancing for good measure. Golden light hits them from the side, and they continue a trance-like surrender to the beat. It ends in a highly-controlled frenzy, the dancers writhing and throbbing in ecstasy. 

It’s yet another manifestation of the versatile and technically limitless group of dancers that comprise the Martha Graham Company, and that Graham’s elemental technique serves as a foundation for nearly all genres of dance. (That said, Ohad Naharin's Gaga felt more present in Cortege and Cave than Graham style.) The company performed two other programs which both offered proportionately more Graham to other choreographers' work, so the program I saw was an outlier. Graham's mythology-based repertory can now read as melodramatic and campy, but the company must continue to present this canon, along with her formal work, to share its primacy and essence.