Above: Xiaochuan Xie and Ben Schultz rehearsing Martha Graham's RITE OF SPRING. Photo by Nir Arieli.
NEWS FLASH!!! It has just been announced that Martha Graham Dance Company will perform RITE OF SPRING at the 2013 Fall for Dance festival at City Center on October 2nd and 3rd.
Friday August 9th, 2013 - Photographer Nir Arieli and I spent a wonderful couple of hours with the Martha Graham Dance Company this afternoon as they prepared for their upcoming engagement at Jacob's Pillow.
The Graham performances will mark the finale of the 2013 Pillow festival and, to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the premiere of the Nijinsky/Stravinsky RITE OF SPRING, Ms. Graham's setting of the (in)famous Stravinsky score is being marvelously revived.
In April 2013 I saw a studio presentation of Graham's RITE and was thoroughly bowled over by the superb structuring of the choreography, the physical grandeur of the piece, and the emotional intensity of the Graham dancers. At today's rehearsal, the Company's associate artistic director Denise Vale was breaking down certain passages to focus on specific nuances of gesture and partnering whilst also working out details of spacing so that RITE will look perfect when it is danced on the stage at Jacob's Pillow.
The dancers, having rehearsed all day, looked fresh and vivid. Both as technicians and expressive artists they are a unique band, and their individual personalities shine thru in their commitment to the Graham style. Their dancing is passionate, poetic, and eminently thrilling to watch.
I had another commitment in the late afternoon but Nir stayed on to watch a full run-thru of the piece. Here are some of his images from the rehearsal; click on each photo to enlarge:
Iris Florentiny
Abdiel Jacobsen
Xiaochuan Xie, Lloyd Knight
Lloyd Mayor, Tadej Brdnik
Abdiel Jacobsen, Mariya Dashkina Maddux
Lloyd Knight, Xiaochuan Xie
Xiaochuan Xie
Ben Schultz, Xiaochuan Xie
Ben Schultz, Xiaochuan Xie
Ben Schultz, Xiaochuan Xie
More pictures from this rehearsal will be found here. All photography by Nir Arieli.
The Graham studios have become a favorite dance destination for me. To watch the Company rehearse is an immersive experience; I feel both a deep connection to the legacy and genius of Martha Graham and also a very real and vital sense that her works live and breathe in the dedicated spirits of the current roster of dancers. I'm so grateful to Lloyd Knight for arranging our visit today, and to the gracious generosity of Janet Eilber, Denise Vail and all of the dancers for sharing their world with us.