Tuesday September 16th, 2014 - Whenever I come away from a performance (or rehearsal) of the Martha Graham Dance Company, I feel the need to invent new adjectives to describe both the works being danced and the people dancing them. Tonight, as part of the on-going GRAHAM/Deconstructed series, we saw an open rehearsal of the 1947 Graham classic, Errand Into the Maze, and a new work, Notes on a Voyage, created by former Graham dancer Peter Sparling.
Errand Into the Maze, with its powerful score by Gian Carlo Menotti, seems startlingly fresh and meaningful each time I see it. Though billed as a 'rehearsal', the dancers - PeiJu Chien-Pott and Ben Schultz - gave a performance of deep commitment and generous physicality. Pei-Ju, luminous in a white shift, painted the terror and the ultimate triumph of her journey in a vividly nuanced performance. With his handsomely inked torso, Ben seemed an unconquerable force as he stalked his prey. Yet in the end, PeiJu overcomes her fear and casts him down. The packed house watched this masterpiece with intense focus and burst into an enthusiastic and richly-deserved applause for the two dancers at the end.
And now let me take a moment to congratulate the award-winning PeiJu Chein-Pott (above)! Read the story here.
Above: Blakeley White-McGuire and Ben Schultz in Notes On A Voyage, photo by Antonia K Miranda
In his striking multi-media work, Notes On A Voyage, Peter Sparling has summoned up a vision of Martha Graham's lost 1953 work, Voyage. Stuart Hodes, who was among the original cast, gave valuable insights into the creation (and ultimate disappearance) of Voyage which evolved out of Martha Graham’s sessions with Jungian analyst Francis Wickes. No filmed or notated record of the dance remains, but it has been written about and spoken of in Grahamian circles over the intervening decades.
Mr. Hodes revealed that, after a two-year period of creation, Voyage premiered and Martha Graham was not pleased with it. She immediately began re-working it, but it never again saw the light of day outside the studio...until now, in Mr. Sparling's thoughtful and provocative rendering.
The original Voyage had a Noguchi setting. Martha's notes indicate she viewed the piece as taking place in a house on the edge of a desert; yet Noguchi's design showed a boat. This paradox was somehow resolved at the time. For the current re-imagining, the space is empty aside from an extremely high stool in one corner, and a bolt of red fabric.
Mr. Sparling found the William Schuman piano music, and he conceived a brilliantly executed film to accompany the dance. The voice of Ellen Lauren is heard, reading excerpts - fragments, really - from Martha Graham's journals and letters. The overall atmosphere compellingly fuses the elusive past with the vibrant presence in the personages of the four magnificent dancers: Blakeley White-McGuire, Tadej Brdnik, Lloyd Knight, and Ben Schultz.
Descibed as 'a woman seeing herself thru the eyes of three men', the central character takes on - in a succession of duets - the aspects of a goddess, a warrior, and a lover. Shirtless in fitted trousers, the three men display the agility and strength that Graham always demanded of her male dancers. Dancing first with Lloyd, then Ben and finally Tadej, Blakeley filled the space with both restless energy and moments of pensive calm, sometimes skittering up to the high seat from which she could view her own world. Blakeley's performance was a pure astonishment of personal magnetism, her alluring physicality and her compelling gift for turning movement into magic gave me one heart-racing thrill after another. What a remarkable and generous artist she is.
A great night, then, in every regard. So lovely to find Xiaochuan Xie, Alessandra Larson, Abdiel Cedric Jacobsen, and Ian Spencer Bell among the crowd.
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Upcoming: On October 30th, the Martha Graham Dance Company will present Appalachian Spring Up Close and Personal - a complete performance of Appalachian Spring in costume and with the classic Noguchi set pieces. This performance marks the 70th anniversary of the work's premiere on October 30th, 1944. This one-night-only event will also feature film and photos from the premiere, and an introduction with quotes from Graham’s correspondence with Aaron Copeland as they created this beloved American classic. Mariya Dashkina Maddux will lead the cast in Graham’s role of The Bride. She will be joined by Lloyd Mayor, Natasha Diamond-Walker, Lloyd Knight, Xiaochuan Xie, Ying Xin, Charlotte Landreau, and Lauren Newman. Ticket information will be forthcoming.