Above: PeiJu Chien-Pott in Martha Graham's Herodiade, photo by Nir Arieli
Monday March 18th, 2019 - Photographer Nir Arieli and I spent a wonderful afternoon at The Martha Graham Dance Company's homespace on Bethune Street, where the inimitable Graham dancers are preparing for their upcoming season at The Joyce which runs from April 2nd thru April 14th, 2019. Season details and tickets here.
The Joyce season resonates around The EVE Project, the Graham Company's ongoing celebration of female empowerment, heralding the approach of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment on August 18th, 2020. In addition to classics from the Graham repertoire - Secular Games, Herodiade, El Penitente, Errand into the Maze, and Chronicle - the Joyce season brings Annie-B Parson’s I used to love you and a duet from Lucinda Childs’ Histoire, as well premieres of works by Pam Tanowitz and co-creators Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith.
It's not normal to see this level of dancing in a rehearsal, but then there is nothing normal about the Graham dancers: they are remarkable artists, one and all, and they never for a moment stint on anything, be it technical or emotional. This makes watching them totally absorbing. They are Terpsichore's gift to the world.
Nir and I were welcomed today by the Company's Senior Artistic Associate Denise Vale, and we got an exciting preview of the Joyce season ahead, commencing with Graham's Herodiade. This was danced this afternoon by two distinctive beauties: PeiJu Chien-Pott and Natasha Diamond-Walker. Here are some of Nir's photos from this work, in which tension and a feeling of apprehension pulse steadily under its essentially calm surface:
Natasha Diamond-Walker and PeiJu Chien-Pott
Then followed a run-thru of one of the works to be premiered at The Joyce in April: Deo, created by Bobbi Jene Smith and Maxine Doyle. I say "run-thru", but it had the palpitating energy and powerful resonance of a full-scale performance, because these dancers don't believe in half-measures. The score, by Leslie Flanigan, creates its own world: alive, vivid, and somewhat ominous.
The ballet is inspired by the story of Persephone; in Greek mythology, she was the goddess-queen of the Underworld, wife of the god Hades. She was also the goddess of Springtime vegetation and crops, and as such was worshipped alongside her mother Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries, the rituals of a female cult that promised its initiates a blessèd afterlife.
From a terrific opening solo by Leslie Andrea Williams (above), the work evolves thru a series of vignettes interspersed with blackouts. There are ensemble passages, into which are woven solo phrases for each of the nine women.
Here are some of Nir's images from Deo:
1
So Young An, Laurel Dalley Smith, and Anne O'Donnell
DEO has so many striking moments: at one point, So Young An runs madly, circling the other women as if being pursued
Anne Souder
Anne O'Donnell and Xin Ying
Xin Ying
Anne Souder
Anne Souder
Above: The Graham women in Deo
As the Noguchi set pieces for Errand Into The Maze were being placed, Denise told me that a review of a recent tour performance called this Graham masterpiece "dated". HA! It is so fresh, clear, and timely that it could have been created this morning. We saw two pairs of dancers in Errand today: PeiJu Chien-Pott with Ben Schultz, and Charlotte Landreau with Lloyd Mayor.
Here are images of PeiJu and Ben in Errand Into The Maze:
And here are Charlotte Landreau and Lloyd Mayor in Errand Into The Maze:
Nir unfortunately had to leave in the middle of the second Errand rehearsal, but I stayed on a bit to watch Xin Ying and Lorenzo Pagano dancing up a storm in a duet from Lucinda Childs' Histoire. This is non-stop motion, packed full of steps and port de bras, and calling for boundless energy; the two dancers reveled in every moment.
All photography by Nir Arieli.
~ Oberon