What Art Movement Is Martha Grahamã¢ââ¢s Dance Compared to Surrealist
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STEVE EMBER: I'1000 Steve Ember.
BARBARA KLEIN: And I'm Barbara Klein with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today, we explore the life of dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. She created almost two hundred trip the light fantastic toe pieces. She is often called the Mother of Modern Dance. Her influence on the world of dance continues today.
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STEVE EMBER: In the beginning of the twentieth century, women like Isadora Duncan and Ruth Saint Denis wanted to create a new form of dance. Duncan and Saint Denis felt restricted past ballet. Modern trip the light fantastic was created as a defection confronting ballet.
Martha Graham was ane of the most famous dancers and creators of dance, called choreographers. She brought modern dance to a new level of popularity in American culture. She created a new language of move that expressed powerful emotions.
She started traditions that are still used in mod trip the light fantastic today. They include expressive movements of the body to tell a dramatic story, special music, lighting, stage design and costumes.
BARBARA KLEIN: Martha Graham was born in the small town of Allegheny, Pennsylvania in eighteen ninety-iv. After Martha turned 14 years old, her family moved to Santa Barbara, California. While traveling across the Midwest, Martha enjoyed the wide, open spaces of nature. She also enjoyed the beautiful flowers and plants in California. The free, expressive movements of modern dance were conspicuously influenced past the beauty of nature Graham observed.
STEVE EMBER: Earlier in her life, all the same, Martha did non know that she would become a dancer. Her father was a dr. and her family unit was very religious. They were members of the upper class and did not accept trip the light fantastic as an art form. All the same, in nineteen x, Martha's father took her to encounter a dance operation by Ruth Saint Denis, one of the starting time mod dancers in America. Martha was 16 and she decided then that she wanted to become a dancer.
BARBARA KLEIN: Ruth Saint Denis and Isadora Duncan were at the eye of attention in modern trip the light fantastic toe. They established some of the traditions nosotros see today. For example, Duncan was famous for starting the tradition of not wearing dance shoes while performing. Saint Denis was famous for creating dances influenced by other cultures. She studied dance from countries such as United mexican states and Egypt, instead of the European countries where ballet had started. Martha Graham took an immediate interest in this new fine art form.
STEVE EMBER: Martha's parents, however, did not approve of her sudden desire to trip the light fantastic toe. At this fourth dimension, people saw American dance as a lower art course. Graham chose to follow her dream of dancing, fifty-fifty though she was considered too old to brainstorm dancing. She was in her early twenties when she began studying dance in xix 16. She attended the school created past Ruth Saint Denis and her hubby, Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California.
At the Denishawn Trip the light fantastic School, Graham worked very hard to amend her ability to dance. She trained her torso to become strong enough to meet the difficult demands of dance. She performed with the Denishawn dance company for several years before moving to New York City. In that location, Graham performed in shows just she wanted to brand greater experiments with dance.
BARBARA KLEIN: Martha Graham started teaching trip the light fantastic at the Eastman Schoolhouse of Music in Rochester, New York. Later on she returned to New York Metropolis to teach at Carnegie Hall. She began to choreograph, or create the steps of dances. In guild to express herself freely, she decided to constitute her ain trip the light fantastic toe company and school. In 19 twenty-half dozen she started the Martha Graham Eye of Contemporary Dance.
She enjoyed having her own company of students to perform her dances. Graham produced a dance called "Heretic" in 19 xx-nine. She wore all white and danced confronting a wall of dancers wearing all black. Graham began to work with music composer Louis Horst. She worked with him until he died in nineteen sixty-four. Graham once said that, without Horst, she would have felt lost.
STEVE EMBER: In xix thirty-six, Graham created "Chronicle," one of her well-nigh of import dances. "Chronicle" was influenced by current events including the Great Depression and the Spanish Civil War. The dance expressed sadness and loneliness. At this time, showing strong emotions in dance was very rare. Graham likewise created dances based on ancient Greek tragic stories and famous female person heroines.
At outset, people did not react well to Graham's style of dancing. It was very different from European ballet, which was more commonly accustomed. Graham'southward dances were powerful, with strong and precipitous movements. Some of the movements involved contracting and releasing parts of the torso, using the arms in dramatic movements and falling to the floor. These movements are still used in modern dance today.
BARBARA KLEIN: In nineteen thirty-8, President Franklin Roosevelt'south wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, invited Martha Graham to perform at the White House. She created a dance called "American Document." Graham later danced at the White House for 7 other presidents.
In 19 forty-four, Martha Graham created "Appalachian Bound," ane of her most famous dances. It tells the story of a nuptials among early American settlers. Aaron Copland equanimous this music for "Appalachian Spring."
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STEVE EMBER: In 19 fifty-one, Graham was among the people who established the dance program at the Juilliard School in New York Urban center. Information technology is yet one of the best arts schools in the country. Many famous artists have begun their careers by studying in that location. Graham created her largest dance in nineteen fifty-8. She named information technology "Clytemnestra," and used music from the Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh.
Graham worked with other famous and influential people in the world of trip the light fantastic toe. Many of her students became famous dancers and choreographers. She likewise taught movement to famous people. including singer Madonna, actress Bette Davis and picture show director Woody Allen.
BARBARA KLEIN: Some of her dances were filmed and made into a DVD chosen "Martha Graham: Dance on Film." This is a collection of three programs Graham made for American public boob tube in the nineteen fifties and sixties. "A Dancer'due south World" is an introduction to Graham and her work. She tells well-nigh her dances and her trip the light fantastic toe grouping shows some of their methods. The DVD likewise includes films of two of her dances, "Appalachian Bound" and "Night Journeying."
STEVE EMBER: Graham continued to dance by the age of seventy. Once again, she was met with criticism from people who came to watch her shows. Younger people knew that Graham was an of import influence but they did not understand the meaning backside her dances. Graham began to suffer emotionally. She began to beverage too much alcohol.
She afterwards wrote a book about herself, called "Blood Memory." In her book, she wrote that she performed for the last time in nineteen seventy, when she was lxx-half-dozen years old. Ii years later Graham stopped drinking alcohol. She went dorsum to her dance company to choreograph more dances. The terminal dance she completed was called "Maple Foliage Rag," which she finished in nineteen ninety. Scott Joplin composed the music.
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BARBARA KLEIN: Martha Graham received many awards during her lifetime, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 19 seventy-six. She was the beginning dancer to receive the country's highest civilian honor. She died in nineteen ninety-one at the historic period of xc-6. In nineteen ninety-eight, Time mag listed her equally the "Dancer of the Century" and as one of the most important people of the twentieth century. The Martha Graham Dance Company still performs her dances in New York and around the world.
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STEVE EMBER: This programme was written past Elizabeth Stern. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I'g Steve Ember.
BARBARA KLEIN: And I'g Barbara Klein. You can learn about other interesting Americans at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Source: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/martha-graham-mother-of-modern-dance/1496645.html
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