Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training

Marian Horosko brings together new and previously published interviews of Martha Graham's ""family"" of dancers, teachers, choreographers and actors and interweaves them with provocative biographical material about the life and influence of the creator of classic modern dance. Spanning the past 75 years, the interviews testify to the remarkable legacy that inspired the careers of many in the dance world, among them dancers from the contemporary generation who inherited her technique, but never saw her perform. The interviews of teachers, all former Graham students, reflect their passion for maintaining Graham's few fixed principles and her emotional integrity. Some of the foremost actors of Graham's time (she died in 1991) describe their stormy encounters with her in the process of her attempts to teach them that ""movement doesn't lie"". Although not a textbook - no textbook describing the exercises exists at the time of publication - this book offers a syllabus of Graham's work. Drawn from a private film of a class for her advanced and professional company members in the 1960s, it includes comments from Graham and testifies to her use of imagery in teaching. Photographs that capture the dancers' physical configuration document the development of Graham's choreographic legacy, which expanded and changed as she created each new work, more than 200 in all. These images, along with the interviews and commentary, plot the evolution of Graham's methodology and vocabulary of movement, on which classical modern dance continues to rely. …