It’s been a rough haul for the Martha Graham Dance Company since their last local season in April 2005 at City Center. Though it was artistically triumphant, and one could spot celebs like Woody Allen and Baryshnikov in the audience, it was a money-losing venture at a time when the company was already financially drained from the extended court case over rights to the legendary choreographer’s works.
The Graham troupe is set to open the Joyce Theater’s 25th anniversary season with two weeks featuring vintage Graham masterworks, and their artistic director, Janet Eilber, feels confident about the troupe’s future.
“We have turned things around in the past two years,” says Eilber. “Our debt is now down to well below $1 million; we feel stable, and we had a balanced budget.” Last year, the troupe scraped together a single evening to mark its 80th anniversary.
“The year leading up to that gala was probably our lowest point. We really were doing everything we could to meet our commitments, but everyone had to sacrifice—the dancers included. It was difficult for everybody, but we got through it.”
She credits executive director Larue Allen with steering the right course, and the streamlined roster now numbers 20 dancers. Previous efforts to generate substantial contemporary works for the company have been laid aside.
The Joyce season’s novelty, on opening night, is Lamentation Variations, for which three well-regarded choreographers—Aszure Barton, Larry Keigwin and Richard Move—were invited to create their own brief work inspired by Graham’s powerful 1930 solo, Lamentation. “We asked them to create sketches in reaction to that piece and gave them a very specific creative structure,” explains Eilber. The three short works will be shown following a screening of a filmed Graham performance of the solo. Eilber was well aware of the fact that opening night falls on the anniversary of 9/11 and felt that the focus on Lamentation, an eloquent, highly dignified expression of grief, would be appropriate.
Also noteworthy is Arden Song (Redux), a “reinvention” of a substantial 1954 Graham work, to music by Alan Hovhaness, that has not been seen for half a century. “I kept running across references to it. There was absolutely no record of it: no film; a few photos, original cast members. We did an archaeological dig to reconstruct it,” says Eilber. “It’s based on the journey of the moon through the night, and includes a lot of very innovative use of fabric, based on Asian theater. We decided that though the thematic material and stagecraft were great, we needed to do what Martha herself had done in the course of her career, which was upgrade the physicality for today’s dancers. Since we didn’t really have a roadmap of her exact choreography, we decided to reinvent the physical moves.”
The September 15 program will be a special edition of “From the Horse’s Mouth,” featuring 25 former Graham dancers, some dating back to the 1940s, relating their experiences and performing signature movement phrases. It’s part of an alumni weekend that will bring together several generations of the company, who will take a group bow at that evening’s performance. The company will salute its venerable past as it looks forward to what now looks like a brighter future.
Sept. 11-23, Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at 19th St.), 212-242-0800; Tues. & Wed. 7:30; Thurs.-Sat. 8; Sun. 7:30; Sat. & Sun. 2, $25-$44.
The Graham troupe is set to open the Joyce Theater’s 25th anniversary season with two weeks featuring vintage Graham masterworks, and their artistic director, Janet Eilber, feels confident about the troupe’s future.
“We have turned things around in the past two years,” says Eilber. “Our debt is now down to well below $1 million; we feel stable, and we had a balanced budget.” Last year, the troupe scraped together a single evening to mark its 80th anniversary.
“The year leading up to that gala was probably our lowest point. We really were doing everything we could to meet our commitments, but everyone had to sacrifice—the dancers included. It was difficult for everybody, but we got through it.”
She credits executive director Larue Allen with steering the right course, and the streamlined roster now numbers 20 dancers. Previous efforts to generate substantial contemporary works for the company have been laid aside.
The Joyce season’s novelty, on opening night, is Lamentation Variations, for which three well-regarded choreographers—Aszure Barton, Larry Keigwin and Richard Move—were invited to create their own brief work inspired by Graham’s powerful 1930 solo, Lamentation. “We asked them to create sketches in reaction to that piece and gave them a very specific creative structure,” explains Eilber. The three short works will be shown following a screening of a filmed Graham performance of the solo. Eilber was well aware of the fact that opening night falls on the anniversary of 9/11 and felt that the focus on Lamentation, an eloquent, highly dignified expression of grief, would be appropriate.
Also noteworthy is Arden Song (Redux), a “reinvention” of a substantial 1954 Graham work, to music by Alan Hovhaness, that has not been seen for half a century. “I kept running across references to it. There was absolutely no record of it: no film; a few photos, original cast members. We did an archaeological dig to reconstruct it,” says Eilber. “It’s based on the journey of the moon through the night, and includes a lot of very innovative use of fabric, based on Asian theater. We decided that though the thematic material and stagecraft were great, we needed to do what Martha herself had done in the course of her career, which was upgrade the physicality for today’s dancers. Since we didn’t really have a roadmap of her exact choreography, we decided to reinvent the physical moves.”
The September 15 program will be a special edition of “From the Horse’s Mouth,” featuring 25 former Graham dancers, some dating back to the 1940s, relating their experiences and performing signature movement phrases. It’s part of an alumni weekend that will bring together several generations of the company, who will take a group bow at that evening’s performance. The company will salute its venerable past as it looks forward to what now looks like a brighter future.
Sept. 11-23, Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at 19th St.), 212-242-0800; Tues. & Wed. 7:30; Thurs.-Sat. 8; Sun. 7:30; Sat. & Sun. 2, $25-$44.
