Martha Graham Influence On American Dance
According to the Collins Dictionary, modern dance is “a form of dance as a performing art, variously developed in the 20th century by Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, etc., and characterized by bodily movements and rhythms less formalized than in classical ballet and less firmly bound to predetermined musical form.” Although this may have still been fairly new to American audiences, worldwide, the art form had developed a long history of accepted tradition by the turn of the 20th century. Martha Graham sets a perfect example of the modern dance growth. Martha Graham is regarded as one of the first pioneers of modern dance. She developed and expanded her own technique, which has inspired the dance world majorly. As a young lady
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she was always put down about becoming a professional in the performing arts, but against her parents and others hopes, she became a dancer.
Martha Graham’s contribution to this new way of dance has had a remarkable impact on the entire field of modern dance in particular, because she is responsible for revolutionizing the dance industry with her numerous, 180 choreographed works. By experimenting with unknown movements and establishing the fundamental technique in modern dance, Graham clearly expressed this dramatic dance style as a new form of life. The Graham technique finds meaning in all movement, and reduces dance to the body’s natural function of breathing the contraction and release.
As a result, her dance language was intended to express shared human emotions and experiences, rather than merely provide decorative displays of graceful movements. Graham’s attitude to dance was arguably influenced by her father, a psychologist, who told her that ‘movement never lies’. Later in her life, she would use this theory to display human emotion through dance. Agnes de Mille depicts, “ the hands, the feet, the neck are naked to observation, as well as, of course, the heartbeat. Now we have the lie detector, which is based on just this principle. The body cannot lie.”(60). This statement had profound meaning for Martha; therefore, she simply applied its context.
Martha's parents, however, did not approve of her sudden desire to dance.
At this time, people saw American dance as a lower art form. Graham chose to follow her dream of dancing, even though she was considered too old to begin dancing. She was in her early twenties when she began studying dancing in 1916. She attended the school created by Ruth Saint Denis and her husband, Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California. Ruth St. Denis inspired her to dance. ‘“I worshipped everything about Miss Ruth – how she walked, how she danced. Miss Ruth was everything to me,” Graham admits. However, Ruth St. Denis thought of Graham as ‘too old, small and not particularly attractive.’(Milles 51). Nevertheless, Ruth’s concept didn’t affect Martha because at the Denishawn Dance School, Graham worked very hard to improve her ability to dance.
She trained her body 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. There, Graham performed in shows but she wanted to make greater experiments with dance. “ She absorbed everything, the way a plant takes in light. She was always on time and always attentive, using every faculty she had” (Milles 52). Martha kept her head firm moving towards her only goal, developing her personal
technique.
She started teaching dance at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Martha learned thoroughly the lore of Denishawn, and this knowledge became her dowry to take with her wherever she went. Later she returned to New York City to teach at Carnegie Hall. She began to choreograph, or create the steps of dances. In order to express herself freely, she decided to establish her own dance company and school.
In 1926 she started the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance. Martha taught Denishawn technique, that being what she knew, and such old Denishawn dances as she remembered. Then Ted presented a horrid surprise: he stipulated that she was to pay him five hundred dollars for the use of Denishawn exercises and dance material. It was on this small and perverse point- Shaw’s possessiveness and Martha’s penury- that the birth and development of modern dance hinges. If she had continued to have easy access to the old Denishawn way, she might never have invented a new one. He forced the creation of the new modern dance. It was obvious that Martha was a creator and a leader.
The dances were also meant to evoke an instinctive response in the audience rather than entertaining them. Therefore, her technique deviated from classical ballet by making use of specific body movements such as contraction, release, spirals, cupped hands and flexed feet, fall and recover, endings, parallel feet, movements initiating from the hips, shift of weight, leaning, deep stretches, triplets, prances, marching, breathings, and walking. All of these had a profound influence on the development of modern dance.
The contraction serves as the foundation of Graham technique. Graham developed the idea from observing the physical manifestation of grief in the body. Many of her dances feature forceful, angular movements originating in spasms of muscular contraction and release centered in the dancer’s pelvis. It is an opening and lifting of both the diaphragm and the pelvis. These expressive contractions help generate the strong sexual tension that is a feature of so many of Graham’s works. It is one of the fundamental characteristics of her choreography and as such, most of Graham exercises were created with the contraction in mind, the fact that is preceded from a deep emotional feeling, often pain. Deep contraction -“Over release, contract, over and back.” A Graham contraction begins from the pelvis and travels up the spine, lengthening the space between each vertebra, up to the neck and head, which remain in line with the spine. Each contraction is accompanied with an exhalation of breath. To the inexperienced eye, a contraction may look like a sucking in of the gut or a hunching over of the torso. However, any change in the rib cage, shoulders, or neck, is a result of the building of the contraction from the pelvis and occurs automatically when it has been performed correctly.
A typical Graham class begins on the floor with a series of bounces forward in a sitting position. Seated contractions and spirals concentrating on breathing follow, and dancers should be aware, even in the deepest contraction, of a feeling of lift as the head drops backward, opening the throat. Floor work continues in a seated fourth position with the back leg’s inner thigh on the floor, the front knee bent at 90 degrees and slightly elevated, and the ball of the front foot “on the walk” (touching the floor). Frequently initiated by the pelvic contraction, then hinging backward. Standing center work includes pliés, and brushes to allow the knee to turn in and cross the supporting leg before swinging out again. Release on the other hand, is the counter to the contraction. It occurs on the inhalation of breath. A release also begins from the pelvis and travels up the spine to return the torso to a neutral, straight position. There is also high release, which occurs when a dancer opens their breastbone to the sky and seems to rest their torso on an invisible shelf beneath the shoulder blades. The rib cage maintains alignment over the hips with no break in the lower back. The head remains in line with the spine.
Graham uses the importance of breathing, strong core muscle, engaging in ones pelvis, and having a flexible spine. The dancers need to think about every muscle, and make point not to let any part of the body go without being engaged and used. Even the concept of breathing, which may seem so small, affects the quality of the movement greatly. When it comes to Graham, it is important to breath when contracting and releasing because it helps the person really engage in the movement. The shift of weight in the Graham walks requires a shift of your pelvis too. The dancer is supposed to think of the idea of “pulling the abs in and up” as a guideline to always have your body lifted. While contracting and releasing one should focus on all of the muscles being engaged and working, so that the spine doesn’t slouch, and so he/she don’t sink in contraction. Martha had to spin this new technique out of her own entrails; a way of moving her arms, a way of moving the legs with the torso, a way of breathing. Martha was an inventor. She concentrated on the torso as the source of life, the motor, the workroom, and the kitchen. The arms and legs might be useful for serving or locomotion, and the head for judging and deciding, but everything, every emotion, she believed, starts or is visible in the torso first. The heart pounds, the lungs fill; and if the lungs fill there is a sharp spasm of activity in the ribs and diaphragm, since all life hangs on breath- or rather, the diaphragm lifts and then there is breath, and with it life. A twisting of the torso around the spine or spiral is essential. Like the contraction, the spiral begins in the pelvis and travels up the spine to the neck and head, although the head always stays in line with the spine. The changes in the torso take places as a cause and effect process as the spiral moves up from the pelvis. The lower spine must move before the shoulders, which move before the neck, etc. “The spine is your body’s tree of life. And through it, a dancer communicates; his body says what words cannot ” Martha Graham. As the dancer releases from the spiral and returns to a neutral position, the movement, again, originates from the pelvis and travels upwards.
The act of falling also plays an essential role because it embodies the process by which the dancer continually renews her and is a metaphor for the constant regeneration of life's energies in the face of certain mortality. Also, we must keep in mind that all her falls are on the left side because, as she said, the weight of the heart is on the left side. Preparation for fall cycles includes strengthening the thighs so that the dancer can negotiate the descent to the ground and avoid damaging the knees, discovering the power of the contraction and the release to instantly mobilize the body, and identifying the body's center of weight so that the action of falling can be controlled. For example, in the sitting falls, the dancer learns techniques for physically letting the body sink into the earth while controlling the descent, most often through the contraction of the pelvic and torso muscles so that the weight of the body is lifted. The body's energies are never or rarely allowed to seep into the floor, but remain gathered, mobilized for a quick recovery, a renewal of the power of the dancer. Graham’s falls combined with a wide variety of “pleadings”, a contraction, often from a prone position with the arms out in a begging or pleading position, they provide an extraordinarily rich vocabulary. She points out that the ground is a spatial element, not to be resisted as in ballet, but to be used. Grahams walk is much harder than one would think. It requires definite shape, hands, and shifting of weight. Ones legs have to be completely strain, and the knees should never be bend. The person can feel muscles that they never thought existed especially when concentrating on having a straight back, and ones shoulders down and engaged.
The technique and choreography of modern dance incorporates work of one's body, mind and spirit simultaneously, according to Martha’s contribution. Martha Graham, the mother of modern dance, will be immortalized for her intense emotional performances, unique choreography, and mostly for her homegrown technique. The tools of working creatively as a student, performer or choreographer include similar ideas that exist in art, theater and music composition. Martha’s technique lay within the span of her own creative life, a long one as a dancers go, but not long enough to absorb all possible permutations and differences. It must be remembered, that it started with her body and her emotions and, above all, her passion. Because of her and other major contributors, modern dance encompasses a template of movement training imperative to creating dance choreography having the potential to be artful, profound, sophisticated and powerful.
she was always put down about becoming a professional in the performing arts, but against her parents and others hopes, she became a dancer.
Martha Graham’s contribution to this new way of dance has had a remarkable impact on the entire field of modern dance in particular, because she is responsible for revolutionizing the dance industry with her numerous, 180 choreographed works. By experimenting with unknown movements and establishing the fundamental technique in modern dance, Graham clearly expressed this dramatic dance style as a new form of life. The Graham technique finds meaning in all movement, and reduces dance to the body’s natural function of breathing the contraction and release.
As a result, her dance language was intended to express shared human emotions and experiences, rather than merely provide decorative displays of graceful movements. Graham’s attitude to dance was arguably influenced by her father, a psychologist, who told her that ‘movement never lies’. Later in her life, she would use this theory to display human emotion through dance. Agnes de Mille depicts, “ the hands, the feet, the neck are naked to observation, as well as, of course, the heartbeat. Now we have the lie detector, which is based on just this principle. The body cannot lie.”(60). This statement had profound meaning for Martha; therefore, she simply applied its context.
Martha's parents, however, did not approve of her sudden desire to dance.
At this time, people saw American dance as a lower art form. Graham chose to follow her dream of dancing, even though she was considered too old to begin dancing. She was in her early twenties when she began studying dancing in 1916. She attended the school created by Ruth Saint Denis and her husband, Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California. Ruth St. Denis inspired her to dance. ‘“I worshipped everything about Miss Ruth – how she walked, how she danced. Miss Ruth was everything to me,” Graham admits. However, Ruth St. Denis thought of Graham as ‘too old, small and not particularly attractive.’(Milles 51). Nevertheless, Ruth’s concept didn’t affect Martha because at the Denishawn Dance School, Graham worked very hard to improve her ability to dance.
She trained her body 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. There, Graham performed in shows but she wanted to make greater experiments with dance. “ She absorbed everything, the way a plant takes in light. She was always on time and always attentive, using every faculty she had” (Milles 52). Martha kept her head firm moving towards her only goal, developing her personal
technique.
She started teaching dance at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Martha learned thoroughly the lore of Denishawn, and this knowledge became her dowry to take with her wherever she went. Later she returned to New York City to teach at Carnegie Hall. She began to choreograph, or create the steps of dances. In order to express herself freely, she decided to establish her own dance company and school.
In 1926 she started the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance. Martha taught Denishawn technique, that being what she knew, and such old Denishawn dances as she remembered. Then Ted presented a horrid surprise: he stipulated that she was to pay him five hundred dollars for the use of Denishawn exercises and dance material. It was on this small and perverse point- Shaw’s possessiveness and Martha’s penury- that the birth and development of modern dance hinges. If she had continued to have easy access to the old Denishawn way, she might never have invented a new one. He forced the creation of the new modern dance. It was obvious that Martha was a creator and a leader.
The dances were also meant to evoke an instinctive response in the audience rather than entertaining them. Therefore, her technique deviated from classical ballet by making use of specific body movements such as contraction, release, spirals, cupped hands and flexed feet, fall and recover, endings, parallel feet, movements initiating from the hips, shift of weight, leaning, deep stretches, triplets, prances, marching, breathings, and walking. All of these had a profound influence on the development of modern dance.
The contraction serves as the foundation of Graham technique. Graham developed the idea from observing the physical manifestation of grief in the body. Many of her dances feature forceful, angular movements originating in spasms of muscular contraction and release centered in the dancer’s pelvis. It is an opening and lifting of both the diaphragm and the pelvis. These expressive contractions help generate the strong sexual tension that is a feature of so many of Graham’s works. It is one of the fundamental characteristics of her choreography and as such, most of Graham exercises were created with the contraction in mind, the fact that is preceded from a deep emotional feeling, often pain. Deep contraction -“Over release, contract, over and back.” A Graham contraction begins from the pelvis and travels up the spine, lengthening the space between each vertebra, up to the neck and head, which remain in line with the spine. Each contraction is accompanied with an exhalation of breath. To the inexperienced eye, a contraction may look like a sucking in of the gut or a hunching over of the torso. However, any change in the rib cage, shoulders, or neck, is a result of the building of the contraction from the pelvis and occurs automatically when it has been performed correctly.
A typical Graham class begins on the floor with a series of bounces forward in a sitting position. Seated contractions and spirals concentrating on breathing follow, and dancers should be aware, even in the deepest contraction, of a feeling of lift as the head drops backward, opening the throat. Floor work continues in a seated fourth position with the back leg’s inner thigh on the floor, the front knee bent at 90 degrees and slightly elevated, and the ball of the front foot “on the walk” (touching the floor). Frequently initiated by the pelvic contraction, then hinging backward. Standing center work includes pliés, and brushes to allow the knee to turn in and cross the supporting leg before swinging out again. Release on the other hand, is the counter to the contraction. It occurs on the inhalation of breath. A release also begins from the pelvis and travels up the spine to return the torso to a neutral, straight position. There is also high release, which occurs when a dancer opens their breastbone to the sky and seems to rest their torso on an invisible shelf beneath the shoulder blades. The rib cage maintains alignment over the hips with no break in the lower back. The head remains in line with the spine.
Graham uses the importance of breathing, strong core muscle, engaging in ones pelvis, and having a flexible spine. The dancers need to think about every muscle, and make point not to let any part of the body go without being engaged and used. Even the concept of breathing, which may seem so small, affects the quality of the movement greatly. When it comes to Graham, it is important to breath when contracting and releasing because it helps the person really engage in the movement. The shift of weight in the Graham walks requires a shift of your pelvis too. The dancer is supposed to think of the idea of “pulling the abs in and up” as a guideline to always have your body lifted. While contracting and releasing one should focus on all of the muscles being engaged and working, so that the spine doesn’t slouch, and so he/she don’t sink in contraction. Martha had to spin this new technique out of her own entrails; a way of moving her arms, a way of moving the legs with the torso, a way of breathing. Martha was an inventor. She concentrated on the torso as the source of life, the motor, the workroom, and the kitchen. The arms and legs might be useful for serving or locomotion, and the head for judging and deciding, but everything, every emotion, she believed, starts or is visible in the torso first. The heart pounds, the lungs fill; and if the lungs fill there is a sharp spasm of activity in the ribs and diaphragm, since all life hangs on breath- or rather, the diaphragm lifts and then there is breath, and with it life. A twisting of the torso around the spine or spiral is essential. Like the contraction, the spiral begins in the pelvis and travels up the spine to the neck and head, although the head always stays in line with the spine. The changes in the torso take places as a cause and effect process as the spiral moves up from the pelvis. The lower spine must move before the shoulders, which move before the neck, etc. “The spine is your body’s tree of life. And through it, a dancer communicates; his body says what words cannot ” Martha Graham. As the dancer releases from the spiral and returns to a neutral position, the movement, again, originates from the pelvis and travels upwards.
The act of falling also plays an essential role because it embodies the process by which the dancer continually renews her and is a metaphor for the constant regeneration of life's energies in the face of certain mortality. Also, we must keep in mind that all her falls are on the left side because, as she said, the weight of the heart is on the left side. Preparation for fall cycles includes strengthening the thighs so that the dancer can negotiate the descent to the ground and avoid damaging the knees, discovering the power of the contraction and the release to instantly mobilize the body, and identifying the body's center of weight so that the action of falling can be controlled. For example, in the sitting falls, the dancer learns techniques for physically letting the body sink into the earth while controlling the descent, most often through the contraction of the pelvic and torso muscles so that the weight of the body is lifted. The body's energies are never or rarely allowed to seep into the floor, but remain gathered, mobilized for a quick recovery, a renewal of the power of the dancer. Graham’s falls combined with a wide variety of “pleadings”, a contraction, often from a prone position with the arms out in a begging or pleading position, they provide an extraordinarily rich vocabulary. She points out that the ground is a spatial element, not to be resisted as in ballet, but to be used. Grahams walk is much harder than one would think. It requires definite shape, hands, and shifting of weight. Ones legs have to be completely strain, and the knees should never be bend. The person can feel muscles that they never thought existed especially when concentrating on having a straight back, and ones shoulders down and engaged.
The technique and choreography of modern dance incorporates work of one's body, mind and spirit simultaneously, according to Martha’s contribution. Martha Graham, the mother of modern dance, will be immortalized for her intense emotional performances, unique choreography, and mostly for her homegrown technique. The tools of working creatively as a student, performer or choreographer include similar ideas that exist in art, theater and music composition. Martha’s technique lay within the span of her own creative life, a long one as a dancers go, but not long enough to absorb all possible permutations and differences. It must be remembered, that it started with her body and her emotions and, above all, her passion. Because of her and other major contributors, modern dance encompasses a template of movement training imperative to creating dance choreography having the potential to be artful, profound, sophisticated and powerful.