Martha Graham

Martha Graham (1894-1991)

Martha Graham is an American dance goddess, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Form an early age she had a major passion for dance and started her training in the 1910’s at Denishawn School of Dancing & related Art at which she stayed until 1923.

In 1925 she became Head of Drama at Eastman school of music and in 1926 she opened Martha Graham Centre of Contemporary dance. After 10 years of training her work was defined in the piece ‘Chronide’

In 1938 Erick Hawkins join the dance group they married in 1948 he left her trope in 1951 and they divorced in 1954. Graham danced and choreographed for over 70 years and she was the first dancer to ever perform at The White House. She travelled all over the world as a Cultural Ambassador in which she received the Highest Civilian award.  

Graham was still dancing in the late 1960’s, her last performance was in 1970 aged 76. In her life Martha suffered from depression and abused alcohol to numb her pain, she tried to commit suicide and then in 1972 she quit drinking and went back into the studio, she says ‘dance saved my life’.

Graham will always been remembered for her use of emotions in her dance routines, she believed you could tell some ones whole life story by the way they dance. Her training was a bit like an actor’s, when trying to get a certain emotion across think of a time you have felt that way and use it to show how it felt. She took realism and made it 3D. She trained her dancers to know their body inside and out therefore making the routines more memorable and nothing like before. It helps to prepare them as when you are in a mind set of an emotion it makes you more focused and as a result the performance is more believable. It makes them think of that emotion and as they are attached to the memory they become attached to the dance hence performing it to the best of their ability. 

Her last completed ballet was in 1990’s. She died in New York City aged 96. In 1998 ‘TIME’ listed her as ‘Dancer of the Century’. She was termed the ‘Picasso of Dance’. In her life she choreographed 97 performaces and her dance company is the oldest in America.

By Ellouise Champion