Appalachian Spring Arrives with Martha Graham Dance Company

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

May 6, 2008

Celebrating its 80th anniversary season, and acknowledged as “one of the great companies of the world” by Anna Kisselgoff, former chief dance critic of the New York Times, the Martha Graham Dance Company has been lauded by critics everywhere. Alan M. Kriegsman of the Washington Post called the Company “one of the seven wonders of the artistic universe”; Los Angeles Times critic Martin Bernheimer noted, “They seem able to do anything, and to make it look easy as well as poetic.” Ismene Brown of the Daily Telegraph (London) touted the company’s performance as “Unmissable.”

While Graham died in 1991, America’s oldest and most celebrated contemporary dance company carries on her legacy -- unique and visionary choreography and an instantly-recognizable technique that transformed modern dance. The Martha Graham Dance Company will give an unforgettable performance at Charlottesville’s Paramount Theater on Tuesday, May 20 at 8 pm. The program will feature what is perhaps Martha Graham’s most iconic work, Appalachian Spring.

This performance is sponsored by a friend of the Oratorio Society and Morin & Barkley LLP.

Martha Graham is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th century, alongside Picasso, James Joyce, Stravinsky, and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1998, TIME Magazine named her the “Dancer of the Century,” and People Magazine named her among the female “Icons of the Century.” As a choreographer, she was as prolific as she was complex. She created 181 ballets and a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Her approach to dance and theater revolutionized the art form and her innovative physical vocabulary has irrevocably influenced dance worldwide.

Appalachian Spring, Graham’s 1944 ballet of “springtime in the wilderness,” began as a 1942 commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation for a new work to be premiered at the Library of Congress. Aaron Copland was to compose the score. While Graham’s title was drawn from a poem by Hart Crane, Copland’s name for the composition always remained “Ballet for Martha.”

Themes from American folk culture can be found throughout the dance -- Copland uses the Shaker tune “Simple Gifts” in the second half of his score; Graham’s choreography includes square dance patterns, skips, paddle turns, and curtsies; and the set by Isamu Noguchi features a Shaker rocking chair.

In a letter to Copland, Graham wrote that she wanted the dance to be “a legend of American living, like a bone structure, the inner frame that holds together a people.” Copland later recalled, “After Martha gave me this bare outline, I knew certain crucial things -- that it had to do with the pioneer American spirit, with youth and spring, with optimism and hope. I thought about that in combination with the special quality of Martha’s own personality, her talents as a dancer, what she gave off and the basic simplicity of her art. Nobody else seems anything like Martha, and she’s unquestionably very American.”

Choreographed as the war in Europe was drawing to end, it captured the imagination of Americans who were beginning to believe in a more prosperous future, a future in which men and women would be united again. Perhaps Graham’s most optimistic ballet, its simple tale of a new life in a new land embodied hope. Critics called Appalachian Spring “shining and joyous,” “a testimony to the simple fineness of the human spirit.”

Also on The Paramount’s program are Cave of the Heart and Diversion of Angels. Cave of the Heart retells the story of Medea and Jason as a study of the destructive powers of love and the dark passions that guard the human heart. In the mythological tale, Medea uses her magical powers to help Jason gain the Golden Fleece, only to have Jason abandon her for his own ambitions.

Diversion of Angels, once described by Graham as depicting three aspects of love (mature, erotic, and adolescent), is essentially a plotless ballet.

On first viewing the work of modern artist Wassily Kandinsky, Graham was astonished by his use of color, a bold slash of red across a blue background. Determined to make a dance that would express this, Diversion of Angels’ Girl in Red, dashing across the stage, is the streak of red paint bisecting the Kandinsky canvas.

While in Charlottesville, the company will give a master class in Graham technique on Monday, May 19 featuring live percussion performed by Charlottesville-based African drummer Darrell Rose. The 7 pm class is $20 per person and will take place at Balletschool (2409 Ivy Road). Advance reservation is required. Interested dancers should contact The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333.

Seats are still available for the May 20 performance featuring the Martha Graham Dance Company. Tickets are $44.50, $59.50, $64.50, and $74.50.

Tickets are available online or through The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333.

For more information about the Martha Graham Dance Company, please visit www.marthagraham.org.