by Leigh Witchel
With the spotlight on the legacy of Cunningham during his centennial last month, let’s take a look at the legacy of his first boss. It’s now going on two decades after the ugly wrangling over the rights to Martha Graham’s work that provided a warning influencing how choreographic trusts, including Cunningham’s own, were structured. The Graham company survived, and did not disband. Instead of aggressively disseminating her work to other companies, it has diversified her company’s repertory. This season’s theme was “The EVE Project” commemorating 100 years of suffrage for American women with four works, all by women.
“Errand into the Maze” is one of Graham’s Greek dances, this one the story of the Minotaur, only from the viewpoint of Ariadne. The Isamu Noguchi pieces, seeming more like hints than set design, were masterstrokes of restraint: a few spare pieces on the ground, one hanging and a cord meandering between them.
The company is moving into its next generation of dancers post-reboot, and they’re getting to do leads. Charlotte Landreau danced Graham’s role, and was resolute but vulnerable as she stared through the prongs of Noguchi’s set piece, not knowing if she would make it out of there alive. She moved in tense shuffles from side to side, traveling a path laid out by a rope in tight, high steps.
Lloyd Mayor was big and imposing as the bull. (You can tell he’s a Graham bull because he discreetly leaves so the woman can do a solo). His face makeup recalled Death in Kurt Jooss’ “The Green Table,” and his costume pieces were simple genius: a gilded crescent for horns and a rod across his shoulders as a yoke. Landreau and Mayor have been with the company six and seven years respectively, and had a lighter impact from their youth, but that felt more like leavening than thinness.
“Chronicle” is a reconstructed work (it originally had five sections, the company performs three) that gets pressed into service as a signature piece: it’s big, it’s suitable as a closer and it uses the women. But instead of the usual feelings of pride or spectacle evoked by a closing number, it builds up its excitement by sounding a political note. The first movement was a foreboding lament for Xin Ying. She wore a huge black skirt that half-concealed a platform; the extra height made her larger than life. Cutting and slicing her arms and fists to martial music, she wrapped herself in the blood red lining of the skirt.
Changing outfits, as the others crossed and raced; she ascended the platform once more at the close for a big, inspirational finale. The work has a large corps of women, in their insistent steps and jumps the dancers looked tight and cohesive, but again with a lighter feel.
Like “Chronicle,” the new work by Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith, “Deo” is a big group number for the women. A high sustained note faded before the curtain opened on a bare, crepuscular stage, with eight women lying on it. On their backs, they contract, then line up at each side, turn away from us and push as if in labor. At the end, they all march off slowly in a procession, leaving Natasha Diamond-Walker to give birth and start the cycle anew.
“Deo” was inspired by the myth of Demeter and Persephone but as there’s no narrative, this is at most inspiration. With the obvious connection of Graham technique and the female body, you could sense the female solidarity but “Deo” didn’t linger in memory.
Pam Tanowitz is getting recognition. She has major commissions this year at both Graham and New York City Ballet. “Untitled (Souvenir)” took a look from the perspective of an invited guest at the company that offered her a commission.
Tanowitz’s methods spirited in quotes and references from everywhere, not just the steps or poses. The curtain rose on two circles tipped on their sides that looked suspiciously like the platform from “Chronicle,” knocked over.
No matter what she’s looking at, the atmosphere of a Tanowitz piece is clinical: the assemblage of movement made you feel sometimes as if you were looking through a peephole, other times through a kaleidoscope. Diamond-Walker did an attitude pose from ballet, then almost jitterbugged with Mayor before taking a Graham hinge to the floor.
Lloyd Knight and Anne O’Donnell partnered; she did an arabesque penchée and entrechats; Mayor’s solo used Graham’s trademark scooped hands. With the soundtrack off, Lorenzo Pagano shuffled in on his knees to isolated laughter. The audience didn’t seem sure how to take Tanowitz’s quoting and read that as parody.
The sky went to twilight before a twitchy allegro for the women. The men came to the front corner and reclined like odalisques, the women raced to them, posed, and blackout.
Tanowitz’s contribution to Graham’s legacy was to bring Merce Cunningham’s cool analysis back, but the more we see of Tanowitz’s work, the more it seems to blenderize other work. Could her recent dances exist without a primary source to borrow from?
copyright © 2019 by Leigh Witchel
“Errand Into the Maze,” “Deo,” “Untitled (Souvenir),” “Chronicle” – Martha Graham Dance Company
The Joyce Theater, New York, NY
March 5, 2019
Cover: Charlotte Landreau, Lorenzo Pagano, Lloyd Knight, and Anne O’Donnell in “Untitled (Souvenir).” Photo © Brian Pollock.
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