Courtesy photo.
The pioneering modern dance company returns to celebrate its namesake choreographer – a Santa Barbara High School alum! – in a sparkling tribute titled Graham100
SUMMARY
- UCSB Arts & Lectures presents the Martha Graham Dance Company‘s Graham100
- Wed, Oct 4 | 8 p.m. | Granada Theatre
- Janet Eilber, Artistic Director
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- This leg of MGDC’s 100th Anniversary Tour focuses on Graham’s social activism, Americana, modernism, and artistic collaborators including the canonical mid-century modernist work Dark Meadow Suite (1946)
- A live bluegrass ensemble led by composer/arranger Gabe Witcher (of Punch Brothers) accompanies Agnes de Mille’s 1942 Americana classic, Rodeo
- The program also features choreography by Graham and Hofesh Schechter, and music by composers Carlos Chavez and Aaron Copland
- $51-$106 General Public / $20 UCSB Students (Current student ID required)
- Tickets & Info: www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu (805) 895-3535 or The Granada Theatre, www.granadasb.org, (805) 899-2222
“One of the seven wonders of the artistic universe.” The Washington Post
SANTA BARBARA — UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) presents the Martha Graham Dance Company‘s Graham100 on Wednesday, October 4 at the Granada Theatre. Recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th century, Martha Graham single-handedly defined contemporary dance as a uniquely American art form. In this evening of new and reimagined works framing a Graham classic, the company performs Hofesh Shechter’s high-energy CAVEand Graham’s Dark Meadow Suite, an abstract work about life’s journey and the search for connection with one’s self and one’s community. A reconstruction of Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo rounds out the program, with a reorchestration of Aaron Copland’s score performed by a live bluegrass ensemble led by Punch Brother Gabe Witcher.
On Tuesday, October 3, members of the Martha Graham Dance Company will conduct a dance class at Graham’s alma mater, Santa Barbara High School. Graham, who graduated from SBHS in 1913, found Santa Barbara stimulating after growing up to the age of 14 in Pennsylvania. An active participant in the life of the school, she captained the girls’ basketball team and was editor of the newspaper. Graham was profoundly moved by the multiculturalism of early 20th century Santa Barbara, and declared in her memoirs that “no child can develop as a real Puritan in a semi-tropic climate.”
An excerpt from Martha Graham’s Dark Meadow Suite
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Martha Graham, Dark Meadow Suite (1946)
Hofesh Schechter, CAVE (2022)
Agnes de Mille, Rodeo (1942)
The Martha Graham Dance Company’s 2023–2024 season, American Legacies, focuses on Martha Graham’s social activism, Americana, modernism, and her artistic collaborators. This program, Graham100, includes Graham’s canonical mid-century modernist work Dark Meadow Suite (1946). The suite contains some of Graham’s most architectural, ritualistic and profound creations, set to a score by Mexican composer Carlos Chavez. This tour’s production of Agnes DeMille’s 1942 Americana classic, Rodeo, is brand new. Aaron Copland’s iconic score has been reorchestrated for a six-piece bluegrass ensemble by the multi-instrumentalist and composer/arranger Gabe Witcher. The third piece, CAVE(2022), by contemporary choreographer Hofesh Schechter, takes movement from the techno and rave scene to the proscenium stage.
Live music for Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo will be provided by the Gabe Witcher Sextet: Gabe Witcher, fiddle; Bryan Sutton, acoustic guitar, Paul Kowert, bass; Wes Corbett, banjo; Isaiah Gage, cello and Paul Viapiano, mandolin
ABOUT THE MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY
The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the evolving art form of modern dance since its founding in 1926. It is both the oldest dance company in the United States and the oldest integrated dance company.
Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.
Since its inception, the Martha Graham Dance Company has received international acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Company has performed at the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, Covent Garden, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt and in the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus theater on the Acropolis in Athens. In addition, the Company has also produced several award-winning films broadcast on PBS and around the world.
Though Martha Graham herself is the best-known alumna of her company, the Company has provided a training ground for some of modern dance’s most celebrated performers and choreographers. Former members of the Company include Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, Paul Taylor, John Butler and Glen Tetley. Among celebrities who have joined the Company in performance are Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya, Tiler Peck, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo and Aurelie Dupont.
In recent years, the Company has challenged expectations and experimented with a wide range of offerings beyond its mainstage performances. It has created a series of intimate in-studio events, forged unusual creative partnerships with the likes of SITI Company, Performa, the New Museum, Barney’s, and Siracusa’s Greek Theater Festival (to name a few); created substantial digital offerings with Google Arts and Culture, YouTube, and Cennarium; and created a model for reaching new audiences through social media. The astonishing list of artists who have created works for the Graham dancers in the last decade reads like a catalog of must-see choreographers:
Kyle Abraham, Aszure Barton, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Lucinda Childs, Marie Chouinard, Michelle Dorrance, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, Andonis Foniadakis, Liz Gerring, Larry Keigwin, Michael Kliën, Pontus Lidberg, Lil Buck, Lar Lubovitch, Josie Moseley, Richard Move, Bulareyaung Pagarlava, Annie-B Parson, Yvonne Rainer, Sonya Tayeh, Doug Varone, Luca Vegetti, Gwen Welliver and Robert Wilson.
The current company dancers hail from around the world and, while grounded in their Graham core training, can also slip into the style of contemporary choreographers like a second skin, bringing technical brilliance and artistic nuance to all they do – from brand new works to Graham classics and those from early pioneers such as Isadora Duncan, Jane Dudley, Anna Sokolow and Mary Wigman. “Some of the most skilled and powerful dancers you can ever hope to see,” according to the Washington Post last year. “One of the great companies of the world,” says the New York Times, while the Los Angeles Times notes, “They seem able to do anything, and to make it look easy as well as poetic.”
ABOUT MARTHA GRAHAM
Martha Graham (1894–1991) 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 Martha Graham “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. Graham graduated from Santa Barbara High School in the Class of 1913.
ABOUT UCSB ARTS & LECTURES
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
The Martha Graham Dance Company’s Graham100 is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures.
Tickets are $51 – $106: General Public / $20: UCSB Students (Current student ID required)
For tickets or more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or purchase online at www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu; or call the Granada Theatre box office (805) 899-2222 or online at granadasb.org.
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2023-2024 season.