Brief biography of Martha Graham, 20th century's innovative and consummate dancer, choreographer, and modern dance teacher.

Martha Graham, famous for ballet Appalachian Spring, is considered as one of the pioneers of modern dance who brought theater to modern dance in an art form. She was an innovative and consummate dance teacher who invented a new language of movement that reveals the passion, the rage and the ecstasy of human experience.

Early Years

Martha Graham, American dancer, teacher and choreographer, was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on May 11, 1894, the oldest of three daughters of George Graham, a psychiatrist, and Jane Beers Graham. The family moved to Pittsburgh, then to California, when Graham was fourteen. As a child, she was introduced to the world of the theater by her Irish nurse, Lizzie, who made up musical plays for the Graham children to perform.

Dance Beginnings

Graham studied Greek and Oriental impressionistic and interpretive free-form movements of modern dance pioneers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis. She was inspired to become a dancer after attending a recital given by Ruth St. Denis in 1911. Five years later, she departed for Los Angeles to enroll in the Denishawn School of Dancing run by St. Denis and her husband, Ted Shawn. She gained confidence from the encouragement of Louis Horst, Denishawn's musical director. Horst became her mentor and accompanist for thirty years.

In 1920 Graham made her debut with the Denishawn Company, dancing the lead in an Aztec-inspired ballet, Xochitl. She danced with the company until 1923, after which she joined the Greenwich Village follies. After two years with the Follies, Graham accepted a teaching position at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. There she worked at training her body to move in ways different from before. She also abandoned the lyrical and interpretative style of traditional modern dance, using the dancer's body to express inner feeling through movement and reflect a contemporary mood.

Martha Graham's Art

In 1926 Graham presented her new idiom in her first independent dance concert at the 48th Street Theatre in New York City. Her pieces choreographed to the music of Impressionist composers like Ravel and Debussy. Traditionalists didn't welcome it, but she continued to draw audiences.

Consummate Dance Teacher

In the 1930s, Graham founded the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Martha Graham Company of dancers, both of which became world famous. In 1934 she began teaching summer workshops at Bennington College in Vermont, where she also created one of her most important works, Letter to the World, an interpretation of Emily Dickinson's poetry.

She explored her interest in American themes culminating in her best-known ballet Appalachian Spring (1944) music by Aaron Copland. She also produced works based on Freudian and Jungian themes, with historical and folkloric female archetypes like Joan of Arc and Jocasta.

Final Years

She wrote her autobiography Blood Memory published in 1991, a year after her last completed ballet Maple Leaf Gala, which premiered few months before her death. Graham continued to dance until she was in her seventies, but choreographed and taught classes until her death in April 1, 1991, aged 96.

Legacy

Graham received numerous awards and grants. Among them was the 1976 Presidential Medal of Freedom award by President Gerald Ford (the First Lady Betty Ford had danced with Graham in her youth). She was the first to travel abroad as a cultural ambassador and to receive the highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom.

In 1998, Time Magazine listed her as the "Dancer of the Century" and as one of the most important people of the 20th century. Graham choreographed hundreds of ballets and was a major influence on dancers. Most of her performers became prominent choreographers and directors of dance companies.

Sources:

The Giant Book of Influential Women by Deborah G. Felder, The Book Company (1997)

Who’s Who of Women in the Twentieth Century, Jean Martin (General Editor), Bison Books (1995)