╒PARA ═PAR@ ` ¡TEXT ` ƒGraham, Martha1893╨1991dancer and choreographerBorn in Pittsburgh on May 11, 1893, Martha Graham grew up in Santa Barbara, California, from the age of ten, and after completing her formal education in California schools she devoted herself to dancing. She studied with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn at their influential Denishawn school in Los Angeles from 1916 and in New York City from 1920. Her first professional appearance was in 1920 as a lead dancer in Shawn╒s highly successful Xochitl, a modern ballet derived from Aztec legend. In 1923 she joined the Greenwich Village Follies, with which she remained for two seasons, and afterward she worked to develop her own dancing style. She taught at the Eastman School of the Theatre in Rochester, New York, in 1924╨1925 and there experimented with group arrangements. In April 1926 she premiered as a solo dancer in New York City, introducing works of her own creation, and began to acquire an audience of discriminating and enthusiastic admirers. Interpretations of Ernest Bloch╒s Baal Shem Suite and of Claude Debussy╒s Nuages et FÉtes, and her own DÄsir, Tanagar, and Revolt, were among the works in her early repertoire. In 1927 she founded the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York. In the 1930s, with her own dance company, she introduced Primitive Mysteries, Incantation, and Dolorosa, dances that reflected her fascination with Mexican Indians and their religious rituals. She studied in Mexico in 1932 as the first dancer to receive a Guggenheim fellowship. With Frontier, 1935, she began using stage decor and inaugurated her long association with sculptor-designer Isamu Noguchi. Later she also employed designs by Alexander Calder. Among Graham╒s most famous dance pieces were El Penitente, 1940, Letter to the World, based on the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson, 1940, Punch and Judy, 1941, Deaths and Entrances, on a theme suggested by the Brontæs, 1943, HÄrodiade, 1944, Appalachian Spring (to music of Aaron Copland), 1944, Cave of the Heart, inspired by the Medea legend (music of Samuel Barber), 1946, Errand into the Maze, on the Minotaur legend (Gian-Carlo Menotti), 1947, Night Journey, the tale of Jocasta (William Shuman), 1947, Judith (Shuman), 1950, Seraphic Dialogue, on Joan of Arc, (Norman Dello Joio), 1955, Clytemnestra, 1958, Embattled Garden, on the Eden myth, 1958, Episodes: Part 1 (Anton Webern), 1959, Alcestis, 1960, Phaedra, 1962, Circe (Alan Hovhaness), 1963, The Witch of Endor (Schuman), 1965, A Time of Snow (Dello Joio), 1968, The Archaic Hours, 1969, Mendicants of Evening, 1973, Myth of a Voyage, 1973, Holy Jungle, 1974, Lucifer, 1975, Ecuatorial and The Owl and the Pussycat, 1978, Acts of Light, 1981, Rite of Spring, 1984, Persephone, 1987, and Maple Leaf Rag, 1990. Her introduction of completely new techniques based on the contraction and release of the torso was a break from classical ballet and created a completely new form of dance and theatre. As a creator of dances Graham never allowed her work to settle into any one hackneyed set of movements or moods. Over the course of her career, in over 150 dance pieces from solos to full-scale works, she was passionately interested in the power of dance to reveal inner identity, the soul hidden by and often at odds with the outer appearance. Her many interpretations of Greek myth made particular use of this contrast in the characters of tragic heroines. In A Dancer╒s World, a 1957 film, she both explained and demonstrated her techniques and philosophy of dance. In 1964 she founded the Batsheva Dance company in Tel Aviv and in 1967 the London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Acknowledged the foremost American exponent of her art, she performed in major cities of the United States and made numerous foreign tours. Graham retired from performing in 1970, but she continued thereafter as choreographer of her troupes and as director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance. In 1973 she published The Notebooks of Martha Graham. In October 1976 she was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Gerald R. Ford (whose wife Betty had once been a student of hers). Other awards include the Aspen Award in the Humanities, 1965, the Kennedy Center Honors, 1979, Knight of the Legion of Honor from France, 1983, the Paris Medal of Honor, 1985, the National Medal for Arts, 1985, Denmark's Ingenio et Arti Medalion, 1987, and several honorary doctorates. She died in New York City on April 1, 1991. ▐styl ` d ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ 3 !I !I ▐ !I δ !I ≥ !I 7 !I P !I !I # !I < !I K !I Y !I ^ !I ` !I g !I m !I s !I ñ 5¬ Ñ !I / !I B !I D !I O !I U !I ] !I !I !I ├ 5¬ ─ !I ± !I ² !I !I !I : !I ▐ I !I Q !I _ !I g !I { !I ¿ !I ▒ !I ╣ !I ╦ !I ∩ !I !I ? !I S !I ê !I ò !I ├ !I ╔ !I ┌ !I δ !I !I $ !I , !I < !I V !I f !I } !I à !I ì !I ö !I £ !I í !I ║ !I ╠ !I ▐ !I ∞ !I
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