Martha Graham Presents AMERICAN DOCUMENT & DANCE IS A WEAPON 6/8-6/13

From June 8 until June 13 the Martha Graham Dance Company will present eight performances at The Joyce Theater featuring four remarkable programs, each combining new commissions with classics. Premiers include American Document by Anne Bogart and Dance is a Weapon. The classics Appalachian Spring, Panorama, and Sketches from Chronicles will also be performed. This season launches the Company's Political Dance Project.

"We are highlighting the era of the 1930s when the nascent art form of American modern dance was fueled by the political and social activism of the time," says artistic director Janet Eilber. "Modern dance took on the plight of the oppressed of all races and backgrounds. Dances were created as if ‘ripped from the headlines' - with themes that aligned modern dance to the complex social concerns of the day including the financial crisis, civil rights, workers rights, and the rise of fascism in Europe. The performances at the Joyce will explore the issues of that time and how they reverberate today in the ongoing dialogue about who we are as a nation."

American Document by Anne Bogart, premiering on opening night, is not a dance by Martha Graham, but it is closely tied to one of her seminal works, American Document from 1938. This new American Document is a theater piece by avant-garde theater director, Anne Bogart, for six actors from SITI Company and ten Graham dancers. Bogart, working with playwright Charles Mee Jr., has chosen text from a variety of sources from Walt Whitman's poetry to blogs from American soldiers in Iraq. The work, which includes speaking and dancing by all the performers, probes the same issues as Graham's original: what is an American?

American Document by Anne Bogart will be followed by Martha Graham's 1936 masterwork Sketches from Chronicle on the evenings of June 8, 11, 12 and 13.

Dance is a Weapon will premiere on June 9th. This multimedia montage envisioned by Janet Eilber with text by Ellen Graff and media by Nancy Stevens, presents dances from the 1920's and 1930s, by Graham and her contemporaries. Dance is a Weapon opens with a solo by Isadora Duncan: The Revolutionary. It is a rallying cry -- inspiring action and courage. This is followed by three other seminal solos of the era: Tenant of the Street by Eve Gentry (a portrait of a homeless woman - downtrodden but defiant); Dust Bowl Ballad by Sophie Maslow (a solo evoking the displaced people of the Dust Bowl Era, bowed by circumstances but determined to move on;) and Time is Money by Jane Dudley (a powerful statement against "the machine" of commerce).

These solos will be followed by Panorama, work by Graham from 1935 that speaks of the power of the people to take social action. The cast for Panorama at the Joyce will be thirty-three high school students from all over New York City chosen for these performances by a city-wide audition process.

The Dance is a Weapon montage will conclude with Graham's "Steps in the Street" and "Prelude to Action," two sections of her work Chronicle from 1936. Eilber notes, "This is the same year Martha turned down Hitler's invitation to perform at the International Arts Festival running concurrent with the Olympic games in Berlin." Performed by the women of the company, "Steps in the Street" evokes the devastation and isolation that war leaves in its wake while "Prelude to Action" suggests an answer.

Dance is a Weapon will be followed by the work Graham created in 1944 as her contribution to the war effort, Appalachian Spring, on the evening of June 9 and the matinee on June 13.

On June 10th, the Company will present an "All Graham" program: Panorama,

Appalachian Spring, Lamentation Variations, and Sketches from Chronicle.

Lamentation Variations commemorates the anniversary of 9/11 and premiered on that date in 2007. The work opens with a film from the early 1930s of Martha Graham dancing movements from her then new, and now iconic, solo, Lamentation. The variations that follow were developed by choreographers Richard Move, Larry Keigwin, and Bulareyaung Pagarlava. Each created a choreographic sketch of their reaction to the Graham film. Originally to be performed one night only, the audience reaction to Lamentation Variations was such that it has been added to the permanent repertory of the Martha Graham Dance Company and new variations have been commissioned.

The June 12 matinee will include the premieres of three new dances based on the original Graham American Document. Three choreographers (all leading dancers with the Martha Graham Company) have been paired with three composers to create new American Document "Episodes." They have chosen text that speaks to the American experience and that will be woven into the dancing. The composers are creating music with specific instrumentation that relates to the original score for American Document. Graham II, the Graham Center's pre-professional company, will be featured in the new episodes. The choreographers are Blakeley White-McGuire, Tadej Brdnik, and Samuel Potts. They are paired respectively with composers PatRick Leonard, Allen Krantz and Daniel Bernard Roumain.

The Martha Graham Dance Company is exploring new and creative ways to connect Graham's extraordinary legacy to today's audiences. While the company offers world-class performances of the core collection of Graham masterworks, it also continues to take on innovative projects that honor Martha Graham's appetite for the new.

The Graham season programming includes a great range of creative events including multimedia enhancement; classic works from Graham's contemporaries; a Graham masterwork performed by thirty-three high school students from all over New York Cit; three premieres by emerging choreographers and important composers; performances of seminal Graham masterpieces; and a major new dance/theater work which will premiere on opening night.

Tickets are priced at $19-59

To reserve tickets please contact tickets.joyce.org/tickets; 212-242-0800