Interview: Janet Eilber talks MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY'S American Legacies and more

Janet Eilber was a high school senior at Michigan’s Interlochen School for the Arts when she first crossed paths with modern dance legend Martha Graham (1894–1991). After auditioning for Graham, the dancer and actor attended the Juilliard School at Graham’s recommendation, and subsequently joined the doyenne’s eponymous dance company where she became a soloist at age 21, dancing many of the roles made famous by Graham.

Eilber – a Detroit native whose performing career has also included Broadway shows like “Stepping Out” and Bob Fosse’s “Dancin’,” and the feature films “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” and “Romantic Comedy” – has been artistic director of the New York-based Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance Company since 2005.

The Celebrity Series of Boston will bring the Martha Graham Dance Company, now the oldest dance company, and the oldest racially integrated dance company, in the United States, back to Boston – nearly 20 years after it last performed in the city – for two shows only, November 22 and 23, at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.

In a program entitled “American Legacies,” the company will perform four pieces in its Boston engagement, including the 1930 Graham work “Lamentation” – whose angular movements inside a stretch-fabric cocoon have for decades been the signature visual mark of the choreographer’s groundbreaking work – with music by Zoltán Kodály, as well as “Dark Meadow Suite,” a collection of highlights from Graham’s 1946 work “Dark Meadow,” with music by Carlos Chávez.

Graham collaborator and close friend Agnes De Mille’s “Rodeo” is also on the program, with its music by composer Aaron Copland re-orchestrated for a six-piece bluegrass ensemble by Gabe Witcher. The three mid-20th-century dances are joined by “We the People,” a new work commissioned by the company from choreographer Jamar Roberts and set to a commissioned score by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and American roots musician Rhiannon Giddens, also arranged by Witcher.

By telephone recently from her New York office, Eilber spoke of Martha Graham, the company that bears her name, and more.

Tell me about “American Legacies”?

It’s part of our three-season celebration of the company’s 100th anniversary. We just couldn’t fit it all into one year, so we divided it into three. We’re curating our long history under three themes. The one we’re bringing to Boston is “American Legacies,” which talks not only about Martha’s incredible influence in American arts in the 20th century, but also about many of her collaborators and other artists who were part of the dance revolution in America. The parts in between the wars in particular. So, of course, it’s Martha. It’s Aaron Copland. It’s Agnes De Mille. We have Carlos Chávez, the composer, also on this program.

And the works are quite different. “The Dark Meadow” suite is a completely different tone and atmosphere than “Rodeo,” and yet they were created within three or four years of each other. They help us show the sort of limitlessness of what was going on in the American arts of that era.

How did you weave the program together?

By looking at these giants of 20th-century art and how they intersect with Martha as the leader of the modernist movement. Along with these 20th-century legacies, we are adding some elements that connect them to today’s conversations. And I think the most obvious one and the most thrilling one for the audience is going to be to hear the iconic score for “Rodeo,” created for Agnes De Mille by Aaron Copland, re-orchestrated for a bluegrass ensemble. It’s just so exhilarating, and so upbeat.

I understand that there is more to the new treatment of “Rodeo” than just jubilance?

It has another layer it’s talking about for sure – the legacy in this country of American music that comes immigrant and enslaved communities. Adding bluegrass to this piece of Americana expands our look at our history. It’s perfect for Agnes’s work, because “Rodeo” is the first ballet ever to incorporate American vernacular folk dancing, square dancing, even tap dancing – it’s all woven into “Rodeo.” These are art forms that began in immigrant communities, so we want to open up conversations on the story underlying the basic theme of “Rodeo” – a young misfit cowgirl looking for love and a place in her community – to questions of who was involved in creating the American ethos? The American art form?

Have you previously taken this approach?

No, this is the first time “Rodeo” has been danced to this bluegrass arrangement. We’ve commissioned the arrangement because we’ve been curating Martha’s work in a variety of ways over the years in hopes of opening the door to new audiences and new ways to access the works.

What other changes have you made to appeal to new audiences?

We have a spoken introduction to all of our programs. Like the audio tours at museums, it gives the audience a little something to look for in the works. In the past, after people came in and took their seats, we just turned on the stage lights and did the dances. Now, I come onstage at every show and speak to the audience.  It’s something we’ve done in Germany and all over the world, too. When needed, we have translators, or else we’ll have one of our dancers who will do the speaking. We have a beautiful Chinese dancer who did our spoken introductions in China. It’s become one of the hallmarks of our performances.

It sounds like things are going smoothly now, but when you became artistic director of the company 19 years ago, it was after a lengthy legal dispute between Graham’s heir and the company. What can you say about that troubled era, and what has it been like emerging from it?

Honestly, the organization was mishandled by her heir and never took the time, like any responsible organization, to ask, who are we going to be without Martha Graham? Eventually there was a lawsuit and we had to defend whether or not we owned the rights to Martha’s name and the rights to the ballets. Fortunately, the company emerged from that lawsuit victorious, and we do own Martha’s name. We also own her technique and the ballets for the most part. Some are in the public domain. When I was brought in as artistic director and my partner, LaRue Allen, who is our executive director, came in to take over, the company was about $6 million in debt.

What did you do from there?

We started by asking ourselves questions like, does anyone still care about Martha Graham? And how do we make them care about Martha Graham? How do we create new interest in her? Has too much time been lost or can we bring her into today? We had to work on restoring not only her reputation but also the reputation of the company. We were up against a perception that we were just a bunch of old stuff. But this was not a problem only for us. It was a problem for modern dance in general because it’s a young art form – it was only about 100 years old at the turn of the century – that had always been about the future. It had always been about revolting against the past and creating something new, and then revolting against that and creating something new again, each generation throwing out what had come before.

To move the company forward, we had to recognize its past. So as the Martha Graham Dance Company, we started saying, wait a minute, we’ve got masterpieces from the 20th century. This art form now has classics. You know, modern dance had never had classics until we started labeling ours that way. But we weren’t the only company that did this. The Paul Taylor and Merce Cunningham companies both took note of what was happening to us and got on board and organized their legacies. That provided the jet fuel for us.

You’ve successfully created new awareness of her, but what are your own memories of Graham?

I was a student at Interlochen in Northern Michigan, and during my senior year there, someone heard that I was not planning to go to New York. I wasn’t – I had applied to other schools. Then they flew in one of Martha’s composers, who was a good friend, Carlos Cernak, and he set up an audition for me with Martha Graham. I had never studied her technique. I barely knew who she was, but I flew to New York, and I danced a solo for her. Since I wasn’t familiar with her, I wasn’t intimidated at all. Then they told me that she was iconic and legendary. They hadn’t mentioned that before. I guess they just assumed I knew.

Did she comport herself as one might expect an icon would?

Somewhat, but she was wonderful. I was 17 and with my parents when she came in. She was in a fur hat with tails. We called it her Davy Crockett hat. She sat down with me for about half an hour and told me how impressed she was with my dancing. She was lovely, and said that if I came to her school, I’d be in the advanced class. I think she realized that my parents wanted me to go to college, though, so she said, “You know, my best dancers teach at the Juilliard School. I recommend you visit.” And that afternoon we went to Juilliard. I saw José Limón rehearsing his work. I had studied the José Limón technique, so I knew who he was, and I said this is where I’m going to go.

Did she bring any of this up when you later joined the Martha Graham Dance Company?

When I got into the Graham company, I wondered if Martha would recall those encounters, but I didn’t know then because that was a rough time for her. I was actually taken into the Graham Company when she was in the hospital and not expected to live. So I was hired by her top dancers, who were running the company in her absence. After maybe a month or six weeks, she recovered from her illness and came in to teach class, and also resumed going on tours with her company. A few years later, she said to me, “I found the thank-you note your mother sent after we met. What a lovely mother you have.”

Martha had a whole rebirth in the 1970s, which is when she becomes a real celebrity. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis visits her and she socializes and works with people like Halston, Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, and Sandy Calder, the sculptor and artist. And she becomes friends with First Lady Betty Ford, who had been taught and mentored by her in the early 1940s. In 1976, President Ford awarded Martha the Presidential Medal of Freedom, making her the first dancer and choreographer to receive the honor. The world came again to Martha Graham, which is why I always say I was very lucky to have been with her in that era.

What was it like working for Martha Graham?

I joined the company during my junior year at Juilliard in 1972. After she came back from being ill, she not only taught and toured again, she also began creating new works that I was often a part of, and also directing her classic ballets. So, in the course of my time as a dancer with her company, I was directed by her in many roles, including some of her own, which was pretty extraordinary.

Dancing for her was all-encompassing. It required all of your intellect, all of your physicality, and all of your emotional expressive powers. Martha expected nothing less. Fortunately, as a director, she was incredibly inspirational and it was so invigorating to have her give you direction and prompts and images, and find ways to draw an interpretation out of you that was yours. She didn’t want you to interpret the roles the way she had interpreted them. She wanted you to bring your own power to those roles, and she could tell when you were faking it, too.

How did she demonstrate her dissatisfaction?

I had a great relationship with Martha. I don’t remember her ever really being that frustrated with me –she was always giving me new and interesting information to take and use – but she did throw a temper tantrum at me in one of my early rehearsals, and later she talked about how she had tried to make me cry, and I didn’t. And she thought that was great, because I showed that I had the stuff. She thought that showed my gumption, that she had not been able to get to me.

And then, as I remember it, she went into this sort of fury about what had to happen and what had to be given, and this and that, and I was just so amazed at watching Martha Graham suddenly become this incredible whirlwind of emotion. I didn’t feel that it was directed at me. I just thought it was the most incredible theatrical work I’d ever seen. It was the only time remember that going through that sort of thing with her. I saw her do it to other people, but after that, our relationship became highly collaborative. She would offer me images and instructions and ways to develop myself as an artist, and bring myself to the work. She didn’t want any imitation. She wanted you, you personally, to put your vulnerability, your passion, your jealousy, and everything you had on the line.

Martha Graham is indisputably the mother of modern dance. Where does she fit into other dance realms today, including Broadway?

The Martha Graham technique is now taught all over the world –it’s taught at the Ailey School, for example, and at Juilliard. It’s taught in Japan. It’s taught in Italy. When we audition, we have dancers come from all over the world. And when we’re thinking about the family tree of dance as it relates to Broadway, it’s Martha begat Agnes, and Agnes begat so many other great choreographers.

Even today, I see Martha and Agnes in Sonya Tayeh’s work in “Moulin Rouge!” and other musicals. We’ve worked with Sonya and she would be the first to acknowledge Martha’s influence on her. And Susan Stroman (“Contact,” “The Producers,” “The Scottsboro Boys”) has a strong connection to Martha Graham, too, and is fully open about it. And there are many, many other choreographers out there who are doing things that Martha Graham and Agnes De Mille invented, and they have no idea.

What was your favorite of the Broadway shows you appeared in?

I loved doing “Dancin’” with Bob Fosse, of course, but my favorite experience would have to be “Stepping Out,” which I did in 1987. It was directed by Tommy Tune, with Marge Champion as choreographic associate. Every morning when we were in rehearsals, Marge would teach a yoga class. I never missed one. Tommy had an assistant who could be an awful handful, but Tommy himself was always wonderful and so was Marge.

Photo caption Martha Graham Dance Company members perform “Rodeo.” Photo by Carla Lopez. Headshot of Janet Eilber courtesy of the Celebrity Series of Boston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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