Martha Graham Dance Company to perform at Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts

Martha Graham Dance Company to perform at Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts

The Martha Graham Dance Company will perform three of its legendary founder's inspiring classics on Saturday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. at Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. Part of the Quick Center's Dance America series, the program features a post-performance Art to Heart Q&A with the company.

The program begins with "Errand into the Maze," a dance loosely derived from the myth of Theseus, who ventured into a maze to confront the Minotaur. First performed in 1947, the dance substitutes a heroine for the traditional hero and centers on the journey into the self. The second piece, "Diversion of Angels," premiered in 1948 and considers the many stages of love: flirtatious adolescent love, erotic love, and enduring mature love.

The final work, "Sketches from 'Chronicle,'" was Graham's response to the menace of fascism in Europe. It premiered in 1936, the same year Graham refused an invitation to take part in the Olympic Games in Germany to protest persecution of artists and because many of her dancers were Jewish. "Chronicle" evokes war images, depicts the devastation left in the wake of battle and attempts to suggest another route.

Martha Graham is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th century, considered on par with such other masters as James Joyce, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1998, Time magazine named her its "Dancer of the Century" and People magazine named her among its female "Icons of the Century."

A prolific choreographer, she created 181 ballets and a modern dance technique often compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Taking her inspiration from the American frontier, Greek mythology, Native American religious ceremonies and other diverse sources, she created each new work in its entirety, working on the choreography, music and costuming.

Graham founded her seminal dance company and school in 1926, living and working out of a tiny Carnegie Hall studio in midtown Manhattan. There, she created a dance form she hoped would "increase the emotional activity of the dancer's body." She created works for guest dancers Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov and her company was the training ground for many modern masters, including Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor.

Now nearly 80 years old, Martha Graham Dance Company continues as "one of the great companies of the world," according to Anna Kisselgoff, former chief dance critic for The New York Times. "They seem able to do anything, and to make it look easy as well as poetic," wrote Los Angeles Times critic Martin Bernheimer.

Now under the artistic direction of Janet Eilber, the company includes 23 dancers, featuring principal dancers Elizabeth Auclair, Tadej Brdnik, Katherine Crockett, Gary Galbraith, Martin Lofsnes, Miki Orihana and Fang-Yi Sheu.

Tickets are $40, $35 and $30. For tickets, call the Quick Center box office at (203) 254-4010 or toll free at 1-877-ARTS-396. For more information, visit www.quickcenter.com.

Posted On: 10-03-2005 10:10 AM

Volume: 38 Number: 54