Martha Graham Dance Company presents Fall 2021 Season at The Joyce Theater
Company:
Martha Graham Dance Company
MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY PRESENTS FALL 2021 SEASON
AT THE JOYCE THEATER IN NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 26–31, 2021
Featuring Martha Graham classics, world premiere by Andrea Miller, and
works by Pam Tanowitz, Elisa Monte, and Sir Robert Cohan
New York, NY (September 8, 2021) – The world-renowned Martha Graham Dance Company returns to The Joyce Theater with two exciting programs, October 26–October 31, 2021. The season features works by acclaimed choreographers Andrea Miller, Pam Tanowitz, Elisa Monte, and Sir Robert Cohan and Graham classics Appalachian Spring, Steps in the Street, Diversion of Angels, and the newly recovered solo Immediate Tragedy. A special matinee program on October 30 will feature short works by up-and-coming choreographers, presented in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center.
The Joyce season will feature a world premiere by in-demand choreographer Andrea Miller, known for her visceral and evocative work. Inspired by the rhythms, speeds, and surges of nonhuman life, the piece will be performed by eight Graham dancers to a soundscape by Miller’s frequent collaborator Will Epstein. Costumes are by Oana Botez.
Pam Tanowitz’s witty, highly praised Untitled (Souvenir), created for the Company in 2019, will also be presented. Set to two scores by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, Untitled (Souvenir) draws on some of Graham’s lesser-known works, including Dark Meadow (1946) and The Legend of Judith (1962). The work intermixes Tanowitz’s original movement with elements of Graham’s vocabulary and phrasing, transforming the iconic material into something new. Costumes are by designers Ryan Lobo and Ramon Martin of TOME.
Works by two renowned choreographers and former Graham dancers will also be presented—Elisa Monte’s landmark duet Treading from 1979 with music by Steve Reich, and Sir Robert Cohan’s solo Lorenzo from Afternoon Conversations with Dancers, set to music by Nils Frahm.
The season also includes Graham’s celebrated masterwork Appalachian Spring (1944) with a score by Aaron Copland and set by longtime collaborator Isamu Noguchi. The stark, powerful Steps in the Street from Graham’s 1936 anti-war work Chronicle will be presented along with her joyous and lyrical Diversion of Angels (1948). Graham’s lost 1937 solo Immediate Tragedy, created in response to the Spanish Civil War, will also be presented. The solo has been reimagined by artistic director Janet Eilber using printed archival materials including a series of rare photographs by Robert Fraser. Composer Christopher Roundtree has created a new score for the piece.
The matinee on October 30 will be an eclectic program of new choreographic voices. The Graham Company is collaborating with the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center to present works by finalists of the Future Dance Festival, which was hosted by the 92nd Street Y in April 2021. These two institutions have an historic connection. Martha Graham and many of the pioneers of modern dance were championed by the 92nd Street Y in the early years of the emerging art form. The two organizations share a vision of drawing on the past to inspire and propel the form into the future. Conceived during the pandemic to connect emerging dance makers with dance company directors, the digital Future Dance Festival featured works from finalists around the world. Now, the 92nd Street Y and the Graham Company are working together to provide in-person performance opportunities for these exciting up-and-coming choreographers. The lineup includes Patrick Coker, William Ervin, Brian Golden, Burr Johnson, Vera Kvarcakova and Jeremy Galdeano, Beatrice Panero, Barkha Patel, Annie Rigney, and Nicole von Arx.
The dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company are So Young An, Alessio Crognale, Laurel Dalley Smith, Natasha M. Diamond Walker, Lloyd Knight, Jacob Larsen, Lloyd Mayor, Marzia Memoli, Anne O’Donnell, Lorenzo Pagano, Anne Souder, Richard Villaverde, Leslie Andrea Williams, and Xin Ying.
Performances are at The Joyce Theater October 26–October 31, 2021 (Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday at 7:30pm, Thursday and Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm and 7:30pm). The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street), in Manhattan. Tickets range from $10 to $75. Prices are subject to change. Tickets can be purchased online at www.joyce.org or by calling JOYCECHARGE at 212-242-0800. For information about the Joyce Theater’s health and safety protocols, visit www.joyce.org.
Fall 2021 Season at The Joyce Theater
Program A
Tuesday, October 26, at 7pm; Friday, October 29, at 8pm; Sunday, October 31, at 2pm and 7:30pm
World Premiere by Andrea Miller
Appalachian Spring by Martha Graham
Diversion of Angels by Martha Graham
Immediate Tragedy by Martha Graham, reimagined by Janet Eilber
Program B
Wednesday, October 27, at 7:30pm; Thursday, October 28, at 8pm; Saturday, October 30, at 8pm
Untitled (Souvenir) by Pam Tanowitz
Lorenzo by Sir Robert Cohan
Treading by Elisa Monte
Steps in the Street by Martha Graham
Diversion of Angels by Martha Graham
Matinee on Saturday, October 30, at 2pm
A program of short works created and performed by finalists of the Future Dance Festival. Presented in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center.
Guest Choreographer Biographies
Sir Robert Cohan (1925–2021) was born in New York. He danced with the Martha Graham Company from 1946 to1957. He returned to the Graham Company in 1962 for its European tour and soon became a co-director of the company with Bertram Ross. In 1967 he founded London Contemporary Dance School and London Contemporary Dance Theatre, which he directed for 20 years. Cohan’s influence on dance in Britain is immeasurable. His award-winning work has been celebrated and performed around the world by companies including Scottish Ballet, Batsheva Dance Company, Bat Dor, and Rambert. In 2013, Cohan began an intensive collaboration with Yorke Dance Project with which he founded the Cohan Collective. In 2019 he was awarded a knighthood, and in 2020 received a lifetime achievement award from Dance UK. In early 2021, Cohan completed his final work, Afternoon Conversations with Dancers.
Andrea Miller is the founder, artistic director, and choreographer of the Brooklyn-based company GALLIM. Named the 2017–2018 Artist-in-Residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Miller became the first choreographer to hold that distinction. She has been recognized with fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Sadler’s Wells, New York City Center, and the Princess Grace Foundation. Miller creates movement-based works for dance, theater, museums, gallery spaces, film, fashion, and brands. Her acclaimed works and commissions are performed by GALLIM as well as other leading dance companies around the world. Recent commissions include New York City Ballet, Abraham.in.Motion, Ailey II, Rambert 2, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Bern Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, the Juilliard School, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Noord Nederlands Dans. Her work in fashion includes Hermès, Vogue, Lacoste, and Calvin Klein. Film credits include The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (2018), directed by Xavier Dolan, and In This Life (2018), starring Robbie Fairchild.
A professional dancer from a young age, Elisa Monte had the privilege of working with some of the most renowned choreographers of the last century. She first danced for Agnes DeMille in stage and TV productions and went on to dance with Lar Lubovitch, Pilobolus, and Martha Graham. Graham ignited Monte’s choreographic career by commissioning her first work, Treading, in 1979. Monte went on to create more than 50 important works for her own company, Elisa Monte Dance, which she founded in 1981, and such world-renowned companies as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, San Francisco Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Teatro alla Scala Ballet, Batsheva Dance Company, and many others. She has also been choreographer-in-residence at such notable venues as the Sundance Institute and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Pam Tanowitz is a New York-based choreographer and founder of Pam Tanowitz Dance. Her 2017 dance New Work for Goldberg Variations, created for her company in collaboration with pianist Simone Dinnerstein, was called a “rare achievement” (The New York Times). Her 2018 creation Four Quartets, inspired by T.S. Eliot’s literary masterpiece, was called “the greatest creation of dance theater so far this century” (The New York Times). In January 2019, Tanowitz was named the first-ever choreographer in residence at the Fisher Center at Bard in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Other honors include a 2019 Herb Alpert Award, 2017 BAC Cage Cunningham Fellowship, 2016 and 2009 Bessie Awards, 2010 Foundation for Contemporary Arts award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Hodder Fellowship, CBA Fellowship at NYU, and a New York City Center Choreography Fellowship. She has created or set work for New York City Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, The Royal Ballet, the Kennedy Center’s Ballet Across America, Ballet Austin, and New York Theatre Ballet. Other commissions include the Barbican Centre, the Joyce Theater, Bard Summerscape, Vail International Dance Festival, New York Live Arts, Guggenheim Works & Process, PEAK Performances, and the ICA/Boston.
About the Martha Graham Dance Company
The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the evolving art form of modern dance since its founding in 1926. Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.
Since its inception, the Martha Graham Dance Company has received international acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Company has performed at the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, Covent Garden, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt and in the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus theater on the Acropolis in Athens. In addition, the Company has also produced several award-winning films broadcast on PBS and around the world. For more information about the Company, visit www.marthagraham.org.
Leslie Andrea Williams in Martha Graham’s "Steps in the Street." Photo: Hibbard Nash Photography
Share Your Audience Review. Your Words Are Valuable to Dance.
Are you going to see this show, or have you seen it? Share "your" review here on The Dance Enthusiast. Your words are valuable. They help artists, educate audiences, and support the dance field in general. There is no need to be a professional critic. Just click through to our Audience Review Section and you will have the option to write free-form, or answer our helpful Enthusiast Review Questionnaire, or if you feel creative, even write a haiku review. So join the conversation.
