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THE DANCE ENTHUSIAST ASKS: Janet Eilber on Martha Graham's Psychological Ballet "Deaths and Entrances" and Graham's Evolving Legacy
By Theo Boguszewski
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Published on March 25, 2025
MGDC "Deaths and Entrances" in Rehearsal ; Photo: Steven Pisano
Martha Graham Dance Company's NYC Season at the Joyce Theater Runs from April 1st to April 13th - Don't Miss it
For Tickets to the MGDC season, click on The Joyce Theater Calendar here
As the Martha Graham Dance Company, now in its second year of a three-season centennial celebration, embarks on another New York City season, this year’s focus, "Dances of the Mind," spotlights Graham’s shift toward deeply psychological narratives. Deaths and Entrances, a cornerstone of this exploration, premiered in 1943 when the country was at war and Graham was grappling with questions of faith and despair.
Inspired by the Brontë sisters, yet resonant with Graham’s own experiences, the piece employs a stream-of-consciousness structure to evoke memory and internal struggle. In conversation with The Dance Enthusiast’s Theo Boguszewski, Martha Graham Dance Company’s artistic director,Janet Eilber, delves into the significance of this work and the evolving audience appreciation for Graham’s bold, introspective storytelling.
Theo Boguszewski, for The Dance Enthusiast: What are the major themes guiding the Martha Graham Dance Company's programming this year?
Janet Eilber: We are in the second year of a three year celebration of our 100th anniversary, and each of the three seasons has a theme. The first season was focused on Americana and modernism, and also highlighted Martha's social activism. This second season is titled “Dances of the Mind” because in the 1940s she began to create her psychological ballets. She moved away from the community and social aspect of her work in the 1930s to the individual and empowerment of the individual.
Two of our programs at the Joyce are specifically focused on the psychological ballets. That's Program A and C. And then Program B is an expansion of some of the Americana we did last season with Martha’s works Frontier and Rodeo, a new work We The People by Jamar Roberts, and two solos by Virginie Mécène that were inspired by solos by Martha Graham.
How do you select the guest choreographers?
It's thematic. For “Dances of the Mind,” this year's commission is an expansion of an earlier work by Baye and Asa (Sam "Asa" Pratt and Amadi "Baye" Washington) and it’s very psychological. It's contemporary, dark, and deep.
How do you balance preserving Graham's legacy while also keeping the company's work fresh and relevant for contemporary audiences?
I consider my job to be a curator. I'm lucky to have a core collection of some of the greatest masterpieces of 20th century art that exist.
We curate that in many ways— through the spoken introductions that I do at programs, similar to a museum's audio tour. We also use narration and media on stage. And, of course, online we have many different ways to access the Graham legacy. The most important thing we've done is commissioning new work, and doing so thematically. I'm always curating, making sure that there's a conversation between the classics and the contemporary work.
Are you one who leads the commissions, or do you have a team that works with you?
It's pretty much me, though certainly in consultation with our executive director, LaRue Allen, and our general manager, Simona Ferrara. It's a symbiotic relationship between the artistry and the financial support and presenters who will present the work; you really have to take all of those things into consideration.
So you must see a lot of dance!
I do.
Let's talk about Deaths and Entrances, a fascinating work in Graham's repertory. Why did you choose to highlight this piece in this season's programming?
Well, when it comes to psychological works, it's Martha's first major entry into the brain of her lead character and the choreographic description of a state of consciousness. Martha was experimenting with structure leading up to Deaths and Entrances. But when she gets to Deaths and Entrances she really gets her arms around the idea of dissembling narrative and using stream-of-consciousness. It's not a straight story, “first this happened, then this happened, then this happened.” It's the way memories happen in your mind. Things pop up totally out of order.
This piece is about the Brontë sisters. How does their influence show up in the movement vocabulary and the storytelling?
In her letters, Martha started with the idea of the Brontë sisters, these three very creative women. But she used that as a launch pad, and then moved away from it. Martha herself is one of three sisters, so I think there was a lot of resonance there. She borrowed and took inspiration from them to bring us a theme of self empowerment, the rejection of the repression of family and society to pursue and fulfill your life as a woman.
In Martha's case, she constantly returns to the theme of fulfilling your life as an artist. And the Brontë sisters certainly were artists. She also borrows a Victorian look. The costumes have always been very Victorian, and in this production they were brought to life as original designs by Oscar de la Renta. So we have beautiful ball gowns and amazing suits for the man.
All of this was quite personal for Martha.
Oh, everything is always personal for Martha. Not that she was battling her sisters the way that the three sisters in Deaths and Entrances battle. But Martha certainly understood the need to break away from repression of any kind.
Were her sisters artists, too?
Her younger sister Geordie was in the Denishawn Company, and then came to New York as a dancer. When I was a young dancer, Geordie was running the Martha Graham School, so she remained in the arts world.
Are the set and costume designs faithful to Graham’s original vision, or have there been updates?
They're pretty much Martha's original vision. The set certainly is the set that was designed by Arch Lauterer, who was Martha's production designer at the time. And it's all about the indication of a thing; you will recognize a shelf, a little windowsill, a chessboard and a table that people are sitting at, that sort of thing. But it is very simple. So in that way, it's a modernist set.
The Oscar de la Renta recreation of Martha's original designs are very close to the originals.
She wanted to have that Victorian gown look. Martha loved to tell a story about a woman coming backstage and saying, “Ms. Graham, you were wearing a beautiful ball gown for this ballet, but you dropped and fell to the floor and rolled around in that beautiful dress. If I were wearing something like that, I would never, ever roll on the floor in it.” And Martha said, “yes, but have you ever been at a party and looked across the room and seen someone you once loved, and you fall on the inside?” I love that story. It's the essence of the emotionality of Martha Graham's falls in her technique.
What kind of preparation do the dancers need to embody these theatrical roles effectively?
They do a lot of homework. They have watched every video of every generation of the company performing this work. And we do have a film of Martha dancing it in the original cast, with Erick Hawkins and Merce Cunningham. Martha directed the ballet through the decades and made some changes of her own. So they study and they put together the piece, learn the steps, and then the rehearsal directors and I come in and start to hone the performances because the interaction between the characters in this ballet is paramount. That's something you don't always get from a film or a video. It has to be personalized for these specific dancers and performances. They can't simply mimic past interpretations. It’s a complicated process, but the dancers love it because there's so much to chew on. The roles are so dramatic. They're really having a good time with it.
Have there been any particular challenges in staging Deaths and Entrances as compared to other Graham works?
I think the challenge is adding that layer of memory; the fact that, yes, you're having a duet with this man that's quite emotional and at the same time it's a memory, it's not happening on the spot. So finding the way to communicate that while you're doing all these very head-on, emotional scenes with other characters is probably the biggest challenge.
Is the piece particularly challenging from a physical perspective, as compared to her other works?
All of Martha’s works are physically challenging. It’s a matter of making sure that the contraction initiates everything, so you’re not just making the shapes and faking the contraction. The challenge is always to get into the depth of the movement while you're adding these layers of acting and costumes and other characters. That's actually the same in all of Martha's works.
Have you seen a shift over the years in how audiences respond to Graham's more psychological and narrative-driven works?
Yes, and I'm excited to bring Deaths and Entrances back. These works are being rediscovered. The last time we performed Deaths and Entrances was in 2012. We were an art form emerging out of the 20th century, and “emerging modern dance” really was all about the NEW.
We didn't even call the dances of the 20th century “classics," they were just kind of shoved aside and considered to be old. So in 2012 we were just emerging out of, “oh, this is old museum stuff" and fighting against that as hard as we could.
I do feel a difference in audiences. When they come in, they're much more open to discovering the work, the modern dance of the 20th century, than they were even a decade ago.
What do you think has prompted that shift?
Time. And, the field itself beginning to honor its past and focus on the importance of these masterpieces.
Well, that must be such an important shift for The Martha Graham Dance Company in particular, because Martha is at the root of so many other important movements in dance in the 20th century.
Totally. It behooved us more than anybody to say to the field, “Hey, we've got to start making our past important.” So many other art forms have done it. Just because we're only 100-years-old doesn't mean that we're going to forever just be throwing away the past and moving on into the future.
In 2013, we began commissioning substantial new works to live on our programs. And the new works have highlighted the relevancy of the Graham Classics. The Graham Classics have framed the new works with the trajectory of the art form. And that's brought a deeper appreciation to both the classics and the new works.
How do you see the future of Graham's repertory evolving?
My goal is always to give audiences more ways to access the legacy. We're constantly trying to use new technology and new access points to draw new audiences in. Last week in our studios, we hosted a Studio Series called NEW@GRAHAM: Graham and Tech, talking about AI and virtual reality.
And we have a new solo by Xin Ying, our beautiful lead dancer who is using AI to dance with Martha on stage; excerpts of Martha in Letter to the World. I see our future in the same way that Martha designed it in the 20th century – always looking for what's next.
