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Dance News: Martha Graham Dance Company Announces Residency at Google's NYC Headquarters

The Martha Graham Dance Company announces a two-week creative residency at Google’s New York City headquarters April 30–May 11, 2018. The Company and Google Arts & Culture will partner on a number of experiments using some of the latest technology being developed by Google, with the joint goal of exploring how emerging technology can be used by artists and creative communities.

The residency will take place at the Google office in Chelsea and will involve members of various divisions of the Martha Graham organization, including the Martha Graham Dance Company, Graham 2, and the Teens@Graham students. The Company’s artistic leadership, dancers, and school faculty are designing the artistic ideas for exploring the technology. Several artists across various media have been invited to collaborate as part of the residency, including visual artist SoHyun Bae, media artist Tyler Henry, filmmaker Nancy Stevens, and Google technologist Tom Small. Among the technologies to be utilized will be Tilt Brush, a virtual reality tool used to create room-scale 3-D paintings.

Digital rendition of Tilt Brush.

“The Graham organization has a mandate to continue Martha Graham’s legacy of innovation, which is much easier said than done!” said Janet Eilber, Artistic Director, Martha Graham Dance Company. “Our partnership with Google is a rare opportunity for a hands-on and wide-ranging exploration of the artistic possibilities offered by emerging technology. We have high hopes that these experiments will result in some startling new artistic experiences for our audiences.”

“We’re committed to opening our doors to community organizations and facilitating new ways of applying technology to advance their mission and goals,” said Torrence Boone, Global Business VP at Google. “As a former dancer, I’ve admired the Martha Graham Dance Company’s long legacy of innovation, and together we are excited to explore the intersection of technology and creative expression through dance.”

Google will host on-site events during the residency, including a conversation with Janet Eilber about the Company’s latest direction and how it relates to this new initiative. The residency will culminate in an event on May 11 that will showcase the results of the residency, which will also be documented by Google. The event on May 11 will be open to the press.

The creative residency marks the Martha Graham Dance Company’s third collaboration with Google, following the popular Martha Graham Google Doodle in 2012 and the online interactive exhibition and free app “Inside the Dancer’s World,” launched in partnership with Google Arts & Culture in 2015. The Company was invited to be one of the first American dance companies to create an ongoing online exhibition for Google Arts & Culture. The five-part immersive project uses rarely seen film footage, photographs, articles, and texts to explore Martha Graham’s legacy and to provide greater access to the Company’s unique archive. The exhibition continues to expand and evolve. (For more information, visit http://marthagraham.org/google)

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