The Legend is Back! Martha Graham Dance Company

The Timeless Works of Martha Graham. 

Lene van Alten

This year, Holland Dance Festival and Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam have welcomed  back the Martha Graham Dance Company to the Netherlands. Martha Graham was one of the most iconic and influential dancers/choreographers in the 20th century. She is called the founder of American Modern Dance.

To celebrate her legacy the program existed out of the political piece: Chronicles (1936), her last work: Maple Leaf Rag (1990), a re-imagined solo: Ekstasis (1933) and a view of American choreographers on Lamentation (variations 2007).

The whole performance was spectacular. I went in with high expectations but they managed to rise above them. You have to imagine the time when Chronicles was first performed. A war ready to start and strong woman dancing on bare feet, telling a story about war. All the movements seemed to have such great meaning. The emotional power in simple movements was the most impressive thing. 

To see choreographers from now give new life to the old works of Graham was amazing. It is like a preview on how a company could survive without its creator. They showed three modest but strong variations of Lamentation and it gave a nice picture of what the future of the company could look like. 

The Graham dancers performed so well. Their movement quality was extraordinary. They are able to do very difficult movement (without is seeming to be difficult) and then giving it meaning with the underlying emotions. Ekstasis gives a great example of a Graham piece with great quality on beautiful music and purity in the emotions. 

  

In Maple Leaf Rag Graham intended it to be not too serious. She played with her own iconic movements in a way that it was not exaggerated which made it a very light and enjoyable piece. She made fun of herself, looking back on her life and apparently that is a great formula for a last piece you’ll ever make.

Overall it was a phenomenal performance. Martha’s works have proven to be legendary and timeless. If you ever get the chance watch to the company perform I would really recommend you go.

Date,theater: 13/feb/2018, Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg. Company: Martha Graham Dance Company. Main Choreographer: Martha Graham. Lamentation Variations: various choreographers. 

“Wir sagen uns Dunkles” by Marco Goecke - NDT 2                                                    22.12.17

 

On November 30^th 2017 the Netherlands Dance Theater 2 performed the new piece by choreographer Marco Goecke named “Wir sagen uns Dunkles” to the music of Franz Schubert, at the Stadstheater Arnhem.

 

“Wir sagen uns Dunkles” is a dynamic, powerful, intensive and exciting choreography which makes you experience something new. The atmosphere is changed. You can feel the electric tension, created by music, dance and light, vibrating through space.

 

By using Schubert’s music, which is a very vivid, dissonant and I think mysterious music; Goecke creates a red line that goes through the whole piece. The movements in the choreography are very musical so that movement and music become one.

When I talk about movements in this piece I do not just mean the physicality of the body but also the gesticulation which is part of the whole movement language as well as the facial expressions which are very strong and particular. Mouths get ripped with a silent scream, toughs get pocked out and pulled back; expressive eyes are looking at the audience.

Clear staccato movements are melting into another movement phrase. Dancers are coming together and separate. The space is moved. This is the movement language Goecke created in this piece.

 

The dancers themselves are on an empty dark stage, lightened just with a dim light. No props are used. The man’s are dancing with a naked upper body, the woman with a tight dark leotard. Both wearing long wider trousers with feather like decoration on the back side which makes them appear like another species (supported by the movement and the music).

 

In Goeckes piece we see the dancers “talking dark to each other”. They show us their “dark side” that we are not used to see very often. I do not believe that Goecke is letting the audience experience his piece as something evil because he is “going into the dark” but more as something that we can be curious about and that we can discover for ourselves. I think everyone has a kind of a dark- or hidden side, an inner, deeper demand or desire (to seduce for example). For me this piece was a great inspiration. I guess we know a lot about ourselves but I think that we can always keep discovering. A human has various sides and maybe starting to “talk dark” to other human beings can help us to find out more about ourselves.

 

Even though I am writing a positive review and I want to encourage you to go and see the piece, I do have some annotations for the dancers and the choreographer.

First: Of cause the dim light was contributing to the atmosphere but if it would have been a bit lighter the expressions of the dancers would have become even more visible.

Second: Although the movement language was well developed, a longer stillness or slow movement phrase would have been good for the audience’s eye, because the music was so vivid and twitchy through the whole piece.

Third: The dancers could have gone into the character even more so that they are not just pretending or copying what the choreographer might have said.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6KoDQdThNI

 

Marita Schwanke

 

 

More information:

Assistant to the choreographer: Fernando Hernando Magadan | Music: Franz Schubert: Trio, Nocturne in e flat, opus 148, D. 897;Presto from string quartets in G minor / B flat major D18 Placebo: Song to Say Goodbye; Slave to the Wage; Loud like Love Alfred Schnittke: Piano quintet, part 2: 'in tempo di Valse' | Music advisor: Jan Pieter Koch | Light: Udo Haberland | Decor & costumes: Marco Goecke