Stichprobe: The Martha Graham Company in New York

Owing to the company‘s well-publicized financial woes, whose effects include the fact that it couldn‘t pay its dancers or coaches more than token amounts, its little New York season was shortened to a single evening: a gala to celebrate the company‘s 80th anniversary.

This program – planned by the company’s new artistic director, former Graham star Janet Eilber, who is pursuing her duties from her home in Los Angeles, and shaped by the Broadway choreographer and former Graham dancer Patricia Birch – consisted of several Graham works performed intact (“Heretic,” “Steps in the Street,” “Maple Leaf Rag”) and excerpts from others representing Graham‘s long choreographic career, as well as solos by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, Graham’s mentors at the Denishawn company in the 1920s. Coached primarily by Yuriko and also Marni Wood, the dancers performed every number superbly, with both physical command and imaginative depth.
Several historic films were also screened, including a charming Hollywood satire, starring Danny Kaye, of Graham’s earnest dances for her female ensembles (“Choreography,” devised by Robert Alton, from the movie White Christmas). The gala‘s continuity, a winking ...