Martha Grahm

Martha Grahm is an American dancer and choreographer. She is one of the foremost pinoneers of modern dance doing it for over seventy years. She used dance to express passion, rage, and ecstasy. Martha Grahm's works are pretty infuential and phenomenal allowing her to be the first to perform dance in the White House, first to travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, allowed her to recieve a key to Paris, and the Imperial Order of the Precious Crown of Japan.Her breakthrough performance was "Heretic" where she appeared as the only dancer wearing white and faced a wall of opposing dancers dressed in black with a simple, stark piano song by Breton. Then in "Chronicle" Martha Grahm brought a new era in contemporary dancing by bringing in serious issues to the public, namely problems about the Great Depression, the Wall Street Crash, and the Spanish Civil War. This dance was very dramatic and focused on depression and isolation heavily expressed in the dark nature of the set and costumes.

I'm really not a big fan of dance. I respect that they can move like that though, I know I sure can't. The dances seemed very dramatic and intense though. Also the costumes and sets also seem to express that, which I find to be interesting and something that I like. A lot of dancing and ballet are too colorful and happy, springy for my liking. They seem to just be prancing about the stage. Her dancing though still seems to be too typical ballet to me though. I just really don't find it interesting to watch people prance about like that.