Rarities
“The Legacy of The New Dance Group”
Choreography by Jane Dudley, Sophie Maslow, Anna Sokolow and Talley Beatty
Coolidge Auditorium
The Library of Congress
Washington, DC
April 19, 2019
Seldom anymore do we get to see live performances of historic modern dance or, as it is called with loving irony, of “old modern”. Once upon a time, it constituted a successful revolution, or at least a fashion. That was from the 1920s into the 1960s, and not only in America. Shown on Friday evening at The Library of Congress were half a dozen works of choreography from the past – one from 1934 and the others from the 1940s. All were solos, five of them danced by women and one by a man. The four original makers of these works had all experienced contact with Martha Graham (1894 – 1991), an exception in the sea of modern dance forgetfulness. The importance of the torso was apparent in all the dances. That central portion of human anatomy was subject to tensions almost constantly as it stretched and arched or coiled or was held ready. This charged torso defined the dancing as acts of willpower and emotion. Supplementary were the dancer’s arms and legs. Often the arms and hands were very mobile, wrapping and unwrapping themselves around the torso, but they could also remain like oars at rest. The legs and feet moved the body from place to place in space yet seldom called attention to themselves as they do in ballet. What of the head and face?Carriage of the head could be in free harmony with that of the torso or in counterpoint. Some facial expressions punctuated those of the total body but the head could also ride thoughtfully bent over the body in a state of self observation. Jane Dudley’s earnest, 1934 “Time Is Money” was the program’s first dance solo. Erica Dankmeyer danced it proudly, not to music but in part to the reading of a Sol Funaroff poem. The serious mood did not abate with Jennifer Conley’s rendition of two “Dust Bowl Ballads” – “I Ain’t Got No Home” and “Dusty Old Gold” by Sophie Maslow. Anna Sokolow’s “Kaddish” to the Maurice Ravel music could be a prayer of thanksgiving or a prayer of mourning for the dead. Samantha Geracht’s dancing alluded to both options. Determination was infused into the stamping steps, torso assertions and mockery of Dudley’s “Cante Flamenco” by Sandra Kaufmann. Talley Beatty’s “Mourner’s Bench”, performed by Clarence Brooks, seemed an athletic variation on Graham’s “Lamentation” and also of Rosalia Chladek’s “Totengeleite / Funeral Cortege”. Except for “Mourner’s Bench”, the other five of this evening’s six dances had a neatness and care that I suspect was not apparent in the the originals. Formerly, did all exude a bruised power?
A panel discussion followed the dancing. It was moderated by Ellen Graff, a former Graham dancer and currently of the Martha Graham Dance Company’s faculty, who had also introduced the dances. The audience did not want the program to end and kept commenting and asking questions.
copyright 2019 by George Jackson
