The History And Background On Martha Graham

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The History And Background On Martha Graham

Martha Graham, the outstanding 20th century dancer, choreographer and teacher was born on May 11, 1894 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as one among the three daughters of George and Jane Beers Graham (Martha Graham, 2010). During her life time she spent most of her decisive years on the west coast region. Media have often regarded Martha Graham as one of the well recognized dancers and choreographers ever lived in America. Martha Graham’s father was a psychiatrist who concentrated much in his study and analysis of physical movement. He was a third generation American of Irish descent and her mother Jane Beers was one of the tenth generations of puritan Miles Standish. Dr. Graham and family had a high standard living because of the negotiable salary they saved from their works. The Graham family had a reputed position in the society on account of their high standard living and good educational background. From the very tender age itself, Martha had the support of her family in matters related to education and career opportunities. Though her family was ever ready to provide her excellent guidance in education, Martha preferred her career as a dancing performer-disapproving her parents wish. After the completion of her educational career from Cumnock School, a junior college, she enrolled in the Denishawn Studio, a dancing school operated by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn (1891-1972) (Martha Graham, 2010). Analysing the biographical note of Martha, it is identfiable that after getting enrolled in Denishawn Studio, she devoted herself entirely for dancing and choreography. She married dancer Erick Hawkins in 1948 but their marriage proved to be failure and divorced in 1954. Later, as we see, she became proficient in dancing and tried her best to attain the highest position in this field. She focused her attention essentially in performing arts and practiced much by contributing her own methods to dancing. She tried her preeminent to open the new way for modern dance.

Special attraction/feature of her dancing

Martha Graham was a wonderful performer and good choreographer in America. Her choreography is very surprising and amazing to viewers that she created new style of body movements and facial expressions. While observing Martha’s performances, it is well evident that she always attempted to expose real passion and human experiences which helped her to stand aloof from other performers of her time. Martha Graham’s dance has often been compared to Picasso’s painting and Stravinsky’s music, and so on. One may not feel it as an exaggeration to reveal that her choreography and dance performances are incredibly attractive and stunning. Her contributions have transformed to different art forms which exerted notable influence in changing the old method of dancing. Martha’s innovative style of dancing has paved the way for expanding the style of word around dancing. She expressed herself very liberally and truthfully in almost all her dance performances. It was the sincere attempt from her part to develop dancing profession resulted for the establishment of Martha Graham Dance Company in 1926 (Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, 2006). As her profession was dancing, she could compose many dance programs. Her dance company offers support to the entire American dance students by including other brilliant dance teachers also in her dance troupe. Freedman (1998) rightly enlists Graham’s performance when he writes, “Graham invented a revolutionary new language of dance, an original way of moving that she use to reveal the joy, passions, and sorrows common to all human experience. She had a genius for connecting movement with emotion.”

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Martha Graham is not only a resourceful dancer but also an excellent choreographer. Graham created new trends and attractive style for dancing by reminding the fact that dancing has significant role in society as a pure method of entertainment. Dance is a one of the important and transitory forms of expression. Martha Graham attempted to convey her ideas so naturally and translated these ideas to expression with facial and body movements. Graham strongly believed that body and facial expressions must be there in an excellent dance. Graham controlled her body movements and facial expressions with music. These movements attracted the attention of many modern observers and as such, they accepted this new style and recognized this performance as a modern dance. A good dance performer should be capable of creating different t