Voice of blood, rejection of stereotypes, sublimation of feelings

MOSCOW. The Garage Museum Publishing House has published an autobiography of the famous choreographer Martha Graham.

The twentieth century fundamentally redrew the life of mankind. Revolutionary transformations touched different areas: politics, ideology, art. The avant-garde overthrew traditions in painting, architecture, poetry, music, theater. The choreography did not stand aside either. Ballet ones refused stereotypes, dropped pointe shoes, liberated their soul and body. Loi Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Ruth Saint-Denis brought the classically educated Puritan audience to the joys of free movement, paving the way for modern choreography. Among the legislators of modern dance, who had the greatest influence on development and contributed to the flourishing of the new style, was the great American dancer Martha Graham.

The fate of Martha Graham could have been completely different. The attitude of the Presbyterian church, whose followers were Graham’s parents, to social (outside worship) dances was negative. The inevitability of touch and erotic experiences, concentration on the body, association with pagan practices were considered unacceptable, equated almost to adultery. The paradox that opened Martha’s path to vocation was her father’s faith not only in Christ, but also in the healing power of the movement. George Graham, a practicing psychiatrist-Alienist, suggested that the origins of nervous diseases lie on the physiological plane. And the best medicine can be muscle activity and adequate training of the musculoskeletal system. It was a saving loophole, a pass into a free life without dogma and prejudice.

The gifted girl did not miss her chance and radically changed the idea of Americans about the dance, who saw in it before only a lightweight fun with an erotic touch. The technique developed by her made it possible to convey in a dance the "landscape of the soul" of a person, the world of cultures of the past, to feel the voice of blood, to hear the steps of ancestors behind. She perceived the body as a sacred robe, the spine as the tree of his life, a way to interact with the world, sublimation of feelings and tragedies experienced. Elements of the Graham technique - relaxing the body, compressing the muscles of the pelvis and abdomen, restoring balance, working with breathing - a special language, non-verbal way of maximum self-expression. Companions and ardent admirers of the great dancer and choreographer were equally uncontrollably talented and freedom-loving people. Liza Minelli, Madonna, Woody Allen, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nuriev, Maya Plisetskaya and many others.

The oldest dance school in America, the Martha Graham Dance Company, founded in 1926 and raised many stars, has been successfully operating to this day. Graham continued to work as a choreographer until the last days of her life. At the age of 96, she died of pneumonia, having completed the last chapters of her autobiography Blood Memory.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru