“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not yours to determine how good it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is ever pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
“Martha Graham: Letter to the World”
Barbara Morgan
1940profile of Martha Graham at PBS.org
Barbara Morgan photography at the Museum of Contemporary Photography
Martha Graham (in white) and Company performing Primitive Mysteries, 1930s, photo by Barbara Morgan
Barbara Morgan (1900-1992)
Martha Graham, “Ekstasis” (Torso), 1935
That which cannot be spoken,
can be sung,
that which cannot be sung,
can be danced.
- French saying, quoted in Martha Graham: A Dancer’s Life by Russell Freedman
Image from a 2003 version of Night Journey, using the original costume designs by Graham.
“Night Journey”
1961 film of Graham’s famous re-working of the Oedipus myth, from the viewpoint of Jocasta.
Graham was 67 when this was filmed.
“Once, when we were rehearsing “Appalachian Spring,” I had a passage that Martha said had to do with fear, or maybe with ecstasy—she wasn’t sure which—and she said why didn’t I go and work on it and see what I came up with… It’s always seemed to me that…Martha herself has a basic respect for the ambiguity in all dance movement”
- Merce Cunningham
Via http://s300.photobucket.com/home/aderubio/index
& tip of the pointe shoe to E
