Maple Leaf Rag (ballet)

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Maple Leaf Rag is a storyless Martha Graham ballet set to ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin. The work premiered on October 2, 1990 at New York City Center with costumes by Calvin Klein and lighting by David Finley. [1] Chris Landriau arranged the music and played piano at the debut. The dance is a jubilant self-parody and an homage, of sorts, to Graham's mentor and musical director, Louis Horst, who would play the rag for her whenever she fell into a creative slump. [2] Graham was 96 when she created Maple Leaf Rag; it is her last completed dance. In 1991, she began another work, The Eyes of the Goddess, but it was unfinished at the time of her death. [3]

Martha Graham American dancer and choreographer

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide.

Ragtime – also spelled rag-time or rag time – is a musical style that enjoyed its peak popularity between 1895 and 1919. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm.

Scott Joplin American composer, musician, and pianist

Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the King of Ragtime. During his brief career, he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

Contents

Synopsis

The curtain rises to reveal a grand piano at the rear of a darkened stage. The only other set element is a joggling board, a long springy plank set on two upright supports with rocker feet. [2] Graham had discovered the rocking chair-bench hybrid when the Martha Graham Dance Company appeared at Spoleto USA in Charleston. [4]

Joggling board

A joggling or jostling board is a long, pliable board that is supported on each end by wooden stands. The board is springy and a person sitting on it can easily bounce up and down. Sources differ on the origination; its usage in the Lowcountry of South Carolina around Charleston in the early 19th century is however rather well-documented.

Rocking chair furniture

A rocking chair or rocker is a type of chair with two curved bands attached to the bottom of the legs, connecting the legs on each side to each other. The rockers contact the floor at only two points, giving the occupant the ability to rock back and forth by shifting their weight or pushing lightly with their feet. Rocking chairs are most commonly made of wood. Some rocking chairs can fold.

Martha Graham Dance Company

The Martha Graham Dance Company, founded in 1926, is known for being the oldest American dance company. Founded by Martha Graham as a contemporary dance company, it continued to perform pieces, revive classics, and train dancers even after Graham's death in 1991. The company is critically acclaimed in the artistic world and has been recognized as "one of the great dance companies of the world" by the New York Times and as "one of the seven wonders of the artistic universe" by the Washington Post.

The musician enters first and sits at the piano, repeatedly striking a foreboding chord. The dancers come in, initially a couple executing an overhead lift, then a circle of dancers, leaping and landing dramatically to the pounding of the piano. A female ensemble member breaks away from the group to perform a bouncing dance on the joggling board. The audience then hears Graham's recorded voice, "Oh Louis, play me the Maple Leaf Rag!" [5]

As Joplin's music starts, the stage lights come up. Six couples dance joyfully around the board on which the lone female now reclines. The pianist briefly interrupts the rag to reprise the ominous beat as a somber white-gowned, chignoned figure crosses the stage in a series of swirling turns. As she exits, the ensemble returns to joyous movement. [6]

The ballet is approximately 15 minutes in length. Three Scott Joplin rags provide the work's structure: Maple Leaf Rag (1899) opens the dance, followed by the waltz Bethena (1905) and Elite Syncopations (1902); a reprise of Maple Leaf Rag concludes the dance. [7]

Maple Leaf Rag rag by Scott Joplin

The "Maple Leaf Rag" is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. As a result Joplin was called the King of Ragtime. The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life.

Waltz dance

The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple (help·info) time, performed primarily in closed position.

Bethena waltz by Scott Joplin

"Bethena, A Concert Waltz" is a composition by Scott Joplin. It was the first Joplin work since his wife Freddie's death on September 10, 1904 of pneumonia, ten weeks after their wedding. At the time the composer had significant financial problems; the work did not sell successfully at the time of publication and was soon neglected and forgotten. It was rediscovered as a result of the Joplin revival in the 1970s and has received acclaim from Joplin's biographers and other critics. The piece combines two different styles of music, the classical waltz and the rag, and has been seen as demonstrating Joplin's excellence as a classical composer. The work has been described as "an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of Ragtime Waltzes", a "masterpiece", and "Joplin's finest waltz".

The work is brimming with parodies of Graham's signature moves and send-ups of her best-known dances. Her twirling white-clad surrogate crosses the stage intermittently, accompanied each time by ill-boding percussive piano. Graham also pokes fun at the overwrought sexuality of some her repertory. Just before darkness hides the remaining couple on stage, he tears off her skirt. [2]

Critical reception

Maple Leaf Rag was Graham's 180th choreographic work. [8] Even so, reviewers noted, she still had the capacity to surprise and delight. "The new piece is an entertaining poke by a genius at her own cliches, tersely and wittily stated," wrote The New York Times' Anna Kisselgoff. [2]

A critic seeing a much later performance said, "While she worked out her obsessions onstage, Graham also had a keen but oft-overlooked sense of humor. Set to several Scott Joplin rags that were still in vogue during her teenage years, Maple Leaf Rag is a sly and playful dance that effectively employs Graham's expressive vocabulary while winking at her own cliches." [9]

Those most familiar with the troupe's repertory better understood the inside jokes. A takeoff on the "dart" step from Errand into the Maze was recognized by one reviewer. [10] Another noticed Night Journey's "hiccupping" Furies. [2] The dance critic for San Francisco Classical Voice identified "the dancers' foot-to-foot from Acrobats of God, the grabs and grimaces from Clytemnestra, the ecstatic clapping of the acolytes in Appalachian Spring , and...the exalted kick turns from the white-clad Graham solo Letter to the World, ending in a sobering yet giggle-worthy frozen pose." [11]

Performance history

An audience favorite since the first performance, Maple Leaf Rag is a staple of the Graham company repertoire. [12] It is also included in Three Dances by Martha Graham, a TV program produced by WNET for PBS. Terese Capucilli appears as the Graham surrogate. Kathleen Turner provides the narration. [13]

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Lamentation is a modern dance solo choreographed by Martha Graham to Zoltán Kodály's 1910 Piano Piece, Op. 3, No. 2. One of Graham's signature works, it premiered on January 8, 1930 at Maxine Elliott's Theatre in New York City. The performance was part of a concert staged by the Dance Repertory Theatre, a group that included dancer/choreographers Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and Helen Tamiris. Their stated goal was "to give annually a season of continuous dance programs which will be representative of the art of dance in America and will give native artists an outlet for their creative work."

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Deep Song, a solo modern dance by Martha Graham, premiered on December 19, 1937, at the Guild Theatre in New York City. Performed to music by Henry Cowell, the piece was the second work created by Graham in response to the Spanish Civil War. The first, Immediate Tragedy, was introduced in 1937.

Chronicle is a modern dance work choreographed by Martha Graham to music by Wallingford Riegger. It premiered on December 20, 1936, at the Guild Theatre in New York City. The set was designed by Isamu Noguchi. Riegger's music was scored for piano, wind instruments and percussion; Noguchi's set was made up primarily of curtains, platforms and stairs. The original production was danced by Martha Graham and Group, the forerunner of the Martha Graham Dance Company. According to the program notes, the dance is based upon "the advent and consequences of war" and concerned itself with the "contemporary situation", referring to the impending conflict in Europe.

References

  1. ↑ "Maple Leaf Rag". Hyper Martha. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Kisselgoff, Anna (October 4, 1990). "Review/Dance; Graham Meets Scott Joplin With a Bounce". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  3. ↑ Kisselgoff, Anna (October 10, 1991). "Review/Dance; 'Eyes of the Goddess,' a Fragment Left by Graham". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  4. ↑ Becker, Ida (October 14, 2009). Charleston Icons: 50 Symbols of the Holy City. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 12.
  5. ↑ "Ballet Maple Leaf Rag". YouTube. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  6. ↑ Wood, Darrell. "Martha Graham Dance Company's Program A at the New York City Center, 2014…". NYC Dance Stuff. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  7. ↑ Laruccia, Natalie. "Maple Leaf Rag - a photo essay". Exploredance.com. Archived from the original on 23 August 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  8. ↑ Voorhees, John (January 7, 1993). "'Maple Leaf Rag' Comes To Life In `Dance In America'". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  9. ↑ Gilbert, Andrew (January 27, 2014). "Martha Graham Company returns to Berkeley with 'Appalachian Spring' on tap". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  10. ↑ Bannerman, Henrietta. "Dancing for laughs: Martha Graham and comedy". criticaldance.com. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  11. ↑ Berman, Janice (January 31, 2014). "All Hail Martha Graham: A Company Alive and Well". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  12. ↑ "Martha Graham Dance Company Repertory". Martha Graham Dance Company. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  13. ↑ Goldner, Nancy (December 28, 1992). "Trio Of Dances By Martha Graham To Air On PBS". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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