Paul Taylor Dance Company is a modern dance company, formed by dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor (1930—2018). The modern dance company is based in New York, New York and was founded in 1954.
Terese Capucilli is an American modern dancer, interpreter of the roles originally performed by Martha Graham. She is one of the last generation of dancers to be coached and directed by Graham herself. A principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company for twenty-six years, she became associate artistic director in 1997 and from 2002 to 2005 served as artistic director, with Christine Dakin, seeing the organization and its dancers through the rebirth of the company. A driving force of Graham's work for nearly three decades, she is now Artistic Director Laureate.
Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which includes dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was considered to have been developed as a rejection of, or rebellion against, classical ballet, and also a way to express social concerns like socioeconomic and cultural factors.
Christine Dakin is an American dancer, teacher and director, a foremost exponent of the Martha Graham repertory and technique.
Jacqulyn Buglisi is an American choreographer, artistic director, dancer, educator, and founder/co-founder of multiple dance institutions. Buglisi, with Terese Capucilli, Christine Dakin and Donlin Foreman, founded Buglisi Dance Theatre in 1993/94.
Graham technique is a modern dance movement style and pedagogy created by American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (1894–1991). Graham technique has been called the "cornerstone" of American modern dance, and has been taught worldwide. It is widely regarded as the first codified modern dance technique, and strongly influenced the later techniques of Merce Cunningham, Lester Horton, and Paul Taylor.
Errand into the Maze is a Martha Graham ballet based on a poem by Ben Belitt set to music by Gian Carlo Menotti. The surrealistic set was designed by Isamu Noguchi, the costumes by Graham herself. The dance uses the Greek myth of Ariadne and the Minotaur to explore the theme of conquering one's inner demons, more specifically the fear of sexual intimacy. The piece premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on February 28, 1947, with Graham as the protagonist, a sort of female Theseus, and Mark Ryder as the Minotaur-like character.
Deaths and Entrances is a ballet choreographed by Martha Graham performed to music by Hunter Johnson. Arch Lauterer created the original set; Edythe Gilfond designed the costumes. The ballet was well-received from the first performance despite being labeled as one of Graham's most personal, least accessible works. Oscar de la Renta created new costumes for the ballet's 2005 revival. The piece premiered on July 18, 1943, at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. The first performance was an informal preview for which the dancers wore practice clothes although the set was in place.
Primitive Mysteries is a modern dance work choreographed by Martha Graham to music by Louis Horst. Graham also designed the original costumes. The piece premiered on February 2, 1931 at the Craig Theatre in New York City. From the first performance, critics hailed the ballet as a masterpiece and acknowledged Graham's rising role as a major force in American dance.
Salem Shore is a solo modern dance work choreographed by Martha Graham to original music by Paul Nordoff. The piece premiered on December 26, 1943 at the 46th Street Theater in New York City. The ballet featured costumes by Edythe Gilfond and a set by Arch Lauterer. Program notes accompanying the first performance described the dance as "a ballad of a woman's longing for her beloved's return from the sea."
El Penitente is a modern dance work by Martha Graham performed to music by Louis Horst. It premiered on August 11, 1940, at the Bennington College Theater, Bennington, Vermont, with costumes by Edythe Gilfond and a set by Arch Lauterer. Isamu Noguchi later redesigned the set and created a new mask.
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."
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. 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. 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.
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.
Kazuko Hirabayashi was a dance teacher and choreographer. She was born in Japan, where she completed her college education before going to New York to enroll in the Juilliard school.
Blakeley White-McGuire born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a dancer, choreographer, répétiteur, and educator. She is a Principal Guest Artist and former Principal Dancer of Martha Graham Dance Company. Described by Gia Kourlas of the New York Times as having a "powerful technique and dramatic instinct with an appealing modern spunk", White-McGuire has received widespread critical acclaim as a Graham dancer.
PeiJu Chien-Pott is a Taiwanese dancer. She was a principal dancer for the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Tracy Inman is an American dancer, choreographer, and educator who performed with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He is currently the co-director of The Ailey School and a choreographer & consultant for the television series Pose.
Yuriko Kimura (木村百合子) is a modern dancer, and was a primary dancer for the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1967 to 1985. Various dance critics, such as Anna Kisselgoff and Clive Barnes from the New York Times, who often reviewed Yuriko's performances, referred to her dancing as "incandescent", and to Kimura as one of the "most outstanding performers in modern dance today" and "a brilliant technician for whom no movement seems impossible". She was born in Kanzawa, Japan.
Virginie Mécène is a French and American dancer, choreographer, director and educator. She was a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 1994 to 2006, the director of the Martha Graham School from 2007 to 2015, and is the current director of Graham 2. Mécène was a soloist with Pearl Lang Dance Theater from 1991 to 2002, and Battery Dance Company, from 1995 to 2000. She joined Buglisi Dance Theater as a principal dancer in 1994. Mécène has trained dancers in the Martha Graham Dance Company and educated dance teachers in the Graham Technique, contributing to the worldwide proliferation and approachability of the technique.
