UMS Concert Program, November 6, 1979: International Presentations Of Music & Dance -- Martha Graham Dance Company

Season: 101st
Concert: Twenty-third
Power Center For The Performing Arts Ann Arbor, Michigan

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THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Martha Graham Dance Company
MARTHA GRAHAM, Artistic Director
RON PROTAS, General Director and Associate Artistic Director LINDA HODES, Associate Artistic Director
Settings: Isamu Noguchi, Ming Cho Lee, Marisol
Lighting: Jean Rosenthal, Gilbert V. Hemsley, Jr., Nicholas Cernovitch Costumes: Martha Graham, Halston
The Dancers:
Christine Dakin
YURIKO KlMURA
Peggy Lyman Susan McLain
Thea Nerissa Barnes Charles Brown David Brown Jacqulyn Buglisi Terese Capucilli Donlin Foreman Judith Garay
Elisa Monte Bert Terborgh Tim Wengerd George White, Jr.
Helen Jones Kevin Keenan Jean-Louis Morin Jeanne Ruddy Philip Salvatori Sharon Tyers Allen Von Hackendahl
Tuesday Evening, November 6, 1979, at 8:00
Power Center for the Performing Arts
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tonight's performance is one of three by the Martha Graham Dance Company com?prising a dance residency with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Michigan Council for the Arts.
101st Season -Twenty-third Concert
Ninth Annual Choice Series
EMBATTLED GARDEN
Music by Carlos Surinach Choreography and Costumes by
Set by Isamu Noguchi Martha Graham
Lighting by Jean Rosenthal
Premiere: April 3, 1958
Love, it has been said, does not obey the rules of love but yields to some more ancient and ruder law. The Garden of Love always seems to be threatened by the Stranger's knowledge of the world outside and by the old knowledge of those like Lilith, Adam's wife before Eve according to legend, who lived there first.
Eve ................................................... Elisa Monte
Adam .................................................David Brown
Stranger .............................................Charles Brown
Lilith.............................................. Christine Dakin
?Used by arrangement with Associated Music Publisher, Inc., New York. Choreography copyright 1976 by Martha Graham
INTERMISSION
THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT
Music by Carlos Surinach Choreography by Martha Graham
Set by Ming Cho Lee; Costumes by Halston
Assistant designer, Karen Schulz
Lighting by Gilbert V. Hemsley, Jr.
Premiere: June 26, 1978
The eternal questions of relationships and a voyage.
Pussycat ............................................. Yuriko Kimura
Owl .................................................. Tim Wengerd
Turkey........................................... George White, Jr.
Pig.................................................. Bert Terborgh
Dolphins.................Thea Barnes, David Brown, Donlin Foreman,
Judith Garay, Helen Jones, Kevin Keenan, Jean-Louis Morin, Jeanne Ruddy, Philip Salvatori,
Allen Von Hackendahl
Mermaids.........................Jacqulyn Buglisi, Christine Dakin,
Sharon Tyers Storyteller ............................................ Susan McLain
Used by arrangement with Associated Music Publisher, Inc., New York. Choreography copyright 1978 by Martha Graham
The Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc. wishes to express its deep appreciation to Halston for his contribution of the costumes for this production; The Owl and The Pussycat has been dedicated in perpetuity to him.
INTERMISSION
NIGHT JOURNEY
Music by William Schuman Choreography and costumes by
Set by Isamu Noguchi Martha Graham
Original Lighting by Jean Rosenthal
Premiere: May 3, 1947
"And loudly o'er the bed she walked where she In twofold wedlock, hapless, had brought forth Husband from a husband, children from a child. We could not know the moment of her death Which followed soon."
Oedipus was the son of King Laius of Thebes and Queen Jocasta. At his birth an oracle prophesied that he would murder his father and so he was abandoned on a desolate mountainside. He was found there and protected by a Corinthian shepherd, and grew to manhood as the adopted son of the King of Corinth. Once again an oracle predicted that Oedipus would slay his father and marry his mother. Thinking the King of Corinth his true father, he fled the city, and in his wanderings met, quarreled with, and finally killed a stranger who was King Laius of Thebes. Oedipus traveled on to Thebes, solving the riddle of the Sphinx and finally became King and married the Queen, Jocasta. He reigned nobly until a plague ravaged Thebes and the oracle declared that only banishment of the murderer of Laius would save the city. Finally the terrible truth of Oedipus' fate was brought to light by the seer Tiresias. Jocasta took her own life; Oedipus blinded himself and wandered the earth in misery.
In "Night Journey," Martha Graham's dramatization of this myth, it is not Oedipus but Jocasta who is the protagonist. The action turns upon that instant of Jocasta's death when she relives her destiny, sees with double insight the triumphal entry of Oedipus, their meeting, courtship, marriage, their years of intimacy which were darkly crossed by the blind seer, Tiresias, until at last the truth burst from him. The chorus of women who know the truth before the seer speaks it, vainly try to divert the prophecy from its cruel conclusion.
Jocasta ................................................ Peggy Lyman
Tiresias, the Seer....................................... Kevin Keenan
Oedipus ............................................... Tim Wengerd
Leader of the Chorus.................................... Sharon Tyers
Daughters of the Night..................Thea Barnes, Jacqulyn Buglisi,
Terese Capucilli, Judith Garay, Helen Jones,
Jeanne Ruddy
Used by arrangement with Theodore Presser Company, agent for Merion Music, Inc., publisher and copyright owner.
Choreography copyright 1976 by Martha Graham
On March S, 1979, Martha Graham traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the National Endowment for the Arts appropriations. Following are excerpts from her statement to the Subcommittee:
I am a dancer. I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.
I think the reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living. Many times I hear the phrase ... the dance of life. It is close to me for a very simple and understandable reason. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body. It is the instrument by which all the primaries of experience arc made manifest. It holds in its memory all matters of life and death and love. Dancing appears glamorous, easy and delightful. But the path to the paradise of that achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths. Then I need all the comfort that practice has stored in my memory, and a tenacity of faith that Abraham had wherein he "Staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief."
It takes about ten years to make a mature dancer. The training is two-fold. There is the study and practice of the craft in order to strengthen the muscular structure of the body. The body is shaped, disciplined, honored and, in time, trusted. Movement never lies. It is the barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life . . . the law which governs its outer aspects.
Then there is the cultivation of the being. It is through this that the legends of the soul's journey are re-told, with all their gaity and all their tragedy, the bitterness and sweetness of living. It is at this point that the sweep of life catches up the mere personality of the performer and while the individual (the undivided one), becomes greater, the personal becomes less personal.
And there is grace. I mean the grace resulting from faith . . . faith in life, in love, in people, in the act of dancing. All this is necessary to any performance in life which is magnetic, powerful, rich in meaning.
It has not been an easy path for me to work to present my ballets before the public while maintaining a standard of honor to my craft. I know very well what it is to scrub my own studio floors and to teach eight hours of class a day so that at the end of the year I might give one Broadway performance a year; a performance which was of necessity given on a Sunday, the then dark night of the theatre. From that period I certainly did not emerge with a belief that there was a virtue in poverty. And yet at that early period of my career, something gave me the wisdom or common sense to understand that if subsidy came too soon, it would weaken me, prevent me from practicing dangerously my craft.
Today there is more dance practiced in the world, more highly trained dancers than ever before. It gives me great joy to see this happen ard to know that an audience might night after night, rather than once each year, experience a dance performance.
There is a fragment of poetry which has always had deep meaning for me. It referred to a long lost civilization:
"They had no poet and so they died. For the record of history lives in the Arts."
Even as I write this statement time has begun to make today yesterday ... the past. Even the most brilliant scientific discoveries will in time change and perhaps grow obsolete, as new scientific manifestations emerge.
But Art is eternal; for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
Martha Graham
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Burton Memorial Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Phones: 665-3717, 764-2538