Research Catalog
Martha Graham Dance Company records
- Title
- Martha Graham Dance Company records, 1944-1955.
- Supplementary Content
- Finding Aid
Items in the Library & Off-site
Filter by
1 Item
| Status | Container | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Offsite to submit a request in person. | Box 1 | Mixed material | Supervised use | (S) *MGZMD 152 Box 1 | Offsite |
Details
- Additional Authors
- Description
- .5 linear ft. (1 box)
- Summary
- This collection only covers the years 1944-1955. Therefore, it does not provide a full inventory of the company members, including Martha Graham. It is primarily correspondence and performance information from the offices of Isadora Bennett and Richard Pleasant, publicists for Martha Graham, approximately from 1942-1958. It includes dance company press materials which discuss how, for the first time, architecture and sculpture were fused with dance. Additional informational value is continued in the dance analysis for Eye of anguish. It examines dance for its emotive qualities. The performance materials are equally illuminating. While offering a timeline of activity the 1940s and 1950s, they also touch upon contemporary dance issues such as the relationship between dance and music.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Correspondence.
- Financial records.
- Biography (note)
- The Martha Graham dance legacy, as embodied in the choreographic works that Graham created and the various incarnations of the modern dance companies she formed, has a complex history.
- Indexes/Finding Aids (note)
- Finding aid available in repository and on internet.
- Call Number
- (S) *MGZMD 152
- OCLC
- NYPG05-A10013
- Author
- Pleasant, Richard, 1909-1961.
- Title
- Martha Graham Dance Company records, 1944-1955.
- Biography
- The Martha Graham dance legacy, as embodied in the choreographic works that Graham created and the various incarnations of the modern dance companies she formed, has a complex history. Graham, one of the foremost figures in American modern dance, assembled her first company, The Group, made up of students from the Neighborhood Playhouse. The all-woman troupe debuted in 1929 and Graham continued to teach and perform with a dedicated group of female dancers throughout the 1930s, choreographing numerous ensemble pieces, as well as solos for herself. Based in New York, the company also spent several summers working at the Bennington School of the Dance from 1934 until the demise of that program. The company remained composed entirely of women until 1938 when Erick Hawkins joined; Merce Cunningham also would join with Graham the following year. By 1948, having already created a large and significant body of works, Graham appeared to show more concern with institutionalizing her works and teaching methods, and established the Martha Graham Foundation for Contemporary Dance (the name of the organization was changed to the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc. in 1968), to maintain the school and rehearsal studios for the Martha Graham Dance Company. In 1952, the Center acquired a permanent facility on East Sixty-third Street.
- Indexes
- Finding aid available in repository and on internet.
- Connect to:
- Added Author
- Leatherman, LeRoy.Graham, Martha.Bennett, Isadora.Hawkins, Erick.Sadoff, Simon.Thomson, Virgil, 1896-1989.Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance.Martha Graham Dance Company.
- Research Call Number
- (S) *MGZMD 152