Word: grahame
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Born in 1894 in Allegheny, Pa., Graham moved with her family to California when she was 14. Three years later, she attended a Los Angeles recital by the dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis. It was the first dance performance of any kind that Graham had ever seen, and it overwhelmed her; in 1916 she joined Denishawn, the school and performing troupe that St. Denis co-led with her husband Ted Shawn. At 22, dangerously late for an aspiring dancer, Graham had found her destiny...
After seven years with Denishawn, Graham moved to New York City and struck out on her own, giving solo recitals and eventually launching her own company, in 1929. To raise funds, she danced at the opening of Radio City Music Hall, modeled furs and later gave classes in which she taught such actors as Bette Davis and Gregory Peck how to move. (Richard Boone claimed that to die onscreen, he simply did a one-count Graham fall.) But nothing could deflect her from what she believed to be her sacred mission: to "chart the graph of the heart" through movement...
...Graham came decisively into her own in the '40s, turning out in rapid succession the decade-long series of angst-ridden dance dramas--enacted on symbol-strewn sets designed by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi and accompanied by scores commissioned from such noted composers as Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber--on which her reputation now chiefly rests. Cave of the Heart (1946), one of her many modern recastings of ancient Greek myth, contains a horrific solo in which the hate-crazed Medea gobbles her own entrails--perhaps Graham's most sensational coup de theatre and one recalled with nightmarish clarity...
...want to be remembered, as a dancer or a choreographer?" Graham was asked by choreographer Antony Tudor. "As a dancer, of course," she replied. "I pity you," Tudor said. His words proved prophetic. In her prime a performer of eye-scorching power, Graham insisted on dancing until 1968, long after her onstage appearances had degenerated into grisly self-caricature. Her unwillingness to let younger soloists take over led her to replace her signature pieces with new dances in which she substituted calculated effects for convincing movement. Adoring critics pretended nothing was wrong, but in fact she produced virtually no work...
...wishes notwithstanding, it is not likely that Graham will be remembered as a dancer, at least not very clearly: films of her performances are scarce and mostly primitive. Much of her choreography has failed to wear well, especially by comparison with the work of George Balanchine, the unrivaled master of neoclassical ballet, and Taylor and Cunningham, her apostate alumni. No more than half a dozen of her dances, most notably Cave of the Heart and Appalachian Spring (1944), her radiant re-creation of a pioneer wedding, seem likely to stand the test of time. The rest are overwrought period pieces...