martha graham

last night erin and i went to see the martha graham dance company at the staller center. i wasn’t sure what to expect. maybe a two hour dance piece? or a variety of pieces? but what we got was way better. like a history lesson, janet eilber narrated different parts in graham’s life and how dancing fit into those parts. while it was moving to see steps in the street, diversion of angels, and parts of appalachian spring, (some of her most famous pieces) i have to say, lamentation, was the most exquisite.

lamentation, choreographed and costumed by martha graham with music by zoltan kodaly, tugged at my heart. i felt like a ball of emotion was lodged in my throat and the only way to get it out was to let my mouth hang agape. the beautiful carrie ellmore-tallitsch performed this piece. she was the perfect model of grief stricken expression. in the program, “lamentation” is described as a “revolt against (grahams’s)…past, against ballet, and against the conventions of theatricality.” the dancer is seated the entire time encased in a tube of purple jersey. the fabric is integral to the choreography, with the dancer’s diagonals and tensions formed by her struggling within the material creating a moving sculpture. “a portrait that presents the very essence of grief.”

i absolutely saw the essence of grief. there was so much tension and broken movement in the dancers arms and legs to express this emotional pain. graham used traditional ballet moves with everyday movements to have the dancer writhe within a purple tube of fabric. some of the poses she created made her look like a live sculpture. at other times, her arms stretched to the heavens, and the audience, for answers to her pain. arms wrapped around her boy and her head hanging back created new spaces for her body to create blocks of moving forms. her body was in so many different positions that she rendered herself curve-less. the unidentifiable human form in the sculpture made her genderless; her face the only link to her feminity. graham connected with the human movements we engage in and placed them into her choreography.

the movements made me feel a sense of grief while the dancer’s facial expressions added another dimension to the piece. her mouth was shut tightly – yet not constricted to the point where she was disfigured. her forehead was creased with pain. The purple sculpture became human. the dancers face, framed by the fabric about her, allowed for a human connection. We could see her eyes, her cheek cbones, her lips. She was now a human figure within this purple sculpture. graham's choreography, and ellmore-tallitsch's expressions, communicated grief to the audience while also letting us into a story about this character.

the facial expressions coupled with the moving sculpture allowed the audience to be both objective and subjective in our assessment of grief. grief in general was identifiable through the choreography within the purple fabric. timeless and genderless, the audience could identify with her movement. many of her positions were identifiable with our human motions. especially in this time of economic disparity, “lamentation” made me feel like we were all a part of this same grief. no matter what our subjective griefs were – we were all connected to each others lives if only for a few minutes of ellmore-tallitsch's preformance. like a happening of kaprow's the audience at the staller center on the evening of saturday february 20 shared in a unique experience. for one night we were all connected to our country's griefs, our griefs, and each others griefs.

this piece was fitting for my life the past two weeks. i don't want to use the term "grief" because that is too dramatic. but i've felt, let's say, misunderstood, recently. which produces a sense of anguish. lamentation expressed that feeling. the feeling of being trapped. left alone with your own words - questioning, wondering, analyzing what you've said or didn't say. you're contorting in your own skin with frustration just aching to break out. you want to be heard, understood, and contemplated. you want your receiver to respond to your ideas. conversation. communication. integral parts of understanding another human. without this you, as i was, are left inside yourself and with your own words unable to know if another person gets you. lamentation put my feelings into movement, music, expression - into a real tangible form. watching ellmore-tallitsch put my feelings into reality allowed me to let go of that frustration. it's there - misunderstanding, grief, frustration - these exist outside of me and it's okay to let them exist there so i can move on.

parts of lamentation preformed by martha graham in 1943