Informal Lecture Demonstration with Martha Graham Dance – 10.22.19
Martha Graham Dance Company, an award-winning, internationally renowned dance company, will give a lecture-demonstration on October 22, 2019, from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Boston University Dance Theater. This event is open to the general public. Tickets are free and can be reserved through Eventbrite.
Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Company, will speak about Graham’s vision of heroines from Greek tragedy including Medea, Clytemnestra, and Jocasta, as well as explore Graham’s retelling of the Ariadne/Minotaur story as imagined in her dance Errand into the Maze, with two-dancers from the company performing this 13 minute piece. The lecture will also include videos, movement excerpts from Graham’s depiction of Greek heroines, and teaching the audience several moves from one or two of the characters. The presentation will conclude with a Q & A.
From 1926 to the year of her death in 1991, Martha Graham choreographed 181 ballets and codified a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Her approach to dance and theater revolutionized the art form and her innovative movement language, based on the expressive capacity of the body, has influenced dance worldwide. She is also well-known for her vivid, feminist readings of Greek myths, interpreted from the perspective of the female characters. Cave of the Heart, Night Journey, and Errand into the Maze are some of Graham’s masterworks, regularly performed by the MGDC, and based on the myths of Medea, Oedipus, and Theseus respectively.
Janet Eilber danced many of Graham’s greatest roles and has since taught, lectured, and directed the Graham ballets internationally. In her role as Artistic Director since 2005, she has focused on creating new forms of audience access to the Graham masterworks.
This is a co-curricular event in collaboration with Classical Studies’ course on Greek Drama (CL 224), Yo-El Cassell’s movement courses and the dance program (Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance).
It is sponsored by the following BU organizations: BU’s Center for the Humanities, BU’s Arts Initiative, Kilachand Honors College, Department of Classical Studies, BU’s Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance Program, Core Curriculum’s NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities, Women and Gender Studies, and outside of BU by the Society for Classical Studies Classics Everywhere “Initiative.”
AT A GLANCE:
WHAT: Informal Lecture Demonstration with Martha Graham Dance
Company Artistic Director, Janet Eilber, and dancers
WHEN: Tuesday, October 22, 5:30-7pm
WHERE: BU Dance Theater, 915 Commonwealth Ave. (entrance on
Buick St.)
TICKETS: Free and open to the public; tickets through Eventbrite
INFORMATION: 617-353-1597 or https://grahamatbu.eventbrite.com
CONTACT: Stephen Scully; 617-353-2427; sscully@bu.edu