The Dance Historian Is In: Ronnie Ancona on Martha Graham’s Greek Dances

This event will take place online via Zoom as well as in person at The Library for the Performing Arts. A streaming link will be emailed to everyone on the morning of the event for those wishing to attend virtually.

In the middle of the twentieth century, renowned dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham, and sculptor and set designer, Isamu Noguchi, collaborated on a group of dances based on Greek myth. In this program, Ancona draws material from her new book, Martha Graham’s Greek Myth-Based Dances and Her Collaboration with Isamu Noguchi (Bloomsbury Academic 2026), which argues that the bold and woman-centered receptions of Greek myth created by Graham emerged from Graham and Noguchi’s mutual understandings of space and movement, objects and bodies. She traces the influences of ancient Greek myth on these dances as well as the ways in which Graham (and Noguchi) have created something new from this heritage through their own interpretations. This presentation will include photos and video clips from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

For more than 10 years, The Dance Historian Is In at the Library for the Performing Arts has highlighted a diverse range of dancers and choreographers across history. This series began when archivist and historian David Vaughan started volunteering at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Vaughan began a monthly program showing his favorite dance films from the Division's extensive collection, through which he unearthed many treasures, and helped acquire even more. Vaughan continued the series until the end of his life. Today, we honor his memory and work by inviting dance historians from all over the world each month to carry on the tradition of highlighting dance history through the Dance Division's moving image collection.

Photo Credit: Martha Graham as the Sorceress in Cave of the Heart. Photo  by Cris Alexander, 1947. Jerome Robbins Dance Division.