Martha Graham Dance Company at New York City Center
Company:
Martha Graham Dance Company
The Martha Graham Dance Company’s 2018 season at New York City Center will feature Martha Graham masterworks alongside works by internationally acclaimed choreographers Lucinda Childs, Lar Lubovitch, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Music for all of the Graham classics will be played live by The Mannes Orchestra. Performances are Wednesday, April 11, at 7pm, and Thursday through Saturday, April 12–14, at 8pm.
The City Center season features Graham’s visceral masterwork The Rite of Spring, created in 1984; her powerful anti-war statement Chronicle from 1936; and sly melodrama Embattled Garden (1958), with its iconic set pieces by Isamu Noguchi. Also being presented is Ekstasis, a lost solo from 1933 reimagined by former Graham principal dancer Virginie Mécène in 2017 using just a few photos and writings by Graham that allude to her early experiments with a “pelvic thrust gesture.” Graham’s 1935 work Panorama will be performed by teens from across the New York metropolitan area. Having auditioned for this special project, these young dancers have spent months rehearsing for the City Center performances.
The season will also feature the world premiere of Histoire by renowned choreographer Lucinda Childs. Known for her works of elegant minimalism, Childs has expanded a duet that she created for the Company in 1999 into a mesmerizing work for eight dancers, with music by Krzysztof Knittel and Astor Piazzolla. The season also includes the Company’s first performances of esteemed choreographer Lar Lubovitch’s The Legend of Ten (2010), which maps the ever-shifting terrain of a Brahms quintet for piano and strings. The work is being presented in celebration of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company’s 50th anniversary. The Graham Company will also perform the work as part of the Lubovitch Company’s season at The Joyce Theater. Completing the program is the recently commissioned Mosaic (2017), a silky ensemble work by acclaimed Belgian-based choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and inspired by Sufi mysticism.
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