“It was important for me to not see Martha Graham,” declared Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company. “I didn’t want things that were Graham-esque. We have Graham. We have the most fabulous 20th century choreography that exists, in my opinion. So to bring someone in and ask them to do something like Martha is just too much of a mountain to climb. I really look for people who have developed their own distinct voices and ask them to take inspiration from one of Martha Graham’s ideas, but to create a completely different dance, something that is their own.”

The project about which Eilber is speaking is The New Canticle for Innocent Comedians which is having its world premiere this Saturday at The Soraya in Northridge. The original version by Graham debuted in 1952. But there is no permanent record of that work. All that exists were the memories of one former dancer and a film of one of the eight parts that make up the work, even though the original Canticle was revived in both 1969 and 1987.

“It was kind of a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy if anyone remembers what Xerox was in 1969,” she said of those revivals. “The initial performances were never filmed. So 18 years later many of the original cast came back and tried to remember what they had danced and they put together a revival. That revival was not filmed. In 1987, another 18, 19, 20 years later with an entirely new company, a few of the original cast came back and said, ‘we sort of did this. Maybe we did this. Let’s use our collective knowledge of Martha Graham and put something together.’ So when I was researching bringing it back to the stage again with no filmed record of any of those earlier efforts, I thought I’m not going to pretend that we know what Martha Graham choreographed back in 1952. But we had her structure, we had her blueprints. And I thought that would be great inspiration for some of these young emerging choreographic voices that I wanted to work with. Martha’s blueprint for Canticle for innocent Comedians, with its eight distinct vignettes about nature, gave me an excuse to have eight different choreographers involved.”

Joining one vignette choreographed by Graham and a second recreated by Sir Robert Cohan, a dancer in the original production, are works by Sonya Tayeh, Kristina and Sadé Alleyene, Jenn Freeman, Juliano Nuñez, Micaela Taylor and Yin Yue.

Tayeh may be the best-known of the choreographers for her work on So You Think You Can Dance and her Tony Award-winning choreography for the stage musical Moulin Rouge!

“Sonya’s choreography is very emotionally descriptive. And she has her own physical vocabulary that is quite different from Martha’s. But it’s still this idea of using using motion and movement to describe emotion.”

Emotion and heart are the keys to The New Canticle for Innocent Comedians maintaining a connection to the original work by Graham.

“You’ll see, even in this brand new version, that the emotion is just the emotion that comes through the dancing that we do,” Eilber offered. “Certainly the Martha Graham classics are all about the physicality that she invented to reveal emotion. To reveal, as she said, the inner landscape, the heart and that comes through. That was the core principle in all of her choreography. And I think it’s certainly true of our New Canticle – even though it’s got a great variety of creative artists who have put it together.”

Another artist joining in this project is musician/composer Jason Moran who has created a new score. For the world premiere he will be performing his music live. Two days later he’ll be recording the score for use in other upcoming Martha Graham Dance Company performances of The New Canticle for Innocent Comedians.

“Jason has gone in his own direction. It’s a long piece – long in a good way. It’s about 40 minutes for solo piano. It’s a tour de force for him to play for 40 minutes. Jason had carte blanche and he did not really have direct contact with any of the individual choreographers. He’s been working with Sonya and me. He came into the studio several times and you could just feel the sparks flying once he saw our dancers in person. He sat down at the piano in our studio and just began to create sounds and phrases that went with the choreography Sonya had already created.”

The New York Times, in a review of the 1987 revival, called the original work by Graham one of her “most atypical pieces.” It’s an assessment with which Eilber agrees.

“One reason that made it atypical in 1952 was that Martha Graham was not in it. The works that she was creating in the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s, for the most part, revolved around her. She was choosing narratives – borrowing stories from the Bible, from Greek myths, from wherever – to have a vehicle for herself as a leading actress and dancer. It wasn’t just a narcissistic trip. She often transformed these stories in genius, revolutionary ways.”

With Canticle, Eilber says, “She’s not creating a vehicle for herself. She’s creating virtuosic solos and duets for her company. So it’s an ensemble work. It does not have a narrative. There’s no bad guy or anything like that. So it’s a much more sort of poetic and abstract idea without a leading lady at the center of it.”

As for the leading lady, Martha Graham, Eilber thinks she’d be very interested and supportive of this new version of her work.

“As long as we’d ask her to bow and bring her up on stage she’d be happy,” Eilber said followed by a joyous laugh. “The other answer is, people think of Martha as the sort of old-fashioned, staid diva who wanted things a certain way, but it was quite the opposite. She was a revolutionary. She embraced change until the last day of her life and was always looking for new. She had an appetite for the new and and she was always looking for ways to astonish her audience; to figure out what was new and what she could do. So I just have to believe that she would be behind us all the way; that she would be interested in the experimentation that we’re doing.”

To watch my full conversation with Janet Eilber, please go here to our YouTube channel.

For tickets and more information on The New Canticle for Innocent Comedians please go here.

Main Photo: Martha Graham takes a bow (Photo by Martha Swope/Courtesy NYPL Archives)

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According to Dance Camera West’s Kelly Hargraves it all comes down to math.

“It is competitive to get into our festival. Last year we had 325 films submitted and we showed 50-60. This year we had 250 submissions and we’re showing 16. There’s a 10% chance you’ll get in…or less.”

Dance Camera West is a Los Angeles-based film festival that showcases the best in international dance films. Hargraves co-founded the festival twenty years ago and has served as the Executive and Artistic Director of Dance Camera West since 2018.

Like any festival in the past year, Dance Camera West has had to find new ways of doing things. The 2021 festival will take place on January 30th and 31st as a drive-in movie event at Santa Monica College in conjunction with The Broad Stage.

“I think it will be so cool to see these films so big,” said Hargraves by phone last week. “It’s also sad that we won’t all be communing which is why people love theater in the first place, but you won’t have to panic about safety. I’m not looking forward to seeing my face 25 feet high. If I come out of this with any ego, you’ll know it was strong.”

As for the films themselves, one thing Hargraves is pleased about is the reinvention of how dance can be presented on film.

“There are still 3-4 ways to make dance films, but the biggest evolution about dance is the loss of the proscenium frame and the films we choose don’t have a front view. We want the camera in duet with the performer, so the moving camera and performer create a different dimension of dance. Now because of the evolution of cameras and drones, it’s a lot more expansive. They have the ability to go from minute detail of a baby toe to a huge landscape and see how they fit in the environment.”

It should be noted that Hargraves does not decide which films make the festival each year.

“I’m working really hard to not just make it my vision. It needs to be hipper, cooler, more gender diverse. We have 30 people reviewing films and four people on a jury.”

The films that did make it into the festival range from films shot on a huge canvas before the pandemic to films that were shot under the restrictions required during it.

“I really like to go back and forth between what one artist can do on their own and what others with a big cast can do. Showing both side by side is fine. I don’t really want to show only the high production value. I want to help support the artists coming up with work on their own.”

One of the smaller, and more moving films, is Forest Floor, directed and choreographed by Robbie Synge. He appears in the film with his longtime collaborator Julie Cleves.

“It’s a beautiful film that touches people emotionally because of the way it’s made. What I like about that film is there’s a little bit of a narrative forming and characters and relationships that play out more in films than on stage. With those two the intimacy is there from the beginning because of their relationship.”

Given what the last few years have wrought on the world, it comes as no surprise that there are a couple films with politics on their mind. For instance, Heidi Duckler’s ESCAPE, which was filmed in three different locations in Chile in November 2019. Hargraves revealed a bit of how that film came to be.

“She didn’t set out to make it blatantly political until it became that and she decided they needed to capture what was going on. It’s a lovely film, the way they used the environment, the site specific-ness of it. The other one that is working directly toward that is Second Seed by Baye & Asa.” Second Seed was created in response to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.

Last year Dance Camera West was online. Hargraves is looking forward to a post-Covid festival in 2022.

“I’m looking forward to everything that happens after Covid! I swear I’m going to Target to enjoy it. I pray that our perspective has shifted and we’re full of gratitude for every little thing we see, do and touch. I hope people have discovered the power of dance films. The great thing about this year is people are discovering it in a new way.”

Every festival, whether by accident or design, somehow ends up reflecting who we are in a given moment. Famed dancer/choreographer Martha Graham wrote in her memoir, Blood Memory, “I feel the essence of dance is the expression of man – the landscape of his soul.”

Hargraves has very definite ideas of how Dance Camera West 2021 reflects the landscape of our souls.

“Artists are going to make work, especially dancers, with whatever they can. Whatever limitations they have, it’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity. How lucky are we that through this pandemic we’re all connected through social media and we have phones at home to take photos and videos. I just think dancers are amazing. They are making stuff out of nothing. It’s just there if you let yourself see it.”

Dance Camera West 2021 is being shown in two parts. Each night Program A and Program B will be shown. You can watch both programs in one night or come back on successive nights to see each program. There are eight films in each program. For details go here.

Main Photo: An image from ESCAPE (Courtesy Dance Camera West)

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New York Times critic John Martin said of the work, “Not since the eloquent and beautiful Frontier, first presented three seasons ago, has she given us anything half so fine as Immediate Tragedy.”

This work was never filmed and was considered a lost masterpiece. Until now.

After a considerable amount of material was discovered by Graham biographer Neil Baldwin (including photos, reviews, letter and musical notations), Martha Graham Dance Company has collaborated with Wild Up’s Christopher Rountree and Thor Steingraber at The Soraya to come up with a new version of Immediate Tragedy that speaks to our time.

This reimagined piece features 14 dancers – all performing separately and safely from their own space – dancing to new music written by Rountree.

To help create their individual choreography, each dancer was given four photos and was tasked with designing specific movement phrases. The dancers, all members of the Martha Graham Dance Company, are So Young An, Alessio Crognale, Laurel Dalley Smith, Natasha Diamond-Walker, Lloyd Knight, Charlotte Landreau, Jacob Larsen, Lloyd Mayor, Marzia Memoli, Anne O’Donnell, Lorenzo Pagano, Anne Souder, Leslie Andrea William and Xin Ying.

Rountree and Wild Up (Jiji, Richard Valitutto, Jodie Landau, Brian Walsh and Derek Stein) used what little remains of Cowell’s original composition as their inspiration.

Cowell was an American composer who wrote 20 complete symphonies with significant work completed on a 21st (later finished by Lou Harrison.) His work inspired, amongst others, Bartok and John Cage. He published New Music Quarterly and was an ardent supporter of many composers including Charles Ives.

The video elements were edited by Ricki Quinn who has been working with Janet Eilbert, the Artistic Director of Martha Graham Dance Company, Wild Up and Steingraber on the world premiere of Immediate Tragedy.

You’ll be able to watch the end result of all these efforts when The Soraya premieres Immediate Tragedy on Friday, June 19th on their Facebook page at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT. The next day it will also be available on the Graham Company’s YouTube Channel at 2:30 PM EDT/11:30 AM PDT.

Photo of Martha Graham in Immediate Tragedy by Robert Fraser (Courtesy of Martha Gram Resources, a division of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc.)

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Not only does she dance the lead story of the girl who dreams of going to the Castle Ball in hopes of meeting the Prince, she also serves as Dance Captain for the production.  (Cordelia Braithwaite also dances the role at select performances.)

Local audiences had a chance to see her most recently as Vicky Paige in Bourne’s The Red Shoes. Shaw’s additional roles with New Adventures include Princess Sugar in Nutcracker!, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Kim Boggs in Edward Scissorhands and Lana in The Car Man.

I recently spoke with Shaw about her work with Bourne, learning to be an actress and her passion for leotards.

In 2010/2011 you were the understudy for Cinderella. Now you have the star role. Can you compare the pressure of trying to prove yourself as understudy to the pressure you now have being the lead of the show?

They are two very different pressures. It’s very hard to be a cover in a way because you don’t get to do it very often so every time feels like the beginning and you are at square one. But as a cover you get a lot of support and everyone is excited. On the other side being the main Cinderella is a different pressure about consistency and expectations are much higher. That’s something I’ve had to develop with age and being in the company for a long time. 

Sarah Wildor, who was one of the originators of this role, talked about the joy of living with a role over a long period of time and being able to grow with you. Do you share her observation?

That is one of the really wonderful things about New Adventures. We do so many performances. We’re at 260-some shows right now. We’ve done it a lot. We filmed Cinderella on, I think, our fifth show. But even watching that show it’s almost a completely different performance than what I do now.

What have you learned most about yourself in the 10 years you’ve been with Bourne?

I think one of the biggest things for me would definitely be that I am actually an actress as well as a dancer. In my training you never really learn acting as intensely as technique. That’s something I’ve learned and developed by being in the company. Matt’s work is very story-based and without the acting you couldn’t be in the company.

But acting is so much a part of the expression of emotion. There’s no real acting training for dancers?

I don’t think it is enough as it should be. I was trained pretty much strictly classical ballet. Most of my life you learn these mime elements: crossed arms is death, doing a crown means royalty. It’s more symbolism than actual acting and emotion. I think we should do more acting in dance school since all dance requires that.

You played Vicky Paige in The Red Shoes. Is that role more like you or are you more like Cinderella?

Ooh, interesting. In all honestly, Vicky Paige is more like me than Cinderella. Both have elements of my personality, yet some are very different from me. But The Red Shoes, being about dance and her ambition to be a famous dancer, parallels me a bit more.

Which of these roles challenges you more and why?

I think physically Vicky was challenging. Stamina-wise that show is so big and very hard. Our company doesn’t usually wear pointe shows. What’s hard about Cinderella is she’s two people: downtrodden, meek and shy and the other is glamorous, dreamy and passionate. That’s hard to tap into both sides. I love them both.

You’ve said that when you saw your first ballet at age six or seven that you wanted to be one of the girls in the tutus. How did you develop your obsession for leotards?

I do have an obsession with leotards! I love them! When you are growing up it’s almost your uniform and when you grow up people rebel from them. I love dressing up. I love tutus and costumes and sequins. In my day-to-day I love to dress up. But I love leotards.

Dancer/choreographer Martha Graham once said, “Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.” What’s the miracle of your career and what type of dance would you use to celebrate it?

I think the miracle of my career is, so far, how long and exciting it has been. I hope that it continues and I’m so grateful to be in this company and to be in these roles. This is my dream company. If you had told that 14-year-old girl I’d be at New Adventures for ten years, she’d never have believed it.  I couldn’t be happier or more grateful.

And the dance you would do?

I would do the dance I’m doing. That’s what I like is you can’t pinpoint one style to New Adventures. We tend to do all styles.

All Production Photos by Johann Persson/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group

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Director Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project has the second of their two programs at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. The three performances that begin on Thursday are part of their year-long Company-in-Residence with the Beverly Hills Venue.

There are four works on the bill for the spring program. They are:

“Duets” by Martha Graham

“Helix” by Justin Peck (which features music by Esa-Pekka Salonen)

“Sarabande” by Millepied

“Yag” by Ohad Naharin

If Millepied’s face seems familiar, he appeared in the film Black Swan, which he also choreographed. He also collaborated with Yuval Sharon (who is involved with Mahler’s Song of the Earth with the LA Philharmonic this week) on his project Invisible Cities. Millepied did the choreography for that unique opera presented at Union Station.

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