WHEN:
January 18, 2025
WHERE:
Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Segerstrom Hall
600 Town Center Drive
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
A spokesperson describes the event as follows:
"...Known as one of the most influential forces of the 20th century, Martha Graham presented her first performance on April 18, 1926. Since that date, considered to be the launch of the Martha Graham Dance Company, Graham’s groundbreaking and uniquely American style of dance has influenced generations of artists and continues to captivate audiences worldwide.
For this season, the company has curated their works to include glorious classics from the Graham repertory including the celebration of springtime in the wilderness, Appalachian Spring (1944) to Aaron Copland’s now famous original score, and the universal figure of determination and resilience in the solo Immediate Tragedy – with its newly imagined score by Christopher Rountree; the original music in 1937 was by Henry Cowell.
Two newer pieces will also take center stage showcasing their continued relevance, excellence and innovation: CAVE, a high-energy techno club inspired piece In 2022, by the versatile Hofesh Shechter, who created this work for and with our Company dancers a work rendered so powerfully that it reaches beyond the dancing onstage to include and inspire the audience.
The newest work, from early 2024, We The People, choreographed by Jamar Roberts to a score by Rhiannon Giddens, as arranged by Gabe Witcher, offers the historic sound of American folk music. We the People is a protest piece; said Roberts, “Equal parts protest and lament, we speculate on the ways in which America does not always live up to its promise: a reminder that the power for collective change belongs to the people."
The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the evolving art form of modern dance since its founding in 1926. It is both the oldest dance company in the United States and the oldest integrated dance company. Martha Graham and her Company have expanded contemporary dance’s vocabulary of movement and forever altered the scope of the art form by rooting works in contemporary social, political, psychological, and sexual contexts, deepening their impact and resonance.
Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences..."
