Martha Graham

Mention modern dance and one immediately thinks of the inimitable Martha Graham, who died in Manhattan on Monday at age 96. Dancer and choreographer extraordinaire, she defined the idiom, ultimately becoming the most honored figure in American dance.Her genius and passion transported the lexicon of modern dance into world art. She was neither its inventor nor its only pioneer, but it was she who shaped the genre. Her rarefied technique, the school and company she founded and the huge body of work bearing her name puts her in the class of Picasso, Stravinsky and James Joyce in engendering a form of expression that shattered the traditional mold.

Audiences never knew what they would see when they bought tickets to one of the more than 200 modern dances choreographed by pioneer Merce Cunningham. Ticket-buyers might be handed iPods and encouraged to randomly shuffle the musical score while watching the performers. They might see animated, highly colored, spectral figures created with motion capture technology emerge from darkness and seemingly move through a three-dimensional space. Or they might watch a dance that had been put together in part using a computer software program.

"Goddess: Martha Graham's Dancers Remember," by Robert Tracy. Limelight Editions. 323 pages.Calling a book about Martha Graham "Goddess" rather than the more obvious "Priestess" is attention-getting. Graham, the leader of the modern dance movement from the 1930s through the 1960s, never dubbed herself a goddess as Robert Tracy does here. But there is a rationale in his title. His book is a compilation of interviews and reflections about Graham by dancers who worked with her throughout the decades.

Mark Ryder, a retired University of Maryland dance department chairman who performed alongside Martha Graham in the 1940s, died of Alzheimer's disease Thursday at an extended-care facility near his Columbia home. He was 85. Born Sasha Liebich in Chicago, he moved to New York with his mother. Family members said that at age 12, Mr. Ryder began his dance training in the children's program at the Neighborhood Playhouse in Greenwich Village, where he was singled out by faculty member Martha Graham.

OF ALL THE revolutionaries of 20th Century art, Martha Graham seemed to have found a way to live and challenge convention forever.It is even hard to believe that she died yesterday at age 96, after dancing and choreographing for three-quarters of a century. She died of cardiac arrest at her Manhattan home after coming down with pneumonia following a 55-day tour of the Far East with her Martha Graham Dance Company.She choreographed more than 180 dances, the last of which she invented last October.

Like corn flakes and cotton sheets, often it's the basics that satisfy the most. Last night the Martha Graham School Ensemble ably confirmed that sentiment in a one-time performance at the UMBC theater.This internationally flavored and talented company of young dancers under the artistic direction of Yuriko, a longtime principal dancer with Ms. Graham's company, performed a gratifying program of three of the late choreographer's dances with all the fundamentals of Ms. Graham's rigorous choreography intact.

The Martha Graham Dance Company came to Wolf Trap for an all-too-brief two-day stay on Tuesday night. The company, now under the artistic direction of Ronald Protas, a longtime associate of the late Martha Graham, still has the power to elevate its audience.Opening the program was "Acts of Light," set to the introspective music of Carl Nielsen. The dance could be a synopsis of Graham's choreographic legacy, for there are distinct references to her other dances.The work opened with a chorus of men, draped in soft fabric, who moved in a slow, stately fashion across the stage.

There isn't a dancer in America who doesn't owe something to Martha Graham. Even those who disagreed with her philosophy of movement admired her determination, courage and unswerving dedication to the art form.Ms. Graham, who died Monday at 96, molded her eponymous company in a time before federal art grants. And she trained her dancers and presented her works despite an initial critical reaction that might best be called confused. Yet, even when the critics were unkind, her vision of a new dance form fed on the energies of her time and her country, leading not just to a new way of dancing but a new way of looking at the art. American modern dance was her invention.

NEW YORK -- Martha Graham, a revolutionary in the arts of this century and the American dancer and choreographer whose name became synonymous with modern dance, died yesterday in her home in Manhattan. She was 96.Miss Graham died of cardiac arrest after being treated for two months for pneumonia, said Ron Protas, general director of the Martha Graham Dance Company.Miss Graham had become ill in December after a 55-day tour of the Far East with her troupe. She entered the hospital on Jan. 15 and returned home on March 20.Frequently ranked with Picasso, Stravinsky and James Joyce for developing a form of expression that broke the traditional mold, Miss Graham was initially acclaimed as a great dancer.

The Kennedy Center is bursting at the seams with dance this week, from fake Martha Graham to dazzling ballet virtuosity.American Ballet Theatre, the closest thing this country has to the great Russian troupes, is in the midst of a weeklong run in the Opera House. Its mixed rep program, at 8 tonight, includes Agnes de Mille's "Fall River Legend," a dramatic ballet based on the tormented life of accused ax murderer Lizzie Borden; Sir Frederick Ashton's lilting "Les Patineurs" ("The Skaters")

Billy Graham closing book on big crusades After preaching to more than 210 million people in nearly 200 countries over the past 50 years, Billy Graham is nearing the end of his crusades. The 81-year-old Southern Baptist preacher, who has Parkinson's disease, said his crusade in Nashville next week will be one of his last although he'll continue preaching to smaller groups. "I felt in my heart that this would be the last year of my crusades, and Nashville is one of the cities God laid on my heart to visit," Graham said.

The Kennedy Center is bursting at the seams with dance this week, from fake Martha Graham to dazzling ballet virtuosity.American Ballet Theatre, the closest thing this country has to the great Russian troupes, is in the midst of a weeklong run in the Opera House. Its mixed rep program, at 8 tonight, includes Agnes de Mille's "Fall River Legend," a dramatic ballet based on the tormented life of accused ax murderer Lizzie Borden; Sir Frederick Ashton's lilting "Les Patineurs" ("The Skaters")

"Goddess: Martha Graham's Dancers Remember," by Robert Tracy. Limelight Editions. 323 pages.Calling a book about Martha Graham "Goddess" rather than the more obvious "Priestess" is attention-getting. Graham, the leader of the modern dance movement from the 1930s through the 1960s, never dubbed herself a goddess as Robert Tracy does here. But there is a rationale in his title. His book is a compilation of interviews and reflections about Graham by dancers who worked with her throughout the decades.

The Martha Graham Dance Company came to Wolf Trap for an all-too-brief two-day stay on Tuesday night. The company, now under the artistic direction of Ronald Protas, a longtime associate of the late Martha Graham, still has the power to elevate its audience.Opening the program was "Acts of Light," set to the introspective music of Carl Nielsen. The dance could be a synopsis of Graham's choreographic legacy, for there are distinct references to her other dances.The work opened with a chorus of men, draped in soft fabric, who moved in a slow, stately fashion across the stage.

For those who take their dance seriously, the Kennedy Center's America Dancing series offers a retrospective of contemporary American dance that is a must see.The second installment of the five-year series, which opened Tuesday at the Terrace Theatre, focuses on the works of the "mother and father" of modern dance, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn.Denishawn, their original dance company, spawned choreographic greats such as Charles Weidman, Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham. The present-day company, Denishawn Repertory Dancers (working with Jane Sherman, a former Denishawn dancer)

As dance years go, 1995 was slightly above average in the Baltimore area -- even though this city's dance scene continues its crazy dance of one step back and one step forward.The step back is the disappearance of Dance on the Edge in the fall lineup. When Diane Ramo built her Dance on the Edge Series in the late '80s, she marketed it to urban professionals. She worked with the Baltimore Museum of Art, a location readily identifiable with culture, and she worked with dance companies that were on the cutting edge.

As dance years go, 1995 was slightly above average in the Baltimore area -- even though this city's dance scene continues its crazy dance of one step back and one step forward.The step back is the disappearance of Dance on the Edge in the fall lineup. When Diane Ramo built her Dance on the Edge Series in the late '80s, she marketed it to urban professionals. She worked with the Baltimore Museum of Art, a location readily identifiable with culture, and she worked with dance companies that were on the cutting edge.

I AM A FAILED DANCER. I WRITE THAT sentence while still out of breath from a session in front of the mirror, where I performed a spirited imitation of the dance solo that introduces Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," wearing my son's old bike shorts. I'm able to tell myself it was actually a quite creditable imitation. But that's because I'm alone in the house, and because Martha Graham, rest her angular and uncompromising soul, is dead.The most influential of all 20th century dancers, Martha Graham died April 1, 1991, at the age of 96. The death of my dancing dreams still wears her stark face.

Q: I am a nonprofessional dancer who would like to take a two-week respite in New York from my desk job to be in residence at a modern dance school. Do any of the well-known dance companies offer a short-term program?A: Many well-known companies tailor programs to nonprofessionals on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, 211 West 61st Street, New York, N.Y. 10023, (212) 767-0940, offers open enrollment throughout the year and a number of summer programs.Under open enrollment, students 15 or older, from adult beginners to professionals, can take classes six days a week in all levels of ballet, jazz, modern, African, tap and Dunham (Afro-Caribbean)

Like corn flakes and cotton sheets, often it's the basics that satisfy the most. Last night the Martha Graham School Ensemble ably confirmed that sentiment in a one-time performance at the UMBC theater.This internationally flavored and talented company of young dancers under the artistic direction of Yuriko, a longtime principal dancer with Ms. Graham's company, performed a gratifying program of three of the late choreographer's dances with all the fundamentals of Ms. Graham's rigorous choreography intact.