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| Martha Graham portrait by Paul Raphael Meltsner |
Naturally, they danced
around the topic.
“I went to see her one
afternoon in her apartment on East 63rd Street and immediately I had
the feeling, as I always did when I was alone with her, of being in the
presence of greatness — a greatness frayed, at this moment, by rage and
despair. She knew why I was there, and she must have hated the sight of me.
“Yet, for our first hour
together, she was her usual seductive, manipulative self. There were occasional
interruptions, brief visits to a back room from which she returned each time
with brighter eyes and seemingly heightened energy.”
Houseman remembered her
saying, “I’m a proud, vain, spoiled woman, John, and have been for 40 years …
my analyst tells me I’ll realize one day that I’m not a goddess.”
“(L)ayer by layer, the full
depth of her distress was revealed. I couldn’t blame her. For close to 50
years, much of the time by herself, she had fought and struggled to create,
with her brain and her muscles, a body of entirely personal and dangerously
original work. During that time she had assembled a company of high quality and
held it together under terrible conditions of deprivation and public
indifference.
“Finally, in middle age,
she had achieved a measure of success that she had built gradually into general
acceptance and international fame. Now, in her mid-70s, with her spirit
undaunted and her creative powers at their peak, she was facing the horror of
her own inevitable physical deterioration. Gradually her own dancing — the
essential instrument of her creation — was becoming a liability to herself and
her company.
“Better than anyone else
she was aware that critics and audiences were being tolerant of her failing
powers out of respect and admiration for her past achievements; aware, too, (and
it hurt and angered her) that there was a growing feeling, among audiences and
among her own people, that it was her artistic obligation to herself and to her
company to let younger women replace her in the great dancing roles which she
had created for herself over the years but which it was still emotionally
impossible for her to accept could be danced by anyone else.”
Source: “Final Dress” by
John Houseman
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| The Martha Graham dance Company performs her 1948 work "Diversion of Angels." |
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