Martha Graham Dance Co. @ Joyce

I confess to stereotyping Martha Graham's choreography as Norma Desmond posing for the camera in a stretchy costume, trying to be avant-garde.  I justify my preconceived notions from her choreography, "Cave of the Heart," 1946 and videos taken of Graham.  There is a great deal of remaining in one position with flaying limbs and crazed expressions of angst.  Graham is regarded at the forefront of modern dance in America.  The program forced me to contemplate what constitutes dance & modern dance (MD).  Dance, is a series of movements that capture an expression or aesthetic as it relates to music or sound.  Modern dance is an interpretation of movements outside the confines of a specific structure.  Emotions are the driving forces in MD.  Irregular or unspecific movements such as lying or falling are often seen in MD.  MD blurs the boundaries between dance & performance art.  To sustain itself,  recent choreography has been incorporated into the Graham Co.  Yvone Rainer's Lamentation variation (2007) consisted of a "Martha Graham" figure squatting on a block from which she never moves except to pull long purple tulle through her elastic costume and to turn away from the strobe light shone in her face by Janet Eilbert, the Company's Artisitic Dir.  This was one of a trio of tributes to 9/11.  The program ended with "Variations of Angels" an homage to MG's work.  I appreciated that Graham's style formed a strong foundation and future impact on later choreographers such as deMille and Ailey.  "We don't know about the past, except as we discover it. And we discover it from the now," M. Graham.  Graham said in her video, "there is one person to whom you speak in the audience."  I was not that one person.