A Portrait of the Artist and the Woman

“Technically speaking,  [Graham’s] is the single largest contribution in the history of Western dancing."             - Agnes DeMille

Time Magazine called her the “Dancer of the Century.”

Martha Graham believed that movement could express inner feeling.

Out of emotion comes form,"  said Graham, and out of form Graham was able to re-create emotion onstage.

She gave "visible substance to things felt" and set out to "chart the graph of the heart," ideas that were central to her art.

The Martha Graham technique, used by dance companies throughout the world, became the first long-lasting alternative to classical ballet. Her pioneering movements—powerful, dynamic, jagged, edgy, forthright—and her system of training, were the essence of American modernism; of performance as art.

Graham was a true revolutionary in the arts of the 20th century as an American dancer and choreographer. Her name was, and remains, synonymous with modern dance and has been in the company of the giants of modernism - - Picasso, Stravinsky,  James Joyce - in developing a form of expression that broke the traditional mold.  Her genius was universally recognized as she became the most honored figure in American dance as well in her choreographic masterworks and in her invention of a whole new dance language, producing, 181 works during a period of 60 years.

 Neil Baldwin’s acclaimed biography of Martha Graham (“majestic”- John Guare; “mesmerizing”-PW) - the first in three decades - gives us the artist and performer, the dance monument who led a cult of dance worshippers as well as the woman herself in all of her complexity, whose life, beset by conflict, competition, and loneliness—was filled with fire and inspiration, drive and passion, dedication and sacrifice in work and in dance creation.

Join us as we discuss with Neil Baldwin, biographer and cultural historian, the life and work of Martha Graham whose unyielding vision upended dance and propelled the art form into the modern age.

The Talk of the Town series of conversations with Victoria Wilson and Foster Hirsch takes place monthly at the Salmagundi Art Club in New York City.