Onstage with Martha Graham: Stories of flawed genius and interesting times - Vancouver Ballet Society
By Kristen Lawson
“I’m asked, ‘How do you go from flying to dancing?’ To me it seems natural; both need space and yield new concepts of it… And both can become pure action in which self-awareness vanishes, leaving unearthly joy.”
Onstage with Martha Graham follows the story of its author, Stuart Hodes, and his decades-long relationship with the revolutionary choreographer Martha Graham. He was drafted into the airforce at 18, only taking his first dance class in his twenties. Soon after, he was recruited into Graham’s modern dance company, as young men trained in anything but combat were hard to come by in 1946.
Hodes’ portrayal of Graham is both reverent and haughty, showing her genius and her flaws through the many performances and arguments the two shared. He portrays Graham as a great leader, although one who was neglected as a child, and who as an adult demands adoration and obedience from those around her.
We get to witness Grahams’ creative process through stories from her rehearsals. On the creation of one of his commissioned compositions, Louis Horst says, “Martha handed me a sheaf of paper with all the counts written out and said, ‘Put notes to these counts.’”
Tales of touring, backstage shenanigans and the demanding realities of life as a dancer are all too relatable. The company makes headdresses in a hotel lobby and performs with impromptu sets. The dancers struggle to support themselves financially and contend with major injuries. Many dancers reading Hodes’ book will be transported back to moments from their own lives, visceral memories of drilling triplets across the floor and that infamous “the show must go on” mentality.
The writing, however, is pedestrian, providing fragments of narrative that jump from the 1940s, to the 1970s, then back to the 1950s. Hodes states facts simply, as if writing in a journal (many of the scenes are based on his journal entries). The structure of the stories and chapters doesn’t always flow as there is no through-line to tie everything together. Some points need more context to be understood, while others are belaboured.
Yet this journal-style memoir is a good read for those who want to better understand Martha Graham and her cultural context, or who enjoy glimpsing the past through lively snippets from the lives of famous artists. Hodes shares stories of other dancers and dancemakers he encountered during his dancing days, from Merce Cunningham to Anne Theresa De Keersmaeker, making his varied opinions of them known without flinching. My favourite anecdote features a three-sentence-long grant application from Twyla Tharp.
However, honest glimpses into history come with some cringe-inducing moments, such as when Hodes dances in shows with blatant cultural stereotypes, like Arabian Nights, and the way he describes women, declaring choreographer Helen Tamiris “must have been a wow in her prime.” He’s a mid-century macho man, in constant competition with everyone around him, including Martha Graham. The present version of Hodes, writing in 2020, doesn’t show any awareness of how problematical these actions were.
Read Onstage with Martha Graham, published by University Press of Florida, for the history it contains, not the story. The narrative is fractured but the first person account of these events that occurred over multiple decades, across continents, provides some perspective on what it was like to live through those times.
Tags: dance history dance memoirs Helen Tamiris international dance news Martha Graham Stuart Hodes