Martha Graham Dance Company

The oldest dance company in the nation, Martha Graham Dance Company will anchor Jacob’s Pillow’s efforts this year to honor groundbreaking women who have shaped, and are shaping, dance in the U.S., during the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The program, offered during the company’s own centennial year, will feature some of Graham’s most defining works, including Night Journey (1947)—part of her Greek cycle with sets by Isamu Noguchi and music by William Schuman—and Immediate Tragedy (1937), a politically charged response to the Spanish Civil War. The company will also present We the People (2024), a dance of 21st century Americana choreographed by Jamar Roberts that thrums with folk music and a spirit of collective change, and which features a score by Grammy Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens, arranged by Gabe Witcher. These works highlight Graham’s revolutionary voice as an artist who used dance to speak out for democracy, women’s rights, and freedom of expression.

The Graham centennial will also be marked by a new work, En Masse, jointly commissioned and presented by Jacob’s Pillow and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood (Andris Nelsons, Music Director). Choreographed by former Alvin Ailey dancer Hope Boykin, En Masse is set to a score by composer Christopher Rountree which incorporates a recently recovered 49-second composition believed to have been created for Graham by Leonard Bernstein.

Graham’s connections to Pillow founder Ted Shawn began in 1916 when she studied with Shawn and his wife Ruth St. Denis and launched her performing career with Denishawn. Her legacy continues to shape generations of choreographers and performers.

These men and women easily embody the choreographer’s sense of dancers as angelic athletes.

The Wall Street Journal