In a program unique to Los Angeles, the Martha Graham Dance Company presents MARTHA GRAHAM AND AMERICAN MUSIC on Saturday night at the CSUN Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge.

As a prelude to the performance, the troupe’s dancers will be joined by CSUN alumni and selected local dancers in the opening number PANORAMA. The main program begins with Graham’s tribute to the American Southwest, DARK MEADOW SUITE, followed by her “love ballet” DIVERSION OF ANGELS. Graham’s dark Medea-dance CAVE OF THE HEART is next, and the evening concludes with the last piece Graham choreographed, Scott Joplin‘s MAPLE LEAF RAG .

Martha Graham not only revolutionized dance in the twentieth century, she commissioned some of the great orchestral and chamber music of her time, working with Samuel Barber, Norman Dello Joio, Carlos Chávez, and Norman Lloyd—composers represented in MARTHA GRAHAM AND AMERICAN MUSIC, and performed live by the wild Up music collective/orchestra, conducted by Christopher Rountree.

 

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY—MARTHA GRAHAM AND AMERICAN MUSIC

VALLEY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, CSUN, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, Los Angeles.

valleyperformingartscenter.org/calendar/details/martha-graham-and-american-music

marthagraham.org

Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins at Bennington College, 1938.
Photographs by Barbara Morgan (co-founder of Aperture).
Image credit: Haggerty Museum