Janet Eilber in Martha Graham's Lamentation

Photograph of Janet Eilber in Martha Graham's Lamentation. New York, 1976.

"When I think of Lamentation, I remember an intimate rehearsal with Martha in the early months after we had reconstructed the solo in the mid 1970s. She found me struggling with the Tube in a small studio in the Amsterdam theater where we were to perform that evening. She sat down very close to me – only about 4 feet in front my position on the bench. Her direction did not remotely recognize the frustrating mechanics of manipulating the Tube. Whether or not it sagged or rode-up to my knees or – the ultimate disaster -- slipped off my head was my problem alone. She was consumed with my finding the essence of the emotion that was the solo. I was to become not a body but a shape, a rhythm, a dynamic that the audience would recognize subliminally – in their bones, muscles and hearts. She directed with potent images. The figure’s initial lean was to be “suspended over the empty womb”. The driven rocks from side-to-side were an attempt to escape the inescapable image of a “dead child in the ground. As we worked, evening arrived, the light gradually leaving the room and accentuating our solitude. Her instruction became even more instinctual. She began directing not with words, but with the sounds of grief. She guided me in each lean, torque or reach with small moans, wails, growls and gasps -- showing me that every move had a deep, specific visceral impetus. It was the finest possible lesson in Graham’s unique theater -- an unforgettable and formative glimpse inside her genius." – Janet Eilber

Photograph by Max Waldman