Martha Graham Dance Company

The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the development of contemporary dance since its founding in 1926. Informed by the expansive vision of its pioneering founder, the Company has expanded contemporary dance’s vocabulary with masterpieces such as Appalachian Spring, Lamentation, and Chronicle, rooted in social, political, psychological, and sexual contexts. Always a fertile ground for experimentation, the Martha Graham Dance Company has been an unparalleled resource in nurturing many of the leading choreographers and dancers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Graham’s groundbreaking technique and unmistakable style have earned the Company acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Today, the Company continues to foster Graham’s spirit of ingenuity. It embraces a new vision that showcases classics by Graham, her contemporaries and their successors alongside newly commissioned works. The Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.

Lamentation is a "dance of sorrow." It is not the sorrow of a specific person, time, or place, but the personification of grief itself.

“This is a time of action, not re-action. The dance is action, not attitude, not an interpretation. There is a change in the artist's attitude toward his material. The modern dancer does not look upon it as an escape, but finds it exciting. There is a miracle in yourself. No dance can be transplanted from one nation to another and retain its purity and integrity. The history of the dance is the social history of the world.” – Martha Graham