Mark Franco talk on Martha Graham

I took the following notes on my IPad (some incomplete and/or misspelt passages - I also added a few web links) Lecture shown by dance department School of Media and Performing Arts Middlesex University

15/10/12 Martha Graham Prof Mark Franco temple uni - http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/franko/4 books dancing mod Hercules OUP Ex dancer Martha graham in love and war -in historical context - book Seen in Dance history? Photo graham 70's Mimi coat What becomes a legend most Blood memory written for her don.t go to this auto Freud Einstein...Ghandi Book analysis 38-53 'dance fatigue' eclipse work frozen after death heir - issue authorship in her story but not in book - can perform for today - but problematic 20 years after death re-evaluate Eric Hawkins http://www.janisclaxton.com/teaching/technique/erick-hawkins and Graham http://marthagraham.org and http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/martha-graham/about-the-dancer/497/
Letters and notes at library of congress Choreographic notebooks published Hawkins broke up 50 met 35 Graham barb Morgan book photos - Gotham book mart 1960's Mark Franco worked with Sanasardo Dance Company Danced in to 60s 2nd life Schwartz afterlife name and rep Bennington American document Hawkins and graham - 38 political anti fascist - 30s dance socialist in 30s - great pressing political radicalisation - so socialism and communism - so NY - communities 20th Americanism- weekend race - progressive american communism Moscow or indigenous - grass roots ethos - graham disconnect ideological tug war- 30s fascism - focus left went to oppose- graham chimed so American doc- 1st malware - oppression indigenous slaver critical comments- initially anti war opposition within us Ring bell today recession-bush war on terror remove civil limbs - Jim Ruben - said fascism set agenda -slide democracy totalitarian Hitler- contradictory construct - regiments and frees people's lives - capitalism in crisis us today use myth live again origins witch's brews anti women in Olympia Hitler dance leni-riefenstahl athletic male body - graham needed male icon in terms of dispute male embody nation of national spoken word quotes historical docs- but not myth good theoretical grounding - Rudolph Laban invited not go - tipping point american national convention Adorno Brecht and Mann Mann there anti- fascist - toured us 39 - made mod dance accessible - propaganda - one man one million me rhetoric new deal Lois hours scrapbook lib of congress - she pop culture figure - gendered rhetoric on graham as public figure reputation choreograph - new masses advertised American - sponsored premiere Carnegie hall miss hush truth - consequences main street papers 47 pinnacle 37-41 fascism - because include self critique ends feminist consciousness- image constructed -invent Meg Denton dance critic said image- possible lack of flow - centrist like Langston Hughes - picked up press as productive feminist dancer but percussive ha personally obnoxious she not like manipulate press unhappy of image- last Appalachian spring Copland score film of this more historical - stops doing american - analysis - other characters taken out cope land in Hollywood ex escaped slave ex hawkins husband man like John brown absolution - char compression in movement - got more than see absence and presence Noguchi set designer 40s for uncle Tom cabin scene never billy Jonas piece similar - still pol subtext submerged - eric Hawkins solo tour write back into his he got score Copeland 1st dance fundraiser Rothschild got 27k donation not part fed theatre project- she was his factotum - handyman he called self - complex relationship ambition as dancer - after ww11 Greek myth Oxford scholar Jane Harrison anthropologist Elliot and Joyce dark meadow nif Ghat journey -after war archival research McDonald 73 biog listen interview tapes Erdman Campbell 38 myth Bennington -46 dark meadow -graham as theoretican impact political- Eluard (?) - Campbell Hitler sympathiser Jung unconscious Freud archetype night journey meets Eric Fromm escape from freedom who is fascist - conditions fascism- stuck problem pop rang birth trauma Jung said archetype collective unconscious race memory controversial Rank write trauma birth debunk oedipus complex- return mother return psycho theory never meets graham - art and artist 32 -and legends of incest Jocasta middle story oedipus narrative displace father make Rankian post Freudian theory - map interpretation yes was reading Fromm a-she had affair Fromm - not sourced the look Fromm papers ny she was a spy - Campbell again - debriefed by CIA - counterculture figure 40's - anti Oedipus so after Freud - flattened out by scholars who says she put women first Robert graves the white goddess - the golden bough Joyce elliot pound source Noguchi Nahito (?) dancer - 40-Yeats book Anglo-amer modernism Hawkins leaves 50 goes psych jungian analysis - vs ideas of Jung- voyage with Ross 1953 letters to Francis wicks developed while in psychoanalysis interpret as getting past breakup also injury- here graham abjures myth - psych dramatic - dancers loved Robert Cohan - Noguchi set- larger life figure stage revealing personal ritual using myth - image - book - clip from night journey Oedipus and jacosta and chorus - interesting dramaturge ally - heroine outside of time making choice she is within and outside jocosta has foreknowledge- coming and leaving foreseeing and retrospecting jungian refs look back modernism -and per adrienne rich by woman born- prophetic embodied- showed film clip Theoretical - historical to contextual use Colours what author doing Archival research brings back meaning - will make difference in performance Graham increase analysis when not close to source Q colours - grays contraction retreat into body bertrum Ross said in graham aesthetic something off she was own clothes designer American woan in red at end aesthetically the dramatergical later desert piece costumes in primary - more about poetic space night journey graham black or whit dress - Hawkins work orig night journey toga bertrum Ross was put in caps Cape of the heart costume - mainly for woman - Noguchi adds Colorado- archetypal acetic- splash color - great crafts person - interaction colour Q - After Hawkins younger men - q how objectify ideas so import other people - bob (?) answer through myth found way encryption like Appalachian spring - discovered space theory leave production space absolute space above and below - life death - and abstract - everything sky desert ocean visable space encryption there but buried - outside the inside so can't get to - graham could take personal - all relate Hawkins political + first relationship 2 womanizing 3 myth works realists time Hawkins limited age difference foresees separation encapsolates in myth audience in sight material but audience has to see own version of this invited use myth to see about self rather than about her- then stopped doing that and just did dance - people not know how liking piñata riche - some liked work but graham said don't interpret - relates to voyage - which objectified - then she just began to recycle the myth- she was a great writer - sense literary - quote in letter 'time seems only to serve as a crucible..." Use language in teaching.