Masterworks of movement

“I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of mankind — the landscape of the human soul.” – Martha Graham (1894-1991)

Martha Graham embodied the spirit of dance in the 20th century, making it in a sense something singularly American. The work she created grounds us, literally, allowing us to feel our common humanity through a new dance aesthetic divorced from classical ballet.

Graham’s influence echoes, consciously or not, through the decades. On Saturday, July 13, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's Lumina Festival of the Arts opens a window into not only Graham's genius but also that of two of her most illustrious protégés, Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) and Paul Taylor (1930-2018).

Appropriately enough, “Footprints” is the name given this evening of three dances by these legendary dance makers. Kristen Brogdon, the festival founder and former head of UNCW’s Office of the Arts (she left for a new post at the University of Minnesota a few weeks ago), in a way bequeathed “Footprints” to Lumina Festival audiences with help from the American Dance Festival in Durham.

ADF faculty members Blakeley White-McGuire, Andrea Weber, and Michael Trusnovec each have an intimate relationship with the dances for “Footprints.” They themselves are echoes of Graham’s legacy.

White-McGuire was a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 2002 to 2017 and is responsible for teaching Graham’s “Dark Meadow Suite” to the ADF students.

Graham herself said “'Dark Meadow' is a re-enactment of the mysteries which attend the eternal adventure of seeking.” She was fascinated by ritual and Jungian psychology and, according to notes on the company’s website, was inspired also in this work by memories of her time observing life among native peoples of the American Southwest and Mexico.

“Dark Meadow Suite” is taken from a larger work by Graham, and focuses on the ensemble variations including unison dancing and partnering to music by Mexican composer Carlos Chavez. Graham, apparently, wants audiences to embrace whatever moves them in the dance, unencumbered by any specific idea or story, seeing for themselves any light that penetrates the darkness.

Weber and Trusnovec each spoke by phone from Durham, where rehearsals were in progress for "Footprints." The Cunningham work "How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run," is in the hands of Weber. She performed the work and more than 25 others with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company over her seven years there as a dancer.

Weber said that Cunningham collaborated on "How to Pass" with his lifelong partner, composer John Cage. She pointed out that the score for this dance is actually spoken word.

“Merce and John would create their own scores, or choreography, as Merce would say, separately, and there was an agreed upon time (duration). And then, for the performance, they would happen at the same time but they would be separate entities.

“So the creative process, for Merce? As a dancer we would just learn the steps. We would learn the rhythms. We would learn the timing and then we would get on stage and hear the music for the first time! There's a security in the movement because there's an underlying rhythm so clear that the music (or words) would stay on top and be its own separate thing.”

The text by Cage is read live, and Weber described the disconnect between the score and the choreography as playful rather than comical, as the title suggests. That lightheartedness, too, manages to come through Cunningham’s incorporation of pedestrian movement with a sustained and rigorous athleticism.

Cunningham’s use of everyday movement in "How to Pass" predates Taylor’s "Esplanade" by about 10 years. Yet Taylor’s work, too, is remarkable and engaging on a different level.

Trusnovec danced "Esplanade" many times over his 23-year career with The Paul Taylor Dance Company.

"I think what he was experimenting with (was) the sort of post-modern thing where people were taking pedestrians' movement and looking at it as dance," Trusnovec said. “I think Paul was inspired by seeing a girl running for a bus and she formalized it in such a way and connected it to the music by Bach that he used that made this an incredible master work that sneaks up on the audience and grabs them and takes them on this incredible journey.”

The journey, as related by Trusnovec, takes us from the simple place that begins with a community of dancers just walking, to the final section of the work in which people are running and hurling themselves through space.

“The dancers go from these normal, everyday simple walks and changing of direction to superhuman little tricks -- still running, falling, sliding, skipping, all of the same base materials there. But the way Paul built and constructed the work when it reaches that final section is breathtaking, heart stopping. Not only for the dancers, but for the audience.”

The physical connection that may be discernible from Graham to Cunningham to Taylor is, by Weber’s reckoning, in the body’s core, the spine and the attitude of the rest of the body around it. But, mostly, this evening is designed for audiences not to think, but enjoy. Reflect later.

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Want to go?

Who: UNCW’s Lumina Festival of the Arts presents “Footprints,” an evening of dance masterworks by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 13

Where: Kenan Auditorium, UNCW campus

Info: Tickets are $50, $35 and $20.

Details: 910-962-3500 or UNCW.edu/arts/lumina/index.html