Nina Papathanasopoulou
October 28, 2024
Nina Papathanasopoulou discusses in further detail the two Martha Graham Greek-themed dances that will be performed as part of this year’s joint SCS/AIA 2025 Annual Meeting. This post follows Papathanasopoulou and James Ker’s post, Martha Graham Meets Ancient Greece in Philadelphia: it provides further context for Graham’s works and offers suggestions about their significance and aims. Included within the program of the annual meeting, the Martha Graham Dance Company performance draws attention to many aspects of the fields of Classical Studies and Archaeology, including their interdisciplinarity, accessibility, and long-lasting value.
A unique opportunity to watch two of Martha Graham’s Greek-themed dances awaits the attendees of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) / Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) Joint 2025 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The Martha Graham Dance Company is coming to perform Cave of the Heart, Graham’s reimagining of the Medea myth, and Errand into the Maze, a duet presenting Ariadne or any woman as she confronts and defeats the bestial Minotaur. The performance will take place on Saturday, January 4 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre as part of both the SCS/AIA annual meeting and the Martha Graham Dance Company’s three-year centennial celebration since its founding in 1926. This event aims to honor Graham’s deep engagement with Greek mythology and her innovative approaches to the ancient material, which still resonate powerfully today.
The performance will be preceded by introductory remarks by Professors James Ker and Nina Papathanasopoulou and by Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, Janet Eilber. A discussion with dancers and directors will follow the show. Earlier in the day, at 11am, an academic panel “Dance and Myth: The Reception of the Greeks by Martha Graham” will take place at the conference hotel featuring a diverse group of scholars, two dancers, and Ms. Eilber. The panel will offer scholarly context and build excitement for the evening’s performance.
Graham created both Cave of the Heart (1946) and Errand into the Maze (1947) shortly after World War II, while she was going through emotional turmoil with her main life partner, Erick Hawkins. Drawn to psychoanalysis and the emerging theories of Carl Jung, Graham turned to myth to explore the human unconscious and the female psyche. Both dances focused on the psychological journey of the female protagonist, a woman’s unseen emotional struggles. Graham was also inspired by Joseph Campbell’s work on mythical narratives and archetypical figures, and she used female heroes like Medea and Ariadne as archetypes through which to explore female emotions and desires. Her Greek-themed dances were also shaped through her ongoing collaboration with Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi created the sets and props that form an integral part of the dances, and the two of them worked closely for many decades.
Graham’s 28-minute Cave of the Heart focuses on the figure of Medea to explore the nature of a woman maddened by sexual jealousy and, as the original program put it, “the power of destructive love.” Graham’s relationship to Hawkins and her own feelings of jealousy must have been instrumental in her creation of this work. The music was commissioned by renowned American composer Samuel Barber, who experimented with dissonance and used a combination of archaic and contemporary idioms in the music to convey both the mythical nature of the characters and the universality and timelessness of the emotions that their dancing explores. The original production was titled Serpent Heart and premiered in the McMillan Theater at Columbia University on May 10, 1946. Graham herself danced the role of “one like Medea,” while Hawkins danced the role of “one like Jason.”
The title Cave of the Heart, with which Graham replaced ‘Serpent Heart’ in 1947, alludes to the hidden quality of much human emotion. Graham seems to invite us to think about the heart as an interior space that is dark, dangerous, and confusing but that can be explored – much like the “maze” of the second dance. Her dance is about the human capacity for transgression, and she uses the figure of Medea to explore the superhuman as well as subhuman ranges of behavior to which exploration of the heart’s cave can lead.
Errand into the Maze, too, presents the emotional struggles of a woman: this piece centers on the journey of a woman who overcomes her challenges to emerge victorious. The dance draws on the encounters that mythical heroes have with hybrid and savage monsters. Taking Theseus and the Minotaur as symbols, the dance presents a clash between civilization and savagery and the human struggle for survival, power, and control over the untamed and the inhuman. In Graham’s version, however, it is not the male hero Theseus, but a woman who confronts the Minotaur and tries to escape the Labyrinth. Graham’s Labyrinth may represent the complexities of a woman’s mind and psyche, and the dance a journey into the female soul. In Agnes De Mille’s Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham and Ernestine Stodelle’s Deep Song: The Dance Story of Martha Graham, the woman has been interpreted as the Cretan mythical princess Ariadne. Indeed, at some point the woman gathers the rope from the floor into a kind of ball, calling to mind Ariadne’s ball of thread. However, the character is also a representation of any woman who faces her inner fears. In the original program, Graham mentioned neither Theseus nor Ariadne, and she called the Minotaur “the Creature of Fear,” inviting us not only to identify with the woman’s struggles but to perceive the drama onstage as an allegory for a kind of broadly shared human experience. The sense of fear is reinforced by the ominous, percussive music of Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti.
On January 4 in Philadelphia, Errand into the Maze will be performed without the original sets and costumes. The Martha Graham Dance Company has been performing the dance without them in part out of necessity: in 2012, Hurricane Sandy severely damaged many of the company’s sets and costumes that were stored in a West Village basement, including those made by Noguchi for Errand into the Maze.
The roles of Ariadne (or perhaps any woman) and the Minotaur in Errand into the Maze will be danced by So Young An and Antonio Leone. Cave of the Heart consists of four characters: Xin Ying will perform Medea, Lloyd Knight will perform Jason, Laurel Dalley Smith will perform the Princess, and Ann Souder will perform the Chorus.
Janet Eilber and LaRue Allen, Executive Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, will both be present for the performance. Ms. Eilber has been the company’s Artistic Director since 2005. A graduate from the Julliard School, Ms. Eilber danced many of Graham’s greatest roles with the Company in the 1970s and 1980s. She was mentored by Graham herself and worked closely with Graham for almost a decade. She will share introductory remarks before the performance and will participate in the Q&A following the show. Ms. Eilber will also be interviewed at the scholarly panel on “Dance and Myth” scheduled for earlier that day.
It is our hope that the performance will offer a thrilling experience to both the scholarly and local community. We also hope that it will stimulate the audience to recognize some of the unrealized potential of reception studies and inspire some to continue to integrate the work of modern and contemporary artists into the scholarly study of the ancient Mediterranean world.
For more information on the performance and to buy tickets visit: https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/martha-graham
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