Like the Cole Porter song goes, ‘another opening, another show’.  On Tuesday the Martha Graham Company opened its 96^th season to a full house at the Joyce Theatre.  No doubt the return of the Graham company in New York City was highly anticipated and was met with well deserved fanfare.  From the beginning of the show with director, Janet Eilber’s eloquent and well delivered curtain speech we were in for a good night.  And overall, I would have to say the Graham company had a very strong opening night, it wasn’t without some faults or duds, but as a whole the masterworks of Martha Graham elevated the performance and allowed us the audience to be swept off our feet.

            The show opened with Grahams iconic work Diversion of Angels which had its premiere in 1948.  I only mention its premiere date to highlight its timelessness and relevance for today.  Diversion of Angels shows us the many facets of love and its expression, but it is also essentially a showcase of the physicality and technical demands of the Graham technique.  It’s a brilliant work that still challenges and exposes the much more technically adept dancers of today.  And while some rose to the challenge and managed to soar like angels, others didn’t quite meet the requirements for this piece yet.  The dancers who stood out the most for their technical brilliance and freedom of expression were Lloyd Knight, Principal of the company who showed why he is in fact on top and gave us an authentic graham experience, Alessio Crognale for capturing the beauty and rapture behind the duet of the couple in white, and Marzia Memoli, who flew across stage as the sprightly girl in yellow, jumping with all the joy of the return to the stage.  They carried me through this piece with their joie de vivre.  And while I said earlier some dancers couldn’t quite keep up with the technical challenges of the Graham technique, they nonetheless are all beautiful and accomplished dancers.  It was just lacking in authenticity of style.

            The next piece on the program was perhaps the most unique and exciting moment of the night.  It was the recreation of the solo Immediate Tragedy choreographed by Martha Graham in 1937 in response to the atrocities women faced during the Spanish Civil War.  What was so unique about this solo though is that there is no recorded footage of it, and it was recreated only through a catalog of recently discovered pictures of Graham herself performing the solo.  So, the process of recreation was one of collaboration and imagination.  Using the knowledge of the Graham technique and aesthetic and mixing that with the standards and practices of today’s contemporary movement vocabulary, we got to witness the perfect blend of old mixed with new.  It was one of those rare moments when the alchemy of a piece and its process came together seamlessly and produced a work of magic and power.  The solo was filled with intensity and the spirit of oppression and resistance.  Immediate Tragedy was brilliantly executed by the other worldly Xin Ying, who brilliantly expressed the emotional range of the solo, while also executing the very demanding choreography with assurance.

            After such a treat, the next piece on the program failed to continue the momentum of the night.  The Graham company presented the world premiere of the very much in demand and I personally believe, over hyped choreographer Andrea Miller’s piece titled Scavengers.  In Scavengers, Miller presented to us 4 separate duets and one solo, all of which were disconnected from each other.  The piece was more an exercise in partnering that an fully fleshed out dance piece, because despite all the intricacies of the duets, there was no emotional connection or through line of the piece.  And because of its lack of emotional content, I found that there was nothing to latch onto to give it any distinction.  It also felt incomplete in the way that each duet never had a clear finish, and the lights would just fade in the middle of a phrase and come back up onto another couple.  The only thing of interest in the piece was the solo danced by Anne Souder who’s supple, and elastic dancing was mesmerizing to watch, but her solo, like the duets, was marred by poor lighting choices and reduced its overall effectiveness.  The piece had potential but unfortunately, Andrea Miller managed to waste the incredible dramatic talents of the dancers and instead presented a piece that lacked depth and character.  

            And finally, to finish off the evening we were presented with the timeless Graham classic Appalachian Springs.  Where the Miller piece lacked emotional depth or a semblance of a story, Appalachian Springs gave us everything that Scavengers was missing.  From the score by Aaron Copland, to the set by Isamu Noguchi, and the choreography by Martha Graham, Appalachian takes you on a journey that nourishes the soul.  What is so remarkable about Appalachian is that it is both easy to follow along without being too simple and straightforward.  And the dancers presented this work successfully.  Anne O’Donnell, as the bride captured the joy and hope of a women about to embark on a personal adventure of discovery and self-fulfillment.  She dazzled in her solo, throwing off pitch turns and executing the demanding floor work with ease and breathe.  Lloyd Knight again gave us a master class in the Graham aesthetic as well as bringing gravitas to the role of the Preacher.  And Lloyd Mayor as the husbandman had a presence that was both commanding and assertive, as well as tender and warm, and the connection that he and Anne O’Donnell shared was heartfelt and believable.  Though Appalachian Spring can come off as dated in style to some, it still manages to illicit a real emotional reaction that is absent from most pieces being choreographed today.  And from the last chords of the music, as the Bride and the Husbandman look off into the horizon at all the possibilities of the future, the poignancy of the moment is felt, and I left the theatre feeling elated with the same hope for the future of dance.