Martha Graham Contribution To Dance

Register to read the introduction… Dance wasn’t the first physical activity she thought of but she stayed fit and healthy through other sports until her teenage years. In 1911, at the age of 13, Graham went and saw a performance by Ruth St. Denis at the Mason Opera House in Los Angeles. After seeing the performance she pleaded her parents to let her begin studying the beautiful form of art that was dance. Her parents however, due to their religious beliefs, would not allow her to study dance. Instead, Graham enrolled in the junior school, Cumnock College which was involved in other related arts. Graham was still inspired to dance though, and when her father passed away in the year of 1915, she almost immediately enrolled in the newly founded dance school; Denishawn. Denishawn was a dance school founded by husband and wife, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. It was one of the first to teach modern dance professionally and gave anyone the right to learn modern dance and other related arts. Graham had never had a dance lesson before but being the shy, hardworking girl she was, she soon impressed Ted Shawn and toured with his troupe in the production of Xochtil in 1921, which was based on an Indian legend. Graham played a very emotional and …show more content…
Graham also toured America in her role in the production of Electra for four years. During the tour, Graham began to show interest in the American Indians of the South West. It was this interest that inspired one of her greatest works, Frontier (1936). This dance, which only lasted 7 minutes, was a solo performance danced by Martha Graham. Frontier involved a lot of locomotor movement and was very out-going for its time. Graham wore a stylish version of a homespun dress from the previous century (shown in picture to the