The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Hosts the 2024 Dance Symposium Focusing on Martha Graham

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center presents the 2024 Dance Symposium, a day-long exploration of Martha Graham and her legacy as her company celebrates its centennial anniversary. Since 2015, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division has run its Dance Research Fellowship program welcoming a class of dancers, choreographers, artists, and scholars to focus on a particular topic using the Library’s archives. At the end of the program cycle, the fellows present their work through lecture, performance, and discussion at an annual symposium.

The symposium, taking place on January 26, 2024, is open and free to the public. More information, including the day’s itinerary, can be found on our website. A virtual event takes place on February 2, 2024.

The Dance Symposium consists of six presentations by a range of artists and scholars picking up on different themes of Martha Graham’s work. Researcher Michael Byrne draws upon his background in dance and digital technologies to bring to life the creative mission set forth by Graham. Scholar, dancer, and choreographer Kim Jones explores the chance connection of Korean artist Choi Seung-Hee and Graham in 1939. Writer Alexandra Kamerling illuminates the dialogue between Graham and Emily Dickinson as it unfolds in Graham’s Letter to the World inspired by Dickinson’s poetry. Using spoken word, visual diagrams, and dance, Lloyd Knight, a principal dancer in Graham’s company, attempts to understand why Graham’s life has had an effect on his professional being and belief. Choreographer, coach, and former principal dancer Virginie Mécène mines the archive to reimagine, choreograph, and make new dances inspired by two lost works of Graham from the late 1920s. Dance and visual artist Alexa West has explored the archive to create a comprehensive overview of the sculptural set design of Graham’s oeuvre, and has produced a set piece, a prop, and a choreographed dance that activates the objects.

“Although the topic at first glance seems narrow in focus, our current class of fellows

has a diverse range of projects that includes intersections with technology, Korean dance

history and set design and, collectively, the areas of research speak to the continued relevance of Martha Graham’s legacy for dance making today,” said Linda Murray, the Anne H. Bass Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. “The echoes between world events now and in the 1930s and 1940s, when Graham was making her anti-fascist masterworks Chronicle and Panorama, are startling and upsetting. We once again find ourselves contending with extremism, global war, and poverty. As Graham and her peers spoke up in their time, once again we need to hear the clarion voices of our artists, expressing our condemnation of fascism and embedding hope within us for a better and brighter future. As Graham famously stated, ‘the body never lies,’ and so we will rely on our dance artists above all to speak the necessary truths.”

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