Martha Graham


I think Martha Graham is an inspiring person.She is pretty and i want to be like her some day. I used to take dance lessons and this year i am joining again. I think it is a good way to get out your feelings that are not able to get out with words.Graham and I are alike because I like to pick exotic costumes for a dance.Graham was born in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. She was born on May 11,1894. I would love to learn what kinds up dances she teaches and where!

 

Listen to an INTERVIEW WITH MARTHA GRAHAM

 

By: Angelina Miconi

When you hear the words Martha Graham you probably think of, well, graham crackers. Although that was her favorite food when she was little, it had nothing to do with her life as she grew up. Actually she was a very famous dancer!

 Martha Graham was born on May 11, 1894 in Pittsburgh.   Her nanny Lizzie said she was the queen of the playroom. Lizzie used to put on music while she babysat and Martha would dance with her. When Martha’s father got home, he would find Martha and Lizzie dancing through each room. He loved how she was so energetic. She was in sports like swimming and track!! Martha’s father had two jobs, President of Pittsburgh bank and a doctor. Her mother worked at a hotel cleaning the rooms, so, Martha got to go to the hotel and practice swimming.

By the time she was almost professional dancer. She moved to Rochester and begged Ruth St. Denis a really famous dance teacher     to give her dance lessons, but she didn’t want to be interrupted. Martha had to go back six times before Ruth St. Denis actually said okay. An awesome performer and a major artist of the twentieth century, she had a great gift for showing emotion though the dances she created. Martha was first a dancer, but she became so good that Ruth St. Denis hired her to be a teacher. A few years after, Ruth asked Martha to dance with her in a concert called The Goddess of Radha.  Soon after that, Martha became a choreographer at her new dance studio  in New York City, at the Carnegie Hall.  Her first dance partners/assistants were Evelyn Sabin and Betty MacDonald.   Tanagra was her last dance before her first independent dance. Her first independent  dance was Adolescence in 1927.

When she became settled there, she decided to get married to her most danced with partner, Erik Hawkins. They got secretly married in New Mexico. A couple years later Martha published a book called The Notebook of Martha graham. About 50 years later Martha passed away. Her last words to her husband were “I have lived a happy life”. “Even though I will be gone, believe I am still with you." Martha died on April 1st 1991 at age 96.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Freedman, Russell.  Martha Graham.  New York:  Clarion Books, 1998

 

“Martha Graham Biography.”  4/1/2010.  http://www.biography.com