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The University of South Carolina Electronic Research Administration, the John S and James L. Knight Foundation.

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♪ ♪ Closed captioning is provided as a public service by the state of South Carolina.

Miriam Barbosa> Together.

Beryl Dakers> A dancer's lot is not an easy one.

But for the USC dance company, the unexpected challenge of mounting a Martha Graham dance makes it even more difficult.

The company is presenting sketches from Chronicle , a recreation of Graham's 1936 choreographic masterpiece.

And that means not only learning a new dance, but a new language as well.

Janet Eilber> What's right about a Graham movement is when it communicates, when you're not aware of somebody trying to act.

And when you're not aware of somebody trying to do a physical trick.

It's the meshing of movement that is so informed by the emotion that it's language.

It's why Martha's technique is called a vocabulary, because it's all about communicating.

♪ ♪ Beryl> The task of staging this work is shared by guest artist Jennifer DiPaolo, who currently dances the sketches principal role in the Martha Graham Company and by USC dance professor Miriam Barbosa, a former member of the Graham Company.

>> Miriam and I were actually in the park on Riverside Park, one afternoon last summer, and she was telling me of her plans to set steps in the street and have Denise Vale come.

I said, "Oh, that's amazing."

And then she called Denise, and Denise couldn't do the project, and I said, Miriam, you should do the piece in its entirety.

This piece has never been done before, other than in the company in its entirety.

And you have to dance the lead.

Susan E. Anderson> It is historic, and I, and I must say that we're the only university in the entire country that has been given the entire work to be performed and produced.

Jennifer DePalo> In its entirety it's actually called Chronicles.

And it was premiered in 1936.

But when it was reconstructed in 1992, it was reconstructed in three sections due to the fact that they only had video, a small amounts of video clips and photographs from Barbara Morgan.

It's lacking two sections Dances Before Catastrophe and Dances After Catastrophe.

Well the premise was actually Martha's pain and outrage, her cry out and to express her feelings about the Spanish Civil War, and also about her feelings of having her friends and her, the people she loved, off to war or her feelings about the fact that many of her, her dancers were of descent, where there were feelings of tension and, and more happening either in Germany or in the Spanish Civil War.

And each section is depicting the prelude to the feeling before the war, the time during the war and the time after.

♪ Janet> We try to capture our ballets now on film and video, but we find the most valuable things we can capture is the the last generation of dancer in the studio rehearsing for the new generation.

Beryl> For these students, that means a crash course in Graham technique.

♪ Miriam Barbosa> To be able to transport my experience from New York City, because I was part of the reconstruction of this ballet in 1994 under Sophie Marsalis, direction and, to have the opportunity to continue this through the next generation.

And the legacy keeps, continuing just alive and in the heart of people and through the dancers body.

♪ Miriam> Contract, contract, contract.

♪ Good.

>> (Giggles) Miriam is amazing.

She taught me what focus was.

She taught me what intent was.

She taught me that dance is not just about being pretty and moving your body.

It's, you know, some.

Everything has a meaning.

Miriam> A contraction is never a sinking.

I said that yesterday's never downward.

So on this.

Careful with being too under yourself.

You got to grow.

It's like a big hinge going back.

And look at that star.

And from that star is your hope.

But this is the hope, hope, hope section of it.

Jennifer> I think having to dig so deep into their psyches and to dig deeper physically into Graham's work.

I think it was a little startling for them.

But, they've, they've really taken the task at hand, and I'm so proud of them.

And then let the elbows be a little more bent, too.

Carolyn> Well, I've only been dancing for seven years, so my strength never was in ballet or modern.

I just danced and I was decent at both.

But when I started doing Graham specifically, like, it's a completely...different, like out of body experience, and that's my calling.

That's what I want to do more than anything.

♪ ♪ Jennifer> They're doing a fabulous job.

I...when I first came to Columbia in August, I think they were a little bit taken aback and a little bit awkward with the movement because, like, "You want me to walk across the stage, only walk?"

And here they're doing, you know, balancing work or they're doing Miriam's choreography, and then all of a sudden I'm just asking them to just do a simple walk and to feel alone.

♪ Miriam> Oh my students, I am so proud of them.

I cannot even tell you.

It is...

It is, I wish I had taken pictures of before and after to compare.

Their bodies have taken a tremendous leap forward into mature expression, into muscular lines.

They started with me very young, physically and emotionally, and just the every day, digging into their feelings just brought much more to their physicality.

Lindsey Shatzer> Sometimes I get down performing and I'm like, "Wow, did I just do that?"

And I have no idea what I just did.

And it's a really cool feeling, but when you're in the moment, you really just lose track of time and where you are in your sense because you're actually there.

Like feeling what these what I feel like.

Martha Graham felt...when she choreographed the piece.

Miriam> Always when the second leg comes up, that's very good.

When the second leg comes up, deepen that contraction because it never ends, really.

Okay?

So don't you think that because you did the first leg in that this is enough contraction for this and just lift this leg up and nothing else is happening here.

It's the actual from here, the actual contraction lifts this leg more and more and more and more before it opens.

Susan Dabney> It's a very athletic piece.

It's lots of jumps and lots of turns and lots of lots of things that you don't do in ballet.

I'm used to standing on the side of the stage and posing and smiling for a while and taking a break, and there are no breaks in this piece at all.

I'm used to being able to tell a story.

Ballets are usually storybook ballets, and it's nice to have a modern piece where you just you go full force, full out all the time, not stopping.

It makes you feel more like a dancer.

♪ Being a classically trained ballerina, it's really hard to get into the different contractions and spirals that modern, this modern piece has in it.

So it's really hard for me to get the style down saying that, it's also been... the very first performance I did, I had one performance.

I've never felt that way on stage in my life.

It's something completely different than ballet.

There's some kind of strength and power that comes from it, and I'm incredibly excited and also still really nervous about performing.

♪ ♪ Miriam> I saw incredible changes, not only physical, but their personalities, their, I mean, they're becoming real dancers, which is my goal.

And it is desperation.

It is hunger, desperation.

It's starvation that you want to show you're still looking like a princess.

(laughing) Erin Levenson> The mental adaptation is much more challenging for me, because you have to think about what the choreographers' intentions were with whatever you do, whatever your eyes or fingers or feet...do, it's saying something.

And when you're doing jazz, you're just dancing.

And when you're doing modern, you're trying to get a message across to the audience and your body does that.

You can't say anything.

♪ Jessica Stroupe> When we all got done, we were just a lot stronger as dancers, and we had built this connection to each other because the pieces about hunger and desperation and then having the hope for the future, we had all had this emotional bond by the end of it that really strengthened us as a group as well as individually.

Beryl> Restaging this work revives memories of an earlier time when Graham made her mark on the Columbia's dance community and suggests a continuing relationship between Columbia and the Graham legacy.

It happened in 1972.

♪ Malie Bruton Heider> I heard that she was coming.

I couldn't believe it.

It just seemed impossible that somebody that famous, is not the right word, legendary was going to actually be in Columbia.

Brenda Pugh McCutchen> USC invited her to Columbia to be artist in residence for a week and to bring the Graham Company and perform at the Township Auditorium, and...it restored some of her faith in herself.

And this was an interesting time.

She was unable to perform.

She was too frail, too sick and too arthritic, and she had given the works to new dancers, one of whom was Janet Eilber, who is now the director of the Martha Graham Center.

Janet> It was an exciting time.

I remember being here and...the hosts were so welcoming, and we spent a bit of time down here, not just a performance, but there were residency activities and master classes and that sort of thing.

Brenda> Up to that point, she had been the center of her choreographies, and the works were built in a way that featured her, and she, up to that point, had never really seen herself as separate from that artist performer.

Dr. Donald Saunders> Well, Ms Graham had been indisposed, so to speak, just out of it, for about four years.

And, when she was in her late 60s.

Her career had come to a halt.

She couldn't dance anymore.

So very few people can dance as long as she did.

And she could not, keep her company together, and she just couldn't keep her life together.

Alcohol played a role, and so forth.

Janet> She had given up dancing in the... 1970, I believe, was her last performance.

And we came down here in 72'.

And it was when she really began to accept her role as living legend for, for starters, but also accept the fact that she was not going to be onstage.

So she was starting to imbue this new young cast of characters with her philosophy, with her type of theater, without being up there herself.

And, and she had to do it in a new way.

She couldn't do it physically.

She had to articulate it.

She had to draw things out of us with new techniques.

And, it was a, an expansion of her creative, ...palette in a way to have to do it, from the outside rather than being inside.

John Whitehead> Martha Graham taught a class.

It was at the Calvert-Brodie Studio in Forest Lake, and Ann Brodie had invited her to teach the company.

And I remember walking into the studio and that Martha Graham was already sitting quite regally.

Actually, ensconced, would be a better word.

Mimi Worrell> I was 12 years old, a member of Columbia City Ballet at that time.

She was coming into our studio where we, studied dance every day at the same facility and rehearsed and, then performed.

Ann Richardson> I'd never had an experience like that of working with someone who had developed something.

And I think that's, you know, what an amazing opportunity.

And of course, I didn't realize it at 15, but certainly now, many, many, many years later, I can look back and think, what a what an amazing opportunity I had at 15 to, to meet the choreographer and the person who developed this original technique that we're still teaching today.

Mimi Brown> It was remarkable to have a person of such stature here teaching us, but for the most part, we were very well trained in classical ballet, and none of us had ever even attended any modern classes, much less Graham technique.

And so it was very foreign to us and very intimidating.

Mimi Worrell> Her voice, was very... not a not a scratchy tone to it, but she spoke with such dignity, and people hung on every word that she said.

Mimi Brown> She taught like many of the old Russian teachers that I had in later years, when I studied in New York.

She sat in the corner with a cane, and she sort of gave the instructions as far as what was to happen in the class, Mimi Worrell> I thought it was extremely exciting.

Different.

Very different.

Almost like, ballet to all of us was like a warm blanket because it gave us rights and wrongs and, and it was a beautiful art form.

But I wondered how she was able to, to train to do that and like, well, what do you, what, what did she do to become what she is?

Mimi Brown> When we went to the party that was held afterwards so that we could all get to know her socially and get to know the dancers, she was very, just a normal, everyday sort of person.

She would talk with anyone who wanted to talk with her.

It wasn't at all intimidating to have a conversation with her, but when she was in that class, you know, it was a whole different thing.

I mean, we were all scared to death and we were trying our hardest, but we felt completely inept at what we were doing.

♪ Dr. Saunders> When she came out to our house, she sat in the living room back here behind us.

We put a chair there for her, and she had a black cape on.

And this is when she was about 80 years old.

And, she was just a magnet.

Everybody wanted to go over and talk to Ms Graham.

Carol Saunders> I do remember, very distinctly her sitting as if she were enthroned, really.

I mean, she was really very regal, seated in the living room.

And as Don said, they she did come up.

They did have people come and pay homage to her.

The dancers, the young dancers who were here were mostly teenagers and younger, and they sat at her feet.

Dr. Saunders> I like to think that the whole thing together, including the little party we had out here, had something to do with relaunching her.

And it was really, a relaunching.

I mean, she went back to choreograph new dances, came to Spoleto.

She worked with, actors like Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, who were not dancers but how to, how to move on the stage and so forth.

Carol> It wasn't too much, too long after that that they had a very successful New York, performance, maybe six months later.

And, so it was a rallying point.

Ann> I would love to take credit.

I mean, partial credit, Columbia credit that we would have instilled in her, "Yes, I still can catch fire."

You know, I still have an audience out there, even in Columbia, South Carolina.

Well, if Columbia wants me, then maybe the whole world is ready for me again.

I mean, it could happen.

Malie> I love that theory.

I think it would be wonderful to think that we here in Columbia had something to do with stimulating her in some way, or rejuvenating her and making her return to, to dancing and creating dances, I think.

That it's wonderful because it is true that after she came here, she went on and did amazing things.

Beryl> It is perhaps this same spirit of triumph and determination that fuels the USC dances as they grapple with the complexities of bringing sketches to the stage.

In this age where war and desperation still ravage humanity.

Martha Graham's singular choreographic response demands to be heard.

Susan> I think if we do it well, and if the audience knows, if the audience, even if they don't know the back story.

I think if we, if we perform it well enough and, and, go through the motions ourself on stage.

I think the audience will definitely go through everything with us.

And I think that's the whole point.

♪ Beryl> Central to the project's success is the principal role danced by Miriam Barbosa, who bears a striking resemblance to the late dance icon.

Janet> While it's one of Martha's roles, it's also one of her roles from when she was a young woman, so it's highly physical.

She was evidently, an animal on stage, and unbelievable physicality.

Miriam> I do resemble a lot of her image.

I think there's probably an unnatural factor, which is I am physically similar, but, I, in the other hand, when I, when that work came to my hands, I thought to myself how much of my experiences I can put into to try to pair up with what she was thinking about when she choreographed and performed this piece.

And, and I digged really, really deep into my emotions.

And one of the most strong experiences that I had in my life and within what's going on in the world right now is that I, I, I was a witness of 9/11 and, and lots of images of this piece remind me of of what I saw in, in a very, deep level.

And in a way, the movements make it a little bit of abstract, but it's still it's there, Beryl> In Chronicle .

The minimalist set is by Noguchi.

The lighting is sculptural, the colors symbolic.

Graham's attention to detail and her adeptness with costuming is legendary.

Chronicles red shroud has traditionally been handed down from principal dancer to principal dancer, and for the USC performance was on loan from the Graham Company.

Miriam> The color of the costumes also are so important in this because in the beginning, Act One, we have the more like the the red representing, blood and fire.

Janet> For me, you know, you can't help but see this figure sort of just clothed in blood, in the emotion of war and the horror of it.

And her movements are both movements of I think warning and a plea for someone to do something and at the same time of a certain inevitability.

It's an extraordinary solo.

Jennifer> The red shroud.

It is, extremely difficult.

The dress, but it adds a weight and an earthiness to the figure.

♪ It's it's amazing how Martha used material.

Miriam> It is definitely a part of the dance.

It's like it becomes part of your body because of, the flow of the fabric.

The continuation of the, the extension of our bodies is the fabric.

Jennifer> The throwing in the, the freedom, actually, that you can actually arrive to with the use of the skirt eventually is what we all want to have as a resolution to war.

It's freedom, peace.

♪ ♪ Jennifer> It was written, in Agnes de Bella's biography that, Wallingford Riegger actually worked with Martha, who is the composer of Chronicle In 1931, Bacchanale , he actually arrived at her studio and was so surprised to see Martha and her troupe already having the piece already set without the music.

And he thought, how is this going to work?

And Martha never wanted to let the music drive her.

She wanted it to add color and texture and emotion, but it had to come from inside the body.

It had to come from her experience in her living it, inside her blood inside her, her day to day life.

And so when she finally did get the music, ♪ she had to have a it was a struggle for her.

I believe, that she had to rework some things, and perhaps the composer may have had different ideas of what he may see with his music and vice versa, but in the end, I mean, what they created together is just a culmination of genius.

♪ ♪ Jennifer> It's near to impossible to finish.

Physically, it is so demanding.

The stamina that is required from the performer.

Lindsey> When I perform the piece, there is no lack of comfort level.

You have to put yourself out there and go for it.

And you know it's attack.

Attack.

Miriam> Each student experiences it within their own, bodies differently.

And I think of the magic of Martha Graham's work is that we are able to transport our feelings into it to make it alive.

It is not a decorative work.

You never really act or perform it without your deepest truthful intention.

And I think each one of them transports a bit of their own experiences into what the piece is about.

And nowadays, I keep telling them, if you don't have anything, that you can bring it up right now in terms of imagery, just look into the newspapers, watch TV, see what's going on in the world and bring it into the eyes of the audience.

♪ And I think that that's, that's how important it is.

♪ Erin> You really do.

You go through everything, and when it's over, you're just like.

I mean, it's every emotion known to man.

You're happy and you're sad and you're angry and you're you're hungry and you're full and there's hope for the future, but there's still a little bit of depression left.

Dancer #2> And it's very powerful.

It's incredibly powerful.

Carolyn> When we started learning this piece, I know my mom was very sick.

And so every time before I started this piece, I would close my eyes and feel what it felt like on the inside from my guts, like the pain and the devastation and just I would cry every time I did the piece I would shake because like, it was just that feeling from the inside, what I felt when I was with my mom, or the thought of losing my mom, so for me, doing Chronicles is about personal experience.

Like the pain and the devastation you see around you and from your own life, your own personal experience.

(silence) Mimi Brown> Oh, it's so important for today's young people to understand who she was, the impact she had.

And the choreography is so marvelous and has so much depth and meaning.

And it's just a wonderful thing to have been able to preserve that and then mount it on young dancers and have them understand it through their own experience with it.

(applause) (applause) Miriam> Right now, I think 2007, we're going through a whole other period in on Earth where, where there's also lots of political changes and different wars going on.

And we can definitely reach still the heart of the audience for this piece because of what we're going through right now.

Jennifer> People are wanting to see this piece and people are loving this piece, and one time is not enough.

(applause) Janet Eilber > Chronicle speaks to all people.

I think anybody can understand it and be moved by it.

And, (applause) And I can watch it night after night after night and not get tired of it.

(applause)