Sanja Marušić

Ballet

Martha Graham Dance Company

Guest Company - Janet Eilber

Palais Garnier

from 03 to 08 September 2018

2h10 no interval

Martha Graham Dance Company

Palais Garnier - from 03 to 08 September 2018

Synopsis

Pioneer of modern American dance, Martha Graham has revolutionised codes, using the whole body to create movement and connect her dancers with the earth. Almost thirty years after its last visit, the Martha Graham Dance Company returns to the stage of the Palais Garnier with a number of emblematic works from its repertoire: Appalachian Spring and The Rite of Spring, performed for the first time at the Paris Opera; a variation on the celebrated solo Lamentation, featuring a ballerina clothed in a long fabric tube; Cave of the Heart and Ekstasis, symbols of the influence of Ancient Greek theatre on the choreographer’s work. Nothing less than a journey in time.

Duration : 2h10 no interval

  • Opening

  • First part 65 min

  • Intermission 30 min

  • 35 min

  • End

Show characters

Characters

"The History of Dance" workshops build on the 2018/2019 season’s productions and invites the whole family to discover key periods and trends in the history of dance through artistic practice.

Artists

only on 3,4 and 5 sept. 2018


Creative team

  • Samuel  Barber
    Samuel Barber Music
  • opera logo
    Martha Graham Choreography
  • opera logo
    Christopher Rountree Conductor
  • opera logo
    Martha Graham Costume design
  • opera logo
    Isamu Noguchi Set design

only on 6, 7 and 8 sept. 2018

Creative team

  • Aaron Copland
    Aaron Copland Music
  • opera logo
    Martha Graham Choreography
  • opera logo
    Christopher Rountree Conductor
  • opera logo
    Martha Graham Costume design
  • opera logo
    Isamu Noguchi Set design


Creative team

  • opera logo
    Ramon Humet Music After Lehman Engel
  • opera logo
    Virginie Mécène Choreography After Martha Graham
  • opera logo
    Christopher Rountree Conductor

Creative team

  • opera logo
    NN Music
  • opera logo
    Bulareyaung Pagarlava Choreography
  • opera logo
    Larry Keigwin Choreography
  • Nicolas Paul
    Nicolas Paul Choreography After Martha Graham
  • opera logo
    Christopher Rountree Conductor

Creative team

  • Igor Stravinsky
    Igor Stravinsky Music
  • opera logo
    Martha Graham Choreography
  • opera logo
    Christopher Rountree Conductor
  • opera logo
    Edward T. Morris Set design
  • opera logo
    Pilar Limosner Costume design
  • opera logo
    Martha Graham After
  • opera logo
    Halston After

Paris Opera Orchestra

Media

  • A breath of freedom

    A breath of freedom

    Watch the video

  • Echoing Gestures

    Echoing Gestures

    Read the article

© Melissa Sherwood

A breath of freedom

Watch the video

In rehearsal with the Martha Graham Dance Company

2:16 min

A breath of freedom

By Octave

Almost thirty years after they last appeared on the stage of the Palais Garnier, the Martha Graham Dance Company is returning with some of the most emblematic works in ITS repertoire. At the Studio Theatre on Bethune Street in New York, the dancers have been rehearsing for their Paris tour for several weeks now. Several excerpts brought together here offer a foretaste of an evening rich in emotion. From Appalachian Spring to The Rite of Spring, the choreographer never ceased to explore Native American rituals and the influences of Greek theatre. Her technique, based on the famous “contraction-release” draws on the sources of breathing to connect the intimate with the universal. The curves, spirals, and descents of the torso are also movements which raise the same question: how can the body convey meaning? From September 3 until September 8, the 20 dancers of the Company will be in Paris to try to answer those questions.

© Barbara Morgan

Echoing Gestures

Read the article

Encounter with Nicolas Paul

07 min

Echoing Gestures

By Elsa Vinet

A guest at the Palais Garnier from 3rd to 8th September of this year, dancer and choreographer Nicolas Paul is about to make history with the Martha Graham Dance Company. For this tour, the company’s first since 1991, he has composed his own vision of Martha Graham’s iconic solo Lamentation, first performed in 1930. A conversation on work in progress with something of a challenge about it.


In what context did the Martha Graham Company approach you for this work?

It was Aurélie Dupont, the Director of Dance, who suggested to Janet Eilber, the artistic director of the company, to approach me. The Lamentation Variation project started in 2007 for the commemoration of 9/11 in the United States. The company invited three choreographers to create one variation each with the solo Lamentation by Martha Graham as a starting point and with very specific parameters: a two-hour audition, ten hours of rehearsals, a choreography no longer than four minutes, a limited budget for costumes, no scenery and music exempt from performing rights. These requirements were subsequently applied to successive creative projects around Lamentation. My work will be performed by three dancers from the Graham company whom I shall audition in New York this summer. On the other hand, I have carte blanche artistically speaking, there are no constraints.
Martha Graham dans Lamentation
Martha Graham dans Lamentation © Barbara Morgan

Did you already know Martha Graham’s piece?

Yes, I encountered it when I was very young, then again in 1998 when this solo entered the repertoire of the Paris Opera, with Fanny Gaïda. I sought to understand what Martha Graham was aiming to express with this piece, and did some research on the subject. It’s impossible within such a rigorous framework, not to feel that the artistic work is conditioned by material constraints. The solo leaves a very strong impression. Martha Graham’s artistic writing has already been thoroughly analysed by other people, so I didn’t want to make another rereading of it. I wished rather to use my own language, one that I’ve been putting in place for a while now, without seeking to draw a parallel between the formal structures or to establish a system of citations or variations... What struck me in that piece was Martha Graham’s way of using the body: it stays in one place. Throughout the solo, she remains seated, in her costume. Through this quasi-immobility, the only visible movements that one perceives are the expression of interiority. Her body speaks of lamentation through the limitation of remaining where it is, from beginning to end. In counterpoint, I’ve imagined my dancers in a space which they only enter and exit, confined within a cyclical process from which they cannot escape. The echo with lamentation is therefore to be found in this other confinement of the body within these cycles. As for the performing rights, they orientated me towards a certain repertoire, since using 20th century music was difficult. I turned towards Renaissance English music and I found a piece by John Dowland (1563-1626), Lachrimae Antiquae, whose emotional register and structure corresponded to the general theme as well as to my proposition.
Sept mètres et demi au-dessus des montagnes, chorégraphie de Nicolas Paul, juin 2017
Sept mètres et demi au-dessus des montagnes, chorégraphie de Nicolas Paul, juin 2017 © Julien Benhamou / OnP

In your previous piece, Sept metres et demi au-dessus des montagnes, created for the Paris Opera Ballet in 2017, the idea of entrances and exits was already there ...

Yes, I’ve noticed that certain systems are beginning to establish themselves in most of my pieces, even if, of course, this takes different forms. I’ve always had the feeling that movement, in itself, has no interest. It’s as if a basic mechanism were necessary to justify the fact that one is prompted to dance, to summon up a gesture, to begin or end with such or such a movement. I often draw a parallel with pictorial art: when the artist begins to paint, s/he takes into account the dimensions of the canvas. If there’s nothing to set things in motion, I can’t see the point. And ultimately, this is particularly true of Martha Graham’s piece: the framework exists, and the gesture springs out of it. I think that the concept is not enough in itself. It’s only once one has the outer structure that one can turn to the content, and that things begin to take on a life of their own. The basic mechanism eradicates doubt and engenders freedom.   

Your previous creations were strongly inspired by pictorial references; is it also the case for this piece?

I almost always work with pictorial references, but for this piece I decided that my only reference would be Graham’s solo. Evoking others would have been to risk losing the spectator who would have no longer been able to establish the link with Lamentation. The procedure specific to a choreography must be clear to the audience. This isn’t the piece that comes after Sept metres et demi au-dessus des montagnes, but the one that offers a response to Lamentation. Four minutes is very short so above all I thought about how I could make my mark with regard to a piece which has remained unequalled. And yet, the way Martha Graham’s solo functions is very simple: the right gestures, the right costume, and that radical decision to be seated from beginning to end.    
Fanny Gaïda lors de l’entrée au répertoire de Lamentation, novembre 1998
Fanny Gaïda lors de l’entrée au répertoire de Lamentation, novembre 1998 © Christian Leiber / OnP

What is your relationship with Graham’s technique?

I was trained in the Graham technique at the Ballet School but, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel close to any technique in particular. I have been lucky enough, at the Paris Opera, to have tackled many different techniques and continue to discover new ones. What Martha Graham brought to dance has permeated everything that has been done since. Inevitably, I’ve approached it as a dancer with the Ballet. When I undertake choreographic research, I’m not trying to follow in this or that vein, I’d run the risk of constantly censoring myself. Apart from the purely classical French school, to which school could I legitimately lay claim?

For this work, did you draw on sensations you have experienced as a dancer and performer?

As a choreographer, and even more so when one is also a performer, one inevitably draws on one’s corporeal memory. My body has stored up in an unconscious manner my different roles and interpretations. But choreography is also a matter of confronting one’s own experience with that of the dancer, and that is what I try to prioritise. They constitute two different aspects of the task and allow the establishment of a balanced relationship between the choreographer and the dancer. The preparation of this piece can’t take place with the performers of the Martha Graham Dance Company, which has obliged me to carry out the initial task of writing by myself. I am impatient to meet the dancers to rework the material with them and finish writing the piece.  

  • The Rite of Spring - Martha Graham Dance Company
  • Cave of the Heart - Martha Graham Dance Company
  • Appalachian Spring - Martha Graham Dance Company

Access and services

Palais Garnier

Place de l'Opéra

75009 Paris

Public transport

Underground Opéra (lignes 3, 7 et 8), Chaussée d’Antin (lignes 7 et 9), Madeleine (lignes 8 et 14), Auber (RER A)

Bus 20, 21, 27, 29, 32, 45, 52, 66, 68, 95, N15, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Edouard VII16 16, rue Bruno Coquatrix 75009 Paris

Book your parking spot

At the Palais Garnier, buy €10 tickets for seats in the 6th category (very limited visibility, two tickets maximum per person) on the day of the performance at the Box offices.

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €25 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €40 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Palais Garnier
  • Every day from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and until performances end
  • Get in from Place de l’Opéra or from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 53 43 03 97

Palais Garnier

Place de l'Opéra

75009 Paris

Public transport

Underground Opéra (lignes 3, 7 et 8), Chaussée d’Antin (lignes 7 et 9), Madeleine (lignes 8 et 14), Auber (RER A)

Bus 20, 21, 27, 29, 32, 45, 52, 66, 68, 95, N15, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Edouard VII16 16, rue Bruno Coquatrix 75009 Paris

Book your parking spot

At the Palais Garnier, buy €10 tickets for seats in the 6th category (very limited visibility, two tickets maximum per person) on the day of the performance at the Box offices.

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €25 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €40 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Palais Garnier
  • Every day from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and until performances end
  • Get in from Place de l’Opéra or from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 53 43 03 97

Partners

  • The American Friends of the Paris Opera & Ballet

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