The American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (1894-1991) is considered the forerunner of modern dance. Just as Picasso challenged the conventions of “beauty” and perspective in the fine arts, Graham challenged the conventions of classical ballet. She incorporated movements never seen in this art, such as kneeling, squatting, slumping or rising. And she emphasized the contraction and relaxation of different parts of the body, as well as the close relationship between breathing and movement.
Her biographers say that she began her dance studies in 1916 at Denishawn, a school and company founded by Ruth Saint Denis and Ted Shawn, from whom she learned the usefulness of valuing non-Western dances. After finishing her studies, she moved to New York, where she excelled as a dancer on Broadway, and as a teacher at the Eastman Theater. At that time, as she confessed years later, she spent many hours observing the movements of the lions in the New York Central Park Zoo, which served as her inspiration. After the Second World War came public recognition and her performances were filled with spectators. In 1998, TIME magazine named her “Dancer of the Century.” And her Company was declared a National Trust of the United States. His works include Deaths and Spells (1943), based on the Brontë family with Emily as the heroine, the mythological Clytemnestra (1958), and Appalachian Spring (1944), in which he demonstrated his interest in Indian dance.
Martha Graham was a genius at connecting movement with emotions. One of her main dancers said of her that “she was capable of expressing and making visible all those feelings that we carry within her and we cannot convey with words”.