Tracing the Ancient Literary and Visual Sources in Martha Graham’s Greek-themed Dances

Martha Graham’s modernist and theatrical approach to dance, her presentation of narratives in non-conventional ways, her innovative treatment of time and space, and her use of costumes, props, and set designs, have received much attention recently by scholars and historians of dance (Jowitt 2024, Phillips 2023, Apostolos-Cappadona 2022, and Ancona 2020). Graham’s artistic skill was also complemented by the extended research that she conducted in order to create each dance. For her retellings of the Greek myths, she read the myths’ primary sources, visited the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and drew on secondary scholarship in classics, history, religion, comparative literature, and psychoanalysis (Jowitt 2024, Stodelle 1984). Many of the authors she read (Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves, Jane Harrison) were and are influential, if controversial, in scholarship on Greek myth.

My paper aims to show how Graham’s close familiarity with the ancient sources, both literary and visual, sheds light on another dimension of her achievement and contributes to a deeper understanding and appreciation of her dances. Graham turned to Greek myth to explore the inner workings of the human unconscious, especially the emotional experiences of women, while also engaging with the political and social issues of the 1940s and 1950s: the war, international relations, women’s position in society.

In my talk, I will first draw out similarities between Graham’s Greek-themed dances and Greek tragedy. I will then discuss how the visual aesthetic of Greek art – primarily vase paintings and sculpture – inspired her movement and choreography, especially in Errand into the Maze, her dance based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, Night Journey, her dance based on the myth of Oedipus and Jocasta, Clytemnestra, and Phaedra. As I show next, familiarity with Euripides’ Medea and the story of Medea in ancient iconography helps guide our interpretation and appreciation of Cave of the Heart, Graham’s radical rendering of the Medea myth. By drawing upon, altering, and reshaping the ancient sources, Graham, I suggest, highlights Medea’s subhuman and superhuman features. Graham is able to bring out the contradictory emotions Medea elicits in viewers—the result of her destructive nature and her ability to gain our sympathy. Graham’s portrayal of Medea invites the audience to engage with, understand, and accept Medea’s deep emotional experiences, in spite of the horrific revenge that she is led to and its profound consequences.