The Martha Graham Dance Company

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What is the legacy of Martha Graham and why does it endure?How and why did the philosophy and subsequent canon of Martha Graham flood out into an artistic diaspora that is still a wellspring of inspiration for contemporary artists?
How do dancers that have never studied with, or worked under, Martha Graham maintain her vision?
All of these questions, and many more, are considered in this fascinating book, authored by one of the Martha Graham Company’s ex-principal dancers, which illuminates the ongoing significance of the Martha Graham Dance Company almost 100 years after it was founded.
Through doing so, we are offered a study of the history of the Martha Graham Dance Company – the longest-standing modern dance company in America, its international diaspora and the current generation of dancers taking up the mantel.
Drawing on extensive interviews conducted for the book, the company’s story is told through the experiences, inspirations, motivations and words of performers from Graham’s iconic artistic lineage.

Blakeley White-McGuire was a Principal dancer with the Martha Graham Company from 2001 – 17. She currently serves on the faculties of the American Dance Festival, the Paul Taylor School, Hunter College, City University of New York, and is an official Regisseur for the Martha Graham Center staging repertory internationally.

IntroductionChapter 1: The artist in her own words
Chapter 2: The house of the pelvic truth (1926 – present day) – releasing the female body and the significant of a female-derived dance technique
Chapter 3: Story-telling and transgressing norms
Chapter 4: Endurance/re-birth – Graham’s dancers take the lead
Chapter 5: Graham in diaspora – testimonies and inspirations from artistic collaborators and practitioners (1947-present day)
BibliographyIndex

“Blakeley White-McGuire’s The Martha Graham Dance Company: House of Pelvic Truth emerges as required reading for students and scholars of Martha Graham and her enduring legacy. Ms. McGuire’s intimate experience with the transformative power of the technique and repertory, paired with searing commentary from contemporary leaders in dance influenced by Graham and her legacy, provides a compelling narrative for the current relevance and continued passionate practice of Graham’s iconic technique and repertory.” —Sandra Kaufmann, Director of Dance, Loyola University Chicago, US“This book takes up where the last books about the legacy of Martha Graham left off … There is no scholarship regarding the generation of artists who have been influenced posthumously by Graham’s example, by the study of her embodied technique and her revolutionary choreography … ? Blakeley White-McGuire is highly regarded as one of Graham’s most significant contemporary interpreters as a dancer. As an author, she has already had several well-respected publications, and a book seems the next platform for her voice as an artist and scholar with a distinct history in this work.” —Sandra Kauffman, Director of Dance, Loyola, US“For me, personally, I’ve never found a book on, about or by Martha Graham that has done her or her life’s work justice. For me, the best is Goddess by Robert Tracy. The other that includes much on Graham but is not exclusively about her is Deborah Jowitt’s Time and the Dancing Image. Blakeley’s book has the potential to fill holes in certain areas.” —Pam Risenhoover, Professor of Dance, Randolph College, US“This book is a major achievement. At last we have a social history, ecology and an intimate choreographic narrative of the woman and dance company that changed American dance and Modernism beyond it forever. This book brings together, in their own words, the most important voices who had been shaped by and, in turn, themselves shaped the Martha Graham legacy and modern dance beyond it. This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand dance, body-politics, feminism and the social history of the 20th century. A uniquely inspiring read that reminds us, in the words of Graham herself, that dance is the hidden language of the soul. This book digs deep into the readers’ hearts and illuminates this significant lineage to which we are indebted.” —Dana Mills

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