Juilliard Celebrates its History Presenting Three Dance Masterworks by Renowned Figures from the Division's Early Years: Graham, Limon, and Tudor , Wednesday, on March 26 - Sunday, March 30 in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater

In addition to Graham, Tudor and Limón, founding faculty members of the Juilliard Dance Division in 1951 included Agnes DeMille, Louis Horst, Doris Humphrey, Ann Hutchinson, Helen Lanfer and Jerome Robbins, with the remarkable Martha Hill as founding division director.

The Juilliard Dance Division has added an education outreach program to accompany Masterworks of the 20th Century bringing several hundred students in grades four through eight to attend an hour-long outreach concert on March 28th at 11:00 AM.   The program will introduce students to modern dance concepts, movement, and the choreographic process as well as the role of an audience member and great dance works of the 20th century.

Martha Graham is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th Century alongside Picasso, Stravinsky, James Joyce, and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1998 TIME Magazine named Martha Graham as the “Dancer of the Century,” and People Magazine named her among the female “Icons of the Century.” As a choreographer, she was as prolific as she was complex. She created 181 ballets and a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Many of the great modern and ballet choreographers have studied the Martha Graham Technique or have been members of her company.

Martha Graham’s extraordinary artistic legacy has often been compared to Stanislavsky’s Art Theatre in Moscow and the Grand Kabuki Theatre of Japan, for its diversity and breadth. Her legacy is perpetuated in performance by the members of the Martha Graham Dance Company and the Martha Graham Ensemble, and by the students of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.

In 1926, Martha Graham founded her dance company and school, living and working out of a tiny Carnegie Hall studio in midtown Manhattan. In developing her technique, Martha Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with the most elemental movements of contraction and release. Using these principles as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would “increase the emotional activity of the dancer’s body.” Martha Graham’s dancing and choreography exposed the depths of human emotion through movements that were sharp, angular, jagged, and direct. The dance world was forever altered by Martha Graham’s vision, which has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for generations of dance and theatre artists.

Martha Graham’s ballets were inspired by a wide variety of sources, including modern painting, the American frontier, religious ceremonies of Native Americans, and Greek mythology. Many of her most important roles portray great women of history and mythology: Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Medea, Phaedra, Joan of Arc, and Emily Dickinson.

As an artist, Martha Graham conceived each new work in its entirety – dance, costumes, and music. During her 70 years of creating dances, Martha Graham collaborated with such artists as sculptor Isamu Noguchi; actor and director John Houseman; fashion designers Halston, Donna Karan and Calvin Klein; and renowned composers including Aaron Copland, Louis Horst (her mentor), Samuel Barber, William Schuman, Carlos Surinach, Norman Dello Joio, and Gian Carlo Menotti. Her company was the training ground for many future modern choreographers, including Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp. She created roles for classical ballet stars such as Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, welcoming them as guests into her company. In charge of movement and dance at The Neighborhood Playhouse, she taught actors including Bette Davis, Kirk Douglas, Liza Minnelli, Gregory Peck, Tony Randall, Anne Jackson, and Joanne Woodward how to use the body as an expressive instrument. Her uniquely American vision and creative genius earned her numerous honors and awards such as the Laurel Leaf of the American Composers Alliance in 1959 for her service to music. Her colleagues in theater, the members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local One, voted her the recipient of the 1986 Local One Centennial Award for Dance, not to be awarded for another 100 years. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford bestowed upon Martha Graham the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, and declared her a “national treasure,” making her the first dancer and choreographer to receive this honor. Another Presidential honor was awarded Martha Graham in 1985 when President Ronald Reagan designated her among the first recipients of the United States National Medal of Arts.

Antony Tudor one of the giants of twentieth century choreography, was born April 4th, 1908, in London, England.  He began dancing professionally with Ballet Rambert and created many of his early ballets – Cross-garter’d (1931), Lysistrata (1932), The Planets (1934), and The Decent of Hebe (1935) – for that company.

In 1939 Tudor was invited by American Ballet Theatre to join its first season and to restage Jardin aux Lilas, Dark Elegies, and Judgment of Paris.  Since that time, Antony Tudor has been represented in every American Ballet Theatre season.  Gala Performance was added in 1941, Pillar of Fire in 1942, Romeo and Juliet and Dim Lustre in 1943, Undertow in 1945, Shadow of the Wind in 1948, Numbus in 1950, Offenbach in the Underworld in 1955, The Leaves are Fading and Shadowplay in 1975, and Tiller in the Fields in 1979. 

Over the years, Antony Tudor performed in many of his own ballets as well as in the works of other choreographers.  In 1950 he retired from performing to become Administrative Director of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School.  During his tenure there he choreographed for the Metropolitan Opera and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.  Tudor was a Guest Choreographer for the Royal Swedish Ballet (and later Ballet Director) when he created Echoing of Trumpets in 1963.  He created Sunflowers, Cereus, and Continuo while teaching at The Juilliard School when he received one of the first choreographic grants awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts.  Tudor created ballets for many companies throughout the world.  He created The Divine Horseman for The Australian Ballet, Shadowplay for the Royal Ballet of England, Knight Errant for the Royal Ballet Touring Company, and Fandango and Concerning Oracles for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, to name a few.

Tudor was presented the Carina Ari Gold Medal in 1973 and the Dance Magazine Award in 1974.  1986 was filled with accolades for Tudor:  he was presented with the Capezio Dance Award in April, the Handel Medallion, New York City’s highest cultural honor in May, and in December was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor.  Antony Tudor was appointed Associate Director of American Ballet Theatre in 1975 and Choreographer Emeritus in 1980, a position he held until his death in 1987.

José Limón (1908-1972) was a crucial figure in the development of modern dance: his powerful dancing shifted perceptions of the male dancer, while his choreography continues to bring a dramatic vision of dance to audiences around the world. Born in Mexico, Limón moved to New York City in 1928 after a year at UCLA as an art major. It was here that he saw his first dance program: “What I saw simply and irrevocably changed my life. I saw the dance as a vision of ineffable power. A man could, with dignity and towering majesty, dance... dance as Michelangelo's visions dance and as the music of Bach dances.”

In 1946, after studying and performing for 10 years with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, he established his own company with Humphrey as Artistic Director. During her tenure, Humphrey choreographed many pieces for the Limón Dance Company, and it was under her experienced directorial eye that Limón created his signature dance, The Moor’s Pavane (1949). Limón’s choreographic works were quickly recognized as masterpieces and the Company itself became a landmark of American dance. Many of his dances—There is a Time, Missa Brevis, Psalm, The Winged—are considered classics of modern dance.

Limón was a consistently productive choreographer until his death in 1972—he choreographed at least one new piece each year—and he was also an influential teacher and advocate for modern dance. He was in residence each summer at the American Dance Festival, a key faculty member in The Juilliard School's Dance Division beginning in 1951, and the director of Lincoln Center's American Dance Theatre from 1964-65. Limón received two Dance Magazine Awards, the Capezio Award and honorary doctorates from four universities in recognition of his achievements. He was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, The Dance Heroes of José Limón (Fall 1996), and in 1997 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, NY. His autobiographical writings, An Unfinished Memoir, were edited by Lynn Garafola and published in 1999 by Wesleyan University Press.