Graham's legacy echoes: a century of dance, a new documentary
Nearly a century after her debut on a New York stage, Martha Graham's impact on American dance—and the human condition—remains strikingly vital. A new PBS documentary, We Are Our Time, offers an intimate look at the Martha Graham Dance Company as it prepares to celebrate its centennial, revealing not just the reverence for a legend, but the enduring power of her vision to inspire contemporary artists.
A dance with the past, a gaze on the present
Graham, who lived nearly a full century, wasn’t simply a choreographer; she was an archaeologist of emotion, excavating primal urges and societal anxieties—from Oedipal complexes to the creeping shadow of fascism—and translating them into a revolutionary movement vocabulary rooted in the torso's contraction and release. Her collaboration with Isamu Noguchi on striking stage sets, and later with fashion icons like Halston and Calvin Klein, further cemented her place at the intersection of Art and culture. As she wrote to Aaron Copland during their work on Appalachian Spring, “Certain things are alive for all of us, although far in the actual past…America is forever peopled with characters who walk with us in the present in a very real way.”
The centennial celebrations, taking place at City Center, are more than just a retrospective; they are a testament to the company's ability to breathe new life into Graham’s work. We Are Our Timecaptures this process, following the dancers through rehearsals, tour buses, and the electrifying energy of the stage, emphasizing the connection Graham prioritized: “You don’t dance for an audience of one thousand people. You dance for a thousand ones.”
Beyond the icon: a glimpse inside the company
The documentary wisely steers clear of hagiography, eschewing the “camp icon” framing that Susan Sontag famously applied to Graham. Instead, it focuses on the rigorous demands and artistic breakthroughs happening now. The title itself, a rephrasing of Graham's assertion that “No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times,” signals a shift in perspective. Directors Peter Schnall and Cyndee Readdean spent over two years embedded with the company, utilizing archival footage sparingly—most notably in a poignant split-screen sequence juxtaposing Graham’s interpretation of grief in Lamentation (1930) with Leslie Andrea Williams’s contemporary rendition.
Meryl Streep, whose involvement was a last-minute surprise, lends her voice to Graham’s words, reportedly creating a palpable hush in the recording booth. “We all just went, ‘Wow, this is what we’ve been waiting for—and more,’” Schnall recalls.
New voices, enduring spirit
The film highlights the emergence of new talent within the company. Jamar Roberts, a former Alvin Ailey star, debuted his first work for the company, We the People (2024), set to the vibrant music of Rhiannon Giddens. Roberts, acutely aware of the dancers' deep connection to the earth, pushes them to explore a “spirit of the untamed” that he believes is intrinsic to the Graham technique. Lloyd Knight’s powerful, silent solo in We the People—a bare-chested figure ending face-down in weighted stillness—is a particularly arresting moment.
Janet Eilber, the artistic director since 2005, is clearly committed to evolving Graham’s legacy, stating firmly, “We’re not making sort of a sacred altar to Martha Graham. We’re honoring her appetite for the new.” This ethos extends to the company's international tours, including a recent trip to China post-pandemic, where Xin Ying reunited with her mother while her young daughter grappled with the emotional complexities of the reunion.
The film also explores the company's impending relocation from its long-time home at Westbeth, a space shared with the legacy of Merce Cunningham.
Ultimately, We Are Our Time isn't about preserving a relic; it's about the vibrant pulse of a dance company that continues to speak to the human condition. As Barbara Morgan observed, “the only record of a dancer’s Art lies in the other arts.” Graham would undoubtedly approve.