L
From "La Canción" to "Lucrezia" (6 works)
- La Canción
- 1927
Performed to music by René Defosse, La Canción premiered on February 27, 1927, at New York's Guild Theatre. The solo work was performed by Martha Graham.Programs indicate that the work also appeared as La Canción Tragica. A February 28, 1927, review in Musical America noted, "Miss Graham proved herself more than a dancer who could delight her audience with grace and an understanding of the art of posture. She is well blessed in mime, the success of her portrayals depending to a great extent upon the tragedy one saw in her eyes, or the pallor that lay upon her forehead or the scintillating humor at the corners of her lips."
- La Soirée dans Grenade
- 1927
Performed to music by Claude Debussy, La Soirée dans Grenade premiered on November 28, 1927, at New York's Klaw Theatre. The solo work, later renamed The Moth, was performed by Martha Graham. On March 6, 1927, the Washington Post critic Robert Bell described Graham as, "the woman like a white moth seeking the light stalks the streets of Granada, it is a veil she handles to perfection. The veil clings to her body, loving it, she and it find protection in each other--her hands seem to call to it and it comes flying. For a moment it is submissive; then the dancer wearies of the veil and it drops quivering from her to her feet, and the woman stands without it proud and free."
- Lamentation
- 1930
Performed to music by Zoltán Kodály, Lamentation premiered on January 8, 1930, at New York's Maxine Elliott's Theatre. The solo work was performed by Martha Graham in a concert given by the Dance Repertory Theatre. Graham joined dancer/choreographers Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and [Helen] Tamiris to form the Dance Repertory Theatre. The goal was "to give annually a season of continuous dance programs which will be representative of the art of dance in American and will give native artists an outlet for their creative work." Dance Magazine (April 1930) noted that the work was "a statuesque composition, which relied for much of its eloquence upon an ingenious and simple costume arrangement." The November 20, 1932, Record (Philadelphia) reviewed a later performance and noted, "When Miss Graham in her Lamentation depicts the dumb agony of grief she does not droop like a flower or attitudinize like Patience on a monument, she is grief from the first stricken bewildered gropings of her head and torso to the last moment when she averts her covered head with a finality that is pitiful and terrible."
- Land Be Bright
- 1942
Performed to music by Arthur Kreutz, Land Be Bright premiered on March 14, 1942, at Chicago's Civic Opera House. The set and costumes were designed by Charlotte Trowbridge. The original cast list included Graham and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Music News (April 11, 1942) noted that the work was "uninspired and infantile in conception. It has the worst faults of the early modern dance."
- Letter to the World
- 1940
Performed to music by Hunter Johnson, Letter to the World premiered on August 11, 1940, at the Bennington College Theater, Bennington, Vermont. The work was based on the life of Emily Dickinson, with costumes designed by Edythe Gilfond and a set created by Arch Lauterer. Principal cast members were Graham, Margaret Meredith, Erick Hawkins, Jane Dudley, and members of Graham's Group. Irving Kolodin, writing for the New York Sun (January 21, 1941) noted, "Miss Graham has evolved what might be reasonable described as the first authentically American Ballet." Critic Edwin Denby, writing in Modern Music (March-April 1941) declared, "Much of it is not clear to me after seeing it once. But it contains such astonishing passages one is quite willing to forgive the awkward parts it also has, and remember it is a masterpiece."
- Lucrezia
- 1927
Performed to music by Claude Debussy, Lucrezia premiered on February 27, 1927, at New York's Guild Theatre. The solo work was performed by Martha Graham and was described by Dance Magazine (December 1927) as "A vivid character study of Lucrezia dancing for her father the Pope."