The Martha Graham Dance Company, the oldest modern dance company in the United States, is celebrating its 100th anniversary which includes revivals of her iconic works, international tours and oral memories of the impact of her life. Classic Chicago’s resident Jean Colonomos once danced with Graham and shares this poem from her book Living the Dream with you.
The Queen
There she stood,MARTHA GRAHAM,
Queen Of All She Surveyed.
We students, her court,
stood at attention when she walked in.
The Queen nodded, signaling us to sit on the floor,
and for Bert, her demonstrator,
to put the soles of his feet together in butterfly position.
She’d say, And in a voice that came from her toes,
and class would formally begin.
What a Queen.
Sometimes benevolent,
when she’d softly correct a student.
Sometimes cruel
when she’d curse or smack us.
Sometimes whimsical
when she’d tweet, “Britsee, britsee,”
her favorite nonsense syllables.
And sometimes luminous
when she’d watch thirty or so students
doing the technique she’d created
during her lifelong love affair with dance.
Phaedra.
Jocasta.
Clytemnestra.
Young Bride.
Martha was a woman who embraced all women,
though she might’ve said,
I created those roles because when I began in the nineteen twenties
there was little suitable for me to dance.
Martha choreographed because she needed to perform
and from that desire an empire was born.
