Bertram Ross: acrobat of the goddess - Martha Graham dancer remembers her

Dance Magazine, May, 1996 by John Gruen

Bertram Ross, one of America's great modern dancers, turned seventy-five last November while remaining the image of impeccable elegance and singular charm. On a recent visit to his duplex apartment on Manhattan's East Side, which he shares with his longtime friend, cabaret composer and pianist John Wallowitch, one found him looking handsome, trim, and fit. He easily reminds one of the spectacularly athletic partner of Martha Graham and the dark, piercing power he brought to much of her overwrought repertoire.

In his long association with the Graham company as both dancer and codirector, Ross created more than thirty-five leading roles. Indelibly he was associated with those of Saint Michael in Seraphic Dialogue, Agamemnon and Orestes in Clytemnestra, Adam in Embattled Garden, and the Revivalist in Appalachian Spring (made on Erick Hawkins). He was in his twenties and Graham in her fifties when he joined the Martha Graham Dance Company. The disparity in their ages did not stand in the way of a partnership that more often than not produced electrifying performances. Playing the mortal to Graham's goddess also produced--in Ross--intense levels of emotional ambiguity.

Eventually, feeling troubled, hurt, disillusioned, and, as he puts it, heinously betrayed, he resigned from the company in 1973 to expand his career as dancer, actor, and singer. There were forays into theater (Tennessee Williams's Camino Real, Shakespeare's The Tempest), film (Amy Greenfield's Antigone), musical revues (Two Gentlemen from Manhattan, Broadway in the Twenties), and choreography (Kurt Weill's Johnny Johnson, Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium and The Telephone).

Then, in 1984, Ross did the unpredictably outrageous. He joined Wallowitch, a seasoned performer of pop and show tunes, in a boisterously outre cabaret act. Given their somewhat advancing years yet incredible spirit and panache, the act proved an instant success. Their fast paced, superbly timed numbers centered on rarely heard songs by Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, and Rodgers and Hart, as well as witty, sophisticated material composed by Wallowitch. Repeated engagements at New York City's Ballroom, among many clubs throughout this country and Europe, have kept the duo busy to this day.

In conversation, Ross's memory skips here and there. In his recall of the years with Graham there were certain gaps and omissions, but it must be remembered that decades have passed since all the major Graham dancing happened--and since his partnership, friendship, and love-hate relationship with Graham ultimately turned this most gentle of men into a rueful and saddened hero.

It was during the mid-forties that I first saw Martha perform," Ross begins. "It was in Washington, D.C., and it was the greatest revelation of my life. I couldn't believe that the human body was capable of making visible all those feelings you had inside you and couldn't put into words. I immediately resolved to study with her.

"My classes took place at Martha's school at 66 Fifth Avenue. Her presence in the classroom was almost too electric. Every time she came in, I was a nervous wreck. I thought she was probably the most beautiful woman of this century. Anyway, I remember one time I couldn't sit on the floor in second position with my leg out and my back straight. Martha came around and put her hands under my armpits and her shin against my back and pulled me up so that I was sitting straight. I mumbled, 'I can't breathe!' She said, 'You will, darling.'

"Another time she said, 'Bertram, come here!' And she took me to the mirror and took hold of my hair at the back of my head and pulled me up, and she poked my stomach in and said, 'Now, look at yourself. Isn't that beautiful! That's how you should always look.'

"Before I knew it, the school put me in the intermediate class. I was there for only a couple of weeks when they put me in the advanced class. I felt I was really being groomed, because they needed male dancers. At one point I thought surely they would put me into the company, but they chose someone else, Dale Sehnert.

"So I continued to study. At one point, the company and the rest of us all went to Connecticut College for the summer. It was the time when the battle was raging between Martha and Doris Humphrey, who was also at Connecticut with Jose Limon, teaching and performing. I wanted to sign up with Humphrey and Limon just for the experience.

"Limon himself was at the desk. He looked up and asked, 'What has your training been?' I said, 'I'm studying with Martha Graham.' He said, 'What level are you in?' I said, 'The advanced level.' He said, 'In that case, you'll have to take my beginner's class.'

"I worked with Humphrey and Limon on dance composition and composed a dance called Premonition. In it I used very deep contraction and release. Well, that dance did not get shown. In fact, Doris took me for a little walk and said, 'A man should never allow his shoulders to come in front of his chest.' I said, 'But a man breathes just the way a woman breathes, and contractions are all built on breathing.' But Doris would hear nothing about that--and my dance was never shown.