BAM's Next Wave Fest opens with Radical Graham - Brooklyn Academy of Music's 1994 Next Wave Festival to include early dance works of Martha Graham

Dance Magazine, Sept, 1994 by Susan Reiter

NEW YORK CITY--Brooklyn Academy of Music's 1994 Next Wave Festival, which includes a generous helping of dance events, will open with a ten-day engagement by Martha Graham Dance Company focusing on pivotal early Graham works and their influence, and celebrating the centennial of the choreographer's birth.

Radical Graham (which runs from September 28 to October 9) represents a departure for the Next Wave Festival, which usually introduces new, often commissioned work. According to BAM president and executive director Harvey Lichtenstein, however, Radical Graham fits in. "Artistically, so much of what has happened in the later part of the twentieth century has been drawn from Graham's early masterpieces," Lichtenstein says. "It is not only valuable but also appropriate that we inaugurate Next Wave with a look at her most significant works from the thirties and forties--a repertoire that radically altered the course of art."

The Radical Graham repertoire will include Heretic (1929), Graham's earliest surviving work; Satyric Festival Song (1932), a solo long out of repertoire but captured vividly in several Barbara Morgan photographs; Celebration (1934); and three excerpts from the large-scale 1936 work Chronicle. These excerpts are the solo "Spectre 1914"; the ensemble section "Steps in the Street," which was revived several years ago; and the dance's closing section, "Prelude to Action."

Works from the 1940s to be seen at BAM include El Penitente (1940); Letter to the World (1940), with Claire Bloom in the speaking role; Herodiade (1944); Appalachian Spring (1944); Dark Meadow and Cave of the Heart (both 1946); and Errand into the Maze (1947). There will be two performances of Graham's 1958 full-evening Clytemnestra; and her final completed dance, Maple Leaf Rag (1990) also will be in the repertoire. The gala opening, September 28, will feature a performance of The Owl and the Pussycat (1978). The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Stanley Sussman, will accompany the performances.

Celebrations of the Graham centennial will continue throughout 1994. The Graham company will appear in Minnesota in October with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, in a tribute to music commissioned by Graham, and will spend October 24-30 in residence at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, taking part in performances, concerts, and symposia.

Graham's dances now are being licensed for performance by university and professional dance companies for the first time. Agreements are already in place with Paris Opera Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Juilliard School, Florida State University, and University of Illinois.

Upcoming dance events at the Next Wave Festival include Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara's Noiject (October 12-16); Nederlands Dans Theater 1, 2, and 3 (October 17-30); Susan Marshall's Spectators at an Event and Victory (November 9-13); Pina Bausch's Wuppertaler Tanztheater performing Two Cigarettes n the Dark (November 17-23); and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in Still/Here (from November 30 to December 3).