Product Details

• Format: Classical, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: September 12, 1994
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6303168434
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,707 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Martha was in hysterics. The curtain was about to go up..., April 27, 2002

By 

Andrew Olivo Parodi (Oregon, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Martha Graham, The Dancer Revealed [VHS] (VHS Tape)

...and Louie went up to her, slapped her right across the chomps - BAM! - and said, 'Get on with this you *****. Stop your nonsense!'" This is legendary choreographer Agnes de Mille describing how music director Louie Horst "dealt" with one of Martha's famous tantrums. What is most amazing about this blunt story is that it is delivered by a sweet white-haired Anges de Mille who must be in her 80s at this point.

This video, released back in 1994 as part of the PBS series "American Masters," contains many other fascinating testimonies of life and work with the great Martha Graham. Martha's early life in Pennsylvania is discussed, then her family's move to California by train is revealed to be the inspiration of her dance "Frontier." Martha, at the unheard-of age of 22, then begins her dance training at the historic Denishawn school, founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Footage of Martha's early work, after her split with Denishawn and move to New York, is shown - "They were highly derivative (of Denishawn exoticisms). They couldn't be anything else. Some of them were really awful! Just dreadful!"

The chronology of Martha's career as a dancer and choreographer is then traced from that of a single choreographer with only three dancers crowded into a small studio, to international innovator, artiste, and celebrity. The parade of names she influenced, dancers and actors alike, are listed. And a few actors, some of them famous, are interviewed and comment on how Martha's dance technique helped them connect movement with emotions in their physical performance as actors. "One of the things that fascinated me about her," says a jounalist who knew Graham, "was that she had the acting community at her feet. She was not just some artist up in a studio creating dances that were going to change the world. She was a part of a creative community."

Martha's intense, passionate, and stormy marriage with dancer and choreographer Erick Hawkins is mentioned. And we learn how he, with his strictly ballet background, helped change Martha's dance vocabulary, inspiring such works as "Every Soul is a Circus" (the original cast included Merce Cunningham, who became a huge force in modern dance himself) and "Diversion of Angels." Archival footage is shown of Graham dancing the roles she created, as well as more recent color footage of members of the Martha Graham Dance Company interpreting her roles. The most startling images are of a dancer performing as Medea in Martha's dance "Cave of the Heart." In the scene shown, Medea is "devouring her own entrails" after having gone mad with jealously because betrayal from her lover.

This is a beautifully made documentary that I highly recommend to anyone interested in the legacy of this important innovator. I hope that her legacy will be preserved for coming generations.