Martha Graham’s life tracked the jumps and dips of modern dance
A new biography looks at the woman who helped popularise modern dance in America
In 1929 an American critic, Henry McBride, observed that “the centre of the world has shifted” from Paris to New York. America did not just have cultural capital—it was becoming the West’s cultural capital. Dance was flourishing because of two inventive and charismatic choreographers. George Balanchine, the father of American ballet, liberated classical dance from European strictures, replacing costume dramas with graceful abstractions.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Dance like nobody’s watching”
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