Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance is located in New York City and is the headquarter to the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Martha Graham Dance Company, which is the oldest continually performing dance company in the world.
The center was founded in the 1926 by Martha Graham. Its first headquarters consisted of a small dance studio on Broadway. The center later moved to a two story building at 316 East 63rd Street, New York, right off of 2nd Avenue.
After Martha Graham's death in 1991, the center's true directorial direction was in debate. In her will, Martha Graham left heir Ron Protas as sole proprietor of her dances. For a time, Protas actually attempted to deny the Martha Graham Dance Company the right to perform Graham's work. After years of legal battles, the Martha Graham Dance Company was ruled the true owner of the Graham repertoire .
In 2005, the center was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Famous quotes containing the words martha graham, martha, graham, center, contemporary and/or dance:
“America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage.”
—Martha Graham (1894–1991)
“You’ve strung your breasts
with a rattling rope of pearls,
tied a jangling belt
around those deadly hips
and clinking jewelled anklets
on both your feet.
So, stupid,
if you run off to your lover like this,
banging all these drums,
then why
do you shudder with all this fear
and look up, down;
in every direction?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.?, Kashmirian king, compiler, author of some of the poems in the anthology which bears his name. translated from the Amaruataka by Martha Ann Selby, vs. 31, Motilal Banarsidass (1983)
“I’ll make thee glorious by my pen
And famous by my sword;
I’ll serve thee in such noble ways
Was never heard before;
I’ll crown and deck thee all with bays,
And love thee more and more.”
—James Graham Marquess of Montrose (1612–1650)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn’t make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“a dance sacred as the sap in
the trees,”
—Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926)