Martha Graham (1894 - 1991)

Born 11 May 1894 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Ancestors

Died 1 Apr 1991 at age 96 in New York City, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Luke Lord Kemp-St. Margaret [send private message]

Biography

Martha Graham is Notable.

Martha Graham has Irish ancestors.

Martha was a famous American modern dancer and choreographer.

Graham was born in Allegheny City – later to become part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – in 1894. Her father, George Graham, practiced as what in the Victorian era was known as an "alienist", a practitioner of an early form of psychiatry. The Grahams were strict Presbyterians. Dr. Graham was a third-generation American of Irish descent. Her mother, Jane Beers, was a second-generation American of Irish, Scots-Irish, and English ancestry, and who claimed descent from Myles Standish.

The Graham family moved to Santa Barbara, California when Martha was fourteen years old. In the mid-1910s, Martha Graham began her studies at the newly created Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, at which she would stay until 1923. In 1922, Graham performed one of Shawn's Egyptian dances with Lillian Powell in a short silent film by Hugo Riesenfeld that attempted to synchronize a dance routine on film with a live orchestra and an onscreen conductor. In 1936, Graham made her defining work, "Chronicle", which signaled the beginning of a new era in modern dance. On April 1, 1958, The Martha Graham Company premiered the ballet Clytemnestra, and it became a huge success and great accomplishment for Graham.

In 2004, the US Postal Service issued a stamp in. her honor ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Smithsonian National Postal Museum https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/women-on-stamps-part-4-theatre-and-dance-revolutionary-dancers/martha-graham

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham