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Appalachian Spring: A Collaboration and a Transition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Peter M. Rutkoff  and
William B. Scott
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Extract

In late October, 1944, the Martha Graham Dance Company performed Appalachian Spring at the Library of Congress, establishing Graham as the master of modern dance. The significance of Appalachian Spring, however, went well beyond Graham's artistic development. Notwithstanding its traditional theme, Appalachian Spring heralded an important shift in American art. Following the Second World War a large segment of New York City artists abandoned the effort, so dominant in the interwar years, to create an explicitly “American” art in favor of a “modernist” aesthetic, best exemplified in abstract expressionist painting. Choreographed by Graham, composed by Aaron Copland, and designed by Isamu Noguchi, the “Ballet for Martha” marked an early expression of the shift from American realism to modernism. But unlike much of the radically nonrepresentational work of the late 1940s and early 1950s Appalachian Spring continued to embody the concerns of American realism, even unabashedly displaying its creators' continued embrace of the folk vernacular, while moving toward its modern aesthetic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Prospects , Volume 20 , October 1995 , pp. 209 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

NOTES

1. Polcari, Stephen, “Martha Graham and Abstract Expressionism,” Smithsonian Studies in American Art 4 (Winter, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, rightly connects Graham's preoccupation with myth and archetype with contemporary developments in modern painting during the 1940s.

2. Museum, Brooklyn, The American Renaissance, 1876–1917 (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

3. Said by Noguchi, Isamu in his lyrical autobiography, A Sculptor's World (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).Google Scholar See also Hunter, Sam, Isamu Noguchi (New York: Abbeville, 1981)Google Scholar, and the texts by John Gordon and Dore Ashton for shows at the Whitney Museum (1968) and the Pace Gallery (1983), respectively, in New York City.

4. Hunger, , Noguchi, 33–34.Google Scholar

5. Tarbell, Roberta, “Sculpture, 1900–1940,” in Hills, Patricia and Tarbell, Roberta, Figurative Tradition and the Whitney Museum of American Art (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1985).Google Scholar See also Anderson, Wayne, American Sculpture in Process (New York: New York Graphics Society, 1975), 3.Google Scholar

6. Hunger, , Noguchi, 38.Google Scholar

7. Noguchi, , Sculptor's World, 55.Google Scholar

8. Hunter, , Noguchi, 66.Google Scholar

9. Noguchi, , Sculptor's World, 101.Google Scholar

10. McDonagh, Don, Martha Graham: A Biography (New York: Praeger, 1973), 106.Google Scholar See also Stodelle, Ernestine, Deep Song: The Dance Story of Martha Graham (New York: Scribner, 1984), 96Google Scholar

11. Noguchi, , Sculptor's World, 128.Google Scholar

12. Jane Dudley, interview, Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, New York City (hereafter cited as LCPA). December 29, 1975

13. Ibid.

14. See Stodelle, , Deep Song, 105Google Scholar; and McDonagh, , Martha Graham, 131–138Google Scholar, for a fuller account of this idea.

15. Dudley, interview.

16. Stodelle, , Deep Song, 105–109.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., pp. 112–115.

18. Shirley, Wayne, “The Sources of “Appalachian Spring',”Google Scholar draft manuscript lent to the authors, which they acknowledge gratefully. As Shirley notes, the actual letter is not in the files of the Coolidge Collection at the Music Division of the Library of Congress, and its contents must be assumed from several replies in the same collection. Most of the sources used in this portion of the narrative come from that collection, and some have been cited fully in the Shirley manuscript just noted. They will be designated, however, from their archival point of origin as MDLC.

19. Spivacke, to Coolidge, , 01 31, 1942, MDLC.Google Scholar

20. Coolidge, to Spivacke, , 02 9, 1942, MDLC.Google Scholar

21. Copland, to Coolidge, , 07 31, 1942, MDLC.Google Scholar

22. Copland, Aaron, interview by Gruen, John, 09 9, 1975, LCPAGoogle Scholar

23. Graham, Martha, “Script for Aaron Copland — from Martha Graham,” undated, MDLC.Google Scholar

24. Crane, Hart, “The Bridge,” subtitled “To the Brooklyn Bridge,” in The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose of Hart Crane, ed. Weber, Brom, (New York: Doubleday, 1966)Google Scholar, from the section, “The Dance,” 70–75.Google Scholar

25. Graham, , “Script.”Google Scholar

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Graham, to Coolidge, , 08 2, 1942.Google Scholar

29. Graham, , “Script.”Google Scholar

30. Copland, , Gruen Interview, 07 7, 1975, LCPA.Google Scholar

31. See Copland, Aaron, and Perlis, Vivian, Copland, 1900–1942 New York: St. Martin's, 1984).Google Scholar Copland is probably referring to Andrews, Edward D., The Gift to be Simple: Songs, Dances, and Rituals of the American Shakers (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1940)Google Scholar

32. “Copland,” in New Grove Dictionary (New York: Grove's, 1986).Google Scholar

33. Graham, , “Script.”Google Scholar

34. The correspondence and the programs of the Coolidge Festival, especially the notes from Copland to Spivack, may, of course, be found in the already noted collection at the Library of Congress (MDLC).

35. Noguchi, Isamu, interview, 01–02 1979, LCPA.Google Scholar

36. Rosenthal, Jean “Invitation to the Dance,”Google Scholar radio interview with Walter Terry, 1967, LCPA.

37. We encountered the dream sequence in Oklahoma! in the course of viewing the film version of the musical. DeMille, who supervised the choreography in that presentation, felt that the film was faithful to the original Broadway production. Interview by the authors, June 17, 1988.