Montclair Local: DANCE REVIEW: MARTHA GRAHAM COMPANY LOOKS BOTH WAYS

By Elaine Molinaro

The air was filled with anticipation in the Alexander Kasser Theater for the opening of the Martha Graham Company’s “Appalachian Spring,” Graham’s iconic dance honoring the spirit of life on the American frontier.

Montclair State University’s Peak Performance series celebrated the work’s 75th anniversary by putting the past in conversation with the present. On the same program the company debuted “The Auditions,” a dance conceived by choreographer Troy Schumacher and composer Augusta Read Thomas to resonate with Graham’s classic.

Graham started a revolution when she had her dancers remove their pointe shoes to dance barefoot and round their torsos into the movement she called the contraction, the basis of her dance technique, in a clear departure from the upright body of elite classical ballet.

Read the full article in Montclair Local.