Martha Graham – 1894-1991
Graham was a driving force in American modern dance for half a century, creating a new style of expressive choreography with works “designed to reveal the inner man” by expressing primal emotion and the spiritual and emotional essence of what it is to be human. Her work was sometimes based on Greek myth and drama, but was also rooted in America, as in her collaboration with the great American composer Aaron Copland on the ballet Appalachian Spring (1944), perhaps her most famous work.