Graham and art deco

My friend Rachel is highly trained in the modern-dance technique of Martha Graham, who was rising to prominence during the same era that the Joslyn Art Museum was built. Opened in 1931, the museum’s original Memorial Hall features a grand lobby in the Art Deco style. Putting Rachel’s Graham-inspired movement together with the lobby’s architecture seemed like a natural pairing, and the museum was kind enough to let us come in one morning for an hour before the building opened to the public.

Knowing it might be hard to communicate in the spacious lobby, I had asked Rachel to devise a single Graham-inspired movement phrase that she wouldn’t mind dancing over and over. My hope had been that I would be able to learn the phrase well enough to anticipate it for photos. In practice, though, I just let myself be carried away with the beauty of Rachel channeling her inner Martha Graham.