#blood memory

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A Marathon Reading of Martha Graham

Over the course of seven hours, sixteen dancers and former dancers read the legendary choreographer’s memoir from start to finish.

By Ian Frazier

August 15, 2016

Aman sat in a chair in the café on the first floor of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center, for almost seven hours and listened to sixteen dancers and former dancers read “Blood Memory,” the autobiography of Martha Graham, one reader after the other, all the way through from beginning to end. Graham wrote that a dancer is “an athlete of God” and quoted Lincoln Kirstein’s remark that dance is “glorified human behavior.” Sitting with a glorified seatedness that came from deep within himself, the man, who can’t dance a lick, felt grateful just to be in the bleachers.

“There is a fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep.” Though Graham wrote that early in her book, the man did not fear such a possibility. His chair was perfectly O.K. The sun moved overhead and the shadows crossed the nearby buildings visible out the café windows in a downtown direction, toward Forty-eighth Street, where Graham had performed for the first time with her own group of dancers exactly ninety years before, to the day. The marathon reading marked that anniversary. Janet Eilber, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, read first. “Movement never lies. . . . The body is a sacred garment. . . . Every dance is a kind of fever chart. . . . The beauty of the heel as it is used to carry one forward into life.” Next came Tiler Peck, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, who, her shoulders bare, wore her dark hair up, bright-red lipstick, and dangling earrings. She took the young Graham through early childhood, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now Pittsburgh), where her father was a strict Presbyterian and an “alienist,” or psychiatrist, and coal soot covered everybody. Martha went around veiled.

Behind the readers, in a window of the building across the street, a man or woman sat and organized papers, holding them in both hands and tapping them downward to make them even. Sonya Tayeh, a two-time Emmy nominee for her choreography for “So You Think You Can Dance?,” arrived in an ankle-length black garment and platform shoes. Her black hair was long on top and shaved close on the sides. She read the part that included Graham’s family’s move to Santa Barbara and the fright Graham gave her mother when she skipped rope while standing on a branch of an olive tree.

“I have based everything that I have done on the pulsation of life. . . . I am sure that levitation is possible.” Virginia Johnson, a founding member and artistic director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, read about Graham’s achievements in high school—her editorship of the school newspaper, her playing on the basketball team—and the death of her father. That misfortune threw the family into poverty. Meanwhile, Graham grew up, studied with the Denishawn Dance Troupe, in Los Angeles, moved to New York, unwillingly became a dancer with a musical revue to support her family, refused to wear cheesy costumes, quit the musical revue, began to put together her own company, knocked everybody out with a one-night performance of her work on April 18, 1926, in a theatre she had rented with money borrowed from the owner of the old Gotham Book Mart, appeared all over the country, inspired Fanny Brice to parody her, danced for Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House, danced for eight U.S. Presidents, won worldwide fame.

The sun’s angle became more aslant. In the room across the street, someone lowered the blinds. Most readers, when they finished, sat through the next reader or two, then tiptoed out. The tactful steps of dancers trying not to disturb were small and beguiling choreographies in themselves. A soft step-step-step-step, head down, with torso bent; then longer quiet strides in the open, toward the elevator up ahead. “I don’t work from counts. I have a very physical memory. I work from body phrase.”

Published in the print edition of the August 22, 2016, issue, with the headline “Body Phrases.”

Ian Frazier, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is the author of “Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough.”

[lgbtlunaverse]

Nothing will dispell the "the curtains were just blue" myth faster than writing something yourself, because the amount of pretentious symbolism i am putting in my silly little fanfics is ridiculous. I mean SO much with these words, literally every single one of them. This fic has twenty five typos and zero correct uses of punctuation but if there's curtains you bet your ass I put thought into what colour they were.

[thatwritererinoriordan]

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres/techniques: anime horror

[starry-bi-sky]

Bruce: you know how to shoot a gun?

Danny: bruce

Danny: im from the midwest

Danny: half my graduating class knew how to shoot a gun by the time they were eight

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Not beating the allegations.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[orbees]

this gif [source] has absolutely been killing me. stomps on you to death. breasts boobily

[heatherchasesyou]

Who are you running from?

[vigilskept]

i knew it was going to be rough, but choosing to save minrathous over treviso as rook de riva is actually brutal

[letswonderspirit]

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 118

Everyone is freaking out. The titan tower was broken into, no signs of who it was, and Tim- Robin- is missing. There’s blood on the walls, taunting them, implying that Tim is going through agony, and they can’t deal with another dead Robin, they can’t- 

Meanwhile Tim is bemused, maybe a little concussed because that would explain things maybe, as he’s found himself in a living room full of books and there’s a pair of kids too? One is straight up adoption bait- wait no there’s three, with two of them being adoption bait and the third being a redhead. There’s a trio of small children there already playing by the couch he’s been bundled into. 

Where the heck is his mask- or his bo staff or any of his supplies- is that the fucking Red Hood?! No, couldn’t be, must be the concussion, because why would the Red Hood be feeding him a bowl of soup?

[erros429]

this is the sexiest frame in dungeon meshi. sorry tits out falin, you’re a close second

[fascinationstreetmp3]

i really need them to tell us what made daniel suddenly start remembering he met armand at polynesian mary's because it drives me crazy thinking about it.... it was a redacted memory; armand tried to erase himself completely from both the bar and the apartment. daniel starts dreaming about meeting louis after getting the tapes and it always cuts off before armand shows up. until suddenly one night it doesn't, with no obvious trigger, apparently no poking in his mind to knock the walls around the hidden memory down accidentally or otherwise. what made daniel remember? something in the infusion? armand touching him when he covered him with a blanket in his sleep? some other third thing? all of the above??????

[craetor]

Faith doodles

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Dead Brothers

Written for: Whumptober, prompt 4. HALLUCINATIONS Hypnosis | Sensory Deprivation | “You're still alive in my head.” (Billy Lockett, More)

"Danyal?"

His voice is shocked. Danyal doesn't understand what's there to be shocked about. He strikes again, aiming for his target's shoulder, quick and merciless, like the weapon he always was.

"Danyal, stop!" The target tries, dodging, and Danyal hears a tinge of plea in his voice. He doesn't care. And, he doesn't stop, of course - he is not to listen to commands of others. Only Grandfather's.

The boy in front of him doesn't fight back. Strange, Grandfather told him he was of the League. Maybe betrayal had softened him? Danyal narrows his eyes and strikes again, his blade reflecting the moonlight from the window briefly. His target steps back, avoiding the tip of it by mere inches.

"Ma bik, akhi?" The boy tries again as he keeps dodging and taking steps back to avoid Danyal's attacks.

Nothing is wrong with him. Danyal fails to understand the reason for the question. He is simply doing his job, one he was destined to do, one he was taught for. If this boy is not going to fight back, what is the reason for his dodging? He should simply succumb to the fate and accept his death.

...what did he call him?..

It doesn't matter. It's only a futile attempt to deceive him.

The hallway of the manor ends with a dead end, and his target is cornered. There's no escape now. Danyal lunges. The blade goes through the boy's shoulder with little effort, sharp and cold like ice. The moonlight from the window falls on the face of the boy, pinned to the wall like a butterfly.

His face is... familiar, somehow. Danyal has seen it before.

Yet, it's his eyes that cause him to still in his place. Dark and wide open, full of hurt and betrayal and, for some reason, hope. There are no tears - understandable, if the boy was one of the League once, he was trained to never cry, just like Danyal was.

His own eyes are burning with long forgotten tears.

The boy looks at him, blood streaming down his shoulder and leaving splotches on the carpet.

"...Danny," he whispers, and-

No, no-no-no, it doesn't matter, it doesn't make sense, he is a weapon, he has a mission, he-

It's not possible, he never had a-

"Brother," the boy, no, Damian says again, quiet and pleading, and Danny's eyes land on the blade again. Blood stains his brother's clothes, a dark, growing wet spot in the dim light of the moon.

Danny let's go of the hilt like it burns him and steps away, the memories locked away behind his purpose filling his head, speading and staining him, just like the bloody spot on Damian's shirt.

"Danny is dead," he tells the boy, shoving the undignified lump in his throat down, where no one can hear it. Damian looks him in the eyes without blinking.

"You were always alive in my head," he answers, almost soft, which is... Damian never talked like that before. Danny hates that he knows it.

He hates what he remembers. He hates that he remembers at all.

He turns away and runs.