Contraction and release.  At its core, these are the starting principals of the Graham technique, pioneered by American contemporary dance legend Martha Graham. Graham, who lived from 1894-1991, was so pivotal in the world of dance that her influence, both in the technique—the first ever codified method of contemporary dance—and in her choreography, still lives on today. The Martha Graham Dance Company, founded in 1926, became famous for nurturing the careers of iconic dancers and choreographers of the 20th and 21st centuries, working with the likes of Merce Cunningham, Sir Robert Cohan, Elisa Monte and many others.

In 2023, the Company embarked on a three-season long celebration of its 100th anniversary. This February, the Company will touch down in Sarasota, where it will perform four works for Program Five of the Sarasota Ballet’s season. “For me, Martha Graham is the godmother of modern dance,” says Iain Webb, director of the Sarasota Ballet. “She was an extraordinary figure and her ideas pertaining to movement were just mind-boggling. There is a way that the energy flows differently through the body, which audiences have an amazing visual appetite for.”

Webb welcomes the chance to continuously present work of companies other than the Sarasota Ballet, both for the benefit of audiences and for his dancers. “I love presenting a company other than our own every season, it’s a chance for me to give our loyal audiences and supporters a chance to see what is going on in the dance world,” says Webb. “It’s also very important for our company to see these dancers perform, whether it’s Graham Dance Company or Mark Morris Dance Group, so that when we dance their ballets, we have a better understanding of the choreography as well.”

The Company will be performing four works while in Sarasota: We The People, Immediate Tragedy, Errand and En Masse. We The People, with choreography by Jamar Roberts and music by Grammy-Award winning folk artist Rhiannon Giddens, premiered in February 2024 in the first of the three season celebration of the company’s 100th anniversary. Keeping in line with the 2023-24’s theme, “American Legacies,” We The People explores themes of protest amidst Americana, pairing Giddens’ explosive folk music with the equally electric dancers of the company. 

Immediate Tragedy harkens back to 1937, when Martha Graham choreographed the solo as a reaction to the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. The dance, which depicts a fierce female figure of resilience, was all but forgotten when Graham stopped performing it in the late 1930s. In 2020, however, choreographer Janet Eilber rediscovered Graham’s solo and re-imagined the choreography for a newer work. Additionally, conductor Christopher Rountree created a new score for the work, inspired by hand-written pages of music from Immediate Tragedy’s original composer Henry Cowell. 

Errand is another updated version of an original Martha Graham work, Errand into the Maze, which premiered in 1947 with a score by Gian Carlo Menotti. Errand into the Maze is a duet derived from the Greek myth of Theseus, the Athenian hero who descends into the labyrinth to conquer the minotaur. In Errand into the Maze, Graham tells the story from the perspective of Ariadne, who in the original myth helps Theseus defeat the monster only to be betrayed by him afterwards. “It is such an iconic piece of Graham’s and used to be so visually fantastic, so I’m very much interested to see what this new concept has in store,” says Webb. In Errand, which premiered in 2013, director and choreographer Luca Veggetti retained Graham’s iconic choreography, but recreated the setting, costumes and context for the work. Veggetti has done away with traditional sets, using lighting to set the stage and created basic costuming—all in an effort to contemporize the work and reinvigorate it with urgency and intensity.

En Masse, which made its premiere in October 2025, was commissioned specifically for the 100th anniversary of the Graham Company. En Masse is in many ways the fulfillment of a partnership between Graham and legendary composer Leonard Bernstein that never fully came to fruition—although the two deeply considered collaborating on a work inspired by American social issues, nothing ever came to light. That is, until the Leonard Bernstein Foundation uncovered an unknown piece of music titled Vivace in the “Martha/Lenny” file that they believe was written for Graham. The Graham Company once again turned to Rountree to compose a score for this new work, an expansion of Vivace, aptly titled “For Martha (Variations on a Theme by Leonard Bernstein)”. Two-time Bessie Award winner Hope Boykin choreographed a work for seven of the company’s dancers for En Masse. 

In Program Five of Sarasota Ballet’s season, the Company will once again contract, pulling in audiences with its masterful mix of athleticism and grace, before releasing viewers back into the world.