Martha Graham: Tell Your Stories

Interview with Martha Graham

Conducted by James Grissom

New York City

May 1989

All photographs by Martha Swope, from 1964

Nothing speaks to simplicity as much as telling the story one has inherited or seen.  People speak of returning to a simplicity, and I don't know what they mean. I think they wish their lives were simpler, and I don't think a simple life exists, unless it is the one lived by an infant or a simpleton, and I think there is great drama and turmoil for them as well. I think the crying, hungry baby is really at the edge of death in his or her mind: I think there is a real thought that no more food will be coming. I loved teaching dance to disabled children, and they could so much that was beautiful, because they hadn't read the books or spoken to others about what should be, but if I clapped my hands loudly and noted a mistake, they would break into tears, because everything was final, deadly.

Life is big and dramatic and traumatic, and what we who create can and should do is present our experiences and our survivals in ways that can inspire people, as well as showing them that they are not alone. I think to wait for a happy life, as if it were a destination, over a hill of lavender, scented by positive thoughts, is inane, a lost cause, but I believe fully that everyone--everyone on the planet--can find some measure of comfort and ease as they pursue their stories. Share them.

We can only do what we can: We are born and built and self-understood in such a way that what emanates from us, if we are truthful, is utterly unique. In dance you strictly follow steps, you listen for musical cues, you breathe with your partners. It is very regimented--it has a history that you are repeating. However, you are doing the same steps in a way only you can. And I would hope that my students then go and make their own stories through dance.

History is the telling of tales, the sharing of experience, people huddled and eager to learn what came before and what might await them. This is drama and literature and dance and film and music. Stories. History. As creators, as an audience, as a lover of such things, we have to get into the middle of it all and live through it. Tell your stories. Call out what you find real or false in the existing stories. One lives in a story, and one dies waiting for some mythical happiness to appear across a land that is entirely imaginary.

©  2019  James Grissom