Youngest Cast of Students to Perform “Chronicle”
San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts Dance (SDSCPA) students will participate in the Martha Graham Dance Company’s centennial celebration during SDSCPA’s mainstage production of the reconstructed, three-section version of Graham’s powerful 1936 masterpiece, “Chronicle.” The dance majors will be the youngest cast to perform this full work. In addition, 15-year-old featured soloist Jacqueline Dombrow will step into history as the youngest dancer to perform Graham’s iconic role in Spectre-1914, the opening solo. The performance will include Wallingford Riegger’s original score, Isamu Noguchi’s historic set designs and Martha Graham’s original costumes.
Performances take place from Thursday, November 12 through Saturday, November 14 at SDSCPA’s Florence Johnson Grand Theatre, 2425 Dusk Drive, San Diego, 92139.
Martha Graham is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th century, alongside Picasso, James Joyce, Stravinsky, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
TIME magazine named Martha Graham “Dancer of the Century,” and People magazine named her among the female “Icons of the Century.” As a choreographer, she was as prolific as she was complex. Graham created 181 ballets and a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Her approach to dance and theater revolutionized the art form, and her innovative physical vocabulary has irrevocably influenced dance worldwide.
Martha Graham’s extraordinary artistic legacy has often been compared to Stanislavsky’s Art Theatre in Moscow and the Grand Kabuki Theatre of Japan, for its diversity and breadth. Her legacy is perpetuated in performance by the Martha Graham Dance Company and Graham 2, and by the students of the Martha Graham School.
In 1926, Martha Graham founded her dance company and school, living and working out of a tiny Carnegie Hall studio in midtown Manhattan. In developing her technique, Martha Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with the most elemental movements of contraction and release. Using these principles as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would “increase the emotional activity of the dancer’s body.” Martha Graham’s dancing and choreography exposed the depths of human emotion through movements that were sharp, angular, jagged, and direct. The dance world was forever altered by Martha Graham’s vision, which has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for generations of dance and theatre artists.
“Chronicle”premiered at the Guild Theater in New York City on December 20, 1936. The dance was a response to the menace of fascism in Europe; earlier that year, Graham had refused an invitation to take part in the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, stating: “I would find it impossible to dance in Germany at the present time. So many artists whom I respect and admire have been persecuted, have been deprived of the right to work for ridiculous and unsatisfactory reasons, that I should consider it impossible to identify myself, by accepting the invitation, with the regime that has made such things possible. In addition, some of my concert group would not be welcomed in Germany.” (This is in reference to the fact that many members of her group were Jewish).
“Chronicle”does not attempt to show the actualities of war; rather does it, by evoking war’s images, set forth the fateful prelude to war, portray the devastation of spirit which it leaves in its wake, and suggest an answer.
For more information, visit www.sdscpa.org.
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