CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — It’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m waiting in a cramped hallway beneath The Joyce Theater stage in Chelsea, Manhattan. My palms are sweaty, and I feel anxious as I attempt to take my mind off the looming event, my New York City debut. The audience is filled with my peers, teachers, family and significant modern dance figures, including Dante Puleio, the artistic director of the Limón Dance Company. To say I’m nervous is an understatement.
This concert, a biennial event produced by the Martha Graham Dance Company, is called the University Partnership Performance. Seven universities nationwide, including Dance at Illinois from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, were invited to perform here alongside Graham 2, a company that serves as a bridge between the Martha Graham School and the MGDC. This will be a matinée performance of historical works by prominent modern dance choreographers.
In this concert, there are works by Martha Graham, a pioneer American choreographer widely regarded as the “Mother of Modern Dance;” José Limón, a Mexican-born artist considered one of modern dance’s most outstanding male dancers and choreographers; and Erick Hawkins, a leading American modern dance choreographer and once the spouse of Graham.
Yesterday, the university dance departments were invited to a social event at the current Martha Graham School studios to experience the historical space before their upcoming move to their new space in Times Square. Merce Cunningham, a dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company and an influential American dance artist, bequeathed the rooftop studio to the company. Cunningham was the first dancer-in-residence in a university program, in 1959 at Illinois. He holds an honorary doctorate from the U. of I.’s dance department, presented to him in 1972.
Last night, the Illinois dancers attended an MGDC performance at The Joyce Theater. This followed a morning of tech for the University Partnership Performance. It was intriguing to see how the towering X-shaped props I had seen backstage were used in action for the excerpt of Graham’s “Clytemnestra Act II” (1958). While watching the show, I couldn’t help but daydream about our upcoming performance.
As I wait in the hallway, the demanding sound score of Graham’s “Steps in the Street” (1936) echoes from above. Choreographic memories of my time spent understudying and ultimately performing this work for Dance at Illinois’ October Dance 2023 resurface in my body. Our regisseurs, the directors responsible for staging theatrical works, Elizabeth Auclair and Miki Orihara are in the audience. This morning, we were fortunate to participate in a Graham technique class taught by Orihara on The Joyce Theater stage, which brought me to reminisce even further about last year’s process.
In a few moments, we will perform excerpts from José Limón’s “The Winged” (1966), which explores the human desire to feel free and the flight of mythological creatures. We will perform the “Dawn Chorus,” “Harpies” and “Circular Flight” sections of the suite. I find this iteration especially challenging, as it requires dancing for nearly 15 minutes straight. This cardio-packed routine filled with jumps, lifts and sliding abruptly into the splits requires agility, flexibility, strength and a strong technical understanding.
There is no doubt that this is a professional-level piece. Thankfully, our professor and regisseur, Roxane D’Orleans Juste, prepared us well. She was the associate artistic director of the Limón Dance Company and a performer for over 30 years, and she gave us advice and direction rooted in her wealth of knowledge. Thanks to her guidance, I feel prepared and confident to take the stage and connect my mind and body with the Limón technique.
To calm my nerves, I reflect on the group breath my peers and I took moments ago. The Limón technique requires a synchronization between breath and movement. This combination allows the dancers to achieve both falling and recovering. At several moments in this performance, I will imagine the shape of a “U” to allow myself to tap into the sensations of flying up and down hills.
I will begin this piece at the top of a rise. Once the piano starts, I will exhale into a fall and take flight into The Joyce Theatre.
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