The Martha Graham Dance Company has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a newly derived performance of their popular 2007 piece, Lamentation Variations.
Lamentations Variations was originally conceived by Artistic Director Janet Eilber to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11. The work opens with a film from the early 1930s of Martha Graham, dancing her (then new) and currently iconic solo, Lamentation. The variations that follow were developed under specific creative conditions. Each choreographer was asked to create a spontaneous choreographic sketch of their reaction to the Graham film. They all must have 10 hours of rehearsal, public domain music or silence and basic costume and lighting design.
Though the piece was only slated for one appearance, the audience response to the performance was so positive that Lamentation Variations has been added to the permanent repertory of the Martha Graham Dance Company. Now, new variations have been commissioned. The dance company has commissioned four choreographers to create the new Lamentation Variations.
Kyle Abraham: 2013 MacArthur Fellow and founder of Abraham.In.Motion.
Michelle Dorrance: founder of Dorrance Dance/New York and recipient of the 2014 Alpert Award.
Liz Gerring: 2014 Bessie nominee for Best Production, glacier, hailed by Alastair MacAuley of the New York Times as a "top 10 dance work of 2013."
Sonya Tayeh: Emmy Award nominee and favorite choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance.
Backers of the project will gain exclusive access to the creative process and the choreographers. The company will focus on one choreographer each week in all there updates.
All four new Lamentation Variations will premiere at The Joyce Theatre in February 2015.
You can purchase tickets for Lamentation Variations here.
Check out the video below for Martha Graham's original piece Lamentation.
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