Our week long engagement of Martha Graham Dance Company at the Theare du Chatelet ended last Saturday evening. It was a wonderful run for the company and for Parisiennes.

Cherry Blossom over Notre Dame

It was a perfect season for visiting Paris. Flowers are blooming, it was warmer than NY and no rain( except 1 day)!!!

We left Saturday night, arrived on Sunday afternoon. It was “Easter Sunday”. In France, following Monday is also a national holiday. So our day off was a holiday… that means NO SHOPPING… well museums are open! Some of us went Rodin Museum, Picasso Museum, Luvre… you name it. It’s all there so which ever you pick, you will have tremendous time. That is Paris!

For me, it was a day to see few of my friends. So I had nice time with my friends, walked Marais area to Montparnasse where we stayed( Hotel Concorde Montparnasse). Passed Notre Dame, Jardin de Luxemburg, cafe…

On Tuesday, our heavy days are starting.
Company class, Dress rehearsal and the opening performance. We started at 10:30am.By the time we finish the day, it was 10:30pm. It was a sold out performance!
The last time we were here was 1991, we danced at Paris Opera Theatre, Garnier. So it has been 18years…actually we were here in 1994 or 95 at out door performance at Palais Royal. So not that long ago I guess but still more than 10 years?

We opened with “Errand into the Maze” beautiful music by Menotti, and set design by Isamu Noguchi. I recently read Isamu’s biography(?) by Japanese woman. I wished that when I met him back then, that I knew he could speak Japanese… so I could ask him a lot of things in Japanese… Oh well…

Second was ” Divirsion of Angels” music by Norman Dello Joio. This ballet has three acpects of Love which indicate the color of white, red and yellow.

There was a trail color film by Kodac, moving film with color and first trial was MG’s “Lamentation”. It was not a complete ballet but appear as her study of this ballet. Janet Eilber, who is the artistc director of MGDC had a concept that choreographer inspired by this particular film to creat new works for MGDC is called ” Lamentation Variations”.For the first time, we had Richard Move, Aszure Barton and Larry Keigwin from New York. They each had 10 hours of reheasrsal time and use public domain music and casual attire for the costume. I was involved with Larry’s and Aszure’s pieces. Very different approach. I will need to write about this experience later as an entry.

then forth was “Cave of the Heart”. I danced Medea, who were heart broken by her husband Jason to take a young princess as his new wife. Beautiful music by Barber, set by Isamu. I danced a role, the Daughter of the King, now called Princess. Originally created for Yuriko, who taught me when I was casted to dance this role. I did not learn from video. Yuriko talks about when Martha told her about making this ballet,
” Yuriko,this dance is about Medea and her husband, Jason, and he will leave Medea to marry this young, beautiful princess. This whole story is about what jealousy can do to a woman. Then character you will portray, the princess , is pure, very innocent, not tained in anyway. She has no malicious feelings towards anyone/anything, and does not suspect anything. Medea is going to try and kill her. You do not see her as a dangerous person, you gesture - do that to me in a very inoccent way. The princess is very beautiful but she does not realize her beauty and she loves Jason blindly and totally and does not know the background that has taken place between Medea and Jason.”( Yuriko an American Japanese Dancer: To Wash in the Rian and Polish with the Wind/ by Emiko Tokunaga )
I remember Yuriko told me how innocent you could be, that makes Medea’s Jealousy stands out. It is a dance of 4 charactor and each of us has such a role to complete this work. and to me, this work is full Dance/Drama work. Has prologue, story and epilogue. And to dance Medea, I could get lost in dance, which I started to experience when I danced in “Deaths and Entrances”.

Then the last ballet was the last ballet that Martha created and completed,” Maple Leaf Rag”. Music by Jopplin, famous rag time music. When Martha gets stock with her creation, she used to call “Louis, play me the Maple Leaf Rag”. So this dance starts with that. We have MG’s voice, everytime I hear it, that makes me smile. Actually when she was working on the ballet ” Eyes of Goddess” she got stock and could not go on. Then we had a tour to Charleston, SC where she found Juggling Boad. SO she shipped it to NY then immediately we started to work with it. In the beggining, I thought it was for “Eyes of Goddess” and how we can put this boad( actually a big bench) on the stage? But I realized it is a new ballet!!! Oh well it was! We did many different things on it, under it or standing on it… many things. It started to form the piece, and finished very quickly. and it was her own ballets’ parody. She can make fun of her self in the end of her own life!!! That is amazing.

And that was our opening of Paris, Theatre du Chatelet. Of course I have more to share.

But What happened to NY Spring???

Eiffel Tower in the dusk