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The Arts Intel Report

Graham Deconstructed: Diversion of Angels

A moment of elation in Martha Graham’s Diversion of Angels.

Oct 11–12, 2022
55 Bethune St, New York, NY 10014, USA

With so many of Martha Graham’s dances exploring psychological underworlds, it’s no wonder that the joyous flights of 1948’s Diversion of Angels have a hallowed place in Graham’s repertory. The dance was meant to be a narrative work set in a desert, originally titled Wilderness Stair. Graham discarded all that after the first performance and reconceived the work as a plotless dance about love—erotic love dressed in red, mature love in white, young love in yellow (a palette inspired by Wassily Kandinsky). Janet Eilber, the company’s artistic director, leads this “deconstruction” of the dance’s geometries, then looks at the meanings within. The evening will be live streamed on October 12 at seven P.M. —Laura Jacobs

Photo courtesy of Melissa Sherwood