“I want the most dramaticals you’ve got to offer,” teases the choreographer Hope Boykin, addressing a roomful of sweaty dancers at the Martha Graham Dance Company headquarters, in Manhattan’s West Village. Seeing that the troupe has been mining primal drama for 100 years now—Greek myth, political rebellion, human sacrifice, and every shade of grief—that’s a big ask. Whether it’s Medea’s rage, Joan of Arc’s passion, or the desires of a young bride in Appalachia, the Graham dancer knows how to conjure engulfing emotion through spinal twists, pelvic contractions, the deft manipulation of fabric, and roaring commitment.
Rehearsing her new dance, En Masse, before the company hits the road for its centennial tour, Boykin knows well the power she’s invoking. In another section, for instance, she dials things down, instructing the cast to be “full out, but without the lashes.” En Masse was created last fall in just three weeks, and Boykin is tweaking the work before its Midwestern premiere—next Saturday, January 24—at Chicago’s fabled Auditorium Theatre. It fits into a program of Graham classics that includes the solo Lamentation (1930), a famously seated portrait of suffering; Chronicle, an anti-Fascism protest from 1936; and Diversion of Angels (1948), an exploration of love in a Kandinsky-inspired palette.
