Marzia Memoli
So Young An Alyssa Cebulski Laurel Dalley Smith
Natasha M. Diamond-Walker Charlotte Landreau Cara McManus
Anne O’Donnell Anne Souder Xin Ying
III. Prelude to Action
Unity—Pledge to the Future
Leslie Andrea Williams Marzia Memoli
So Young An Alyssa Cebulski Laurel Dalley Smith
Natasha M. Diamond-Walker Charlotte Landreau Cara McManus
Anne O’Donnell Anne Souder Xin Ying
“Spectre–1914” researched and reconstructed in 1994 by Terese Capu-
“Steps in the Street” reconstructed in 1989 by Yuriko and Martha
in 1994 by Sophie Maslow, assisted by Terese Capucilli, Carol Fried, and
†Finale from New Dance, Opus 18b (for “Steps in the Street”), orchestrated
by Justin Dello Joio, used by arrangement with Associated Music Publishers,
Inc., publisher and copyright owner. Additional orchestrations by
Stanley Sussman.
NOTES ON THE REPERTORY
DIVERSION OF ANGELS (1948)
Diversion of Angels, originally titled Wilderness Stair, premiered at the Palmer
Auditorium of Connecticut College on August 13, 1948. The title, as
well as a set piece designed by Isamu Noguchi suggestive of desert ter-
-
ceived as a plotless ballet. Diversion of Angels is set to a romantic score
love. The Couple in Red embodies romantic love and “the ecstasy of the
contraction”; the Couple in White, mature love; and the Couple in Yellow,
artist Wassily Kandinsky, she was astonished by his use of color, a bold
slash of red across a blue background. She determined to make a dance
that would express this. Diversion of Angels is that dance, and the Girl in
Red, dashing across the stage, is the streak of red paint bisecting the
Kandinsky canvas. —ELLEN GRAFF
EKSTASIS (1933)
Ekstasis is thought to be the 37th creation by Graham. In a 1980 interview,
Graham explained that the genesis of this dance came from a pelvic
thrust gesture that she discovered one day. This led her to explore “a
cycle of distortion” that she found deeply meaningful. “Before Ekstasis, I
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