[ Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins in Punch and the Judy, No. 1]

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence of Picasso on modern visual arts, the influence of Stravinsky on music, and the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright on architecture. She danced and choreographed for over seventy years. Graham was the first dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Recognized as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century Martha Graham created a movement language based upon the expressive capacity of the human body.

A native of Trinidad, Colorado, Erick Hawkins (1909–1994) forged an unusual career that began with George Balanchine’s American Ballet in 1935 and continued with Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan. In 1938, he became the first male dancer to perform in the Martha Graham Dance Company, continuing with the troupe for more than a decade and entering into a tempestuous marriage with Graham. Establishing his own company and school in 1951, Hawkins developed a free flow style that was completely different than the techniques he had mastered under Balanchine and Graham. His company was an incubator for visual artists and contemporary music, and it only performed with live accompaniment. Hawkins himself performed at the Pillow in 1964, and his dancers planted a tree in his memory behind Blake’s Barn on the closing day of this 1996 engagement.

• [ Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, and Nina Fonaroff in Punch and ...
• Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins in Punch and the Judy, No. 1
• Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins in Punch and the Judy, No. 2
• [ Erick Hawkins, Ethel Butler, Jean Erdman, and Jane Dudley in ...
• Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins in Punch and the Judy, No. 1