Which of the following statements best captures a main difference in the focus of the passages? film history, while Passage B focuses on the details regarding her start in filmmaking. of the twentieth century, while Passage B focuses on her work in the 1970s. while Passage B focuses on her work with Gaumont. while Passage B focuses on her work as a film producer. 33 GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. ACT-G01 3 3 Questions 16 and 17 ask about Passage B. Questions 18–20 ask about both passages. Passage III HUMANITIES: This passage is adapted from the book Martha Graham: A Dancer’s Life by Russell Freedman (©1998 by Russell Freedman). Denishawn refers to the Denishawn School of Dancing, where Graham was once a student. In 1926, Martha Graham’s first company, billed as “Martha Graham and Dance Group,” made its debut. Most of the dances, with titles like The Three Gopi Maidens and Maid with the Flaxen Hair, were reminis- cent of her Denishawn days, though there were sparks of freshness and originality. Newspaper critics found Martha and her trio of dancers “decorative, pretty and undisturbing.” Graham herself would later describe those early dances as “childish things, dreadful.” In the next few years her dances would prove daring and innovative. From 1926 through 1930 she created seventy-nine new dances for herself and her Dance Group. In 1927 she stunned her audience with a short solo called Revolt, a dance that was anything but “decora- tive, pretty and undisturbing.” Revolt was Martha’s first dance of social protest, a stark, forceful comment on injustice and the outraged human spirit. The 1920s were a decade of experimentation in all the arts—in painting, music, literature, and the the- ater—and a new breed of young dancers wanted to speak for the changing times in which they lived. While they respected classical ballet as an art, they felt that it could never say enough about the pressing con- cerns of contemporary life. Classical ballet dated back more than three hun- dred years to its origins as an elegant spectacle in the royal courts of Europe. With its five basic positions of the feet, prescribed positions of the body, and geomet- ric relationships among the dancers, ballet was a highly controlled dance form. To the rebellious young American dancers of the time, traditional European ballet seemed decadent and undemocratic. They regarded its dashing princes and dying swans as escapist and antiquated, and its elabo- rate formal technique as artificial and restricting. In place of ballet’s fanciful stories they explored serious themes dealing with ordinary people and modern life. They did away with glamorous costumes and scenery and danced in simple outfits on bare stages. Their dances were meant to be challenging and disturbing. In 1929 Martha Graham and Dance Group gave the first performance of Heretic, regarded today as her earliest major work. Dressed in white, and with loose, flowing hair, Martha danced in opposition to a double row of women clad in black Puritan garb, their hair drawn straight back and knotted, their stern faces set like white masks. Again and again the solitary heretic struggles to advance, trying to break through a barrier formed by the women in black. But each time they move rigidly in unison, blocking her way like automa- tons, as their bare feet slam down onto the floor. Some of the dancers lunge at the heretic, some seem to be spitting at her, while others turn their backs. Heretic was meant to be provocative. The dance can be seen as a powerful condemnation of intolerance, especially toward people who are different in some way—a theme that Graham would return to again. “To many people, I was a heretic,” she wrote. “In many ways, I showed onstage what most people came to the theater to avoid.” This new kind of dance wasn’t to everyone’s liking. It was neither beautiful nor romantic. Some crit- ics complained that Graham’s spare, stark, unsmiling dance style seemed tortured and distorted. Martha and her fellow “modern” dancers were often the butt of ridicule and hostile jokes. Women in America had won the right to vote only a few years ear- lier, in 1920, and many people were still uncomfortable with the image of the “new woman” who sought a career, spoke out on social issues, and went knowl- edgeably to the polls. It was all right to be a high- kicking, scantily clad chorus girl, but a woman who ran a dance company and created works that commented on war, poverty, and intolerance seemed unnatural and suspicious. Martha’s work was so startlingly different, people did not always know how to react. After one of her early recitals, a friend from her Denishawn days went backstage and said, “Martha, dear, how long do you expect to keep up this dreadful dancing?” “As long as I have an audience,” Martha replied. Graham’s last complete work, composed when she was ninety-six years old, is one of her most joyful. Maple Leaf Rag, a self-mocking commentary on human foibles and on her own legend, is set to the ragtime tunes of Scott Joplin. At the time of her death, she was working on a new dance, commissioned by the govern- ment of Spain. “Many people have asked me if I have a favorite role,” Graham once said. “To which I always answer that my favorite role is the one I am dancing now.”
