Martha@ . . . The 1963 Interview

This chapter examines Richard Move’s performance as the late Martha Graham, focusing on Martha@ . . . The 1963 Interview, based on an audio recording of Graham’s 1963 onstage interview with dance critic Walter Terry at the 92nd Street Y. This production is the 2011 iteration of Move’s Martha@ . . . series of performances that began in 1996. The chapter centers on Move’s reproduction of Graham’s voice as the point of entry into his reenactments, tracing Move’s process of capturing Graham’s voice at the age of sixty-nine, when she could no longer perform her signature ballets and would soon retire from the stage. With her body in decline and quickly approaching what she called her “first death,” Graham relies on her voice to dance for her. Move finds Graham’s voice at this particular moment in her career through a method he has refined over the course of twenty years.