Executive & Artistic Director

Thor Steingraber

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GRAHAM100

The Centennial Celebration of the Martha Graham Dance Company

Sat | Oct 4 8pm

Run time: approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, including a 20-minute intermission

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Executive Director

LaRue Allen

Artistic Director

Janet Eilber

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Generously underwritten by Christopher Sales

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Program | Program Note

The Company | Wild Up

Notes on the Repertory | At Last: Leonard Bernstein & Martha Graham

Christopher Rountree | Hope Boykin

About Wild Up

The Martha Graham Dance Company | Janet Eilber | Martha Graham | Ben Schultz

Lloyd Knight | Xin Ying | Leslie Andrea Williams | Anne Souder | Laurel Dalley Smith | So Young An | Marzia Memoli | Richard Villaverde | Devin Loh | Antonio Leone | Meagan King | Ane Arrieta | Zachary Jeppsen-Toy | Amanda Moreira | Jai Perez | Ethan Palma

Wild Up & Martha Graham Dance Company Staffs

Journeying With Martha Graham’s Masterly Night Journey at The Soraya

Interviews with Janet Eilber, Hope Boykin & Christopher Rountree

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The Soraya

Our Supporters | The Soraya Team

At Last: Leonard Bernstein & Martha Graham

by Ezra Gans & Heather Wallace

Martha Graham and Leonard Bernstein likely first met in the early 1940s through their mutual friend, composer Aaron Copland, who was then collaborating with Graham on Appalachian Spring. The two artists held one another in deep admiration. In 1949, Bernstein wrote to his secretary Helen Coates that he “saw Martha Graham in Atlanta, and that was a beautiful experience.”

In 1955, as director of the Hollywood Bowl’s weeklong Festival of the Americas, Bernstein invited Graham and her company to present an evening-length program of three works, all set to music by contemporary American composers, including Copland’s Appalachian Spring.

For the next several decades, Graham and Bernstein moved in the same artistic and political circles but did not collaborate professionally. Then, in April 1988, Graham wrote to Bernstein: “So long we have dreamed and talked and mused about a work to do together, and now, at last, I have something that I feel would be right for us.” She proposed a new project: a reimagining of her 1938 ballet American Document, with Bernstein composing an original score.

Throughout 1988 and 1989, the two met several times to exchange ideas, developing a modernized script that envisioned a narrator reciting seminal American texts such as the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Bernstein’s demanding conducting schedule prevented him from undertaking the project, though he left behind several pages of sketches titled “Vivace,” believed to have been written for Martha Graham.

As part of its 2025–26 centennial season, the Martha Graham Company will present a world premiere by acclaimed choreographer Hope Boykin, featuring this recently discovered piece of music by Bernstein, expanded upon and arranged by Christopher Rountree.

Christopher Rountree

Christopher Rountree (Composer/Arranger/Conductor) is a three-time Grammy-nominated conductor, composer, curator, band leader, and educator. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the orchestral collective Wild Up, Music Director of Long Beach Opera, co-founder of the Los Angeles Conducting Co-op, and curator of the LA Phil’s Fluxus Festival.

Rountree is regarded as one of the most iconoclastic conductors and programmers in classical music. His inimitable style has lead to collaborations with: Björk, John Adams, Yoko Ono, David Lang, Scott Walker, La Monte Young, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alison Knowles, Ragnar Kjartansson, Dev Hynes, Sigourney Weaver, serpentwithfeet, Robin Pecknold, Tyshawn Sorey, Sarah Davachi, Julia Holter, Ryoji Ikeda, John Luther Adams, Allora & Calzadilla, and Raven Chacon. Rountree has also collaborated with many renowned orchestras and ensembles including the National, San Francisco, Houston, New Jersey, Cincinnati, and Chicago symphonies, the LA Philharmonic, Roomful of Teeth, Orchestra de Paris, and the Washington National, as well as the Los Angeles, Omaha, San Diego, and Atlanta operas, and the Martha Graham Dance Company who tours the world with his revival of Graham’s solo Immediate Tragedy.

He has presented compositions and concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Palais Garnier, Mile High Stadium, The Met, Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, the Getty, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The National Gallery, in a grove of old California oak trees, on a basketball court, in a museum bathroom, and at Lincoln Center on the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial.

Hope Boykin

Hope Boykin (Choreographer), a two-time Bessie Award winner from Durham, North Carolina, is a distinguished educator, creator, mover, and motivator. After retiring in 2020 from a two-decade tenure with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, she has crafted works for numerous companies, including the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, Ballet Black of London, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Philadanco, The Philadelphia Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and HopeBoykinDance.

As a creator and director, Boykin released Beauty Size & Color, a short film that earned her a New York Emmy Award nomination. In 2021, she developed “An Evening of Hope” at 92nd Street Y, followed by performances at Chelsea Factory and the Guggenheim Museum Works & Process with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. She adapted Jacqueline Woodson’s children’s book, The Other Side, at The Kennedy Center Family Theater and choreographed the 50th Anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS at the Kennedy Center in 2022. Featured on Dance magazine’s October 2023 cover, Boykin’s first evening-length work, States of Hope, ran for a week at The Joyce Theater to great acclaim.

Boykin is the Founder of HBArts Collective, serves as an Artist-in-Residence at USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, is an Adjunct Lecturer at Howard University, Artistic Advisor for Dance Education at The Kennedy Center, and Artistic Lead for The Kennedy Center Dance Lab. She firmly believes there are no limits.

Wild Up

Called “a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant … fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family” (The New York Times), Wild Up has been lauded as one of new music’s most exciting groups. Artistic Director Christopher Rountree founded the orchestral collective in 2010 to challenge traditional concert practices by experimenting with diverse methodologies, approaches, and contexts.

After a decade and a half of rampant creativity and curiosity, Wild Up is an ambassador of West Coast music. The group has collaborated with a wide range of composers, performers, and cultural institutions, premiering and creating hundreds of new works. They partnered with the LA Phil and REDCAT to present a two-month-long festival and gallery exhibition, To the Fullest: the Music of Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell, accompanied Björk at Goldenvoice’s FYF Fest, sung into a Picasso with Pamela Z at LACMA, and created Democracy Sessions — playing against growing autocracy with Raven Chacon, Ted Hearne, Chana Porter, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harmony Holiday, Saul Williams, and Karlheinz Stockhausen at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Wild Up premiered David Lang and Mark Dion’s Anatomy Theater at LA Opera, often collaborated with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and performed scores for Under the Skin by Mica Levi and Punch-Drunk Love by Jon Brion at the Regent Theater and Ace Hotel. The group was booed out of Toronto for playing a piece too quietly. Wild Up premiered a new opera by Julia Holter at National Sawdust, debuted an avant-pop work by Scott Walker at Walt Disney Concert Hall, sustained 12 hours of Ragnar Kjartansson’s Bliss at REDCAT, and championed Julius Eastman’s music worldwide. They blared a noise concert as fanfare for the groundbreaking of Frank Gehry’s building on Grand Avenue and First Street. The group has been lavished with praise by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, Pitchfork, and many other publications and critics.

Their decade-long, critically acclaimed, multi-GRAMMY-nominated Julius Eastman Anthology has been celebrated as “a masterpiece” (The New York Times), “instantly recognizable” (Vogue), and “singularly jubilant … a bit in your face, sometimes capricious, and always surprising” (NPR). NPR named the anthology’s first installment, Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine, among the top 10 records of 2021 in all genres.

The Martha Graham Dance Company

The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the evolving art form of modern dance since its founding in 1926. It is both the oldest dance company in the United States and the oldest integrated dance company.

Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.

Since its inception, the Martha Graham Dance Company has received international acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Company has performed at the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, Covent Garden, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt and in the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus theater on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. In addition, the Company has also produced several award-winning films broadcast on PBS and around the world.

Though Martha Graham herself is the best-known alumna of her company, the Company has provided a training ground for some of modern dance’s most celebrated performers and choreographers. Former members of the Company include Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, Paul Taylor, John Butler, and Glen Tetley. Among celebrities who have joined the Company in performance are Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya, Tiler Peck, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, and Aurélie Dupont.

In recent years, the Company has challenged expectations and experimented with a wide range of offerings beyond its mainstage performances. It has created a series of intimate in-studio events, forged unusual creative partnerships with the likes of SITI Company, Performa, the New Museum, Barneys, and Siracusa’s Greek Theater Festival, to name a few; created substantial digital offerings with Google Arts & Culture, YouTube, and Cennarium; and created a model for reaching new audiences through social media. The astonishing list of artists who have created works for the Graham dancers in the last decade reads like a catalog of must-see choreographers: Kyle Abraham, Aszure Barton, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Lucinda Childs, Marie Chouinard, Michelle Dorrance, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, Andonis Foniadakis, Liz Gerring, Larry Keigwin, Michael Kliën, Pontus Lidberg, Lil Buck, Lar Lubovitch, Josie Moseley, Richard Move, Bulareyaung Pagarlava, Annie-B Parson, Yvonne Rainer, Sonya Tayeh, Doug Varone, Luca Veggetti, Gwen Welliver, and Robert Wilson.

The current company dancers hail from around the world and, while grounded in their Graham core training, can also slip into the style of contemporary choreographers like a second skin, bringing technical brilliance and artistic nuance to all they do — from brand-new works to Graham classics and those from early pioneers such as Isadora Duncan, Jane Dudley, Anna Sokolow, and Mary Wigman. “Some of the most skilled and powerful dancers you can ever hope to see,” according to The Washington Post last year. “One of the great companies of the world,” says The New York Times, while Los Angeles Times notes, “They seem able to do anything, and to make it look easy as well as poetic.”

Janet Eilber

Janet Eilber (Artistic Director) has been the Company’s artistic director since 2005. Her direction has focused on creating new forms of audience access to Martha Graham’s masterworks. These initiatives include contextual programming, educational and community partnerships, use of new media, commissions from today’s top choreographers, and creative events such as the Lamentation Variations.

Earlier in her career, as a principal dancer with the Company, Eilber worked closely with Martha Graham. She danced many of Graham’s greatest roles, had roles created for her by Graham, and was directed by Graham in most of the major roles of the repertory. She soloed at the White House, was partnered by Rudolf Nureyev, starred in three segments of Dance in America, and has since taught, lectured, and directed Graham ballets internationally. Apart from her work with Graham, Eilber has performed in films, on television, and on Broadway directed by such greats as Agnes de Mille and Bob Fosse. Eilber has received four Lester Horton Awards for her reconstruction and performance of seminal American modern dance.

Eilber has served as Director of Arts Education for the Dana Foundation, guiding the Foundation’s support for Teaching Artist training and contributing regularly to its arts education publications. She is a Trustee Emeritus of the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Eilber is married to screenwriter and director John Warren, with whom she has two daughters, Madeline and Eva.

Martha Graham

Martha Graham (1894-1991) has had a deep and lasting impact on American art and culture. She single-handedly defined contemporary dance as a uniquely American art form, which the nation has in turn shared with the world. Crossing artistic boundaries, she collaborated with and commissioned work from the leading visual artists, musicians, and designers of her day, including sculptor Isamu Noguchi and composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Gian Carlo Menotti.

Graham’s groundbreaking style grew from her experimentation with the elemental movements of contraction and release. By focusing on the basic activities of the human form, she enlivened the body with raw, electric emotion. The sharp, angular, and direct movements of her technique were a dramatic departure from the predominant style of the time.

Graham influenced generations of choreographers that included Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp, altering the scope of dance. Classical ballet dancers Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov sought her out to broaden their artistry. Artists of all genres were eager to study and work with Graham — she taught actors including Bette Davis, Kirk Douglas, Madonna, Liza Minnelli, Gregory Peck, Tony Randall, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, and Joanne Woodward to utilize their bodies as expressive instruments.

During her long and illustrious career, Graham created 181 dance compositions. During the Bicentennial, she was granted the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1998, TIME Magazine named Graham the “Dancer of the Century.” The first dancer to perform at the White House and to act as a cultural ambassador abroad, she captured the spirit of a nation. “No artist is ahead of his time,” Graham said. “He is his time. It is just that the others are behind the time.”

Ben Schultz

Ben Schultz (Rehearsal Director) joined the Company in 2009. He’s danced lead roles including King Hades in Clytemnestra, Jason in Cave of the Heart, and Shaman in The Rite Of Spring. Schultz premiered Martha Graham’s work in Russia performing Errand Into the Maze with prima ballerina Diana Vishneva at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. He’s also performed with Buglisi Dance Theater, Hannah Kahn Dance Company, and the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble. Currently Schultz is on staff at both The Martha Graham School and The Alvin Ailey School teaching the Martha Graham technique for preprofessional students and divisions.

Lloyd Knight

Lloyd Knight joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2005 and performs the major male roles of the Graham repertory including in Appalachian Spring, Embattled Garden, Night Journey, and many others. Dance magazine named him one of the “Top 25 Dancers to Watch” in 2009 and one of the best performers of 2015. Knight has starred with ballet greats Wendy Whelan and Misty Copeland in signature Graham duets and has had roles created for him by such renowned artists as Nacho Duato and Pam Tanowitz. He is currently a principal guest artist for The Royal Ballet of Flanders, directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Born in England and raised in Miami, Knight trained at Miami Conservatory of Ballet and New World School of the Arts.

Xin Ying

Xin Ying joined the Company in 2011. A Dance magazine cover star, she performs The Chosen One in Rite of Spring, as well as Graham’s own roles including in Herodiade, Errand Into the Maze, Chronicle, and Cave of the Heart. Ying has been featured in works created for the Company by Pontus Lidberg, Annie-B Parson, Hofesh Shechter, Kyle Abraham, Maxine Doyle, and Bobbi Jene Smith. Ying is also a choreographer and currently working on her Master of Fine Arts at NYU Tisch.

Leslie Andrea Williams

Leslie Andrea Williams grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Juilliard School and joined the Company in 2015. Williams performs iconic Graham solos such as Lamentation and Deep Song. Her expansive repertoire of roles includes Medea in Cave of the Heart, and notably, as the lead in Chronicle, which was highlighted in The New York Times’ “Best Dance of 2019” list. Outside of Graham, Williams serves as a board member of the theater company Off-Brand Opera.

Anne Souder

Anne Souder joined the Company in 2015 and performs Martha Graham’s own roles in Dark Meadow Suite, Chronicle, Deep Song, and Ekstasis. Roles have also been created for her by such luminaries as Marie Chouinard, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Maxine Doyle, and Bobbi Jene Smith. Souder began her training in Maryville, Tennessee, and graduated from the Ailey/Fordham Bachelor of Fine Arts program with a double major in dance and theology while performing works by Alvin Ailey, Ronald K. Brown, and more. She was also a member of Graham 2 and awarded a Dizzy Feet Foundation scholarship.

Laurel Dalley Smith

Laurel Dalley Smith joined the Company in 2015, and enjoys performing principal roles in Clytemnestra, Errand Into the Maze, Appalachian Spring, and Chronicle, amongst others. She has also performed in new creations by Hofesh Shechter, Jamar Roberts, Pam Tanowitz, Bobbi Jene Smith, Pontus Lidberg, Lar Lubovitch, and Lucinda Childs. Laurel had the privilege of revising Agnes de Mille’s title role of The Cowgirl in Rodeo. She guests internationally, working closely with Olivier award-winning choreographer Kim Brandstrup, and the award-winning Yorke Dance Project, as well as having the privilege of dancing for the late Sir Robert Cohan.

So Young An

So Young An, a native of South Korea, joined the Company in 2016. She dances featured roles in Graham ballets as well as new works. An is the recipient of the International Arts Award and the grand prize at the Korea National Ballet Grand Prix. She has danced with Korean National Ballet Company, Seoul Performing Arts Company, and Buglisi Dance Theatre. An has also performed works by Yuri Grigorovich, Jean-Christophe Maillot, Mats Ek, Patricia Ruanne, and Samantha Dunster.

Marzia Memoli

Marzia Memoli, from Palermo, Italy, joined the Company in 2016, performing leading roles in Graham’s The Rite of Spring, Chronicle, Cave of the Heart, and Deep Song. She has also danced works by Hofesh Shechter, Pam Tanowitz, Lar Lubovitch, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Jamar Roberts, Bobbi Jene Smith, and more recently Benjamin Millepied. In 2022, Memoli performed Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room and Nine Sinatra Songs at New York City Center, later joining Tharp’s 60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee tour. Memoli is a recipient of the Fini International Rising Star Award.

Richard Villaverde

Richard Villaverde, a Miami native, is in his fourth season with the Company. He trained at the New World School of the Arts and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts. Before joining the Company in 2021, he had an illustrious career with BalletX. Villaverde’s notable leading roles in the Graham company include dancing lead in Maple Leaf Rag, “yellow couple” in Diversion of Angels, and the Husbandman in Appalachian Spring. The New York Times praised his portrayal of The Roper in Rodeo for his expressive movement and commanding stage presence. Villaverde has also been featured in Hofesh Shechter’s CAVE and participated in Twyla Tharp’s celebrated revivals at New York City Center in 2022.

Devin Loh

Devin Loh, from Fanwood, New Jersey, holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Purchase College, and is a Bert Terborgh Dance Award recipient. She joined Graham 2 in 2019, and the company in 2021. Loh has performed Graham classics and works by Jamar Roberts, Hofesh Shechter, and Sonya Tayeh. Loh is a certified Graham technique teacher and is the 2025 Distinguished Graduate of UCAPA High School for passing Graham’s legacy to the next generation.

Antonio Leone

Antonio Leone, a native of Italy, graduated from the Rudra Bejart School in Switzerland. In 2021, he joined Graham 2, and the main company in 2022. Leone performs featured roles in Martha Graham’s Errand Into the Maze, Diversion of Angels and Appalachian Spring, as well as roles in commissioned works by Agnes de Mille, Sonya Tayeh, Hofesh Shechter, Jamar Roberts, Baye & Asa, and Yin Yue. Leone is the first male dancer with CR Dance and a Pearl Lang Award recipient for Excellence in Performance.

Meagan King

Meagan King, of Brooklyn, New York, has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Ailey/Fordham program, and she’s a LaGuardia High School alumna. She has danced with Ailey II and has been featured in Vogue, Dance Spirit, The TODAY Show, PIX11, NY12, and GoodDay Sacramento. King is a Princess Grace Award nominee and she was named a BLOCH Young Artist. She has performed at Holland Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Program, and choreographed for Women/Create! This is King’s second season with the Company.

Ane Arrieta

Ane Arrieta, from Rhode Island, is a dual citizen of Spain and the U.S. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Hartt School, and received the Outstanding Senior Award. Arrieta has danced with Newport Contemporary Ballet, Graham 2, and Buglisi Dance Theater. At Graham, she’s worked with Jamar Roberts and Baye & Asa, and she has performed soloist roles in Martha Graham masterpieces Cave of the Heart and Appalachian Spring.

Zachary Jeppsen-Toy

Raised in Southern Wisconsin, Zachary Jeppsen-Toy is an alumnus of The Juilliard School where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance. He has performed pieces by Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Donald McKayle, Paul Taylor, Ohad Naharin, and many other choreographers. Before Juilliard, Jeppsen-Toy attended The Chicago Academy for the Arts where he studied under Randy Duncan and Patrick Simoniello. This is Jeppsen-Toy’s second season with the Company.

Amanda Moreira

Amanda Moreira, originally from Roxbury, New Jersey, graduated from Marymount Manhattan College. She has assisted dance conventions with Deviate Dance and has apprenticed with Parsons Dance. Moreira has performed works choreographed by Pascal Rioult, Twyla Tharp, Sidra Bell, Jessica Lang, May O’Donnell, and Jennifer Archibald, among others. After graduating, Moreira joined Graham 2. This is her second season with the Company.

Jai Perez

Jai Perez, from Harlem, New York, started his dance journey at the National Dance Institute, where he cultivated a love for movement. He continued his training at The Alvin Ailey School, then at SUNY Purchase College, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance. Perez has performed works by Hofesh Shechter, Jamar Roberts, and Ronald K. Brown. Perez has performed with Buglisi Dance Theater and A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham. This is Perez’s second season with the Company.

Ethan Palma

Originally from Appleton, Wisconsin, Ethan Palma received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance from Marymount Manhattan College. At Marymount, he performed in works by many choreographers including Martha Graham, Jenn Freeman, Chanel Dasilva, and Pedro Ruiz. Palma danced in the 2024 MET Opera’s Ainadamar. He is in his first season with the Martha Graham Dance Company.