Martha Gra­ham in Fron­tier, 1937, by Bar­bara Brooks Mor­gan, Cour­tesy of the Wight Gallery Col­lec­tion 1938 – 1967UCLA.

I saw it go up and now I have seen it come down. It makes me feel tri­umphant to think that noth­ing lasts but the spir­it of man and the union of man. Peo­ple cross the bor­der from East to West to shake the hands of those they have not seen before. In a way, they have become each other’s fron­tier.” – Martha Graham

Mod­ern dancer Martha Gra­ham may have been speak­ing about the Berlin Wall just before her death in 1991, and the con­cur­rent end of the Cold War, but it was a sen­ti­ment that infused her work from the start. Born in 1894 in Alleghe­ny, Penn­syl­va­nia, as a teenag­er she trav­eled through the West to Cal­i­for­nia. She recalled the jour­ney fond­ly, remem­ber­ing the train tracks and cher­ished the indeli­ble impres­sion of the land unfold­ing in front of her.

Martha Gra­ham, some­times termed the Picas­so of mod­ern dance”, was the first dancer to per­form at the White House and trav­el abroad as a cul­tur­al ambas­sador. Rep­re­sent­ing every seat­ed pres­i­dent from Dwight D. Eisen­how­er through Ronald Rea­gan, Gra­ham per­formed pol­i­tics in the glob­al field for over thir­ty years dur­ing the Cold War, all the way through to the fall of the Berlin Wall, with a planned tour to the USSR which was nev­er com­plet­ed. One of her most impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to US cul­tur­al diplo­ma­cy efforts to forge human con­nec­tions took place just after the Camp David Accords in 1979 under the Jim­my Carter admin­is­tra­tion. Gra­ham per­formed works that cel­e­brat­ed the cul­tures of Israel, Egypt, and Amer­i­cana as she toured Israel, Egypt, and Jor­dan. Her Jim­my Carter Good­will Tour” set the stage for the 1979 cul­tur­al agree­ment that encour­aged exchange in tourism, sci­ence, arche­ol­o­gy, and music — to name a few.

In the ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry, Gra­ham began her dance train­ing at the Den­ishawn School and quick­ly became inte­grat­ed into the school and per­form­ing com­pa­ny. She moved on to cre­ate her own foun­da­tion­al dance tech­nique, which remains one of the sta­ples of mod­ern dance train­ing today. Born as a prod­uct of the glob­al mod­ernist impulse in the ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry, Graham’s tech­nique used the pelvic con­trac­tion — weep­ing, laugh­ing, breath­ing in ecsta­sy — as the source of all move­ment. By 1926, Gra­ham had formed the Martha Gra­ham Cen­ter of Con­tem­po­rary Dance (See: Gra­ham tech­nique demon­stra­tion, doc­u­men­tary on the Gra­ham com­pa­ny, and Martha Gra­ham Dance Lega­cy Project).

Born as a prod­uct of the glob­al mod­ernist impulse in the ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry, Graham’s tech­nique used the pelvic con­trac­tion — weep­ing, laugh­ing, breath­ing in ecsta­sy — as the source of all movement.

Gra­ham came to define mod­ernism in dance through her work Lamen­ta­tion in 1930, which pre­miered in New York. The work was the expres­sion of grief; Gra­ham stripped away the nar­ra­tive — the who, the where, the why, the when. Through her tech­nique, she strove to access fun­da­men­tal human impuls­es that uni­fied peo­ple in their expres­sion. Yet she also strove to access an Amer­i­can impulse in dance, and again trav­eled West to vis­it pueb­los; she returned to New York with the crit­i­cal­ly her­ald­ed Prim­i­tive Mys­ter­ies. These works of what were called Amer­i­cana” became man­i­fest with Fron­tier, first per­formed in 1935, and the first mod­ern dance to be per­formed at the White House under Franklin D. Roo­sevelt in 1937, with repeat per­for­mances fifty years lat­er. It was fol­lowed by Appalachi­an Spring in 1944 (orig­i­nal­ly titled Bal­let for Martha by Aaron Cop­land), which pre­miered at the Library of Con­gress and earned a Pulitzer Prize for the com­pos­er the fol­low­ing year. Estab­lished as one of the nation’s pre­em­i­nent mod­ernists, she chore­o­graphed works that expressed love and Oedi­pal angst through abstrac­tion and ancient myths, from Diver­sion of Angels to Night Jour­ney. It was this reper­to­ry that accessed the Cold War bat­tle for hearts” with emo­tions, minds” with myth and the West­ern canon, and pro­mot­ed the pow­er of the fron­tier that made Gra­ham the per­fect ambas­sador for America.


In 1956, she trav­elled from Iran to Israel and was wel­comed in both nations by embassies and the pub­lic. In 1979, Graham’s com­pa­ny of dancers, man­agers, stage staff, musi­cians, and the now eighty-five year old chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and ambas­sadress, crossed between Egypt and Israel by mil­i­tary plane as the sets and cos­tumes were trucked across the desert: hand­ed, piece by piece, from one man to anoth­er over the bor­der as the trucks idled. Yet Graham’s desire to forge human con­nec­tions with her dance began well before the Cold War. She was an expert for hire by the US State Depart­ment because of the artis­tic prece­dents she had set. Her works of lament, love, jeal­ousy, hero­in­ism, all described some­thing each per­son could find in their own heart, soul, and lived life, and thus the indi­vid­ual described the uni­ver­sal. Her words about Diver­sion of Angels, a joy­ous work about love, are par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant in our time of pan­dem­ic: It was a rainy sum­mer, and I thought no angels would ever come out. It was done only to bring out two things: the love of life, and the love of love.”

Yet Graham’s desire to forge human con­nec­tions with her dance began well before the Cold War. She was an expert for hire by the US State Depart­ment because of the artis­tic prece­dents she had set.

Martha Gra­ham in Lamen­ta­tion, No. 20,1939, by Her­ta Mosel­sio, Music Divi­sion, Library of Congress.

1950 brought the first stag­ing of the bib­li­cal Judith, the Jew­ish hero­ine who saves her peo­ple. Gra­ham would reset and restage the solo work as a group work, mus­ing about the hero­ine for decades as she vis­it­ed Israel and explored the Old Tes­ta­ment. In 1956, after Graham’s first gov­ern­ment tour’s offi­cial con­clu­sion in Iran, the Baroness Bethsabée de Roth­schild fund­ed Graham’s con­tin­u­a­tion on to Israel. The Amer­i­can State Depart­ment, ambas­sador, and agen­cies all pro­mot­ed her as a diplo­mat for exchange, and she was received by Israel’s lead­ers. Her per­for­mances were laud­ed. Between 1956 and 1978, she worked with Roth­schild and the Israeli gov­ern­ment to cre­ate Bat­she­va, the nation’s mod­ern dance com­pa­ny. Gra­ham vis­it­ed often, even hud­dling with dancers for cov­er as bombs fell and rock­ets hit — stay­ing on despite US embassy warn­ings, say­ing she would not leave friends. She sent her dancers to train Israelis in her tech­nique and estab­lish a school. Bat­she­va became the only com­pa­ny glob­al­ly that was per­mit­ted to per­form the Gra­ham reper­to­ry, and the Israeli stars were the cho­sen few who could per­form Graham’s cov­et­ed roles, from Jocas­ta to Joan, parts that Gra­ham pro­tect­ed fierce­ly until her retire­ment in 1969.

In 1978, with the Camp David Accords, Jim­my Carter’s admin­is­tra­tion set out to bro­ker not only geopo­lit­i­cal coop­er­a­tion, but cul­tur­al exchange. Thus, Gra­ham and her com­pa­ny set out for Israel, Egypt, and Amman, where Lebanese dancers joined them for the Jim­my Carter Good­will Tour.” It was the pre­am­ble to a lit­tle remem­bered cul­tur­al agree­ment signed between Israel and Egypt that forged coop­er­a­tion in sci­ence, med­i­cine, music, dance, arche­ol­o­gy, peo­ple-to-peo­ple exchange through tour­ing trav­el, and even stamps — so that mes­sages could cross bor­ders. Gra­ham led the way; dancers, the intel­li­gentsia, diplo­mats, stage-hands, air­line crews, the mil­i­tary — they all came togeth­er, shook hands, and, for that moment, as a part of Graham’s dance, became one another’s frontier.

Gra­ham led the way; dancers, the intel­li­gentsia, diplo­mats, stage-hands, air­line crews, the mil­i­tary — they all came togeth­er, shook hands, and, for that moment, as a part of Graham’s dance, became one another’s frontier.

Martha Gra­ham arriv­ing in Israel, 1956, Martha Gra­ham Col­lec­tion, Music Divi­sion, Library of Congress.

For fur­ther read­ing on this momen­tous exchange please see Dr. Phillips’ book, Martha Graham’s Cold War: The Dance of Amer­i­can Diplo­ma­cy. In addi­tion, read Ambas­sador Sal­ly Grooms Cowal’s blog on the cul­tur­al agree­ment dur­ing Phillips’ book talk at the Nation­al Muse­um of Amer­i­can Diplo­ma­cy, Wash­ing­ton, DC. Phillips’ livestreamed talks and con­ver­sa­tions are updat­ed week­ly on her web­site, along with pod­cast inter­views, an upcom­ing arti­cle on the prac­tice of research and the hunt for the Jim­my Carter tour, and links to Face­book posts.

Vic­to­ria Phillips spe­cial­izes in Cold War his­to­ry, cul­tur­al diplo­ma­cy, and inter­na­tion­al rela­tions. Her arti­cles have appeared in such var­ied pub­li­ca­tions as the New York Times, Amer­i­can Com­mu­nist His­to­ry, Dance Chron­i­cle, and Dance Research Jour­nal. She has curat­ed sev­er­al exhibits on dance and pol­i­tics in Europe and Wash­ing­ton, DC. Before her aca­d­e­m­ic career, she was a dancer and then a port­fo­lio man­ag­er on Wall Street. Her papers are held at the Library of Con­gress as the Vic­to­ria Phillips Collection.