said, looking me in the eye.
“Steal it?”
“Yes. I stole so many things from Martha. I stole everything.”
“Wasn’t she giving it, offering it to you?”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure that she was. But … I stayed with her for twenty-five years and took from her whatever I could take. When she opened her door on that first day, she opened my dancer’s door and I walked all the way through.”
“How did you come to dance in her company?”
“After I was in her class for one week, she called me into her dressing room and said, ‘Yuriko, I’ve never said this to anyone. You are a born dancer. But if my technique doesn’t agree with you, then you should go somewhere else.’ I told her that I loved her technique, and that’s when she asked me if I wanted to learn her repertory. I didn’t know that she was planning her first New York season in May of 1944, and that my sessions with John Butler, Jane, and Sophie were leading up to a big performance. I thought it was just repertory class. The first pieces I danced in were American Document and Primitive Mysteries.”
“After twenty-five years working with Martha, I imagine the two of you were very close.”
“Yes, we were close. Martha gave me this,” she said, holding up a jade pendant that hung from her neck on a long chain. “It’s in the shape of two adjoining plums. This is one of my most cherished possessions. We were very close, Martha and I, but at times she was very envious of me because I had a husband and children. I felt as a woman it was important to have a family. Now I’m a grandmother. These are my grandchildren,” she said, pointing to a formation of framed photographs on a small table. “Martha gave birth to all her dances. Those were her children. But towards the end of her life she was drinking heavily and would call me after midnight and wake me up. Eventually I put the telephone on my husband’s side of the bed. One night she called and my husband answered. She complained to him about her life. ‘Oh, I envy Yuriko so much,’ she told him. ‘She has you and the children, a house and a career. And I have nothing.’ She thought compared to me she had nothing.”
“Everyone knows that Martha chose her work over everything else.”
“Yes, she did, but she was still envious of those who aspired to have more. I had both, a family and career. But I’m not a genius. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that wanting a family is a normal human desire. I never saw myself as such a big shot that I had to sacrifice the most basic things in life. To some people it’s more important to change the world and become famous. I never looked for fame, only to be a better dancer.”
“Do you still dance?”
“No, I’m long retired, but I teach class at the Graham school and coach the dancers. I try to give them the source of Martha’s work, the concept, not the shape. When Martha choreographed, she didn’t choreograph for shape—even though her shapes are very interesting. Her movement was very organic and the concepts for all her pieces were very human, including the abstract pieces, like Dark Meadow. This one was very mysterious, very beautiful. It was very deep in a religious sense with elements of ritual and sacrifice.”
“Martha’s choreography grew out of her own life experience—very different from your own. What did you get out of it?”
“I got out of it the experience of going on a journey—the human journey. All her work came from the center of her being. That’s why I referred to her dances as her children. She birthed them. To give birth is a human experience. When she choreographed Deep Song [1937], for example, she was expressing profound grief over the horrors of the Spanish civil war, in the same way that Picasso was, when he painted his Guernica. Martha choreographed steps, but beneath those steps we see devastation, homelessness, and exile. Recently while rehearsing Deep Song with the Martha Graham Dance Company, I thought to myself—this dance is contemporary! Look at what’s happening in our world, in our century. We have had such devastation with the tsunami in Asia, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the earthquake in Afghanistan. Even though Martha’s work was choreographed decades ago about the human condition of her time, it works for our time … it’s still relevant. But … if dancers just do the choreography by representing shapes on the stage, it won’t speak, it won’t have relevance.”
“Do today’s dancers understand this?”
“I’m afraid most don’t. They must be told. Dancers, listen up! You have bodies to express emotions and experiences. After Hurricane Katrina we watched the people of New Orleans on television—the death and destruction, the hungry and the homeless. People had to stand in long lines just to get a bottle of water. It’s degrading. ‘Can you help me? Help me?’” Yuriko pretended to be one of the homeless and demonstrated how the body could be used to illustrate real human suffering with facial expressions, body spirals, and contractions. “We all have imaginations, don’t we? Use it to express life! I’m talking about body language. That’s Dance!”
New York, 2005
Barrie Chase became an overnight sensation after dancing with Fred Astaire on his 1958 Emmy Award–winning TV special. She was twenty-four; he was fifty-nine. Now in her early seventies, she lives in the beach community of Venice, California.
“Hello,” I called from behind a locked gate on the side of her house.
“Yes, Rose, I’ll let you in. Let me find the key.” Moments later Barrie appeared—a tall, slim woman with the look of a former showgirl. I followed her into a two-story, modernized beach house with countertops of black marble, cut flowers in streamlined vases, ultramodern fixtures, and contoured furniture.
“Since it’s such a beautiful day, Barrie, perhaps I could photograph you dancing on the beach.”
“Yes, we can do that. Why don’t I go and change.” She returned a few minutes later carrying a couple of beach towels.
After we parked our things on the sand, I asked Barrie to use the shore as her stage.
“Hmmm, what can I do?” she asked herself.
Soon she was in motion: a Jack Cole run, a Fosse-style passé, a chaîne turn, a grand battement. I planted myself in the sand, waiting to catch the top of her kick, the spiral of her back, the pause in her balance pose. I marveled at how easily the dancer within revealed itself.
“Ooh, this feels good,” she said slightly out of breath. “Am I giving you what you need?”
“Oh, yes, this is perfect. I think I have some great shots.”
“Good. Let’s go back and have a drink.”
“Great idea.”
Back at the house, while I retrieved my notes and tape recorder from my bag, Barrie poured us some wine, and set out a round of cheese and a bowl of peanuts.
“When did you have the first inclination to dance?”
“I don’t remember when I didn’t have the inclination to dance. It goes back as far as I can remember. Music has always been my impetus for dance. My mother was a concert pianist. As a child I would sit under the piano for hours listening to her play. She loved both classical and popular music, so I was exposed to all kinds of music.”
“When did you begin formal dance lessons?”
“I was three when my mother took me to study with the ballet mistress for the New York City Opera. I studied with her in Great Neck until I was six and a half, and then we moved to California. My father insisted that I study with a serious teacher, so I was enrolled in classes with the former Ballet Russes dancer, Adolph Bolm. I studied with him from the age