Abstract
Martha Graham's work nearly spanned the century, but the decade of the 1930's was of utmost importance both personally and socio-politically. This was the time of the Great Depression in America and Graham's dancing served her country well to artistically move beyond it in the heroic journey of separation, initiation, and return. Her dance was far more than entertainment in relation to the difficult times. In a Jungian theoretical framework, it was compensatory in a powerfully symbolic way. Included here is a brief description of the social climate of the decade and a presentation of C.G. Jung's concepts of symbolic process and compensatory behavior, followed by explorations of three of Graham's dances of that decade “Lamentation,” “Frontier,” and “Every Soul Is a Circus.” She helped the culture move “beyond depression” with these dances. The conclusion is an elaboration of the metaphorical relationship between Graham and her dances and the treatment of clinical depression by dance/movement therapists.
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In memory, MARTHA GRAHAM, 1894–1991, with gratitude and respect for the dancer, choreographer, healer and woman that Martha Graham was. May we, as dance/movement therapists, continue that which she so boldly began, and may we do this with fierce commitment to the power which movement has to express the truest self.
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Welsh, D.J. Martha Graham: The other side of depression. Am J Dance Ther 13, 117–130 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00844141
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00844141