Timothy Hughes
Thurrell trained at Martha Graham's famed school in New York City, and Cleary went from track star to dance pro.
"Take risks! You should feel like you can fall on your nose!"
These exclamations resonate in Kanopy Dance's State Street studio as director Lisa Thurrell leads a class on Graham technique for high school and middle school dancers. A highly influential "movement vocabulary" that modern dancer Martha Graham started developing in the 1920s, the technique engages both the brain and the body. Graham said she wanted it to be "fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge." Unpredictability leads to drama, and something as unglamorous as falling on your nose could produce a discovery.
Thurrell doesn't expect a stumble to yield a philosophical breakthrough, but she does want her students to push past their expectations and those of the audience. They listen intently as she speaks, and she instructs them with a quiet intensity. She uses metaphors to explain the movements. These young dancers are taken with her words — and the power of the technique.
"I enjoy how it is powerful and fluid at the same time," says Maia Sauer, one of the young dancers. Another dancer, Sarah Nathan, says the technique "can show something devastating and intense, or something really happy."
In an adjacent studio, Robert Cleary, Thurrell's husband and Kanopy's co-director, wrangles a class of younger kids. He's silly and boisterous, a jokester who emphasizes the fun of moving your body through space. Along the way, he sneaks in points about proper technique.
In addition to giving young Madison dancers a solid foundation in Graham technique, Thurrell and Cleary help them cultivate the critical thinking processes of working artists, which can help them succeed no matter what fields they pursue. They also provide a shot at professional dance careers.
Yoshie Fujimoto Kateada, who started studying with Kanopy at age 8, is now in her junior year at the prestigious Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA program in California.
"The work ethic and respect for the art form that Lisa and Robert instill in their students is incredibly valuable," she says.
Fellow Kanopy alum Erica Pinigis recently finished her MFA at Mills College. She says her Kanopy training gives her a different perspective from that of her peers.
"Even when I studied at the Graham school in New York City, I found that my training in Graham technique was deeper and more comprehensive than that of many other visiting students," she notes.
What's so special about Graham technique? Kanopy's upcoming production, "Martha Graham: Reverence" (Overture Center, Nov. 15-17), is designed to answer that question. Thurrell, Cleary and some notable guest stars will celebrate Graham's legacy, showing how it still resonates today.
The drama of motion
Graham is often referenced along with artistic iconoclasts like Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky and Frank Lloyd Wright. She was a dance pioneer who founded her own company in 1926. Her technique centers on breath and contraction (lengthening the spine to form a curve), but it's also about challenging conventional notions of beauty.
"I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements," she said when describing her technique. "I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful."
Graham had a knack for tapping into the drama of bodies in motion. Some complain that her persona overshadowed her work in the latter part of her career, but few dispute that she developed a new way of moving and had the forethought to teach it to others.
Thurrell grew up in Madison, dancing with Tibor and Bess Zana's Wisconsin Ballet Company and performing with Children's Theater of Madison. She fondly remembers watching older dancers and actors rehearse. They made her curious about choreography and other art forms. So did her mother, an abstract painter and art historian who had a vast collection of books.
The summer after her junior year at Memorial High School, Thurrell had an eye-opening experience in Colorado with Hanya Holm, another modern dance pioneer. She recalls Holm saying that dancers must be intellectually stimulated, and that there's "no place for a dumb dancer." Holm instructed her students to always be curious, to go to museums, to read literature and study history. This emphasis on brains made a mark on Thurrell, who earned both a BFA and MFA in dance, plus a minor in Asian theater, at the UW.
After performing a Graham-influenced piece by the UW's Anna Nassif, another faculty member told Thurrell, "You're going to Graham." With some "good nudging," Thurrell went to New York City and was accepted into the elite professional program at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. The rigorous three-year course of study included technique and repertory classes, plus training in composition and teaching. Thurrell performed with the company and immersed herself in New York's dance scene in the late '80s and early '90s. Though Graham was nearing the end of her life, she was still a commanding presence.
"I would see her in passing on the arm of an assistant, watching class, rehearsal," Thurrell recalls. "I distinctly remember opening the door to [a studio] for her and her assistant, and her nod."
After Graham's death in 1991, the rights to perform her repertory became entangled in a long, messy legal battle. Thurrell says the opportunity to helm Kanopy fell into her lap in 1995, when former director Kristi Sesso departed. Having access to skilled dancers and the freedom to mount her own choreography in her hometown proved too enticing to pass up.
A symbiotic relationship
Robert Cleary's path to Kanopy was more circuitous. A world-class runner who grew up in Minnesota, he couldn't compete at the 1980 Olympics because the U.S. boycotted the games. Like many other male dancers, he was introduced to the art form through his sister. A year and a half after taking his first dance class at the late age of 22, he was on the fast track, touring and performing with Minnesota Dance Theatre. He earned two degrees from the University of Minnesota and performed with Minnesota Ballet and modern dance powerhouses like Bebe Miller and Bill T. Jones.
In the mid-1990s, when AIDS was claiming many artists' lives, Cleary decided to take a hiatus. He came to Madison, where he planned to dance for Maureen Janson. Seeking out a professional-level class, he wound up at Kanopy during a hectic pre-performance week. He'll never forget Thurrell's arrival. Wearing tight jeans, a leather bomber jacket and cowboy boots, she walked in dropping f-bombs. Cleary whispered to another dancer, "I think I'm falling in love."
After class Thurrell introduced herself, apologized for her outburst and inquired about his availability to dance with the company. Soon after that, Janson's funding fell through, so Cleary was free to join the company — and Thurrell's life.
Thurrell is quick to credit Cleary for his big-picture vision and ability to "see the forest" when she is busy "working on the trees." Cleary says his approach, probably due to his background in sports, is often more about physicality, while Thurrell's is more cerebral and creative. This has proven to be a successful symbiotic relationship.
It's unusual that a smallish Midwestern city like Madison would become integral to passing on Graham's legacy. But Thurrell's deep connections to the Graham company enable Kanopy to draw in luminaries from the worldwide dance scene, whom Thurrell affectionately dubs the "gods of Graham."
The names of dance superstars pepper the program for "Martha Graham: Reverence." Graham dancer Deborah Goodman, currently on the faculties of the Chicago Academy for the Arts and Loyola University, was a longtime assistant and demonstrator for Yuriko, a Graham company star. Yuriko is letting Goodman perform "The Cry," her seminal 1963 solo, with Kanopy.
Other big names on the program include Martin Løfsnes, Sandra Kaufmann and Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch. Goodman says Kanopy is able to attract such people because it "recognizes the authenticity of what [Thurrell] is doing." She describes Kanopy's students as "very, very strong and very, very expressive," qualities that are "part of being true to the vision of the technique. It trains bodies as instruments of expression."
Kaufmann is a former soloist with Martha Graham Dance Company and the founding director of Loyola University's dance program. For "Martha Graham: Reverence," she will stage Graham's "Steps in the Street" from Chronicle, a larger 1936 work dealing with the threat of fascism and social issues like homelessness. Kaufmann says Kanopy dancers can tackle demanding works like this one because they've been "excellently prepared to begin Graham repertory at a professional level." She says "Steps in the Street" is extraordinarily difficult and "requires profound physical strength and the support of significant Graham training."
Reuniting with friends
"Martha Graham: Reverence" opens with an archival film of Graham performing one of her most famous works, the solo "Lamentation," in 1943. It tends to elicit a visceral response with its stark simplicity. Later in the program, Thurrell premieres "Lamentation Variation," which was originally conceived to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11. The work sprang from a project she did with the Graham Center, and it lets her reunite with Goodman and Kaufmann on stage. All three dancers know each other from their formative years at the Graham school. Thurrell says working with them has been "like coming home and hanging out with dear, dear friends who understand you even if you don't say anything."
The production also offers a star-studded meditation on Graham's impact. Highlights include performances by three former principal dancers from Graham's company: Løfsnes, Ellmore-Tallitsch and Donlin Foreman.
Løfsnes says Graham's work will always matter because it's about boldness and bravery.
"We often think of Graham's legacy as the choreography she did or the boundaries she broke through in the '20s, '30s and '40's, but to me it's so much more than that.... It's a way of being committed to your journey and fearlessly following that path."
Graham also showed that dance isn't just a collection of motions, Thurrell says.
"Dance is a need and a passion and is so much more than the [movement] itself," she explains. "It is life."
Martha Graham: Reverence
Overture Center's Promenade Hall, Nov. 15-17
Thurrell trained at Martha Graham's famed school in New York City, and Cleary went from track star to dance pro.
Graham wanted her choreography to exude power and meaning.
