A century after Martha Graham revolutionized modern dance, her legacy was on display at Scripps College’s Garrison Theatre — with a live orchestra performance to commemorate the occasion.
Dancers took to the stage on April 17 and 18, featuring a Graham piece alongside the work of both professional and student choreographers. While this Scripps Dances has always been a staple of the Scripps College dance program, this year’s production stood out for its scale and depth of collaboration.
This showcase was partially a tribute to Martha Graham, who is often called the mother of modern dance. Graham is credited with inventing a myriad of ballets, and even developed her own dance technique based on specific physical movements. As one of the twentieth century’s most acclaimed artists, her name lies amongst those of many other celebrated figures, the likes of Picasso, James Joyce and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Due to the magnitude of Graham’s legacy, the artistic directors for this year’s dance show spent many months crafting the perfect performance. Scripps Professor of Dance Kevin Williamson, one of the directors, described the challenges of integrating musicians into a traditionally dance-focused event, explaining that it required additional logistical coordination and the preparation of Garrison Theater’s orchestral pit.
“Planning for the event started the year prior, and this year in particular, even more planning than usual was required as we collaborated with the Martha Graham Dance Center and the Claremont Concert Orchestra,” Williamson said.
The program began with two of Graham’s acclaimed pieces, “Steps in the Street” and “Prelude to Action.” She premiered these works in her 1936 performance, “Chronicle,” which depicted the tragedy of war in response to the violent persecutions taking place in Germany at the time. This year‘s concert coincided with a dual centennial, celebrating both Scripps College and Graham’s legacy.
“[Scripps College and Martha Graham] share parallel legacies in innovation, artistic excellence and empowerment,” Williamson said.
Scripps Assistant Professor in Dance Abdiel Jacobsen, a former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, played a key role in bringing that history into the present production.
“While going through the archives at Denison [Library], we came across photos of modern dance productions from the department’s archive and a letter from Martha Graham to a member of our community,” Williamson said. “Abdiel decided it would be a brilliant moment to bring her legacy to the school.”
That vision expanded to include live music, creating an interdisciplinary collaboration between the dance and music departments.
“Director of Orchestra and Professor of Music, David Cubek, was game from the get-go and spent a big part of this semester preparing the musicians to play parts of ‘Chronicle’ by composer Wallingford Riegger,” Williamson said.
The inclusion of live orchestral performance marked a significant shift for the concert, placing the work of dancers and musicians together to create a more immersive experience for the audience. It also highlighted the potential for future collaboration between the Dance and Music departments.
Yet, amidst all of the changes, the heart of the show remained the same: student choreography. Junior and senior dance majors were responsible for choreographing original pieces from start to finish: facilitating auditions, managing schedules, designing costumes, leading warm-ups and more.
“The concert process is an awesome opportunity for them to explore their own creative curiosities, to hone their composition skills, and experiment with new themes, concepts, music and so on,” Williamson said.
One standout piece was “Departure Dance”, choreographed by Serena Gaylord, PZ ‘26. Gaylord described how the piece was initially inspired by the book “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, a novel in which the characters go back and forth and into time to talk to different versions of themselves and the people they love.
“As graduation is coming up … this dance has just been a way for me to kind of process the grief and gratitude I feel for this chapter of my life closing and all of the fear and wonder and all that I feel about the next chapter coming up,” Gaylord said. “I had a cast of five dancers and they really interpreted the topic of my choreography so beautifully.”
Gaylord’s lyrical piece was complemented by “Just Really Nice” by Lilly Hunter PZ ’27. Hunter described the message behind her piece, which she choreographed to an upbeat mashup of hit songs “Boombastic” by Shaggy and “Oh Yeah” by Yello.
“There’s a lot that can be said through dance, and there’s a lot that can be found, resistance that can occur, all of that,” Hunter said. “I think that’s really powerful, but I also think that viewers deserve to escape from the constant demands of living in an oppressive society, and I wanted to allow us to be free from that.”
Williamson emphasized that beyond the technical and artistic elements, the concert plays a significant role in building relationships among all participants. The sense of community that the show generates extended beyond the performance to the audience, who responded with sustained applause across all of the shows. Pieces that paired emotional depth with technical precision drew particularly strong reactions, highlighting the performances’ ability to engage viewers.
Williamson expressed that the organizers hoped the impact of the performance would extend beyond the theater.
“The department hopes audience members connect with the emotions of the dances,” Williamson said. “And that the experience of watching them can be a conduit for their own self-expression and creativity.”
Gaylord expressed her appreciation for the show during a time when entertainment is mainly online, and a similar hope that the audience would leave feeling inspired.
“Not to get on a soapbox here, but we definitely live in an age of short-form, curated content, and for hundreds of people to all gather in a room together to purely just witness a live performance unfold is so rare and so special,” Gaylord said. “I hope the audience walks away stoked or stirred up by the performances.”
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