Today we attended a student matinee performance of the Martha Graham Dance Company. A delightful multimedia presentation meant to illustrate the progression of Graham's career, it was a great introduction for Maya. Beginning with a very early dance film, and punctuated by large-scale photographs, a later film, and anecdotes from Graham's autobiography, the program was most informative and entertaining. The dance segments were chosen to demonstrate the different periods of Graham's artistic development, and the dancers deftly moved from one set of stylistic movements to another.
The first anecdote was an apocryphal story of Graham's father catching her, at the age of five, telling a lie. She asked him how he knew she hadn't told the truth. He said "The body doesn't lie." This supposedly inspired the style of dance she pioneered, her quest to develop a universal language built on the body's natural movement when experiencing an emotion.
My favorite moment came in the introduction of one of Graham's most famous pieces, "Lamentation."
The speaker noted that critics were not entirely positive about this distinct shift in Graham's dance vocabulary, the contract-and-release style she is now known for, and one quipped "When I go see Martha Graham dance, I am always afraid she might give birth to a cube."
After the performance, we slowly meandered across campus, taking in the changes of early spring, and talking about what we had seen. Little did we realize what we would see next!
Just as we approached our car, a buck and two does ran across a busy street north of our parking lot! Luckily for the deer, all the drivers were able to stop. There are a lot of deer in the foothills surrounding our campus, but it is more common for them to come down from the mountains in times of drought, when the green, well-watered lawns and trees of the University beckon. It was surprising, but welcomed.
We got in our car and began the drive home. Not two minutes later, while waiting for a commuter train to pass, I noticed a very large raptor bird soaring above our car, catching the wind, almost as if dancing. A very blustery day, this bird seemed to be enjoying the gusts. Then suddenly, just as the light turned green, a second large bird appeared, gliding beside the first. I said to Maya, "Let's see if we can find a place to pull over and watch them." Easier said than done on a busy, urban University campus!
I turned onto a road leading to Fort Douglas, a sprawling area of narrow, winding roads, leading to the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. When I first moved here many years ago, this place was a vast field punctuated by a few historical buildings in disrepair. Twenty years later, in 2002, the Olympic Village was unveiled, and now serves as housing for University students. Needless to say, I was more familiar with the wild field, and as a result, got a bit disoriented as we tried to keep the birds in sight while navigating an unfamiliar path, filled with bicyclists and meandering, texting students listening to iPods.
The birds swooped low, making me determined to find a place to pull over. I swung right onto a side road, but quickly realized, from the angle of the parking lines, I was on a one-way, going the wrong way! But behold---an empty parking spot appeared (thank you, good parking karma)---so I swung way wide, and pulled off the road just as shuttle bus appeared. Phew!!! A couple of quarters later, and we were on foot pursuing the birds.
They had disappeared, but we were determined. With the wind blowing, it didn't seem likely they could have gotten too far away. We started walking in the direction the birds were last seen. For a couple of minutes, nothing. Maya took it in stride, and suggested we explore the area. She walked down into a small gulley between historic buildings, and I walked on a path. Suddenly I spotted one of the birds up ahead!
I called to Maya, and she scrambled up the hill in time to see this:
They played, swooped and danced in the wind right above our heads. It was breathtaking. Only one other person stopped to look. The angle of the sun made it difficult to determine coloring, but we chatted a bit, and agreed that Golden Eagle was the best guess. We do have Turkey Vultures in our foothills, but the head shape didn't seem right.
Then just as suddenly as they appeared, off they went. We played and explored some more in the gulley, enjoying our freedom to roam as much as the birds.
