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"Deborah Jowitt chronicles a life passionately, artfully lived. An essential read about a true legend." —Mikhail Baryshnikov
In the pantheon of American modernists, few figures loom larger than Martha Graham. One of the greatest choreographers ever to live, Graham pioneered a revolutionary dance technique—primal, dynamic, and rooted in the emotional life of the body—that upended traditional vocabulary and shaped generations of dancers and choreographers across the globe. Over her sweeping career, she founded what is now the oldest dance company in the country and produced nearly two hundred ballets, many of them masterpieces. And along the way, she engaged with the major debates, events, and ideas of the twentieth century, creating works that cut to the core of the human experience. Time magazine's "Dancer of the Century," and the first dancer and choreographer to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Graham was a visionary artistic force and an international cultural figure: hers was the iconic face of what came to be known as modern dance.
From the renowned dance writer and former longtime critic for the Village Voice Deborah Jowitt, Errand into the Maze draws on more than a decade of firsthand research to deliver the definitive portrait of this titan.
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“A well-informed portrait of the iconic artist, infused with anecdotes from Graham’s life and bolstered by Jowitt’s own expertise from years as a dancer, choreographer, and writer.”
— Dance magazine
“Gently magisterial and written with compelling fluency…Even if you watched Graham’s dances when she was living, you often meet her as if for the first time in these pages.”
— Alastair Macaulay, former chief dance critic at the New York Times“This rigorous biography excels at describing the flamboyant choreographer’s work and distinct style. About the messy life between performances, Jowitt is comparatively mild.”
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Deborah Jowitt is the author of several books. She is a dance critic who wrote a column for the Village Voice from 1967 to 2011 and whose work has appeared in the New York Times, among other outlets. A former Guggenheim fellow, she has lectured and conducted workshops worldwide and taught in the Dance Department of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for forty years.
Erin Bennett is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a stage actress who played Carlie Roberts in the BBC radio drama Torchwood: Submission. She can be heard on several video games. Regional theater appearances include the Intiman, Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Laguna Playhouse, and the Getty Villa. She trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.