Blood Memory by Martha Graham: Autobiography Review

Introduction to Blood Memory and Graham's Famous Connections

A younger reader unfamiliar with the extraordinary dancing talent and career of Martha Graham discovers very quickly that she worked alongside — and rubbed elbows with — some remarkably high-powered talent. A measure of her fame was the caliber of artists, dancers, and musicians she attracted into her circle.

In her opening acknowledgments, Graham thanks her editor, Jacqueline Onassis — the late former First Lady of the United States and a writer and editor of note in her own right. She also thanks Liza Minnelli and Mikhail Baryshnikov, whom she calls "my loving friends," and she drops the names of others she knew and admired, including Madonna, Betty Ford, and even the Pope. This autobiography goes far beyond name-dropping, however; it is extremely well written, entertaining, and genuinely informative.

The Discovery of Dance as a Calling

Graham's account of the moment she knew she would become a dancer is particularly memorable. She had been taking piano lessons but had not yet danced. One Sunday afternoon during a family picnic, she recalls: "Suddenly, without reason, except for what I was feeling in my body, I stood on the table and began to dance" (Graham, 48). Her mother was not watching at the time, but when she turned from a conversation with Graham's aunt, "she was embarrassed and made me stop."

The turning point came when Graham, still a student at Santa Barbara High School, attended a performance by the iconic ballet artist Ruth St. Denis. Graham recalled, "at that moment I was going to be a dancer … when I learned [St. Denis] had a school, I made up my mind to attend it" (Graham, 56). Her mother eventually accepted her daughter's path. After all, Graham had obvious talent and saw herself as "… beautiful and wild, maybe a creature of another world" (Graham, 58).

The book is 276 pages and filled with fascinating, deeply personal anecdotes. Graham was born in Pennsylvania, and her father was a doctor. It took her some time to begin dancing formally, but late in her career, when her energy finally gave out, she stopped — not by deliberate choice: "It was not a conscious decision. I realized that I did not have the strength or the ability to build into the interior and the soul of the artist" (Graham, 13). Growing old was clearly not easy for her.

Aging, Loss, and the End of a Career

The experience of onrushing age was not something Graham handled with ease. "There are so many things I cannot do. I get absolutely furious that I cannot do them," she writes (Graham, 14). She recalls reading that after the iconic painter El Greco died, an empty canvas was found in his studio bearing the words: "Nothing pleases me." Graham added simply, "This I can understand."

Her sense of loneliness runs through page after page of the book. On page 15 she writes that she misses the "… animal strength, the beauty of the heel as it used to carry one forward into life … this is the secret of my loneliness." The loss she describes is not merely physical; it is a profound grief over the departure of the self she had known for a lifetime.

Conclusion

She may have had a formidable temper, but Martha Graham was regarded by her contemporaries and critics alike as one of the very best and most talented dancers of her era. Blood Memory stands as a compelling, candid, and richly personal document of an extraordinary artistic life.

Works Cited

Graham, M. (1991). Blood Memory. New York: Doubleday Publishing.