Martha Graham Company: 100 Years
As the Martha Graham Dance Company marks its centennial, a new book by photographers Deborah Ory and Ken Browar offers a striking visual record of the company’s evolution. Martha Graham Company: 100 Years brings together contemporary portraits, newly staged images from iconic ballets, as well as selected archival photographs that brought to life the story of the oldest modern dance company in the United States.
Merging Fashion and Dance
The project is an artistic extension of Ory and Browar’s long standing collaboration. As the founders of the NYC Dance Project, the pair has spent more than a decade developing a photographic language that merges fashion aesthetics with the physical beauty of dance. Browar’s long career in fashion photography shaped his mastery of lighting and composition, while Ory, a former dancer, brings an instinctive understanding of timing, costume, form, and the expressive potential of the body. Together, they create images that highlight dancers as both artists and athletes which emphasize the sculptural lines and emotional resonance that define Graham’s influential technique.
A Taste of the Martha Graham Dance Company
From the outset, they agreed the book should unfold chronologically. “It made the most sense,” they explained. Working with the company director and dancers, they selected twenty-five ballets from a repertory of more than two hundred works spanning mythology, psychological drama, and various universal emotional themes such as jealousy, grief, and love. Their goal was “to give people a taste of the Martha Graham Dance Company, whether they are deeply knowledgeable about dance or just learning.”
Reimagining How the Ballets Are Photographed
Ory and Browar were determined to develop a new strategy than previous photographers who usually captured classical dancers primarily in rehearsal or during performance. “We wanted to interpret the dances ourselves,” says Ory. This decision took the duo far beyond the studio. They shot on beaches and rocky coastlines, where wind, water and uneven terrain shaped the dancers’ movement. “If they’re on a rock with waves splashing, they’re going to dance differently than in the theater,” says Browar. Even iconic pieces shifted subtly; “For Lamentation, she’s sitting on a log outdoors – not on a bench on stage like the original ballet – and that changes the energy of the image.”
Building Each Chapter as an Emotional Entry Point
Each chapter opens with a historical photograph and a concise introduction to the ballet, giving viewers an immediate emotional entry point. The contemporary images, which were created in close collaboration with the company members, are organized incorporating archival material, allowing readers to trace the continuity of Grahams movement vocabulary across generations.
Capturing Motion Without Freezing It
Ory and Browar’s photographic philosophy centers on capturing the essence of the moments just before and after the shutter clicks. Working with a large format camera, they often take a single frame per movement. “We feel like we’re continuing the motion, not freezing it,” says Browar and continues, “We hope you can sense the moment that came before and after the photo.” Deborah adds that they often found themselves unconsciously breathing in sync with the dancers, a focus that guided their timing.
Legacy, Interpretation, and Graham’s Technique
Ory’s background as a Graham-trained dancer shaped the entire process from the inside. Before photographing the ballets, they watched archival videos, studied older films, and spoke extensively with company members. “Because Graham is no longer alive, the message has been passed down through legacy. We talked with dancers about how they learned the roles, how they perform them, and how interpretations shift. Grief, for example, looks different for everyone.” Graham’s technique itself informed every decision. Barefoot, grounded and angular, it demands both athleticism and vulnerability. “These dancers are as athletic as Olympic athletes,” Ory notes. “The movements can be beautiful, but beauty isn’t necessarily the goal. It’s about the human emotion behind them. The ballets are expressive, but they’re not free form. They’re built on a strong technical base.”
A Centenary Tribute
As the company begins its second century, Martha Graham Dance Company: 100 Years stands as tribute, testament and celebration. It celebrates the dancers who carry the repertory forward while acknowledging the rigor and visionary outlook that defined Graham herself. Through Ory and Browar’s lens, the company’s legacy is photographically preserved and vividly alive. Graham’s explorations of human emotion remain as relevant today as it was a century ago. “Her messages haven’t aged,” Ory and Browar say. “They matter just as much today.”
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