Eleanor Boomhower | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Eleanor Boomhower
Title: Anatomy of Anguish: Analyzing Martha Graham’s Early Work as Political Assertion
Majors: History; Theatre & Dance
Advisors: Madonna Hettinger; Kerstin Vaughn

Martha Graham’s modern ballets Chronicle (1936), Immediate Tragedy (1937), and Deep Song (1937) are artistic depictions of the destruction of war and the impacts of fascism in Nazi Germany and Civil War Spain. Through these works, Graham expressed her opposition to fascist politics, and her disapproval of the perpetuation of fascism’s values. Graham was one of the most prolific and influential—and therefore most studied—choreographers of the 20th century, and she is often considered one of the American pioneers of modern dance globally. However, most of the existing scholarship on Graham is biographical or centered on her common themes of gender, sexuality, spirituality, and American identity rather than her political views and actions. This research uses contemporary recordings of these pieces along with critical reviews, letters, notes, and existing scholarship to analyze the movement as historical works within their political, cultural, and artistic contexts. An analysis of Graham’s choreographic style throughout each of these pieces reveals her involvement in a developing conversation at the time about artists as political influencers and American identity on an international scale. Additionally, this research addresses enduring issues of how we discuss genocide, fascism, and war. This research explores the connections between concert dance and political action through both historical and artistic lenses, and opens questions for further research into the impacts of artistic expression through dance on political movements more broadly.

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Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.