Vivian Fine's Work with Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham Dana Renée Terres

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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2013 Modern Collaborations: Vivian Fine's Work with Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham Dana Renée Terres

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COLLEGE OF MUSIC

MODERN COLLABORATIONS: VIVIAN FINE’S WORK WITH DORIS

HUMPHREY AND MARTHA GRAHAM

DANA RENÉE TERRES

A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Music

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2013

Dana Terres defended this thesis on March 25, 2013 The members of the supervisory committee were:

Denise Von Glahn Professor Directing Thesis

Michael Broyles Committee Member

Tricia Young Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have received support from many people throughout this process. I would like to recognize a few of them without whom, this thesis would have been impossible to pursue.

First and foremost, I wish to thank Peggy Karp for permitting me to photograph copies of her mother’s manuscripts in the Vivian Fine Collection at the Library of Congress. I also am indebted to the librarians at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts for patiently guiding me through my first forays into archival research. The English family, Mary, Kevin, Brendan, Catherine, and Molly were kind enough to host me on two different occasions while I completed my research in

Washington D.C. I thank them for their generosity and hospitality.

I was fortunate to have Denise Von Glahn as my advisor. She never accepted less than my best work and was quick with words of encouragement at the times I thought this thesis would never come together. I am also grateful for my colleagues who were always there to offer advice and support, especially my fellow members of Les Six: Matt Bishop,

Christine Bronson, Sarah Gilbert, Alice Henderson, and Nicole Robinson. I would also like to thank my parents, my sister Kira, and three friends who are like family Yomari

Chavez, Helen Ingham, and Hayley Steptoe for always believing in me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ...... v

List of Figures ...... vi

Abstract ...... vii

CHAPTER ONE: VIVIAN FINE ...... 1

CHAPTER TWO: DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN DANCE IN AMERICA ...... 7

CHAPTER THREE: THE RACE OF LIFE ...... 16

CHAPTER FOUR: ALCESTIS ...... 36

CONCLUSION ...... 54

APPENDIX ...... 58

A. COPYRIGHT PERMISSION LETTER ...... 58

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 59

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 64

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Subsection of Each Scene in Fine’s and Humphrey’s The Race of Life . . . . . 22

Table 4.1: Individual Scenes in Fine’s and Graham’s Alcestis ...... 43

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1: The Race of Life, Scene I, mm. 8-12 ...... 24

Figure 3.2: “Start of the Race,” Scene I, mm. 28-32 ...... 25

Figure 3.3: Bass Ostinati from “Swinging Along,” “Neck and Neck,” and “Faster” . . . 25

Figure 3.4: “The Accident,” Scene I, no. 6, mm. 103-105 ...... 26

Figure 3.5: “The Dive,” Scene I, no. 8, mm. 145-146 ...... 27

Figure 3.6: “Breathing Spell,” Scene I, no. 10, mm. 156-159 ...... 28

Figure 3.7: “Faster,” Scene VI, no. 42, mm. 49-51 ...... 28

Figure 3.8: “Uphill,” Scene VI, no. 43, mm. 55-58 ...... 29

Figure 3.9: “The Laggard,” Scene VI, no. 44, m. 71 ...... 30

Figure 3.10: “The Pacemaker,” Scene VI, no. 45, mm. 72-73 ...... 30

Figure 3.11: “The Beautiful Stranger” theme Scene II, mm. 1-5 ...... 31

Figure 3.12: Lyrics of “Indianola” written over the melody, Scene III, mm. 38-46 . . . . 33

Figure 3.13: “The Cuckoo” Trills in Scene IV, mm. 1-4 ...... 34

Figure 3.14: “Menace” and “Escape,” Scene V, nos. 34 and 38, m. 21 and m. 39 . . . . . 35

Figure 4.1: Opening of Alcestis, Section I, mm. 1-9 ...... 42

Figure 4.2: Suspensions in Scene 6, mm. 22-24 ...... 45

Figure 4.3: Scene 6, mm. 19-23 ...... 45

Figure 4.4: Fanfare Figure from Part II, mm. 1-2 ...... 46

Figure 4.5: Scene 12, mm. 162-164 ...... 47

Figure 4.6: Scene 12, mm. 206-208 ...... 47

Figure 4.7: Section V, mm. 109-110 ...... 49

ABSTRACT

Music regularly accompanies dance performances, but the relationship of sound and movement has been under-investigated in academic circles. This neglect may be a reflection of the opinion that music created for dance is not serious. The lack of communication between music and dance scholars may also be a contributing factor.

Neither side speaks the other’s language. This thesis seeks to address that situation by considering two works by Vivian Fine, The Race of Life (1937) and Alcestis (1960). Fine composed these pieces for modern dance choreographers Doris Humphrey and Martha

Graham respectively; they represent two different approaches to creating American modern dance. For The Race of Life Fine composed to an existing dance text, while for

Alcestis, she provided music to which the dance would be set. The influence of the order of composition and choreography in inspiring these very different scores is impossible to determine without clear documentation from Fine, which does not exist. Nevertheless, the two scores provide the opportunity to evaluate her musical thinking as it relates to dance in works separated by more than twenty years.

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CHAPTER ONE

VIVIAN FINE

Describing the connection between music and dance for the 1963 issue of Dance

Perspectives, Vivian Fine (1913-2000) quoted her former teacher Roger Sessions as saying

“Music is a gesture.” She went on to explain that “…one must have a willingness to absorb from the dancer his basic gesture and to inflect the musical gesture with the imagery of dance and theatre.”1 Because she possessed such willingness, Fine was sought after as a dance composer and accompanist for modern dancers including Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, and José Limón. Fine viewed the compositional process of writing music for dance as a collaborative one, and no two processes were alike. In this thesis, I will investigate the collaborative process for two of Fine’s dance compositions: Doris Humphrey’s The Race of Life

(1937) and Martha Graham’s Alcestis (1960).

Even though Fine was a prolific American composer, she is little known beyond a small group of scholars and aficionados. Therefore, a brief explanation of her background is in order.

A musical prodigy from a poor Jewish family in Chicago, Fine began taking piano lessons with a neighborhood teacher at three years old. When she was five, Fine auditioned for and won a scholarship to the Chicago Musical College. After four years of lessons there, Fine needed more advanced instruction. Her father used his connections at the Jewish Theater to have Vivian play for Djane Lavoie-Herz,2 a former pupil of Alexander Scriabin, a teacher at the American

Conservatory, and one of the most prominent pianists in the Chicago area. Herz took Fine on as a student in her private studio in 1924. Through Herz, Fine met Ruth Crawford who was attending

1 Vivian Fine and Lucia Dlugoszewski, “Composer/choreographer. Choreographer/composer,” Dance Perspectives 16 (1963): 63. 2 The wife of one of David Fine’s co-workers at the theater was a student of Lavoie-Herz. 1

the conservatory and studying composition and theory with John Palmer and Adolf Weidig. At the suggestion of Lavoie-Herz, Crawford taught Fine theory and composition beginning in the fall of 1924; Lavoie-Herz offered Crawford piano lessons as an exchange for her training Fine.

Crawford fostered Fine’s propensity toward ultra-modern composition as well as introduced her eleven-year old protégé to other composers including Henry Cowell, Dane Rudhyar, Imre

Weisshaus, and Aaron Copland. Despite Vivian’s extreme youth, her parents were supportive of their daughter’s musical endeavors. In the fall of 1927 with her parent’s approval, Vivian dropped out of high to allow more time for composing and piano practice.3

Henry Cowell also encouraged Fine’s musical career. She recalled corresponding with him beginning in 1929.4 The fifteen year-old Fine sent him her compositions upon which he would offer comments. In 1930, he arranged for her Solo for Oboe to be programmed at the Pan

American Association of Composers Concert. He also submitted Fine’s Four Pieces for Two

Flutes to the Women in Music Festival in Hamburg, Germany where it was performed in 1931.

After Ruth Crawford left Chicago in 1930, Fine became increasingly frustrated with opportunities in her hometown. Although Crawford arranged for Vivian to study with Adolf

Weidig, Fine did not find his style compatible with her ultra-modern stylistic preferences.5 In

1931 at the age of 18, Fine moved to New York City as Crawford had a year earlier. Once there, she sought out the company of other ultra-modernist composers. She found a sympathetic professional network in Aaron Copland’s Young Composers Group where she was the only woman. She remembered that her skills as a pianist and as a sight-reader were seen as invaluable.

3 Judy Cody, Vivian Fine: Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002), 5-6. In interviews, Fine often told of how her mother hid her in the closet when the truant officer came to their apartment. 4 Ibid., 8. 5 Cody, 8. 2

Henry Brant, fellow member of the YCG and later colleague at Bennington, recalled that “From time to time someone would bring in a piece perhaps unknown to all of us – something by Eisler,

Ives, or Webern that we’d never seen before. We’d say ‘Vivian, play it.’ (Vivian was the best sight reader in the group.)”6 The YCG offered Fine opportunities to perform her own works at such events as the first Yaddo Festival in 1932, where her Four Polyphonic Pieces for Piano was premiered. She also enjoyed the company of like-minded composers, company that she would miss in the 1940s and 50s after she had left the city.

Although composition has never been a remunerative profession, especially for women composers, opportunities to earn money composing music during the Great Depression were greatly reduced. In order to pay the bills, Fine auditioned for and was offered a job as dance accompanist for Gluck-Sandor’s ballet company despite having no prior experience. As a result of her excellent sight-reading skills, good rhythmic sense, and ability to match music to movement, Fine quickly made a name for herself in the field. In an interview with Von Gunden,

Fine explained that her favorite dancers to play for were Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman because they were “great dancers who had a sense of line… Humphrey was musical and was known for her lyrical line, and Weidman was more energetic. Both were easy to work with.”7

Not only did Fine accompany their dance rehearsals and performances, but she also composed the music for Humphrey’s The Race of Life (1937) and Weidman’s Opus 51 (1938).

The Great Depression compelled many avant-garde modernists to pursue more accessible styles of music and Fine followed suit. In 1934 when she was twenty-one Fine began taking private composition lessons with Roger Session and her style shifted away from her youthful dissonant style and toward a more tonal idiom. Fine would study with Sessions until 1942. Von

6 Heidi Von Gunden, The Music of Vivian Fine (Westport, CT: Scarecrow Press, 1999), 17 7 Ibid., 30. 3

Gunden has identified the Prelude for String Quartet as reflecting Session’s influence on Fine’s work. While the tonality of the piece is not constrained by the A major key signature, consonant chords are prominent. The Race of Life (1937) also displays a relatively consonant idiom.8

Shortly after beginning her studies with Sessions, Fine’s friend and fellow composer

Israel Citkowitz introduced her to his sculptor friend Benjamin Karp, who had just returned from six years of art study in Paris. The two were married in April of 1935. Fine and Karp’s marriage was remarkably progressive for its day with Fine continuing to compose and to work as a dance accompanist along with cooking and taking care of the apartment.9 She also found the time to continue her work with Sessions, study piano with Abby Whitesides from 1937 to 1945, attend a semester-long course in orchestration with George Szell in 1944, and care for her daughter

Peggy, who was born in 1942. In this last instance, Fine’s parents again were supportive. They had moved to New York to live with Vivian when her father lost his job in 1932. Once Peggy was born, Fine’s father would baby-sit in the mornings giving Fine time to work.10 Around the time of her daughter’s birth, Fine decided to cut back on her dance accompaniment work in order to focus on her composition career and her family.

1948 brought two major changes to Fine and her family. She gave birth to her second daughter, Nina, and the family moved to Montclair, New Jersey because Karp was promoted to head of the Art Department at Montclair State Teacher’s College.11 They moved again three years later to New Paltz, New York when her husband was appointed to a new position at the

State University Teacher’s College. Although Fine acknowledged that she felt isolated from the compositional community in New York, she kept in the loop through active membership in

8 Von Gunden, 26-27. 9 Cody, 14. 10 Ibid., 15-16. 11 Ibid., 17. 4

various organizations.12 For instance, she was the music director of the Bethsheva de Rothschild

Foundation for Arts and Sciences from 1953-1960 and served as the vice-president of the

American Composer’s Alliance from 1961-1965. 13 The number of her compositions dropped off during the 1950s and 1960s while Fine focused on her family. However, the Rothschild

Foundation provided money for childcare and a housekeeping service so that Fine would have her mornings free to compose. During this time she wrote A Guide to the Life Expectancy of a

Rose (1956) for the Rothschild Foundation and Alcestis (1960) for Martha Graham, one of only two dance works she composed after 1940.

Fine’s professional career entered a second prolific period when she was offered a part- time teaching position on the composition and piano faculty at Bennington College in Vermont.

At first, she was not sure she wished to commute between Bennington and New Paltz, but the salary and conditions of the offer were too persuasive. According to biographer Judy Cody, Fine never regretted accepting the position at Bennington because she found “…a ‘very lively scene’ at the department of music that was much to her liking.”14 In 1969, she was offered a full time position. Since her husband had since retired from academia, she accepted and her family moved to Hoosick Falls, New York nearer to the college. At Bennington, her colleagues frequently programmed her compositions on their recitals. One of her most successful collaborations was with the mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani for whom she wrote Missa Brevis.

Perhaps because her position at Bennington gave Fine and her work more visibility, commissions poured in during the 1970s and 1980s. She received her first grant from the

National Endowment for the Arts in 1974 and wrote Teisho for string quartet and small choir,

12 Von Gunden, 51. 13 While the Bethsheva de Rothschild Foundation funded both the fine arts and sciences, it is best known as the primary financial supporter of Martha Graham’s Dance Company. 14 Cody, 19. 5

and the choral piece Meeting for Equal Rights 1866. With her second NEA grant two years later, she wrote her first chamber opera Women in the Garden; it featured the characters of Virginia

Woolf, Isadora Duncan, Emily Dickenson, and Gertrude Stein. She also received a Guggenheim

Fellowship in 1980. Two years later the San Francisco Symphony commissioned Fine to write a piece for them. The five-movement Drama for Orchestra inspired by Edward Munch’s paintings was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

Fine rarely borrowed musical material from her previous works. However, the same year she retired from Bennington, she revisited The Race of Life creating a cabaret-style instrumental piece called Ma’s in Orbit (1987). She also drew from Race as well as from her other work for her last large-scale piece, The Memoirs of Uliana Rooney (1994). This chamber opera was inspired by an obituary for the oft-married pianist and composer Erwin Nyiregyhazi. Reading the obituary compelled Fine to look back on her own life as a composer. This chamber opera is only partially autobiographical; it borrows generously from the lives of Alma Mahler and Ruth

Crawford mixed with her own imagination. A bout of pneumonia in 1990 caused Fine to slow the rate of her work and any pieces she may have written after Memoirs in 1994 are unknown to this day. Tragically she and her sister Adelaide died in a car accident on March 20, 2000. Fine was 86.

The Race of Life and Alcestis represent different periods of Fine’s career. Aside from the distinct collaborative processes of Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham, these two dance pieces were choreographed during different sets of circumstances. The New York City dance world, the economic situation, and the global status of modern dance had changed between 1937 and 1960.

Chapter two will contextualize the dance community in which Fine worked.

CHAPTER TWO

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN DANCE IN AMERICA

The Race of Life and Alcestis fall into a specific category of dance known as “theatrical dance”15 rather than social dance. In social dance, participation is open to anyone who knows the steps, or who is brave enough to join in with no prior experience and learn as they go along.

While a vocabulary of dance steps often exists, the participant chooses which steps to perform and when. The attention of an audience is not assumed although an informal audience may form.

Theatrical dance, on the other hand, is performed by a select group of trained dancers who follow choreographed steps, the “dance text.” A work of theatrical dance is created with the intention of being performed for an audience.

In the early twentieth century, the most prominent forms of theatrical dance in the United

States were ballet, vaudeville dance numbers, and the emerging modern styles. Ballet had its roots in the court dance performances of French King Louis XIV. Often integrated into operas and plays, ballet emerged as an independent art in nineteenth-century France and gained wider appeal and recognition in Europe with the work of Russian choreographers Marius Petipa (1818-

1910) and Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950). Ballet was introduced to the United States in the 1840s when famous European ballerinas such as Fanny Elssler (1810-1884) toured the country as soloists. Because these solo dancers did not travel with a corp de ballet, their ballet masters needed to assemble a new one in each city. Opportunities to receive ballet training were rare in nineteenth-century America, and the majority of women in these pick-up corps had no prior ballet experience. In her book Where She Danced, Elizabeth Kendall describes the struggle of

James Sylvain, Elssler’s ballet master, “to find girls just to fill the stage and stand correctly for

15 Deborah Jowitt, Time and the Dancing Image (New York: W. Morrow, 1988), 8. 7

her [Elssler’s] corps de ballet.”16 As a result, the quality of ballet performances was questionable.

The American assumption regarding these “ballet girls” was that “they had presumably chosen to throw away all respectability,” which curtailed other future possibilities for employment. One of the few options available was vaudeville.17

Dance numbers in vaudeville and other nineteenth-century variety shows often were based on folk dances, such as Irish jigs and clog dances. According to dance critic, Elizabeth

Kendall, these numbers also included versions of “dance-hall tricks returned to the variety stage in the guise of new, ingenious, syncopated specialties billed as Sand Dances, Egg Dances, Spade

Dances, Candle Dances, Bottle Dances, and the Transformation Dance...”18 With the influx of dancers from these pick-up corps, solo dance acts on the vaudeville stage grew in popularity.

Kendall explains that these solo acts encompassed ballet inspired pieces and brought about a new genre called skirt dancing. Skirt dancing emerged in the 1890s, and combined formal steps from ballet with jigs or clog dancing. Kendall characterizes skirt dancers as “a cross between a ballet girl and a clog dancer in her routine of fast footwork, acrobatic stunts, vigorous swishing of the skirt, twirls, and coy curtsies.” There was no set form, which allowed the performer to individualize her dance.19

The 1890s were significant because the nation’s perception of dance was changing with the widespread acceptance of the Delsarte system. François Delsarte developed his system for stage actors in France as a method of codifying movement. He divided the body into three zones, head, heart, and lower limbs, which represented the concepts of mind, soul, and life respectively.

Since the upper body housed the seats of the mind and soul, its movement was “spiritually

16 Elizabeth Kendall, Where She Danced (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 4-5. 17 Ibid., 6-7. 18 Ibid., 36. 19 Ibid., 37. 8

expressive.” Steele Mackaye brought Delsarte’s ideas to America, and his student Genevieve

Stebbins popularized it among women in the form of “aesthetic gymanastics.” Stebbins combined “natural” movement performed to spoken texts as well as “colorful dancelike drills, and other ornamental games” from the Delsarte system. In addition to teaching classes, Stebbins also published exercise manuals that were widely used.20 The gestures accompanied speech and were presented as spiritual instead of physical expressions, thus removing the carnal stigma from movement. Delsarte offered a philosophy of dance as an edifying pursuit that was very different from ballet or vaudeville. These ideas are seen in the work of Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) and

Ruth St. Denis (1879-1968), two pioneers of American modern dance.

Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco and was the youngest of four children from a family that was progressive for the time. Her mother, Ina, divorced her husband in the late 1870s, and earned a living giving piano lessons and taking in sewing. She was also a follower of the freethinker Robert Ingersoll, who preached against the institution of marriage.21 Ina was part of the dress reform movement as well. Dress reformers offered women alternatives to the restrictive conventional clothing of the day. Corsets in particular were denounced because they hindered women’s ability to move freely and placed “‘continuous pressure upon that life-endowing nervous center, the solar plexus.’”22 Such ideas informed Isadora’s later decision to perform barefoot and in a loose tunic instead of in toe-shoes and a corset.

As a child, Isadora learned Irish jigs and reels from her grandparents and social dances from her sister Elizabeth who was a dance teacher. Isadora later became her sister’s “best pupil

20 Ibid., 24. 21 Jowitt, 75. 22 Kendall, 22. 9

and helper.”23 Childhood friend, Florence Treadwell, remembered Isadora attending gymnastics classes at the local Turnverein.24 In Time and the Dancing Image, Deborah Jowitt speculates that these classes likely were based on Delsarte principles. Early in her career, Duncan publicly praised Delsarte and taught drills at her dance school that were similar to those found in

Stebbin’s manuals.25

After moving to New York and spending a year on the Broadway stage as a dancer

(1896-1897), Duncan found her dance opportunities creatively unfulfilling. and so she decided to pursue a different course. Duncan became a salon soloist, which offered her far more creative license to blend jigs and reels, social dance, and Delsarte to form her pieces.26 She rejected as unnatural the strictly codified movement of the traditional ballet including the turn out of the feet, and restrictive costumes of toe shoes and corsets. She emphasized the importance of the solar plexus. She was known to stand for hours with her hands crossed over her solar plexus waiting for a kinesthetic impulse. Once inspired, her movement drew from ordinary actions like walking, running, or skipping, yet it also incorporated steps inspired by classic Greek art.

Nevertheless, she avoided stylized poses favoring instead fluid dances that seemed improvisatory. She refused to be constrained by either dance steps or clothing and performed barefoot in loose fitting tunics showing what some considered an indecent amount of skin.

Duncan argued, however, that her dances were an expression of freedom and transcendence and thus were pure and chaste works of art. In addition to criticisms of licentiousness because of her movements, Duncan’s choice of music was often denounced. She tended to perform to early

23 Ibid., 61. 24 Jowitt, 77. A Turnverein is an organization devoted to teaching gymnastics and social dance. Jowitt’s description is reminiscent of a present day YMCA or similar community center that focuses on exercise and fitness. 25 Ibid. 78-80. 26 Kendall 63. 10

Romantic era works, such as that of Beethoven or Chopin. The music was not the object of scrutiny per se, but adding a dance text to the music was. Since the dance text imposed a specific interpretation on the music, critics believed that Duncan degraded the “transcendent” nature of these musical works.27

Ruth St. Denis’s upbringing in New Jersey, while different in many respects from that of

Duncan, shared some similarities to the dance pioneer from California. Ruth’s mother, Ruth

Emma Dennis, was also a dress reformer. After poor health ended her career as a doctor, Ruth’s mother recognized how much of her own and other women’s health problems stemmed from restrictive clothing and physical inactivity. She was determined that her daughter live according to the tenets of dress reform and Delsarte; “She [Ruth Emma] dressed her [daughter] in unfashionable clothes… fed her wholesome foods made of graham flour and the like; she taught her coordination, alertness, and health through exercise.”28 Living on Pine Oaks Farm in New

Jersey, the young Ruth was encouraged to play outside in the fresh air as well.

Through her Delsarte training, Ruth St. Denis first discovered theater. Charismatic and quick to pick up new dance steps and tricks, at fourteen years old she easily earned a place as a skirt dance soloist at a small vaudeville house in New York. At nineteen, she began working as a

Broadway dancer as part of theater impresario David Belasco’s company. Even though she loved acting, after seeing Japanese actress Sadi Yacco perform in 1900 she realized that dance was her true medium. Yacco enlarged St. Denis’s perception of what a dancer could be from what she had known to “one who used ritualistic and rhythmic gestures as her natural mode of expression.”29 Four years later, St. Denis left Belasco’s company to create her own solo dances.

27 Susan Au, Ballet and Modern Dance (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002), 90. 28 Kendall 25. 29 Ibid., 47-8. 11

She was inspired by “exotic” cultures such as Indian, Chinese, and ancient Aztec, and combined simple movement inspired by art and sculpture from these cultures with steps including backbends or waltz steps that she knew from her time on vaudeville and Broadway stages. St.

Denis took on characters in her dances. For instance, in her first and famous solo Radha, she portrayed the Indian goddess herself. Although St. Denis performed as characters outside of her own cultural experience, she never claimed her work to be authentic representations.

In 1914, St. Denis met a young dancer and kindred spirit named Ted Shawn (1891-1972) whose background was in Delsarte gymnastics as well. The following year they established the

Denishawn dance school in Los Angeles, where students had the opportunity to learn a variety of dance styles. The discussion of different ideas and philosophies was also promoted. As the school grew, a dance company formed from the most advanced students. Among them were

Doris Humphrey (1895-1958) and Martha Graham (1894-1991).

Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham came to Denishawn from different backgrounds.

Humphrey was born in Chicago to parents who allowed her to take any and all dance lessons given in the city including ballet. She worked as a professional dancer when her father lost his job in 1913 and even taught at her own dance school before arriving at Denishawn in 1918. Ruth

St. Denis took an interest in Humphrey and she was soon a member of the company as well as a dance instructor. Over time, however, Humphrey and her dance partner, Charles Weidman, felt that Denishawn was constraining artistically and so in 1928, they left Denishawn to form the

Humphrey-Weidman dance company.

Even though Humphrey and Weidman often worked together as dancers, their work as choreographers was separate. While Weidman’s pieces tended to be humorous, Humphrey gravitated toward pieces with strong political and social undertones like her work With My Red

Fires (1936), in which a matriarch mobilizes the community to break up her daughter’s relationship. According to dance historian Marcia D. Siegel, however, Humphrey’s style is difficult to define because she “was not looking for a ‘style’ or even a technique of dancing.”30

Instead, she looked for new ways to move. Her primary interest was the interaction of the body and gravity. The suspension that occurred between falling and rebounding and working with off- balance motion that occurs when the body strives between two opposing forces, gravity and lift, were what intrigued Humphrey most. Her movements were often circular or spiral and tended to have a fluid quality. Although the Humphrey-Weidman company was successful through the

1930s, it began to disintegrate in the early 1940s because of financial troubles and Weidman’s attention to other projects, which left Humphrey with responsibility for the bulk of the company’s management. The company finally closed in 1946 when chronic hip pain caused

Humphrey to retire from dance.

Martha Graham, unlike Doris Humphrey, came to Denishawn with no dance background.

She was born to a middle-class family in Pittsburgh. Her parents were Presbyterian and viewed dancing as sinful, although Graham could not recall that her parent ever explicitly forbade her to dance.31 She and her family moved to Santa Barbara, California in 1908, where she first encountered the Denishawn dance company when she saw them perform at the Mason Opera

House in Los Angeles. After she finished school in 1916, she enrolled in the Denishawn summer program. Her intensity and work ethic drew the attention of both Ted Shawn and music director

Louis Horst, the later of whom would become Graham’s lover, mentor, and music director for

30 Marcia B. Siegel, Days on Earth: The Dance of Doris Humphrey (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 8. 31 Martha Graham, Blood Memory (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 58. 13

her company. When lack of encouragement and frustration with the Denishawn philosophy of dance prompted Graham to leave the company in 1923, Horst followed her two years later.

Horst’s influence on music and modern dance reached beyond his work with Graham. He worked as an accompanist and composer not only for Graham but also for other modern dance choreographers in New York City during the late 1920s and 1930s. He believed that music composed for dance should not take attention away from the movement and advocated the use of forms such as the pavane, courante, and sarabande as models for dance compositions in his book

Pre-Classic Dance Forms. He taught classes in dance composition to the dancers of Graham’s company as well as to the dancers attending the Bennington College summer dance sessions in the 1930s, which disseminated his ideas throughout the dance community.32

With financial and emotional support from Horst, Graham formed her company in 1926.

She used work developed during her three years of touring with the Greenwich Village Follies and teaching dance at the Eastman School of Music to distance her movement aesthetic from

Denishawn. She was drawn to abstraction and strength of movement over softness. Her dances thus had a direct quality that used percussive gestures. Contraction and release were central to

Graham’s movement vocabulary.

Her focus was not as much on gravity as the breath, which had to be as sharp in attack as the steps. She pulled inspiration for her pieces from stories, particularly from Greek mythology that featured women as strong central characters. Kendall remarks that in this way, Graham rebelled against both Duncan and St. Denis because her characters “are never just dancers; they are never beings simply set in motion by music… Graham’s heroines always bear the weight of

32 By “pre-classical forms,” Horst is referring to Baroque era dance suites. His opinions were so widespread that Pia Gilbert and Aileene Lockhart’s 1962 monograph Music for the Modern Dance emphasize the use of baroque dance forms such as the sarabande. 14

their intellects.”33 Appalachian Spring (1944) was Graham’s watershed piece; she became a household name. The strength of her influence on the American dance scene is evident in the continuation of Graham’s company even after her death in 1991. To this day, they continue to perform Graham’s works as well as new repertory based upon Graham’s distinctive technique.

Although the careers of Humphrey and Graham developed along parallel tracks, their young companies had to cope with similar economic realities of the 1930s. New York was in the grip of the Great Depression; nevertheless, as Deborah Jowitt observes “a lot of works [for dance] got made and performed.”34 This does not mean that money was readily available. Since modern dance was a relatively new art form, a network of private institutions and donors was not yet established. Instead, dance work was funded by ticket sales and out of the choreographers’ own savings. Dancers in the companies could only hope to earn $10 to $15 dollars a week when performing, but there was no money for rehearsal pay. As a result, dancers often worked outside jobs and choreographers such as Humphrey and Weidman scheduled rehearsals on evenings and weekends to accommodate their schedules. As Jowitt argues, money did not hold dance companies together in the 1930s; it was a strong belief in the choreographer’s artistic vision.35

In the case of Fine’s work with Humphrey on The Race of Life (1937) and with Graham on Alcestis (Graham, 1960), the composer needed to accommodate two contrasting ideas of how music and dance should interact. Humphrey saw movement and music working together. For

Graham, the music and dance relationship was more abstract; neither the music nor the movement was a literal reflection of the other. The method of collaboration in both cases suited the artistic and economic circumstances of the moment.

33 Kendall, 214. 34 Jowitt, 197. 35 Ibid., 186. 15

CHAPTER THREE

THE RACE OF LIFE

Doris Humphrey’s new dance, The Race of Life, premiered at the Guild Theatre on

January 23, 1938. The plot for the work was based on a series of James Thurber cartoons that had been published in the New Yorker. The series chronicled the story of a man (José Limón), his wife (Doris Humphrey), and child (Charles Weidman) as they raced each other to the top of a mountain of riches while encountering obstacles along the way. As writer Dorothy Parker pointed out in her program note, “Anything may be read into it [the dance] or left out of it without making a great deal of difference.”36 Vivian Fine not only composed the music for Race, but also accompanied the performance on the piano.37 According to New York Times dance reviewer John Martin, Fine’s setting did not “miss a single opportunity to be as disarmingly silly as the stage doings.”38 Martin’s observation suggests that Fine’s music closely mirrored the action of the dance; such insight is significant because only the musical score has survived to the present day. The collaborative process between Humphrey and Fine was a team effort; both women worked together in order to create a work that was aurally and visually unified. This unity conformed to the idea that the music was to set and support the dance text while simultaneously rejecting the notion that the music was merely a background for the dance.

Fine regularly worked as an accompanist for the Humphrey-Weidman Company in the mid to late 1930s and she admired Humphrey’s choreography in particular. The precise nature or

36 James Thurber, Alarms and Diversions, (New York: Harper, 1957), 228. 37 At this time, dancers could not afford an orchestra or band to play for dance performances. Therefore, the piano often was the lone instrument used. For Race, however, Fine also played the flexatone to lend additional atmosphere to the “Night-Time” section. In the Oxford Companion to Music, Jeremy Montagu explains that the flexatone is “a flexible metal blade fixed in a frame, shaken so that balls on wire springs strike it on each side, producing an eerie tremolo, while the thumb controls the flexure, and thus the pitch.” 38 John Martin, “Hilarity Feature of Dance Recital,” New York Times, January 24, 1938. 16

degree of collaboration between composer and choreographer is difficult to determine for Race, however, because both women remember, or at least describe, the experience differently. Fine simply reported that “[t]he music for both these dances [The Race of Life and Charles

Weidman’s Opus 51] was written after the dance was composed, although not after the entire work was finished. I would write a section as each new part of the dance was completed.”39

Humphrey, however, remembered that Fine played a far more integral part in the development of the piece. The choreographer recalled that she and Fine had a shared admiration of James

Thurber’s humor that compelled her to choose The Race of Life as a subject. Humphrey emphasized Fine’s role in the process: “Vivian Fine met all these moods [of the individual subsections] with imagination and full awareness of their Thurberian gaucherie and humor.”40

Humphrey’s remark suggests that Fine was integral to her conceptual development of Race.

While Fine’s account of the collaboration explains the practical side of the relationship,

Humphrey’s description reflects an emotional component, and demonstrates how Humphrey conceptualized creative partnerships. For Humphrey, the ensemble was crucial. Her biographer

Marcia Siegel explains that Humphrey “… even more than the other new [modern] choreographers needed the individual voice of the dancer.” As a result, she encouraged their participation in the creative process: “Doris [Humphrey] posted reading lists, asked the dancers to make contact with the same sources she was using, so that they would understand what they were dancing about, not merely parrot some steps they were shown. From the beginning she

39 Vivian Fine and Lucia Dlugoszwki “Composer/Choreographer, Choreographer/Composer,” Dance Perpectives 16 (1963): 10. 40 Doris Humphrey, “Music for an American Dance,” Bulletin of the American Composer Alliance 8, no. 1 (1958): 5. Reprinted in Making Music for Modern Dance: Collaboration in the Formative Years of a New American Art, Katherine Teck, ed, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 69. 17

instituted Creative Nights where students and group members showed their own compositions.”41

She also would take company members’ suggestions into account while choreographing a new piece. Despite her openness and unthreatened manner in the face of others’ creative talent, however, Humphrey retained the final creative word for all her dance pieces.

That Humphrey was similarly open to Fine’s input on Race is likely. Although Fine may not have been present at the initial rehearsals of Race, this does not necessarily mean that she was completely outside the creative process. In the absence of further documentary evidence from either Fine or Humphrey, I can only speculate about the informal opportunities in which both parties could have exchanged ideas. As a dance accompanist for the company, Fine was almost certainly at Humphrey’s studio regularly. Therefore, the background information that

Humphrey left for her dancers also would have been available to Fine. Discussions between composer and choreographer may have occurred in person before Fine started to attend the rehearsals formally. Once she did begin composing the likelihood that she and Humphrey exchanged ideas and influenced each other increases significantly. As the composer stated above, the piece was choreographed but not complete when she began composing. There still was room for both Humphrey and Fine to play.

That Race was a departure for both artists indicates the level of mutual trust that these women shared. Although only twenty-five, Fine had been composing nearly thirteen years; most of her work leading up to Race was atonal. Since studying with Roger Sessions, however, she had begun experimenting with tonality. The Race of Life is among her early forays into a diatonic idiom. In the Humphrey-Weidman Company, satire and humor were associated most with

Charles Weidman’s work, while Humphrey had a reputation for choosing topics with strong,

41 Marcia Siegel, Days on Earth: The Dance of Doris Humphrey (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 91-92. 18

serious socio-political overtones. Although Humphrey’s Race contains some element of social commentary, the race of the man, woman, and child to the mountain of riches is a crowd- pleasing, light dance.

Humphrey’s version of Race, while based on Thurber’s cartoon tells a more cohesive story than the humorist originally suggested. Each panel of the cartoon captures a single moment in the race. Continuity was not Thurber’s focus as his forward to the reprint of The Race of Life, which appears in the collection Alarms and Diversions, made clear: “It is better to skip pictures, or tear them out, rather than to begin over again and try to fit them in with some preconceived idea of what is going on.”42 Many panels are non sequitors such as the appearance of the

Enormous Rabbit in panels eleven and twelve.43 These surrealistic encounters were symbolic of

“…an Uncrossed Bridge, which seems, at first glance, to have been burned behind somebody, or it can be Chickens Counted Too Soon, or a ringing phone, or a thought in the night, or a faint hissing sound.”44 Nevertheless, some adjacent panels show evidence of a narrative such as a quarrel between the man and women in panel seven that seems brought on by the man’s flirtation with the “Beautiful Stranger” in panel six. Humphrey reordered some panels, expanded upon the story of others, and eliminated a few to create a template for her own “Every person’s” narrative.

She divided her dance into six scenes, the Start of the Race, the Beautiful Stranger, Indians!,

Spring Dance, Night-Time, and the Finale. All but the first two directly correspond with a single panel, or in the case of Indians!, a series of panels.45 Each scene was then subdivided with titles associated with other panels from the original cartoon.

42 Thurber, 228. 43 Ibid., 231-232, 234. 44 Ibid., 228. 45 As will be discussed later, “Spring Dance” may have been omitted from later performances. 19

The surviving descriptions and pictures of Race only hint at how this work may have departed from other dances by Humphrey in terms of movement. John Martin’s 1938 review offered vague allusions to how the choreography in Race differs from other pieces. He characterized the dance as having “fine humor” and “general foolishness.” In terms of choreography, Martin noted that Humphrey successfully “assumes the amoeba-like figure of a

Thurber woman to perfection, and maintains the same style in all her movements.”46

Humphrey’s choreography, then, was consistently amoeba-like through the whole piece, but it is difficult to determine what that means exactly. He does describe Humphrey’s “shapeless” costume as reinforcing the movement quality. Photos from the Humphrey-Weidman Collection at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts show Humphrey wearing an A-line, sleeveless dress over a white bodysuit that covers her neck, wrists, and ankles. On the dress, bold black lines indicate a hem, neckline, bust, and buttocks as if the dress and the body beneath it was a two-dimensional drawing. Indeed, all the costumes in Race are cartoon-like. The man is clothed in a white jacket with illustrated pockets and buttons over a bodysuit on which is drawn a vest and bowtie. The child’s knobby knees are outlined on his bodysuit as well as a sailor’s jacket and cap with the requisite detail illustrated on them. These costumes suggest that the choreography might be cartoonishly exaggerated and unrefined.

The nineteen photographs from the Humphrey-Weidman Collection reveal additional information about the qualities of the dance. Even though eighteen of the nineteen photographs feature the original cast including Humphrey, Weidman, and Limón, it is unclear under what circumstance the pictures were taken. The neutral grey background and presence of photographs that look posed lead me to believe that these pictures may have been taken at a theater during a

46 Martin, “Hilarity,” 16. 20

rehearsal as opposed to during a performance. Nevertheless, many of the photographs were taken while the dancers performed parts of the choreography. The first photograph, for instance, features Weidman in the midst of a double attitude jump with his left arm pointed ahead and his right arm overhead holding the “Excelsior” flag.47 In the rest of the set, the interactions between the characters are the primary focus with partnered work as a prominent feature. Five photos show Humphrey climbing onto Limón’s leg or perched on his back. In two, Humphrey cradles

Weidman with Limón as the literal support. In yet another photograph, Limón lies on the floor while supporting the Beautiful Stranger in a double attitude lift.48 The movement quality suggested is angular with an emphasis on both lift and support.

The dancers’ facial expressions in these photographs also reinforce the idea of cartoonish exaggeration in the dance. Weidman’s facial expressions as the child are the best examples. In one photo, Humphrey and Limón look on as Weidman goes into full tantrum mode with arms raised to the sky, head thrown back, brow furrowed, and mouth opened as wide as possible in a silent screech. A close up of the same scene with Humphrey and Limón peering over Weidman’s shoulder reveals the expressions on the faces of the parents: Humphrey’s tender concern and

Limón’s annoyance. Another photograph shows the “happy” family together. Limón and

Humphrey stand on either side of Weidman and look proudly at each other as Humphrey leans over to pat her son’s head. Weidman, however, crouches next to them with his lips pouted and cheeks puffed out as if he is none too pleased with his parents. A moment in which Humphrey is

47 An attitude is a position in which the dancer holds his leg in the air at about a ninety-degree angle with a slight bend in the knee. The leg may be lifted to the front, side, or back. In a double attitude jump, the dancer simultaneously holds one leg in a forward attitude and one leg in back attitude while in mid-air. 48 See the above footnote. The difference between these two moves is that Limón supports the “Beautful Stranger” aloft with his arms holding her arms and one foot on her hips while she performs the double attitudes with her legs. The shape can thus be held longer. 21

particularly cartoon-like is in a photo where she is on Limón’s back, legs tucked up behind her, pointing to her wide smile. Although none of these photographs would be enough to reconstruct the dance, they do reveal a humorous, exaggerated, and light-hearted approach to the movement.

These qualities come across quite clearly in Fine’s score.

Fine’s music, however, does more than establish the tone of the movement. It often seems to mirror the action of the dance. The first scene of the dance, “Introduction and Start of the Race,” demonstrates the close kinship of the action and the music. The man, woman, and child enter, take their marks, and begin the race. They steadily increase their speed until they are

“Neck and Neck,” vying for the lead. They sprint ahead in “Faster” but one person, the man in the Thurber cartoon, trips and takes everyone down with him. Slowly, the racers stand up, dust themselves off and restart the race, presumably with the exact same steps as they began, “Quand même.” This time, they encounter obstacles as indicated by the subsection titles “The Dive” and

“Water Jump” that hinder their progress forward but do not stop them. Finally, all three give in to exhaustion and take a break in “The Breathing Spell,” which ends the first leg of the race. To indicate the progression of the race, Fine included the subdivisions in the score, marking them in red with numbers and corresponding titles [table 3.1].

Table 3.1. Subsection of Each Scene in Fine’s and Humphrey’s The Race of Life

Scene I: Introduction 1. [title illegible] (m. 28-38) and Start of the Race 2. The Start (m. 39-55) 3. Swinging along (m. 56-75) 4. Neck and neck (m. 76-93) 5. Faster (m. 94-102) 6. Accident (m. 103-122) 7. Quand même (m. 123-139) 8. The Dive (m. 140-148) 9. Water Jump (m. 149-154) 10. Breathing Spell (m. 155-165) Scene II: The Beautiful 11. The Beautiful Stranger (m. 20-26) Stranger 12. Close Up of the Man (m. 27-29)

Table 3.1. continued

Scene II (cont.) 13. Close Up of the Man and Wife (m. 30-36) 14. Close up of Man and the Beautiful Stranger (m. 37- 42) 15. Nymphs and Satyrs (m. 43-59) 16. Spring Dance (repeat of m. 43-59) 17. The Pursuit (m. 60-68) 18. Close Up of Wife Scowling (m. 69-74) 19. The Quarrel (m. 75-103) Scene III: Indians! 20. Indians! (m. 36-61) 21. War Dance (m. 62-81) 22. Women’s G.H.Q. (m. 82-90) 23. Men’s G.H.Q. (m. 91-98) 24. Capture of 3 Physics Professors (m. 99-116) 25. The Spy (m. 117-148) 26. Surrender of 3 Blondes (m. 149-166) 27. Battle on the Stairs (m. 167-181) 28. Parley (m. 182-195) 29. Gettysburg (m. 196-234) 30. Zero Hour (m. 235-269) 31. The Fight in the Grocery (m. 270-285) 32. Gone! (m. 286-296) Scene IV: Spring Dance [No red numbers are written for this scene.] Scene V: Night-Time 33. On Guard (m. 20-24) 34. Menace (m. 25-28) 35. Dogs in Blizzard (m. 29-30) 36. Out of the Storm (m. 31-35) 37. The Enormous Rabbit (m. 36-37) 38. Escape (m. 38-39) 39. On Guard (m. 40-44) Scene VI: Finale 40. Dawn: Off Again (m. 8-24) 41. Dog Trot (m. 25-44) 42. Faster (m. 45-54) 43. Uphill (m. 55-69) 44. The Laggard (m. 70-71) 45. The Pacemaker (m. 72-78) 46. Winded (m. 79-83) 47. Top Speed (m. 84-87) 48. Final Sprint (m. 88-91) 49. The Goal (m. 92)

In addition to the subsections in the score, the music clearly reflects the action of the dance. Scene I begins with a twenty-six measure introduction that opens with an E-flat major

chord with the sixth scale degree also added. This chord permeates the entire dance piece simultaneously signaling the tonal tendencies of the work while indicating that this is not typically tonal. These chord clusters are punctuated by runs of eighth-notes and triplets, which foreshadow the start of the race, but they recede after three or four measures and return to the chord clusters (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1. The Race of Life, Scene I, mm. 8-12.

The first red number appears at measure 28. Even though its title has been erased and is illegible, the change in emphasis to melodic material indicates a change in action.49 Dotted- quarter note and eighth-note figures give way to a return of the chord clusters in measures 37 and

38. In the following measure, the red number two introduces subsection 2, “The Start” of the race with syncopated eighth-note runs that give way to the E-flat chord clusters. This is a pattern that occurs every time the race starts. It possibly is the point at which the woman, man, and child take their marks and begin to run.

49 It is reasonable to assume that if the introduction was played with an empty stage, the red number one may have signaled the entrance of the participants in the race, the man, woman, and child. 24

Figure 3.2. Set up to the beginning of the race, Scene I, mm. 28-32.

Once the race begins, a bass ostinato keeps the pace of the movement. Staccato quarter notes of open octaves and fifths dominate the pattern. As the treble’s melody speeds up from quarter-note chords with eighth-note runs to dotted-eighth note chords of increasing chromatic texture, the ostinato becomes less regular. Dotted eighth-notes in the bass line occasionally replace quarters in the third or the fourth beats.

a. “Swinging Along” m. 56. b. “Neck and Neck” m. 76. c. “Faster” m. 94.

Figure 3.3. Bass Ostinati from “Swinging Along,” “Neck and Neck” and “Faster.”

As the race progresses, the bass line seems to mirror the increased speed at which the dancers move (Figure 3.3). A sudden change in meter to 6/8 in measure 56 speeds the ostinato to accented eighth-notes that not only accelerate the pace but also give the bass a swing-like motion, thus fitting the title of Subsection 3, “Swinging Along.” In the next subsection, “Neck and Neck,” the meter changes to 4/4, thus shifting the emphasis of the eighth notes in making them feel even faster. The treble line of this subsection also seems to indicate the movement on stage as chord clusters that the pianist plays with her right hand alternate between treble and bass

registers. It is as if this exchange of register represents two different characters who each struggle to maintain their lead.

Another sudden shift marks subsection 5, “Faster;” dynamics change from forte to piano as the melody abruptly drops out for two measures. The ostinato takes up a new pattern of alternating quarter and eighth-notes. The melody increases the dynamic tension of this subsection. Fine directs the piano to play “accel[erando] p[oco] a p[oco] e cresc[endo]” as the melody ascends in a syncopated eighth-note pattern an octave above the staff .50 While the rhythm and pattern remain constant, the chromatics begin to pile up on each other in measures

101and 102.

Tragedy strikes in the subsection “Accident.” As the melody reaches its peak on an F7 in measure 103, a glissando drops it to a C2, a drop of over 5 octaves. Everything stops, except for the C on the third beat of measure 105 (Figure 3.4). Just as the man trips over a rock in Thurber’s cartoon and causes the woman and child to fall with him, the music here suggests a similar occurence. Gradually, the music and the dancers pick themselves up as the melody from measures 20 to 27 recurs. The race then resumes as the music from subsection 1 repeats in measures 117 to 122. Subsection 7, “Quand même,” revisits the material from “The Start” of the race.

Figure 3.4. “The Accident,” Scene I, no. 6, mm. 103-105.

50 Vivian Fine, The Race of Life, measure 98. 26

The subsequent subsection, “The Dive,” features some new melodic and rhythmic material. Instead of the steady bass ostinato of earlier subsections, quarter notes with an eighth- note pick up form an asymmetrical rhythm. Syncopated eighth-notes in the treble steadily climb upwards and occasionally descend gradually such as in measures 145 and 146 (Figure 3.5).

“Water Jump” at measure 149 continues the irregular bass and the ascending eighth-note, but this time the focus is on the descent, which occurs more quickly than that of the previous subsection, in measures 152 to 154.

Figure 3.5. “The Dive,” Scene I, no. 8, mm. 145-146.

The change from single line to chords in the bass at measure 155 begins the subsection

“Breathing Spell.” Again the bass line is asymmetrical; however, it has a consistent pattern.

Although the final beats are sometimes lengthened in subdivisions or held in half notes, or dropped altogether because of the rapidly changing meters in measures 157 to 161, the first three beats of the measures tend not to change (Figure 3.6). The effect is that the bass line is tying to catch its breath while the treble repeats an energetic ascending eighth-note pattern. At measure

164, the melodic pattern gradually slows to dotted half-notes, which halt the momentum of the melody as a black out finishes the scene.

Figure 3.6. “Breathing Spell,” Scene I, no. 10, mm. 156-159.

In the last scene, “Finale,” the music again mirrors the narrative arch. Like the first scene, the race is the central focus as the characters run the final sprint to the mountain of riches.

Indeed, the first forty-five measures of “Finale” are restatements of measures 29 to 94 of the first scene. Because the “Finale” begins with the recommencement of the race as well, it is no stretch to believe that the repetition of the music reflects a repetition of movement and gesture each time the race begins.

Although it shares the same name as Subsection 5, Subsection 42 “Faster” contains different rhythmic and melodic material. The rhythm of this new subsection is emphasized through the same eighth and sixteenth-note figures in the treble and bass. Fine pushes the action forward by increasing the rhythmic and harmonic tension in the music with the addition of a sixteenth-note triplet in the fourth beat of measure 48.51 Two measures later, the bass breaks its established pattern in favor of a dotted quarter and eighth-note figure. The treble maintains the rhythmic figure while the melodic material ascends increasingly higher (Figure 3.7).

Figure 3.7. “Faster,” Scene VI, no. 42, mm. 49-51.

51 Ibid., m. 48. 28

The melody reaches its peak, on an F above the treble staff at measure 55, which begins subsection 43, “Uphill.” Above quarter-notes in the bass, the treble contains a syncopated dotted eighth-note pattern that slowly ascends for four measures and then slightly descends with quarter-note chords (Figure 3.8). This figure is repeated until measure 66, when the pitches of the bass quarter-note chords change and the treble plays two half notes with a sixteenth grace note entrance. These half notes gradually speed up over the next two measures with two quarters and a half-note accelerating to four quarters before arriving at a whole note chord in measure 69. It is as if the characters scamper up a portion of the hill, stop to catch their breath, experience a rush of energy, run but lose steam quickly, and finally trudge up the last part of the hill.

Figure 3.8. “Uphill,” Scene VI, no. 43, mm. 55-58.

The following two subsections, “The Laggard” and “The Pacemaker,” borrow from the musical material from “Uphill” and select a single character as the focus of the action. In subsection 44 “The Laggard,” the treble pattern consists of quarter and half notes while sixteenth-note grace notes lead to half notes in the bass. The pace of the character slows further in measure 71. Only a single run of sixteenth grace notes precedes four quarter notes in the bass while the treble plays two half notes. In contrast, “the Pacemaker” of subsection 45 repeats the scampering dotted eighth-notes from measures 56 to 60 in “Uphill.” Even when the music slows in measure 77 to a dotted half-note over quarter-notes in the bass, it picks up speed again in

measure 78 repeating a fragment of the dotted eighth figure. The music and this character are not tired (Figure 3.9 and 3.10).52

Figure 3.9. “The Laggard,” Scene VI, no. 44. m. 70.

Figure 3.10. “The Pacemaker,” Scene VI, no. 45, mm. 72-73.

Subsection 46, “Winded,” is very much in the same spirit as “The Laggard.” A-flat tremolos in the bass support half-note chords in the treble that accelerate slightly to syncopated quarter-notes in measure 81 and 82. Without warning a triplet sixteenth pick-up to measure 84 ushers in subsection 47, “Top Speed.” The treble plays sixteenth-note triplet arpeggios that accelerate to sixteenth-note runs over dotted quarters in the bass. The action the music suggests in these final subsections is that the character portrayed in “The Laggard” exaggerated his exhaustion in “Winded.” He suddenly begins sprinting towards the goal with the other characters following closely behind. The sixteenth-note runs remain for subsection 48, “The Final Sprint,” at measure 88 and finally end in an A-flat chord cluster similar to the E-flat cluster opening the piece in measure 92, “The Goal.” Given the lack of contrast in the music as was found in “Neck

52 Given the Thurber drawings and because the woman ultimately wins the race, it is reasonable to guess that the “Laggard” is the man (Limón) and the “Pacemaker” is the woman (Humphrey). 30

and Neck” from Scene 1, the front-runner may have been ahead of the pack enough in the race to win easily. Based on reviews as well as a photograph of the 1956 revival performance, the woman triumphs followed by the man with the child and his “Excelsior” banner bringing up the rear.53

The music does more, however, than simply reflect the narrative and action of the dance.

Leitmotiv-like themes are used in Race to indicate a character as well. This is most apparent in the second scene of the dance, “The Beautiful Stranger.” An unaccompanied theme distinct in both rhythm and melody with double dotted eighth notes preceding sextuplet runs in the treble opens the scene and serves as a signifier for the character “Beautiful Stranger” throughout the scene (Figure 3.10).54 Humphrey described this character as “…no chic adolescent, but plainly bears the germ of the full-grown Thurber female, rather hard, aggressive and blowzy.”55

Thurber’s drawing of the Beautiful Stranger, unabashedly holding the man’s hand while the woman with fists clenched looks on, supports this characterization.

Figure 3.11. “The Beautiful Stranger” theme, Scene II, mm. 1-5.

53 Photograph 19, The Humphrey-Weidman Collection at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts. This ending differs from the one in the Thurber cartoon, which shows the child in the lead followed by the woman with her husband in last place kneeling in a thunderstorm. 54 Rachel Lumsden’s presentation “Blowzy Women and Spineless Men?: Doris Humphrey and Vivian Fine’s The Race of Life” at the Society for American Music Conference 2012 first called my attention to the “Beautiful Stranger” theme. 55 Humphrey, “Music for an American Dance,” 71. 31

This theme itself is pervasive. After its initial statement in measures 1 through 7, transposed fragments of it, the double-dotted figure and staccato eighth-notes, take over both melody and accompaniment. A full restatement occurs in subsection 11, “The Beautiful

Stranger,” which perhaps corresponds with the entrance of the character. When attention is refocused on the man and his wife in subsection 13,56 the treble line tries and fails to mirror the theme. The double-dotted figure, runs, and staccato notes end up in the wrong places. To add insult to injury, subsection 14 features another restatement of the theme with everything in place.

A waltz, chase, and quarrel follow and the theme is lost to the other action. When the lights go down at the end of the scene, however, the theme of the character who started all the trouble plays in both treble and bass.

To a lesser extent, Fine uses a specific theme to reference distinct characters in the following scene, “Indians!” In the Thurber cartoon, the “Indians” are drawn with the stereotypical eagle feather headdress and muskets. The portrayal of “Indians” in Humphrey’s dance is in very much the same vein, “…our Indians were phony, gaudy cigar-store fixtures.”57

Fine’s score further employs two musical signifiers to emphasize this vision of “Indians.” In measure 10 of scene 3, an open fifth downbeat followed by staccato eighths in the bass is introduced as the ostinato, a common signifier of Native American drumming. At subsection 20,

Fine introduces a new melody from the verse of Billy Murray’s novelty foxtrot called

56 This subsection is titled “Close Up of Man and Wife.” This particular scene contains the most cinematic titles for the subsections marked with red numbers. 57 Humphrey, “Music for an American Dance,” 71. Although racist portrayals of First Nation people were widespread in the twentieth century, Humphrey’s uncritical use of such stereotypes also seems a reflection of Denishawn’s practice of cultural appropriations from Asian cultures. 32

“Indianola” (1918). To ensure that the reference was understood, Fine wrote out the lyrics of the song above the measures (Figure 3.12).58

Figure 3.12. Lyrics of “Indianola” written over the melody, Scene III, mm. 38-46.

In addition to establishing a narrative and character, the music of Race sets the subsection of each scene. Because the budget for the dance piece was small and the time for giving the stage crew instructions for set changes limited, the Humphrey-Weidman Company generally used white-painted cubes to construct any necessary structures. The music thus was another tool by which the environment or atmosphere could be indicated. This is most apparent in the scenes titled “Spring Dance” and “Night-Time.”

“Spring Dance” is the fourth scene of the dance. It is based on the ninth panel of

Thurber’s cartoon in which the woman swings her arms behind her while wearing an expression of joy on her face. The man and child imitate the arm swinging, but apparently with far less enjoyment. In the original score for the dance, Fine has a note to omit this section. Based on John

Martin’s review of the 1938 performance of Race, however, this section seems to have been included.59 A parenthetical title in the margins of the second measure identifies this subsection as

58 Fine, Race, 12. 59 Fine’s note must have been added at a later date, perhaps for the 1956 Juilliard revival. 33

“The Cuckoo,” the most prominent feature of which is a profusion of trills (Figure 3.12).60 The trills are then followed by a staccato leap upward by a fifth and a descent of a fourth, like the fragment of a birdcall. The repetition of the eighth- and sixteenth-note figure from measures 5 to

10 is reminiscent of bird song, when a bird might call out the same pattern obsessively. Although

Fine does not literally transcribe the call of a cuckoo in this subsection, these musical trills and repetitions evoke the sounds of birds thus setting the scene of a spring day in the woods.

3.13. “The Cuckoo” Trills from Scene IV mm. 1-4.

Scene 5, “Night-Time,” is the shortest of the six scenes yet it contains no fewer than seven subsections. These subsections all correspond to Thurber’s most surreal panels, which were symbolic of all things threatening or discomforting that a person could encounter, such as the Enormous Rabbit described above. Fine deliberately creates an otherworldly atmosphere from the start of the scene. She noted that the falling minor third whole-notes opening the scene are to be “plucked inside piano – press down pedal – silently depress key with one hand, with the other, pluck string.”61 A siren sounds at measures 9 and 15 reinforcing the perceived presence of a threat. Humphrey also mentions that for this scene Fine “added to the all-piano score a flexatone, whose sliding eeriness exactly met the requirements of the weird scene.”62

60 Ibid., 19-20, m. 1-27. 61 Ibid., 23. The emphasis is Fine’s. 62 Humphrey, “Music for an American Dance,” 71. 34

a.“Menace” m. 21. b. “Escape” m. 39.

Figure 3.14: “Menace” and “Escape,” Scene V, nos. 34 and 38, m. 21 and m. 39.

Subsection 33, “On Guard,” at measure 20 marks the return of the piano played as usual.

The recurring ambiguous chord clusters are present, but this time they are minor and tonally ambiguous. The first potential “Menace” appears in subsection 34 at measure 21 with grace notes to an E-natural in the treble sustained chord cluster in the bass. This same figure introduces each obstacle, the “Dogs in the Blizzard” of subsection 35 and “The Enormous Rabbit” of subsection 37.63 Respites from the tension are found in the intervening subsections 36 and 38,

“Out of the Storm” and “Escape” respectively. In “Out of the Storm” the chord cluster resolves to a C-sharp unison in measure 33, while in “Escape” the chord clusters play on beats one, three, and five in the bass under rests in the treble. Although the subsection 39, “On Guard,” marks the return of the siren and plucked minor thirds inside the piano, the return of the 4/4 tempo suggests that the worst of the danger is past (Figure 3.13).

Since the dance text was unavailable for analysis, the exact level to which it reflected or synchronized with the music is not possible to determine. Nevertheless, instances of image painting in the first and final scenes and indications of characters and events in themes suggest that the music did more than keep rhythm or convey atmosphere alone. Instead, Fine and

Humphrey worked together to create a piece in which the visual and aural components were integrated.

63 Fine, Race, 27, m. 25 and 36 respectively. 35

CHAPTER FOUR

ALCESTIS

In the twenty-two year interim between The Race of Life and Alcestis, Fine’s personal life underwent significant changes. She gradually reduced the number of her dance accompaniment jobs in the late 1930s to focus on her composition career. She had two daughters, moved out of

New York City, and maintained her composing career with the help of her parents. Later, she received financial support from the Batsheva de Rothschild Foundation. for which she served as music director from 1953 to 1960.64

The existence of the Rothschild Foundation testifies to the changes affecting the modern dance world since the late 1930s. Although Batsheva de Rothschild had formed her foundation in

1953 to support the arts and sciences in general, her primary interest was in modern dance, and particularly Martha Graham’s dance company.65 Like the Humphrey-Weidman Company in the

1930s, the Graham Company had depended on ticket sales and touring to pay its dancers, staff, and the cost of creating a new work. After World War II, the donor base for modern dance began to grow in part because the economy was strong, but also because modern dance had achieved legitimacy on par with ballet. In Graham’s case Appalachian Spring (1944), which her depiction of rustic American life, with Aaron Copland’s score that weaved in references to a nineteenth- century Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” was cast as a representation of the American Spirit. By extension, modern dance became an American art. Graham was not the only beneficiary of this

64 The Batsheva de Rothschild Foundation paid for a part-time house-keeper for Fine so that she could spend her mornings working on her compositions. 65 Jennifer Dunning, Batsheva de Rothschild, 84, a Patron of Graham,” New York Times (April 22, 1999):. In addition to supporting Graham’s company, Rothschild also funded the Juilliard Dance Theater as well as the first modern dance companies in Israel. 36

newfound legitimacy. José Limón carried on the legacy of Doris Humphrey, who had died in

1957, with his dance company and the codification of the Limón technique.66

The intervening years saw a shift in the focus of Graham’s work as well. Themes of

Americana and a fascination with the southwestern United States yielded to a fixation on the women of Greek mythology. Alcestis (1960) is a lesser-known work in a series of pieces such as

Cave of the Heart, Errand into the Maze, Night Journey, and Clytemnestra that investigate the psychology of the mythical figures of Medea, Ariadne, Joscasta, and Clytemnestra respectively.

Whether it was because of Graham’s work with Fine in the 1930s or because Fine’s work at the Rothschild Foundation put both women in similar social circles, the choreographer approached the composer in 1959 with a commission for the piece Alcestis. Fine took the commission, which was her first for a dance in over twenty years. Collaborating with Graham was a far different experience than it had been with Doris Humphrey. Humphrey often included her dancers’ ideas in her choreography and working with Fine on the Race of Life was a team effort. Graham’s collaboration style was paradoxically absolute in that she exerted control while allowing a larger degree of freedom in some respects. Graham’s total control is seen in her relationship with her dancers. She asked them for no feedback or ideas and they offered none.

They were there to serve her vision.

The freedom found in Graham’s collaborations offered was evident in the work of her design team, which could include the composer, set designer, lighting designer, or costumer (if

Graham was not managing this herself). Graham had a set method. She would come to them with her idea often including a bibliography, a passage of poetry or music that had inspired her, and

66 Graham may be better known than Humphrey because Humphrey never subscribed to or codified a specific technique. Limón was trained under Humphrey and danced with her for years; the assumption that his technique may have incorporated elements that made Humphrey’s style unique is reasonable. 37

any practical considerations regarding the production. She would then leave her collaborators to their own devices to create the score, set, lighting design, or costumes that best fit their interpretations of her directions and had complete artistic license.

As Diane Snyder explains, because of the trust that Graham put in those she asked to collaborate with her, she “tended to maintain long partnerships; indeed, she seldom initiated a professional relationship unless she already admired the other person’s talent and considered his

[or her] artistic values compatible with her own.”67 Her vision, however, remained the controlling element and was often so strong that critics credited Graham alone for all aspects of a work. Indeed, set designer Arch Lauterer refused to work with Graham on Appalachian Spring citing that Graham’s vision subsumed and masked the individuality of all other collaborators.68

On the other hand, as Jean Rosenthal, long time lighting designer for Graham, reflected

“…part of Martha’s genius is to be able to recognize people’s abilities and to rely upon them and let them do their job.”69 She also accepted that her designers’ interpretations invariably would diverge from her own and “did not attempt to homogenize completely all their various ideas.”70

This seems to have been particularly true of her work with composers. When commissioning a score, Graham explained:

When I work with a composer I usually give him a detailed script. In the script are notes I have taken from books I’ve been reading, quotes from this and that. There is a kind of order, a sequence I try to bring to the script in terms of placement and the means of the dancers… When I get the music, I start to choreograph. I have never, ever, cut a note of music or even a rest of music, because if I do that, then what am I asking for?71

67 Diane Snyder, “Theatre as a Verb: The Theatre Art of Martha Graham, 1923-1958,” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1980), 76. 68 Ibid., 144-145. 69 Quoted in Ernestine Stodelle, Deep Song: The Dance Story of Martha Graham (New York: Schirmer Books, 1984), 223. 70 Snyder “Theatre as a Verb,” 77. 71 Martha Graham, Blood Memory (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 225. 38

In essence, Graham provided as much detailed information as she could about the logistics of the dance and the sources of her inspiration. She then asked her collaborators to set her idea.

Fine’s description of working with Graham closely follows the process that the choreographer described. Yet this was a departure from Fine’s earlier work with choreographers in which the music was composed after the dance was nearly finished.72 Although Fine was composing independent of the movement, Graham’s presence was still felt as she explained:

“But in the working relationship she never overwhelms. Rather, she evokes through the magic of her imagery and feeling. She made me feel I was writing, not about an ancient myth, but about the living present.” As Fine noted, Graham’s “only guide-lines were dramatic,” which allowed her to set the ideas and intentions behind the movement instead of the steps. 73

The exact ideas contained in the script are difficult to determine as the full script was neither in the Fine nor the Graham collections at the Library of Congress. A single page document that accompanied the score may offer some clues as to what was in the script. This page provides a brief synopsis of the myth of Alcestis, divides the myth into four sections with approximate durations, and notes that the music should not be descriptive but ought to depict the myth’s “dramatic and emotional aspects.”74

The details of these dramatic and emotional aspects, however, are documented to a certain degree. The playbill for the 1961 production of Alcestis provides a vague explanation of the inspiration for the dance. It declaims that “Alcestis is a rite of Spring” and that “in Martha

Graham’s dramatization, the myth becomes a festival of the seasons—the death of Winter, the

72 Vivian Fine and Lucia Dlugszewki, “Composer/Choreographer. Choreographer/Composer,” Dance Perspectives 16 (1963): 11. 73 Ibid. 74 Vivian Fine, Alcestis, 1960, Box 13, Folders 1-2, The Vivian Fine Collection, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 39

triumphant return of Spring.”75 For a choreographer whose Greek myth repertoire explored the depths of the human psyche, these observations provide little concrete information and lack nuance.

Modern dancer and Graham biographer Ernestine Stodelle suggested a different interpretation of the meaning behind Alcestis in Deep Song: The Dance Story of Martha

Graham. She saw Alcestis as an allegory and ritual as opposed to an overtly dramatic work like

Clytemnestra. The allegory centered around Alcestis’s “…metaphoric choice between succumbing to unproductivity and forgetfulness (death), as portrayed by Thanatos, or rising regeneratively to the acceptance of life’s pain and risks, as portrayed by Hercules.” Thus, while

Bertram Ross and Paul Taylor danced the dramatic roles of Thanatos and Hercules, Graham’s

Alcestis was “more statuesque than human.” Stodelle claims that Graham was “reaching for a form of suspended drama—a drama of internalized conflict, more in the realm of poetry or opera than dance.” Indeed, Graham explained to Fine that her original idea was “of Alcestis being suspended physically.”76

Stodelle’s observations are compelling when Graham’s early creative process is taken into account. She described Graham’s rehearsals in the late 1920s and early 1930s as the dancers assembled at the studio and waited patiently for Graham to have an idea: “After the explosive birth of Heretic in April 1929, Martha would have to wait until the muse would speak to her again in such crystal clear language… and if that involved waiting an eternity she would wait it out until she found how to say what she wanted to say.”77 Much like her Alcestis, Graham would be in a state of suspension that anticipated a creative revelation. New York Times dance critic,

75 “Martha Graham and Her Dance Company,” Playbill, April 1960, Box 16, Folder 7, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 76 Stodelle, Deep Song, 221-222. 77 Ibid., 67. 40

John Martin, also noticed the parallel between Alcestis and creative activity, writing that the

“manner of the telling [of the story] becomes the birth struggle of the human mind in the bringing forth of a colossal truth.”78 Whether Graham consciously conceptualized Alcestis as a metaphor for her early creative process is unknown, but this might explain her choice of Fine as the composer for this work. Choreographer and composer knew and may have worked with each other in the 1930s.79 Thus, Fine would have been familiar enough with Graham’s process to recognize the parallels between the mythological figure and choreographer without further explanation.

Besides sharing her general idea behind Alcestis, Graham gave the composer specific logistical instructions. The work was divided into four sections, for which she provided the duration, and fourteen scenes that indicated both which characters were present and the action taking place. Within these guidelines, Fine had absolute freedom for her interpretation. Perhaps because of Graham’s hands-off approach to collaboration or because the music preceded the dance, image painting through the music mirroring the action, and the necessity of a strong pulse in the music that were characteristic in The Race of Life are absent in Alcestis.

From the opening notes, Alcestis clearly inhabits a different world than The Race of Life.

Where Race was light, satirical, and mostly tonal, Alcestis is dark and atonal. Alcestis recalls descriptions of Fine’s youthful compositions: atonal, contrapuntal, ultra-modern, and serious.

The compositional style fits not only the subject matter of the myth, but also the interpretation of

Alcestis as a reflection of Graham’s early creative process. In this music Fine elicits aspects of

78 John Martin, “Dance: ‘Alcestis’ Bows,” New York Times, Apr. 30, 1960. 79 Stodelle, Deep Song, 221. Stodelle mentions that they had collaborated successfully in the 1930s, but I could not find any definite references to the details of this working relationship. Given the absence of any score for a Graham work before Alcestis in Fine’s well-kept collection, I assume that she worked for the choreographer as an accompanist. 41

her early compositional voice. The piece begins with a slow, chromatic rising line at octaves in the cello and bass.80 The tonal home is ambiguous but firmly in a minor mode. Dissonances pile up as a new voice, the oboe, enters at measure 5 with an F-natural over an F-sharp in the cellos and basses. The oboe’s theme occasionally hints at consonance, for instance, a minor third dyad of a D-sharp in the oboe against an F-sharp in the bass ends the theme (Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1. Opening of Alcestis, Section I, mm. 1-9.

Instead of emphasizing melodies and themes as she had in Race, Fine concentrates on form and counterpoint in the first section of the piece [table 4.1]. The first section can be divided into three parts forming an ABA’ structure. The opening material from measures 1 to 35 is repeated beginning at measure 98. Where reiterated motives and themes in The Race of Life

80 Although Fine orchestrated Alcestis fully, Graham preferred to use a piano reduction to learn the music and for rehearsals. As a result, Fine wrote out individual parts for each instrument but never compiled a fully orchestrated conductor’s score. Therefore, the piano reduction of Alcestis is the only “full score” of the ballet. Commentary regarding specific orchestration is based upon marginalia in the piano reduction or in the Alcestis Suite, Fine’s truncated version of this musical work. 42

suggested the return of a combination of steps, here the repeat articulates the form of the music.81

While ternary structures are common in Western music, Fine may have chosen this form to fit the three scenes that Graham had designated for this section: “Alcestis on the bed,” “Entrance of

Thanatos,” and “Entrance of three women.”82

Table 4.1. Individual Scenes in Fine’s and Graham’s Alcestis.83

Part I (Overture) 1. Alcestis on the Bed 2. Entrance of Thanatos 3. Entrance of Three Women Part II 4. Entrance of Heracles84 5. Dance by the Three Women of Rejoicing Part III 6. Dance by Thanatos 7. Duet between Thanatos and Alcestis 8. Lament of the Three Women 9. Solo by Alcestis Part IV 10. Solo by Heracles 11. Trio: Alcestis, Heracles, Thanatos 12. Duet between Thanatos and Heracles Part V 13. Solo by Alcestis 14. Final Dance

This first section demonstrates the extent to which Fine is setting an idea rather than dance steps. Stodelle had mentioned the concept of suspension as central to Graham’s vision of

Alcestis. In Fine’s music, this manifests itself in two ways. First, the composer uses the technique of suspension throughout the entire work. For instance, in the first five measures of the first section, there are five suspensions, two in the cellos, two in the bass, and one that opens the oboe’s theme (Figure 4.1). These suspensions obscure the rhythm and create greater tension as

81 The marginalia in the copy of the Alcestis piano reduction located in the Graham collection indicates clearly that movement is not repeated with the return of musical material in this scene. 82 Fine, Alcestis. 83 I have decided not to include the measure numbers with the subdivisions for Alcestis because in the majority of the parts Fine restarts the measure numbers with each subsection. 84 Graham seems to have favored the Greek spelling “Heracules,” but the playbill lists the character as “Hercules.” For sake of consistency, I favor the later in this essay. 43

dissonances pile up as they do at measure 79 of section one or in section three beginning at measure 21.85

The second manifestation of suspension in the music is directly related to the first. Fine keeps the music in a rhythmically liminal state. The constant shift of the meter, suspensions, syncopations, and hemiolas distort any sense of consistent pulse or hypermeter. In the first page of the score for section one, for example, the meter changes four times: it begins in 3/4, moves to

4/4 in measure 6, turns to 7/8 for a measure at 10 before returning to 3/4 at measure 11. Although the meter stays in 3/4 from measure 23 to measure 26, the suspensions tying the third beat to the first beat of the measures create a hemiola in which the weak second beat is emphasized. Finally, syncopated passages such as that found at measure 41 where the pattern of eighth-note to half- note is reversed at measure 42, further undermine the sense of a steady rhythm. Just as Alcestis wavers between two choices, life and death, the rhythm also wavers indecisively.

Even though Fine does not set any steps or employ the kind of image painting that characterized The Race of Life, her music still indicates characters and the situations in which they find themselves. For instance, Alcestis’s inner conflict is best portrayed in the music of section one. Although suspensions pervade the section, they are rarely of long duration. Instead, they are typical suspensions tying the last beat of the measure to the first beat of the following measure. In terms of texture, two contrapuntal lines usually play against each other. While the suspensions appear to hold Alcestis back, the contrapuntal lines keep her moving forward.

Suspensions versus counterpoint also define the characters of Thanatos and Hercules.

Section three features Thanatos, the corporal manifestation of death, most prominently.

Suspensions that obscure the meter and result in growing dissonance and tension are present in

85 Ibid., 16. 44

this section just as they were in the first section. As Alcestis is an atonal work, the effect of suspensions on the harmony of the piece is difficult to assess without specific examples. In scene

6 “Dance by Thanatos,” suspensions become pedal points as they are sustained over multiple measures. In measures 21 to 27, for instance, more voices enter with their own suspended pedal.

The already thin texture of two lines is made even thinner with these because only one line moves against the sustained notes; the result is a chord cluster spanning seven measures. Thus,

Thanatos pulls Alcestis toward dissonance and inactivity represented through the sustained notes.

Figure 4.2. Suspensions in Scene 6, mm. 22-24.

Figure 4.3. Scene 6, mm. 19-23.

Thanatos is signified through rhythmic ambiguity as well. Besides the suspended and sustained notes, his solo dance is characterized by frequent changes in meter. For instance, each measure from 19 to 23 has a different meter signature. In addition, triplet and quadruplet groupings in the moving lines distort the 3/4 rhythm. The nebulousness of the meter compounded with the suspensions and pedals adds to the sense of stagnation and indecisiveness. 45

Hercules, the representation of life and vitality, is musically active. Section two, scene 4

“Entrance of Hercules” is marked “Allegro energico” with the prominent use of counterpoint keeping the music actively moving forward. Rhythm is more consistent with the meter in this eighty-measure solo changing only five times compared with Thanatos’s scene 6 solo, in which meter shifts twenty times in fifty measures. While suspensions and syncopations are present, their function is to add rhythmic interest and contrast as opposed to creating ambiguity. Fine also announces Hercules with an opening triplet figure in the horns. It acts as a brief fanfare, pervades his first solo, and marks him as the hero of the dance.

Figure 4.4. Fanfare Figure from Part II, mm. 1-2.

Hercules’s second solo that opens the fourth section in which he confronts Thanatos maintains the energetic counterpoint and constant rhythm for the most part. Elements of

Thanatos’s influence, however, begin to bleed into the solo at measure 45. The counterpoint and rhythmic consistency devolve into single lines of triplet, quadruplet, and quintuplet groups that culminate in the suspension of a dissonant chord cluster at measure 57. This intrusion of

Thanatos’s signifiers into Hercules’s music sets up the initial confrontation between the two men over Alcestis in scene 11 “Trios: Alcestis, Hercules, Thanatos.” It leads into scene 12 “Duet between Thanatos and Hercules.”

Figure 4.5. Scene 12, mm. 162-164

Scene 12 pits the musical characteristics of Thanatos against those of Hercules. Even though the metrical rhythm is constant and eighth-notes in the bass keep the musical action moving forward, occasionally eighth-notes are accented and suspensions such as those in measures 163 to 166 succeed in throwing off the metrical pattern (Figure 4.5). Thanatos seems to gain the musical upper hand in measure 192 as the eighth-note bass pattern is broken. Instead of contrapuntal lines, dissonant chord clusters and suspensions appear. Thanatos, however, does not enjoy his advantage for long. At measure 202, the eighth-note bass returns changing the texture from two to three parts. The upper parts retain the qualities of Thanatos until measure 208 when all parts fall into three-part counterpoint. The two-part texture comes back in measure 212, but the constant motion of the contrapuntal lines indicates that Hercules has triumphed.

Figure 4.6. Scene 12, mm. 206-208.

Although Thanatos is defeated, Fine’s fifth section hints that the victory is temporary instead of decisive. The lines in Alcestis’s solo and the final dance are contrapuntal in texture and more energetic than the first section. Yet the suspensions that become pedal tones are still a pervasive feature. The most notable of these pedals is the C-sharp at the top of the staff that is struck in measure 95 and sustained until the end of the piece at measure 116. Each voice gradually enters on the C-sharp pedal, the note on which the piece finally culminates (Figure

4.7).86 The musical message rings clear; Alcestis is spared, but only for the present. Even the choreography hints at Thanatos’s return as the last choreographic indication is “Bert [dancing

Thanatos] walks through.”87

With the “dramatic and emotional aspects” of Alcestis laid out so subtly in Fine’s score,

Graham began to choreograph the dance. Because Alcestis was overshadowed by the more popular Night Journey and Clytemnestra, it was neither video-recorded nor kept in the repertoire beyond the first couple of years after its premiere.88 What is known about the choreography is deduced through an analysis of the photographs and contact sheets from both Arnold Eagle’s and

Martha Swope’s photo shoots of the rehearsals as well as the penciled in choreographic notes found in the piano reduction of Alcestis in the Martha Graham Collection at the Library of

Congress. These materials reveal how Graham conceptualized the relationship between her choreography and the music.

86 In the piano reduction, the counterpoint in all four voices also persists. It appears as if in orchestrating the piece, Fine asked instruments in each register to hold the C-sharp while others of the same register continued with the contrapuntal parts until the final C-sharp. 87 Fine, Alcestis, 44. This choreographic indication is found in the piano reduction located in the Martha Graham Collection, Library of Congress. “Bert” refers to Bertram Ross. 88 Alcestis did not enjoy the critical or popular success of Graham’s other Greek mythology- inspired dances. This may explain why she chose not to keep it active in the repertoire. 48

Figure 4.7. Section V, mm. 109-110.

The photographs show details of the set, the costuming, and the quality of movement of the dance in a way that a written description in a review could not. Long-time Graham collaborator Isamu Noguchi designed the set, which consisted of a tall set piece that resembled an upside-down stone L, a large circular stone, a raised slab that acted as a bed and a plinth when upside-down.89 Photos show the dancers interacting with the set piece frequently. Bertram Ross hides behind the stone L, the ensemble of satyrs climb on the circle, and Graham leans against the plinth, hand out-stretched as Ross lowers his thorny-flower scepter into her hand.

Graham designed the costumes for Alcestis herself. They are simple but also symbolic.

Graham wears a long, black A-line dress and uses a semi-transparent black veil as a death shroud. Paul Taylor as Hercules and Bertram Ross as Thanatos wear variations on a similar theme for costumes. Both men are clothed in shorts, Taylor in white and Ross in black. They also hold scepter-like flowers: Taylor’s is white while Ross’s is thorny and black. Both clearly represent the life versus death symbolism.

The movements are well within Graham’s dance vocabulary with contractions and sharp angles characterizing most of the photographed shapes. One also can see how the ensemble related to the three major characters. The ensemble was divided into two groups, the satyrs and

89 This description is based on the photos from the Martha Graham Collection at the Library of Congress. Although I do not have the requisite permissions to include these photographs in this thesis, Nancy Wilson Ross’s book The Notebooks of Martha Graham reprint a few images from Alcestis that show some of the set and how the dancers interact with it. 49

the three girls. The satyrs appear to be an unruly bunch, climbing on and moving the stone circle around and occasionally dancing with one of the girls. The three girls, however, are most often in unison and more uniform in their steps. While a few photographs show them dancing with the satyrs, more frequently they are waiting on Alcestis.

In addition to displaying selected details of the production, these photographs were essential in ascertaining the meaning of Graham’s marginal writings that describe choreography in the rehearsal score. Without the opportunity to picture the set pieces, directions such as “first satyrs to plinth, piece rises to front” are confusing and unclear.90 Also, in the duet between

Thanatos and Alcestis in the third section the directions reference the exchange of a flower at measures 14 and 35. Here the knowledge that Thanatos holds a flower and having viewed Ross leaning over to place said flower into Graham’s outstretched hand helps to imagine how the choreography may have looked.

One of the most striking features of the notated score is that the points at which the dance and the music completely align are few and far between. Nevertheless, the music and dance are not independent of each other. This score suggests at least three different degrees of relationship between dance and music based on the action of the scene and the choreographic intention. The first section, scene 4 from the second section, and scene 12 from section four, exemplify these three variations.

The first section is the exposition of the dance in which Alcestis and her conflict are introduced. The handwritten choreographic directions are many and specific. Graham provides entrance cues for the chorus are given as well as detailed descriptions of how the dancers interact with the set and the steps they perform. For instance, the direction at measures 36 to 42 reads;

90 Fine, Alcestis, 2. 50

“M[artha] dart across L[eft] and back of bed to B[ertram]. M[artha] turn to hover bed.”91 In examples such as this one, each sentence corresponds with a specific musical line. A descending chromatic line accompanies Graham’s dart to the bed and an undulating syncopated line in the bass lines accompany her hovering over the bed. Even though the movement is broken into two parts that correspond with specific musical sections, the movement of each part does not align with specific musical motives or rhythms. Such is the case for most of Graham’s marginalia in this section. They alert the musicians to where major actions should occur in the context of the music, but individual steps do not correspond exactly to any musical event. While Graham clearly is letting the music guide her and her dancers, the music does not micromanage them.

Scene 4 “Entrance of Heracles” contains fewer detailed descriptions of the choreography.

This is not surprising because the scene is a solo, which requires less precision in planning than when choreographing for a group. Yet the movement indicated seems to line up with the music more precisely overall. On page eleven of the score, for instance, three of the four notated directions seem to fall on precise musical points. Hercules cartwheels at the B-natural on the second beat of measure 65, and a move called “hold back kick” corresponds with an ascending line beginning on the second beat of the next measure. At measure 68, he falls on the downbeat, which is simultaneous with the arrival of a D-natural whole note in the treble voices. The continuous motion of “rolling stone L[eft]” happens at the meno mosso phrase at measure 71 and does not align with the music as neatly as the other three examples.

Another example of music for Hercules’s solo lining up with his steps happens at the end of the second section in measures 43 through 46. Circled numbers one to ten are written on the beat and thus lined up with the rhythm of the bass line. Musically there is nothing usual or

91 Ibid. 51

difficult about this line or its accents that would merit such numbering. However, if Hercules had to perform a series of swiftly executed and repeated steps, such as fouetté turns, then emphasizing the beat would help him spot the turn evenly. 92 Here, then, the notations suggest that the music and dance align more precisely when a step is important and needs to be emphasized.

Scene 12, “Duet between Thanatos and Heracles,” again contains few descriptions. When they occur, they indicate a large-scale action that does not line up with the music in any fixed way. The four directions on page 36 all loosely correspond with the music. The directions here are slightly vague. The ones at measures 162 and 174 ask for a “dive” and “3 big turns

(arab[esque])” respectively, but do not clarify whether one or both of the dancers perform them.

Directions at 170 and 171 are clear in terms of which dancer performs the action, but the significance of the movement is obscure.93 As with the Hercules solo, not as much coordination is needed to keep a pair of dancers together so flexibility is to be expected. Also, this is the fight scene between Thanatos and Hercules, for which not being in perfect time with the music would be appropriate. Fine’s notations are likely visual cues for the musicians.

One other notation is present on this page. Above the final beat of measure 163, the name

“Bert” is written.94 This corresponds with the suspension of an A-flat across two measures. Fine associated the character of Thanatos with suspensions and pedals that Graham seems to have recognized. Although this is only occasion where Ross’s Thanatos is named at the same time as a

92 Ibid., 15. A fouetté is a type of turn in which the dancer uses his or her leg to propel themselves around multiple times without this leg touching the ground. It is a highly virtuosic step. 93 Ibid., 56. “Bert pull throat and away” and “H[ercules] ¼ turn to front” are not specific enough to allow for speculation on what might be happening. 94 Ibid. 52

suspension within this scene, it is the first major sustained suspension to occur in the scene.

Graham was too observant and careful an artist for this to be entirely coincidental.

Fine said that of her dance scores, Alcestis “comes off best as a musical work” because

Graham’s collaborative process enabled her to work with the dramatic elements that allowed

“more development of the musical material.95 Even though Fine was not setting the literal steps of Graham’s choreography, she was setting the ideas and the concepts behind the choreography.

The connection between the music and dance is then on a different level than that of The Race of

Life for which the music was at the service of the dance. Instead, Fine’s Alcestis was an independent work to which the dance fit conceptually. The collaboration was more an intellectual rather than a physical one.

95 Fine, “Composer/choreographer,” 11. 53

CONCLUSION

The collaborations between Fine and Humphrey and between Fine and Graham functioned differently. For The Race of Life, Fine was setting the text that Humphrey had choreographed. The movements and the situations in the dance suggested the music; composer and choreographer worked together to achieve a conceptual and visual unity. By comparison,

Fine’s work with Graham on Alcestis does not seem like a joint effort because the composer and the choreographer each developed her art individually. Yet they collaborated on a conceptual level. Graham communicated to Fine the ideas that drove her to choose the Alcestis myth as a subject. Fine then composed a piece that set the concept. The connection between the music and dance might not be immediately apparent to the casual observer, but a person willing to look deeper would be rewarded.

Fine commented in her article “Composer/choreographer” that Graham’s method of collaboration was unlike any she had experienced previously. Yet, in her opinion it yielded a more artistically satisfying piece of music.96 This is an important observation given the opinion that dance music was not considered as prestigious as other musical genres that had no accompanying text. That a theatrical dance piece often preceded a commissioned score has implications for why dance music has not been taken more seriously. If a composer is writing a dance piece that already has been choreographed, she cannot impose her artistic vision where it does not fit the movement. Just as text was seen as limiting the transcendent power of music in the nineteenth century, so did dance limit transcendence in the twentieth century both by imposing a text and by involving the body. This also explains some audience members’ horror at seeing Isadora Duncan perform to works of Beethoven and Chopin. A re-examination of the

96 Vivian Fine and Lucia Dlugszewki, “Composer/Choreographer. Choreographer/Composer,” Dance Perspectives 16 (1963): 11. 54

compositions for theatrical dance in the nineteenth century without the prejudice that transcendence and quality were inextricably intertwined may yield some interesting results.

The collaborations on Race and Alcestis also raise several questions about the relationship between music and dance in the Western world. Even in the American modern dance world, no one concept for the ideal form of this relationship existed. The connection is not a fixed one. Some choreographers believed the music to be secondary and at the service of the dance alone, while others thought that music and dance should act as two independent entities.

Neither of these positions is the case here, although Humphrey seems closer to the former and

Graham to the later.97 This does not mean, however, that the relationship between music and dance is consistent. Both Humphrey and Graham used either commissioned or existing music for their works over the course of their careers depending on their artistic vision. A more literal approach served the comical concept of Race most effectively just as a conceptual approach best served Alcestis.

This thesis raises questions for further inquiry regarding modern dance in the United

States. The modern dance movement in America was a plethora of styles and took place in cities and towns besides New York City. Examining ideas and creative processes of modern choreographers such as Lester Horton who have not received the attention of the New York modern dancers is an area in need of further research.98 In addition, the scope of this thesis could be expanded to include the conceptualization of dance and music in American ballet, particularly the partnership of George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky.

97 Indeed, one familiar with Graham’s methods for commissioning a score likely would not be surprised that choreographer Merce Cunningham began his dancing career in Graham’s company. 98 Lester Horton was a California-based modern dance choreographer. His technique forms the basis for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. 55

The relation between music and the dancer performing the work also fell outside the scope of this thesis, but it merits further study. Even in circumstances when the music and dance is not intended to be closely related, a dancer may create personal cues in the music. There are cases in the collaborations between John Cage and Merce Cunningham where the dancers had not heard the music before the performance. Nevertheless, the music may have influenced how the dancers executed steps. Additionally, dancers are a valuable source of information in cases where the music survives but the choreography was never written down or recorded.

A tangential issue that this project raises is the role that accompanists play in the creation of a dance work. Louis Horst, the long-time accompanist for Graham, taught music composition classes to dancers thus directly influencing how they conceptualized the interaction of music and dance. Such a practice raises the question of how the philosophy of a choreographer or a dance instructor might influence the works an accompanist decides to play. With the ubiquity of recording technology, the role of the accompanist is changing. Some choreographers still insist on live music while others rely exclusively on recordings. Although musicians and critics have bemoaned the use recorded music in performances, less attention has been paid to the rise of recorded music and wane of live accompaniment in dance rehearsals and classes.

Although the focus of this thesis was on two instances of Vivian Fine’s collaborative project, her work and career offer research possibilities that have yet to be explored. For such a prolific composer, her musical catalog remains largely unknown even among the cognescenti.

Her career in particular was unusual for its time as marriage and children for a professional woman in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s usually meant abandoning her own work and interests.

Through the support of her family and the Bethesheva de Rothschild Foundation, however, Fine was able to continue her professional career and have a family.

Fine composed in a wide variety of genres from solo character pieces to operas to a symphony. Her last major work, the opera The Memoirs of Uliana Rooney, is particularly significant given its semi-autobiographical subject matter. Fine uses the character of Uliana as a composite for the trials and tribulations of women who are composers, which could be used as an entry point for a larger discussion of Western culture’s ambivalence to women who compose art music.

As choreographers, Humphrey and Graham similarly used their work to comment on their experiences as women. Thurber’s cartoon version of The Race of Life depicted the woman as the most capable and successful character, which Humphrey maintained in her dance. Her adaptation mirrored the empowered state of women in American modern dance in the late 1930s, one of the only art forms in the United States where women were usually the creative force.

Graham, however, adopted the Alcestis myth to comment on the state of women in the 1960s, when educated, middle-class women were expected to forgo a career in order to raise a family.99

As an artist and a woman herself, Fine shared similar feelings of empowerment and frustration in her life and work.

Throughout her career, Fine composed music for musicians, choreographers, and dancers.

If her work for Humphrey and Graham are any indication, these pieces were collaborations with both parties influencing the final product in different but equal ways. Often in either dance or music scholarship, only one side of the story is told. Either the dance or the music is the focal point with the other subordinate to the focus or absent from the discussion entirely. However, to fully experience the work, both elements must be acknowledged and examined.

99 I am indebted to Stephanie Jensen-Moulton of Brooklyn College for pointing out the connection between Graham’s Alcestis and the second-wave feminism movement of the 1960s. 57

APPENDIX A

RE: music example permission request * Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 10:43 PM To: Terres, Dana

Dear Dana,

My computer is on the blink and I have to send you a quick reply--library is closing. Because of the size of the attachment I had to delete it. You have my permission to use the examples as you have. I'll write again tomorrow.

Best,

Peggy Karp

-----Original Message----- From: "Terres, Dana" Sent: Mar 27, 2013 5:38 PM To: * Subject: RE: music example permission request

Dear Ms. Karp,

I wanted to send you an update that I successfully defended my thesis this past Monday. My committee was enthusiastic about my project and have encouraged me to continue my work on it.

In finalizing the document, I need permission to use the music examples I have selected. I have attached a copy of the document so that you may see both the examples and the context in which I use them.

Thank you very much for all your help on this project.

Sincerely, Dana Terres Masters Student Musicology The Florida State University College of Music Tallahassee, FL 32306-1180 *

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dana Terres is a historical musicology masters student at the Florida State University

College of Music who graduated from Macalester College with a BA in Theater and Dance. She has a passion for dance despite a lack of technical ability that prevented her from pursuing it professionally. As a musicologist she continues to indulge her love of dance through studying the collaborations of composers and choreographers. She is also interested in music and theater as well as women in music.