For Immediate Release 5.27.05

 

The Martha Graham Center

Reconfigures Artistic Management and Reorganizes

The Board of Trustees of the Martha Graham Center today announced a reconfiguration of the Center's artistic management and a streamlining of the organization. These changes are key to moving this recently restarted organization from its planned rapid growth phase into a more sustainable state.  

The Board appoints Janet Eilber to the newly created position of Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Center, a role that encompasses both financial and artistic responsibilities.  The Trustees elevate Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin to Artistic Director Laureate status.  

The Martha Graham Center announces that it is reducing its support and administrative staff from 36 to 28 full-time positions.  Five full time positions are transitioning to part time.  Nine part time positions are being eliminated.  Some faculty and management have stepped forward to donate their time during the transition phase.  All minimum guarantees and commitments to dancers under their union agreement are being fully met, and the organization remains fully able to meet the requirements of all touring commitments. The changes are being made in order to reduce fixed ongoing operating costs so that the organization can attain a positive cash flow without compromising artistic quality.  

The Martha Graham Center’s revenues have grown over the past 4 years from under $1 million to nearly $5 million.  The earned portion of that revenue has risen from 20% to 60%.  In that same time period the Martha Graham Dance Company has increased its revenues from $0 to $2 million and has received growing critical acclaim.  

The Board commends Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin and gratefully acknowledges their extraordinary achievements in resurrecting the Martha Graham Dance Company over the past several years.  Board Chairman Francis Mason said, "Their joint leadership has enabled the Company to resume dancing on the heels of now past legal matters with unanticipated speed.  They have brought the works back to life with more impact and power than anyone could have imagined and we now have the daunting task of sustaining this success.  We feel that iIt is important that Ms. Dakin and Ms. Capucilli focus on and foster the classic Martha Graham works through performance and special projects.”

Ms. Eilber is a former principal dancer of the Martha Graham Dance Company and has been serving as Artistic Director for the Center's Resources unit.  She will now direct the artistic operations of the entire Martha Graham organization (School, Dance Company and Resources). In this new role, she is responsible for all artistic and licensing decisions for the Center.  Marvin Preston, Martha Graham Center Executive Director, stated "Janet's long, rich history of performance, artistic oversight, arts consulting, and arts education uniquely equips her to provide the collaborative and integrative artistic leadership that will assure the Martha Graham Center continues to achieve both its artistic and business goals."

Biographic information on Terese Capucilli, Christine Dakin, and Janet Eilber:

Terese Capucilli, Artistic Director Laureate, with a 267-year history with the Company, has become known for her interpretation of the classic roles originally performed bywas coached and directed by Martha Graham. Coached and directed to perform the classic roles originally danced by Ms. Graham in all her major works, these roles include Jocasta in Night Journey, the Bride in Appalachian Spring, the Principal Sister in Deaths and Entrances, She Who Dances in Letter to the World, Hecuba in Cortege of Eagles, She Who Seeks in Dark Meadow, Joan in Seraphic Dialogue, Mary Queen of Scots in Episodes, Medea in Cave of the Heart, and the title roles in Every Soul is a Circus, Primitive Mysteries, Errand into the Maze, Herodiade, Phaedra, Heretic and Judith, amongnd others. Roles created for Ms. Graham created roles created for Ms. Capucilli include The Chosen One in The Rite of Spring, Crescent Moon in Temptations of the Moon and the lead role in Ms. Graham’s final ballet Maple Leaf Rag.  Deep Song was reconstructed for her in 1988 and in the years to follow she continued to be instrumental in the research and.  She played an instrumental role in the reconstruction of Graham's early solos, including Salem Shore and 'Spectre-1914' and has held lectures on the nature of the reconstruction process.  She assisted Sophie Maslow in reconstructing 'Prelude to Action' from Chronicle, becoming the first dancer after Martha Graham to perform this work as well as Deep Song and ‘Spectre-1914’. On film, she danced Errand into the Maze in 'An Evening of Dance and Conversation with Martha Graham' for WNET and for Tokyo's NHK, and Maple Leaf Rag at the Paris Opera.  She has been partnered by Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov in a number of Graham classics and has had roles created for her by Twyla Tharp, Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs.  Ms. Capucilli is a dancers andan associate founder and dancer of Buglisi/Foreman Dance, a company formed with colleagues Jacqulyn Buglisi, Donlin Foreman and Christine Dakin. Since 1991, she has collaborated inwhere eleven ballets choreographed for her were commissioned for filming by the Lincoln Center Library of Performing Arts.  These includinge Runes of the Heart, Threshold, Field of Loves, Against All Odds, Suspended Woman, Frida and Requiem. Ms. Capucilli has taught and choreographed for the Edinburgh International Festival's Education Program and lectured in twenty-two primary schools throughout Edinburgh bringing the genius of Martha Graham to over 800 young students.  Ms. Capucilli holds a BFA degree from SUNY Purchase and is on the facultiesy of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and The Juilliard School.  A recipient of a fellowship from the Princess Grace Foundation-U.S.A. and the Princess Grace Statuette Award, Ms. Capucilli was honored with the 2001 Dance Magazine Award.

Christine Dakin, Artistic Director Laureate:  Since 1976 a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company, Ms. Dakin is renownedknown for her performance of the roles Martha Graham’s roles in the classic works danced in such works as Cave of the Heart, Deep Song, Appalachian Spring, Cave of the Heart, Night Journey, Errand into the Maze, Dark Meadow, and is one of six dancers since Martha Graham to perform the title role in Clytemnestra. and in the roles Martha Graham created roles for her in Rite of Spring and Phaedra's Dream in which she was partnered by Rudolf Nureyev at the Paris and Berlin Operas and the State Theater in New York. Working with Miss Graham in 1988, Ms. Dakin re-created the speaking role in Letter to the World.  Guest choreographers Twyla Tharp and Robert Wilson created dancing and speaking roles for her in their works, Demeter and Persephone and Snow on the Mesa.  Ms. Dakin was honored with a “Bessie” Performance Award in 2003 and the Dance Magazine Award for 1994. On film she has been seen on "In Performance at the White House" in Acts of Light, Rite of Spring, Night Journey, and Herodiade and was a featured .  She was a featured performer in the documentary "Les Printemps du Sacre". Ms. Dakin is dancer and associate founder of Buglisi/Foreman Dance; since 1992 performing with the company worldwide, in residencies, on film and television. She was a Fulbright-Garcia Robles Senior Scholar for 1999 andMs. Dakin was awarded two Rockefeller -U.S.-Mexico Fund for Culture Grants (1998, 2001) for choreography, research and teaching. in collaboration with the Ballet Nacional de Mexico for whom she is Guest Artist and teacher in Mexico since 1981, with the Ballet Nacional de Mexico and companies in Yucatan, Colima, Guanajuato, h.  Her choreography in collaboration with Mexican composers and scenic designers has premiered in Mexico City and the International Festival St. Luis Potosi. Ms. Dakin was sponsored by the USIA in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Vladivostok, Siberia, receiving an ArtsLink Award, an Honorary Doctor of Arts from Shenandoah University and was Harvard’s guest artist in “Learning from Performers, 2001.” for this Company and the Compania de Danza Contemporanea de Yucatan, in collaboration with Mexican composers and scenic designers, premiered at the Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City and the International Festival St. Luis Potosi. She was a Fulbright - Garcia Robles Senior Scholar for 1999.  Ms. Dakin was sponsored by the USIA at Ballet Contemporaneo de Buenos Aires, Argentina and in Vladivostok, Siberia, receiving an ArtsLink grant to return to Vladivostok.  Ms. Dakin is the recipient of the University of Michigan Alumni Award, an Honorary Doctor of Arts from Shenandoah University and was Harvard's guest artist in "Learning from Performers, 2001".  She is currently on the faculties of The Juilliard School and the Martha Graham School.

Janet Eilber, Martha Graham Center Artistic Director, started performing with the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1972 while still a student at the Juilliard School.  During the next several years, she and Martha Graham developed such a close working relationship that Graham created roles for Eilber in almost every one of her new works, reconstructed her seminal solos Lamentation and Frontier for Eilber, and coached her in some of the great roles of the Graham repertoire including St. Joan, the Virgin in Primitive Mysteries, Mary Queen of Scots, Cassandra, Jocasta, Phaedra, and many others.  As a principal dancer with the Company, she performed on all tours, on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera House, and starred in three programs for Dance in America.  She soloed twice at the White House and was partnered by Rudolph Nureyev in The Scarlet Letter and Lucifer, roles created for her by Graham.  During the 1980s and 90s, While pursuing an active acting career, Eilber often returned to guest artist with the Graham Company, assisted in the reconstruction of Satyric Festival Song, and staged Graham ballets for the Paris Opera Ballet and the Dutch National Ballet, among others.  On Broadway she has guest starred with the American Dance Machine and stars in their Showtime special with Gwen Verdon.  She starred in Bob Fosse’¹s Dancin’¹ and in Stepping Out, directed by Tommy Tune (1987 Drama Desk nomination).  Her film credits include Whose Life Is it, Anyway?, Romantic Comedy, Antigone and Hard to Hold.  She has starred in two TV series and in a variety of guest appearances from Hitchcock to Columbo.  Her choreography has been performed by the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet, many LA theater productions, and with Charles Dutoit conducting members of the Philadelphia Orchestra.  She is Co-Founder of the American Repertory Dance Company and has received four Lester Horton Awards for her work with ARDC.  Janet consults for the Dana Foundation on their arts education initiatives.  Janet is married to screenwriter/director John Warren with whom she has two daughters, Madeline and Eva.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

GENERAL STRATEGIC MARKETING

JONATHAN MARDER

O: 646.638.2479 M: 917.685.8596

jongsmltd@earthlink.net