Major birthdays are a running theme for this year’s Spoleto USA Festival.
This year it recognizes America’s 250th anniversary with an emphasis on “freedom of expression.” Also celebrating a big birthday is the Martha Graham Dance Company, the oldest dance company in the United States, which will bring its centennial performance, Graham 100, to Charleston.
“Dance is a universal language that bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the gut,” said So Young An, senior Martha Graham Dance Company dancer, in a statement to the Charleston City Paper. “It allows us to communicate things that words simply cannot capture—grief, joy, resilience, and vulnerability.”
Graham 100 is a contemporary dance show with sharp movements and timeless music.
The Martha Graham Dance Company will host four performances of Graham 100 in Spoleto’s Festival Hall. The hour and 45-minute show is being offered on Friday, May 22 at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, May 23 at 5:30 p.m, Sunday, May 24 at 5:30 p.m. and Monday, May 25 at 2:00 p.m.
The centennial tour is bittersweet for An, who has spent the past decade performing with the company. This season marks her final performance with what she called “artistic home.”
“There is a specific energy in the theater during a centennial performance—a shared heartbeat between the dancers, the music, and the audience,” An said. “Knowing that I am part of an uninterrupted lineage of dancers stretching back one hundred years, and feeling that history live through my own body in my final season, is an incomparable feeling.”
The performance will feature three different routines. Two are choreographed by the legendary Martha Graham herself, who died in 1991 at the age of 96. Graham was an American modern dancer, teacher and choreographer with over 70 years of experience in the field. She founded her dance company and school in 1926 in Manhattan. Now, her choreography travels all over the world.
To celebrate 100 years of excellence, the company is embarking on an international tour, including shows in Italy and Latvia, before arriving at Spoleto. During the company’s stop in Charleston, it will showcase three routines, each composed by a different artist. “Chronicle” is set to music by American modernist composer Wallingford Riegger, while “Errand Into the Maze” follows music by Gian Carlo Menotti, founder of Spoleto Festival USA.
An said that she will be performing in both of these “raw masterworks,” in addition to their new centennial commission, Jamar Roberts’ “We the People,” set to the music of Rhiannon Giddens.
Following Spoleto, the company will continue touring in the U.S. with stops in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Massachusetts. The tour concludes in China in November.
For An, taking part in Graham 100 allows her to celebrate the past century of “groundbreaking” work, while also helping launch the company into its next chapter.
Don’t expect a classical ballet performance from Graham 100. The company’s style is uniquely its own. Graham developed a technique called “contraction and release.” Contraction movements are an intentional pulling in of the pelvis and rounding of the spine, while the release features a return to a straight torso, symbolizing a release of tension.
“Every gesture has a purpose; it’s a style that doesn’t just ask you to look at a beautiful shape, but to feel the raw human experience behind it,” An said.
Graham’s creative vision earned her numerous awards. In 1976, then President Gerald R. Ford awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S. Ten years later, she received the National Medal of Arts.
At the heart of all the Martha Graham Dance Company performances is artistic storytelling. Chronicle is one of Graham’s few explicitly political works. Originally premiering in 1936, the dance was a response to fascism in Europe after Graham refused to participate in that year’s Olympic Games in Germany. Inspired by Greek mythology, “Errand into the Maze” follows a heroine as she confronts a minotaur.
“Taking these works on tour reminds us that Martha Graham’s vision wasn’t just revolutionary for 1926; it remains vibrant, shocking, and deeply relevant in 2026,” An wrote. “Seeing how audiences across the globe—and now here in South Carolina—react to the timelessness of these pieces proves that a century of art can still speak directly to the contemporary human condition.”
As Spoleto celebrates America’s 250th anniversary and the dance company’s centennial season, Graham 100 brings together history, storytelling and contemporary expression on one stage.
IF YOU WANT TO GO:
The Martha Graham Dance Company will host four performances of Graham 100 in Festival Hall, located at 56 Beaufain St. The one-hour, 45-minute show will be presented Friday, May 22 at 7:00 p.m.; Saturday, May 23 at 5:30 p.m.; Sunday, May 24 at 5:30 p.m.; and Monday, May 25 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets start at $97.
Remi Turner is an arts journalism and communications graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.