Martha Graham Dance Company Lilith, the Pioneering Woman, the
Woman in White ... Examples of 'Knowing Figures' in Martha
Graham's Dances by Rosella Simonari Lilith is dressed in a fresh
and pungent yellow in "Embattled Garden" (1958). Her skirt
resembles that of a flamenco dancer and one of her recurrent
steps, her foot beating backwards onto the floor, confirms the
flamenco taste of her movements. She represents, together with
the Stranger, an intruder into the domestic relationship between
Adam and Eve. She is a knowing creature; she is wise and wild.
Characters like Lilith are recurrent in Graham's creative
universe. A genealogy could be traced from the sacred Virgin in
"Primitive Mysteries" (1931) to the parodic and imponent image
of the tall and skirted woman in "Maple Leaf Rag" (1991) whose
repeated ample skirt turnings downstage present mainly her back
to the audience. Graham often went to New Mexico to find
inspiration from the pueblo people and their traditions.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a Jungian psyc