Research Catalog

Title

Interview with Helen Lanfer [sound recording].

Author

Lanfer, Helen.

Publication

1973.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• McDonagh, Don.
• Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Description

5 sound discs (ca. 145 min.) : digital, stereo; 4 3/4 in.

Summary

• Part 1, disc 1 (ca. 32 min.). Helen Lanfer speaks with Don McDonagh about working as Martha Graham's piano accompanist; Mary Graham, and whether she danced for Denishawn; sharing a room with May O'Donnell during tours, both in Europe and U.S.; the first airplane travel with Graham; staying in England during the Graham tour; Erick Hawkins, and his role in the company; Graham's lecture demonstrations and the impact on students; performing in Amsterdam to full houses; touring in Austria and Italy, and the responses of the audiences; being booed from the stage by audiences in Europe; the reception in Florence; dining with Robin Howard at his hotel in England, and how charming the experience was; seeing Graham perform in later years, indicating how much it upset her to see Graham shaking on the stage [interview ends in hissing sounds].
• Part 1, disc 2 (ca. 31 min.). Helen Lanfer speaks with Don McDonagh about re-creations of Martha Graham's dances by May O'Donnell and Jane Dudley; the fact that annotations she made on the scores were used to help recreate the dances; Graham's attitude toward the dances in her later years; working with Louis Horst; performing at Bennington, including an anecdote when the lights went out during a performance and she kept playing in the darkness; Graham's reworking of costumes; Erick Hawkins understudying at Bennington; not attending the tour in Cuba due to staying behind to accompany Marjorie Mazia [wife of Woody Guthrie] at Bennington; Horst's compositions and conducting ability; arguments between Graham and Horst; dancers' attitudes towards Horst and his appraisal of them; Horst's resignation from the Graham company, and filing the resignation with the composer's union in N.Y.; Horst's unwillingness to relinquish control of Graham, and the dances; an anecdote when Graham lost her temper with Lanfer and threw a metronome into an open piano while Lanfer was seated there; forgiving Graham.
• Part 2, disc 1 (ca. 31 min.). Helen Lanfer speaks with Don McDonagh about Martha Graham working on her solos on Sundays; Graham's kindness toward animals; being closer to Graham after Erick Hawkins left the company; Graham's need to remain aloof from the dancers, both on and off the stage; Graham giving extra money to the dancers after the 1954 tour; her belief that Graham had an unfulfilled presence in her that she was never able to resolve; Graham's influence on Yuriko; undergoing cancer surgery, making it impossible to accompany the Graham company on the first European tour; her belief that Graham hurt herself intentionally due to Erick Hawkins's treatment of her; Graham's food fads, including vegetarianism; Graham's working relationships with composers.
• Part 2, disc 2 (ca. 32 min.). Helen Lanfer speaks with Don McDonagh about Martha Graham's work with composer Aaron Copland, and the fact that she changed her plot to better meet Copeland's score; Louis Horst and his compositions; the Graham company's response to Erick Hawkins; her opinion of Hawkins; Ted Shawn and his relationship with Graham; surrealism and dance in the 1940s; use of the human body in ways that had not been seen on stage before; the fact that analysts were drawn to Graham's performances due to their investigative qualities.
• Part 3 (ca. 20 min.). Helen Lanfer speaks with Don McDonagh about Martha Graham's mother, and Graham's sister Geordie; Graham's untraditional beauty, and the problems she had in coming to terms with that fact; Graham's envy of her sisters' looks; Graham's need to make money to support herself and her family after the death of her father; Graham's passion for dance, and Lanfer's admiration of that passion; dancers who attended Graham's composition and dance classes, especially when Horst was still employed; Horst's pre-classic forms classes, and the impact those classes had on students; Graham's choreography, and the process of her creating dances [abrupt end].

Subjects

• Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance
• Lanfer, Helen > Interviews
• Horst, Louis > Influence
• Graham, Martha
• Martha Graham Dance Company
• Hawkins, Erick
• Dance company tours

Note

• Interview with Helen Lanfer conducted by Don McDonagh on Feb. 10 and 14, 1973.
• Open as of August 22, 2012.

Funding (note)

• Recording was preserved through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Source (note)

• Don McDonagh;

Call Number

*MGZTL 4-2565

OCLC

262558970

Author

Lanfer, Helen. Interviewee

Title

Interview with Helen Lanfer [sound recording].

Imprint

1973.

Funding

Recording was preserved through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Local Note

Archive orig. : *MGZTCO 3-2565, nos. 1-3

Dubbing master : *MGZTD 4-2565, nos. 1-5

Source

Gift; Don McDonagh; 2007

Local Subject

Dance company tours.

Added Author

McDonagh, Don. Interviewer

McDonagh, Don. Donor

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Research Call Number

*MGZTL 4-2565 sound disc