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Wilde on Warhol
Patricia Wilde, former artistic director of the
Pittsburgh Ballet, was a very good friend of dancer Martha Graham.
Warhol’s portrait of Graham reminds her of Graham’s technique, which she
studied as a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet.
Martha was one of the most photogenic dancers I’ve ever known
she was
drama incarnate. She created her own costumes, she sewed themshe
did it all. She was the first to use tubular material, and her early
solo in a shroud of tubular material was amazing.
When you look at the Warhol portrait you see the drama is thereyou
see how her hands are cupped. These things have so much meaning and
detail in Graham’s technique and choreography.
I really knew her quite well. She did a section of a work called Episodes
for the New York City Ballet (George Balanchine did the second section),
and I told her I wanted to take some classes with her at her school.
She gave me a whole list of principal dancers to work with.
As a teacher she was very demanding and hard, but she had a wonderful
way of describing what she wanted to get from youshe could make you visualize
the “feeling of the moment.” After I once worked with one of her
principal dancers for about three hours, she said to me, “You’re ready
for the ‘falls.'” I worked on it on one side, and told her that I
needed to do it on the other sidethe right side. She said, “What,
don’t you know that there are no falls to the right?” Martha had
an entire philosophy, and no one had explained this rule to me.
She was a great dog lover. I had a poodle I took with me to the
theater before performances, and she loved it. She always petted
it
to bring good luck.
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Copyright (c) 1999 CARNEGIE magazine
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E-mail: carnegiemag@carnegiemuseums.org
