Exercises in Discipline and Freedom? The Graham Technique

ABSTRACTMartha Graham famously asserted that a dancer achieves “freedom through discipline.” Using a multimodal approach, this essay discusses freedom in dance in relation to the Graham technique. After contextualizing Graham's position aesthetically, historically, and within the field of political theory, I explore observations made by Graham dancers of the 1930s on their experience of the Graham technique. Then I interview students of the Graham technique at the Graham School in New York in the 2010s. Lastly, I complicate, from a feminist perspective, Graham's notion of “freedom through discipline.” The discussion revolves around the dancing body's self-awareness, the dancer's agency in writing herself as a subject, and her position as an object written upon by the Graham regimen of training.