«In noi scorre un sangue millenario, con i suoi ricordi». L’autobiografia di Martha Graham come forma della poetica

Abstract

Martha Graham’s dance is radically innovative, her technique modern, her content sexually oriented: there is no doubt about these common assertions, yet a critical consideration of her autobiography can lend theoretical depth to such definitions. Even in the title of the autobiography, Blood Memory, there emerges the ancestral dimension of a collective unconscious, derived from Jung, composed of myths and archetypes, in which each person’s memory has very remote roots. The aim of this essay is to highlight the relevance of this “blood memory”, as well as the connection of different cultures and techniques within Martha Graham’s poetics, in order to give her dance layered and deep meanings.