Martha Graham Dance Company & Martha Graham School present "Graham + TECH"
Company:
Martha Graham Dance Company & Martha Graham School
The Martha Graham Dance Company’s Studio Series continues with a Graham and technology event presented by the Company and Martha Graham School on Wednesday, February 25, at 7pm.
Graham + TECH is an innovative series that sits at the intersection of movement, technology, and archival exploration. Participants will engage with the legacy of Martha Graham while experimenting with cutting-edge immersive dance technologies, creating a dynamic dialogue between tradition and innovation in the world of dance. In addition, participants will gain exclusive insight into the Martha Graham Digital Dance Archives, offering a rare opportunity to explore Graham’s iconic works through a modern lens. This component highlights how historical choreography can be preserved, studied, and reimagined in the digital age, providing both inspiration and practical applications for today’s artists.
The technology initiatives are led by Graham School Director Ashley Brown who is currently developing a prototype of the Martha Graham Technique (™) 3D App. The app will preserve the 1975 Technique video made by Martha Graham and connect it to new searchable movement databases across existing and emerging archives with the development of new immersive interfaces (such as anatomical and imagery) for faculty, artists, researchers, and audiences. These interfaces will include connections to repertory and personal narratives of Company members and Senior Graham faculty. The Technique app is made possible by research that aims to lay the foundation for future breakthroughs in the modeling of nuanced movement of the hands, feet, and spine. The Martha Graham Center, along with its collaborators on Improving Motion Modeling is honored to be selected as a 2026 Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI) development awardee, joining 10 other interdisciplinary teams working to explore new AI-driven approaches to understanding human history and culture. This initiative supports work toward groundbreaking outcomes for both AI and dance history, choreographic preservation, and embodied legacies.
Additionally, current Company member Xin Ying will demo and discuss her latest projects, including Lamentation: Dancing the Archive, which, in exhibition form, allows audiences to manipulate a volumetric (3D) video of Martha Graham’s iconic 1930 work Lamentation with their own gestures and movement, as well as Letter to Nobody, a recent work conceived by Xin and created by her in collaboration with Mimi Yin and NUUM Collective. Using archival footage, they fabricate a duet with the past to reflect on what is possible in the future. The evening will also feature MarthaBot, a custom language model fine-tuned on Graham’s writings, technique manuals, rehearsal notes, and survey data from dancers across generations. Built on OpenAI’s GPT-4 architecture and refined through continued training, MarthaBot becomes a porous, responsive interface. Users can ask questions about choreographic intention, symbolism, philosophy, or the mechanics of contraction and release. MarthaBot does not simulate Graham’s voice—it embodies her process. It is a knowledge system in motion, choreographed by memory and machine. The evening also includes an excerpt of the duet from a work in process, Stretching Inside of Your Skin.
The Studio Series event will take place at the Martha Graham Studio Theater, 55 Bethune Street, 11th Floor, in Manhattan. Tickets are $35 (general) / $20 (students), and are available online at https://marthagraham.org/studioseries/
Share Your Audience Review. Your Words Are Valuable to Dance.
Are you going to see this show, or have you seen it? Share "your" review here on The Dance Enthusiast. Your words are valuable. They help artists, educate audiences, and support the dance field in general. There is no need to be a professional critic. Just click through to our Audience Review Section and you will have the option to write free-form, or answer our helpful Enthusiast Review Questionnaire, or if you feel creative, even write a haiku review. So join the conversation.
