04/20/2026
On April 18, 2026, the Martha Graham Dance Company celebrated the 100th anniversary of its first performance. On that day in 1926, Martha Graham and three company members performed at the 48th Street Theatre in New York City, presenting works including "Trois Gnossiennes," set to music by French composer Erik Satie and inspired by ancient Greek art and ritual.
The dance included a section called ‘Tanagra’, a solo performed by Graham herself and inspired by the Greek Tanagra terracotta figurines. Critics highly praised Graham’s superb skill in handling her costume, which kept the dance in the company’s repertory for several years. Graham likely encountered these figurines with her musical director, Louis Horst, at museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Named after the Boeotian town of Tanagra near Thebes, where they were produced in the 4th century BCE and Hellenistic period, these figurines depict elegantly dressed women and were widely distributed in the ancient Greek world. Rediscovered in the late 19th century, they gained international prominence at the 1878 Paris Exposition and are now held in major museum collections worldwide.
Here we share a review of the November 29, 1928, dance, now archived at the Martha Graham Dance Collection in the Library of Congress.
“Martha Graham, exponent of a school of dancing which expresses moods and ideas largely through the grace of plastic pose, gave an exhibition of her art before a large audience at the Klaw Theatre last evening. Her recital was an unqualified success.
Her assistants, the Misses Evelyn Sabin, Betty MacDonald, and Rosina Savelli, were charming, droll and gifted in only a slightly lesser degree than Miss Graham herself. Probably nothing on the entire program had the quaintness and imagination of their fantasy to the music of Erick Satie’s “Trois Gnossiennes,” which won instant demand for repetition. Louis Horst, pianist; Ugo Bergamasco, flutist, and Winthrop Sargeant, violinist, were the accompanists.”
Photos: (1, right) Martha Graham in Tanagra. Photograph by Soichi Sunami, published in Theatre Arts Monthly, October 1927. Martha Graham Dance Collection, Library of Congress.
(2, center) Terracotta statuette of a woman, Hellenistic period, ca. 2nd century BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
(3, left) Clipping from the New York Post, November 29, 1928. Martha Graham Dance Collection, Library of Congress. Photograph by Nina Papathanasopoulou.
