Martha Graham & Merce Cunningham - April 1941

Martha Graham stood barely above five foot two, but in the world of dance she was a giant.

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Born in 1894 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, Graham grew up surrounded by a mix of influences: Her father was a physician who studied the relationship between movement and disorders of the nervous system; her mother, a devout Presbyterian, believed in the Puritan principles of discipline and austerity. Graham's own work as a choreographer and performer would reflect both aspects of her upbringing. Beginning with Heretic, her watershed 1929 piece, Graham began to forge a modern vision for dance as a rigorous physical language that could be used to explore more personal and psychologic