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VSAA students learn style of legendary Martha Graham from touring troupe’s rehearsal director

By Howard Buck
Published: November 9, 2010, 12:00am
3 Photos
Vancouver School of Arts and Academics senior Sariah Hayford, 17, performs a &quot;hinge&quot; movement on Monday.
Vancouver School of Arts and Academics senior Sariah Hayford, 17, performs a "hinge" movement on Monday. Master dance students were led through several exercises by Denise Vale, rehearsal director and former principal dancer with the famed Martha Graham Dance Company, which performs in Portland tonight. Photo Gallery

The merger of physicality, mind and heart; the marriage of human and animal nature; the essence of communication.

For an exhilarating two hours on Monday, students in the master dance class at the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics were led through the rigorous paces of a true American master who combined all those qualities.

Denise Vale, former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company of New York and its rehearsal director, shared the style and soul of Graham’s groundbreaking technique with 36 eager students.

It was a special treat, the only local outreach appearance in conjunction with the famed troupe’s single performance tonight at Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

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“Your presence has to come out, to express yourself,” Vale told the group of 32 girls and four boys, all but one at the high school level. “You come out on the stage to talk, not just move.”

Graham’s singular modern dance style owes to animal muscle movements of “contraction and release” that she observed closely at zoos and elsewhere, Vale explained.

“Stretch out like you mean it!” Vale exhorted students, more than once. “Don’t be afraid. C’mon, say what you think you can say.”

She began with seated breathing exercises and bounces, then led students through a string of pliés — the classic bent-knee, poised crouch of ballet dance — and finally a thigh-and-shoulder-searing series of fluid lunging, rolling, stretching, rising, twisting and hinging.

“Welcome to Graham!” Vale told students at the end, even if she chided them gently for being “a little timid.”

A case of nerves was understandable. But, thanks to the work of longtime VSAA dance instructor Fern Tresvan, trained in the Graham style during her Texas school days, students mostly held their own and earned Vale’s praise.

VSAA senior Sariah Hayford, 17, actually focused on contraction work for an audition tape she made this summer.

“I was really excited,” Sariah said Monday. “I use a lot more energy for each movement” than in other dance styles, she said. “Energy is hard; the movement is simple.

“I feel like I danced really well today,” she said, smiling. “I just feel alive.”

Graham would have loved that: So much of her form, pressed to prominence with the founding of her contemporary dance company in 1926 until her death in 1991 at age 96, borrows from elegant life force.

“She gets you in shape, she does for sure,” Vale told students. She recited key principles and mantras that pay homage to the core strength of a lion, the coiled threat of a hooded cobra, the imposing hump of a bison, the flourish of a starfish:

• “I want you to lean back, and unfold like a snake.”

• “You’re going to come up on your legs from the back, like an animal.”

• “You can see how long and beautiful the spine is, it is the center of strength of the animal.”

Know your history

Giddy as a student herself, Tresvan relished Vale’s appearance. The visit was arranged by White Bird Dance of Portland, sponsor of other high-powered VSAA guests.

“It represents our history. You’ve got to know where you come from,” said Tresvan, mindful that the Graham influence is lighter on the West Coast. She said Graham’s is “one of the few highly structured techniques in dance. It gives students something to hang onto.”

Including some parents, a VSAA contingent of 38 will attend tonight’s performance, based on Graham’s classic solo “Lamentation” from 1930.

White Bird Dance co-founder Walter Jaffe said his group sponsors outreach to 4,000 or more school students each year. Monday’s was the first such stop at VSAA in six years.

Vale, senior artistic associate director for the Martha Graham troupe who performed from 1985-95, tried ballet and high school gymnastics near Philadelphia. She wrestled with her father over a dance career, she said.

When she saw the group perform, “I fell in love with it. I said, ‘I have to be a Martha Graham dancer,’” she recalled. It took another five years of toil in New York to earn her dream role.

Now, she runs the elite group through practice on national and world tours and engages aspiring dancers. She last worked with University of Washington students; next up is a Salt Lake City group.

“It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love my job,” Vale said.

Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.

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