Martha Graham Dance Company To Present A Preview Of Lloyd Knight's THE DRAMA

As part of its Fall 2024 Studio Series, the Martha Graham Dance Company will present a preview of Lloyd Knight's solo dance work, The Drama.

The Drama highlights the life of Martha Graham Dance Company principal dancer Lloyd Knight in an intimate and personal solo inspired by his time as an artist and the women in his life—his mother and Martha Graham. Utilizing dance, text, and video, the performance lays bare what it takes physically and psychologically to pursue a life in dance and touches on Knight's upbringing and what drew him to dance from an early age. The Drama is written and performed by Knight, with choreography by Knight and Jack Ferver, and video design by Jeremy Jacob.

Performances are Friday, December 13, at 7pm, and Saturday, December 14, at 6pm, at the Martha Graham Studio Theater, 55 Bethune Street, 11th Floor, in Manhattan. Tickets are $30 (general) / $20 (students), and are available online at marthagraham.org/studioseries/. Those unable to attend in person can join the Company's digital membership for $20/month at patreon.com/marthagrahamdance, which includes Studio Series live streams and much more!

The Drama was commissioned by the Guggenheim's Works & Process and DANCECleveland, and developed over a series of Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bridge Street Theatre, Modern Accord Depot, and the Watermill Center. The work was also developed during Knight's research fellowship at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2023. The Drama will premiere at the Guggenheim Museum in January 2025, followed by performances in Cleveland, OH, in February 2025.

Lloyd Knight joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2005 and performs major roles of the Graham repertory including Appalachian Spring, Embattled Garden, and Night Journey, among others. Knight was nominated for a Bessie Award for best performer in 2022; and Dance Magazine named him one of “Top 25 Dancers to Watch” in 2010, and one of the best performers of 2015. Knight has starred with ballet greats Wendy Whelan and Misty Copeland in signature Graham duets, and has had roles created for him by such renowned artists as Nacho Duato and Pam Tanowitz. Knight has performed as a principal guest artist for The Royal Ballet of Flanders, directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, as well as with Twyla Tharp Dance. Born in England and raised in Miami, FL, he trained at Miami Conservatory of Ballet and New World School of the Arts. He was a 2023 Dance Research Fellow at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Jack Ferver is a New York-based writer, choreographer, and performer. Their genre-defying performances, which have been called “so extreme that they sometimes look and feel like exorcisms” (The New Yorker), inhabit while indicting psychological and sociopolitical issues, particularly in the realms of queerness, gender, and power struggles. Ferver's work has been presented in New York City at New York Live Arts, The New Museum, The Kitchen, Crossing the Line Festival, Abrons Arts Center, Gibney Dance, Performance Space 122, Performa 11, Danspace Project, and Dixon Place, as well as at Mass MoCA (MA), the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College (NY), Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (OR), the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D (ME), ICA (MA), Fusebox Festival (TX), Diverse Works (TX), Temperance Hall (Australia), and Théâtre de Vanves (France). They have collaborated with their partner, the visual artist and filmmaker Jeremy Jacob, on performances and short films that draw from both artists' research into cinema, queerness, memory, and AIDS. The duo's most recent film, NOWHERE APPARENT, was presented by All Arts in 2023. Ferver is a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists. They teach at Bard College.

Jeremy Jacob is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist. Working in a variety of mediums, Jacob examines queer desire, often obfuscated, through the romantic and skeptical visions circulating within the American imaginary. Born on an industrial chicken farm in central Minnesota, Jacob's work explores the conflict between work and play, reality and fantasy, private and public through the lens of American fairytales and princess fantasies as potential portals for self-realization and democratic nation-building. Jacob's work has been presented by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Palazzo Grassi, Bard College, The Zuckerman Museum of Art, Cindy Rucker Gallery, Projekt 722, Montserrat College of Art, New York Live Arts, American Ballet Theatre, and the New York Public Library, among others.

About the Martha Graham Dance Company

The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the evolving art form of modern dance since its founding in 1926. It is both the oldest dance company in the United States and the oldest integrated dance company.

Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.

Since its inception, the Martha Graham Dance Company has received international acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Company has performed at the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, Covent Garden, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt and in the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus theater on the Acropolis in Athens. In addition, the Company has also produced several award-winning films broadcast on PBS and around the world.

The 2024-25 season is the second season of GRAHAM100, a three-year 100th anniversary celebration of Martha Graham and her Company's legacy.

For more information about the Company, visit www.marthagraham.org.