At Teatro La Fenice, the Martha Graham Dance Company returns to Venice after more than fifty years, marking the centenary of its foundation. Founded in 1938 by Martha Graham, the company remains a cornerstone of modern dance, whose impact on the evolution of movement language continues to resonate internationally.
The programme brings together three seminal works by Graham — Diversion of Angels (1948), Lamentation (1930), and Chronicle (1936) — alongside En Masse (2025), a new commission by Hope Boykin created for GRAHAM100. The juxtaposition draws a clear line between historical repertoire and contemporary creation, highlighting the enduring relevance of Graham’s artistic vision.
Set to music by Norman Dello Joio, Diversion of Angels unfolds as a constellation of emotional states rather than a linear narrative. Three couples embody distinct dimensions of love — mature, erotic, and youthful — within an imagined landscape shaped by movement and rhythm.
In Lamentation, performed to a score by Zoltán Kodály, a seated figure enclosed in a stretch fabric becomes a living sculpture: the body, constrained and contorted, articulates an abstract and distilled expression of grief that remains one of the defining images of twentieth-century dance.
Created against the backdrop of rising totalitarianism and set to music by Wallingford Riegger, Chronicle offers a choreographic response to the threat of war. Rather than depicting events directly, it constructs a sequence of images that evoke tension, devastation, and moral resistance.
The programme concludes with En Masse, which revisits an unrealised collaboration between Graham and Leonard Bernstein. The score expands on a brief, previously unknown musical fragment (Vivace) attributed to Bernstein, reworked by Christopher Rountree and interwoven with material from MASS, opening a new dialogue between music and choreography.

Dates & Times
May 6, 2026 – 7:00 PM
May 7, 2026 – 7:00 PM
May 8, 2026 – 7:00 PM
May 9, 2026 – 3:30 PM
May 10, 2026 – 3:30 PM