Martha Hill and the Making of American Dance

Time Away, 1958

Time Away, 1958 Personal letters from Martha were always handwritten and brief, basically a whereabouts report. Her correspondence to family and friends was usually limited to postcards from her travels. A letter meant the inclusion of genuine news, as in one addressed to José at his new living quarters in the Hotel Ruxton, 50 West Seventy-second Street. “You probably saw the newspaper announcement of the ANTA meeting. There appears to be a somewhat different climate of opinion at headquarters in Washington in regard to choice of artists & groups for export which I’ll tell you about when I see you in NL.”1 Kirstein had first been named adviser in 1954 to the State Department for ANTA’s foreign tours and his strong influence on the panel was the issue here. But as Humphrey was also on the panel with Hill, Limón’s company had sure support. The summer of 1957 was one of the most relaxed of Martha’s married life. Bill Hill brought his family to town for a week’s vacation, and Martha organized family outings that included trips to the Bronx Zoo and the beach at Coney Island. But with the next project always on her mind, she wrote to José, “I’ve just had a wire from Chavez to phone him this coming Tuesday at 4 p.m. at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel which I shall do, and will hope to see him. Love to you and Pauline, Martha,” adding, “Will see you next Friday! Hurrah!”2 Their correspondence reveals how much José relied upon Martha and her support of his career. She was one of the three women José depended upon, along with Doris and Pauline. For example, as he wrestled with possibilities for music to accompany his latest creation, Blue Roses (based on Tennessee Williams ’s The Glass Menagerie), it was Martha who negotiated with composers on Limón’s behalf, this time getting an arrangement of composer Paul Bowles’s themes for the August premiere at Palmer auditorium. As usual, it was Doris who advised José choreographically and Pauline who organized rehearsals, designed the costumes, and took care of all financial and practical matters. In another letter to Pauline and José, in 1957, Martha gives a sense of her increasingly distant relationship with the Summer School of Dance (celebrating its tenth anniversary with Graham back on the festival performance roster). Time with Lefty, who was now preparing for a move to Brussels, and her recovery from a hellish year at Juilliard, had become priorities. In the letter, she discusses her plans to arrive in New London for the festival’s opening, adding, “Lefty and I go to Atlantic City for some surf August 7–11 but otherwise I ex- pect to be here and have time to do anything you might need.” Then, in an unusual admission, Martha added, “I’m coming out of the Juilliard doldrums now. I had a bad case of Juilliard-induced allergy to paper work. So I’ve been being housewifely and flower-gardenish as the best antidote for that malady & Lefty says he’s never seen me so relaxed. I miss you—and love you—and look forward to seeing you at Festival, Ever, Martha.”3 When Martha returned to Juilliard’s academic school year of 1957–58, the number of dance students had risen to 109: seventy-five regular and thirtyfour enrolled as part-time students in the extension division. (This number included members of Juilliard Dance Theater who had the option of taking courses.) As Lefty had noted in his calendar, her first project of the school year was to superintend a CBS film crew when they arrived to shoot an episode of the children’s television series Let’s Take a Trip. The program featured a visit to the bustling Saturday Preparatory Division dance classes for children and to a Juilliard Dance Theater rehearsal conducted by Humphrey. Although she had managed a film shoot for Humphrey’s Ritmo Jondo in the winter of 1954, this time the television crew’s presence stirred interest in preserving all of the division ’s work on film. Martha made a plea to Schuman for money: “Every music concert is recorded for posterity at Juilliard, why not every dance concert?”4 Receiving an annual stipend of $500 pegged for the task of filming each work presented at the major concerts of the year, Martha hired filmmaker Dwight Godwin and set aside a shooting day in the theater...