February 24, 2026

This spring, the Martha Graham Dance Company (MGDC) will return to Bennington College for the first time in decades for a series of events culminating in a performance of Graham classics and new works by the Company. The performance will include dance students from Bennington College’s BA and BFA programs in Panorama, Graham’s groundbreaking call to social consciousness, which was created at Bennington in 1935. 

Part of GRAHAM100, a year-long celebration of MGDC’s centennial, the residency brings together MGDC dancers, scholars, and Bennington students in a rare convergence of history, pedagogy, and performance. It celebrates Graham’s historic and continuing legacy, as well as her profound and enduring link to Bennington, the “birthplace of modern dance” where she developed and performed many of her seminal works in the 1930s. 

“The works that Martha created while she was at Bennington remain a powerful magnet,” said Janet Eilber, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and Martha Graham Dance Company. “Bennington was a hugely validating place for Graham. The collaborations between the artists that gathered at Bennington in the thirties established modern dance.”

Preparations for the event series begin March 7–13, when Blakeley White McGuire—former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company and current faculty member at the Martha Graham Center—will be in residence at Bennington to teach and stage Panorama, the iconic work Martha Graham created on the Bennington campus in 1935. Panorama stands as a politically charged call to social consciousness and a landmark of thirties modernism. 

The project will culminate on Saturday, March 28, with a series of events including:

• Company Class for members of the Martha Graham Dance Company and invited guests. 
• An in-depth conversation with Jacob’s Pillow Scholar Emeritus Norton Owen and Martha Graham Dance Company Artistic Director Janet Eilber, who studied directly under Graham, at 5:00 pm in Tishman Hall. The program will include the presentation of rare photographs of Martha Graham that further illuminate her artistic legacy.
• A performance of historic Graham pieces. Curated specifically for Bennington College, the program will be introduced by Artistic Director Janet Eilber, who will provide contextual remarks for each work. Pieces will include Lamentation (1930); Panorama (1935), performed by Bennington BA and BFA students; Theme and Variations from Appalachian Spring (1944); an excerpt from En Masse (2026) by choreographer Hope Boykin; Immediate Tragedy (1937); and We the People (2024) by choreographer Jamar Roberts. The event will take place at 7:30 pm at Martha Hill Dance Theater.

“This rare event celebrates Graham’s singular artistic vision, focus, strength, and passion,” said Dana Reitz, longtime Bennington College faculty member in Dance, who will, with BFA faculty member in Dance Cameron Childs, continue training Bennington’s dance students between the residency and the performance. “We are honored to bring her work back to Bennington College to share with a new generation of dance makers.”

“This is a historic event in so many ways,” said Michael Wimberly, faculty member in Music at Bennington and the primary organizer of the event series. “I am grateful to have been in the presence of Martha while working as an accompanist for the Martha Graham School of Dance and the Graham Residencies throughout the late eighties and mid-nineties, and I am grateful for all of the extraordinary enthusiasm for recreating the Bennington dance scene of the thirties right here this spring.”

This event is supported by the Ford Foundation (with special thanks to former President Darren Walker), the Jerome A. and Estelle R. Newman Assistance Fund, and an anonymous donor.

Martha Graham (1894–1991) is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th century, alongside Picasso, James Joyce, Stravinsky, and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1998, TIME magazine named Martha Graham “Dancer of the Century,” and People magazine named her among the female “Icons of the Century.” As a choreographer, she was as prolific as she was complex. She created 181 ballets and a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Her approach to dance and theater revolutionized the art form and her innovative physical vocabulary has irrevocably influenced dance worldwide.