Visiting Assistant Professor Richard Oaxaca (GRS ’16, contemporary dance) and Mikayla Heinrich-Wong (CWR ’23), a master’s student in dance, in the recent CWRU Department of Dance production of Martha Graham’s Cave of the Heart. | Photo by Brad Petot
Last fall, ancient Greece came to the College of Arts and Sciences when the Department of Dance staged an unprecedented production of Cave of the Heart, Martha Graham’s retelling of the myth of Medea. It was the first time the 1946 ballet was performed by an ensemble outside the famed Martha Graham Company, underscoring the strengths and reputation of the pioneering department.
“Cave was one of the company’s most significant ballets,” said Dance Professor Gary Galbraith (CIT ’86; GRS ’88, dance), who had danced a lead role in the ballet as a principal dancer with the Graham company. The ballet “was one of Martha’s favorites,” he said.
Case Western Reserve University secured permission to stage the work as part of the celebrations leading up to the Graham Company’s centennial in 2026. Galbraith— who restaged the ballet with alumni and graduate student dancers at the Mather Dance Center—used the original sets, designed by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
“I said to the dancers, do you realize how much blood, sweat and tears are on these sets?” Galbraith said. “But they really took on the full weight of all that history.” Karen Potter (GRS ’89, dance), a dance professor and department chair, created replicas of the original costumes.
The student dancers also consulted with faculty in the college’s Department of Classics to understand the story of Medea, a woman who kills her own children to punish her wayward lover. “Martha [Graham] said the story was about the curse of jealousy,” Galbraith said. She “puts the evil up front and center.”
He said campus audiences responded in a big way and wanted to discuss the experience with him—as did the dancers. “Many students are just now starting to talk to me about how much the production has affected how they think about the power of dance,” he said. “I’ve told the dancers ‘you’re giving the audience an amazing gift.’”
Cave of the Heart will return to CWRU’s Mather Dance Center in the fall. Check dance.case.edu for details. To view a video about the production, visit bit.ly/CWRU-CaveBallet2023.
—By Jennie Yabroff
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