Martha Graham
When Dance Became Modern
“Given her eventual stature, it is easy to forget that Martha Graham’s modernism was not simply a predestined stroke of genius. As Neil Baldwin’s admiring and attentive biography reminds us, her art was conditioned upon her foundational desire to make dance modern, and to make modern dance American.” — Emily Hawk, The Nation
“Rarely has a biographer stretched our knowledge of Martha Graham’s life and times as much as Neil Baldwin…For anyone hungry to read about Graham and her world…this book will be challenging and satisfying.” — Wendy Perron, Dance Magazine
“Mr. Baldwin’s research is rigorous, his prose eloquent and muscular…Here the ‘Picasso of dance’ springs—and lunges, and twirls—to life again, in all her fury and glory.” — Hamilton Cain, The Wall Street Journal
About Neil Baldwin
As the Distinguished Visiting Professor of History in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Professor of Theatre & Dance in the College of the Arts at Montclair State University, Baldwin created and taught BA undergraduate and MFA and MA graduate writing seminars in Great Books & Ideas, Cultural History, Dramaturgy and Danceaturgy; and was founding director of The [virtual] Creative Research Center.
Neil Baldwin is Emeritus Professor at MSU, Board Member of the NYU Biography Seminar, Critic-in-Residence at The Blended Campus, and the 2024-2026 External Mentor for the National Park Service Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at the Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange, New Jersey.
He is represented by William Morris Endeavor Agency, and at work on a novel.
