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
A native New Yorker, Baldwin received a PhD in Modern American Poetry from SUNY/Buffalo. He is the critically-acclaimed author of biographies of William Carlos Williams, Man Ray, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford; as well as Legends of the Plumed Serpent: Biography of a Mexican God, and The American Revelation. He served as manager of The Annual Fund at The New York Public Library; and was founding executive director of The National Book Foundation, sponsor of the National Book Awards.
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 and Critic-in-Residence at The Blended Campus.
He is represented by William Morris Endeavor Agency.
The Martha Graham tour begins
Neil Baldwin at Watchung Booksellers, October 27, 2022.
