Martha Clarke
Encyclopedia
Martha Clarke is an American
theater director and choreographer noted for her multidisciplinary approach to theatre, dance, and opera productions. She is the creator of plotless, dreamlike works that are perhaps described by the term "moving paintings. Her work frequently emphasizes striking visual tableaux, often directly inspired by visual art, especially painting. Though dance is the primary basis of Ms. Clarke's training, she has maintained a career which spans and melds dance
, theater, the visual arts
, and opera
. Probably her best-known original work is "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1984), an exploration in theatre, dance, music and flying of the famous painting of the same name
by Hieronymus Bosch. In June 2007, a new version of the show opened the 30th anniversary of the American Dance Festival
. On November 19, 2008, the re-imagined of Earthly Delights opened Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City; two extensions and five months later - it ran until April 5, 2009. A world tour will follow.
Ms. Clarke's latest production, "Angel Reapers" (with text by Alfred Uhry
- Pulitzer Prize for "Driving Miss Daisy
") will have it's New York premiere at the Joyce Theater
November 29 - December 11, 2011.
This Spring, (2012) she will premiere a full-evening work at La Scala
Opera in Milan, Italy.
In 1990, she received a MacArthur Award, popularly known as the "genius grant". In June 2010, Ms. Clarke received the 2010 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award is considered the most important lifetime award for choreographers.
, she studied dance with Carolyn Lynn http://www.answers.com/topic/martha-clarke-1 in the preparatory program of the Peabody Conservatory, then going on to study at the dance program of the Juilliard School
under Antony Tudor
and Anna Sokolow
. She then spent three years performing with the modern dance
choreographer Anna Sokolow
and the Dance Theater Workshop
. She later became a founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest before going on to a highly original career as a director/choreographer.
She has choreographed for the Nederlands Dans Theater, the Joffrey Ballet
, American Ballet Theatre
, Rambert Dance Company
, and The Martha Graham
Company, among others.
As a director, Ms. Clarke’s many original productions include The Garden of Earthly Delights (with musical score by Richard Peaslee), Stanley Kauffman wrote in The New Republic, "Garden transformed 'our whole notion of theater'. It epitomized everything that is unique and imitable about the theater". Vienna: Lusthaus, Miracolo d’Amore, Endangered Species, An Uncertain Hour, The Hunger Artist, and Vers la Flamme. She directed the premiere of Christopher Hampton
’s Alice’s Adventures Underground at the Royal National Theatre
in London
.
In opera, Ms. Clarke has directed Mozart's The Magic Flute
for the Glimmerglass Opera
and the Canadian Opera Company
, Cosi fan tutte
for Glimmerglass, Tan Dun
’s Marco Polo for the Munich Biennale
, the Hong-Kong Festival, and the New York City Opera
, and Gluck’s Orfeo and Euridice for the English National Opera
and the New York City Opera.
She directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the American Repertory Theater and a music/theater work, Belle Epoque, based on the life of Toulouse Lautrec at Lincoln Center Theater. She has collaborated with Richard Greenberg
, Charles L. Mee
, and Alfred Uhry
, among many others.
While Ms. Clarke does not compose the musical scores or texts (when present) for her original works, her creative undertaking goes far beyond choreography to include and shape all aspects of production and direction, from conception and structure to details of music, text, lighting, and costumes. Britannica Online summarizes her wide-ranging choreographic approach in saying that
her "emotionally evocative work draws extensively on theatrical elements." http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9125422/Martha-Clarke
Of all the many disciplines beyond dance from which Clarke's work draws inspiration, perhaps the most prominent influence comes from the visual arts, especially painting. In this preoccupation, Clarke is part of a general sensibility that connects such disparate artists as Peter Sellars
, Pina Bausch
, and Robert Wilson
. New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman
wrote of her Miracolo d'Amore in 1988 that it "... can be counted among the recent opera productions, films and theatrical presentations that in one way or another emulate painting. Franco Zeffirelli
, George Lucas
, Pina Bausch
, Andrew Lloyd Webber
, Robert Wilson
and Peter Sellars
share with Ms. Clarke this striking characteristic: They view the performing arts as a pretext for staging visual spectaculars." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DA133BF935A35754C0A96E948260
as well as fifteen grants from the NEA
. She has received the Drama Desk Award
, two Obie Award
s, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
. In 2009 Ms. Clarke won the SDC's Joe A. Callaway award for choreography of "Garden of Earthly Delights". The award honors excellence in direction and choreography in non-Broadway productions in New York. In June 2010, Ms. Clarke received the 2010 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award is considered the most important lifetime award for choreographers.
She has been the subject of a film
for PBS, Martha Clarke, Light and Dark, and her Garden of Earthly Delights has been filmed by the BBC
.
Kaos, adapted from stories by Luigi Pirandello
, received the first Tony Randall
Foundation Award; and was presented at the New York Theater Workshop (2006).
In 2007, the NEA gave a grant for the remounting of The Garden of Earthly Delights under a program dedicated to the remounting of American masterworks.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theater director and choreographer noted for her multidisciplinary approach to theatre, dance, and opera productions. She is the creator of plotless, dreamlike works that are perhaps described by the term "moving paintings. Her work frequently emphasizes striking visual tableaux, often directly inspired by visual art, especially painting. Though dance is the primary basis of Ms. Clarke's training, she has maintained a career which spans and melds dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
, theater, the visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
, and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
. Probably her best-known original work is "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1984), an exploration in theatre, dance, music and flying of the famous painting of the same name
The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych painted by the early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch , housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1939. Dating from between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was about 40 or 50 years old, it is his best-known and most ambitious work...
by Hieronymus Bosch. In June 2007, a new version of the show opened the 30th anniversary of the American Dance Festival
American Dance Festival
The American Dance Festival is a six and four-week school for dance and a six-week summer festival of modern dance performances, currently held at Duke University and the Durham Performing Arts Center in Durham, North Carolina....
. On November 19, 2008, the re-imagined of Earthly Delights opened Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City; two extensions and five months later - it ran until April 5, 2009. A world tour will follow.
Ms. Clarke's latest production, "Angel Reapers" (with text by Alfred Uhry
Alfred Uhry
Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright, screenwriter, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing....
- Pulitzer Prize for "Driving Miss Daisy
Driving Miss Daisy
Driving Miss Daisy is a 1989 American comedy-drama film adapted from the Alfred Uhry play of the same name. The film was directed by Bruce Beresford, with Morgan Freeman reprising his role as Hoke Colburn and Jessica Tandy playing Miss Daisy...
") will have it's New York premiere at the Joyce Theater
Joyce Theater
The Joyce Theater is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea area of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The Joyce Theater Foundation, the organization founded in 1982 that operates the theater, also owns the Joyce SoHo dance center located in a former firehouse on Mercer...
November 29 - December 11, 2011.
This Spring, (2012) she will premiere a full-evening work at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
Opera in Milan, Italy.
In 1990, she received a MacArthur Award, popularly known as the "genius grant". In June 2010, Ms. Clarke received the 2010 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award is considered the most important lifetime award for choreographers.
Upbringing, training, and early career
Born into a family of musicians in suburban BaltimoreBaltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, she studied dance with Carolyn Lynn http://www.answers.com/topic/martha-clarke-1 in the preparatory program of the Peabody Conservatory, then going on to study at the dance program of the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
under Antony Tudor
Antony Tudor
Antony Tudor was an English ballet choreographer, teacher and dancer.-Biography:Tudor, born William Cook, discovered dance accidentally. He began dancing professionally with Marie Rambert in 1928, becoming general assistant for her Ballet Club the next year...
and Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow was a Jewish American dancer and choreographer.-Training:...
. She then spent three years performing with the modern dance
Modern dance
Modern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...
choreographer Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow was a Jewish American dancer and choreographer.-Training:...
and the Dance Theater Workshop
Dance Theater Workshop
Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, is a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies. Located as 219 West 19th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, DTW was founded in 1965 by Jeff Duncan, Art Bauman and...
. She later became a founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest before going on to a highly original career as a director/choreographer.
Theatre and Dance career
Martha Clarke is renowned not only as a choreographer and avant garde creator of whole new theatre works, but also as a director of operas and plays in the classic repertoire, such as the stage works of Mozart and Shakespeare. But even when serving as director in productions of well-known classics, her approach is frequently unconventional and ambitious.She has choreographed for the Nederlands Dans Theater, the Joffrey Ballet
Joffrey Ballet
The Joffrey Ballet is a dance company in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1956. From 1995 to 2004, the company was known as The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The company regularly performs classical ballets including Romeo & Juliet and The Nutcracker, while balancing those classics with pioneering modern...
, American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
, Rambert Dance Company
Rambert Dance Company
Rambert Dance Company, is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it would exert a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingdom, and today, as a contemporary dance company, it continues to be one of the...
, and The Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
Company, among others.
As a director, Ms. Clarke’s many original productions include The Garden of Earthly Delights (with musical score by Richard Peaslee), Stanley Kauffman wrote in The New Republic, "Garden transformed 'our whole notion of theater'. It epitomized everything that is unique and imitable about the theater". Vienna: Lusthaus, Miracolo d’Amore, Endangered Species, An Uncertain Hour, The Hunger Artist, and Vers la Flamme. She directed the premiere of Christopher Hampton
Christopher Hampton
Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of...
’s Alice’s Adventures Underground at the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
In opera, Ms. Clarke has directed Mozart's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
for the Glimmerglass Opera
Glimmerglass Opera
Glimmerglass Festival is an opera company which was founded in 1975 by Peter Macris and presents an annual season of operas at the Alice Busch Opera Theater on Otsego Lake eight miles north of Cooperstown, New York, United States.The summer-only season usually consists of four operas performed in...
and the Canadian Opera Company
Canadian Opera Company
The Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...
, Cosi fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
for Glimmerglass, Tan Dun
Tan Dun
Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...
’s Marco Polo for the Munich Biennale
Munich Biennale
The Munich Biennale is an opera festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater, literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial festival was created in 1988 by Hans Werner Henze and is held in even-numbered years over...
, the Hong-Kong Festival, and the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, and Gluck’s Orfeo and Euridice for the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
and the New York City Opera.
She directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the American Repertory Theater and a music/theater work, Belle Epoque, based on the life of Toulouse Lautrec at Lincoln Center Theater. She has collaborated with Richard Greenberg
Richard Greenberg
Richard Greenberg is an American playwright. He is the author of over 25 plays including eight South Coast Repertory world premieres: Our Mother's Brief Affair, The Injured Party, The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, Hurrah at Last, Three Days of Rain Richard Greenberg (1958–present) is an American...
, Charles L. Mee
Charles L. Mee
Charles L. Mee is an American playwright, historian and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which makes use of radical reconstructions of found texts.-Early Life and Early Career:...
, and Alfred Uhry
Alfred Uhry
Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright, screenwriter, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing....
, among many others.
While Ms. Clarke does not compose the musical scores or texts (when present) for her original works, her creative undertaking goes far beyond choreography to include and shape all aspects of production and direction, from conception and structure to details of music, text, lighting, and costumes. Britannica Online summarizes her wide-ranging choreographic approach in saying that
her "emotionally evocative work draws extensively on theatrical elements." http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9125422/Martha-Clarke
Of all the many disciplines beyond dance from which Clarke's work draws inspiration, perhaps the most prominent influence comes from the visual arts, especially painting. In this preoccupation, Clarke is part of a general sensibility that connects such disparate artists as Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays...
, Pina Bausch
Pina Bausch
Philippina "Pina" Bausch was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director...
, and Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson (director)
Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...
. New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman
Michael Kimmelman
Michael Kimmelman is an author, critic, columnist and pianist. He is the chief architecture critic for The New York Times and written on issues of public housing, community development and social responsibility. He was the paper's longtime chief art critic and, in 2007, created the Abroad column,...
wrote of her Miracolo d'Amore in 1988 that it "... can be counted among the recent opera productions, films and theatrical presentations that in one way or another emulate painting. Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
, George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
, Pina Bausch
Pina Bausch
Philippina "Pina" Bausch was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director...
, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
, Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson may refer to:In politics:* Rob Wilson , British politician and entrepreneur, MP for Reading East* Robert J. Wilson, candidate in the 1953 Manitoba provincial election* Robert John Wilson, Member of Parliament for Jarrow...
and Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays...
share with Ms. Clarke this striking characteristic: They view the performing arts as a pretext for staging visual spectaculars." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DA133BF935A35754C0A96E948260
Honors and critical recognition
In addition to the MacArthur Award, Ms. Clarke has received two grants from the Guggenheim FoundationJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
as well as fifteen grants from the NEA
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
. She has received the Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
, two Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
s, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards is an annual awards program presented by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle . Established in 1969, the awards recognize excellence in theatre in the Greater Los Angeles Area....
. In 2009 Ms. Clarke won the SDC's Joe A. Callaway award for choreography of "Garden of Earthly Delights". The award honors excellence in direction and choreography in non-Broadway productions in New York. In June 2010, Ms. Clarke received the 2010 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award is considered the most important lifetime award for choreographers.
She has been the subject of a film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
for PBS, Martha Clarke, Light and Dark, and her Garden of Earthly Delights has been filmed by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
.
Kaos, adapted from stories by Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
, received the first Tony Randall
Tony Randall
Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...
Foundation Award; and was presented at the New York Theater Workshop (2006).
In 2007, the NEA gave a grant for the remounting of The Garden of Earthly Delights under a program dedicated to the remounting of American masterworks.
External links
- Garden of Earthly Delights Website
- Martha Clarke Official Website
- American Repertory Theatre
- Juilliard Reflections
- Book The Director's Voice: Twenty-One Interviews By Arthur Bartow
- Video Martha Clarke: Light and Dark
- Video of Martha Clarke's "Nocturne" with Sabine Kupferberg.
- Link to biographical article on Martha Clarke from The Oxford Dictionary of Dance (Oxford University Press), including information on studies at the Peabody and Juilliard conservatories