Martha Graham - Programme A & B - 100 Years Of The Martha Graham Dance Company

A Centennial Experience in Lyon

We are honored to host Martha Graham Dance Company with the special evening Martha Graham Programme A-B - 100 Years of the Martha Graham Dance Company, a landmark celebration that brings the power, rigor, and theatrical imagination of modern dance’s defining troupe to our stage in Lyon. For nearly a century, the company founded by Martha Graham has shaped the language of movement through the iconic technique of contraction and release, transforming stories into sculptural lines and visceral emotion. Welcoming this centennial program, we have prepared our theater to showcase the clarity of the choreography and the sculpted light that frames it—those crisp sightlines and intimate acoustics that let audiences hear the breath, feel the grounded weight, and follow every musical phrase. Expect an evening that looks both backward and forward: the spiritual Americana of Appalachian Spring, the galvanizing force of Chronicle, the buoyant lyricism of Diversion of Angels, or the wry sparkle of Maple Leaf Rag may stand alongside contemporary voices that carry Graham’s legacy into the present day. Under the artistic direction of Janet Eilber, the company arrives in Lyon at a vital artistic moment, marking 100 years not as a museum piece but as a living, questing ensemble.

What to Expect on the Night

Programme A-B offers two complementary lineups that illuminate Graham’s range—intimate solos, charged ensemble passages, and theatrical collaborations that are central to the company’s identity. The sculptural environments historically created with Isamu Noguchi have long been part of the visual world of Graham, and in works like Appalachian Spring, the dialogue between bodies, space, and score (brought to life by Aaron Copland’s music) still lands with shattering freshness. Our audience will experience the extraordinary physical clarity of today’s cast: the tensile spines, ferocious turns, and the emotional nakedness that has made this company a touchstone for generations of artists. While each program is curated for balance and contrast, recent seasons have also featured invigorating additions that signal the company’s present-tense creativity—Canticle for Innocent Comedians (reimagined by Sonya Tayeh), ongoing chapters of Lamentation Variations, and reconstructions such as Immediate Tragedy that bridge archival memory with living performance. From first blackout to final bow, the evening in Lyon is designed to reveal how the Graham vocabulary continues to converse with contemporary aesthetics, inviting both longtime admirers and first-time viewers into a kinetic world where drama and design are inseparable.

As a Lyon theater that prizes clarity of experience, we have tailored every detail to honor the scale and nuance of this centennial event. The company’s rigorous musicality and dramatic pacing thrive in our hall’s focused atmosphere, where the dancers’ breath and the strike of a foot on the floor can travel directly to the last row. Lighting states and color gradients have been plotted to emphasize the architecture of Graham’s movement, from the austere geometry of ensemble configurations to the intimate weight of a solo framed in shadow. Guests arriving for Martha Graham Programme A-B - 100 Years of the Martha Graham Dance Company can expect a warm welcome, smooth access to seating, and a performance flow that respects the rhythm of the pieces—ample time to transition between works while keeping the emotional arc intact. Presenting this centennial in Lyon aligns with our commitment to bringing world-class dance to the city and to contextualizing legends in the present tense. We look forward to sharing an evening where history breathes, where the theater becomes a vessel for memory and invention, and where the Martha Graham Dance Company shows why its voice remains essential, urgent, and unmistakably alive.