So-called marathon readings of famous — and famously long — books like “Moby-Dick” and “Ulysses” have become familiar occurrences in the literary world. Now the dance world is getting in on the act.
On April 18, the Martha Graham Dance Company will stage a six-and-a-half hour reading of Graham’s 1991 autobiography, “Blood Memory.” The event will take place at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center, starting at 11 a.m. The lineup of readers includes the dancer-choreographers Carmen de Lavallade and Michelle Dorrance; Virginia Johnson, the artistic director of the Dance Theater of Harlem; the choreographer Sonya Tayeh, now most widely known for her work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance”; Wendy Whelan, the longtime principal dancer with New York City Ballet; and Tiler Peck, currently a principal dancer with the company. The reading commemorates the 90th anniversary (to the day) of Graham’s first public performance with a group of dancers.
Graham dictated “Blood Memory” in the months before her death, at 96, in 1991. On the cover of The New York Times Book Review, the dance critic Francis Mason called the memoir “a masterly, buoyant legacy of her life and her art,” adding that “like herself, the book speaks with a lilting sibylline voice to explain not only the hold dance had on her and what she gave it back, but also to tell us about the love of her life and about years of suffering as well as years of glory.”