Today at 2:30 pm ET -- Martha Matinees: Appalachian Spring

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Courtesy of the Martha Graham Dance Company, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern today and again this Saturday April 18th (same time), there will be a special presentation of the choreographer's groundbreaking ballet, Appalachian Spring, featuring Aaron Copland's equally iconic orchestral score. For details, see the dance company's YouTube channel or website. Information below.

MARTHA MATINEES
Join us LIVE for an interactive viewing experience presented by the Graham Archives, hosted by Janet Eilber and featuring special guests!

NEXT SHOWING: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15 and SATURDAY, APRIL 18 at 2:30pm EST
Appalachian Spring
A screening of films celebrating the iconic 20th Century masterwork.
At the show on Saturday, great Graham artist Terese Capucilli will join Janet and Oliver Tobin in the live chat!live chat!

– Aaron Copland talks about Appalachian Spring
– Appalachian Spring at 75 – a montage of generations of dancers
– Appalachian Spring – a complete performance by the original cast! This is a silent film that will be accompanied by a 1958 recording of the music.
– Appalachian Spring excerpt from an August, 2019 performance at Jacob’s Pillow with today’s Martha Graham Dance Company

Note: The website listing says the first showing is "Wednesday, April 14," but it's today, April 15.

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1. Awesome--thanks very much for sharing this!

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2. You bet!

I should have posted it a couple of days ago when I found out about it, but I hope a lot of DUers have the time to check it out either today or Saturday. And I imagine it will be available later as well, but it's always fun to experience things like this in real time.

I'm especially excited because, even though I'm very familiar with the Copland music, I've never seen the ballet performed.

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3. Artistic Director promises video quality will be better Saturday.

I watched it, and it was enjoyable -- also great to see the well-informed and perceptive running commentary from many of the viewers -- but the choppy video made it quite challenging at times.

Janet Eilber, the company's artistic director, noted in the live comments stream that they'll have the video working correctly by Saturday. Hope so!

BTW, despite the video quality (which was basically like a series of stills), the audio was fine. And during the opening interview with Aaron Copland (recorded in 1981), it was fantastic to see and hear the composer at the piano playing those moving chords from the closing of the piece. What an incredible contribution he made, just with this one piece, which won Copland a Pulitzer Prize in 1945.

Here's that video, for those interested:

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4. UPDATE -- For anyone who's trying to watch this today (Saturday 4/18/2020):

According to the running commentary on YouTube, there were too many people trying to live-stream this at 2:30 ET today, and it overwhelmed the server! So this is the day Martha Graham broke YouTube!!

They're going to upload everything to YouTube and make it available at 3:00 ET, and I believe it will remain up for a few days at least -- so anybody stumbling across this thread should be able to see/hear the performances and extra features via the link to the dance company's YouTube channel in the OP.

It was fun being a fly on the wall and reading the comments as people waited. There were several participants who actually knew and danced with the company while Martha Graham was around -- including some who danced with Nureyev and other luminaries. There was a lot of "inside baseball" dance talk, which was interesting but over my head, and some entertaining anecdotes as well. Not sure if those comments will be archived, but if so, some folks may enjoy reading them.