Despite her young age, she traveled abroad to learn about many cultures. She reflected these cultures in her dance performances. Her performance in Xochitl put a spotlight on her.

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul”

In 1923, she performed with the Greenwich Village Follies in New York. In 1924, she took teaching positions at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. In 1926, she debuted her first independent concert and established “the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance.”

“The body says what words cannot”

Never losing her interest in cultures, Martha constantly continued to search for new cultures and she was interested in the cultures of Native Americans between 1931 and 1935. She traveled to Europe, Middle East, and the Far East after 1950.  She reflected the cultures of these places in her dance performances.  She said;

“To me, the body says what words cannot. I believe that dance was the first art. A philosopher has said that dance and architecture were the first arts. I believe that dance was first because it's gesture, it is communication. That doesn't mean it's telling a story, but it means it's communicating a feeling, a sensation to people.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body. And it's partly the language that we don't want to show.”

She created more than 150 ballets in her life. Her last performance was in 1970 when she was 76 years old. She received many awards. She died on April 1, 1991, in New York City. TIME magazine named Martha Graham “Dancer of the Century.”