Martha Graham Dance Company's Clytemnestra

As the lights were brought up for the last piece of the Martha Graham Dance Company’s performance on October 8th, 2016, the audience in E. Turner Stump Theatre at Kent State University was blessed with a snippet of Graham’s original works, Act II of Clytemnestra.

The large props on the stage were set up in such a fashion to look like Queen Clytemnestra’s chambers in the underworld. As the dancers reclined in their beginning positions on the sculpture designed by Isamu Noguchi the taunting of Agamemnon began.

Ben Schultz, who danced Agamemnon’s ghost was placed in large platform shoes to dance the piece above the other dancers which gave him the appearance of being “beyond life”. When Clytemnestra, danced by Peiju Chien-Pott, awakens in a nightmarish state to Agememnon’s haunting, her costume was red

The movements for these, while sharp, had a very smooth and sleek feeling to them, most would qualify it as other worldly, which is accurate. Jacobsen is a strong dancer which gave Orestes the appearance of having a ‘backbone’ and not being easy to give in, regardless of how the story eventually played out.

Electra, danced by Xin Ying, while assisting with the assassin, she only appeared a few times (with her furies). It gave a sense that she did not matter largely to the plot when in fact she did. The movements, mostly balletic for her portion, included cupped hands and many jumps.

The lighting choices for Clytemnestra were gold, white and blue hues, given the context of the story and that most of the characters were godly, it was an appropriate choice. Also an appropriate choice was costuming for the different characters, with shades of blue, purple, black, white, and gold for the costuming, it gave an illuminating vision to the