One on One

Now aged seventy-two, Helen Keller still dreams of being like other women: what must it be like, she wonders, to see and hear? However much she gains the upper hand over her disabilities, there are still many perfectly simple and basic things within easy reach of everybody else that she can never hope to master, or perhaps even to comprehend: dance, for instance.

She has gained the respect of some of the most distinguished people in the world, but sometimes she thinks she would swap it all for the chance to dance. ‘How quickly I should lock up all those mighty warriors, and hoary sages, and impossible heroes, who are now almost my only companions; and dance and sing and frolic like other girls!’ she confesses to a friend.

But she abhors self-pity; when she feels it looming, she forces herself to count her blessings. ‘… I must not waste my time wishing idle wishes; and, after all, my ancient friends are very wise and interesting, and I usually enjoy their society very much indeed. It is only once in a great while that I feel discontented, and allow myself to wish for things I cannot hope for in this life.’

Dance comes to symbolise the carefree land from which she is for ever exiled. ‘There are days when the close attention I must give to detail chafes my spirit, and the thought that I must spend hours reading a few chapters, while in the world without other girls are laughing and singing and dancing, makes me rebellious; but I soon recover my buoyancy and laugh the discontent out of my heart. For, after all, every one who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way … Every struggle is victory.’

Still fêted wherever she goes, Helen Keller is taken by a friend to meet the electrifying Grande Dame of modern dance, Martha Graham. Graham is immediately taken by what she calls Helen’s ‘gracious embrace of life’, and is impressed by what appears to be her photographic memory. They become friends. Before long, Helen starts paying regular visits to the dance studio. She seems to focus on the dancers’ feet, and can somehow tell the direction in which they are moving. Martha Graham is intrigued. ‘She could not see the dance but was able to allow its vibrations to leave the floor and enter her body.’

At first, Graham finds it hard to understand exactly what Helen is saying, but she soon grows accustomed to what she calls ‘that funny voice of hers’. On one of her visits, Helen says, ‘Martha, what is jumping? I don’t understand.’

Graham is touched by this simple question. She asks a member of her company, Merce Cunningham, to stand at the barre. She approaches him from behind, says, ‘Merce, be very careful, I’m putting Helen’s hands on your body,’ and places Helen Keller’s hands on his waist.

Cunningham cannot see Keller, but feels her two hands around his waist, ‘like bird wings, so soft’. Everyone in the studio stands quite still, focusing on what is happening. Cunningham jumps in the air while Keller’s hands rise up with his body.

‘Her hands rose and fell as Merce did,’ recalls Martha Graham, in extreme old age. ‘Her expression changed from curiosity to one of joy. You could see the enthusiasm rise in her face as she threw her arms in the air.’

Cunningham continues to perform small leaps, with very straight legs. He suddenly feels Keller’s fingers, still touching his waist, begin to move slightly, ‘as though fluttering’. For the first time in her life, she is experiencing dance. ‘Oh, how wonderful! How like thought! How like the mind it is!’ she exclaims when he stops.

Helen Keller and Martha Graham appear together in a documentary film, The Unconquered, in 1953. Still wearing her hat, Keller stands in the middle of a group of dancers ‘feeling’ the dance, while Graham and her dancers circle around her. She has a look of ecstasy upon her face.

Almost half a century later, Martha Graham, now aged ninety-six, is busy dictating her autobiography. Her hands are crippled with arthritis. She looks back on Helen Keller, who died over twenty years ago, as ‘the most gallant woman I have ever known’. And then it suddenly strikes her why, way back in the 1950s, Helen had been quite so excited by her visits to the studio.

‘The word “and” is inseparable from the dance, and leads us into most of the exercises and movements. It led her into the life of vibration. And her life enriched our studio. And to close the circle, all of our dance classes begin with the teacher saying, “AND … one!”’

MARTHA GRAHAM

SILENCES

MADONNA

316 East 63rd Street, New York

Autumn 1978

By 1978, Martha Graham has a formidable reputation. Over the course of her career, she has danced at the White House for eight US presidents, and baffled almost as many.

Her work is adored and reviled in roughly equal measure. The Graham technique, taught at the school she founded half a century ago, is tense, percussive, sexually explicit. It is her belief that female dancers should ‘dance from the vagina’. One of her acolytes explains that ‘Martha’s premise was that an act of lovemaking was an act of murder.’

Aged eighty-four, she maintains a ferocious temper, storming in or out at the drop of a hat. She has been known to pull the cloth from a restaurant table, scattering everything to the floor before making her exit. Nowadays, she is spotted only rarely in her school, though rumour has it that she is always there, like a demanding ghost.

The nineteen-year-old Madonna Ciccone has just taken her first trip in an aeroplane. She arrives in New York City from Michigan, with $35 and a bag of dance tights, determined to make her name as a dancer. After she tells the cab driver to take her to the centre of everything, he drops her off in Times Square.

She auditions for a dance company, but fails. They tell her she has drive but no technique, and advise her to enrol in the Martha Graham Dance School. Within twenty-four hours she has signed up for beginners’ classes, paying her way by working in a fast-food restaurant.

‘I dug this place. The studios were Spartan, minimalist. Everyone whispered, so the only sounds you heard were the music and the instructors, and they spoke to you only when you were fucking up – which was pretty easy to do around there. It’s a difficult technique to learn. It’s physically brutal and there is no room for slouches … At one time in my life, I had fantasized about being a nun, and this was the closest I was ever going to get to convent life.’

The topic of Martha Graham provides the backdrop to every conversation. ‘I wanted to meet the mother superior, the woman responsible for all this.’ She hears that Graham visits the building often, and she even sits in on classes from time to time, either to check up on the teaching staff or to scout for talent. Madonna grows obsessed with meeting her, much as a visitor to Loch Ness might long to meet the monster. ‘She stayed pretty hidden. I had heard she was vain about growing old. Maybe she was really busy, or really shy, or both. But her presence was always felt, which only added to her mystique and to my longing to meet her … She had a serious Garbo vibe about her and seemed like she really wanted to be left alone.’

Madonna begins to daydream about running into her. ‘I was gonna be fearless and nonchalant. I would befriend her and get her to confess all the secrets of her soul.’

With this aim in mind, she signs on for extra classes, and lingers in the hallways in the hope of catching a glimpse. Sometimes, she invents excuses to enter the offices. And then, one day, quite by chance, it happens.

Madonna is in the middle of her 11 a.m. class. She has drunk too much coffee. Against the rules, she nips out ‘with my bladder at bursting point’. She heaves open the heavy door to the hallway and steps outside the classroom, only to find herself face to face with Martha Graham. ‘There she was, right in front of me, staring into my face. OK, not exactly in front of me, but my appearance must have taken her by surprise: no one ever left the tomb-like classrooms until classes were over.’

Graham stops dead in her tracks. Madonna is paralysed and, for the first time in her life, and possibly the last, struck dumb. ‘She was part Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. The rest of her was a cross between a Kabuki dancer and the nun I was obsessed with in the fifth grade, Sister Kathleen Thomas. In any case, I was overwhelmed, and all my plans to disarm her and win her over were swallowed up by my fear of a presence I’d never encountered before.’

Graham doesn’t say a word. ‘She just looked at me with what I thought was interest but was probably only disapproval. Her hair was pulled back severely, displaying a pale face made up like a porcelain doll. Her chin jutted out with arrogance and her eyes were like shiny brown immovable marbles. She was small and big at the same time.’

Madonna waits for words to spring from Martha Graham’s mouth, and daggers to fly out of her eyes. ‘I ignored the aching in my lower abdomen. I forgot that I had a big mouth and that I wasn’t afraid of anyone. This was my first true encounter with a goddess. A warrior. A survivor. Someone not to be fucked with.’

Martha Graham says nothing, but flicks her long skirts and disappears into a room, closing the door behind her. ‘Before I could clear my throat, she was gone. I was left shaking in my leotard, partly because I still had to go to the bathroom but most because I had encountered such an exquisite creature. I was truly dumbfounded … Much has happened in my life since then but nothing will diminish the memory of my first encounter with this woman – this life force.’

Ten years later, Madonna is by far the most famous female pop star in the world. Her performances incorporate elaborate dance routines: tense, percussive, sexually explicit. One day, someone from the Martha Graham Dance School contacts her office, saying that the school is facing bankruptcy. ‘Give it one day,’ comes the reply. The very next day, Madonna’s office rings back, offering $150,000. When Martha Graham, now aged ninety-four, is presented with the cheque, she bursts into tears.

MADONNA

INDUCES QUEASINESS IN

MICHAEL JACKSON

The Ivy restaurant, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles

March 15th 1991

Wondering who might be sufficiently glamorous to accompany her to the Academy Awards, where she is due to perform, Madonna has a brainwave. ‘How about Michael Jackson? Oh my God, what a great idea! Don’t you love it?’ she exclaims to her manager, Freddy DeMann, who used to manage him.

DeMann negotiates with Jackson, and reports back: he has managed to arrange a preliminary dinner. The two biggest-selling stars in the world are booked to meet at the Ivy in Beverly Hills, ten days before the ceremony.

In the past, Jackson has been puzzled by Madonna. Though he is an astute businessman, he can’t fathom her appeal. ‘She’s always in your face, isn’t she?’ he once complained to a friend. ‘I don’t get it. What is it about her? She’s not a great dancer or singer. But she does know how to market herself. That must be it.’

Two years ago, he was somewhat put out to discover that she was being advertised by Warner Brothers as the ‘Artist of the Decade’. It was only in a trade publication, but even so. ‘It makes me look bad,’ he explained. ‘I’m the artist of the decade, aren’t I? Did she outsell Thriller? No, she did not.’

At their table at the Ivy, Madonna wears a black jacket and hot-pants with lacy stockings. Around her neck hangs a crucifix. Jackson is wearing black jeans, a red shirt and matching jacket, topped off with a fedora. He keeps his dark glasses on.

‘I had my sunglasses on, and I’m sitting there, you know, trying to be nice. And the next thing I know, she reaches over and takes my glasses off. Nobody has ever taken my glasses off … And then she throws them across the room and breaks them. I was shocked. “I’m your date now,” she told me, “and I hate it when I can’t see a man’s eyes.” I didn’t much like that.’

As the dinner progresses, Madonna thinks she has spotted Michael Jackson taking a crafty peek at her breasts. Grinning, she snatches his hand and places it upon them. Jackson recoils. When all is said and done, this is not his style. But Madonna is not the kind of person to take no for an answer; later during their dinner, she saucily drops a piece of bread down her cleavage, then fishes it out and pops it into her mouth. The effect on Jackson is one of instant queasiness.

‘Oh my God, you should see the muscles on that woman! I mean, she’s got muscles in her arms way bigger than mine. They’re, like, rippling, you know? I wanted to know how she got muscles that big, but didn’t want to ask because I was afraid she’d make me show her my muscles.’

Their exploratory dinner at the Ivy cannot, therefore, be judged a great success, but at least it is not so disastrous as to derail their joint entrance at the Academy Awards ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Both of them have made an effort. They cut a dash together, Jackson in a white-sequinned suit with a large diamond brooch, plus gloves and gold-tipped cowboy boots, Madonna preferring a Marilyn Monroe look, with a skin-tight low-cut gown, also white-sequinned, and $20 million-worth of jewels, on overnight loan from Harry Winston.

Afterwards, they go to Swifty Lazar’s annual Oscar night party at Spago. As she is making her entrance, Madonna is asked by a Hollywood reporter how she managed to convince the normally reclusive Michael Jackson to accompany her. ‘Oh, Michael’s coming out more,’ she replies. Cynics detect a sneaky joke.

Once inside Spago and away from the cameras, it is not long before Madonna drifts towards her former lover Warren Beatty, leaving Jackson all alone. He is rescued by his old friend Diana Ross. ‘Well, I just don’t understand it, Michael,’ Ross says loudly, so that everyone can hear. ‘I mean, she’s supposed to be with you, isn’t she? So, what is she doing with him?’