The Priestess Speaks

Loyal Martha Graham cultists usually blame themselves if they fail to understand their high priestess. Less devoted followers of the No. 1 woman of modern dance are only apt to be confused as they wander desperately through her cryptic program notes to see what she is trying to tell them. Last week, to packed houses in Manhattan, Dance-Dramatist Graham unleashed two new messages for the cultists, the confused and the curious.

In Cave of the Heart, done to music by Samuel Barber, Choreographer Graham stalked deep into dark Freudian corridors. Using the Medea legend as a starting "state of mind," she did a dance "of possessive and destroying love, a love which feeds upon itself and, when it is overthrown, is fulfilled only in revenge." Actually, the dance spoke for itself, and well: nobody needed program notes to interpret her hard, sure movements of jealous hatred.

The second new ballet, Errand into the Maze, was more maze than message. Shallow music by Gian-Carlo Menotti did not help to make Martha's journey into the labyrinth (of the heart) and the battle with the Minotaur (Creature of Fear) any more intelligible or rewarding.

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