The Martha Graham Dance Company, the oldest dance company in the United States, announces the third season of GRAHAM100, a celebration of the company formed 100 years ago by visionary choreographer Martha Graham.

Known as one of the most influential artistic forces of the 20th century, Martha Graham presented her first performance with a supporting group of dancers on April 18, 1926. In the ensuing century, over 400 dancers have performed as members of the Graham Company. Graham’s groundbreaking and uniquely American style of dance has influenced generations of artists while captivating audiences worldwide.

The 2025-26 season is the culmination of a three-year celebration featuring an extensive series of programs and events exploring the diversity and depth of Graham’s artistic legacy. The new season will include engagements at major venues across the US and internationally featuring Martha Graham masterworks Night Journey, Chronicle, Appalachian Spring, Cave of the Heart, Errand into the Maze, Lamentation, and Diversion of Angels. The season also continues the Company’s mission of presenting works by some of today’s most exciting choreographers, bringing Graham’s work in conversation with a new generation of dance makers.

The season features a world premiere by acclaimed choreographer Hope Boykin featuring a short, recently discovered piece of music by Leonard Bernstein created for Martha Graham in the 1980s. The music will be expanded into a new score and paired with a new arrangement of excerpts from Bernstein’s MASS including Simple Song. The new work and arrangement will be created by conductor/composer Christopher Rountree, Founder and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles orchestral collective Wild Up.

The 2025-26 season also includes a highly anticipated exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts curated by choreographer and writer Jack Ferver, a two-part PBS documentary, a new book of photography from NYC Dance Project, Graham/Noguchi set exhibitions, a collaboration between the Graham Company and PHILADANCO!, new documentation of the codified Graham Technique, as well as discussions and educational activities that build on the Company’s legacy of innovation and its present and future vision based on this incomparable legacy.

During this historic 100th season, in early 2026, the Graham Company, School, Archives, and Offices will move into their new home at 1501 Broadway. Executive Director, LaRue Allen has overseen the acquisition of the space, which will be reconfigured to accommodate six dance studios as well as dressing rooms, a reception space, and other support areas. The redesign was planned by MBB Architects and includes three-story ceilings in three of the studios as well as a black box theater that will seat 150 audience members.

“Our Company’s centennial rests on the shoulders of the earliest Graham acolytes—the handful of young women, many of them first-generation Americans, who gave life to Martha’s radical, new style of dance,” says Artistic Director Janet Eilber. “In the 1930s, they embarked on our first transcontinental tour, bringing the little-known, frequently misunderstood, and often dismissed new art form to skeptical audiences from Tallahassee to Vancouver.”

“I think of these dancers as I marvel at the extraordinary breadth and depth of our worldwide centennial celebration. Filmmakers, designers, photographers, curators, composers, choreographers, and of course, dancers of every age and ability around the world are honoring this milestone for American art—a testament not only to Martha’s genius and enduring influence, but to those early company members and to all who have followed in their footsteps. I couldn’t be more proud to count myself among them.”

Fall 2025

This fall, the Company will premiere En Masse by Hope Boykin using two new musical works. The first, For Martha (Variations on a Theme by Leonard Bernstein), which includes original music by Bernstein with additional composition by Christopher Rountree, is inspired by a short, unknown piece of music that Bernstein created for Graham. The second, Suite for Dance from MASS, is a new arrangement of excerpts from Bernstein’s MASS, also by Rountree.

In the late 1980s, Graham and Bernstein, two giants of the 20th century, began working together to create a new work based on Graham’s lost dance from 1938, American Document. For unknown reasons, the collaboration was never completed. The Graham Company’s centennial seemed like the perfect time to bring this posthumous/new collaboration together. Both Christopher Rountree, a three-time Grammy-nominated composer regarded as one of the most iconoclastic conductors and programmers in classical music, and Thor Steingraber, Executive Director of The Soraya in Northridge, CA, where this new work will premiere on October 4, 2025, are longtime Graham Company partners. Two-time Bessie Award winner Hope Boykin, who danced with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for two decades, has both danced in and choreographed versions of the complete MASS in the course of her stellar career, including for the 50th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS at the Kennedy Center in 2022.

Also in October, the Company will celebrate the publication of Martha Graham Dance Company: 100 Years (Black Dog & Leventhal), a photographic tribute to Graham’s profound creative legacy. Fine art photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory (NYC Dance Project) capture the beauty and the precision of the dancers who carry Graham’s mantle today, recreating moments from 24 of her most celebrated works, from Lamentation to Maple Leaf Rag, with notes on inspiration, costume, and set design. The photos are supported by archival images of Graham and her original dancers and text on her collaboration with Noguchi.

Spring 2026

From January to late March 2026, an exhibition featuring Graham and her collaborators will be on view at The Church, an art and residency center in Sag Harbor, NY. Curated by Oliver Tobin, former Graham dancer and director of the Graham Resources for several years, under the guidance of Executive Director of The Church Sheri Pasquarella, the exhibition will include sets, costumes, music, and other ephemera showcasing the notable artistic partnerships that took place in the course of the Company’s history.

In April 2026, PBS will air a two-part, three-hour documentary about the Company’s history and current work. Produced by Partisan Pictures, directors Peter Schnall and Cyndee Readdean have been embedded with the Company since mid-2022 and have created an in-depth portrait that includes extended danced segments from rehearsals and performances as well as interviews with many generations of Graham artists.

The Company’s New York season at New York City Center, April 9-12, 2026, will feature three of Graham’s greatest masterworks, Night Journey, Chronicle, and Appalachian Spring, each with iconic stage designs by sculptor Isamu Noguchi. The New York premiere of En Masse by Hope Boykin and Christopher Rountree will be presented along with recent works created for the Company by Jamar Roberts, Hofesh Shechter, and Baye & Asa. The classic Graham scores will once again be brought to life by the Mannes Orchestra led by conductor David Hayes.

The GRAHAM100 Gala Weekend April 17-19, 2026, will celebrate the Company’s founding on April 18, 1926. The party will begin on April 17 with pop-up performances, cocktails, dinner, and dancing. On April 18 and 19 free interactive activities, classes, film showings, performances, guest star appearances and much more are planned in the Company’s new home at 1501 Broadway.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will mount an exhibit to celebrate the Graham Company’s 100th anniversary. Curated by choreographer and writer Jack Fever, the exhibition opens at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center on May 20, 2026. The show will display rarely seen archival materials from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division’s Martha Graham collection, and offer insight into the genius and legacy of Graham and her Company. Several programs at the Library for the Performing Arts will accompany the exhibition, which runs through November 7, 2026.

In May 2026, the world premiere of in case of fire, speak will be presented as part of three performances at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia. ArtPhilly, the organization behind the inaugural citywide multidisciplinary arts festival, What Now: 2026, and the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts have co-commissioned this collaboration between the Graham Company and Philadelphia’s top contemporary dance company, PHILADANCO! Choreographer Tommie-Waheed Evans is creating the work for eight dancers, four from each company, inspired by American Document, a work Graham created in 1938 in reaction to the rise of fascism in Europe. in case of fire, speak will be accompanied by an exhibit featuring archival materials from Graham’s 1938 work and from the legacies of both of these storied American dance companies.

2026 will also see the release of Martha Graham Dance Technique: Intermediate/Advanced Level. This final installment of three comprehensive instructional videos documenting and analyzing the Martha Graham Technique will help secure it for generations to come. The 10-year project is produced by Babette Coffey Fisch and Jeanne Suggs for Dance Spotlight with oversight and direction from Graham experts Miki Orihara and the late Susan Kikuchi.

Two Graham/Noguchi set exhibitions featuring the groundbreaking designs Isamu Noguchi created for Graham’s Seraphic Dialogue in 1955 will take place in 2026 at the High Museum, Atlanta, GA (April 10-August 2, 2026), and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (September 2026-January 2027).

As part of Graham Everywhere, several companies have licensed works from the Company’s extensive repertoire including The Royal Ballet, Miami City Ballet, LA Dance Project, and Orlando Ballet. Throughout 2025-26, Graham works will be performed by English National Ballet (Errand into the Maze), The Joffrey Ballet Chicago (Secular Games), Texas Ballet Theater (Diversion of Angels), Repertory Dance Theater (Dark Meadow Suite), Eugene Ballet Company (Dark Meadow Suite), Malpaso Dance Company (Dark Meadow Suite), The Juilliard School (Diversion of Angels), Purchase College (Dark Meadow Suite), Point Park University (Panorama), and Boston Conservatory (Diversion of Angels).

The dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company are So Young An, Ane Arrieta, Laurel Dalley Smith, Zachary Jeppsen-Toy, Meagan King, Lloyd Knight, Antonio Leone, Devin Loh, Marzia Memoli, Amanda Moreira, Isabella Pagano, Ethan Palma, Jai Perez, Anne Souder, Richard Villaverde, Leslie Andrea Williams, and Xin Ying.

For Martha Graham Dance Company’s 2025-2026 Tour Schedule, go to: www.marthagraham.org/events.