skin of a character, to get a feel for what Martha was trying to say about in particular what this woman was, what she represents. We had already talked about the idea that it’s not just one woman, but it is a depiction of every woman in all parts of the world. It’s very archetypical in size, whether it’s a solo of this kind, or one of Martha’s Greek myths doing Medea. Medea’s also archetypal in size, just depicting very different sides of who we are as human beings. Jealousy, rage—we all have that, and that was what Medea was about. Deep Song happened to be at a time when the Spanish Civil War was going on. When we started working, we couldn’t find the music. Just as an aside, the music, years later, when Martha was already dead, and it was when we were moving, so it had to be the late nineties, the actual score for Deep Song was found behind a desk on the floor, it must have fallen. This was in an office in the Graham Center, and I have a copy of it now. But I never tried to play it, or have anybody play it, or listen to it, because what Martha did with me in that studio for all that time was what she wanted it to be. So there was no reason to change the music or try to bring it back because Martha was no longer there. The process with Martha was very grueling because Martha had also told me at one point that for her, doing a piece on one of her soloists was so much harder than doing a piece for twelve people. And for me, too, it is easier if ten people are all sitting there brainstorming, moving around for Martha while she’s sitting there talking to us, but to be the only person as a receptive body with Martha trying to figure out what she’s looking for, what she needs, and to deal with that choreographic frustration—it was hard. But it was, in the long run, a very fulfilling process with her. It was long; it was grueling. I would come in with phrases of movement and show her things and she would mold it, or have me do things that she remembered, just in terms of the feeling, like I told you when I made that very direct stance forward with a very direct focus of strength in the spine.

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