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Why did Martha Graham begin adding male dancers to her company?
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Martha Graham
Martha Graham performing “Letter to the World” (also called “The Kick”), 1940.
For more than 10 years, Martha Graham’s dance company consisted exclusively of women. She began incorporating male dancers into her company because her evolving artistic themes required them.1
She first engaged Erick Hawkins, a ballet dancer, to join her company, and he appeared alongside her in the major work American Document in 1938.1