Ballet

Appalachian Spring

0 upcoming performances in New York

Martha Graham’s *Appalachian Spring* (1944), set to a score commissioned from Aaron Copland, distills a spare American parable of building a life on new ground, with design shaped by Isamu Noguchi. The music’s later concert suite helped fix Copland’s sound in the public ear, and the full ballet remains a touchstone in Graham’s repertory. In New York, it stands as a key marker of modern dance’s mid-century rise and the city’s role in presenting Graham’s work. One clear achievement is how its restraint makes belief, doubt, and hope legible without plot-heavy narration.