MARTHA GRAHAM CENTER COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

Safe Haven

• Center employees will continue to explore important DEI issues with the assistance of experienced consultants.
• Center staff are now engaged in Paradigm’s REACH anti-bias training. The program will soon be extended to include all employees.
• The Center will establish a Student Council and Company Committee that will support discussion on topics of concern, including DEI.
• Avenues will be available to raise employee concerns confidentially, including at the Board level, to ensure that all such concerns are heard. The Center’s DEI Officer will be available by phone or email.

Representation

• The Board and staff commit to raising contributions that will support BIPOC scholarships at the School and BIPOC fellowship opportunities within the Company.
• Center hiring and Board recruitment efforts will focus on attracting underrepresented groups.
• Learn more about diversity on our Board of Trustees
  • Graham welcomes its new Vice Chairman Javier Morgado, Executive Producer at CNN and a proud Cuban-American.
  • The Center is thrilled to have Stephen Rooks, former star of the Graham Company and current member of Vassar’s dance faculty serving on the Board. Steve brings the valuable perspectives of a Black artist working in dance.
  • Con Way Ling, a graduate of the Graham School and a strategic thinker on issues facing institutions, serves on the School Committee as well as the Board.
  • The Center is grateful to Christine Jowers for her leadership on the Artistic Committee. Her Puerto Rican and Caribbean heritage informs her thinking around DEI.
• …and on stage, we look forward to offering our new Canticle for Innocent Comedians with a jazz score by Jason Moran created by this diverse collection of artists, under the direction of Janet Eilber

Accountability

• Peer to peer feedback will be encouraged, as will dialogue designed to interrupt any bias in a constructive and not harmful way.
• All Center agreements and contracts will require organizational and artistic partners to observe the Center’s DEI policies.

The Martha Graham Center is the world leader in the evolving artform of modern dance and is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the organization. Martha Graham was the first to employ a racially diverse company of dancers. During her lifetime, she refused to alter choreography or casting to accommodate prejudice and, for example, while on tour vowed to cancel performances unless Spellman College students received tickets. She flatly refused a lucrative invitation to perform at the 1936 Olympic Games, standing up to Nazi racism, saying that she could not travel to a country where members of her Company would not be welcome, nor be associated with Hitler’s repressive regime. Today, we at the Company and School are inspired by her principled example as we continue to grow in our understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion.