Page 49 - Studio Interantional - May 1967

Embattled Garden (1958) is one of a series of lyrical
dramas created by Martha Graham. The theme is the
Garden of Eden and the characters are Adam and
Eve, Lillith and The Stranger, who is the serpent.
For this ballet Noguchi made two abstract
metaphors of natural forms. The undulating tree in
which The Stranger lives, is a gaunt, vicious, spiked
structure, redolent of the prickly danger of its
inhabitant. Adam and Eve live in a thicket of green
poles, a dual structure which again stresses the
harsh, uncompromising character of nature, or of
God. Together both these sculptures aptly spell out
the title of the ballet. As in all Graham-Noguchi
collaborations the setting is not merely a decorative
stage accretion against which the action and the
dancers' bodies move. The Stranger uses his tree to
spy on and entice Adam and Eve, imprisoned,
trapped, martyred in their thicket.

The setting for Acrobats of God (1960) is a long,
horse-shoe shaped, narrow slab, raised on six metal
legs. Noguchi designed the ballet as a caricature of
a dance studio and a choreographer's workshop,
with the traditional barre raised to an improbable
height. This matches Martha Graham's satirical
intention, but both choreographer and designer give
it an extra edge of menace-indicated in the
boomerang-like form of the structure. The ballet has
a circus theme with a 'ring-master' whipping,
goading the performers. Noguchi's sculpture is fully
integrated into the shape and narrative of the dance-
a barrier between the protagonists, a platform, and,
in one sequence, seen in this photograph, a
component of a complex design made up of the
bodies and feet of eight dancers.