“The Drama” utilizes movement from the Graham repertory, particularly female roles which you have never performed with the company, although perhaps that is set to change: You recently became the first man to perform Graham's iconic “Lamentation” for Dance Against Cancer in May of 2024. What was that experience like, and what is it like embodying traditionally female roles? 

That was wild for me. I had seen that work so many times, and I felt like I had always watched it with appreciation, but until I was in that tube and sitting on the bench, I hadn't realized the depth of that work and the importance of it. 

I opened it on the program at New York City Center, so I really wanted to make sure that it held up. It was a beautiful, beautiful experience. It really reminded me of Martha's genius and the impact that the piece made when it premiered. To know that it still lives today, it's just incredible. 

As a male dancer in the Graham Company, there's a joke that the guys always want to do the female solos because they're so fierce! But, when you really look at these roles and think about why the characters are doing what they're doing, that realization shocked me a lot. 

“The Drama” references so many Graham works, including “Errand into the Maze,” “Clytemnestra,” and others. “Seraphic Dialogue” [Graham's accounting of the spiritual journey of Joan of Arc] was one I hadn't seen as much as I've seen other Graham dances, but when I sat down and looked at the vocabulary and the meanings of each character, I really could connect to each character that she has in there. 

For example, the warrior character, she's just constantly—no matter what—always fighting for the bigger goal. I can obviously relate to that as a dancer: Every day you are pushing yourself, and it's not smooth. It's just a constant push for what you want. It's not always easy, but you just keep on going. 

You state that the piece “lays bare what it takes both physically and psychologically to pursue a life in dance.” How does this realize itself in the dance?  

There's one section that uses music by Julius Eastman, and I describe that section as a realistic view of what dance entails: the roughness of it, the struggles, the passion of it. [In this section,] I'm coming out with less costume on than the Martha section, and I'm really fighting for movement. It’s very hard! So, you see moments where I'm literally just trying my best to do a movement and it might not work out. 

There's another moment where I do a series of standing falls [a challenging movement in the Graham technique where a dancer uses a contraction to fall backwards to the ground]. For me, that demonstrates the drive year after year, day after day, of just going for this thing. Kind of like a hamster in a wheel, day after day going after this thing until it's just enough. 

Speaking of a continuous drive, you are entering your 20th anniversary as a member of the Graham Company. How has this struggle that you mentioned changed over the years? Has it increased, decreased, stayed the same? 

It has stayed the same. I really enjoy doing outside work, but the work we do within in the Graham Company has really helped me to stay present and enjoy my time there doing Graham classics, but also working with new choreographers. 

For me, the hunger is still there to move. I'm still very much enticed by the Graham legacy, the Graham work. 

It’s always searching, just digging deeper. People throughout my career have always been asking how long I'd stay, when I will leave, and I say, “I don’t know! When I've had enough.”