A step-by-step guide to the Martha Graham Technique

The Martha Graham Technique, explained

It's considered the first codified modern dance technique and a foundational pillar of American dance. In this 1975 instructional film, its namesake explains how the Graham Technique works. "As you can see," she notes, "the body is capable of almost endless variations and combinations once it is trained."

A visual biography of Martha Graham

This history of the modern dancer's life uses archival photos and videos to illustrate how Graham's childhood, especially her upbringing by a psychiatrist and her early dance performance, set the stage for her career.

Martha Graham on preparation and discipline

This clip from the 1957 documentary "A Dancer's World" features the dancer explaining why she's committed all of her energy to her art. "Spontaneity … is something arrived at over years and years of training," she says, "it is not a mere chance."

Martha Graham's revolutionary approach to choreography

The dancer and choreographer created a uniquely American form of ballet that brought together stories from the country's history, abstract expressionism, modern psychological ideas, and collaborations with other major artists.

Watch Martha Graham perform 'Heretic'

The 1929 piece features Graham in white, expressively dancing on her own, flanked by 12 dancers in black who follow a more rigid choreography. Some critics have argued the piece was an allegory for Graham's rebellion against ballet's strict traditions.

Exploring Martha Graham's 'love of the body'

The innovative choreographer encouraged her dancers to tune into their bodies' natural movements. According to Dr. Kimerer L. LaMothe, author of "What the Body Knows," that kind of mindfulness made them better able to communicate a piece's symbolic meaning.

How the Martha Graham Company experiments with technology

The dance company was the first major group to livestream rehearsals and has collaborated with Google on a version of Graham's "Lamentation" that superimposes past performances on the present-day dancer.

Listen to the last-known interview with Martha Graham

Reporter Michael Small interviewed the influential choreographer and dancer in 1989 for People magazine, two years before she died, and features the 95-year-old looking back on her life and career. If you want to skip ahead to the raw audio, jump to 26:40.

Unpacking 'Night Journey,' Martha Graham's take on a Greek myth

The dance piece was inspired by the story of Oedipus, as well as by more contemporary psychoanalytic theories from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. This JSTOR article explores how Graham's show merged those texts with her singular approach to movement to explore gender and identity.

Watch Helen Keller visit Martha Graham's studio

The two women were friends, and Keller eventually visited Graham's studio while her company was rehearsing. In this footage of that encounter, Graham shows Keller the shape of her choreography.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Lady Gaga studied the Abramovic Method

The Abramović Method compiles Abramović’s own learnings and gives instructions to other artists for remaining present and grounded. Pop star Lady Gaga learned the method and cited it as a huge influence on her work.

Watch this how-to video series on how to start strength training

Mayo Clinic put together a collection of videos demonstrating how to get started with strength training, including with exercises like step-ups, abdominal crunches, and more. The Mayo Clinic advises people to try to engage in these exercises working all the major muscles at least twice a week. It also encourages people to inhale and exhale fully between each repetition—inhaling during the less strenuous part of the exercise.

A graffiti artist breaks down the fundamentals of the form

Graffiti is more than just tagging a name. Legendary street artist Carlos Mare, also known as Mare 139, breaks down how to paint several of the form's popular styles and motifs, from quickly drawn throwies to intricately planned masterpieces.

Making Champagne from start to finish

This video from wine educator Amelia Singer covers everything from grape to glass. She’ll walk you through pressing the fruit, fermentation, aging, disgorgement, and, of course, drinking.

How the moon moves, an interactive lesson

How exactly does the moon move, and why does it move that way? In this ridiculously comprehensive interactive explainer, you can conduct experiments to see how the moon rotates and as it moves around the Earth, while learning how gravity works by controlling the path and speed of different objects. Dive into this beautiful, simple explainer to learn the basics on gravity and the moon.

Grandmaster Flash’s DJing masterclass

For some people, DJing is nothing more than pressing play on a few songs, but for hip-hop DJs, it’s a precise art form that requires real skill. Need proof? Watch this 1983 tutorial from Grandmaster Flash, one of the genre’s pioneering DJs, as he walks you through beatmatching and mixing on his spartan set-up of two turntables and a basic mixer.

A beginner's guide to the music of Billie Holiday

This primer from NPR breaks down some of the best entry points for newcomers to the jazz legend. From iconic tracks like "Strange Fruit" to deeper but essential late-era songs, the list offers a blueprint for appreciating Holiday before jumping into the deep end of her sprawling discography.

Goose bumps require a surprisingly complex series of steps

Watch an anatomical breakdown of how goose bumps work—featuring real skin from a human cadaver, a segmented brain, and a detailed anatomical model of the skin—to learn about all the jargon behind goose bump science. (Warning: Includes graphic footage of cadaver skin.)

A step-by-step guide to attending the opera

Opera attendance has dwindled in recent decades, leaving some modern operagoers unaware of the traditional etiquette for attending. This how-to video instructs attendees on appreciating the music, dressing appropriately, and choosing the best seats.

A beginner's guide to creating your own NFT

It took 12 hours and three different Apple devices, but this 30-something poet successfully minted her first NFT, and so can you. Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating an NFT.

Browse a collection of Harlem Renaissance poetry

This guide from the Poetry Foundation walks you through the movement's major poems, including works by writers like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Anne Spencer, James Weldon Johnson, and more. Helpfully, it's organized them into four major eras, allowing you to analyze the movement's steady evolution.

An in-depth analysis of Augusta National, the home of the Masters

This in-depth analysis of Augusta National Golf Club, the famed site of the annual Masters Tournament, breaks down the course's complex greens and tricky layout. Golf Digest editor Luke Kerr-Dineen walks viewers through the course's green book, demonstrating just how difficult Augusta is compared to other courses. More than anything, it gives you some context to better understand why your favorite golfers might struggle with the course's punishing slopes.

A guide to the MBA admissions process

From taking the GMAT or GRE to securing letters of recommendation from academic and professional references, the business school application can be a lengthy one. This article from the Princeton Review highlights the key things you need to do to apply to most MBA programs in the US.

Pickleball combines elements of tennis, badminton, and table tennis

In this video, That Pickleball Guy walks you through the serve and two-bounce rules, what is “the kitchen,” and teaches five ways to win a rally.

Learn how the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade comes together each year

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is essentially a huge theatrical production spanning several long blocks in New York City rather than a stage. Naturally, organizing it is a complicated process. This podcast episode explains how the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade comes together each year.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace