Move Conjures Spirit of ‘Divine’ Graham

As the official Martha Graham Dance Company and school were being closed in New York, the unofficial Martha was opening at Highways in Santa Monica Thursday night. Richard Move, as the ghost of grande dame Graham, was in full poetic flower in his “Divine Normal,” an hourlong dance-pastiche-comedy-homage to the mother of modern dance.

For several years, Move has been honing his Martha persona at a small New York club named Mother, often touring, and garnering Graham fans and newcomers to her legend. Wearing an Everest-size bun and faux-Halston gowns, he is an uncanny incarnation of the sweeping, public Graham at her loftiest--calling dancers “acrobats of God”--and at her cattiest--twitching dramatically each time the word “postmodern” comes up.

When dancers arch their backs, he intones, reading a passage from Graham’s autobiography, they might want to “think of Joan of Arc resisting a sword that is piercing her chest.” When’s the last time you heard anyone talk about dancing that way? His stories (often word-for-word from documented sources) are the heart of the show, which also features film clips of Graham herself, and a few blenderized mini-versions of her works, with a tiny supporting cast (former Graham dancer Susan McLain and current company member Jennifer Binford).

The mood hovers between reverence and irreverence in a way that proves thought-provoking. Move’s reverently eccentric imitation takes the edge off earnest declarations of the early modern dance era and in some way prepares us for finding truth under melodrama. So that when Binford demonstrates Graham technique as Move speaks her words--that she saw the heavens in a contraction and the Earth when she released it--we can cheerfully choose to believe in the power Graham expected dance to have.

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Move’s own solos, using some actual steps from “Appalachian Spring” or “‘Night Journey”--but not too many--are less riveting; he’s more like Norma Desmond dancing Graham, full of misplaced majesty. His power is in narrating and bringing back the noble aspirations of Graham by giving her another run, in another age. Still, his last faux solo of the evening, a brief “Lamentation,” has a particular appeal. Between the folds of the sheathing purple costume, you can see Move’s bare, male chest, and it becomes an unexpected testament to Graham’s message--that deeply felt emotions, honestly offered, are universal.

Days after Graham’s legitimate progeny are in danger of disappearing for good, the message Move embodies is that it never hurts to take another look at a divinely normal phenomenon, from another angle.

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* Richard Move in “Divine Normal,” Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Tonight-Sunday, 8:30 p.m. $16. (310) 315-1459.