Just now, Jacqulyn Buglisi and Donlin Foreman don’t want to talk about their ten years as director/choreographers of the Buglisi/Foreman Dance Company or their international reputation. Or about their eighteen magnificently trained dancers, some of whom are also in the present Graham Company. Or their rave reviews from every major critic (“stunning, extravagant and beautiful,” The New York Times), or their tours in Europe, Australia, India, and Scotland. They want to share their deepest thoughts about dance. They have flown straight but far beyond the chrysalis of the Martha Graham Contemporary Dance Company from which they emerged. “Martha instilled in us,” they say in one voice, “the need to continue to continue. We are always, in dance, living in the moment and living in the future. But we are ourselves, in this place and at this time. Full of the experiences of our past, yet not in imitation of it.”

Past experiences for Foreman come from 1977 to 1994 in the Graham and Eliot Feld companies, where he discovered his lyricism in movement through music. As poet, philosopher, teacher, Donlin respects the “collective unconscious that runs through all humanity. Archetypes. Myths. Those things are part of the human experience and are present in all of us. It is the root of our strength, but it did not come from Martha. It came from mankind. It takes a desire to touch the heart of the collective unconscious. It is our desire. It is that same lineage that moves forward through us. You can inherit a legacy, be part of it, learn from it, without imitating it. That’s what we do.”