My personal introduction to Marta occurred almost 50 years ago, when I was a pre-teen in Junior High in California. Marlena Oden and Jeremy Lintz’s slide-show of STH’s “Live Arts in Death Valley” weekendįilm-maker Femi Agana’s short film of “Space Walk”, a desert dance improvisation adapted from Nancy Topf ‘s work The initial impetus for producing “LIVE ARTS in DEATH VALLEY” was to pay homage to maverick octogenarian ballerina/painter, Marta Becket, and to help raise money to keep her vision, the hotel and the opera house afloat.Īfter we received her mimeographed newsletter asking for donations (it’s 2012 mind you) my old friend Ellynne Skove – another big Marta fan – and I came up with a scheme for a STH weekend arts retreat in the desert that in the end raised $10,000 for Marta and allowed us to “experience” her and her vision in person. She also performed and only retired in February 2012 at the age of 88.In January 2013, over 30 Spoke the Hub artists, students, friends and family members from both the east and west coasts converged on the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel in Death Valley, CA for a magical weekend that few of us will ever forget. Marta never left! She renamed the theatre Amargosa Opera House and spent the next decades, restoring, painting and refining. Walking down the long colonnade of what was known as the Amargosa Hotel, she was hypnotically drawn around the corner where she discovered the largest building in the row, a theatre. They awoke one morning to a flat tire and while her husband attended to the tire at the gas station in Death Valley Junction, Marta began to explore the old adobe buildings of the company town. They decided to spend a week's vacation camping in Death Valley.

Marta and her husband found themselves in California, in the spring of 1967, after months of touring. Which is exactly what she did and she took her solo show on the road. This woman was Marta Becket and she really wanted to dance her own dances, design her own costumes and create her own show. She appeared in 'Showboat', 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' and 'A Wonderful Town'. Meanwhile, a young woman danced at Radio City Music Hall and on Broadway.

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