Night Journey (ballet)

Night Journey is a Martha Graham ballet performed to music by William Schuman with costumes designed by Graham and a set by Isamu Noguchi. Commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation of the Library of Congress, the work premiered on May 3, 1947, at Cambridge High School in Boston, Massachusetts.Night Journey is the third of Graham's dances derived from Greek mythology, following Cave of the Heart and Errand into the Maze.

Graham based the 30-minute-long ballet on a fragment of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Original program notes explain "the action takes place in Jocasta's heart at the instant when she recognizes the ultimate terms of her destiny."

The original cast members were Graham in the role of Queen Jocasta and Erick Hawkins as King Oedipus. Mark Ryder as the blind Seer (Tiresias) was accompanied by the Daughters of the Night (Furies), a chorus of six women: Pearl Lang, Yuriko, Ethel Winter, Helen McGehee, Natanya Neumann and Joan Skinner.

The piece opens with Jocasta standing at extreme stage right illuminated in a conical spotlight. She twists slowly, holding aloft a loop of rope with which she intends to kill herself. At the first performance, a sustained note from the orchestra's horns created a mood of impending doom. But, when the sound ceased, Jocasta recoiled in horror. Hastening to her room, she collapsed on the bridal bed. The ballet was reworked shortly after its debut. In the revised version, Jocasta's suicidal thoughts are interrupted by the entrance of the Seer, followed by the Furies. After wrestling briefly with the oracle, she retreats to her bed to assess her life.

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