Martha Graham:  Martha Graham was an American dancer and choreographer. She is regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance and is widely considered as among the greatest artists of the 20th Century. She invented a new language of movement and used it to reveal the passion, the rage and the ecstasy common to human experience. She danced and choreographed for over seventy years. She was the first dancer ever to perform at The White House, the first dancer ever to travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and the first dancer ever to receive the highest civilian award the Medal of Freedom. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But never-the-less it is inevitable." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham).