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Martha Graham Dance company has one foot in the past and the other in the future. As it gets ready for its upcoming season at the Skirball Center it's finessing one of Graham's most upbeat pieces, "The Maple Leaf Rag," which features dancer Blakeley White-McGuire.

"The folklore is that Graham made this piece when she was kind of coming out a darker period and she was seeing life and she was seeing youth in her dancers and she was seeing like a little more optimistically," says White-McGuire.

Youth was also forefront in the recent feature film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which features Graham dancer Katherine Crockett as Cate Blanchett's dancer double.

"I drew a lot from my Graham background because that scene is very expressive," says Crockett. "It's her trying to explain to him this thing that's inside of her, her passion and what she does and what she's found in New York and which was kind of my character in my life, I could relate to that."

Artistic director Janet Eilber says the highlight for the upcoming season is the 50th anniversary production of "Clytemnestra," Graham's only evening-length ballet.

"I don't want to make it sound too heavy. We've got the murder of the king, the murder of the queen, the sacrificial virgin," says Eilber.

If ancient Greek tragedy seems a little bit our of your league, don't worry. For the first time ever, Martha Graham Dance Company is including supertitles in the production.

Another way the company is trying to make the work accessible is through their online video competition called the "Clytemnestra ReMash Challenge."

"We challenged people to download solos from Martha Graham and remix them and create new art. Look at MarthaGrahamProjects.com, you can see the re-mashed videos," says Eilber.

Martha Graham, founded by the groundbreaking modern dancer in 1927, is the oldest dance company in the United States, but continues to innovate for the future on the dance floor and off.

For more information about the Martha Graham Dance Company, visit MarthaGraham.org. The Skirball Center shows are on Tuesday, May 12 and Wednesday, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. and Friday, May 15 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, May 16 at 2 and 8 p.m. The gala on Thursday, May 14 at 7:00 p.m. honors Paul Szilard. Regular tickets cost between $35 and $65 and are available through the Skirball Box Office at 1-212-352-3101 and online at www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu.