Diversion of Angels, originally titled Wilderness Stair, premiered at the Palmer Auditorium of Connecticut College on August 13, 1948. The title, as well as a set piece designed by Isamu Noguchi suggestive of desert terrain, was discarded after the first performance, and the dance was reconceived as a plotless ballet. Diversion of Angels is set to a romantic score by Norman Dello Joio and takes its themes from the infinite aspects of love. The Couple in Red embodies romantic love and “the ecstasy of the contraction”; the Couple in White, mature love; and the Couple in Yellow, a flirtatious and adolescent love. 

Martha Graham recalled that when she first saw the work of the modern artist Wassily Kandinsky, she was astonished by his use of color, a bold slash of red across a blue background. She determined to make a dance that would express this. Diversion of Angels is that dance, and the Girl in Red, dashing across the stage, is the streak of red paint bisecting the Kandinsky canvas.     —ELLEN GRAFF