Modern dance is a broad genre of westernconcert or theatrical dance which includes dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was considered to have been developed as a rejection of, or rebellion against,classical ballet, and also a way to express social concerns like socioeconomic and cultural factors.[1][2][3]
In the late 19th century, modern dance artists such asIsadora Duncan,Maud Allan, andLoie Fuller were pioneering new forms and practices in what is now called improvisational orfree dance. These dancers disregarded ballet's strict movement vocabulary (the particular, limited set of movements that were considered proper to ballet) and stopped wearing corsets and pointe shoes in the search for greater freedom of movement.[3]
Throughout the 20th century, sociopolitical concerns, major historical events, and the development of other art forms contributed to the continued development of modern dance in the United States and Europe. Moving into the 1960s, new ideas about dance began to emerge as a response to earlier dance forms and to social changes. Eventually,postmodern dance artists would reject the formalism of modern dance, and include elements such asperformance art,contact improvisation,release technique, and improvisation.[3][4]
Modern dance has evolved with each subsequent generation of participating artists. Artistic content has morphed and shifted from one choreographer to another, as have styles and techniques. Artists such as Graham and Horton developed techniques in the Central Modern period that are still taught worldwide and numerous other types of modern dance exist today.[1][2]
Modern dance is often considered to have emerged as a rejection of, or rebellion against,classical ballet, although historians have suggested that socioeconomic changes in both the United States and Europe helped to initiate shifts in the dance world. In America, increasingindustrialization, the rise of a middle class (which had more disposable income and free time), and the decline ofVictorian social strictures led to, among other changes, a new interest in health and physical fitness.[6] "It was in this atmosphere that a 'new dance' was emerging as much from a rejection of social structures as from a dissatisfaction with ballet."[7] During that same period, "the champions of physical education helped to prepare the way for modern dance, andgymnastic exercises served as technical starting points for young women who longed to dance."[8]Women's colleges began offering "aesthetic dance" courses by the end of the 1880s.[9]Emil Rath, who wrote at length about this emerging art form at the time stated,
"Music and rhythmic bodily movement are twin sisters of art, as they have come into existence simultaneously...today we see in the artistic work of Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, and others the use of a form of dancing which strives to portray in movements what the music master expresses in his compositions—interpretative dancing."[10]
Isadora Duncan (born in 1877) was a predecessor of modern dance with her stress on the center or torso, bare feet, loose hair, free-flowing costumes, and incorporation ofhumor intoemotional expression. She was inspired by classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature, natural forces, and new American athleticism such as skipping, running, jumping, leaping, and abrupt movements. She thought thatballet was ugly and meaningless gymnastics. Although she returned to the United States at various points in her life, her work was not well received there. She returned to Europe and died in Nice in 1927.[1][2][3][11]
Loie Fuller (born in 1862) was aburlesque "skirt" dancer experimenting with the effect that gas lighting had on her silk costumes. Fuller developed a form of natural movement and improvisation techniques that were used in conjunction with her revolutionary lighting equipment and translucent silk costumes. She patented her apparatus and methods of stage lighting, that included the use of coloured gels and burning chemicals for luminescence, and her voluminous silk stage costumes.[1][2][3]
Ruth St. Denis (born in 1879) influenced by the actressSarah Bernhardt and Japanese dancerSada Yacco, developed hertranslations ofIndian culture andmythology. Her performances quickly became popular and she toured extensively while researching Asian culture and arts.[3]
Hanya Holm – A student ofMary Wigman and an instructor at the Wigman School inDresden, founded the New York Wigman School of Dance in 1931 (which became the Hanya Holm Studio in 1936) introducing Wigman technique,Rudolf Laban's theories of spatial dynamics, and later her own dance techniques to American modern dance. An accomplished choreographer, she was a founding artist of the firstAmerican Dance Festival inBennington (1934). Holm's dance workMetropolitan Daily was the first modern dance composition to be televised onNBC and herlabanotation score forKiss Me, Kate (1948) was the firstchoreography to becopyrighted in theUnited States. Holm choreographed extensively in the fields ofconcert dance andmusical theater.[3][13]
Anna Sokolow – A student of Martha Graham and Louis Horst, Sokolow created her own dance company (c. 1930). Presenting dramatic contemporary imagery, Sokolow's compositions were generally abstract, often revealing the full spectrum of human experience reflecting the tension and alienation of the time and thetruth of human movement.[1][3]
José Limón – In 1946, after studying and performing with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, Limón established his own company with Humphrey as artistic director. It was under her mentorship that Limón created his signature danceThe Moor's Pavane (1949). Limón's choreographic works and technique remain a strong influence on contemporary dance practice.[14]
Merce Cunningham – A former ballet student and performer with Martha Graham, he presented his first New York solo concert withJohn Cage in 1944. Influenced by Cage and embracingmodernistideology usingpostmodern processes, Cunningham introducedchance procedures andpure movement to choreography andCunningham technique to the cannon of 20th-century dance techniques. Cunningham set the seeds forpostmodern dance with his non-linear, non-climactic, non-psychological abstract work. In these works each element is in and of itself expressive, and the observer (in large part) determines what it communicates.[3]
Erick Hawkins – A student ofGeorge Balanchine, became a soloist and the first male dancer in Martha Graham's dance company. In 1951, Hawkins, interested in the new field ofkinesiology, opened his own school and developed his own technique (Hawkins technique) a forerunner of mostsomatic dance techniques.[15][16]
Alwin Nikolais – A student ofHanya Holm. Nikolais use of multimedia in works such asMasks, Props, and Mobiles (1953),Totem (1960), andCount Down (1979) was unmatched by other choreographers. Often presenting his dancers in constrictive spaces and costumes with complicated sound and sets, he focused their attention on the physical tasks of overcoming obstacles he placed in their way. Nikolais viewed the dancer not as an artist of self-expression, but as a talent who could investigate the properties of physical space and movement.[18]
Graham viewedballet as too one-sided: European,imperialistic, and un-American.[21] She became a student at the Denishawn school in 1916 and then moved toNew York City in 1923, where she performed inmusical comedies,music halls, and worked on her ownchoreography.[22] Graham developed her owndance technique,Graham technique, that hinged on concepts ofcontraction and release.[20] In Graham's teachings, she wanted her students to "Feel". To "Feel", means having a heightened sense of awareness of being grounded to the floor while, at the same time, feeling the energy throughout your entire body, extending it to the audience.[23] Her principal contributions to dance are the focus of the 'center' of the body (as contrast to ballet's emphasis on limbs), coordination betweenbreathing andmovement, and a dancer's relationship with the floor.[22]
In 1927, newspapers regularly began assigning dance critics, such as Walter Terry, andEdwin Denby, who approached performances from the viewpoint of a movement specialist rather than as a reviewer of music or drama. Educators accepted modern dance into college and university curricula, first as a part of physical education, then as performing art. Many college teachers were trained at the Bennington Summer School of the Dance, established atBennington College in 1934.
Of the Bennington program, Agnes de Mille wrote, "...there was a fine commingling of all kinds of artists, musicians, and designers, and secondly, because all those responsible for booking the college concert series across the continent were assembled there. ... free from the limiting strictures of the three big monopolistic managements, who pressed for preference of their European clients. As a consequence, for the first time American dancers were hired to tour America nationwide, and this marked the beginning of their solvency."[24]
African American dance blended modern dance withAfrican andCaribbean movement (flexible torso and spine, articulated pelvis, isolation of the limbs, and polyrhythmic movement).Katherine Dunham trained in ballet, foundedBallet Negre in 1936 and then theKatherine Dunham Dance Company based inChicago. In 1945, she opened a school in New York, teachingKatherine Dunham Technique, African and Caribbean movement integrated with ballet and modern dance.[25][26] Taking inspiration from African-based dance where one part of the body plays against one another, she focused on articulating the torso in her choreography.Pearl Primus drew on African and Caribbean dances to create strong dramatic works characterized by large leaps. She often based her dances on the work of black writers and on racial issues, such asLangston Hughes's 1944The Negro Speaks of Rivers, andLewis Allan's 1945Strange Fruit (1945). Her dance company developed into thePearl Primus Dance Language Institute.[27]Alvin Ailey studied underLester Horton,Bella Lewitzky, and later Martha Graham. He spent several years working in both concert and theater dance. In 1958, Ailey and a group of young African-American dancers performed as theAlvin Ailey American Dance Theater inNew York. He drew upon his "blood memories" ofTexas, the blues,spirituals andgospel as inspiration. His most popular and critically acclaimed work isRevelations (1960).[28][29][30]
The legacy of modern dance can be seen in lineage of20th-century concert dance forms. Although often producing divergent dance forms, many seminal dance artists share a common heritage that can be traced back to free dance.
Postmodern dance developed in the 1960s in United States when society questioned truths andideologies inpolitics andart. This period was marked bysocial andculturalexperimentation in the arts. Choreographers no longer created specific 'schools' or 'styles'. The influences from different periods of dance became more vague and fragmented.[20]
Danceworks rehearsal ofStone Soup in 2011 with semi-improvised music from composer Seth Warren-Crow and Apple iLife sound clip "Tour Bus"
Contemporary dance emerged in the 1950s as the dance form that is combining the modern dance elements and theclassical ballet elements.[31] It can use elements from non-Western dance cultures, such as African dancing with bent knees as a characteristic trait, andButoh, Japanese contemporary dancing that developed in the 1950s.[20][32] It incorporates modern European influences, via the work of pioneers like Isadora Duncan.[33]
According to Treva Bedinghaus, "Modern dancers use dancing to express their innermost emotions, often to get closer to their inner-selves. Before attempting to choreograph a routine, the modern dancer decides which emotions to try to convey to the audience. Many modern dancers choose a subject near and dear to their hearts, such as a lost love or a personal failure. The dancer will choose music that relates to the story they wish to tell, or choose to use no music at all, and then choose a costume to reflect their chosen emotions."[34]
^abcdefghiFoulkes, Julia L. (2002).Modern Bodies Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey. University of North Carolina Press.ISBN978-0807853672.
^McPherson, Elizabeth (2008).The Contributions of Martha Hill to American Dance and Dance Education, 1900-1995. Lewisto n: The Edwin Mellen Press. p. 5.
^Rath, Emil (1914).Aesthetic Dancing. New York: A. S. Barnes Company. p. v-vi.
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