Modern Dance I INTRODUCTION Modern Dance, tradition of theatrical dance unique to the 20th century.

Modern Dance I INTRODUCTION Modern Dance, tradition of theatrical dance unique to the 20th century. Modern dance flourished in areas that lacked strong ballet traditions, such as in the United States where ballet companies were imported from Europe. Although modern dance originated in Europe, by 1930 the United States had become the center for dance experimentation. Many early modern dances were miniatures--solos of highly compressed effect. They were unlike anything known, for dance at that time was dominated by late 19th-century ballets, which were characterized by large casts, a great variety of dance numbers, and spectacular scenic effects. But ballet itself was not always so monumental in scale, and just as ballet has evolved over the centuries as a changing tradition, so also has modern dance during its shorter period of existence. II OBSERVABLE CHARACTERISTICS Modern dance, having begun as a reaction against ballet, is perhaps more easily defined by what it is not than by what it is, and it is often defined in contrast to ballet. Certain broad traits, however, can be observed in much of the enormously varied modern dance that has been created in the 20th century. A The Choreographer-Performer Dancer Mark Morris American dancer Mark Morris pursued a broad range of dance styles throughout his education and later applied them to choreographing his own pieces. He formed the Mark Morris Dance Troupe in 1981. Shown here is a scene for his production of Dido and Aeneas, choreographed to the music of English composer Henry Purcell and performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1992. Morris, seated, danced the role of Dido. David Hutchinson/Astra/Camera Press/Globe Photos, Inc. In modern dance, the tendency is for one artist to act as both choreographer (see Choreography) and performer--and frequently also as scenic, costume, and lighting designer. During the last 300 years of ballet, in contrast, choreographers have seldom continued to dance when they were at the height of their choreographic achievements. Unlike ballet choreographers, who rely on a language of codified steps, modern dancers create their own conventions, or dance language; thus, they usually find it a practical necessity to both choreograph and perform. B Creation of a Dance Language Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn American modern dancers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn performed together, married, and founded the American dance company and school Denishawn, which gained world reknown for its training of modern dancers and performances. Though both had their own interests and styles, their collaboration helped establish modern dance as a 20th-century art form. Shawn helped overcome prejudices against men in the new field of modern dance. E.O. Hoppé/Corbis Because a dance language involves elements such as posture, use of the body's weight, and the character of movements (sinuous, angular, and so forth)--as well as specific movements of the head, torso, hands, arms, legs, and feet--most creators of modern dance have considered it essential to examine their own style of movement and to develop theories about its sources. Such explanations may refer to the physical dynamics of dance motions, such as the role of gravity or of breathing or the spine; or the theories may refer to ethnic and other nonballet traditions. C Use of Space In keeping with the conventional language of ballet, the ballet dancer's movements are developed from a basic orientation of facing the audience from the front of the stage. At the same time, the ballet dancer maintains an erect posture and a turned-out position--that is, legs rotated outward from the hips. Modern dancers, in contrast, usually assume a multidimensional orientation in the theater space. Their actions make use of all dimensions of space--the dancers often stand sideways to or turn their backs on the audience, and they do not always remain upright and deliberate falling motions are common. Despite the variety of modern dance styles, they generally tend to take into account the weight of the body, whereas ballet requires the dancer to create the illusion of freedom from gravity, of effortlessly jumping and soaring through the air. D Relation to Music Another aspect of much modern dance concerns the relation of movement to music. In traditional ballet the momentum and impulses of the dance movement typically parallel the rhythms of the music. Such a parallel may be present in modern dance, but it is not assumed that this must be the case. The dance may be composed first and the music written afterwards, underscoring the impulses of the dance movement, or the momentum of the dance may run counter to the rhythms of the music. Music may even be absent, the sounds of the dancers' movements being heard against a backdrop of silence. (This independent relation of modern dance and music has, in fact, influenced some contemporary ballet.) III HISTORY The history of modern dance may be divided into three periods--one beginning about 1900, one about 1930, and one after World War II ended in 1945. A Early Period Ruth St. Denis Dancer and choreographer Ruth St. Denis is considered a founder of modern dance in the United States. She developed innovative dance techniques and incorporated elements of international dance forms, particularly Asian dances, in her choreography. St. Denis also popularized nonballetic dance, and with her husband, American dancer Ted Shawn, she trained leading dancers of the ensuing generation, including Americans Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Culver Pictures The first three decades of modern dance--embracing the careers of the American dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis and the German dancer Mary Wigman--were preceded by a period of reaction against what many dancers saw as the empty spectacle of late 19th-century ballet. Contemporary with this reaction were two developments that helped inspire a freer kind of dance movement. One was the system of natural expressive gestures developed by the 19th-century French philosopher of movement, François Delsarte, as an alternative to the artificial mannerisms then customary in the theater. The other was eurhythmics, a system for teaching musical rhythms through body movement, created by the Swiss music educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and later used as a training method by many dancers. Pearl Primus Trinidadian American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Pearl Primus helped bring African American dance to the American stage. Her first major work, African Ceremonial, premiered in 1943. Culver Pictures Seeking to give their dance more communicative power, the early modern dancers looked beyond the dominant tradition of Western theatrical dance--ballet as they knew it in the late 19th century--and drew on earlier or non-Western sources for inspiration. During the same period, some ballet choreographers, such as the Russianborn Michel Fokine, also looked to similar sources, reacting against late 19th-century ballet as vehemently as the modern dancers did. Isadora Duncan American dancer Isadora Duncan rebelled against the rigidity of classical ballet and advocated emancipated selfexpression. Duncan, who idealized ancient Greece, often danced barefoot in flowing draperies reminiscent of Greek goddesses. This photograph shows Duncan, dressed in a scarf and gown based on ancient Greek fashion, posing in an arbor. THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE Isadora Duncan used Greek sculpture as a movement source. She danced in bare feet rather than in ballet slippers and appeared in a simple tunic rather than in the corseted ballet costume of the late 19th century. Locating the source of movement in the solar plexus, she created dances that alternated between resisting and yielding to gravity. Her response to the music of romantic composers such as Frédéric Chopín and the Hungarian Franz Liszt dictated the form of her choreography. Ruth St. Denis turned to the dance styles of India, Egypt, and Asia, as the basis for her compositions. Like Duncan, St. Denis began as a solo dancer, but in 1915 she formed a company, Denishawn, with her husband, Ted Shawn. She trained dancers to dance as she did, in a diverse range of styles. Later American choreographers such as Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus continued St. Denis's interest in ethnic styles. Mary Wigman looked to Africa and Eastern Asia for choreographic inspiration. Like St. Denis, she presented both solo and group works, often arranged in cycles. Along with other German modern dancers--Rudolf von Laban, Kurt Jooss, and Harald Kreutzberg--she made extensive use of masks. The rise of the Nazi political party in Germany in the 1920s ended the German modern dance movement. B The 1930s About 1930, in New York City, the second wave of modern dancers emerged. They included the Americans Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman, all of whom had danced with Denishawn, and the German-born American dancer Hanya Holm, who came from Mary Wigman's company. These dancers rejected external movement sources in favor of internal ones. They turned to basic human movement experiences, such as the actions of breathing and walking, and then transformed these natural actions into dance movement. Martha Graham evolved her technique of contraction and release from the natural exhalation and inhalation of breathing. In her early abstract works she explored movement initiated in the torso. In the late 1930s Graham became interested in narrative structure and literary subject matter. With the Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi she created narrative locales that were both mythic and psychic. She danced the roles of female protagonists confronting moments of crisis; other dancers represented various aspects of the protagonist's self in crisis. Martha Graham in Performance This scene is from a dance called Letter to the World (1940), created by the American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. The piece was inspired by the life and work of the American poet Emily Dickinson. Graham herself performed the main role. Graham, whose modern style was considered controversial when she debuted in New York in 1926, became a major force in the type of dance known as modern dance ballet, in which emotional expression is an essential component. THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE Doris Humphrey evolved her technique of fall and recovery from the natural dynamic of the human footfall, the giving into and the rebound from gravity. This technique became a metaphor for the relationship of the individual to a greater force, whether a social group or spiritual presence. After Humphrey stopped performing and disbanded the company she had formed with Charles Weidman, she continued to choreograph for her protégé, the Mexican-American dancer and choreographer José Limón. The choreographic sources for Humphrey's later works were words and gestures rather than her own movement experiences. Hanya Holm worked in a more varied range than either Graham or Humphrey did. She created humorous dances and dances of social commentary, as did Weidman. Beginning in the late 1940s, she also choreographed for musicals, being one of the first to bring the style of modern dance to the Broadway stage. During the 1930s choreographers defined modern dance and ballet in opposition to one another. Whereas modern dance was established as a technique with its own internal coherence, ballet was defined by reaffirming the essential tenets of its tradition. Ballet and modern choreographers focused on the purity of their traditions. C Postwar Developments Merce Cunningham's Beach Birds for Camera Beach Birds for Camera by American choreographer Merce Cunningham was first performed on stage and later the phrases of the dance were re-choreographed for camera, frame by frame. In this segment, the film shifts from black and white to color and the motions of one bird figure in the foreground are echoed and developed at different tempos by several bird figures in the middle ground and background. The effect of abstract patterns of related movement in a plotless drama is characteristic of Cunningham's modern dance choreography. Cunningham Dance Foundation @ www.merce.org The third period of modern dance began after World War II ended in 1945 and continues today. Such American dancers as Alwin Nikolais, Merce Cunningham, James Waring, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, and Twyla Tharp found their movement sources in the proliferation of 20th-century dance styles. Their works combined and fused techniques drawn from social dance, ballet, and modern dance. (In the years following World War II, ballet choreographers also borrowed just as freely from modern dance.) Merce Cunningham in Rehearsal Introduced to the music and ideas of avant-garde American musician John Cage in the late 1930s and 1940s, American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, seated, eventually drew on Cage's idea of chance processes to create many of his dances. He and Cage have collaborated on a number of works. Cunningham was also the first choreographer to use an electronic musical score for a modern dance piece, in Suite by Chance (1952). Here, he directs a rehearsal with dancers from his company. Erich Hartmann/Magnum Photos Merce Cunningham revolutionized conventional dance by fusing Graham's technique with traditional ballet, locating the source of movement in the spine. He organized the changes of movement through methods based on chance, and he considered music and decor independent of the dance. His works revealed individual dancers experiencing their relation to present time and abstract space, rather than to history and locale. Twyla Tharp During the 1960s and 1970s, Twyla Tharp emerged as one of the most innovative and influential choreographers working in the United States. She created acclaimed dances for her own troupe, as well as for many major ballet companies, including American Ballet Theatre and the Joffrey Ballet. Here, Tharp demonstrates the type of loose-limbed, unexpected movement that has become her trademark. Icon International James Waring and, more recently, Twyla Tharp have worked both with ballet companies and with their own modern companies. Along with Paul Taylor and Alwin Nikolais, they employed sense of humor in their choreographies. Odd juxtapositions of movement created these humorous effects, as did parodies of their own and others' dance styles. Paul Taylor Dance Company Dancers from the Paul Taylor Dance Company appear in Black Tuesday (2001), which was commissioned by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Choreographed by Paul Taylor, it is set to songs from the Great Depression of the 1930s. The title refers to the day of the stock market crash, October 29, 1929, which marked the beginning of the depression. © 2002 Lois Greenfield Tharp began her career as part of the 1960s avant-garde. During this time of social upheaval the American dancers Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk, and others created works at the extreme limit of what is considered dance. They became interested in everyday activities, manipulations of objects, and mixed-media presentations. In the 1970s the dance mainstream came to accept these choreographers' works, but few so completely as Tharp's. Modern (or postmodern) dance in the mid-1980s, no longer interested in traditional techniques, relied on theatrical elements and the use of literary and pictorial devices. Tanztheater Wuppertal, founded by the German dancer-choreographer Pina Bausch, has performed evening-length mixed media works--such as The Seven Deadly Sins--that stem from the tradition of the expressive dance of Kurt Jooss. Other notable postmodern dancers are the Americans Mark Morris, who worked with Twyla Tharp and the ballet dancer Eliot Feld; and Karole Armitage, a dancer and the choreographer of the Mollino Room, performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and the American Ballet Theatre in 1986. Armitage's work is characterized by stabbing, insectlike motions and savage confrontations; among the pieces composed for her own group is The Watteau Duets, which merges dancing on pointe with torso movements in the style of Merce Cunningham. Much interest has also attached to Sankai Juku, a group of Japanese dancers trained in modern and classical dance. Their work is based on but?, a form of dance theater that avoids structured choreography and strives to express primitive emotions by making minimal use of costuming and actual movement. In their "hanging event," dancers suspended upside down on ropes are slowly lowered, uncoiling their bodies as they descend. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.