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From 1900 through 1930, American dancers, Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, and German dancer, Mary Wigman, had started to develop modern dance.  This new development was a combination of the expressive gestures initiated by French actor – Francois Delsarte; and the musical rhythms created by Swiss music educator – Emile Jacques-Dalcroze.

 

In order to show freer forms of dance, early modern dance adopted exotic and ethnic sources for inspiration – this happened at the same period of time when ballet choreographers are searching or the same ideas.  Isadora Duncan used Greek sculpture as a movement source; she danced with bare feet using music from romantic composers.

 

Ruth St. Denis on the other hand, adapted Asian dance styles.  When she and her husband, Ted Shawn, opened a dance company, Denishawn, in 1915, she taught the students her ethnic styles of dancing.  Mary Wigman also adapted dances from the Orient and Africa in which she used masks as part of the presentation.

 

After 1930, newer modern dancers popped up in New York, including the two most important figures of the U.S. modern dance history - Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey.  

 

 

 

 

The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt JoossThe Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss

The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss

Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey In 1930, dancer and choreographer Martha Graham proclaimed the arrival of “dance as an art of and from America.” Dancers such as Doris Humphrey, Ted Shawn, Katherine Dunham, and Helen Tamiris joined Graham in creating a new form of dance, and, like other modernists, they experimented with and argued over their aesthetic innovations, to which they assigned great meaning.Their innovations, however, went beyond aesthetics. While modern dancers devised new ways of moving bodies in accordance with many modernist principles, their artistry was indelibly shaped by their place in society. Modern dance was distinct from other artistic genres in terms of the people it attracted: white women (many of whom were Jewish), gay men, and African American men and women. Women held leading roles in the development of modern dance on stage and off; gay men recast the effeminacy often associated with dance into a hardened, heroic, American athleticism; and African Americans contributed elements of social, African, and Caribbean dance, even as their undervalued role defined the limits of modern dancers’ communal visions. Through their art, modern dancers challenged conventional roles and images of gender, sexuality, race, class, and regionalism with a view of American democracy that was confrontational and participatory, authorial and populist.Modern Bodies exposes the social dynamics that shaped American modernism and moved modern dance to the edges of society, a place both provocative and perilous.

Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey

Graham’s theory on contraction and release movements has become the focus of the modern dance in the U.S.  She was also the first choreographer to collaborate with other modern dancers as can be seen in “Appalachian Spring”.

 

Both Graham and Humphrey had performed with the German-American dance, Hanva Holm who was trained by Mary Wigman’s school.  In the late 1940s, Holm was one of the first to bring a new style of modern dance to the Broadway shows.

Tags: American, Appalachian Spring, Asian dancing styles, ballet choreographers, Broadway, Denishawn, Doris Humphrey, Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, ethnic dance, exotic dance inspiration, Francois Delsarte, freer forms dance, French actor, German dancer, Greek sculpture movement, Hanva Holm, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Mary Wigman, modern dance, Ruth St. Denis, Swiss music, Ted Shawn
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 9:14 am by writer46 and is filed under Arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.