Modern Dance technique |
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On this page, you will find listed quotes and historical content from class, for which you are responsible to retain and ponder as the course progresses. Review of this material will no doubt have a direct impact upon your process in this course.
Ponder diligently, develop a creative habit and enjoy the journey.
| Quote 1 |
Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made. |
~Ted Shawn (1891 - 1972), Time, 25 July 1955 |
While attending the University of Denver, Shawn was diagnosed with diphtheria and advised to study dance as a form of physical therapy. He decided to leave school and devote his life to the study and performance of dance. He is often referred to as the Father of American Dance, and he became the very first American male dance star. Shawn and his partner, Ruth St. Denis, founded Denishawn School of Dance and with their Denishawn Dancers performed across the United States, Canada, Europe and the Far East. Some of the Denishawn Dancers (Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Eleanor King) became the pioneers of modern dance. After the dissolution of Denishawn, Shawn formed Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers, an all male performance group dedicated to promoting dance as an acceptable art form for men. |
| Quote 2 |
Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery. |
~Martha Graham (1894 - 1991) |
| Martha Graham (1894-1991) is known as a primal artistic force of the 20th Century, creating nearly 200 dances and a technique that revolutionized dance throughout the greater part of the past century. Named “Dancer of the Century” by Time Magazine, Graham has been compared with other creative giants such as Picasso, Einstein, Stravinsky and Freud. She is recognized for her groundbreaking work in all aspects of the theater, using time, space, lighting, costumes, sets and music to explore the depth and diversity of human emotion. Her unique movement style -- widely recognized for its principle of contraction and release -- and imagery reflected the contemporary issues and the modern art of the times. |
| Quote 3 |
All my life I have struggled to make one authentic gesture. |
~Isadora Duncan (1877 - 1927) |
| Isadora Duncan is often referred to as the mother of "modern dance." She imbued dance with a new vitality, transforming and rebelling from an art form that had, in her opinion, become ugly and staid through the formal conventions and restrictions of ballet. With movement initiated in and radiating from the solar plexus and torso, loose hair, flowing costumes and bare feet, Isadora created interpretive dance, blending together poetry, music and the rhythms of nature. |
| Quote 4 |
The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing...there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words. |
~Doris Humphrey (1895 – 1958) |
| Doris Humphrey, along with Martha Graham, was considered by most critics to be a primary innovator of the new modern dance. Doris Humphrey was interested in the fundamental importance of tension and relaxation in the body, and used it as the foundation of her own system of movement principles. Her theory of "fall and recovery"-- and the technique that sprang from it--was the foundation of her teaching method and her choreography. Underlying it, according to Humphrey, was the German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche's idea about the split in the human psyche between each person's Apollonian side (rational, intellectual) and our Dionysian side (chaotic, emotional). The true essence of the modern dance was the movement that happened in between these extremes, which Humphrey labeled "the arc between two deaths." |