Modern dance - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Modern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dance

Ballroom dance

Ballroom dance refers to a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world. Because of its performance and entertainment aspects, ballroom dance is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television....

s, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance

20th century concert dance

20th century concert dance is the name given to a category of dance forms that include:* Free dance* Modern dance* Expressionist dance* Postmodern dance* Dance improvisation* Contemporary dance* Dance for camera...

Intro

In the early 1900s European and American dancers started to rebel against the rigid constraints of Classical Ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

. Shedding the authoritarian controls surrounding classical ballet technique, costume, and shoes, these early modern dance pioneers focused on creative self-expression rather than on technical virtuosity. Modern dance is a more relaxed, free style of dance in which choreographers use emotions and moods to design their own steps, in contrast to ballet's structured code of steps. It has a deliberate use of gravity, whereas ballet is rigid in its technique. Because of the common history, the two forms (classical ballet and modern) share a similar terminology and structure. Modern dance is a term that applies to a variety of different disciplines, all with subtly different techniques, that responded to the imperialism of ballet through varying, culturally specific catalytic factors.

In Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Mary Wigman

Mary Wigman

Mary Wigman was a German dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor.A pioneer of expressionist dance, her work was hailed for bringing the deepest of existential experiences to the stage...

, Francois Delsarte

François Delsarte

François Alexandre Nicolas Chéri Delsarte was a French musician and teacher.Delsarte was born in Solesmes, Nord. He was a pupil of the Paris Conservatory, was for a time tenor singer in the Opéra Comique, and composed a few songs. However, he is chiefly known as a teacher in singing and...

, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze , was a Swiss composer, musician and music educator who developed eurhythmics, a method of learning and experiencing music through movement...

, Rudolf von Laban, Aine

Áine

Áine is an Irish goddess of love, summer, wealth and sovereignty. She is associated with the sun and midsummer, and is sometimes represented by a red mare. She is the daughter of Egobail, the sister of Aillen and/or Fennen, and is claimed as an ancestor by multiple Irish clans...

developed theories of human movement and expression, and methods of instruction that led to the development of European modern and Expressionist dance

Expressionist dance

Expressionist dance is a European dance form that is part of the German Expressionist movement. Although considered a part of the modern dance movement, it is separate from modern dance per se. Other names for it that have fallen out of use include Moderner Tanz, Absoluter Tanz, Freier Tanz,...

. Their theories and techniques spread well beyond Europe to influence the development of modern dance and theater via their students and disciples, and subsequent generations of teachers and performers carried these theories and methods to Russia, the United States and Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Free dance

1891: Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (also Loïe Fuller; (January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.-Career:...

(a burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

skirt dancer) began 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 also patented her voluminous silk stage costumes.
1903: Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...

developed a dance technique influenced by the philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

and a belief that dance of the ancient Greeks (natural and free) was the dance of the future. Duncan developed a philosophy of dance based on natural and spiritual concepts and advocated for that acceptance of pure dance as a high art.
1905: Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis was an early modern dance pioneer.-Biography:Ruth St. Denis founded Adelphi University's dance program in 1938 which was one of the first dance departments in an American university...

, influenced by the actor Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

and Japanese dancer Sada Yacco
Sada Yacco
Sada Yacco or was a Japanese actress and dancer.Born in Tokyo as Sada Koyama, Sadayakko was trained as a geisha and came to the attention of the prominent Japanese politician Itō Hirobumi, who took an interest in furthering her education. In 1894 she married the actor Otojiro Kawakami, to whom she...

, developed her translations of Indian
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

culture and mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

. Her performances quickly became popular and she toured extensively whilst researching Oriental culture and arts.

Fuller, Duncan and St. Denis all toured Europe

Europe

seeking a wider and more accepting audience for their work. Ruth St. Denis returned to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

to continue her work. Isadora Duncan returned to the United States at various points in her life but her work was not very well received there. She returned to Europe and died in Paris in 1927. Fuller's work also received little support outside Europe.

Early modern dance

In 1915, Ruth Dorthy St. Denis founded the Denishawn school and dance company with her husband Ted Shawn

Ted Shawn

Ted Shawn , originally Edwin Myers Shawn, was one of the first notable male pioneers of American modern dance. Along with creating Denishawn with former wife Ruth St. Denis he is also responsible for the creation of the well known all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers...

. Whilst St. Denis was responsible for most of the creative work, Shawn was responsible for teaching technique and composition

Dance composition

The term dance composition is used to describe the practice and teaching of choreography and the navigation or connection of choreographic structures....

. Martha Graham

Martha Graham

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

, Doris Humphrey

Doris Humphrey

Doris Batcheller Humphrey was a dancer and choreographer of the early twentieth century. Humphrey was born in Oak Park, Illinois but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She was the daughter of Horace Buckingham Humphrey and Julia Ellen Wells and was a descendant of pilgrim William Brewster...

, and Charles Weidman

Charles Weidman

Charles Weidman is a renowned choreographer, modern dancer and teacher. He is well known as one of the pioneers of Modern Dance in America. He wanted to break free from the traditional movements of dance forms popular at the time to create a uniquely American style of movement...

were all pupils at the school and members of the dance company.

1923: Graham leaves Denishawn to work as a solo artist in the Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

Follies.
1928: Humphrey and Weidman leave Denishawn to set up their own school and company (Humphrey-Weidman
Humphrey-Weidman
Humphrey-Weidman is a modern dance technique based on the theory and action of fall and recovery. It originated in 1928 when Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman broke away from the Denishawn school and moved to New York City. There they pioneered modern dance in the United States by founding a dance...

).
1933: Shawn founds his all male dance group Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers based at his Jacob's Pillow
Jacob's Pillow
Jacob’s Pillow Dance is a dance center, school and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. The organization is known for the oldest internationally acclaimed summer dance festival in the United States. The facility also includes a professional school and extensive...

farm in Lee, Massachusetts
Lee, Massachusetts
Lee is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, metropolitan statistical area. The population was 5,943 which was determined in the 2010 census. Lee, which includes the villages of South and East Lee, is part of the Berkshires resort...

.

After shedding the techniques and compositional methods of their teachers the early modern dancers developed their own methods and ideologies and dance techniques that became the foundation for modern dance practice.

Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

(and Louis Horst
Louis Horst
Louis Horst was a choreographer, composer, and pianist...

)
Doris Humphrey
Doris Humphrey
Doris Batcheller Humphrey was a dancer and choreographer of the early twentieth century. Humphrey was born in Oak Park, Illinois but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She was the daughter of Horace Buckingham Humphrey and Julia Ellen Wells and was a descendant of pilgrim William Brewster...

and Charles Weidman
Charles Weidman
Charles Weidman is a renowned choreographer, modern dancer and teacher. He is well known as one of the pioneers of Modern Dance in America. He wanted to break free from the traditional movements of dance forms popular at the time to create a uniquely American style of movement...

and Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
Helen Tamiris
Helen Tamiris
Helen Tamiris was an American choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher.-Biography:A founder of American Modern Dance, Tamiris originally trained in free movement at the Henry Street Settlement. She danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and the Bracale Opera Company before studying briefly...

—originally trained in free movement (Irene Lewisohn) and ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

(Michel Fokine
Michel Fokine
Michel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...

) Tamiris studied briefly with Isadora Duncan but disliked her emphasis on personal expression and lyrical movement. Tamiris believed that each dance must create its own expressive means and as such did not develop an individual style or technique. As a choreographer Tamiris made works based on American themes working in both concert dance
Concert dance
Concert dance is dance performed for an audience. It is frequently performed in a theatre setting, though this is not a requirement, and it is usually choreographed and performed to set music.By contrast, social dance and participation dance may be performed without an audience and, typically, these...

and musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

.
Lester Horton
Lester Horton
Lester Horton was an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher.-Early years:Lester Iradell Horton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 23, 1906. His parents were Iradell Horton and Pollyanna Horton....

—choosing to work in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

(three thousand miles away from the center of modern dance—New York), Horton developed his own approach that incorporated diverse elements including Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

dances and modern Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

. Horton's dance technique (Lester Horton Technique) emphasises a whole body approach including; flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness to allow freedom of expression.
Ted Shawn
Ted Shawn
Ted Shawn , originally Edwin Myers Shawn, was one of the first notable male pioneers of American modern dance. Along with creating Denishawn with former wife Ruth St. Denis he is also responsible for the creation of the well known all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers...

European modern and expressionist dance

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze , was a Swiss composer, musician and music educator who developed eurhythmics, a method of learning and experiencing music through movement...

(Eurhythmics
Eurhythmics
Dalcroze Eurhythmics, also known as the Dalcroze Method or simply Eurhythmics, is one of several developmental approaches including the Kodaly Method, Orff Schulwerk, Simply Music and Suzuki Method used to teach music education to students. Eurhythmics was developed in the early 20th century by...

)
Rudolf Laban
Rudolf Laban
Rudolf von Laban aka Rudolf Laban was a dance artist and theorist whose work laid the foundations for Laban Movement Analysis and other more specific developments in dance notation...
Kurt Jooss
Kurt Jooss
Kurt Jooss was a famous ballet dancer and choreographer mixing classical ballet with theatre; he is also widely regarded as the founder of dance theatre or tanztheater...
Mary Wigman
Mary Wigman
Mary Wigman was a German dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor.A pioneer of expressionist dance, her work was hailed for bringing the deepest of existential experiences to the stage...
Harald Kreutzberg
Harald Kreutzberg
Harald Kreutzberg , was a German dancer and choreographer.Kreutzberg was born at Reichenberg/Liberec. Trained at the Dresden Ballet School, he also studied dance with Mary Wigman and Rudolf Laban....

Popularization

In 1927 newspapers regularly began assigning dance critics, such as Walter Terry, and Edwin Denby

Edwin Denby (poet)

Edwin Orr Denby was one of the most important and influential American dance critics of the 20th century, as well as a poet and novelist. His dance reviews and essays were collected in Looking at the Dance , Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Streets and Dance Writings...

, 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, which was established at Bennington College

Bennington College

Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...

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." (de Mille, 1991, p. 205)

Development of modern dance

Whilst the founders of the Modern dance continued to make works based on ancient myth

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

s and legends

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

following a narrative structure, their students, the radical dancers, saw dance as a potential agent of change. Disturbed by the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

and the rising threat of fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

in Europe, they tried to raise consciousness by dramatizing the economic, social

Social

The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...

, ethnic and political crises of their time.

Hanya Holm
Hanya Holm
Hanya Holm is known as one of the “Big Four” founders of American modern dance...

—A student of Mary Wigman
Mary Wigman
Mary Wigman was a German dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor.A pioneer of expressionist dance, her work was hailed for bringing the deepest of existential experiences to the stage...

and instructor at the Wigman School in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Holm founded the New York Wigman School of Dance in 1931 (which became the Hanya Holm Studio in 1936) introducing Wigman technique, Laban's
Rudolf Laban
Rudolf von Laban aka Rudolf Laban was a dance artist and theorist whose work laid the foundations for Laban Movement Analysis and other more specific developments in dance notation...

theories of spatial dynamics, and later her own dance techniques to American modern dance. An accomplished choreographer, she was a founding artist of the first American Dance Festival
American Dance Festival
The American Dance Festival is a six and four-week school for dance and a six-week summer festival of modern dance performances, currently held at Duke University and the Durham Performing Arts Center in Durham, North Carolina....

in Bennington (1934). Holm's dance work Metropolitan Daily was the first modern dance composition to be televised on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

and her labanotation score for Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...

(1948) was the first choreography
Choreography
Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...

to be copyrighted
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Holm choreographed extensively in the fields of concert dance
Concert dance
Concert dance is dance performed for an audience. It is frequently performed in a theatre setting, though this is not a requirement, and it is usually choreographed and performed to set music.By contrast, social dance and participation dance may be performed without an audience and, typically, these...

and musical theater.
Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow was a Jewish American dancer and choreographer.-Training:...

—A student of Martha Graham and Louis Horst, Sokolow created her own dance company (circa 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 the truth of human movement.
José Limón
José Limón
José Arcadio Limón was a pioneer in the field of modern dance and choreography. In 1928, at age 20, he moved to New York City where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company...

—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 dance The Moor’s Pavane (1949). Limón’s choreographic works and technique remain a strong influence on contemporary dance practice.
Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...

—A former ballet student and performer with Martha Graham, he presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

in 1944. Influenced by Cage and embracing modernist ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

using postmodern processes, Cunningham introduced chance procedures and pure movement to choreography and Cunningham technique to the cannon of 20th century dance techniques. Cunningham set the seeds for postmodern dance
Postmodern dance
Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form. A reaction to the compositional and presentation constraints of modern dance, postmodern dance hailed the use of everyday movement as valid performance art and advocated novel methods of dance composition....

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.
Erick Hawkins
Erick Hawkins
Frederick Hawkins known as Erick Hawkins was a leading American modern-dance choreographer and dancer...

—A student of George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

, Hawkins became a soloist and the first male dancer in Martha Graham's dance company. In 1951, Hawkins, interested in the new field of kinesiology
Kinesiology
Kinesiology, also known as human kinetics is the scientific study of human movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, mechanical, and psychological mechanisms. Applications of kinesiology to human health include: biomechanics and orthopedics, rehabilitation, such as physical and occupational...

, opened his own school and developed his own technique (Hawkins technique) a forerunner of most somatic dance techniques.
Paul Taylor—A student of the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

of Music and the Connecticut College
Connecticut College
Connecticut College is a private liberal arts college located in New London, Connecticut.The college was founded in 1911, as Connecticut College for Women, in response to Wesleyan University closing its doors to women...

School of Dance. In 1952 his performance at the American Dance Festival
American Dance Festival
The American Dance Festival is a six and four-week school for dance and a six-week summer festival of modern dance performances, currently held at Duke University and the Durham Performing Arts Center in Durham, North Carolina....

attracted the attention of several major choreographers. Performing in the companies of Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...

, Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

, and George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

(in that order), he founded the Paul Taylor Dance Company
Paul Taylor Dance Company
Paul Taylor Dance Company, is a contemporary dance company, formed by Paul Taylor, an American choreographer of the 20th century. One of the early touring companies of American modern dance, the Company has "performed in more than 500 cities in 62 countries" and still spends more than half of each...

in 1954. The use of everyday gestures and modernist ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

is characteristic of his choreography. Former members of the Paul Taylor Dance Company included Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer, who lives and works in New York City.-Early years:Tharp was born in 1941 on a farm in Portland, Indiana, and was named after Twila Thornburg, the "Pig Princess" of the 89th Annual Muncie Fair in Indiana.she spend hours working on it to help her...

, Laura Dean, Dan Wagoner, and Senta Driver.
Alwin Nikolais
Alwin Nikolais
Alwin Nikolais was an American choreographer.Nikolais studied piano at an early age and began his performing career as an organist accompanying silent films. As a young artist, he gained skills in scenic design, acting, puppetry and music composition...

—A student of Hanya Holm
Hanya Holm
Hanya Holm is known as one of the “Big Four” founders of American modern dance...

. Nikolais's use of multimedia in works such as Masks, Props, and Mobiles (1953), Totem (1960), and Count 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.

African American modern dance

The development of Modern dance embraced the contributions of African American dance artists regardless of whether they made pure modern dance works or blended modern dance with African

African dance

African dance refers mainly to the dance of Sub-Saharan Africa, and more appropriately African dances because of the many cultural differences in musical and movement styles...

and Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

influences.

Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator, and activist...

—An African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

dancer, and anthropologist. Originally a ballet dancer, she founded her first company Ballet Negre in 1936 and later the Katherine Dunham Dance Company based in Chicago, Illinois
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. Dunham opened a school in New York (1945) where she taught Katherine Dunham Technique, a blend of African and Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

movement (flexible torso and spine, articulated pelvis and isolation of the limbs and polyrhythmic movement) integrated with techniques of ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

and modern dance.
Pearl Primus
Pearl Primus
Pearl Primus was a dancer, choreographer and anthropologist. Primus played an important role in the presentation of African dance to American audiences. Early in her career she saw the needs to promote African dance as an art form worthy of study and performance...

—A dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist, Primus drew on African and Caribbean dances to create strong dramatic works characterized by large leaps in the air. Primus often based her dances on the work of black writers and on racial and African-American issues. Primus created works based on Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" is a poem by American writer Langston Hughes.-Composition and publication history:Langston Hughes wrote the poem on an envelope while traveling by train to Mexico as he crossed the Mississippi River to St. Louis. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" was first published in The...

(1944), and Lewis Allan's
Abel Meeropol
Abel Meeropol was an American writer and song-writer, best known under his pseudonym Lewis Allan and as the adoptive father of the young sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.-Biography:...

Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit
"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who released her first recording of it in 1939, the year she first sang it. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred...

(1945). Her dance company developed into the Pearl Primus Dance Language Institute which teaches her method of blending African-American, Caribbean, and African influences with modern dance and ballet techniques.
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey, Jr. was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance...

—A student of Lester Horton
Lester Horton
Lester Horton was an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher.-Early years:Lester Iradell Horton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 23, 1906. His parents were Iradell Horton and Pollyanna Horton....

, Bella Lewitzky
Bella Lewitzky
Bella Lewitzky was a modern dance choreographer and noted teacher....

, and later Martha Graham, Ailey spent several years working in both concert and theater dance. In 1958, Ailey and a group of young African-American dancers performed as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is a modern dance company based in New York, New York. It was founded in 1958 by choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey...

in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Ailey drew upon his blood memories of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, the blues, spirituals and gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

as inspiration. His most popular and critically acclaimed work is Revelations (1960).

Legacy of modern dance

The legacy of Modern dance can be seen in lineage of 20th century concert dance

20th 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 and Contemporary dance

Both Postmodern dance

Postmodern dance

Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form. A reaction to the compositional and presentation constraints of modern dance, postmodern dance hailed the use of everyday movement as valid performance art and advocated novel methods of dance composition....

and Contemporary dance

Contemporary dance

Contemporary dance is a genre of concert dance that employs compositional philosophy, rather than choreography, to guide unchoreographed movement...

are built upon the foundations laid by Modern dance and form part of the greater category of 20th century concert dance. Where as Postmodern dance was a direct and opposite response to Modern dance, Contemporary dance draws on both modern and postmodern dance as a source of inspiration. The social and artistic upheavals of the late 1960s and 70s provoked even more radical forms of modern dance. Modern dance today is much more sophisticated in technique and technology than when modern dance was founded. The founders composed their dances entirely of spirit, soul, heart and mind as opposed to today's modern which has more technical aspects. The concern with social problems and the condition of human spirit is still expressed, but the issues that are presented would have appalled many early modern dancers. The essence of modern dance is to look forward, not back. Ballet and modern sometimes fuse together and enrich both forms, but neither is likely to lose its identity in the process. It is impossible to predict what directions modern dance will take in the future. Each style could go in so many different directions and are usually very radical. If this trend keeps up, future audiences can look forward to an interesting forum of dance.

Teachers and their students

This list illustrates the basic teacher / student links in modern dance. For more detailed information see the individual artists entries.

Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (also Loïe Fuller; (January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.-Career:...
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...

—Duncan technique
Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis was an early modern dance pioneer.-Biography:Ruth St. Denis founded Adelphi University's dance program in 1938 which was one of the first dance departments in an American university...
- Ted Shawn
  Ted Shawn
  Ted Shawn , originally Edwin Myers Shawn, was one of the first notable male pioneers of American modern dance. Along with creating Denishawn with former wife Ruth St. Denis he is also responsible for the creation of the well known all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers...
  
  —Shawn Fundamentals
- Denishawn (school and company)
  - Doris Humphrey
    Doris Humphrey
    Doris Batcheller Humphrey was a dancer and choreographer of the early twentieth century. Humphrey was born in Oak Park, Illinois but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She was the daughter of Horace Buckingham Humphrey and Julia Ellen Wells and was a descendant of pilgrim William Brewster...
    
    and Charles Weidman
    Charles Weidman
    Charles Weidman is a renowned choreographer, modern dancer and teacher. He is well known as one of the pioneers of Modern Dance in America. He wanted to break free from the traditional movements of dance forms popular at the time to create a uniquely American style of movement...
    
    —The Art of Making Dances (Humphrey)
    - Humphrey-Weidman
      Humphrey-Weidman
      Humphrey-Weidman is a modern dance technique based on the theory and action of fall and recovery. It originated in 1928 when Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman broke away from the Denishawn school and moved to New York City. There they pioneered modern dance in the United States by founding a dance...
      
      school—Humphrey-Weidman technique (fall and recovery)
      - José Limón
        José Limón
        José Arcadio Limón was a pioneer in the field of modern dance and choreography. In 1928, at age 20, he moved to New York City where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company...
        
        —Limón technique
  - Martha Graham
    Martha Graham
    Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
    
    —Graham technique (and Louis Horst
    Louis Horst
    Louis Horst was a choreographer, composer, and pianist...
    
    )
    - Erick Hawkins
      Erick Hawkins
      Frederick Hawkins known as Erick Hawkins was a leading American modern-dance choreographer and dancer...
      
      (via George Balanchine
      George Balanchine
      George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
      
      )—Hawkins technique
    - Anna Sokolow
      Anna Sokolow
      Anna Sokolow was a Jewish American dancer and choreographer.-Training:...
    - May O'Donnell
      May O'Donnell
      May O'Donnell was an American modern dancer and choreographer.Born in Sacramento, California, May O'Donnell studied dance in San Francisco with Estelle Reed and performed in Reed's company before moving to New York City to study with Martha Graham...
    - Merce Cunningham
      Merce Cunningham
      Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
      
      —Cunningham technique (also see Postmodern dance
      Postmodern dance
      Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form. A reaction to the compositional and presentation constraints of modern dance, postmodern dance hailed the use of everyday movement as valid performance art and advocated novel methods of dance composition....
      
      )
      - Yvonne Rainer
        Yvonne Rainer
        Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...
      - Steve Paxton
        Steve Paxton
        Steve Paxton is an experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with José Limón. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, he performed works by Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown...
      - Richard Alston
        Richard Alston (choreographer)
        Richard Alston is a British choreographer. He has been Resident Choreographer and Artistic Director for the Ballet Rambert and is currently Artistic Director at The Place....
    - Paul Taylor
      - Twyla Tharp
        Twyla Tharp
        Twyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer, who lives and works in New York City.-Early years:Tharp was born in 1941 on a farm in Portland, Indiana, and was named after Twila Thornburg, the "Pig Princess" of the 89th Annual Muncie Fair in Indiana.she spend hours working on it to help her...
    - Trisha Brown
      Trisha Brown
      Trisha Brown is a postmodernist American choreographer and dancer.Brown was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and received a B.A. degree in dance from Mills College in 1958. Brown later received a D.F.A. from Bates College in 2000. For several summers she studied with Louis Horst at the American Dance...
Lester Horton
Lester Horton
Lester Horton was an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher.-Early years:Lester Iradell Horton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 23, 1906. His parents were Iradell Horton and Pollyanna Horton....

—"Horton Technique"
- Bella Lewitzky
  Bella Lewitzky
  Bella Lewitzky was a modern dance choreographer and noted teacher....
- Alvin Ailey
  Alvin Ailey
  Alvin Ailey, Jr. was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance...
Rudolf von Laban
- Kurt Jooss
  Kurt Jooss
  Kurt Jooss was a famous ballet dancer and choreographer mixing classical ballet with theatre; he is also widely regarded as the founder of dance theatre or tanztheater...
  
  (see Ausdruckstanz)
  - Pina Bausch
    Pina Bausch
    Philippina "Pina" Bausch was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director...
    
    (see Tanztheater
    Tanztheater
    The German Tanztheater grew out of German expressionist dance in Weimar Germany and 1920s Vienna. The term first appears around 1927 to identify a particular style of dance emerging from within the new forms of 'expressionist dance' developing in Central Europe since 1917. Its main exponents...
    
    )
- Mary Wigman
  Mary Wigman
  Mary Wigman was a German dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor.A pioneer of expressionist dance, her work was hailed for bringing the deepest of existential experiences to the stage...
  
  (see Expressionist dance
  Expressionist dance
  Expressionist dance is a European dance form that is part of the German Expressionist movement. Although considered a part of the modern dance movement, it is separate from modern dance per se. Other names for it that have fallen out of use include Moderner Tanz, Absoluter Tanz, Freier Tanz,...
  
  )
  - Ursula Cain
    Ursula Cain
    Ursula Cain was a German dancer and dance teacher. -Biography:The dancer and the dance teacher Ursula Cain began her dance education at the age of 12 years in the preparatory class of the Mary Wigman Schule for modern dance...
    - Heike Hennig
      Heike Hennig
      Heike Hennig is a German dancer, choreographer and director of the opera and dance ensemble “Heike Hennig & Co”.-Life:Heike Hennig had her first dance-lessons at the age of 5 years in Leipzig...
      
      (see Dancing with Time
      Dancing with Time
      Dancing with Time is a film by Trevor Peters about the autobiography Dance Theater Zeit – tanzen seit 1927 by Heike Hennig.- Plot :...
      
      )
  - Sonia Revid
  - Lola Laban
  - Hanya Holm
    Hanya Holm
    Hanya Holm is known as one of the “Big Four” founders of American modern dance...
    - Valerie Bettis
      Valerie Bettis
      Valerie Elizabeth Bettis was an American modern dancer and choreographer. She found success in musical theatre, ballet, and as a solo dancer.-Biography:...
    - Alwin Nikolais
      Alwin Nikolais
      Alwin Nikolais was an American choreographer.Nikolais studied piano at an early age and began his performing career as an organist accompanying silent films. As a young artist, he gained skills in scenic design, acting, puppetry and music composition...
      
      —decentralization
      - Murray Louis
        Murray Louis
        Murray Louis is an American modern dancer and choreographer. He grew up in Manhattan, not far from Henry Street where his company was to be founded years later. At the same time, his sister took him to many of the early modern dance concerts. After his discharge from the Navy in 1946, Mr...
      - Beverly Schmidt Blossom
        Beverly Schmidt Blossom
        Beverly Schmidt Blossom is an American modern dancer, choreographer and teacher. She was an original member and soloist with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theatre, a modern dance choreographer for Illinois Dance Theatre, Blossom & Co...

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze , was a Swiss composer, musician and music educator who developed eurhythmics, a method of learning and experiencing music through movement...
- Mary Wigman
  Mary Wigman
  Mary Wigman was a German dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor.A pioneer of expressionist dance, her work was hailed for bringing the deepest of existential experiences to the stage...
- Marie Rambert
  Marie Rambert
  Dame Marie Rambert DBE was a Polish-Jewish dancer and dance pedagogue who exerted a great influence on British ballet, both as a dancer and teacher.- Early years and background :...
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator, and activist...

—Katherine Dunham Technique
Pearl Primus
Pearl Primus
Pearl Primus was a dancer, choreographer and anthropologist. Primus played an important role in the presentation of African dance to American audiences. Early in her career she saw the needs to promote African dance as an art form worthy of study and performance...
- Garth Fagan
  Garth Fagan
  Gawain Garth Fagan, CD is a Jamaican modern dance choreographer. He is the founder and artistic director of Garth Fagan Dance, a modern dance company based in Rochester, New York.-Early years:...
Helen Tamiris
Helen Tamiris
Helen Tamiris was an American choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher.-Biography:A founder of American Modern Dance, Tamiris originally trained in free movement at the Henry Street Settlement. She danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and the Bracale Opera Company before studying briefly...
- Daniel Nagrin
  Daniel Nagrin
  Daniel Nagrin was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, and author. He was born in New York City.Nagrin studied with Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, Hanya Holm, and Helen Tamiris whom he later married...