Tamiris, Helen (1902–1966)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Graff
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Negro Spirituals ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Collaborative Ventures ◽  
American Modern Dance ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
Popular Audience

Helen Tamiris was a key figure in the development of American modern dance; along with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Hanya Holm, she helped to forge the art form. Born Helen Becker to an immigrant Russian Jewish family on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, she was introduced to dance at the Henry Street Settlement House. After a brief stint in the ballet world and on the commercial stage, she gained recognition as a concert dancer with a suite of dances set to Negro Spirituals. These signature works established her reputation as a choreographic voice for the oppressed; themes of social protest inspired her throughout her career. As a political activist she promoted collective bargaining for dancers, organized collaborative ventures with other early modern dancers, and led the campaign to create a Federal Dance Project for unemployed dancers during the Depression years. She was unusual among early moderns in her desire to reach a broad popular audience, and in the 1940s and 1950s choreographed a succession of Broadway musicals, receiving critical acclaim for choreography in shows such as Annie Get Your Gun and Plain and Fancy. Her political engagement and her success in bridging the divide between high art and popular culture distinguish her among American modern dancers.

Bennington School of the Dance (1934–42)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Candace Feck
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
College President ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
University Of Wisconsin ◽  
Art Form ◽  
American Modern Dance ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The University

Bennington School of the Dance served as a highly influential training programme, creative laboratory and performance venue for early modern dance. Founded by Martha Hill, Mary Josephine Shelly and Bennington College President Robert Devore Leigh in 1934 on the college campus in south-western Vermont, the school thrived over nine, six-week summer sessions from 1934 to 1942, including one term held at Mills College in California in 1939. Designed to promote and consolidate knowledge of the nascent art form of American modern dance, the Bennington School also became an incubator for the production and presentation of new works by modern dance’s most distinguished exponents: choreographers Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and Hanya Holm were among its earliest and most consistent faculty members. Dance critic John Martin, composer and advisor Louis Horst, and stage and lighting designer Arch Lauterer were also important faculty members. The programme’s guiding philosophy proposed that to be viable, a dance education must be associated with exposure to its best artists, sharply distinguishing itself from the competing model formulated by Margaret H’Doubler at the University of Wisconsin, where the study of dance was viewed as an educational end in itself. The Bennington School gave way to the Connecticut College School of Dance and eventually the American Dance Festival.

Gerrard, Saida (1913–2005)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seika Boye
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Professional Career ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Federal Theater Project ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
First Time

Toronto-born Saida Gerrard was one of the first artists to import modern dance to Canada following study in the United States. Her early training included character dancing and Dalcroze eurhythmics in Toronto, and in 1931 she moved to New York City to train at the newly opened Mary Wigman School, where she studied with Hanya Holm and Fe Alf. She later continued her training at the Martha Graham School and danced with Charles Weidman through the Federal Theater Project. Gerrard eventually settled in California where she continued to teach, choreograph, and perform. From 1932 to 1936 Gerrard returned to Toronto for personal reasons and opened The Studio of Modern Dance, teaching adaptations of exercises in absolute dance (Ausdruckstanz) learned at the Wigman School. Her influence is seen through to the professionalization of modern dance in Toronto in the 1960s. Gerrard’s professional career blossomed during her return to Toronto. She performed her own work before crowds as large as 8,000 with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, exposing many to modern dance for the first time. Her article/manifesto "The Dance" explains the artistic and philosophical impetus behind the developing art form. She eventually returned to New York where there was an infrastructure to support a professional dance career, which was not available in Canada at the time.

Shawn, Ted (1891–1972)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Scolieri
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Ted Shawn ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
Professional Dancer

The self-proclaimed "Father of American Dance," Ted Shawn attained international prominence as a professional dancer and choreographer. Along with his wife Ruth St. Denis, Shawn founded Denishawn, the first U.S. modern dance company and school. Shawn thus helped to establish dance as a theatrical art in the United States by emphasizing that dancing is a sacred, nationalist, and artistic form of human expression, thereby challenging prevailing attitudes that associated dancing with prostitution, social degeneracy, and commerce. He also led an artistic crusade to legitimize dance as a profession for men. Although he rejected the term "modern" to describe his brand of theatrical dancing, he was essential to the development of modern dance in the United States in that he trained its pioneers Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman, as well as generations of modern dancers both at the Denishawn schools in the 1910s and 1920s and later at his University of the Dance at Jacob’s Pillow, a school and festival that continues today.

Prologue

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Victoria Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
The Public ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
American Modern Dance ◽  
High Level ◽  
Hearts And Minds

In 1955, Martha Graham and her company of diverse dancers landed in Japan to begin their first official State Department–sponsored tour of Asia and the Middle East to countries that President Dwight D. Eisenhower designated as the “domino nations,” or those most likely to fall to communist influence. On the tarmac, Graham was greeted by mass crowds and children bearing bouquets. American modern dance challenged the Soviet ballet, as a tour by Galina Ulanova preceding Graham. Newspapers announced, “U.S. and Soviet Competition in Dancing: Graham and Ulanova.” Graham triumphed with her abstract works alongside tales from the Western canon, fractured narratives, and female protagonists, all to describe the “soul of mankind.” Graham became useful as she attached herself to Eisenhower’s American battle for “hearts and minds,” particularly since she added the frontier and its pioneers to the cast of archetypes presented onstage in “the language that needs no words,” and embodied what she called the “universal.” Graham was heralded as an ambassadress during high-level diplomatic exchanges and embassy parties on the “cocktail circuit of diplomacy.” Graham and her company also functioned as diplomats when they engaged with the public during lecture-demonstrations and shopping for artifacts. While Graham proclaimed that her work was “universal,” and thus not political, one critic remarked that “the patriotic placing of American national interest at the end with Appalachian Spring” served “to underscore the diplomatic nature of this cultural mission.” Graham’s dances were modernist and seemingly apolitical art as creatures of Cold War politics.

scholarly journals Dance, The Divine, and The Devious Other: Orientalism and the Presentation of Race and Gender in the Work of Ruth St. Denis

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krista Kee ◽  
Class of 2016
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Eastern Hemisphere ◽  
Isadora Duncan ◽  
American Modern Dance ◽  
And Gender

Ruth St. Denis is considered to be one of the pioneers of American modern dance. She was a performer and choreographer often mentioned alongside the historical giants of modern dance like Isadora Duncan and St. Denis’s own protégé, Martha Graham. Ruth St. Denis’s Eastern-inspired and ornate dance spectacles earned her significant notoriety and enthralled audiences. St. Denis certainly contributed to the evolution of the American modern dance tradition; however, her success also highlights the presence of Orientalist thought in Western culture. St. Denis focused much of her work on what she referred to as Oriental Dancing. Orientalism refers to the idea that the East is spiritual, sensual, and intriguing. Orientalism overlooks the wide variety of cultures and nations in the Eastern Hemisphere and conveniently names them all as exotic other, thus degrading and oversimplifying them. An analysis of two of St. Denis’s most prominent works, Incense and Radha, reveals how Orientalism insidiously affects the perception of both race and gender in dance spectacle while reinforcing imperialist attitudes of Western superiority.

Nietzsche's Looming Presence in the 1930s Dance Polemics of John Martin and Lincoln Kirstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-203
Author(s):  
Rachel Straus
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
Modern Dancers

Some of the most perplexingly antagonistic comments about the differences between modern dance and ballet can be found strewn throughout the works of two pioneering twentieth-century American dance writers: John Martin (1893–1985) –  The New York Times's first permanent dance critic, champion of modern dancers and early supporter of Martha Graham ( Kisselgoff et al. 1988 : 44) – and Lincoln Kirstein (1907–1996), the prodigious author, impresario, and balletomane, who cofounded with George Balanchine the New York City Ballet. Looming behind a significant number of Martin's and Kirstein's appraisals and condemnations of modern dance and ballet are Friedrich Nietzsche's aesthetics, particularly his Apollonian-Dionysian conceptualisations. This essay investigates the reception of Nietzsche in the context of the 1930s writing of these two dance critics, particularly in respect to their treatment of gender. Foundational for this essay's development are the analyses of Nietzsche's reception by earlier twentieth-century dance figures in the works of Susan Jones (2013 , 2010 ), Susan Manning (2006) and Kimerer LaMothe (2006) .

Maslow, Sophie (1911–2006)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Rossen
Keyword(s):  
Social Activism ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Significant Contributor ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Group A ◽  
American Modern Dance

Sophie Maslow, a prolific choreographer and significant contributor to American modern dance, was often characterized as a populist or people’s choreographer because she was inspired by the struggles and experiences of ordinary people. Combining modernism with humanism, Maslow’s work depicted emotional and universal experiences (a hallmark of mid-century modern dance) while also envisioning a more just and equitable society. Throughout her more than 50-year career she drew from a variety of sources, including folk traditions, rural and urban American life, and literature. During the 1930s, while a soloist with the Martha Graham dance company, she began choreographing her own work and joined the New Dance League, the precursor to the New Dance Group, a collective of choreographers who viewed dance as a form of social activism.

Mutual Inspiration: Choreographers and Composers at the Bennington School of the Dance

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 108-117
Author(s):  
Elizabeth McPherson
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
College Campus ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
American Life ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Integral Component ◽  
American Modern Dance ◽  
One Year ◽  
Do So

Visual artists, designers, composers, photographers, poets, and choreographers were vital participants in the Bennington School of the Dance, which ran on the Bennington College campus in Bennington, Vermont, from 1934–1942 with one year, 1939, spent at Mills College in California. Collaborations were an integral component of the school, occurring between faculty and staff members as well as between students and faculty/staff. Of particular importance were the collaborations between musicians (including Louis Horst, Gregory Tucker, Norman Lloyd, and Alex North) and choreographers (including Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman). These collaborations influenced the direction of American modern dance, which was establishing itself with new breath as a form that could express American life and traditions without necessarily drawing upon European composers to do so.

St. Denis, Ruth (1878–1968)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uttara Asha Coorlawala
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Ted Shawn ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
A Company ◽  
The U.S

Ruth St. Denis is considered one of the founders of modern dance, even though the genre had not been named as such during her most active years, which spanned from the turn of the century through the 1920s. Looking for an alternative to classical ballet and Broadway glitter, St. Denis created works inspired by images of Oriental dance and informed by her Delsarte training. In 1906 she created an impressionistic version of the Indian goddess in her solo Radha, and the success of the dance launched her solo career in Europe. There she toured extensively from 1906 to 1909 with a repertoire of Indian-themed works. After her return to the U.S., she added works based on other cultures, including Egypt and Japan, to her repertory. In 1914 she met Ted Shawn, and the two founded Denishawn, a company and school that expanded St. Denis’s repertory to include musical visualizations and widely disseminated her methods and ideas. In addition to extensive tours across the U.S., Denishawn toured South and East Asia in 1925–1926, where the company acquired more repertory from local dance celebrities who were willing to experiment with their own forms. St. Denis influenced her contemporaries in Europe and subsequent generations of modern dancers in the U.S. Indeed, the generation of the 1930s that named modern dance included many artists who had come from Denishawn, including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman.

Schottelius, Renate (1921 – 1998)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Fortuna
Keyword(s):  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
Jose Limon ◽  
San Martín ◽  
Extensive Performance ◽  
Early Training ◽  
The U.S

German-born dancer and choreographer Renate Schottelius was a pioneer of modern dance in Argentina. Following early training in classical and modern dance in Berlin, she immigrated to Argentina in 1936, where she presented original work and in 1944 joined former Denishawn dancer Miriam Winslow’s company based in Buenos Aires. In 1953 Schottelius travelled to the United States, where she studied with Louis Horst, Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham, Agnes de Mille, José Limón, and Hanya Holm. Schottelius’s choreography synthesizes her roots in German Ausdruckstanz and the U.S. modern dance tradition, reflecting not only her personal artistic biography, but also the confluence of modernist styles circulating through Argentina by the mid-20th century. In addition to her artistic contributions, Schottelius was at the forefront of initiatives to support modern dance production in Argentina, most notably the Friends of Dance Association (1962–1972). Over the course of her extensive performance and teaching career Schottelius also worked internationally at the Royal Swedish Opera, the Cullberg Ballet, and the Boston Conservatory of Music, Dance, and Theatre. A keen teacher of dance technique and composition, she mentored many influential Argentine modern dancers, including Oscar Araiz and Ana María Stekelman. Schottelius acted as artistic advisor to the Contemporary Ballet of the General San Martín Municipal Theatre until her death in Buenos Aires in 1998.

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