Wiesenthal, Grete (1885–1970)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Kolb
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Body Image ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Ballet Dancer ◽  
Art Nouveau ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Isadora Duncan ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Austrian dancer and choreographer Grete Wiesenthal was a transitional figure at the crossroads of ballet and modern dance. Initially trained and employed as a ballet dancer at the court opera in Vienna, she soon became disillusioned with the aesthetic traditionalism of ballet and in 1907 embarked on an independent career. Performing with two of her sisters and later as a soloist, she devised a new dance style and technique that emphasized bodily expressivity with motivational impulses provided by music. In the context of Viennese modernism, Wiesenthal’s work offered a novel interpretation of the Viennese waltz as a theatre dance form, oscillating between art nouveau and symbolism. She was groundbreaking in the Austro-German dance scene, exploring female creativity and individualism while contravening balletic principles. Although her career began in Vienna, she toured extensively across much of Europe and overseas, notably in New York, and hence extended her influence internationally. Wiesenthal shared with female contemporaries Anna Pavlova and Isadora Duncan a natural grace, expressive artistry, and flexibility of hands and arms. However, unlike Pavlova, Wiesenthal transgressed the confines and repertory of ballet – for instance, eschewing pointe work. Like Duncan, her body image was liberated, but she was less daring in her choice of costumes – for instance, dancing in sandals rather than barefoot – and drew inspiration from local cultural traditions and not from Greek antiquity.

scholarly journals “Feeling” in Modern Dance Print Media: Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Doran
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
Traditional Dance ◽  
Isadora Duncan ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
Loie Fuller

Between 1890 and 1920, modern dancers such as Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, and Maud Allan presented a new performative aesthetic in dance. Breaking from the narrative storytelling that dominated nineteenth-century vaudeville and ballet, these dancers advanced non-narrative movement, thereby encouraging a new aesthetic engagement from the audience, namely, one that was rooted in notions of corporeal sensation rather than narrative telos or (melo)dramatic pathos. These new responses, this dissertation argues, are reflected in the new tactics for writing the dancing body, which at once render problematic the putative objectivity of journalistic criticism and reveal the limits of traditional dance criticism’s focus on intricate technique and plot line. This dissertation pursues its argument by studying over 300 print reviews of dances performed by Fuller, Duncan, and Allan between 1890 and 1920 culled from North-American archives and representing a spectrum of print media—from mainstream national media, such as The New York Times, to regional newspapers, to more specialized theatre magazines—to reveal compelling insight into hermeneutic entanglements of language and movement. Informed by the work of recent performance studies (e.g. Phelan; Schneider; Taylor), this dissertation approaches this body of dance reviews from an inverse perspective from that represented by traditional dance history scholarship. That is, instead of reading reviews as documentation in order to understand these dances, the study explores how reviewers perform criticism, thus framing our understanding of modern dance in specific ways. This dissertation engages with the correlation between media and performance as either documentary or performative, arguing that writing performance offers promises for both types of engagement with the live event. Collectively, these reviews reveal that dance criticism involved a metacritical reflection on the significance of the critical writing act itself, and advanced a style of synesthetic metaphor to describe novel kinesthetic experiences of spectatorship. Ultimately, the new tactics to modern dance criticism not only revealed a crisis in articulation but prompted a performative style of writing dance criticism that went in tandem with the development of the dance review genre itself, whose placement in popular print media was mounting to become a regular feature by the 1930s.

scholarly journals “Feeling” in Modern Dance Print Media: Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Doran
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
Traditional Dance ◽  
Isadora Duncan ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
Loie Fuller

Between 1890 and 1920, modern dancers such as Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, and Maud Allan presented a new performative aesthetic in dance. Breaking from the narrative storytelling that dominated nineteenth-century vaudeville and ballet, these dancers advanced non-narrative movement, thereby encouraging a new aesthetic engagement from the audience, namely, one that was rooted in notions of corporeal sensation rather than narrative telos or (melo)dramatic pathos. These new responses, this dissertation argues, are reflected in the new tactics for writing the dancing body, which at once render problematic the putative objectivity of journalistic criticism and reveal the limits of traditional dance criticism’s focus on intricate technique and plot line. This dissertation pursues its argument by studying over 300 print reviews of dances performed by Fuller, Duncan, and Allan between 1890 and 1920 culled from North-American archives and representing a spectrum of print media—from mainstream national media, such as The New York Times, to regional newspapers, to more specialized theatre magazines—to reveal compelling insight into hermeneutic entanglements of language and movement. Informed by the work of recent performance studies (e.g. Phelan; Schneider; Taylor), this dissertation approaches this body of dance reviews from an inverse perspective from that represented by traditional dance history scholarship. That is, instead of reading reviews as documentation in order to understand these dances, the study explores how reviewers perform criticism, thus framing our understanding of modern dance in specific ways. This dissertation engages with the correlation between media and performance as either documentary or performative, arguing that writing performance offers promises for both types of engagement with the live event. Collectively, these reviews reveal that dance criticism involved a metacritical reflection on the significance of the critical writing act itself, and advanced a style of synesthetic metaphor to describe novel kinesthetic experiences of spectatorship. Ultimately, the new tactics to modern dance criticism not only revealed a crisis in articulation but prompted a performative style of writing dance criticism that went in tandem with the development of the dance review genre itself, whose placement in popular print media was mounting to become a regular feature by the 1930s.

scholarly journals The Cultural Revolution in David Lodge’s Changing Places

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Noureddine Friji
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
University Students ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The University

Utilizing Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man (1962) and Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972) as a theoretical backdrop, this article seeks to gauge the extent to which the teachings of the German philosopher and political theorist lay the groundwork for the protests mounted by the university students in David Lodge’s campus novel Changing Places (1975). Admittedly, the Student Revolution spilled over into numerous fields. However, given space restrictions, only its cultural manifestations will be examined. It will be clear that at the root of Lodge’s students’ uprising lies an overpowering urge to break with the cultural heritage and with the academics upholding it. It will be equally clear, nonetheless, that these young activists’ faith in Marcuse’s political doctrine is unwelcome to conservative academics on the ground that it has diverse adverse effects on universities. Not only are politically oriented texts and discourses given precedence over traditional ones but also teachers and administrators are, at times, hindered from doing their duties. The plausible conclusion to draw, in the light of the research’s findings, is that although cultural revolutions undeniably pave the way for a number of personal and collective achievements and help us modernize many aspects of life, they should not blind us to the enduring significance of previous cultural traditions and of the aesthetic value of literary works.

On Empty Spaces, Silence, and the Pause

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Amato
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Urban Renewal ◽  
York City ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Community Gardens ◽  
Empty Space ◽  
World City ◽  
Growth Machine ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The City

Before there is an aesthetic of gentrification, there is disinvestment. In between both is the production – and perception – of empty space ready to be filled. The production of empty space has a long history in New York City, from settler colonialism to urban renewal to gentrification under the neoliberal regime of today. Techniques such as filtering, investing in the aesthetic potential of aging neighbourhoods, and declaring vacancy, have helped fuel the process of gentrification. More recently, that process has accelerated to insure New York’s world city status by promising that every underutilized parcel will be filled with the tallest buildings, the greenest construction, and the densest use of land. Yet the city still has room for alternative visions that embrace a pause in the growth machine, such as cooperative centres and community gardens. These efforts, threatened though they are, provide models for inclusive cities where neoliberalism does not.

The Sounds of Zombie Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 229-252
Author(s):  
Lauren Flood
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Experimental Music ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Multimedia Art ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Tools And Techniques

This chapter investigates how do-it-yourself (DIY) cultures in New York City and Berlin make sound and music with “zombie media,” or physical materials rescued from obsolescence that are recycled, repurposed, and reanimated. In situating DIY repurposing practices within a context of conspicuous production, or the tendency to obsess over constant invention and fabrication, it explores zombie media as experimental instrument building, sound art, and multimedia art. Through solo tinkering, group workshops, concerts, and exhibits, participants employ the DIY ethos present in underground and experimental music and art scenes, as well as maker and hacker cultures, to explore the aesthetic, material, and cultural value of electronics at various life stages and afterlives. Some of their tools and techniques of repurposing include: circuit bending, hardware hacking, scavenging electronic waste, and repairing broken audio equipment. Drawing on discussions of the zombie, ranging from its original Haitian context to its widespread use as a symbol for the anxieties of late capitalism and overconsumption, the chapter shows how participants engage infrastructures of waste through an ethic of aversion, cultivating sustainability skills that demonstrate “productive” uses of time and materials, but which nevertheless embody conspicuous production. The lure of zombie media is its reanimating power—a resourcefulness-through-resistance that operates via sincerely held beliefs about labor, frugality, and conserving material goods.

Horton, Lester (1906–1953)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Dinerman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
York City ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Dance Theater ◽  
Theater Production ◽  
American Modern Dance ◽  
The U.S

Lester Horton, regarded as one of the founders of American modern dance, worked outside the established center of New York City, establishing a permanent dance theater in Los Angeles in 1946. The Lester Horton Dance Theater was a multidisciplinary arts school for children and adults, offering training in all aspects of theater production; both the school and company were multiracial, a rarity at that time. Horton’s broad choreographic range allowed him to work in films, nightclubs, and on the concert stage. His fascination with folklore, cultural history, and ethnic dance informed his diverse body of work, with themes ranging from the classics to melodrama, social commentary to satire. Working with his dancers, most notably Bella Lewitzky, he developed the Horton technique over two decades of classroom work, which is still taught today in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to Lewitzky, Horton’s influence continued through the careers of Alvin Ailey, Janet Collins, Carmen de Lavallade, James Mitchell, Joyce Trisler, and James Truitte.

Fuller, Loie (1862–1928)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhonda Garelick
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Stephane Mallarme ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Women Filmmakers ◽  
Art Nouveau ◽  
Auguste Rodin ◽  
The World ◽  
Popular Subject ◽  
Loie Fuller

Loie Fuller was a founding figure of modern dance. After an early career in American vaudeville, she moved to Paris where she created a new genre that drew on popular cabaret motifs combined with free-flowing, more natural movements performed in bare feet and flowing robes, and—crucially—the incorporation of technology. Gaining acclaim for her incorporation of electric lights, mechanical stagecraft, and her oversized silk costumes—all her own design—she used her many patented inventions to transform herself on stage into whirling sculptures of colored light and floating fabric. Known as the electricity fairy, Fuller was extremely popular with audiences, was often considered as a kind of magician, and became one of the most famous Americans in Europe. Midway through her career Fuller assembled a troupe of young dancers—Les Ballets Loie Fuller—who toured the world performing with her. In her later years she experimented with cinema, becoming one of the first women filmmakers in the world. Prominent artists and writers such as Auguste Rodin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Stéphane Mallarmé were particularly interested in Fuller, and used her as a subject for their sculpture, painting, and poetry. She was also a popular subject for early photographers. Her fame was so great, and the French embraced her so thoroughly, that at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, she was the sole performer to be granted her own theater, designed for her by esteemed Art Nouveau architect, Henri Sauvage.

Dudley, Jane (1912–2001)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Phillips Geduld
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
The United States ◽  
London School ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Dance Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Works

Jane Dudley, a key figure in the radical dance movement of the 1930s, was a choreographer who developed her own distinctive voice within the modern dance idiom and an educator who trained numerous dancers both in the United States and in England. An early member of the New Dance Group (NDG), she oversaw the creation of group works such as Strike (1934), while choreographing solos such as Time is Money (1934), in which she used the modern dance idiom to embody a worker’s oppression on the assembly line. A striking performer, Dudley joined the Martha Graham Company in the mid-1930s. At the same time, she continued to develop her own repertoire, in part through the Dudley–Maslow–Bales Trio, whose founders—Sophie Maslow, William Bales, and herself—remained committed to the social ideals of the 1930s long after they had abandoned the making of overtly political works. Dudley’s loyalty to NDG extended over several decades during which it became a major New York training venue, offering inexpensive classes and professional training to promising students, including many African Americans. From 1970 to 2000, Dudley directed the London School of Contemporary Dance, transforming it into one of Europe’s leading modern dance institutions.

Secessionist Movement

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Fine Art ◽  
Art Nouveau ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Secessionist Movement ◽  
Applied Arts ◽  
Modern Movement

The Secessionist Movement is the name applied to a range of artistic splinter groups that began to emerge in the 1890s. Objecting to what they saw as the inherent conservatism of established academies, these groups ‘seceded’ or broke away from their parent institutions and launched their own, avant-garde approach. The first secessionist group appeared in Munich in 1892 under the leadership of Franz von Stuck and Wilhelm Trübner. Among the most influential secessionist groups was that founded in Vienna by a coalition of artists, architects and designers who resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists in 1897. United by the urge to elevate the applied arts to the status of fine art, members of the Vienna Secession produced exquisite work across a spectrum of creative disciplines. The aesthetic initially resembled the curvilinear Art Nouveau style, but it increasingly moved towards abstraction and geometric simplicity. The founding of the Vienna Secession thus marked the beginning of a new artistic era in Austria and heralded the birth of the Modern Movement.

Pneumatic Dancing Girls

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-188
Author(s):  
Anya P. Foxen
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
New Thought ◽  
Isadora Duncan

Chapter 4 examines American Delsarteism as a form of harmonialism, positioning it between harmonial breath and movement practices being advocated within the broader New Thought movement and the development of modern dance. It focuses on the work of Genevieve Stebbins, whose use of esotericism closely connects her to prominent proponents of New Thought such as Warren Felt Evans, but whose influence on women such as Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis makes her something of a grandmother of modern dance. It then traces the innovations within American Delsarteism exemplified by Stebbins into Duncan’s work, which exhibits a strong esotericist influence and a harmonial subcurrent. In this context, it points out the lack of Asian content in these formulations as they culminate in Duncan’s strong Hellenic neoclassicism. Finally, it positions St. Denis as a contrast to Duncan’s Hellenism by focusing on her engagement with a resurgent and popularly explosive Orientalism.

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