Dancing in Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Halifu Osumare
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Nordic Region ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Katherine Dunham ◽  
Dance Companies ◽  
The Times

This chapter explores the unique positionality of being a black woman in Europe in the late 60s. This social position is further complicated with being a contemporary dancer trying to survive in Spain, France, and the Netherlands and finally Copenhagen, Denmark, and Stockholm, Sweden. The author forms a Danish modern dance company with another American dancer in Copenhagen and, together, they help create a dance “revolution” for the times. She ends up teaching jazz dance in a major ballet academy in Stockholm, where she is also able to continue her own training with former members of the Katherine Dunham and Martha Graham dance companies. The author also investigates the influence of Dunham’s Technique on the Nordic region of Europe.

Dent, Nancy Lima (1919–2013)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyne Clare
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Dance Teacher ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Katherine Dunham ◽  
Jose Limon ◽  
Critical Reviews

Nancy Lima Dent helped to establish modern dance in Toronto. She initially studied with Rita Warne and Boris Volkoff, and later was a student of modern dance luminaries Doris Humphrey, José Limon, Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Pearl Primus, and Katherine Dunham. Starting in 1946, Dent worked as a performer and choreographer with the Toronto-based Neo Dance Theatre (renamed the New Dance Theatre in 1949). In 1960, Dent established her own dance company, the Nancy Lima Dent Dance Theatre. The company received positive critical reviews for their performances in prominent Toronto theaters including Hart House Theatre and the Centre Stage Theatre. Dent participated in three Canadian Ballet Festivals and she helped to found the Festival Evening of Modern Dance Festival in 1960. The festivals were well attended and critics noted that Dent’s choreography was especially engaging. In general, her choreographies highlighted personal expression, drew upon several modern dance techniques, and grappled with the political and ethical questions of her day. Dent was also a highly appreciated dance teacher who taught in various Ontarian cities for diverse types of students. She presented dance on television, and while recovering from an injury, she served as an effective administrator in various industries.

The Aging of a Star in Camelot

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-164
Author(s):  
Victoria Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Private Funding ◽  
East And West ◽  
Containment Policy

“It takes me ten years to make a dancer,” Martha Graham declared, and by 1961, at age sixty-seven, she had created a generation of stars. Her technically powerful company trained with the matriarch of modern dance, its “Picasso,” as they readied to tour for a new, young president, John F. Kennedy, and his sophisticated wife, Jackie. He needed to show sophistication and gravitas; in 1962, Graham and her twenty glowing dancers toured Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Poland, Sweden, West Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and Norway, traversing a complex geographic puzzle of territories contested between East and West, engaging with “containment,” the “Iron Curtain,” old-fashioned wartime European neutrality, and Bandung’s issues of nonalignment, all refashioned by the changing Cold War. Yet the tour would start in Israel, again courtesy of private funding. Greece and Turkey had been named by Truman in his “containment” policy, led by George Kennan; Graham performed as Clytemnestra for the Greeks. Kennan sponsored Graham as she went “behind the Iron Curtain” to Yugoslavia and Poland, where religious works were foregrounded to fight the Soviet “atheists.” As in 1957, she would perform in West Germany, a Cold War hotspot. In Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Norway, she engaged with European neutrality, nonalignment, and the Non-Aligned Movement that demanded softer power. As Graham aged, she presented increasingly sexually charged works with the cover of modernism and myth. Yet her alcoholism took hold and compromised her work. Many suggested this should be a “farewell tour.”

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.

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.

scholarly journals Spread of contemporary dance in Ukraine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Fedotova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
The World ◽  
Dance Companies ◽  
First Time ◽  
Time Information

The purpose of the article is to discover the peculiarities of the spread of contemporary dance in Ukraine. Methodology. The research was carried out using historical-chronological and biographical methods, as well as the method of stylistic analysis. Scientific novelty. For the first time, information about contemporary dance in Ukraine has been systematized and the features of its distribution have been identified. Conclusions. Contemporary dance is today recognized all over the world as a research tool for understanding a person and expanding his consciousness, which performs not only recreational, relaxation, communicative, and other functions, but is also used to solve human problems at the physical and mental levels, as well as to form cultural values. Having originated in Europe and America, the contemporary dance spread in Ukraine, gaining significant popularity in recent years. Among the specialist choreographers who contributed to its popularization in Ukraine from the end of the twentieth century. until now – M. Lymar, O. Budnytska, L. Venedyktova, L. Mova, R. Baranov, Kh. Shyshkarova, A. Ovchinnikov, A. Safonov, O. Ruban. In Ukraine, dance companies Buchok ART Family, Total Dance Group, N'Era Dance Company and others have been created, engaged in research contemporary dance, which demonstrate performances on small stages in different cities of Ukraine and at international contemporary dance festivals. Contemporary dance festivals "Zelyonka Fest", "Dance Space" and others, held in Ukraine, also contribute to the popularization of contemporary dance. The dissemination of information about contemporary dance occurs through platforms, laboratories, residences under the guidance of Western specialists, as well as thanks to domestic choreographers who attend master classes, seminars, lectures, intensives, etc. such specialists in Ukraine and abroad, and in turn pass on experience to students. Key words: contemporary dance, Ukrainian culture, modern culture, choreograph, modern dance.

Appalachian Spring: A Collaboration and a Transition

Prospects ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 209-225
Author(s):  
Peter M. Rutkoff ◽  
William B. Scott
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
American Art ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Aaron Copland ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Abstract Expressionist ◽  
Early Expression ◽  
Second World

In late October, 1944, the Martha Graham Dance Company performed Appalachian Spring at the Library of Congress, establishing Graham as the master of modern dance. The significance of Appalachian Spring, however, went well beyond Graham's artistic development. Notwithstanding its traditional theme, Appalachian Spring heralded an important shift in American art. Following the Second World War a large segment of New York City artists abandoned the effort, so dominant in the interwar years, to create an explicitly “American” art in favor of a “modernist” aesthetic, best exemplified in abstract expressionist painting. Choreographed by Graham, composed by Aaron Copland, and designed by Isamu Noguchi, the “Ballet for Martha” marked an early expression of the shift from American realism to modernism. But unlike much of the radically nonrepresentational work of the late 1940s and early 1950s Appalachian Spring continued to embody the concerns of American realism, even unabashedly displaying its creators' continued embrace of the folk vernacular, while moving toward its modern aesthetic.

“Ballet” is a Dirty Word

2021 ◽  
pp. 373-388
Author(s):  
Henrique Rochelle
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dance Training ◽  
Professional Dance ◽  
Dance Companies ◽  
The City

Professional dancing in São Paulo, Brazil, developed from the 1950s on, with a constant and strong influence from modern dance. As modernism looked disapprovingly at ballet, seeing it as something from the past, prejudice grew in the city toward the form. Directors and choreographers of dance companies currently speak about ballet and contemporary ballet as something that is done, but always by others, never themselves. Even the word “ballet” is avoided, since it seems to diminish the works being discussed, as it became something strictly associated with dance training, and not professional dance. This chapter investigates the roots of ballet in São Paulo, discussing both its origins and the origins of its rejection, while pointing to the recent indications of its newfound public interest.

scholarly journals MOOD CHANGES FOLLOWING MODERN-DANCE CLASSES

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 453-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Lane ◽  
Ruth Hewston ◽  
Emma Redding ◽  
Gregory P. Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Mood State ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Significant Interaction Effect ◽  
Mood Changes ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Mood Scale

Full-time dancers typically spend a large proportion of time participating in dance classes. The present study examined mood state changes following two contrasting modern-dance styles on a sample of full-time dancers. Twenty-three dancers completed the Brunel University Mood Scale (Terry, Lane, Lane, & Keohane, 1999) to assess anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, tension, and vigor before and after two different dance classes. One class taught was the Jose Limon technique style, characterized by light flowing movement, and the other class taught was the Martha Graham technique style, characterized by bound movements. Results showed that participants reported a positive mood profile before and after both dance classes. Repeated Measures Multivariate Analysis of Variance results indicated a significant interaction effect (Pillai's Trace 6, 15 = .32, p < .01), whereby Vigor increased following the Limon class but remained stable after the Graham class. Future research is also needed to investigate mood changes over a sustained period to evaluate more fully mood states responses to the demands of dance classes.

Kankouran West African Dance Company, Washington, D.C.

2019 ◽  
pp. 104-113
Author(s):  
William Serrano-Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
West African ◽  
African Dance ◽  
Educational Vision ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
West African Dance ◽  
Dance Companies ◽  
The One ◽  
Artistic Director ◽  
The U.S

Amaniyea Payne, dancer/choreographer and Artistic Director of Muntu Dance Theatre, offers her reflections on Muntu’s more than four decades in Chicago, Illinois. There, in mid-west U.S.A., Muntu shines a bright and powerful light on African dance, due in major part to its artistic and educational vision, which has been influenced by Payne’s artistic research and global dance connections. Her research and artistic experiences display the seminal connections among Diaspora dance artists, highlighting their similar concerns regarding education of African, diasporic, and non-African peoples. Payne and Muntu exemplify the characteristic duality of professional African-based dance companies in the U.S.: on the one hand, she and the company develop and present fascinating, contemporary choreographies using traditional African vocabularies and on the other hand, they are enmeshed in educational projects and neighborhood and community development through dance.

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