Modern Dance as an American Alternative to Classical Ballet

The choreographic art of the United States developed in a new direction and was looking for new forms corresponding to the trends of the modern era in many ways. By the beginning of the 20th century, the classical ballet of the USA rooted in Russian choreographic culture had experienced the lack of the means of expression that could reflect a new range of themes, images, philosophical and artistic concepts that had developed by that time and required a new dance style, genres, aesthetics. Modern dance emerged along with the development of the national political and artistic and creative self-consciousness of Americans in general, during the development of national musical, choreographic, and poetic traditions by cultural figures, who searched for their path in art. The study analyses the features of American modern dance. The artistic and aesthetic principles of modern dance are identified and the historical and cultural prerequisites for the development of the national choreographic school of the United States are revealed. The study uses theoretical methods such as visual and textual analysis of choreographic performances and music for performances, comparison of means of plastic expression, movements and figures of classical ballet and modern dance, principles of stage development of artistic images of performances. The empirical study is based on the generalisation of the practical experience of staging performances by leading American dancers of the 20th century. As a result, it is noted that the features of modern dance are completely different to those of the United States classical ballet, testifying to the desire of Americans to reflect the problems of modernity and convey the unique national character of the United States culture by using elements of African or Indian dances, as well as movements that are not characteristic of classical ballet but reflect the spirit of modernity. The materials of the study are of theoretical and practical value for specialists who work with the problems of culture and art of the 20th century, including modern choreography.

Modern Dance As an American Alternative to Classical Ballet

the article analyzes the features of the American modern dance, which formed in the first half of the 20th century as an alternative to the classical ballet of the United States, which had Russian roots. In the article there were formulated both the artistic and aesthetic principles of modern dance and the historical and cultural prerequisites for the formation of the US national choreographic school. The work uses theoretical methods: visual and text analysis of choreographic works and music for performances, comparison of the means of plastic expressiveness, movements and figures of classical ballet and modern dance, the principles of stage development of artistic images of performances. The basis of the empirical study was a generalization of the practical experience of staging performances by leading American dancers of the 20th century. According to the results of the study, it is noted that the features of modern dance are opposite to the classical ballet of the United States, testify to the desire of Americans to illuminate the problems of modern time and convey the unique national features of US culture, using elements of African or Indian dances, as well as movements that are not characteristic of classical ballet, but reflect the spirit of our time. The materials of the article have theoretical and practical value for specialists dealing with the problems of culture and art of the 20th century, including modern choreography

Prologue

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.

Martha Graham's Cold War

“I am not a propagandist,” declared the matriarch of American modern dance, Martha Graham, while on her State Department–funded tour in 1955. Graham’s claim inspires questions: the United States government exported Graham and her company internationally to more than thirty nations in Asia, Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, representing every seated president from Dwight D. Eisenhower through Ronald Reagan, and planned under George H. W. Bush. Although in the diplomatic field she was titled the “Picasso of modern dance,” and in later years “Forever Modern,” Graham was known to proclaim, “I am not a modernist.” In addition, she declared, “I am not a liberationist,” yet she intersected with politically powerful women such as Eleanor Roosevelt; Eleanor Dulles, sister of Eisenhower’s Dulles brothers in the State Department and CIA; Jackie Kennedy Onassis; Betty Ford; and political matriarch Barbara Bush. While bringing religious characters inspired by the Bible and the American frontier to the stage in a battle against the atheist communists, Graham insisted, “I am not a missionary.” To her abstract, mythic and biblical works, she added the trope of the American frontier. While her work promoted the United States as modern and culturally sophisticated, her casting promoted a vision of America as racially and culturally integrated. During the Cold War, the reconfigured history of modernism as apolitical in its expression of “the heart and soul of mankind” met political needs abroad with Graham’s tours. With her modernism, Graham demonstrated the power of the individual, republicanism, immigrants, and ultimately freedom from walls and metaphorical fences with the unfettered language of movement and dance as cultural diplomacy.

Ted Shawn

This book is the first critical biography of Ted Shawn (1891–1972), the self-proclaimed “Father of American Dance.” Based on extensive archival research, it offers an in-depth examination of Shawn’s pioneering role in the formation of Denishawn (the first American modern dance company and school), Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers (the first all-male dance company), and Jacob’s Pillow (the internationally renowned dance festival and school located in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts). For many years and with great frustration, Shawn attempted to tell the story of his life’s work in terms of its social and artistic value, but struggled, owing to the fact that he was homosexual, something known only within his inner circle of friends. Though Shawn remained closeted, he scrupulously archived his journals, correspondence, programs, photographs, and motion pictures of his dances, anticipating that the full significance of his life, writing, and dances would reveal itself in time. By exploring these materials alongside Shawn’s relationship with contemporary thinkers who were leading a radical movement to depathologize homosexuality, such as the British eugenicist Havelock Ellis, writer Lucien Price, and sexologist Alfred C. Kinsey, this book tells the untold story of how Shawn’s homosexuality informed his extensive body of writings and choreography and, by extension, the history of dance in America.

An Interesting Experiment in Eugenics

This chapter examines the formation and early years of Denishawn, the first American modern dance company and school. It argues that the newlywed Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn harnessed the cultural fascination with eugenics—the science of race betterment—to catapult their unique brand of theatrical dancing into public renown. A cultural phenomenon, Denishawn appeared in magazines from National Geographic to Vogue, fast becoming a sensation among Hollywood directors, vaudeville producers, and high society elites. Denishawn’s meteoric rise was curtailed by World War I and Shawn’s enlistment in the army as well as the interpersonal conflicts between St. Denis and Shawn, which led the couple to seek marriage counseling from Havelock Ellis, a pioneer of the British eugenics movement, while in London in 1922 with their company.

Horton, Lester (1906–1953)

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.

Martin, John (1893–1985)

One of the first full-time newspaper dance reviewers in the United States, John Martin wrote for The New York Times from 1927 to 1962 and was often referred to as the dean of American dance critics during his 35-year tenure. Martin used his bully pulpit at the Times to launch a discourse within the dance community surrounding the aesthetics of modernism in dance as well as to educate and rally a new audience. In the process he helped to establish dance reviewing as a specialized field of arts reporting and commentary and not just a subgenre of music criticism, as it had been treated before 1927. A vocal defender of the legitimacy of an American modern dance as defined by New York-based practitioners such as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey, Martin was among the first theorists of it, outlining a poetics of its form and function while introducing a new vocabulary. His prolific output includes thousands of essays and reviews for the Times and other periodicals, seven books, and a series of highly influential lectures given at the New School for Social Research, Bennington School of the Dance, and in the latter part of his career at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Primus, Pearl (1919–1994)

Dancer and choreographer Pearl Primus made significant strides toward securing a vital role for dance artists of color in American modern dance. Sparked by the Depression era mandate that dance aid the cause of social justice, Primus imagined and represented the world through the lens of the African diaspora. Her early performances fueled a critical debate within modern dance circles over reigning priorities regarding artistry, authenticity, and innovation. Travel to Africa for a year in 1949 prompted her to reconsider her assumptions about theatricality in modern dance from the perspective of ritual experience. A student of anthropology throughout her life, Primus pioneered approaches to choreography and to dance pedagogy that adapted ethnographic research, obtained largely through participant-observation, to the stage. Increasingly, over the span of her life, Primus participated in an international discourse about the African diasporic cultural continuum, advocating that black dance be defined on its own terms and not in relation to white dance aesthetics or cultural standards.