History of Modern Dance

Early Period – 1900

The first three decades embrace the careers of the American dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis and
the German dancer, Mary Wigman. This was preceded by a period of reaction against the empty spectacle of
late 19th-century ballet.

There were two developments that helped inspire a freer kind of dance movement:

- The system of natural expressive gestures – developed by French Actor Francois Delsarte.
- Eurhythmics – a system for teaching musical rhythms through body movement – created by Swiss music
educator, Emile Jacques-Dalcroze.

Early modern dancers looked beyond the dominant tradition of Western theatrical dance (ballet) in order to
give their dance a more communicative power. They drew on archaic or exotic sources for inspiration. During
the same period, some ballet choreographers also looked to similar sources.

Isadora Duncan used Greek sculpture as a movement source and danced in bare feet and a simple tunic. She
created dances that alternated between resisting and yielding to gravity. Her response to the music of
romantic composers such as Chopin and Liszt dictated the form of her choreography.

Ruth St. Denis turned to ethnic and Asian dance styles as a basis and in 1915 she formed the dance company,
Denishawn, with her husband, Ted Shawn. She trained dancers to dance as she did, in a diverse range of
styles. Later, American choreographers such as Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus continued her interest
in ethnic styles.

Mary Wigman looked to Africa and the Orient for inspiration. She presented both solo and group works, often
arranged in cycles. Along with other German modern dancers – Rudolf von Laban, Kurt Jooss and Herald
Kreutzberg, she made extensive use of masks.

The rise of the Nazis ended the German Modern Dance movement.

The 1930s

The second wave of modern dancers emerged in New York. They included Americans Martha Graham, Doris
Humphrey and Charles Weidman, all of who had danced with Denishawn and the German-American dancer
Hanva Holm, who came from Mary Wigman’s company. These dancers rejected external movement sources
and turned to basic human movement experiences such as breathing and walking. They transformed these
natural actions into dance movements.

Martha Graham evolved her technique of contraction and release from natural breathing and explored
movement initiated in the torso. In the late 1930s she became interested in narrative structure and literary
subject matter. Together with Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, she created narrative locales that
were both mythic and psychic. She danced the roles of female protagonists confronting moments of crisis
whilst other dancers represented various aspects of the protagonist’s self in crisis.

Doris Humphrey evolved her technique of fall and recovery from the natural dynamic of the human footfall.
This technique became a metaphor for the relationship of the individual to a greater force. After Humphrey
stopped performing, she continued to choreograph for her protégé, Mexican-American dancer and
choreographer, Jose Limon. The choreographic sources for her late works were words and gestures rather
than her own movement experiences.
Hanya Holm worked in a more varied range and created humorous dances of social commentary. Beginning
in the late 1940s, she also choreographed for musicals, being one of the first to bring the style of modern
dance to the Broadway stage.

During the 1930s, choreographers defined modern dance and ballet in opposition to one another. Modern
dance was established as a technique with its own internal coherence and ballets was defined by reaffirming
the essential tenets of its tradition. Both ballet and modern choreographers focused on the purity of their
traditions.

Post-war Developments

Twyla Tharp found their movement sources in the proliferation of 20th-century dance styles and their works
combined and fused techniques drawn from social dance, ballet and modern dance. She began her career as
part of the 1960s avant-garde. During this time of social upheaval, the American dancers Yvonne Rainer,
Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk, and other created works at the extreme limit of what is considered dance.

Merce Cunningham fused Grahams technique with ballet, locating the source of movement in the spine. He
organized the changes of movement through methods based on chance, and considered music and décor
independent of the dance. His works revealed individual dancers experiencing their relation to present time
and abstract space.

James Waring and Twyla Tharp have worked with both ballet companies and their own modern companies.
Along with Paul Taylor and Alwin Nikolais, they display a choreographic sense of humour.

Modern (or post-modern) dance in the mid-1980s, no longer interested in traditional techniques, relies on
theatrical elements and the use of literary and pictorial devices. Tanztheater Wuppertal, founded by the
German dancer-choreographer Pina Bausch, performs eveng-length mixed media works such as ‘The Seven
Deadly Sins’.

Other notable post-modern dancers are Americans Mark Morris, who worked with Twyla Tharp and the ballet
dancer Eliot Feld and Karole Armitage – choreographer of the ‘Mollino Room’.

Stabbing, insect-like motions and savage confrontations characterize Armitage’s work. Among the pieces
composed for her own group is ‘The Watteau Deuts’ – merging dancing on pointe with torso movements.

Much interest has also attached to Sankai Juku, a group of Japanese dancers trained in modern and classical
dance. Their work is based on ‘butoh’, a form of dance theatre that avoids structured choreography and
strives to express primitive emotions by making minimal use of costuming and actual movement. In their
‘Hanging Event’, dancers suspended upside down on ropes are slowly lowered, uncoiling their bodies as they
descend.

Contemporary dance is a popular form of dance which developed during the middle portion of the
twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominating performance genres for
formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in the U.S. and
western Europe.

Although originally informed by and borrowing from classical, modern, and jazz styles, it has since
come to incorporate elements from many styles of dance, but due to its popularity amongst trained
dancers and some overlap in movement type, it is often perceived as being closely related to modern
dance, ballet and other classical concert dance styles.
In terms of the focus of its technique, contemporary dance tends to utilize both the strong and
controlled legwork of ballet and modern dance’s stress on the torso, and also employs contact-release,
floor work, fall and recovery, and improvisation characteristic of modern dance.

Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction are often used, as well. It sometimes also
incorporates elements of non-western dance cultures such as elements from African dance including
bent knees, or movements from the Japanese contemporary dance Butoh.

Around 1980s, the world "contemporary dance" referred to the

movement of new dancers who did not want to follow strict
classical ballet and lyrical dance forms, but instead wanted to explore
the area of revolutionary unconventional movements that were gathered
from all dance styles of the world. Contemporary dances therefore do
not use fixed moves and instead try to develop totally new forms and
dynamics, such as quick oppositional moves, shifting alignments,
expressions of raw emotions, systematic breathing, dancing moves
preformed in non-standing positions (for example lying on the floor), and
in general trying to find the absolute limits of our human form and
physique.
The origins of this popular dance movement can be traced to several
influential dance masters such as Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and
Merce Cunningham. They all wanted to show to the world that
contemporary dancers should embrace freedom, ignore old dance
conventions and explore the limits of the human body and visual
expression of feelings. Also, one of the precursors to the contemporary
dance can be found in the millennia's old techniques of Zen Buddhism
and Indian Health Yoga, which incorporates various dancing
philosophies that closely follow the principles of contemporary dance.
Dancer who introduced and greatly popularized the contemporary dance
to the worldwide audience was Martha Graham (1894 - 1991). During
her seven decade long career, her modern dance and choreographies
gathered the fame that is today compared to the life works of legendary
art geniuses such as Picasso, Stravinski and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Merce Cunningham refined the work that his colleague Martha Graham
formed, and expanded with this his own improvements, choreographies
and avant-garde dance techniques. During his long career he was
regarded as one of the greatest creative forces in American dance,
education dozens of worldwide famous dancers and thousands
professional dancers who preserved his style until today.
Lester Horton was a very influential contemporary dance visionary, who
trained many famous modern dancers and managed to incorporate the
styles of Native American dance and modern jazz into his dance
techniques.

The Characteristics of Contemporary Dance

Modern dance encourages dancers to use their emotions and moods to design
their own steps and routines. It is not unusual for dancers to invent new steps for
their routines, instead of following a structured code of technique, as in ballet.

Another characteristic of modern dance, in opposition to ballet, is the deliberate

use of gravity. Whereas classical ballet dancers strive to be light and airy on their
feet, modern dancers often use their body weight to enhance movement. This
type of dancer rejects the classical ballet stance of an upright, erect body, often
opting instead for deliberate falls to the floor.

Contemporary dance is an extremely broad nomenclature for a style of dance that has developed
since the middle of the last century which stemed from jazz modern and ballet styles. It contains
elements of floor work, more movement in the upper body than classical ballet (contractions,
releases, spirals, etc), usually has less focus on turnout and extremely high leg extensions,
encourages off balance or counterbalance techniques and often uses improvisation. Some
contemporary dance has used the influence of indigenous or folk dance styles as points of
inspiration.

Contemporary dance encompasses many movement types. Some common

characteristics of contemporary dance, however, are…

 Grounded movement
 An appreciation of the body and its natural movement
 Themes or motifs in movement
 Facial expression used while dancing other than smiling
 Interesting, different movement that does not fall into other dance categories
 Accents in movement (sudden or even sharp movements in the midst of slow,
smooth movement, for example)
 Exploring human experience through movement
 A basis in technique but a focus on execution and “feeling” the movement
 Partner connection through movement
 Contemporary dance does refuse the classical ballet's leg technique in favor of modern
dance's stress on the torso
 Contemporary dance is not necessarily narrative form of art
 Choreography that appears disordered, but nevertheless relies on technique
 Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction
  Multiple and simultaneous actions
 Suspension of perspective and symmetry in ballet scenic frame perspective such as front,
center, and hierarchies
 Creative freedom
 "Independence between dance and music"
 Dance to be danced, not analyzed
 Innovative lighting, sets, and costumes in collaboration with Andy Warhol, Robert
Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns [4]
 Characteristics of modern dance
 A defining characteristic of modern dance is the singular use of space. While the
ballet dancer faces the audience, the modern dancer uses all orientations. In a
sense, performing for the audience is not the driving purpose behind a modern
dance piece. The dancer’s relationship to the music is also noticeably different
than in ballet-the ballet dancer’s movements correspond to the music; the
modern dancer’s movements may disregard it entirely. Music may be entirely
absent, leaving the sound of the dancer’s movements as the only backdrop.
 In modern dance, choreographers often dance in their own pieces. The same
artist will often be involved in lighting, costume, and scenery design. This is a
striking departure from ballet, where the dancer aspires to choreography and
rarely continues dancing once that goal is achieved. The difference is practical:
while ballet is built around a concrete “dance language” of steps, each piece of
modern dance introduces a new language. Because of this, it is often easier for
the dancers if the choreographer dances alongside them.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE MUSIC

What’s the music used in contemporary dance?

Does anybody know good contemporary dance music for my choreography?

How do I order a musician to compose for my choreography?

These questions are very common, don’t worry (contemporary dance is nowadays such a wide artistic
field that in some aspects it can be confusing). Those questions are at the same time easy and difficult to
answer.
You know there are no established movement patterns in contemporary dance, although you might
have seen recognizable choreographic vocabulary at your school or in shows. Though, contemporary
dance is an art that doesn’t put itself bounds to experiment or play with its elements.

So, like its movement, contemporary dance music isn´t really established neither (you might feel that
there are trends though and that is true). Somehow this means that you can dance to any music…

But… if you have tried already, you know YOU will not like to dance to anything. That happens to all of
us. So, how to choose, search for or ask?

One first thing that can help on this is to try to find the identity of the dance you want to create. It can
be your personal identity, or the one of a particular choreographic project. (Identity is an idea or feeling
that would be coherent with the shape, dynamics and the rest of components of the dance). When you
think you’re clear about it, start considering the following:

First of all, remember that contemporary dance is one of the few dance types that enjoys silence. You
can dance in the silence, just as many MANY contemporary dancers do. We don’t need to be constantly
stimulated by sound or rhythm, as we maintain a wide spectrum of sensible perception activated.

But we love music and sound as well. To decide which music (or soundscape) would be better for your
dance, it is also useful to be clear on what type of artistic project is your choreography. Usually the type
of music responds to that criterion and by that it makes part of the coherence of the whole idea as an
aesthetic unit.

1. Are you proposing an original choreographic structure or do you want to rely on a musical one?
2. Are you working over a concrete subject (your dance is the metaphor of a story) and need to support
the content and emotions transmitted by the choreography?

3. Are you creating an abstract piece and don´t want music to interfere with this intention?

4. Is your dance short (say a 4 minutes piece) or are you working on a ‘one and a half hour’ show?

5. What is the purpose of this dance and who is it for?

Answering to these questions will give you a first guideline to start your research.

The answer to the first question will tell you if you should choose between already existing music or
asking a musician to compose an original piece for your choreography.

If you don’t care about proposing an original movement dramaturgy, or aren’t just in the case to do that
work, you can choose an existing musical piece and compose the dance following its structure, rhythm
and dynamics. Otherwise you might need to ask a musician to compose for you.

The last two options apply in case you want unity and coherence between dance and music (what some
people call musicality when talking about dance). But again, as contemporary dance is so highly
experimental, remember that according to the general purpose of your artistic project, unison between
dance and music can be denied or ignored.

One good thing about asking a musician to compose for you is that you will have an original, perfect
fitting soundtrack. Depending on your choices, non original music can be highly distractive for certain
audiences. Having your own music will also give a unique identity to your piece and will free you from
paying rights (in case you’re performing in public).

On the other hand, you will very probably have to pay for the music, unless the composer is part of the
working group. But, if you care about artistic quality and ‘originality’, it’s important to consider this
investment.
Now, if you’re working on a piece related to a concrete subject and want to be literal (for example when
doing pieces for kids), you might have very defined restrictions.

Lyrics in music can be difficult to handle or justify from the symbolic perspective. If they are not
composed originally for your piece, they might carry verbal content which is not related to your theme.
Remember that spectators pay big attention to words. What those say can determine a lot of what an
audience perceives of a dance.

Really, unless you have original music with your own lyrics, it is always much easier to handle
instrumental music. You’ll need to pay attention to its dynamics and character, but it will focus your
audience attention a lot more in the dance and the content transmitted by choreography.

The same will apply if you’re working on an abstract dance, because lyrics will introduce a concrete
content. You can always do experiments with music with lyrics and see if you like the result. The truth is
that instrumental music assures you the way to abstraction.

If your dance is short, it might be easy to find already existing songs or musical fragments. Though, it
might be also easy to convince a musician to do the music for you. If you decide to pay for it, it will be
cheap.

Now, if you’re working on a longer show, the task becomes more delicate. Be careful with the solution
of pasting already existing songs one after another. Music and sound are like movement for the dancer,
color for the painter or space for the architect. You might have a musical sense, but unless you have
studied music for some years, avoid elaborating musical collages on your own. Ask for advice and be
respectful of the musical pieces you choose to edit.

In the case of a long show or choreography, a good solution is whether to use a long musical piece that
already exists (which can be found between classical or academic contemporary music, rarely in popular
music) or to work seriously with a musician or sound editor.

That is an option mostly for professionals, but also for enthusiastic learners and all those who care
about artistic quality in their dance performances.
This doesn’t mean that you can not create a great musical collage on your own, at home, and with the
basic audio editor that comes by default in your PC. That is possible too, of course. Though, I don´t think
that will be an easy and fast work neither, so it might be worth getting a musician’s help.

Think about the purpose of what you’re creating from an artistic point of view. Is it a professional, high
quality product? Do you have a popular audience or a more elite one? What will be the context of your
performances? Do you want to learn from it or do you just want to solve homework and move on?

There are many matters that can help you determine the most adequate music to accompany your
choreography. For me, this has always been a difficult point to solve in my creative processes, as I’m a
contemporary dance choreographer who gives a LOT of importance to the soundscape or music of my
pieces.

Of course, you can always simplify things and just pick up some music that makes you feel like dancing…
(it can be as simple as that). But you know, as I do, that there’s more to work about it in most of the
cases.

If you decide yourself to ask a musician to compose for you, you should be sure of how to communicate
with her/him (in musical language terms). That will assure an effective work and an easy assembly
between dance and music that are composed somehow separately. Read the following tips before
meeting your composer.