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Mod lit modern dance 2
- 1. Modern DanceMegan and Mandy
- 2. HISTORY
- 8. Swan Lake
- 10. The Nutcracker Clip • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_13kRdR Ayc
- 11. Modern Ballet Mark Morris Dance Group
- 12. BACKGROUNDS
- 13. The Nutcracker
- 14. Swan Lake
- 15. Sleeping Beauty
- 16. Mark Morris Dance Group
- 17. Early Times • Main people • Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Mary Wigman • Began using natural, expressive gestures • Eurythmics, system for teaching musical rhythm through body movements • Make dance communicative • Costume changes begin 1930’s • Main People • Martha Graham, Doris Humphry, and Charles Weidman • Rejected external movement sources and focused on internal ones • Focused on human movement experiences • Confronted crisis Post War Development • Main People • Alwin Nikolais, Merce Cunningham, James Warin, Paul Taylor, and Alivin Ailey • No longer interested in traditional techniques • Relied on theatrical elements • Use of literary and pictorial devices
- 18. Isadora Duncan The dancer's body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
- 19. Isadora Background • Mother provided 4 children with foundations of a love and respect for art, language, and history • Dad, famous poet, left at early age • Taught dance lessons starting at 6 • America wasn’t ready for her
- 20. Wanted each spectator to be able to picture themself as a dancer You You as a dancer
- 21. Life Showed Through Dance
- 23. Aware of One’s Own Body
- 26. Isadora and the “Isadorables”
- 27. Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesinin
- 30. Background • Inspired by Ruth St. Dennis • Wasn’t supported by family • Attended Denishawn, toured • Greenwich Village Follies • Taught in NYC • Created Martha Graham Dance Company Graham, center, with the Denishawn touring company
- 31. Innovations • Serious themes – ordinary people and modern life • Convey unspoken needs, desires, dreams • Emotions • Pull of gravity • Contraction and release • Simple costume and stage • Exploration, celebration • Stark, angular movement • Made people think
- 32. Works by Graham “Lamentation” - 1930 http://youtu.be/vJHrGpw0zj0?t=45s
- 34. “Night Journey” - 1947 http://youtu.be/zHjyW6bJ8R0?t=1m42s
- 36. Merce Cunningham 1919-2009 “You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.” -Merce Cunningham
- 37. Background • Studied at Cornish School of Performing and Visual Arts • Bennington College – discovered by Graham • Joined Martha Graham Dance Company • Admired Graham, but had different ideas about dance • Worked with John Cage • Formed Merce Cunningham Dance Company
- 38. Work With John Cage Relationship between dance and music: “May occur in the same time and space, but should be created independently of one another.”
- 39. Innovations • Randomness or chance • Dance and music separate • Mechanics of movement • No storyline or narrative • No focus on emotion • Subject is dance itself • Strong technique • Enlarge range of movement • Film
- 40. Working Process Cunningham’s working process – video - 1981: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhK3Ep4HiI0
- 41. “The Coast Zone” - 1983 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBcwL8ROBAk
- 42. “Beach Birds for Camera” - 1993 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhg_Z3nt674
- 43. Reactions • Mixed reactions • Some thought Graham’s dances were ugly • Others appreciated emotions of the dances • Critics of Cunningham : “dancers moving about on stage in no relationship to one another or to the audience” • More appreciation later on
- 44. Impact of Modern Dance Movement • Freedom from strict ballet style • Exploration • Less structure • Convey emotions, ideas
Editor's Notes
- Unrealistic views of women and beautySuper skinny from corsetsWeightless look en point shoesTutu emphasized movementVery feminine Man wore tights often with detailed topOrtnate and detailed
- Evidence of feminine costumesWeightless
- Flowing costumesNo corsetsNo shoesNo TutusEmphasize movement, but in different wayMerce wearing overallsNot detailed or ornate
- Man supports weightless womenMostly womenMain women does most moves, man just adds emphasis and helps lift and such
- More men, but they still support womenWomen focus
- Hard to tell if one is man or womanSeen on a more equal plain
- DetailedHelps tell storyAdds to plot
- Helps get story across and understandableUses props also detailed
- Not as ornate, but still helps get story acrossDetailed treeScenery
- Either plain background or not detailedFocus on the dancers and movement, not background
- Stayed more true to human’s natural movement, not the unrealistic classical balletUsed music to influence body movementsDance became communicative by having the dancers tell stories in a different way than before. Movements told the story, not the costumes or background.The costume changes began to occur.Really started to focus on human occurrences such as breathing and other naturally occurring movements. Began to use dance to convey messages like those of crisis. Social and political topics could be found.Completely away from traditional techniques.
- Isadora Duncan and quote
- Isadora was born in California in 1877, so there aren’t any clips of her dancing seeing as video cameras weren’t invented until the 20’s. Isadora’s mother was self-educated, but she had a love of the arts. She had her children analyzing the writings of Shakespeare, the music of Beethoven, the art of the ancient Greeks and the Renaissance, and the poetry of Whitman.Isadora’s father had left the family when Isadora was young, but he was a famous poet and wrote, “Greece is living Greece once more.” Influenced Isadora’s fascination with Greece. Isadora began to teach dance classes at the age of 6. Her different approach to dance definitely began to show in these classes. It was said that she would improvise as she went a long and would teach anything that came into her head. Isadora and her family moved a lot. They traveled across America and eventually made their way to Europe. Isadora traveled to Chicago where she auditioned for many theater companies. She felt unhappy and limited with the Augustin Daly’s company. American audiences bored Isadora and American audiences weren’t too crazy about Isadora. Duncan decided to move to London in 1898. The money she earned from engagements was used to rent a dance studio to develop her work and create larger performances. After London, Isadora traveled to Paris where she got inspiration from the Louvre and the Exhibition of 1900. In 1902, Loie Fuller visited Duncan and asked her to tour with her which ended up taking Isadora all over Europe creating new works using her innovative dance technique. She spent a majority of the rest of her life touring Europe, North and South America.
- Isadora viewed dance as a way to a person’s creative pysche. Isadora felt that everyone should have a way to express their creative selves.
- Isadora didn’t hide her emotions while she danced, instead, she would embrace them and make them add to her dance.Isadora’s first two children died in a car accident. After the accident she spent several months at Corfu with her brother and sister trying to recover. She took a break from dance and when she returned, her choreography was much more dramatic and sad.
- Isadora felt that dancing was more about getting your emotions and such across and to focus on yourself. She didn’t think that dancing should be for other people as much as it was for yourself. Isadora also thought of dance as a high art form. She thought that using it as entertainment took away from the true art of dancing. Isadora made dance a higher form of art by dancing to artists that were seen as too good for dancing such as Chopin, Beethoven, Gluck, Wagner, and other first rank composers.
- Isadora focused on natural body movements. Breathing was a fascination to a lot of modern dancers. The act of inhaling and exhaling was interesting and the way that it would move one’s stomach.Isadora believed that the solar plexus was the center of a body’s movement. Isadora would move over the stages in different steps in comparison to classical ballet. Isadora could be seen skipping, running, jumping, and leaping across stages.
- Isadora changed the costume idea of the dance world. Flowy dresses that Isadora would wear would free the body for more movement and would also help emphasize movement. Isadora would show much more bare skin than would be deemed acceptable for the time. During her last performance in the United States, Isadora came onto stage with a bare breast with a red scarf. This was controversial because of her bare breast obviously, but this was also during the scare of Communism. Isadora was rumored to have communist ties. She was also married to a Russian at the time which added to the suspicion. Isadora did not wear shoes while performing because she believed that it would connect her more to the earth.
- Isadora didn’t want to imitate the ways of Greek life, she wanted to adopt the ways and make them her own way of life. Isadora felt that the basis of ancient Greek art and life was religious and political. It was not to please others. Isadora had causes that she developed from Greek ways such as dance, social justice, and freedom for the human body as well as the human spirit.
- Isadora’s main goal of her dancing was to spread her knowledge onto younger generations. Isadora opened her first school in 1904 in Grunewald, Germany. This is where the “Isadorables” started which were the names of Isadora’s students. Isadora had opened a school in Paris, but it was closed due to World War 1 shortly after it opened. At the schools of dance, dance was integrated into all different types of learning. Education was made joyful.The children were taken from poor families and given free room, board, and lessons.
- Isadora didn’t live the typical life. She felt women should be able to pretty much do what they wanted.She had two children out of wedlock from two different men who ended up dying in a car accident. She had another son who died hours after he was born and never named.Isadora was a claimed bisexual who had multiple affairs throughout her life. She married a Russian name Sergei which added to the suspicion of her being communist in 1922. Sergei was 18 years younger than her. He left her a year later and he committed suicide one year later.Isadora was killed in 1927 when her scarf got tangled into a wheel of a sports convertible she was in.
- Born May 11th, 1894 in Allegheny, PAInspired by dancer Ruth St. Denis to become a dancer when she was 16 years old, had seen her perform in a showParents didn’t support her dancing as a career- strict religion – yet she pursued dance anywayAttended Cunnock School of Expression for 4 years after high schoolLater attended Ruth St. Denis School of Dancing and Related Arts – also known as Denishawn – run by her inspiration Ruth St. Denis and husband Ted ShawnToured regularly with Denishawn companyLater danced on Broadway musical Greenwich Village FolliesTaught at dance schools in NYC, opened her own studio thereCreated own company – created dances that expressed emotion, made people think – different from showgirls at the time
- Ballet focused on fanciful themes and stories, she wanted to show real emotionsExpress universal emotions such as joy, jealousy, griefBallet tried to defy gravity and look easy, Martha used the downward pull of gravity in her dances, showed struggleCreated contraction- squeezing out breath, release – taking in breath – convey emotions through breathing. These ideas still used in dance today. Emotions start from torso.Stripped dance of inessentials – simple costume and stage, wanted to show the pure emotionStark, angular movement, tensionDance could be used as an exploration and celebration of lifeMade people think – not meant to entertain like showgirls of the time
- Stretch jersey costumeOnly showed face, hands, bare feet, showed sorrow and griefHad impact on people – lady from audience thanked her
- Created in 1929Martha’s first important workAbout nonconformity, outsider or rebel in a hostile societyOutcast is taken down in the end, can’t escapeRejected repeatedly – phrase of music is also repeated to show this repetition shows an emotion that others can relate to
- 1947Shows the story in Greek mythology of OedipusMarries his mother JocastaThis brings disasterShows stark, harsh movement
- Frontier- symbol of a journey into the unknown, exploration, discoveryThe dancer is a representation of Western expansion: Americans’ progress into the unknown and their hunger for spaceLight pink costume represents optimism and freshnessSweeping, expressive movements
- Began professional training at the Cornish School of Performing and Visual Arts in Seattle – learned Martha Graham dance technique hereThen joined Lester Horton Dance Theatre, gained some performance experienceLater attended Bennington College – discovered by GrahamGraham wanted Merce to join her companyToured with Martha Graham Dance Company, created some pieces for itLater left to pursue own ideas, admired Graham for going beyond classical ballet and using the force of gravity, didn’t like emotion behind dances Began collaboration with John CageFormed Merce Cunningham Dance CompanyVery successful, many awards
- Lifelong partnersCunningham met Cage at the Cornish School Began collaboratingCage became music director of the MerceCunningham’s company when it was formedCreated music and dance separatelyIndependent of eachother, one shouldn’t rely on the otherOnly brought dance and music together shortly before a performanceMerce got method of chance from CageChance to decide on how to sequence choreography, how many dancers would perform at any given point, where they would stand on stage, and where they would enter and exitFlipping pennies
- Mechanics of movement – interested on how to move from one position to anotherDidn’t like Graham’s emotion- based dancing. Focused on the dancing itself, not interested in telling a storyFocus is on movement of the dancer, appreciation for movement and techniquePure body movement , didn’t rely on facial expressionsBelieved in order for a dancer to truly express their self, they had to be a technically strong dancer – this was the foundation for dancingFilm – created many “dance films”. Camera could show dance in different ways – angles, movement of camera
- Video-dance collaboration with Charles AtlasOne of many “dance films” – using camera as part of the creative processCamera shows different angles, moves smoothly to show different dancersDancers are independent of each other – could face in any direction, described as many soloists dancing togetherAlso moments of duos or trios of dancersDancers drop in and out of different formationsCostumes – leotards and tights in purple, orange, and aqua
- Originally meant for the stage, adapted for camera Dancers appear bird-like – black and white costumes, birdlike movementsRarely all do the same movements togetherDance is accompanied by a piece called Four3 by John Cage