Modernism encouraged reexamining life, art, and technology through experimental forms that rejected previous movements. This included abstract art that emphasized processes over traditional techniques. Modern art movements included Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism. Modern architecture used asymmetrical designs with flat roofs and large windows. Modern dance pioneers like Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, and Martha Graham expressed emotions through abstract, unglamorous movements. Similarly, modernist composers like Stravinsky and modern plays by Ibsen, Zola, and Artaud aimed to realistically critique society through naturalism and avant-garde styles.

1. Modern Performance
by Louise Douse
Week7
UnderstandingPerformance

2. Modernism
Modernism encouraged a new way of progressing forward in life, re-examining
life, art and new technologies.
Modernism not only called for a redefinition of ideas, but a thorough change
throughout the spectrum of life and the progressive arts, such as literature, music,
architecture, art and dance.
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3. Modern Art
 Rejects the ideals of previous
artistic movements
 Experimental forms, focussing on
abstraction
 Emphasis on processes
 Belief in progress
Week 7Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory
Piet Mondrian – De Stijl is recognised for the purity
of the abstractions and the methodological
practice by which they arrived at them

4. Modern Art
 Realism
 Impressionism
 Post-Impressionism
 Fauvism
 Cubism
 Constructivism
 Dada
 Surrealism
 Abstract expressionism
 Minimalism
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5. Modernism in Architecture
 asymmetrical compositions
 use of general cubic or cylindrical shapes
 flat roofs
 use of reinforced concrete
 metal and glass frameworks often resulting in
large windows in horizontal bands
 an absence of ornament or mouldings
 a tendency for white or cream render, often
emphasised by black and white photography
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6. Modernism in Music
 Igor Stravinsky
 1882-1971
 Russian Composer
 Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913)
 Experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and
dissonance
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 “[Stravinsky’s music] ceaselessly bursts out in illogical,
theoretically unachievable phrases … It is continually
impelled into the extraordinary and can find ease there
alone … Everything happens as in a super-natural
world where the power of spirit over matter becomes
abruptly infinite. What is more anomalous, more
incomprehensible and more perfect than the end of
the first scene of Le Sacre du Printemps during the
circular dance of the Adolescents when there is no
longer melody, harmony or tone-pattern, but only a
kind of humming rhythm of pure animation and
abstract whirlwind held together by the very
monotony or terror?
(Rivière, J. in Reiss, F. 1960, p. 119)

7. Modernism in Dance
 America
 Loie Fuller (1862-1928)
 Isadora Duncan (c.1877-1927)
 Doris Humphrey (1885-1958)
 Martha Graham (1894-1991)
 José Limón (1908-1972)
 Europe (Ausdrucktanz)
 Rudolf Laban (1879-1958)
 Mary Wigman (1886-1973)
 Kurt Jooss (1901-1979)
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8. Rudolf Laban (1879-1958)
 Pioneer of Modern Dance
 Notation, Choreography, MovementTraining (scales),
Choreology, Business
 Effort (eukinetics) and shape (choreutics)
 Green Clowns (1928)
 “the dance was pure Expressionism” (Bradley,2008,
p.62)
 “For Die GrunenClowns it was necessary to place
Laban in his immediate context in the Weimar
Republic turmoil that postwar Germany was, with its
financial and political crises, street violence, and
growing racial unease.” (Preston-Dunlop and Sayers,
2011, p. 10)
Understanding Performance Week 7

9. Doris Humphrey (1885-1958)
 Pioneer of Modern Dance
 Technique – fall and recovery
 Dionysus and Apollo - Nietzsche
 Water Study (1928)
 “an impersonal dance, the most abstract of all
Humphrey’s surviving works.” (Siegel, 1985, p.29)
 “the mass moves and the sense of the mass impels
individual dancers to move.” (Siegel, 1985, p. 32)
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory Week 7

10. Key stylistic features of modern dance
 Outside of, and against ballet
 Harmony and disharmony
 Used the ground
 No frills, no grace – unglamorous
 Expressive – drew on emotions
 Theatrical abstraction
 Individual / universal
 Revolution and institution
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11. Modernism in Theatre
 Realism/Naturalism
 Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
 Emile Zola (1840-1902)
 Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
 Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938)
 Avant-Garde
 Alfred Jarry (1873-1907)
 Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940)
 Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)
 Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
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12. Emile Zola (1840-1902)
 Naturalism inTheatre
 Critique of human nature and behaviour
 Therese Raquin (1904)
 “Zola defined the naturalist movement in the
preface to his novelThérèse Raquin (1867), arguing
that it is the writer’s task to dissect human nature
and the environment with the clinical precision of a
scientist, and by doing so discover and analyse the
scientific laws, or forces, that influence behaviour,
and which include environment, heredity and the
emotions.”
 (Sierz, 2019)
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory Week 7

13. Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)
 Theatre of Cruelty
 TotalTheatre
 Spurt of Blood (1925)
 “The baffling Spurt of Blood is also perhaps best
thought of as a product of Surrealism.” (Leach,
2004, p. 157)
 “Peopled by characters with names which reflect
their social or public roles – KNIGHT,WETNURSE,
PRIEST, WHORE and so on – the performance text
has production requirements which would have
been impossible in the context of the available
technologies of the era in which it was written.”
(Gale and Deeney, 2010, p. 182)
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory Week 7

14. Key Stylistic Features
 Realism and naturalism as a reaction against
Romanticism – “like life” not idealised
 Avant-Garde – Anarchism and revolution
 System/Method/EpicTheatre – parallels with
Scientific method
 Socialist ends – to make audiences socially and
politically aware
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15. References
 Anderson, J. (1980) ‘The modern dance’, in Steinbeck, C. The dance anthology. New York: New American Library, pp. 418-429.
 Buckle, R. (1980) Nijinsky. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
 Borny, G. (2006) Interpreting Chekhov. Australian National University.
 Bradley, K. (2008) Rudolf Laban. London: Routledge.
 Burt, R. (1998) Alien bodies: representations of modernity, race and nation in early modern dance. London: Routledge.
 Gale, M. and Deeney, J. (2010) Routledge drama anthology and sourcebook: from modernism to contemporary performance. London: Routledge.
 Leach, R. (2004) Makers of modern theatre: an introduction. London: Routledge.
 Preston-Dunlop, V. and Sayers, L. (2011) ‘Gained in translation: recreation as creative practice,’ Dance Chronicle, 34 (1), pp. 5-45.
 Reiss, F. (1960) Nijinsky: a biography. London: Adam and Charles Black.
 Siegel, M. (1985) The shapes of change: images of American Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Siegel, M. (1989) ‘The Green Table: sources of a classic’ in Dance Research Journal, 21 (1), pp. 15-21.
Week 7Understanding Performance