The Origins of Modern Dance

Modern dance emerged in the early 20th century as a rejection of the rigid rules and traditions of classical ballet. At the time, ballet was the dominant concert dance form in Europe and Russia, with its highly stylized movements and fairy tale stories. However, pioneering dancers began to push back against ballet's restrictions and seek a freer, more expressive style of movement.

One of the first pioneers was Loie Fuller, who captivated audiences in the late 1800s with her innovative Serpentine Dance. Using lengths of silk fabric and colored stage lighting, Fuller created a magical effect as she swirled her costumes to transform into flowers, butterflies, and other shapes. Though untrained in ballet, she demonstrated the creative possibilities of movement.

Inspired by Greek art and natural forms, Isadora Duncan also rebelled against ballet in the early 1900s. She performed barefoot, incorporating skipping, running, kneeling, and waving motions that expressed emotions and ideas. Duncan drew controversy for her loose, flowing costumes and brazen public persona, but she helped liberate dance from rigid technique.

Like Duncan, Ruth St. Denis found inspiration in Eastern cultures and spirituality. Her dances transported audiences to exotic locales and mythical times through her expressive arm and torso movements blended with balletic steps. Together with her husband Ted Shawn, St. Denis established the Denishawn school in 1915, training future modern dance stars like Martha Graham.

The Denishawn school formalized modern dance as a genre, with an emphasis on breath, flexibility, floor work, improvisation and seeking inspiration from diverse sources. Choreographers were encouraged to develop their own artistic voices. As modern dance spread across America and Europe, it embraced individual expression over rigid discipline, freedom over restraint, and emotional honesty over artifice.

While ballet remained beloved, modern dance continued evolving as choreographers like Graham, Humphrey, Cunningham, and Ailey built upon the creative foundations laid by Fuller, Duncan, and St. Denis. The origins of modern dance produced a tectonic shift in the dance world, changing how dancers used their bodies, expressed themselves, and interacted with audiences. The possibilities of human movement expanded dramatically, paving the way for contemporary dance today. Modern dance rebelled against tradition in pursuit of authentic human experience.

The Denishawn School

The Denishawn school, founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in Los Angeles in 1915, was instrumental in formalizing modern dance as a genre and training the next generation of modern dance pioneers.

Ruth St. Denis had gained fame as a solo performer, acclaimed for her emotive, Eastern-inspired dances portraying exotic characters like Radha the Hindu goddess. Her creative partner and husband Ted Shawn was initially a lead dancer in her company. Together, they established the Denishawn school and dance company to nurture their shared vision for melding diverse dance influences into a new American style of artistic dance.

At Denishawn, St. Denis and Shawn developed a codified modern dance technique drawing from ballet, yoga, Dalcroze Eurhythmics and other sources. It focused on breath control, improving flexibility through stretches and floor work, expressive arm movements, and improvisation exercises to discover one's unique dance voice. Students studied music theory, dance history, anatomy and costume design to appreciate dance as a holistic art form.

The school attracted artists seeking an alternative to rigid ballet training. Among the most famous Denishawn alumni were Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. They absorbed the school's creative ethos of fusing emotion, spirituality, and experimentation. But as emerging choreographers, they eventually moved beyond Denishawn's conventions to develop their own distinct modern dance techniques and choreographic visions.

For Graham, her time at Denishawn was transformative. She became a lead dancer in the company and was encouraged to choreograph her own works. The school's emphasis on breath and contracting-and-releasing motions influenced Graham's later development of her dramatic, floor-based Graham technique.

Humphrey also began choreographing at Denishawn, exploring the dynamics of fall and recovery. After leaving Denishawn, she distilled this into an intricate technique manipulating balance and gravity.

Weidman drew from his Denishawn training in ballet, acrobatics and voice to create his humorous, theatrical dances blending modern dance with mime and acting.

The Denishawn school was also racially inclusive, rare in the era of segregation. African American dancers like Edna Guy attended Denishawn and then launched their own careers. While not overtly political, Denishawn's progressive philosophy nurtured creativity across racial lines.

By the late 1920s, Denishawn's influence was waning as the artists it trained moved beyond its repertoire. But it played a vital role in breeding modern dance experimentation. Denishawn offered professional training and an institutional home for developing choreographers who would reshape dance. It synthesized diverse influences into a new model of the dancer as an expressive, empowered artist. The school's artistic values and versatile technique provided a foundation for modern dance's growth in the 1930s and beyond.

Martha Graham - The Mother of Modern Dance

Martha Graham is rightfully considered the mother of modern dance. More than any other early choreographer, Graham revolutionized dance as an expressive art form through her boldly innovative technique, iconic choreographic works, and visionary artistic leadership.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1894, Graham was introduced to movement arts as a child through her physician father's interest in anatomy and the body's expressiveness. Though initially interested in becoming a musician, Graham discovered dance while in her late teens. After seeing Ruth St. Denis perform, Graham became enthralled by dance's capacity for poetic expression.

In 1916, Graham joined the Denishawn school run by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Here, Graham absorbed Denishawn's influences from ballet, Asian dance styles, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and improvisation into her own artistic development. She became a lead dancer in the company. When Denishawn relocated to New York City in 1923, Graham went with them.

The move proved fateful, as Graham was exposed to the artistic foment of 1920s New York. She began viewing visual art and collaborating with composers, which shaped her avant-garde choreographic sensibility. Graham also studied anatomy with Irene Lewisohn, acquiring a deep understanding of breathing patterns and muscular release that informed her technique.

By the late 1920s, Graham was ready to strike out on her own. Along with a group of Denishawn defectors, they established the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1926. The company provided Graham the platform to present her choreographic and performance vision to the world.

In her dances, Graham used sharply angular, jagged motions that expressed intense inner turmoil and struggle. Movements originated in the dancer's core and radiated outwards with great force. Falling to and rising from the floor symbolized emotional catharsis. Dancers eschewed ballet slippers to dance barefoot, gripping the floor.

Graham's choreography rejected fanciful narratives and lighthearted entertainment. She crafted psychologically penetrating works like Heretic (1929) and Primitive Mysteries (1931) exploring dark human desires, fears, and conflicts. Lamentation (1930), with the dancer encased in a tube of stretch jersey, captured grief and isolation.

During the 1930s, Graham cemented her notoriety with anti-war works like Chronicle (1936) responding to the Spanish Civil War. She also expanded her company's repertoire and developed her codified modern dance technique emphasizing breath, spirals, falls, and recovery. Graham technique became a foundational training system for generations of dancers.

In the 1940s, Graham created some of her most iconic works, including Appalachian Spring (1944). Collaborating with composer Aaron Copland, this dance poem evoked the American pioneer spirit with Graham playing the lead role of the Bride. Night Journey (1947) reimagined the Greek tragedy of Oedipus through Freudian psychology.

Graham's choreographic output remained prolific in the 1950s and 60s with masterpieces like Cave of the Heart (1946), based on the Greek myth of Medea. She continued expanding her company, school, and technique which were centered at her NYC studio. Graham also mentored young choreographers like Merce Cunningham, passing the torch to the next generation.

While Graham stopped dancing in 1969, she continued choreographing into her 90s. She lived to see her revolutionary impact on dance acknowledged. When Graham died in 1991 at age 96, the lights of Broadway theater marquees were dimmed in her honor.

Martha Graham redefined dance as a medium of intense emotional expression. Through her boundary-breaking creativity and fierce commitment to artistic authenticity, she developed modern dance into one of the most significant art forms of the 20th century. Graham demonstrated the raw power and vulnerability of the human body and spirit in motion.

Merce Cunningham - Pushing Boundaries

Merce Cunningham built upon the foundations of modern dance pioneered by Martha Graham, but pushed the boundaries of the form through his avant-garde, experimental choreographic vision. Cunningham diverged from Graham's expressionism to develop a cooler, more conceptual approach emphasizing movement itself over emotional narrative.

Born in Centralia, Washington in 1919, Cunningham discovered dance relatively late at age 20 when he attended a performance by Martha Graham's company. He was immediately drawn to Graham's dramatic, cathartic movement style which conveyed powerful human emotions.

In 1939, Cunningham moved to New York City to study directly under Graham at her studio. He soon joined Graham's company as a lead dancer. Cunningham's athleticism and grace made him an ideal interpreter of Graham's demanding, physical choreography.

However, as a choreographer developing his own creative voice, Cunningham began rebelling against Graham's model of dance as psychological drama. Inspired by composer John Cage's radical philosophy of indeterminacy and chance in art, Cunningham viewed dance first and foremost as "organized movement in space and time."

Rather than telling a story, he crafted abstract dances showcasing movement for its own intrinsic beauty and interest. Emotion and meaning were secondary to exploring the body's capabilities. Cunningham also embraced everyday pedestrian motions not traditionally considered beautiful or dance-worthy.

In 1944, Cunningham formed his own dance company to present his emerging choreographic vision. A key early work was Root of an Unfocus (1944). Dancers moved in and out of synchrony, with disconnected gestures and playful jumps reflecting Cunningham's interest in movement itself rather than communal experience.

In 1952, Cunningham began his legendary creative partnership with avant-garde composer John Cage which deeply influenced his choreography. The two artists shared an experimental spirit, as Cage created atonal, cacophonous scores using prepared pianos and random compositional methods.

Rather than dance and music complementing each other, Cage's jarring sounds existed independently from Cunningham's dances. Yet the pairing produced exciting synergies between movement and aural experience. Works like Suite for Five (1956-58) exemplified their collaborative innovations.

Chance procedures also became central to Cunningham's choreographic process. He often determined a dance's sequence of phrases randomly by tossing coins or rolling dice during rehearsals. This added an element of surprise and spontaneity to performances, while still allowing room for the dancers' artistry and expression.

Cunningham further pushed boundaries through multimedia collaborations. In BIPED (1999), his company danced in front of projected video and animation by digital artists. This acknowledged dance as just one element in a multi-sensory performance environment.

Throughout his long career, Cunningham created over 200 groundbreaking works and toured his company internationally. He received numerous prestigious awards, including the National Medal of Arts. Cunningham's vision liberated dance from convention, embracing open-ended experimentation and freedom.

Yet while avant-garde, Cunningham respected the rigors of dance technique. His company employed a versatile training method combining ballet barre work with Cunningham's own philosophical emphasis on clarity of movement and musicality. Cunningham's model inspired generations of postmodern choreographers.

When Cunningham passed away in 2009 at age 90, he left behind a monumental legacy. His work expanded definitions of beauty, form, and expression in dance. Merce Cunningham demonstrated that dance could be abstract, intellectual, unpredictable - and still profoundly moving in its juxtapositions. He paved the way for dance's evolution in the 21st century.

Post-Modern Choreographers of the 60s/70s

In the 1960s and 70s, a new wave of postmodern choreographers built upon the foundations of modern dance pioneers like Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. But they aimed to challenge conventions and expand possibilities for movement, structure, and meaning in dance.

Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp emerged in the 1960s as an irreverent choreographic force who rebelled against rigid technique and tradition. Born in Indiana in 1941, Tharp began studying a variety of dance forms including ballet, modern, jazz and social dance. She was deeply influenced by Merce Cunningham's philosophy of movement for its own sake.

In 1965, Tharp moved to New York City. There she began presenting iconoclastic dances that incorporated everyday motions and blended genres. Works like Tank Dive (1965) featured dancers in boxing gloves performing ballet and acrobatic moves to jazz music - a radical departure from modern dance theatricality.

Tharp wanted to democratize dance, playing with pop culture and injecting humor and accessibility. Her self-referential The History of Up and Down (1971) had dancers repeating mundane tasks like walking or chewing gum with an avant-garde twist. Tharp's vision opened dance to new possibilities beyond high art.

Meredith Monk

Vocalist and interdisciplinary artist Meredith Monk expanded conceptions of what constituted dance through her otherworldly, ritualistic performances. After studying dance at Sarah Lawrence College, Monk began presenting solo pieces in New York in the mid-1960s combining abstract movement, primal vocalizations, and visual imagery.

Works like Juice (1969) featured Monk experimenting with her voice as an instrument, at times wordless and atonal. Her choreography drew from yoga, tai chi, and improvisation, unfolding with shamanistic intensity. Monk pushed boundaries between dance, music, sculpture, and environment. Her pieces explored spirituality and feminine archetypes.

Yvonne Rainer

Choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer was a leader in the avant-garde Judson Dance Theater collective that rebelled against formalism. Rainer created "task-like" dances devoid of climax, narrative, and virtuosic technique. Her 1966 manifesto "No to spectacle no to virtuosity no to transformations and magic and make-believe" summed up her aims.

Influential early works like Trio A (1966) featured repetitive motions like walking and running recast as dance. Rainer's dances intentionally lacked visual pleasure or emotional catharsis. By reducing dance to functional movement, she critiqued its conventions. Her choreography aimed to place the medium in dialogue with the cultural moment.

Postmodern Legacy

Choreographers like Tharp, Monk and Rainer opened up radically new possibilities in dance. They challenged ingrained assumptions about where dance could happen, what counted as movement, and the necessity of emotional expression. Their work embraced dance as an intellectual, cultural, and political act.

The postmodern emphasis on deconstruction inspired later choreographers to continue expanding definitions of dance. It contributed to the boundary-defying interdisciplinary nature of contemporary dance today. Yet some choreographers also retained modern dance's sense of humanism and theatricality within their experimental works. The eclecticism of postmodern dance pushed the form in bold new directions.

Alvin Ailey - Revelations of the African American Experience

Alvin Ailey was a pioneering African American choreographer who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958. Through works like his signature masterpiece Revelations, Ailey celebrated the unique beauty, pain, and resilience of the Black American experience. His racially inclusive company advanced opportunities for Black dancers while bringing modern dance to wider audiences.

Born in segregated rural Texas in 1931, Ailey drew artistic inspiration from his Baptist church and the blues songs of artists like Bessie Smith. After seeing the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company perform, Ailey became enthralled by dance's capacity for kinetic storytelling.

At age 17, Ailey began his formal dance training in Los Angeles. He studied with leading teachers and joined the Lester Horton Dance Theater, becoming its lead dancer. Horton's strong, dramatic choreography and technical eclecticism deeply influenced Ailey as a choreographer.

When Horton died in 1953, Ailey briefly replaced him as the company's director before moving to New York City. There he performed with established choreographers like Martha Graham and Talley Beatty. But Ailey also began cultivating his own choreographic voice.

In 1958, Ailey founded his racially diverse company with African American dancer Carmen De Lavallade and other leading performers. The company provided a platform for Ailey's emerging repertoire while creating opportunities for exceptional Black dancers.

Ailey's choreography synthesized elements of ballet, jazz, modern, and African dance grounded in the Black American experience. Works like Blues Suite (1958) pulsated with the rhythms of blues music and dance vernaculars.

But it was Revelations (1960) that cemented Ailey's fame. Set to African American spirituals, the work depicted Black faith and perseverance through slavery to liberation. Its signature segment "I Been 'Buked" featured a solo dancer in a long white dress gracefully gliding across the stage like a drifting spirit.

With Revelations, Ailey vividly rendered the emotional essence of the Black American church. Its universal themes of struggle, hope, and transcendence resonated with audiences of all backgrounds. Revelations became the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's most acclaimed and performed work.

In the 1960s and 70s, Ailey continued expanding his racially diverse company's national and global touring. He mentored emerging Black choreographers like Judith Jamison to diversify modern dance leadership. Ailey also choreographed dance-dramas honoring historic African American figures like jazz singer Josephine Baker.

While Ailey passed away in 1989, his company remains a thriving showcase for outstanding dancers of color. Ailey's legacy also endures through professional training programs aiming to make dance accessible to disadvantaged youth.

Alvin Ailey opened doors for generations of Black artists in dance. Through works spotlighting the African American experience with grace, power and humanity, he demonstrated that modern dance could speak to and be enriched by people of all races. Ailey expanded modern dance's possibilities as an empathetic, culturally inclusive art form.

Modern Dance's Expanding Horizons

By the 1980s and 1990s, modern dance had firmly established itself as a major Western concert dance form with its own distinct techniques, choreographic voices, and institutions. But the art form continued to expand its horizons in exciting new directions.

Modern dance became increasingly multicultural, incorporating diverse cultural and social influences beyond its Eurocentric, white feminist roots. Choreographers of color like Lula Washington, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and Ralph Lemon foregrounded Africanist aesthetics, improvisation, and social commentary in their innovative works.

The boundaries between modern dance and other genres also became more fluid. Hip hop dance, having emerged from African American social dance, entered into dialogue with modern dance as artists like Rennie Harris and Bill T. Jones integrated street dance elements into their choreography.

The divide between modern dance and ballet also eroded, as choreographers like Mark Morris freely blended the two forms. Morris' acclaimed work L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1988) combined Morris' barefoot modern dance with Baroque music and balletic structure.

Modern dance also increasingly embraced multimedia, interactive technology, and collaboration with other art forms. Choreographers utilized film, animation, text, and visual arts to create multi-dimensional performance environments.

Pioneers in dance technology included Merce Cunningham collaborating with digital artists, and Troika Ranch manipulating motion capture animation. These innovations built upon postmodern dance's early multimedia experimentation.

Thematically, modern dance's humanistic focus expanded. While expressionism and psychological narratives remained, choreographers also addressed more overtly political issues around gender, race, and sexuality.

Bill T. Jones' Still/Here (1994) confronted the AIDS crisis through a conceptual blend of movement, spoken word, and multimedia visuals. Other works tackled themes like discrimination, immigration, and body image.

By the dawn of the 21st century, modern dance had thoroughly permeated mainstream culture. Popular television shows like So You Think You Can Dance featured modern and contemporary dance styles. Choreographers like Twyla Tharp created dances for Broadway shows and musicians' world tours.

Training in modern dance technique became increasingly codified and widespread. University dance programs now systematically teach Graham, Horton, Limón and Cunningham methods alongside ballet. This educational foundation continues feeding innovation in both modern and contemporary dance.

Today modern dance thrives in dynamic conversation with the past and an expansive vision of the future. The field celebrates seminal choreographers of the 20th century who broke from rigid tradition to unleash human expression and movement possibility. At the same time, 21st century artists continue pushing boundaries across cultures and disciplines to build on that revolutionary legacy. The story of modern dance's artistic journey continues unfolding in endlessly fascinating directions.

Legacy and Evolution

Modern dance pioneers like Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham made revolutionary creative breakthroughs in the early 20th century that upended ingrained assumptions about dance. Their artistic innovations established the foundations of a wholly new dance form that embraced freedom, expressionism, and conceptualism.

These seminal figures unleashed movement possibility and choreographic imagination in ways that irrevocably transformed concert dance. Their pioneering techniques, choreographic processes, and philosophies of dance indelibly shaped the art form's trajectory.

Modern dance also transformed attitudes about the body and gender. Pioneers like Loie Fuller and Martha Graham celebrated the natural beauty and expressiveness of the feminine body in motion. Their dances empowered women as creative subjects rather than objectified muses.

Modern dance put natural and idiosyncratic movement on stage, freeing bodies from rigid, codified technique. In doing so, it redefined virtuosity as not just technical mastery but also authenticity, emotion, and individuality.

On a societal level, modern dance facilitated a democratization of dance. It shifted dance from elitist spectacle to an expressive art form that could speak to universal human experiences. The bare feet and casual costumes of early modern dance signaled accessibility.

Modern dance also decentered Eurocentric perspectives by incorporating diverse cultural influences. Pioneers like Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus highlighted Africanist aesthetics while pioneering dancers of color like Talley Beatty and Alvin Ailey centered the Black American experience.

This multicultural expansion continued with increased globalization. By the late 20th century, modern dance transcended its American and European origins as artists around the world adopted and reinterpreted it.

Modern dance's openness to improvisation and constant evolution also paved the way for the development of postmodern dance and contemporary dance. Postmodern artists in the 1960s/70s rebelled against rigid formalism, while contemporary dance today continues pushing boundaries across cultures and disciplines.

Yet even as it evolves, modern dance retains core aspects of its identity. The fundamental commitment to expressionism and choreographic experimentation remains. Leading companies and university programs continue teaching Graham, Limón, Cunningham, and Horton technique as codified training methods.

21st century choreographers blend these modern dance foundations with fresh perspectives. Athletes, visual artists, musicians, and people of all backgrounds now engage with modern dance training and performance. Technology enables global connectivity and collaboration between dancers.

Modern dance has thoroughly permeated mainstream culture while retaining an avant-garde edge. Its growing vocabulary of expression gives people embodied tools to grapple with an increasingly complex world.

The pioneers who broke from tradition a century ago to unleash human movement possibility could not have imagined how far their art form would travel. But modern dance continues its fearless journey into the unknown, always evolving yet forever guided by the creative spirit of its audacious founders. Their timeless legacy persists in every dancer who dares to move freely.