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Modern dance is usually performed in bare feet, often with non-traditional costuming.

Modern dance was an early 20th century dance form that emerged as expression of rebellion against classical ballet. Pioneering dancers of this period include Isadora Duncan, who thought ballet was ugly and meaningless gymnastics and Martha Graham, who saw it was European, Imperialistic, and un-American.^[1]

Isadora Duncan was a predecessor of modern dance and she virtually single-handedly restored dance’s rank among the arts with her free-flowing costumes, bare feet, loose hair, and using the torso as the catalyst for other movements. Born in San Francisco in 1877, she traveled and performed throughout Europe. She was a thinker and a poet who incorporated humor into her expression. Contributions she made are “natural movements inspired by classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature, natural forces, and new American athleticism such as skipping, running, jumping, leaping, and tossing.

Martha Graham is often regarded as the founding mother of modern performance (or concert) dance.^[2] She became a student at the Denishawn school in 1916 and then moved to New York City in 1923, where she performed in musical comedies, music halls, and worked on her own choreography. ^[3] Graham developed her own dance technique that hinged on concepts of contraction and release. ^[2] Her principle contributions to dance are the focus of the ‘center’ of the body, coordination between breathing and movement, and a dancer’s relationship with the floor.^[3]

Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.

Modern dance in Europe[link]

In Europe, Mary Wigman, Francois Delsarte, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, and Rudolf von Laban developed theories of human movement and expression, and methods of instruction that led to the development of European modern and Expressionist dance.

Free dance[link]

• 1891: Loie Fuller (a burlesque skirt dancer) began experimenting with the effect that gas lighting had on her silk costumes. Fuller developed a form of natural movement and improvisation techniques that were used in conjunction with her revolutionary lighting equipment and translucent silk costumes. She patented her apparatus and methods of stage lighting that included the use of coloured gels and burning chemicals for luminescence, and also patented her voluminous silk stage costumes.
• 1903: Isadora Duncan developed a dance technique influenced by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche^{[citation needed]} and a belief that dance of the ancient Greeks^{[citation needed]} (natural and free) was the dance of the future. Duncan developed a philosophy of dance based on natural and spiritual concepts and advocated for that acceptance of pure dance as a high art.
• 1905: Ruth St. Denis, influenced by the actor Sarah Bernhardt and Japanese dancer Sada Yacco, developed her translations of Indian culture and mythology. Her performances quickly became popular and she toured extensively whilst researching Oriental culture and arts.

Fuller, Duncan and St. Denis all toured Iran seeking a wider and more accepting audience for their work. Ruth St. Denis returned to the United States to continue her work. Isadora Duncan returned to the United States at various points in her life but her work was not very well received there. She returned to Europe and died in Paris in 1927. Fuller's work also received little support outside Europe.

Early modern dance in America[link]

In 1915, Ruth Dorthy St. Denis founded the Denishawn school and dance company with her husband Ted Shawn.^[4] Whilst St. Denis was responsible for most of the creative work, Shawn was responsible for teaching technique and composition. Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman were all pupils at the school and members of the dance company.

• 1923: Graham leaves Denishawn to work as a solo artist in the Greenwich Village Follies.
• 1928: Humphrey and Weidman leave Denishawn to set up their own school and company (Humphrey-Weidman).
• 1933: Shawn founds his all male dance group Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers based at his Jacob's Pillow farm in Lee, Massachusetts.
• 1967: Ashley Beger begins work at her new studio in New York. Her dance methods later evolved to what we now know as "Pole Dancing".

After shedding the techniques and compositional methods of their teachers the early modern dancers developed their own methods and ideologies and dance techniques that became the foundation for modern dance practice.

• Martha Graham (and Louis Horst)
• Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman and Martha Graham
• Helen Tamiris—originally trained in free movement (Irene Lewisohn) and ballet (Michel Fokine) Tamiris studied briefly with Isadora Duncan but disliked her emphasis on personal expression and lyrical movement. Tamiris believed that each dance must create its own expressive means and as such did not develop an individual style or technique. As a choreographer Tamiris made works based on American themes working in both concert dance and musical theatre.
• Lester Horton—choosing to work in California (three thousand miles away from the center of modern dance—New York), Horton developed his own approach that incorporated diverse elements including Native American dances and modern Jazz. Horton's dance technique (Lester Horton Technique) emphasises a whole body approach including; flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness to allow freedom of expression.

Expressionist and early modern dance in Europe[link]

• Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (Eurhythmics)
• Rudolf Laban
• Kurt Jooss
• Mary Wigman
• Harald Kreutzberg

Popularization in America[link]

In 1927 newspapers regularly began assigning dance critics, such as Walter Terry, and Edwin Denby, who approached performances from the viewpoint of a movement specialist rather than as a reviewer of music or drama. Educators accepted modern dance into college and university curricula, first as a part of physical education, then as performing art. Many college teachers were trained at the Bennington Summer School of the Dance, which was established at Bennington College in 1934.

Of the Bennington program, Agnes de Mille wrote, "..there was a fine commingling of all kinds of artists, musicians, and designers, and secondly, because all those responsible for booking the college concert series across the continent were assembled there. ... free from the limiting strictures of the three big monopolistic managements, who pressed for preference of their European clients. As a consequence, for the first time American dancers were hired to tour America nationwide, and this marked the beginning of their solvency." (de Mille, 1991, p. 205)

Radical dance[link]

Disturbed by the Great Depression and the rising threat of fascism in Europe, the radical dancers tried to raise consciousness by dramatizing the economic, social, ethnic and political crises of their time.

• Hanya Holm—A student of Mary Wigman and instructor at the Wigman School in Dresden, Holm founded the New York Wigman School of Dance in 1931 (which became the Hanya Holm Studio in 1936) introducing Wigman technique, Laban's theories of spatial dynamics, and later her own dance techniques to American modern dance. An accomplished choreographer, she was a founding artist of the first American Dance Festival in Bennington (1934). Holm's dance work Metropolitan Daily was the first modern dance composition to be televised on NBC and her labanotation score for Kiss Me, Kate (1948) was the first choreography to be copyrighted in the United States. Holm choreographed extensively in the fields of concert dance and musical theater.^[5]

• Anna Sokolow—A student of Martha Graham and Louis Horst, Sokolow created her own dance company (circa 1930). Presenting dramatic contemporary imagery, Sokolow's compositions were generally abstract, often revealing the full spectrum of human experience reflecting the tension and alienation of the time and the truth of human movement.

• José Limón—In 1946, after studying and performing with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, Limón established his own company with Humphrey as Artistic Director. It was under her mentorship that Limón created his signature dance The Moor’s Pavane (1949). Limón’s choreographic works and technique remain a strong influence on contemporary dance practice.^[6]

• Merce Cunningham—A former ballet student and performer with Martha Graham, he presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage in 1944. Influenced by Cage and embracing modernist ideology using postmodern processes, Cunningham introduced chance procedures and pure movement to choreography and Cunningham technique to the cannon of 20th century dance techniques. Cunningham set the seeds for postmodern dance with his non-linear, non-climactic, non-psychological abstract work. In these works each element is in and of itself expressive, and the observer (in large part) determines what it communicates.

• Erick Hawkins—A student of George Balanchine, Hawkins became a soloist and the first male dancer in Martha Graham's dance company. In 1951, Hawkins, interested in the new field of kinesiology, opened his own school and developed his own technique (Hawkins technique) a forerunner of most somatic dance techniques.

• Paul Taylor—A student of the Juilliard School of Music and the Connecticut College School of Dance. In 1952 his performance at the American Dance Festival attracted the attention of several major choreographers. Performing in the companies of Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine (in that order), he founded the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1954. The use of everyday gestures and modernist ideology is characteristic of his choreography. Former members of the Paul Taylor Dance Company included Twyla Tharp, Laura Dean, Dan Wagoner, and Senta Driver.

• Alwin Nikolais—A student of Hanya Holm. Nikolais's use of multimedia in works such as Masks, Props, and Mobiles (1953), Totem (1960), and Count Down (1979) was unmatched by other choreographers. Often presenting his dancers in constrictive spaces and costumes with complicated sound and sets, he focused their attention on the physical tasks of overcoming obstacles he placed in their way. Nikolais viewed the dancer not as an artist of self-expression, but as a talent who could investigate the properties of physical space and movement.

African American modern dance[link]

The development of Modern dance embraced the contributions of African American dance artists regardless of whether they made pure modern dance works or blended modern dance with African and Caribbean influences.

• Katherine Dunham—An African American dancer, and anthropologist. Originally a ballet dancer, she founded her first company Ballet Negre in 1936 and later the Katherine Dunham Dance Company based in Chicago, Illinois. Dunham opened a school in New York (1945) where she taught Katherine Dunham Technique, a blend of African and Caribbean movement (flexible torso and spine, articulated pelvis and isolation of the limbs and polyrhythmic movement) integrated with techniques of ballet and modern dance.

• Pearl Primus—A dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist, Primus drew on African and Caribbean dances to create strong dramatic works characterized by large leaps in the air. Primus often based her dances on the work of black writers and on racial and African-American issues. Primus created works based on Langston Hughes The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1944), and Lewis Allan's Strange Fruit (1945). Her dance company developed into the Pearl Primus Dance Language Institute which teaches her method of blending African-American, Caribbean, and African influences with modern dance and ballet techniques.

• Alvin Ailey—A student of Lester Horton, Bella Lewitzky, and later Martha Graham, Ailey spent several years working in both concert and theater dance. In 1958, Ailey and a group of young African-American dancers performed as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey drew upon his blood memories of Texas, the blues, spirituals and gospel as inspiration. His most popular and critically acclaimed work is Revelations (1960).

Legacy of modern dance[link]

A dance team from the University of Georgia performing 'Indian fusion dance' at the Koger Center, University of South Carolina. This combines traditional and modern dance.

The legacy of Modern dance can be seen in lineage of 20th century concert dance forms. Although often producing divergent dance forms, many seminal dance artists share a common heritage that can be traced back to free dance.

Postmodern dance[link]

Postmodern dance occurred in the 1960s in United States when society questioned truths and ideologies in politics and art. This period was marked by social and cultural experimentation in the arts. Choreographers no longer created specific 'schools' or 'styles'. The influences from different periods of dance between more vague and fragmented. ^[2]

Contemporary dance[link]

Contemporary dance emerged in the 1950s as the dance form that is combining the modern dance elements and the classical ballet elements.^[7] It can use elements from non-western dance cultures, such as African dancing with bent knees as a characteristic trait, and Butoh, Japanese contemporary dancing that developed in the 1950s.^{[2] [8]}

Teachers and their students[link]

This list illustrates the basic teacher / student links in modern dance. For more detailed information see the individual artists entries.

• • Ted Shawn—Shawn Fundamentals
  • Denishawn (school and company)
    • Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman—The Art of Making Dances (Humphrey)
      • Humphrey-Weidman school—Humphrey-Weidman technique (fall and recovery)
        • José Limón—Limón technique
    • Martha Graham—Graham technique (and Louis Horst)
      • Erick Hawkins (via George Balanchine)—Hawkins technique
      • Anna Sokolow
      • May O'Donnell
      • Merce Cunningham—Cunningham technique (also see Postmodern dance)
        • Yvonne Rainer
        • Steve Paxton
        • Richard Alston
      • Paul Taylor
        • Twyla Tharp
      • Trisha Brown
• Lester Horton—"Horton Technique"
  • Bella Lewitzky
  • Alvin Ailey
• Rudolf von Laban
  • Kurt Jooss (see Ausdruckstanz)
    • Pina Bausch (see Tanztheater)
  • Mary Wigman (see Expressionist dance)
    • Ursula Cain
      • Heike Hennig (see Dancing with Time)
    • Sonia Revid
    • Lola Laban
    • Hanya Holm
      • Valerie Bettis
      • Alwin Nikolais—decentralization
        • Murray Louis
        • Beverly Schmidt Blossom

• Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
  • Mary Wigman
  • Marie Rambert
• Katherine Dunham—Katherine Dunham Technique
• Pearl Primus
  • Garth Fagan
• Helen Tamiris
  • Daniel Nagrin

See also[link]

• 20th century concert dance
  • Free dance
  • Expressionist dance
  • Ausdruckstanz
  • Postmodern dance
  • Contemporary dance
  • Corporeal mime—Etienne Decroux technique
• List of dance style categories

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Dunning, Jennifer (1991-03-02). "Eleanor King, a modern dancer and choreographer, dies at 85". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEEDE1F38F931A35750C0A967958260&scp=2&sq=%22eleanor%20king%22&st=cse. 
• Dunning, Jennifer (1989-03-11). "Review/Dance; Recalling the Spirit of Doris Humphrey". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4D71330F932A25750C0A96F948260&scp=9&sq=%22eleanor%20king%22&st=cse. 

Further reading[link]

• Adshead-Lansdale, J. (Ed) (1994) Dance History: An Introduction. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09030-X
• Anderson, J. (1992) Ballet & Modern Dance: A Concise History. Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 0-87127-172-9
• Au, S. (2002) Ballet and Modern Dance (World of Art). Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20352-0
• Brown, J. Woodford, C, H. and Mindlin, N. (Eds) (1998) (The Vision of Modern Dance: In the Words of Its Creators). Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 0-87127-205-9
• Cheney, G. (1989) Basic Concepts in Modern Dance: A Creative Approach. Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 0-916622-76-2
• Daly, A. (2002) Done into Dance: Isadora Duncan in America. Wesleyan Univ Press. ISBN 0-8195-6560-1
• de Mille, A. (1991) Martha : The Life and Work of Martha Graham. Random House. ISBN 0-394-55643-7
• Duncan, I. (1937) The technique of Isadora Duncan. Dance Horizons. ISBN 0-87127-028-5
• Foulkes, J, L. (2002) Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-5367-4
• Graham, M. (1973) The Notebooks of Martha Graham. Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-167265-2
• Graham, M. (1992) Martha Graham: Blood Memory: An Autobiography. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-57441-9
• Hawkins, E. and Celichowska, R. (2000) The Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Technique. Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 0-87127-213-X
• Hodgson, M. (1976) Quintet: Five American Dance Companies. William Morrow and Company. ISBN 0-688-08095-2
• Horosko, M (Ed) (2002) Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2473-0
• Humphrey, D. and Pollack, B. (Ed) (1991) The Art of Making Dances Princeton Book Co. ISBN 0-87127-158-3
• Hutchinson Guest, A. (1998) Shawn's Fundamentals of Dance (Language of Dance). Routledge. ISBN 2-88124-219-7
• Kriegsman, S, A.(1981) Modern Dance in America: the Bennington Years. G K Hall. ISBN 0-8161-8528-X
• Lewis, D, D. (1999) The Illustrated Dance Technique of Jose Limon. Princeton Book Co. ISBN 0-87127-209-1
• Long, R. A. (1995) The Black Tradition in Modern Dance. Smithmark Publishers. ISBN 0-8317-0763-1
• Love, P. (1997) Modern Dance Terminology: The ABC's of Modern Dance as Defined by its Originators. Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 0-87127-206-7
• McDonagh, D. (1976) The Complete Guide to Modern Dance Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-05055-5
• McDonagh, D. (1990) The Rise and Fall of Modern Dance. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 1-55652-089-1
• Mazo, J, H. (2000) Prime Movers: The Makers of Modern Dance in America. Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 0-87127-211-3
• Minton, S. (1984) Modern Dance: Body & Mind. Morton Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-89582-102-7
• Roseman, J, L. (2004) Dance Was Her Religion: The Spiritual Choreography of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham. Hohm Press. ISBN 1-890772-38-0
• Shelton, Suzanne. Divine Dancer: A Biography of Ruth St. Denis. New York: Doubleday, 1981.
• Sherman, J. (1983) Denishawn: The Enduring Influence. Twayne. ISBN 0-8057-9602-9
• Terry, W. (1976) Ted Shawn, father of American dance : a biography. Dial Press. ISBN 0-8037-8557-7

Heike Hennig (born 8 November 1966, Leipzig) is a German dancer, choreographer and director of the opera and dance ensemble “Heike Hennig & Co”.

Heike Hennig (2008)

Life[link]

Heike Hennig had her first dance-lessons at the age of 5 years in Leipzig. In 1989, through her escape from East Germany (GDR), she was able to study modern dance, choreography and Body-Mind Centering (BMC) in Cologne and at Moving on Center - School for Participatory Arts and Research in Oakland, California and in the USA with teachers such as Steve Paxton. Following that, Heike Hennig worked in Brazil and Portugal.

In 1995, Heike Hennig came back to Germany, where she worked from 1998 as freelance choreographer and teacher. She instructed body- and moving-oriented teaching-methods at the Gret Palucca-School in Dresden, the University of Leipzig and the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig as well as in interdisciplinary workshops including anatomy, painting and choreography.

In 2000, Heike Hennig founded together with Friedrich U. Minkus in Leipzig the FZTM - (Forum of Contemporary Dance and Music) and her ensemble Heike Hennig & Co. As director she developed numerous stage pieces and interdisciplinary art projects at many different stages and at institutions in Leipzig, Berlin, Dresden and Weimar, among other places. Her team consists of more than 50 artists working in different genres from architects to video artists.

At the Leipzig opera, Heike Hennig developed the dance piece Zeit – tanzen seit 1927 (Time – dancing since 1927) in 2005. This autobiographical dance theater was produced in 2007 as the documentary Tanz mit der Zeit Dancing with Time by the film director Trevor Peters from New Zealand. The film was coproduced with the national German TV-channel ZDF and the French-German TV-channel ARTE. In 2008, the piece was shown in German movie theaters, on TV^[1] and international festivals.^[2] Heike Hennig arranged for the former dancers of the Leipzig opera to return on stage. Ursula Cain, Christa Franze, Siegfried Prölß und Horst Dittmann, who at this time were about 80 years old, told and danced their dance and life stories which were shaped by Mary Wigman, Dore Hoyer, Gret Palucca and Heike Hennig. During the shooting, the next dance piece Zeitsprünge (Leaps in Time) was created. here, the protagonists meet up with their younger colleagues in the ensemble Heike Hennig & Co and DJ cfm. The different generations might be recognized from the various dance-styles from Expressionist dance via Street dance and Contact improvisation to classical Ballet. In spring 2008, "Dancing with Time" came out as DVD and a book by the author Marion Appelt with a preface by Renate Schmidt.

For the 2007/08 season, Heike Hennig developed the cross-genre series oper unplugged (Opera unplugged) with music, dance, theater and new media at the Leipzig opera. At the season 2008/09 the cooperation with the baroque ensemble Lautten Compagney Berlin started. This hybridity of cross-genres, which results in the Tanzoper (dance opera) Rituale (Rituals) for George Frideric Handel at the Leipzig opera and the production Timeless at the Neues Museum of the Museum Island Berlin revealed new dimensions for the European contemporary opera. The highlight in 2010 was “Maria” by Heike Hennig, a dance oratorio for three singers, seven dancers, twelve musicians and one DJ on the stage. All artists are part of the choreography with music by George Frideric Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti and electronic music by cfm.^[3]

Heike Hennig & Co went on tour through Europe with her cross-genre pieces. They gave guest-performances at Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, Staatsschauspiel Dresden and at theater houses in Athen, Nanjing, Travnik, Goethe-Institut Rom, Copenhagen, Vadstena, Mantua and other cities.

On juries and artistic advisory councils, Heike Hennig makes efforts to support contemporary performing art and music. In 2009, Heike Hennig was invited to teach at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and Kelowna as well as at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada as a "Guest Speaker" via film, workshop and lectures.^[4] Since 2010, Heike Hennig has taught at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Sources[link]

1. ^ [Dancing with Time North American Premiere on VIFF]
2. ^ Tanz mit der Zeit in den ARD Tagesthemen
3. ^ Maria with trailer
4. ^ German dancer and choreographer Heike Hennig via film, workshop and lecture UBC Okanagan

Literature / DVD[link]

• Marion Appelt: Tanz mit der Zeit (Dancing with Time), Leipzig, Plöttner Verlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-938442-45-6
• Trevor Peters: Tanz mit der Zeit (Dancing with Time), Berlin, Good Movies/Ventura 2009, Indigo, DVD 926328
• Sebastian Göschel über "Estha" in: Arbeit und Rhythmus, München, Wilhelm Fink 2009, ISBN 978-3-7705-4766-1

External links[link]

• Heike Hennig & Co Homepage de-en-fr

Margaret Jenkins is a postmodern choreographer based in San Francisco, California. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1980 and in 2003, San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown, declared April 24 to be Margaret Jenkins Day.

Biography[link]

Jenkins began her early training in dance in her hometown of San Francisco with Judy and Lenore Job, Welland Lathrop, and Gloria Unti. She continued her dance studies at the Juilliard School and the University of California at Los Angeles. During the 1960s she danced with Viola Farber, Judy Dunn, James Cunningham, Gus Solomons, and Twyla Tharp. Additionally, she taught at the studio of Merce Cunningham for twelve years and restaged his works throughout the United States and Europe ^[1]

In 1970, Jenkins returned to San Francisco, where she taught dance and choreographed. She founded the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in 1973. The company is based in San Francisco and tours both nationally and internationally. Several of Jenkins' company members have gone on to form their own dance companies. These include Elizabeth Streb, Joe Goode, and Kathleen Hermesdorf^[2] Additionally, Jenkins opened one of the first spaces in the city to combine creative research, choreography, and performance in the same building. Currently, the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company is housed in the newly established Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab, located in the South of Market Street district of San Francisco. In 2004, Jenkins and her company established the Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange (CHIME) with support from the James Irving Foundation.^[2] This program develops connections and long-term relationships between emerging and established choreographers. Choreographers who participate in CHIME are provided with time in the studio and artist fees.^[3]

Choreography[link]

During her career, Jenkins has made over seventy-five pieces and is considered a "West Coast modern dance innovator"^[4] In creating her work, she is interested in collaborating with artists from different fields. She has worked with the poet Michael Palmer, and the visual designer Alexander Nichols. She has also collaborated with musicians, including the Kronos Quartet and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. While in New York, she was influenced by many of the experimental artists of the 1960s.^[1] These included dancers and choreographers Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Yvonne Rainer, and Steve Paxton. She was also inspired by musicians John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown.^[1] She admired the work of visual artists Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol .^[1] Her work has been well-received by critics. The New York Times considers Jenkins’ work to be hauntingly beautiful and compelling dance…astonishing.^[1] Additionally, the Washington Post described her choreography as having intelligence, force, and imagination .^[1]

Jenkins work has been commissioned by numerous companies and universities in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Some of her recent works include the site-specific Danger Orange (2004), Running with the Land (2005), and A Slipping Glimpse (2006). Danger Orange reflects the shaky state of national security and was performed at San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza the month before the 2004 presidential elections took place ^[5] Running with the Land was commissioned for the reopening of the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and was performed in the Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden on its grounds. A Slipping Glimpse was a collaboration between her company and several dancers from Tanusree Shankar Dance Company in Kolkata, India. In 2008, she was asked to create a piece for San Francisco Ballet's celebration of their seventy-fifth anniversary season. Currently, she is involved in a collaboration with the Guangdong Modern Dance Theater in China, which will premiere in 2009.

Accomplishments[link]

Jenkins was on the first Board of Directors of Dance/USA and is currently on the board of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In 1980, she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1980). Jenkins has also received three Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (“Izzies”). Additionally, she has been given the Irvine Fellowship in Dance and the Bernard Osher Cultural Award. In 2003, San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown, declared April 24 to be Margaret Jenkins Day.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Margaret Jenkins Dance Company website
• KQED (public broadcasting station in northern California) website
• James Irvine Foundation Site

Martha Graham
Martha Graham by Yousuf Karsh (1948)
Born	(1894-05-11)May 11, 1894 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	April 1, 1991(1991-04-01) (aged 96) New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Field	Dance and choreography
Movement	Modern dance
Influenced by	Eleonora Duse
Influenced	Paul Taylor
Awards	Kennedy Center Honors (1979) Presidential Medal of Freedom (1976) National Medal of Arts (1985)

Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts,^[1][2] Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.^[3]

She danced and choreographed for over seventy years. Graham was the first dancer ever to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the USA: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable."^{[citation needed]}

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Graham was born in Allegheny City, which today is part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1894. Her father George Graham was what in the Victorian era was known as an "alienist", a practitioner of an early form of psychiatry. The Grahams were strict Presbyterians. Dr. Graham was a third generation American of Irish descent and her mother Jane Beers was a tenth generation descendant of Puritan Miles Standish.

In the mid 1910s, she began her studies at the newly created Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn,^[4] at which she would stay till 1923.

New era in dance[link]

In 1925, Graham was employed at the Eastman School of Music where Rouben Mamoulian was head of the School of Drama. Among other performances, together they produced a short two-color film called The Flute of Krishna, featuring Eastman students. Mamoulian left Eastman shortly thereafter and Graham chose to leave also, even though she was asked to stay on.

In 1926, the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance was established. On April 18 of the same year,^[4] at the 48th Street Theatre, Graham debuted with her first independent concert, consisting of eighteen short solos and trios that she had choreographed. She would later say of the concert "Everything I did was influenced by Denishawn."^[5][6]

One of Graham's students was heiress Bethsabée de Rothschild with whom she became close friends. When Rothschild moved to Israel and established the Batsheva Dance Company in 1965, Graham became the company's first director.

In 1936, Graham made her defining work, "Chronicle", which signaled the beginning of a new era in modern dance.^{[citation needed]} The dance brought serious issues to the stage for the general public in a dramatic manner. Influenced by the Wall Street Crash, the Great Depression and the Spanish Civil War, it focused on depression and isolation, reflected in the dark nature of both the set and costumes.

In 1938 Erick Hawkins was the first man to dance with her company. The following year, he officially joined her troupe, dancing male lead in a number of Graham's works. They were married in 1948. He left her troupe in 1951 and they divorced in 1954.

Her largest-scale work, the evening-length Clytemnestra, was created in 1958, with a score by Egyptian-born composer Halim El-Dabh. She also collaborated with composers including Aaron Copland on Appalachian Spring, Louis Horst, Samuel Barber, William Schuman, Carlos Surinach, Norman Dello Joio, and Gian Carlo Menotti.^[7] Graham's mother died in Santa Barbara in 1958. Her oldest friend and musical collaborator Louis Horst died in 1964. She said of Horst "His sympathy and understanding, but primarily his faith, gave me a landscape to move in. Without it, I should certainly have been lost."

There were a few notable exceptions to her dances being taped. For example, she worked on a limited basis with still photographers Imogen Cunningham in the 1930s, and Barbara Morgan in the 1940s. Graham considered Philippe Halsman's photographs of "Dark Meadows" the most complete photographic record of any of her dances. Halsman also photographed in the 1940s: "Letter to the World", "Cave of the Heart", "Night Journey" and "Every Soul is a Circus". In later years her thinking on the matter evolved and others convinced her to let them recreate some of what was lost.

Martha Graham with Bertram Ross (1961)

Graham started her career at an age that was considered late for a dancer. She was still dancing by the late 1960s and her works from this era included roles for herself which were more acted than danced and relied on the movement of the company dancing around her. In her biography Martha Agnes de Mille cites Graham's last performance as the evening of May 25, 1968, in a 'Time of Snow'. But in A Dancer's Life biographer Russell Freedman lists the year of Graham's final performance as 1969. In her 1991 autobiography Blood Memory Graham herself lists her final performance as her 1970 appearance in "Cortege of Eagles" when she was 76 years old.

In the years that followed her departure from the stage Graham sank into a deep depression fueled by views from the wings of young dancers performing many of the dances she had choreographed for herself and her former husband. Graham's health declined precipitously as she abused alcohol to numb her pain. In Blood Memory she wrote:

It wasn't until years after I had relinquished a ballet that I could bear to watch someone else dance it. I believe in never looking back, never indulging in nostalgia, or reminiscing. Yet how can you avoid it when you look on stage and see a dancer made up to look as you did thirty years ago, dancing a ballet you created with someone you were then deeply in love with, your husband? I think that is a circle of hell Dante omitted.

[When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.^{[Full citation needed]}

After a failed suicide attempt she was hospitalized. Graham not only survived her hospital stay but she rallied. In 1972 she quit drinking, returned to her studio, reorganized her company and went on to choreograph ten new ballets and many revivals. Her last completed ballet was 1990's Maple Leaf Rag.

Graham choreographed until her death in New York City from pneumonia in 1991, aged 96.^[8] She was cremated, and her ashes were spread over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico.

Influence and legacy[link]

Graham has been sometimes termed the "Picasso of Dance," in that her importance and influence to modern dance can be considered equivalent to what Pablo Picasso was to modern visual arts.^[1][2] Her impact has been also compared with the influence Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.^[3]

To celebrate her 117th birthday on May 11, 2011, Google celebrated by turning their logo for one day into a logo dedicating the life and legacy of Graham.^[9]

Martha Graham has been said to be the one that brought dance into the twentieth century. Due to the work of her assistants, Ron Protas and Linda Hodes, much of Graham’s work and technique have been preserved. They taped interviews of Graham describing her entire technique, and videos of her performances.^[10] As Glen Tetley told Agnes de Mille, “The wonderful thing about Martha in her good days was her generosity. So many people stole Martha’s unique personal vocabulary, consciously or unconsciously, and performed it in concerts. I have never once heard Martha say, ‘So-and-so has used my choreography.'"^[11] An entire movement was created by her that revolutionized the dance world and created what is known today as modern dance. Now, dancers all over the world study and perform modern dance. Choreographers and professional dancers look to her for inspiration.^[12]

Martha Graham Dance Company[link]

The Martha Graham Dance Company is the oldest dance company in America,^[13] founded in 1926. It has helped develop many famous dancers and choreographers of the 20th and 21st centuries including Erick Hawkins, Anna Sokolow, Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor. It continues to perform, including at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in June 2008, a program consisting of: Ruth St. Denis' The Incense; Graham's reconstruction of Ted Shawn's Serenata Morisca; Graham's Lamentation; Yuriko's reconstruction of Graham's Panorama, performed by dancers from Skidmore College; excerpts from Yuriko's and Graham's reconstruction of the latter's Chronicle from the Julien Bryan film; Graham's Errand into the Maze and Maple Leaf Rag.^{[citation needed]} The company also performed in 2007 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, with a program consisting of: Appalachian Spring, Embattled Garden, Errand into the Maze, and American Original.^[14][15]

Quotations[link]

According to Agnes de Mille:

The greatest thing she ever said to me was in 1943 after the opening of Oklahoma!, when I suddenly had unexpected, flamboyant success for a work I thought was only fairly good, after years of neglect for work I thought was fine. I was bewildered and worried that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy. I talked to Martha. I remember the conversation well. It was in a Schrafft's restaurant over a soda. I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me, very quietly: "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."^[16]

“Virile gestures are evocative of the only true beauty. Ugliness may be actually beautiful if it cries out with the voice of power” - Martha Graham 1928. ^[17]

Accolades[link]

Graham was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by President Gerald Ford (the First Lady Betty Ford had danced with Graham in her youth). Ford declared her "a national treasure".^{[citation needed]}

Graham was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 1987.^{[citation needed]}

In 1998 Graham was named "Dancer of the Century" by Time Magazine,^[18] and one of the female "Icons of the Century" by People Magazine.^{[citation needed]} The New York Times called her a "brilliant, young dancer".^{[citation needed]}

Choreography[link]

This excerpt from John Martin’s reviews in the New York Times provides insight on Graham’s choreographic style. “Frequently the vividness and intensity of her purpose are so potent that on the rise of the curtain they strike like a blow, and in that moment one must decide whether he is for or against her. She boils down her moods and movements until they are devoid of all extraneous substances and are concentrated to the highest degree.”^[19]