Yvonne Hardt
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195386691
- eISBN:
- 9780199863600
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386691.003.009
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Yvonne Hardt links the era of early German modern dance called Ausdruckstanz (expressive dance) and the workers’ culture movement in the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s. Both were influenced by the ...
More
Yvonne Hardt links the era of early German modern dance called Ausdruckstanz (expressive dance) and the workers’ culture movement in the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s. Both were influenced by the life reform movement (Lebensreformbewegung), which envisioned that a different society could be achieved by a new body culture (Körperkultur). Whereas Ausdruckstanz has most frequently been discussed in terms of how it could empower women, it also, theoretically, offered men the chance to “rediscover” themselves in ways that could emancipate them from traditional gender roles. At the same time, early modern dance could also reflect ideals of the Socialist and Communist ideology, which reinscribed some old male‐female divisions by emphasizing the physical strength of the male worker. Thematic aspects in the work of the following prominent Weimar dance figures are considered: Rudolf Laban, Martin Gleisner, and Jean (Hans) Weidt. Implicit in Hardt's analysis is the difficulty of embodying political ideals in dance in a way that acknowledges the multiple strands of complex gender identities.Less
Yvonne Hardt links the era of early German modern dance called Ausdruckstanz (expressive dance) and the workers’ culture movement in the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s. Both were influenced by the life reform movement (Lebensreformbewegung), which envisioned that a different society could be achieved by a new body culture (Körperkultur). Whereas Ausdruckstanz has most frequently been discussed in terms of how it could empower women, it also, theoretically, offered men the chance to “rediscover” themselves in ways that could emancipate them from traditional gender roles. At the same time, early modern dance could also reflect ideals of the Socialist and Communist ideology, which reinscribed some old male‐female divisions by emphasizing the physical strength of the male worker. Thematic aspects in the work of the following prominent Weimar dance figures are considered: Rudolf Laban, Martin Gleisner, and Jean (Hans) Weidt. Implicit in Hardt's analysis is the difficulty of embodying political ideals in dance in a way that acknowledges the multiple strands of complex gender identities.
Erin Brannigan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195367232
- eISBN:
- 9780199894178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367232.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Turning to gestural performance in dancefilm, this chapter examines the exchange between silent film performers and the new discipline of modern dance in the first decades of the twentieth century, ...
More
Turning to gestural performance in dancefilm, this chapter examines the exchange between silent film performers and the new discipline of modern dance in the first decades of the twentieth century, connecting this to the choreographic project of Pina Bausch. In the early years of cinema in Hollywood, many actors were originally dancers or were sent to study with the early modern dance duet Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn at the Denishawn School in Los Angeles. The focus on physical performance in the silent film era brought dance and acting into an intimate relationship and produced a gestural mediality—a term drawn from Giorgio Agamben's theory of gestural cinema—that can be traced through to contemporary dancefilm.Less
Turning to gestural performance in dancefilm, this chapter examines the exchange between silent film performers and the new discipline of modern dance in the first decades of the twentieth century, connecting this to the choreographic project of Pina Bausch. In the early years of cinema in Hollywood, many actors were originally dancers or were sent to study with the early modern dance duet Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn at the Denishawn School in Los Angeles. The focus on physical performance in the silent film era brought dance and acting into an intimate relationship and produced a gestural mediality—a term drawn from Giorgio Agamben's theory of gestural cinema—that can be traced through to contemporary dancefilm.
Rebecca Rossen
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- June 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199791767
- eISBN:
- 9780199375851
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791767.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Ethnomusicology, World Music
While Jews are commonly referred to as the “people of the book,” American Jewish choreographers have consistently turned to dance as a means to articulate personal and collective identities; tangle ...
More
While Jews are commonly referred to as the “people of the book,” American Jewish choreographers have consistently turned to dance as a means to articulate personal and collective identities; tangle with stereotypes; advance social and political agendas; and imagine new possibilities for themselves as individuals, artists, and Jews. Dancing Jewish delineates this rich history, demonstrating that Jewish choreographers have not only been vital contributors to American modern and postmodern dance, but they have also played a critical and unacknowledged role in the history of Jews in the United States. By examining the role that dance has played in the struggle between Jewish identification and integration into American life, the book moves across disciplinary boundaries to show how cultural identity, nationality, ethnicity, and gender are formed and performed through the body and its motions. A choreographer as well as a historian, Rebecca Rossen offers evocative analyses of dances while asserting the importance of embodied methodologies to academic research. Featuring over fifty images, a companion website, and key works from 1930 to 2005 by a wide range of artists—including David Dorfman, Dan Froot, David Gordon, Hadassah, Margaret Jenkins, Pauline Koner, Dvora Lapson, Liz Lerman, Victoria Marks, Sophie Maslow, Anna Sokolow, and Benjamin Zemach—Dancing Jewish offers a comprehensive framework for interpreting performance and establishes dance as a crucial site in which American Jews have grappled with cultural belonging, personal and collective histories, and the values that bind and pull them apart.Less
While Jews are commonly referred to as the “people of the book,” American Jewish choreographers have consistently turned to dance as a means to articulate personal and collective identities; tangle with stereotypes; advance social and political agendas; and imagine new possibilities for themselves as individuals, artists, and Jews. Dancing Jewish delineates this rich history, demonstrating that Jewish choreographers have not only been vital contributors to American modern and postmodern dance, but they have also played a critical and unacknowledged role in the history of Jews in the United States. By examining the role that dance has played in the struggle between Jewish identification and integration into American life, the book moves across disciplinary boundaries to show how cultural identity, nationality, ethnicity, and gender are formed and performed through the body and its motions. A choreographer as well as a historian, Rebecca Rossen offers evocative analyses of dances while asserting the importance of embodied methodologies to academic research. Featuring over fifty images, a companion website, and key works from 1930 to 2005 by a wide range of artists—including David Dorfman, Dan Froot, David Gordon, Hadassah, Margaret Jenkins, Pauline Koner, Dvora Lapson, Liz Lerman, Victoria Marks, Sophie Maslow, Anna Sokolow, and Benjamin Zemach—Dancing Jewish offers a comprehensive framework for interpreting performance and establishes dance as a crucial site in which American Jews have grappled with cultural belonging, personal and collective histories, and the values that bind and pull them apart.
Erin Brannigan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195367232
- eISBN:
- 9780199894178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367232.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Maya Deren's writings on film provide the basis for considering her dancefilm works such as A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1945–1946). A pivotal figure in ...
More
Maya Deren's writings on film provide the basis for considering her dancefilm works such as A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1945–1946). A pivotal figure in the history of dancefilm, Deren's films marked the re‐emergence of the form within the avantgarde for the first time since the experiments of the Futurists, Surrealists, and Dadaists earlier in the twentieth century. Operating outside the major American film studios, which were releasing their highest output of dance musicals, Deren was working with modern and untrained dancers to create choreographies for the screen. Deren realized seminal strategies for dancefilm in the mid‐twentieth century that can be found in the most recent examples of the form. Vertical film form is a concept developed by Deren to account for the different film structure in non‐narrative films—what she calls “poetic film.” Rather than progressing “horizontally” with the logic of the narrative, vertical films or sequences explore the quality of moments, images, ideas, and movements outside of such imperatives. Depersonalization refers to a type of screen performance that subsumes the individual into the choreography of the film as a whole. Actors become figures across whom movement transfers as an “event.” The manipulation of gestural action through stylization occurs through individual performances as well as cinematic effects, the two levels of filmic performance combining to create screen choreographies.Less
Maya Deren's writings on film provide the basis for considering her dancefilm works such as A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1945–1946). A pivotal figure in the history of dancefilm, Deren's films marked the re‐emergence of the form within the avantgarde for the first time since the experiments of the Futurists, Surrealists, and Dadaists earlier in the twentieth century. Operating outside the major American film studios, which were releasing their highest output of dance musicals, Deren was working with modern and untrained dancers to create choreographies for the screen. Deren realized seminal strategies for dancefilm in the mid‐twentieth century that can be found in the most recent examples of the form. Vertical film form is a concept developed by Deren to account for the different film structure in non‐narrative films—what she calls “poetic film.” Rather than progressing “horizontally” with the logic of the narrative, vertical films or sequences explore the quality of moments, images, ideas, and movements outside of such imperatives. Depersonalization refers to a type of screen performance that subsumes the individual into the choreography of the film as a whole. Actors become figures across whom movement transfers as an “event.” The manipulation of gestural action through stylization occurs through individual performances as well as cinematic effects, the two levels of filmic performance combining to create screen choreographies.
Karl Toepfer
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813040257
- eISBN:
- 9780813043869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813040257.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Modern dance in Europe established itself as a distinctive aesthetic experience in the early twentieth century through solo dancing by a lone woman in a program of dances designed to reveal the power ...
More
Modern dance in Europe established itself as a distinctive aesthetic experience in the early twentieth century through solo dancing by a lone woman in a program of dances designed to reveal the power of movement to define and amplify her unique personality. To be modern was to be alone and free of social contexts. The dancer was allowed by audiences of the day to appear on stage in sensual and seductive ways. The door was open to expressionist dance. Nine dancers are presented: Mata Hari, Olga Desmond, Anna Pavlova, Gertrud Leistikow, Lavinia Schulz, Edith von Schrenk, Niddy Impekoven, Oda Schottmüller, and Ella Ilbak.Less
Modern dance in Europe established itself as a distinctive aesthetic experience in the early twentieth century through solo dancing by a lone woman in a program of dances designed to reveal the power of movement to define and amplify her unique personality. To be modern was to be alone and free of social contexts. The dancer was allowed by audiences of the day to appear on stage in sensual and seductive ways. The door was open to expressionist dance. Nine dancers are presented: Mata Hari, Olga Desmond, Anna Pavlova, Gertrud Leistikow, Lavinia Schulz, Edith von Schrenk, Niddy Impekoven, Oda Schottmüller, and Ella Ilbak.
Mark Franko
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199777662
- eISBN:
- 9780199950119
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199777662.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
Using newly discovered archival sources this book examines the major works of Martha Graham between 1938 and 1953, arguably her most productive period. Graham’s artistic maturation overlaps the ...
More
Using newly discovered archival sources this book examines the major works of Martha Graham between 1938 and 1953, arguably her most productive period. Graham’s artistic maturation overlaps the global crisis of fascism, the conflict of World War II, and the post-war period that ushered in the Cold War. It also corresponds to the trajectory of her personal and professional relationship with dancer Erick Hawkins who first appeared with the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1938 when her art was taking on new dramaturgical complexity, political commitment and mytho-graphic dimension. As a relationship between a young man and a mature woman as well as between an established and a fledgling artist, the Graham-Hawkins story was a tormented one. The vicissitudes of this relationship and its emotional tone will be an integral part of the description of Graham’s work undertaken in this study. The sociological axes of seven major works are Graham’s involvement with anti-Fascism prior and during World War Two and her involvement with post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory and Jungian psychoanalysis in the postwar period. This book relates Graham’s original and groundbreaking use of myth to both anti-fascism and psychoanalysis, before and after the war respectively, and thus brings her choreography into direct relationship both to the key events of her time and to her personal life.Less
Using newly discovered archival sources this book examines the major works of Martha Graham between 1938 and 1953, arguably her most productive period. Graham’s artistic maturation overlaps the global crisis of fascism, the conflict of World War II, and the post-war period that ushered in the Cold War. It also corresponds to the trajectory of her personal and professional relationship with dancer Erick Hawkins who first appeared with the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1938 when her art was taking on new dramaturgical complexity, political commitment and mytho-graphic dimension. As a relationship between a young man and a mature woman as well as between an established and a fledgling artist, the Graham-Hawkins story was a tormented one. The vicissitudes of this relationship and its emotional tone will be an integral part of the description of Graham’s work undertaken in this study. The sociological axes of seven major works are Graham’s involvement with anti-Fascism prior and during World War Two and her involvement with post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory and Jungian psychoanalysis in the postwar period. This book relates Graham’s original and groundbreaking use of myth to both anti-fascism and psychoanalysis, before and after the war respectively, and thus brings her choreography into direct relationship both to the key events of her time and to her personal life.
Rebecca Rossen
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- June 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199791767
- eISBN:
- 9780199375851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791767.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter further scrutinizes gender and Jewishness through an examination of Anna Sokolow’s Songs of a Semite (1943), Pearl Lang’s Song of Deborah (1949–67), and Victoria Marks’s My First Solo ...
More
This chapter further scrutinizes gender and Jewishness through an examination of Anna Sokolow’s Songs of a Semite (1943), Pearl Lang’s Song of Deborah (1949–67), and Victoria Marks’s My First Solo (1997). Unlike the women discussed in chapter 1, Sokolow and Lang avoided the stigma of “Jewish dance” through their deployment of mythic modernism. Their triumphant depictions of biblical heroines undermined ideas about Jewish victimhood prevalent during and after World War II, while also asserting the value of women to Jewish and American history. During the mid-twentieth century, many Jews moved from the urban working class into the suburban middle class, replacing secular radicalism with a more conventional value system. Marks addressed the impact of this shift in My First Solo, in which she took a biblical anti-heroine, Lot’s wife, and transformed her stasis into an inspired rebellion against organized Judaism and middle-class gender norms.Less
This chapter further scrutinizes gender and Jewishness through an examination of Anna Sokolow’s Songs of a Semite (1943), Pearl Lang’s Song of Deborah (1949–67), and Victoria Marks’s My First Solo (1997). Unlike the women discussed in chapter 1, Sokolow and Lang avoided the stigma of “Jewish dance” through their deployment of mythic modernism. Their triumphant depictions of biblical heroines undermined ideas about Jewish victimhood prevalent during and after World War II, while also asserting the value of women to Jewish and American history. During the mid-twentieth century, many Jews moved from the urban working class into the suburban middle class, replacing secular radicalism with a more conventional value system. Marks addressed the impact of this shift in My First Solo, in which she took a biblical anti-heroine, Lot’s wife, and transformed her stasis into an inspired rebellion against organized Judaism and middle-class gender norms.
Melissa R. Klapper
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- July 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190908683
- eISBN:
- 9780190908713
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190908683.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Dance is a fundamentally embodied art, and the ballet body has always been a contested site. Modern dance pioneers distinguished their fledgling art form by denouncing ballet as unnatural and ...
More
Dance is a fundamentally embodied art, and the ballet body has always been a contested site. Modern dance pioneers distinguished their fledgling art form by denouncing ballet as unnatural and particularly unsuited for the modern American dancer. Concerns about the pernicious effects of the idealized ballet body, especially on girls and young women, led to sharp medical and psychological concerns that seeped into popular representations of ballet class. Feminist critiques of ballet for supposedly oppressing women gained currency at the end of the twentieth century. Whatever the merits of such critiques, ballet can also be empowering for women in terms of bodily strength and artistic integrity, as seen in the controversial figure of the ballerina.Less
Dance is a fundamentally embodied art, and the ballet body has always been a contested site. Modern dance pioneers distinguished their fledgling art form by denouncing ballet as unnatural and particularly unsuited for the modern American dancer. Concerns about the pernicious effects of the idealized ballet body, especially on girls and young women, led to sharp medical and psychological concerns that seeped into popular representations of ballet class. Feminist critiques of ballet for supposedly oppressing women gained currency at the end of the twentieth century. Whatever the merits of such critiques, ballet can also be empowering for women in terms of bodily strength and artistic integrity, as seen in the controversial figure of the ballerina.
Paul A. Scolieri
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199331062
- eISBN:
- 9780190050580
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199331062.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
This chapter focuses on Shawn’s extensive travels abroad during the height of the Denishawn enterprise in pursuit of learning and adapting authentic “foreign” or “ethnic” dances for the American ...
More
This chapter focuses on Shawn’s extensive travels abroad during the height of the Denishawn enterprise in pursuit of learning and adapting authentic “foreign” or “ethnic” dances for the American stage. It details Shawn’s trips to Spain and North Africa (1923), where he traveled in search of the Ouled Naïl, the nomadic tribe of bejeweled dancing girls that had captured the imagination of Romantic artists and writers. It also covers Denishawn’s groundbreaking eighteen-month tour of the Far East (1925–26), focusing on the company’s status as “America’s unofficial ambassadors” and revealing Shawn’s artistic exchanges with local artists, royalty, and colonial officials. The chapter explains how Shawn translated his experiences abroad into dances that filled his repertory for years to come—as well as into business practices that helped him build an arts empire with school franchises, a mail-order dance business, and its own Denishawn Magazine.Less
This chapter focuses on Shawn’s extensive travels abroad during the height of the Denishawn enterprise in pursuit of learning and adapting authentic “foreign” or “ethnic” dances for the American stage. It details Shawn’s trips to Spain and North Africa (1923), where he traveled in search of the Ouled Naïl, the nomadic tribe of bejeweled dancing girls that had captured the imagination of Romantic artists and writers. It also covers Denishawn’s groundbreaking eighteen-month tour of the Far East (1925–26), focusing on the company’s status as “America’s unofficial ambassadors” and revealing Shawn’s artistic exchanges with local artists, royalty, and colonial officials. The chapter explains how Shawn translated his experiences abroad into dances that filled his repertory for years to come—as well as into business practices that helped him build an arts empire with school franchises, a mail-order dance business, and its own Denishawn Magazine.
Ramiro Guerra and Melinda Mousouris (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813034676
- eISBN:
- 9780813046303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034676.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Ramiro Guerra, the fountainhead of Cuban modern dance, looks back on this life and work, from his childhood in Havana in the 1930s, to becoming a dancer and beginning to transcend the conventions of ...
More
Ramiro Guerra, the fountainhead of Cuban modern dance, looks back on this life and work, from his childhood in Havana in the 1930s, to becoming a dancer and beginning to transcend the conventions of dance and theater, to his innovative work as the founder of Cuba's national modern dance company, Conjunto Nacional de Danza Moderna, now called Danza Contemporánea de Cuba. After a daring site-specific piece of his was suspended by the government in 1971, Guerra left the company to explore Cuban folklore, gesture, and humor, to choreograph for other companies such as Danza Voluminosa and Danza Libre, and to write about dance. He continued to choreograph highly experimental works such as “De la Memoria Fragmentada” and “Ordalias,” which used unusual spaces, including his own apartment tower.Less
Ramiro Guerra, the fountainhead of Cuban modern dance, looks back on this life and work, from his childhood in Havana in the 1930s, to becoming a dancer and beginning to transcend the conventions of dance and theater, to his innovative work as the founder of Cuba's national modern dance company, Conjunto Nacional de Danza Moderna, now called Danza Contemporánea de Cuba. After a daring site-specific piece of his was suspended by the government in 1971, Guerra left the company to explore Cuban folklore, gesture, and humor, to choreograph for other companies such as Danza Voluminosa and Danza Libre, and to write about dance. He continued to choreograph highly experimental works such as “De la Memoria Fragmentada” and “Ordalias,” which used unusual spaces, including his own apartment tower.
Rebekah J. Kowal
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190265311
- eISBN:
- 9780190265359
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190265311.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Chapter 2 examines La Meri’s controversial legacy in American concert dance. An Anglo-American dance artist who specialized in Asian and Latin American dance practices, La Meri fashioned herself as a ...
More
Chapter 2 examines La Meri’s controversial legacy in American concert dance. An Anglo-American dance artist who specialized in Asian and Latin American dance practices, La Meri fashioned herself as a dance polyglot, having studied with instructors at stops along the way of her worldwide performance tours in the 1920s and 1930s. When World War II commenced in Europe, La Meri settled in New York City in 1940 and established herself as one of the world’s foremost ethnologic performers. This chapter investigates debates that surrounded La Meri in the 1940s to illuminate the tensions that developed between so-called ethnic dance and modern dance, on the one hand, and cultural formations of whiteness, on the other.Less
Chapter 2 examines La Meri’s controversial legacy in American concert dance. An Anglo-American dance artist who specialized in Asian and Latin American dance practices, La Meri fashioned herself as a dance polyglot, having studied with instructors at stops along the way of her worldwide performance tours in the 1920s and 1930s. When World War II commenced in Europe, La Meri settled in New York City in 1940 and established herself as one of the world’s foremost ethnologic performers. This chapter investigates debates that surrounded La Meri in the 1940s to illuminate the tensions that developed between so-called ethnic dance and modern dance, on the one hand, and cultural formations of whiteness, on the other.
Rebecca Rossen
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- June 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199791767
- eISBN:
- 9780199375851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791767.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Dancing Jewish investigates how Jewish identity is embodied and represented in American modern and postmodern dance over a seventy-five-year period (1930–2005). The introduction distinguishes “Jewish ...
More
Dancing Jewish investigates how Jewish identity is embodied and represented in American modern and postmodern dance over a seventy-five-year period (1930–2005). The introduction distinguishes “Jewish dance,” which implies a distinct and fixed genre, from “dancing Jewish,” a mode of representation in which Jewish choreographers continually engage (and revise) a select but shifting repertory of images and themes in crafting their work. In addition to outlining the scope of the project and situating her findings in relation to dance and American Jewish scholarship to date, Rossen examines how cultural identity, ethnicity, and gender are formed and performed through the body and its movements, and delineates a persuasive, interdisciplinary methodology for researching and interpreting Jewishness in American dance.Less
Dancing Jewish investigates how Jewish identity is embodied and represented in American modern and postmodern dance over a seventy-five-year period (1930–2005). The introduction distinguishes “Jewish dance,” which implies a distinct and fixed genre, from “dancing Jewish,” a mode of representation in which Jewish choreographers continually engage (and revise) a select but shifting repertory of images and themes in crafting their work. In addition to outlining the scope of the project and situating her findings in relation to dance and American Jewish scholarship to date, Rossen examines how cultural identity, ethnicity, and gender are formed and performed through the body and its movements, and delineates a persuasive, interdisciplinary methodology for researching and interpreting Jewishness in American dance.
Victoria Phillips
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- February 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190610364
- eISBN:
- 9780190610395
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190610364.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Writing about cultural diplomacy the year before Martha Graham left on her maiden tour, the United States Information Agency concluded, “Events should be planned and ‘planted’ to implement propaganda ...
More
Writing about cultural diplomacy the year before Martha Graham left on her maiden tour, the United States Information Agency concluded, “Events should be planned and ‘planted’ to implement propaganda themes.” Unpacking the telling of modern dance history and Martha Graham’s position as both the global dance “Picasso” and the American “First Lady of Modern Dance” reveals how Graham’s tours became useful to the US government. During the interwar period, a formal definition of “modern dance” in the United States began with references to the pre–World War I and interwar Germans, with dancers seeking to create a distinctive medium informed by modernist tenets through a concept of the “free dance.” American Isadora Duncan, a “Mother of Modern Dance,” had performed for Lenin in the newly founded communist state, and then penned, “I See America Dancing.” Graham’s studies with Denishawn included “oriental” references in its new choreography, as well as Americana. With the rhetoric of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, Duncan, Shawn, Graham, and others explored a new dance for the United States in writing and practice: Graham used a technique of distillation and abstraction in Lamentation, and then utilized the approach with American pioneers and frontier nationalism. Thus in the United States, post–World War II scholars asserted that modernism could have emerged only from the “land of the free,” and not from totalitarian states such as Germany or Japan, and certainly not the Soviet Union. Freedom and universalism found through an exploration of the human psyche—tenets built into the form by Germans, Japanese, and Soviet followers—became particularly important in the Cold War “psychwar” campaigns once claimed as “distinctly American.”Less
Writing about cultural diplomacy the year before Martha Graham left on her maiden tour, the United States Information Agency concluded, “Events should be planned and ‘planted’ to implement propaganda themes.” Unpacking the telling of modern dance history and Martha Graham’s position as both the global dance “Picasso” and the American “First Lady of Modern Dance” reveals how Graham’s tours became useful to the US government. During the interwar period, a formal definition of “modern dance” in the United States began with references to the pre–World War I and interwar Germans, with dancers seeking to create a distinctive medium informed by modernist tenets through a concept of the “free dance.” American Isadora Duncan, a “Mother of Modern Dance,” had performed for Lenin in the newly founded communist state, and then penned, “I See America Dancing.” Graham’s studies with Denishawn included “oriental” references in its new choreography, as well as Americana. With the rhetoric of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, Duncan, Shawn, Graham, and others explored a new dance for the United States in writing and practice: Graham used a technique of distillation and abstraction in Lamentation, and then utilized the approach with American pioneers and frontier nationalism. Thus in the United States, post–World War II scholars asserted that modernism could have emerged only from the “land of the free,” and not from totalitarian states such as Germany or Japan, and certainly not the Soviet Union. Freedom and universalism found through an exploration of the human psyche—tenets built into the form by Germans, Japanese, and Soviet followers—became particularly important in the Cold War “psychwar” campaigns once claimed as “distinctly American.”
Daniel J. Walkowitz
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794692
- eISBN:
- 9780814784525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794692.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter chronicles the world of country dance as it underwent changes during the 1970s. The controversial 1974 visit to Pinewoods Camp of the pioneering dance choreographer and teacher from ...
More
This chapter chronicles the world of country dance as it underwent changes during the 1970s. The controversial 1974 visit to Pinewoods Camp of the pioneering dance choreographer and teacher from London—Pat Shaw—was the transformative symbolic moment. Shaw's view of the folk reflected struggles within folklore generally, and while it empowered some, it threatened others, most especially those committed to preserving what they imagined to be Sharp's legacy: the Playford tradition. Shaw had set in motion the development of a new “modern” genre of dances in the spirit of historical English Country Dance, leaving it to choreographers to interpret how that historical “spirit” or “tradition” would be represented in the newly written “folk” dances. The result was the emergence by the century's end of a new subset of ECD: Modern English Country Dance.Less
This chapter chronicles the world of country dance as it underwent changes during the 1970s. The controversial 1974 visit to Pinewoods Camp of the pioneering dance choreographer and teacher from London—Pat Shaw—was the transformative symbolic moment. Shaw's view of the folk reflected struggles within folklore generally, and while it empowered some, it threatened others, most especially those committed to preserving what they imagined to be Sharp's legacy: the Playford tradition. Shaw had set in motion the development of a new “modern” genre of dances in the spirit of historical English Country Dance, leaving it to choreographers to interpret how that historical “spirit” or “tradition” would be represented in the newly written “folk” dances. The result was the emergence by the century's end of a new subset of ECD: Modern English Country Dance.
Daniel J. Walkowitz
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814794692
- eISBN:
- 9780814784525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814794692.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter traces the emergence of a transcontinental Modern English Country Dance (MECD) and the liberal body carriage that its music and style promulgated. In the last decade of the twentieth ...
More
This chapter traces the emergence of a transcontinental Modern English Country Dance (MECD) and the liberal body carriage that its music and style promulgated. In the last decade of the twentieth century, MECD became a robust transcontinental and transatlantic leisure activity of postwar baby boomers. MECD during this era became a continental movement, both in its geographic stretch and in its development of a mobile transcontinental and transatlantic community with shared passions and a shared emergent new dance practice. It was as much a new spirit, tempo, and style of dancing as it was a corpus of newly written dances that advanced that spirit. And within this thriving urban sphere, relatively affluent MECD dancers inhabited a countercultural space that echoed with the contradictions of liberalism.Less
This chapter traces the emergence of a transcontinental Modern English Country Dance (MECD) and the liberal body carriage that its music and style promulgated. In the last decade of the twentieth century, MECD became a robust transcontinental and transatlantic leisure activity of postwar baby boomers. MECD during this era became a continental movement, both in its geographic stretch and in its development of a mobile transcontinental and transatlantic community with shared passions and a shared emergent new dance practice. It was as much a new spirit, tempo, and style of dancing as it was a corpus of newly written dances that advanced that spirit. And within this thriving urban sphere, relatively affluent MECD dancers inhabited a countercultural space that echoed with the contradictions of liberalism.
Faye Yuan Kleeman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838607
- eISBN:
- 9780824871482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838607.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the relationship between private body and empire by focusing on the life experiences of two modern dancers from the colonies: Choi Seunghee (1911–1969) of Chōsen and Tsai ...
More
This chapter examines the relationship between private body and empire by focusing on the life experiences of two modern dancers from the colonies: Choi Seunghee (1911–1969) of Chōsen and Tsai Juiyueh (1921–2 005) of Taiwan. The stories of Choi and Tsai illustrate how the cosmopolitanism and universalism inherent in avant-garde art can overcome the colonial division between the metropole and the colonies and yet be handicapped by postcolonial conditions. These two women are prime examples of how knowledge and (colonial) modernity circulated within the Japanese empire. This chapter explores how the lives of Choi and Tsai intersected and were altered by their encounters with the Japanese modern dancer Ishii Baku. It also considers the role of dance in elucidating the diverse patterns and trajectories of knowledge flow and cultural exchanges within the empire, and in a global movement of avant-garde art.Less
This chapter examines the relationship between private body and empire by focusing on the life experiences of two modern dancers from the colonies: Choi Seunghee (1911–1969) of Chōsen and Tsai Juiyueh (1921–2 005) of Taiwan. The stories of Choi and Tsai illustrate how the cosmopolitanism and universalism inherent in avant-garde art can overcome the colonial division between the metropole and the colonies and yet be handicapped by postcolonial conditions. These two women are prime examples of how knowledge and (colonial) modernity circulated within the Japanese empire. This chapter explores how the lives of Choi and Tsai intersected and were altered by their encounters with the Japanese modern dancer Ishii Baku. It also considers the role of dance in elucidating the diverse patterns and trajectories of knowledge flow and cultural exchanges within the empire, and in a global movement of avant-garde art.
Paul A. Scolieri
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199331062
- eISBN:
- 9780190050580
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199331062.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
This chapter introduces the reader to Ted Shawn and to the reasons his life deserves a critical reappraisal. It examines how a narrative of his life was constructed over his more than fifty years in ...
More
This chapter introduces the reader to Ted Shawn and to the reasons his life deserves a critical reappraisal. It examines how a narrative of his life was constructed over his more than fifty years in the public eye, including the compromising depictions of him in the biographies of his wife Ruth St. Denis and his most famous student Martha Graham. It also considers his many own attempts to write about his life, especially his memoir One Thousand and One Night Stands (1960). The chapter argues that homophobia (including Shawn’s own) clouded the narrative of Shawn’s life and obscured his place in dance history and thus proposes a reconsideration of his life, writings, and dances based on sources that had thus far not been given full consideration.Less
This chapter introduces the reader to Ted Shawn and to the reasons his life deserves a critical reappraisal. It examines how a narrative of his life was constructed over his more than fifty years in the public eye, including the compromising depictions of him in the biographies of his wife Ruth St. Denis and his most famous student Martha Graham. It also considers his many own attempts to write about his life, especially his memoir One Thousand and One Night Stands (1960). The chapter argues that homophobia (including Shawn’s own) clouded the narrative of Shawn’s life and obscured his place in dance history and thus proposes a reconsideration of his life, writings, and dances based on sources that had thus far not been given full consideration.
Paul A. Scolieri
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199331062
- eISBN:
- 9780190050580
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199331062.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
This chapter explores the formative influences on Shawn’s decision to become a professional male dancer. In particular, it examines how a serious, paralyzing illness during his adolescence led him to ...
More
This chapter explores the formative influences on Shawn’s decision to become a professional male dancer. In particular, it examines how a serious, paralyzing illness during his adolescence led him to study dance, thus derailing his plans to become a minister. It also considers how his early sexual experiences and the premature death of his parents and brother fueled his determination to become an artist. The chapter also details Shawn’s early appearances on stage (including his debut as a cross-dressing “Oriental sissy,” his move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film, and his experience choreographing the “first all-dance film,” Dances of the Ages (1913), for the Thomas C. Edison Company, which gave him the confidence and finances to travel to the East Coast in pursuit of becoming a professional dancer.Less
This chapter explores the formative influences on Shawn’s decision to become a professional male dancer. In particular, it examines how a serious, paralyzing illness during his adolescence led him to study dance, thus derailing his plans to become a minister. It also considers how his early sexual experiences and the premature death of his parents and brother fueled his determination to become an artist. The chapter also details Shawn’s early appearances on stage (including his debut as a cross-dressing “Oriental sissy,” his move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film, and his experience choreographing the “first all-dance film,” Dances of the Ages (1913), for the Thomas C. Edison Company, which gave him the confidence and finances to travel to the East Coast in pursuit of becoming a professional dancer.
Paul A. Scolieri
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199331062
- eISBN:
- 9780190050580
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199331062.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
This chapter examines the formation and early years of Denishawn, the first American modern dance company and school. It argues that the newlywed Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn harnessed the cultural ...
More
This chapter examines the formation and early years of Denishawn, the first American modern dance company and school. It argues that the newlywed Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn harnessed the cultural fascination with eugenics—the science of race betterment—to catapult their unique brand of theatrical dancing into public renown. A cultural phenomenon, Denishawn appeared in magazines from National Geographic to Vogue, fast becoming a sensation among Hollywood directors, vaudeville producers, and high society elites. Denishawn’s meteoric rise was curtailed by World War I and Shawn’s enlistment in the army as well as the interpersonal conflicts between St. Denis and Shawn, which led the couple to seek marriage counseling from Havelock Ellis, a pioneer of the British eugenics movement, while in London in 1922 with their company.Less
This chapter examines the formation and early years of Denishawn, the first American modern dance company and school. It argues that the newlywed Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn harnessed the cultural fascination with eugenics—the science of race betterment—to catapult their unique brand of theatrical dancing into public renown. A cultural phenomenon, Denishawn appeared in magazines from National Geographic to Vogue, fast becoming a sensation among Hollywood directors, vaudeville producers, and high society elites. Denishawn’s meteoric rise was curtailed by World War I and Shawn’s enlistment in the army as well as the interpersonal conflicts between St. Denis and Shawn, which led the couple to seek marriage counseling from Havelock Ellis, a pioneer of the British eugenics movement, while in London in 1922 with their company.
Ann M. Axtmann
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813049113
- eISBN:
- 9780813050010
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813049113.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
There are many non–Indians––wannabes, hobbyists, and New Age practitioners––who dance at powwows by “playing Indian.” This chapter continues the discussion, begun in chapter 3, of the long history of ...
More
There are many non–Indians––wannabes, hobbyists, and New Age practitioners––who dance at powwows by “playing Indian.” This chapter continues the discussion, begun in chapter 3, of the long history of this practice from colonial times onward. By close examination of how these non–Indians move, we can appreciate the stark contrasts of wannabe and Indian dancing. Axtmann discusses early dance scholars––Bernard S. Mason, Ernest T. Seton, and Julia M. Buttree––and modern dance innovators of the twentieth century––Ted Shawn, Lester Horton, Martha Graham, Erik Hawkins, Mexican-born José Limón, and Tom Two Arrows (Thomas Dorsey) of Lenni-Lenape descent ––within the context of wannabes and as people duly influenced by Native culture. Considering the proliferation of wannabes outside the United States––on the world stage––and the ideas of masking and appropriation, Axtmann addresses two primary questions: (1) Why are wannabe non-Indians so invested in Native dance? and (2) What meanings and motivations drive their actions?Less
There are many non–Indians––wannabes, hobbyists, and New Age practitioners––who dance at powwows by “playing Indian.” This chapter continues the discussion, begun in chapter 3, of the long history of this practice from colonial times onward. By close examination of how these non–Indians move, we can appreciate the stark contrasts of wannabe and Indian dancing. Axtmann discusses early dance scholars––Bernard S. Mason, Ernest T. Seton, and Julia M. Buttree––and modern dance innovators of the twentieth century––Ted Shawn, Lester Horton, Martha Graham, Erik Hawkins, Mexican-born José Limón, and Tom Two Arrows (Thomas Dorsey) of Lenni-Lenape descent ––within the context of wannabes and as people duly influenced by Native culture. Considering the proliferation of wannabes outside the United States––on the world stage––and the ideas of masking and appropriation, Axtmann addresses two primary questions: (1) Why are wannabe non-Indians so invested in Native dance? and (2) What meanings and motivations drive their actions?