4.1: Introduction- Three factors contributed to the emergence of modern dance
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(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bild_Romeo_und_Julia.jpg)
Modern dance is a product of the economic, technological, social, and artistic progress that resulted from the advances of the Industrial Revolution. Radical socio-cultural shifts in the 19th century laid the groundwork for new 20th century forms of movement pioneered by women. Paralleling a rise in early feminism, modern dance followed a philosophical trajectory that challenged power centers. Rules needed to be broken. The Suffragette movement was a mirror to the challenging of the traditional dance power center: Ballet. The stringent, hierarchical dance world, regulated by male ballet impresarios, was redolent of the royal European aristocratic structures. Modern dance, and later postmodern dance, toppled the ballet. Brave women, who challenged traditions, began engaging in fresh experimental movement, reinventing notions of could be considered ‘dance’.
Innovations in dance came from an emancipatory ethos of liberated American women who wanted to move away from imported European ballet. The ‘Dance of the Future’, or ‘modern’ dance started in the late 19th and early 20th century. State of the art technologies and entrepreneurial vision prompted an unfettered creativity where individualistic women who declared themselves the dance artists of a new era (Jonas, 1992). These pioneers followed personal inspiration and adhered to no dance master, taking for granted their constitutional right Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. With mystical faith in the relevance and purpose of their art, the dance of the future required personal forward-looking expressivity, not old, inherited, codified rigidity. And making manifest their own destiny in the American land of opportunity was a rugged spirit that celebrated risk taking and challenged the limiting technical vocabularies and choreographic patterns of the classical ballet.
If Europe was the past, then America was the future, and as vanguards of a new dance of the future, a new, ‘modern’ style of dance was innovated. Three factors contributed to the emergence of modern dance in the late 19th and early 20th century.
- Industrialization. During the time of increased mechanization, people were fascinated with a ‘modern’ way of doing things.
- Social and Political Changes. The Women’s Movement challenged the status quo by calling into question the assumption that being denied the right to vote, subjected to unequal pay were indicative of the modernization of social and political ideas about the role of women in society.
- Art Nouveau and Modern Art. The abstraction of reality depicted in art led to ‘new’ art, considered ‘modern’. Depictions of puritanical lady faeries adorned in glittering white tutus were an antiquated perception of women in a modern era.
Dances from this period illustrate the striving, the trials, the imperfections, and glorious vindications of pushing against the status quo. Innocence and purity were replaced with purpose and shared contribution in the new images of women factory workers during World War II (Figure 4.2). The stories, myths, and movement vocabularies from the ‘Motherland’ no longer served. In 20th century America, dance experimentation would take root in rugged individuality, political push back, and freedom!
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:We_Can_Do_It!_NARA_535413_-_Restoration_2.jpg)
After reading this chapter you will be able to do the following:
- Explain how dance in the 20th century was impacted by the women’s movement, art nouveau, and industrialization.
- Discuss the concept of Manifest Destiny, the pioneering American spirit of risk-taking, freedom, and individuality.
- Identify and analyze the contributions of key contributors to the development of modern dance.
- Chance Operations
- Contraction and Release
- Cultural Appropriation
- Free Dance
- Manifest Destiny
- Multi-perspectivity
- Pedestrian
- Postmodernism