4.2: Dancing from the Outside In

As an alternative to the inheritance of olde world ballet, Ruth St. Denis (1878-1927) was in search of new and original material to counter the codified ballet and looked to non-European cultures to feed her aspirations as a dancer. An exotic poster advertising cigarettes, depicting Isis seated resplendently upon an Egyptian throne provided the initial inspiration for St. Denis to create her own interpretation of borrowed cultural material. Her reinvention of cultural dances from around the world were rooted in romantic musings of ‘Otherness’ (Kowal, 2020). A thoughtful and legitimate study of authentic cultural dance forms was not undertaken by St. Denis. Rather, an entertainment-oriented approach, while not pernicious, was an inauthentic project of illicit cultural borrowing.

Her performative presentations were embellished renditions of an Egyptian goddess, Indian kathaka, Thai warrior, a Japanese maiko, Aztec Xochitl, or a Chinese Quan Yin, St. Denis’ dances were not articulated in authenticity. One of her most famous works was Radha (1906), a stylist interpretation of a Hindu goddess in resplendent display! By donning the exotic costumes (authentic and others, not so authentic), St. Denis was effectively attempting to be saturated in a cultural ethos; Starting with the costume, perceptions of the culture radiated inward to her source of inspiration—inculcating her movement ideas—dancing from the outside in.

Figure 4.3. Ruth St. Denis in Radha, 1906. (New York Public Library. (15 December 2008). Digital ID: DEN_0032V. ca. 1906. File:Ruth St. Denis in Radha. (3110872324).jpg - Wikimedia Commons)

Ted Shawn (1891 - 1972) entered the St. Denis dance milieux in 1915, where they co-founded the Denishawn School of Dance in Los Angeles, California. Together, Denis and Shawn collaborated with immense success in the popularization of multicultural theatrical dance pageants. Different from the imported European ballet, the Denishawn Company gained international recognition performing within the United States, as well as being invited abroad, the first American company to tour and perform in Burma, Ceylon, China, India Japan, Java, Malaya, and the Philippines (Sherman, 1979). While travelling, Ted Shawn took notes, recorded video (rare for the times), and make efforts to study the indigenous dances with the support and encouragement by their cultural emissaries. In many ways, he was attempting to conduct the authentic ethnographic fieldwork of a dance anthropologist. The intention of Denishawn, therefore, must be taken into consideration when analyzing, critiquing, and evaluating their work through a twenty-first century, post-colonial lens.

Denishawn borrowed non-western cultural attributes – notions of movement, concepts of dress, and thematic content – and presented what they believed to be new and fresh dance. For Americans and many around the world, what they enthusiastically watched WAS new and fresh! But by attempting to modernize dance in their own way, they may have been participating in cultural appropriation, though any domineering, colonial aim of exploitation was entirely absent. The Denishawn School revered the cultures they borrowed from, and while they failed at cultural authenticity, their appreciative intent in fact, played a part in the revitalization of Bharata Natyam in India, following the suppression of classical Indian Dance by the British Raj.

Aside from international acclaim, Ruth St. Denis founded one of America’s first university dance departments at Adelphi University, and Ted Shawn founded Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival now a hub for dance innovation. But most importantly, the impact that Denishawn had on American dance history lies primarily in the second generation of modern dance pioneers that they trained: Doris Humphrey, Jack Cole, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham --- to name a few. Read on. These individuals are highlighted below as game changers in dance history.

Definition: Cultural Appropriation

The adoption and use of artistic practices or creative themes by one cultural group from another. Typically, this term that emerged in the late twentieth century is used to describe Western appropriations of non‐Western cultural forms and carries connotations of exploitation and dominance as part of the post‐colonial critique of Western expansionism (Oxford, 2022).

Figure 4.4. Isadora Duncan, the mother of modern dance, was inspired by the art of ancient Greece, unrestricted nature, and the sovereign individual soul. ArchaiOptix (2023, August 30). Achilles Painter - ARV 987 2 - Dionysos with satyrs and maenads - Paris BnF CabMed 357 - 08.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Achilles_Painter_-_ARV_987_2_-_Dionysos_with_satyrs_and_maenads_-_Paris_BnF_CabMed_357_-_08.jpg

If Ruth St. Denis danced from the outside in costumed flashy cultural spectacle, then it was Isadora Duncan (1878 – 1927) who danced from inside-out. She discarded the corset and the glitter, opting to dance with the softness and beauty of ordinary body mechanics, authentic human emotion, and spiritual expression. Duncan named it “the dance of the future”, and as the mother of modern dance, she purported that the real source of dance should be inspired by the natural world, and the soul, though she also relied on the gestural vocabularies of ancient Greek sculptures, frescoes, and vases from western antiquity. Duncan’s argued that classical ballet was striving vainly against the law of gravity in science, as well as working against the will of the individual (Duncan, 1902).

According to Duncan, ballet was ‘dead art’, an impersonal and preposterous “execution of a mere formula [producing] sterile movement which gives no birth to future movements” (Duncan 1902, cited in Copeland & Marshall, 1983, p. 263). Instead, her self-styled, soul-informed expression in iconic toga challenged the accepted norms of ‘high art’, namely, imported classical ballet as she actively worked to create free dance. Without training or money, lacking credentials and institutional support, Duncan changed the trajectory of world dance history by challenging the artistic establishment with her brave movement innovations.

Definition: Free Dance

Starting as a rebellion against the stringency of classical ballet technique, its formulaic choreographic process, hierarchical exclusivity, and cultural primacy, free dance was the precursor to modern dance in the early 20th-century. Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan, and Ruth St. Denis are most closely associated with the free dance movement by developing their own styles of choreography and teaching methodologies.

Interactive Classroom Activity: Isadora Duncan

Center Floor:

Taking inspiration from Isadora Duncan, create three distinct sculptural poses. Make sure they vary in level, shape, and volume. Then link them together, creating easy transitions between those that are at a high level and those closer to the floor, for example.

Stike your pose and hold for 4 counts, then transition to the next pose and hold for 4 counts, and so on. You can use these sculptural poses as a canvas to try movement manipulations such as acceleration, deceleration.

Across the Floor:

Form lines at the side of the dance classroom. First improvise water. This might be an ocean, river, stream, torrential rain, or trickle.

Next, improvise wind. What kind of wind is it?

Third, perform your own physical interpretation of a wild animal or creature, such as a lion, sloth, octopus, crane, monkey, shark, elephant, spider, snake, or dragon fly.

Last, improvise your own interpretation of the color red. That might mean sexy, or angry, heartthrob love or bloody horror. Don't tell us! Just dance "red".