11 March 2014 Early Modern Dance The Early 20th Century Modernism o Rebellion against Victorian morals o Asymmetry o The look of the artists within themselves The Progressive Era o Time of unrest and reform just before WWI o Giant response to industrialism Advances in technology o Cars o Airplanes WWI and WWII Art in America Three concepts reconsidered between 1910 and 1920 1 What is art 2 Who makes decisions about art 3 How art shared with the public Realist Movement life isms of the Decade o Artists painting scenes of the actual more realistic things that were happening in Realism how things appear in everyday life Primitivism a look back saying things were better and more moral during the earlier part of mankind Cubism artists looked at objects from various viewpoints Dadaism anti war movement the regeneration of what is beautiful ugly is beautiful Futurism reject of everything in the past and the want for something new opposite of Primitivism What is Modern Dance Born in the early 20th century Centers on a dancer s own interpretations of art free dancing no preset technique Based on natural expressive basic movements Against structured steps as in traditional ballet dancing Characteristics of Modern Dance Development of individual vocabulary of movement Rejection of Ballet aesthetic symmetry star order etc 11 March 2014 Barefoot Groundedness showing effort on purpose rather than trying to make the movement look easy two states Emotional and psychological connections movement and dance can come from these Use of abstraction the movement was a metaphor for something else Art that commented Attempting to find an organizing principle of motion that was not academic ballet Modern dancers choreographers wanted to develop their own creative voices rather then follow what had come before them Francois Delsarte French music and acting teacher Used a lot of gestural movements with his actors Logical system of expressive movement and gestures 1 Oppositions 2 Parallelisms 3 Successions 3 zones of the body o Facial expressions o Arms o Torso Contraction and release Emile Jaques Dalcroze Body exercises Eurhythmics Loie Fuller o Music visualization Swiss music teacher and composer Physical movements to accentuate rhythmic awareness and musical creativity Free dance practitioner One person on a stage could captivate a large audience without wearing pointe shoes Responsible for the European tours of the early modern dancers First American modern dancer to perform in Europe Serpentine Dance Isadora Duncan Traced the art of dance back to its roots as a sacred art form Inspired by the Greeks and nature Free and natural movements 11 March 2014 New American athleticism which included skipping running jumping leaping and tossing Viewed performance spaces as a loss of true art Used the solar plexus and the torso as the generating force for all movements to follow Isadora is credited with inventing Modern Dance What connection to ballet do you still see Use of turnouts graceful arm movements How is this moving on from Nijinsky and where do you see it going in the future We refer to these people as the forerunners of Modern Dance
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