Making It Modern
Megan Perez , Aerobics 1st Period, 1.8-9.14
*Scroll down to the bottom (before "Citations" and after " Modern") in order to view other Dance Smores by Megan Perez.
*Listen to some hip-hop music while you read!
- (No Lyrics) Radioactive-Imagine Dragons cover by the Vitamin String Quartet
- (Newer) The Garden-Mirah
The Origins and Evolution
Starting around the 1900s, dancers such as Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Mary Wigman began to break away from traditional ballet and it's lack of reaction in order to give their dance more power and better connect with their audience. This was named the "German Modern Dance Movement" and was inspired by the system of natural expressive gestures, as developed by Francois Delsarte and eurhythmics, as created by Emile Jacques-Dalcroze. This ended with Nazism, and was known as the first wave of modern dance. The second wave occurred in New York, New York in America. Here, dancers began to make natural movements such as breathing and walking into a dance. People like Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Hanya Holm pushed this movement forward. Over time, modern dance became integrated with more traditional styles, namely ballet, which was initially the style it was said to be the complete opposite of it.
How it's Done
Typically, modern dance is like the rebellious teenager, in the sense that it doesn't completely follow the traditional rules of it's parent dance, Classical Ballet. It fuses together a combination of different dances, including ballet, ethnic dances, and more exotic styles. The movement is free and mainly follows the music and they way it pulls the dancer. There are not really any set moves, so to speak, for modern dance, for anything can be snatched up and placed into a modern dance.
Famous Faces
Ruth St. Denis
Martha Graham
Hanya Holm
Modern Video
Citations
"Modern Dance." DanceClass.com. Dance Class, 2000. Web. 08 Jan. 2014.