Dance: My First Love

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Recommended: Nature and history of dance

Dance has been a part of human history since the earliest records of human life (Praagh 30). Cave paintings found in Spain and France from 30,000 -10,000 BC had life-like drawings of dancing figures participating in rituals. They illustrated the prominence of dance in early human society. Later in the Renaissance Era a new attitude towards the body, the arts, and dance was originated. The courts of Italy and France became the center of new developments in dance, providing support to dancing masters and musicians who created large scale social dances for the acknowledgment of celebrations and festivities. In the court of Catherine de Medici, the Italian wife of Henry II of France, the first forms of ballet stemmed from the genius dancer, Balthazar de Beauhoyeulx. In 1581, Balthazar displayed the first full-length ballet for an audience. His piece was an idealized dance that told the story of a legend by combining spoken texts, intricate settings, and costumes with group dances full of strong technique (Praagh 100). In 1661, Louis XIV of France granted the organization of the first Royal Academy of Dance (Praagh 101). Because of this, during the next centuries, ballet developed into a high-class discipline and art form. Social couple dances such as the minuet and the waltz began to emerge as a display of free will and expression. In the 19th century, the era of romantic ballet reflected the struggles ballerinas had in the new time period in such ballet classics as Giselle (1841), Swan Lake (1895), and the Nutcracker (1892) (Praagh 125). At the turn of the new century, with the commotion of World War I, the arts reflected a major questioning of values and a hysterical search for new forms that reflected individual expression an...

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...orld of dance.

Bibliography:

Works Cited

Baughman, Kristen “Martha Graham’s Life.” Graham Index. 1998.

http://userpages.wittenberg.edu/s02.cscaia/graham_life.html (20 Dec. 2000).

Conner, Lynnen “Chapter 3: The Modern Dancers.” Early Moderns. 1996.

http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/martha.html (20 Dec. 2000).

Marshal, Stephanie. Personal Interview on Dance Experience. Butler, PA, 18, Dec.

2000.

Maynard, Olga. American Modern Dancers. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.

1965.

Praagh, Peggy. The Choreographic Art. New York: Alfred A. Knopt. 1963.

Teachout, Terry “The Dancer: Martha Graham.” Time 100. 2000.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/graham.html (12 Dec. 2000).

Zermeno, Rogelio. “Dancing to Success.” Martha Graham. 1994.

http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~rortizze/graham.htm (15 Dec. 2000).

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