Duncan's Influence On American Modern Dance

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Born from the rebellion of the rigidities of classical ballet, modern dance, started in the early 20th century, is a dance form that encourages dancers to use their emotions and moods to design their own movements and gestures in order to reveal their personal view of the world and respond to social and political issues. With its diverse movement vocabularies, individual choreographic techniques, and social concerns, modern dance is considered as a reflection of social change, presenting choreographers’ attitudes toward social issues. American modern dance’s beginning is generally traced to Isadora Duncan (1877-1927). With free-flowing costumes and bare feet, Duncan uses her body to express her faith in the power of perseverance to overcome …show more content…

from Germany by many German choreographers, such as Kurt Jooss (1901-1979). Jooss “blended academic ballet technique with the freer, more expressive movements” to create a powerful and insightful perspective on social injustice issues (Au 100). After Duncan, an American innovator in technique and choreography, Doris Humphrey (1895-1958) expressed her commitment to social justice. Humphrey explored the body’s relation to time, space, gravity, energy, motion and emotion and created the technique of “Fall and Recovery” through the principles of weight, balance, swing, suspension, and phrasing to express her critique of contemporary society (Siegel). Through developing new dancing techniques based on their willing to express ideas and feelings, Duncan, Jooss, and Humphrey used their body movements as a medium for powerful storytelling in order to reveal various kinds of human suffering caused by social …show more content…

She intended to use her body to reflect life’s challenges and social changes filled with tragedy. Her dances were to make a commitment to social justice through expressions of the human condition. “Marseillaise (1915) and Marche Slave (1916) vividly portrayed the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Both have been called dances of social protest because they implicitly refer to historical struggles against tyranny and oppression, the French Revolution and the Russian uprising of 1905” (Au 91). Marseilles (1915) was choreographed based on the concept of individual freedom. In this dance, Duncan engaged in political and social issues. Inspired by the revolutionary events happening in Europe, Duncan used her natural movements to express liberty and liberation. The March Slave (1916) also emerged as a drama of social protest. She danced to this after Russian Revolution (Au 91). Her movements of despair, revolt, and renewal were associated with death, battle, and revolution. Wearing her little Greek tunic, she danced the revolution. Duncan put her emotions, ideas, and feelings into her natural movements, reflecting her heroic statements in response to the war and revolution, as well as expressing her determination to protest, challenge, and overturn the oppression and

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