Katherine Dunham was an important figure in pushing for equality among all races. She became remembered through her unique twist she put on her ballet movements. Instead of pursuing traditional ballet, she choreographed ballets that incorporated African-American movements. Because of this, she has always been referred to as one of the “modern dance pioneers” (Cass 303). Even through struggles, she continued to strive to focus more on the dance traditions of other cultures and slowly help work towards the end of oppression towards particular races. Firstly, she began her career in her hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Her talent did not take long to get noticed, and it helped Dunham to make a name for herself. In 1933, when she was only 34 years of age, she was a star performer in Ruth Page’s La Guiablesse. At the same time, she a student at the University of Chicago (“Katherine Dunham”). By 1938, she had undertaken field studies In the year of 1940, she created an all black dance company, known as “Ballet Nègre.” This dance company quickly began touring around 1943. This was unusual at the time, because the time period that she was popular in was when African Americans were discriminated against. However, since she was a very popular entertainer, she used this to show that she had a very serious intent on tracing the origin of black culture (“Katherine Dunham”). Ironically, during the time Dunham was doing the work she is most known for, modern dancers and political liberals did not know exactly how to react. They made sure not to refer to the people on her company as Black, Italian, Jewish, Irish, or any other race. This is because they were afraid of being deemed as being racist if they labeled her dancers by their ethnicity or
Throughout her college career, Dunham continued to dance in various venues. In 1933, she opened the Negro Dance Group, her first dance...
She did not enter the world to a life of glamor. From the beginning, her life was a tough one. Her family resided in Harlem during the 1930’s and 40;s. Times were very difficult for the young girl. Her family was on welfare and she, herself was a client of the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
According to Ruth Feldstein “Nina Simone recast black activism in the 1960’s.” Feldstein goes on to say that “Simone was known to have supported the struggle for black freedom in the United States much earlier, and in a more outspoken manner around the world than many other African American entertainers.” Her family ties to the south, her unique talent, her ability to travel and make money are similar to the Blues women movement that preceded her. It can be said that Nina Simone goes a step further the by directly attacking inequities pertaining to race and gender in her music. However, what distinguishes her is her unique musicianship and that is what ultimately garners her massive exposure and experiences over those of her past contemporaries.
Victoria Marks’ most recent contemporary dance pieces all were fascinating, but the two that drew me in the most were “Men” and “Mothers And Daughters”. Both of these pieces made in the spring of 2014, focus on the idea of celebrating the life you have been given, leaving your mark on the world, and getting the most out of every opportunity you have to be with someone you care about. Victoria Marks is a dance professor at UCLA, who also choreographs dances for the stage, and films. “Marks’ recent work has considered the politics of citizenship, as well as the representation of both virtuosity and disability. These themes are part of her ongoing commitment to locating dance-making within the sphere of political meaning.” Marks in both films “Men” and “Mothers And Daughters” believes that , "Your Dancing ability does not matter because we are all differently-abled", which is why she used both trained and untrained actors to create these two pieces of art.
middle of paper ... ... All of this information would be nothing except for the fact that it would not have been achieved without her courageous mind and strong ambition to make it so that people even today know how blacks felt about the way white people treated them. During her legendary life, she challenged injustice wherever she saw it.
Women have gone through so many problems and hardships throughout their history. Black women in particular have had to face many more challenges throughout their history. Not to take away from the white women and the hardships they faced, black women have dealt with the same and more issues due to their race. Throughout the history of women, they have not gotten paid as much as men, were targeted more for sexual violence, were not treated with equal respect, and were not treated fairly at all. Black women, on top of all of those hardships, had to deal with their race and the issues that their race brought upon them. Black women during the Black arts movement, faced even more hardships. They were held back, used by their body image to be disrespected, were
Singer/actress Lena Horne's primary occupation was nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. In conjunction with her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 and brought her three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989; she appeared in 16 feature films and several shorts between 1938 and 1978; she performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony-winning one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981-1982; and she sang and acted on radio and television. Adding to the challenge of maintaining such a career was her position as an African-American facing discrimination personally and in her profession during a period of enormous social change in the U.S. Her first job in the 1930s was at the Cotton Club, where blacks could perform, but not be admitted as customers; by 1969, when she acted in the film Death of a Gunfighter, her character's marriage to a white man went unremarked in the script. Horne herself was a pivotal figure in the changing attitudes about race in the 20th century; her middle-class upbringing and musical training predisposed her to the popular music of her day, rather than the blues and jazz genres more commonly associated with African-Americans, and her photogenic looks were sufficiently close to Caucasian that frequently she was encouraged to try to "pass" for white, something she consistently refused to do. But her position in the middle of a social struggle enabled her to become a leader in that struggle, speaking out in favor of racial integration and raising money for civil rights causes. By the end of the century, she could look back at a life that was never short on conflict, but that could be seen ultimately as a triumph.
Josephine Baker Josephine Baker was an African American woman who had to overcome discrimination and abuse in achieving her dream of becoming a singer and dancer. She did this during the 1920s, when African Americans faced great discrimination. She had a hard childhood. Her personal life was not easy to handle. Furthermore, she overcame poverty and racism to achieve her career dream.
At the end of the 19th century, ballet was the most prominent form of dance. However, to Isadora Duncan, "ballet was the old order that needed to be overthrown, an embodied symbol of all that was wrong with oversymbolized 19th century living" (Daly 26). Duncan believed that the over-technical, over-standardization of ballet was not what dance should be about. Her vision of dance was one of emotions, ideas, social betterment, and the complete involvement of the body, mind, and soul (26). With these ideas in mind, she began to create a new form of dance; what she referred to as the "new dance" (23), and what is now known as modern dance. In creating this new dance, she was inspired by composers such as Beethoven, Nietzsche, and Wagner, writers like Walt Whitman, scientists Darwin and Haeckel, her Irish grandmother, and ancient Greek culture, as well as the spirit of America and its people (Duncan 48, 54). It was a combination of these influences that helped her to create the most expressive, soulful dance known today.
She was influenced by her father George Graham. He was a doctor who was a specialist in nervous disorders. He had an idea about the body which was the body could express its inner senses. This idea was very fascinating to his daughter Martha (“Martha Graham Bio”). When she was 17 she saw a performance called Ruth St. Denis at the opera house in Los Angeles. She also was a Presbyterian and because of this her parents would not allow her to study dance (“Martha Graham”). The first years were spent in Allegheny, which she described as dark, grimy, and excessively puritanical in its attitudes—so much so that dancing was viewed as sinful and forbidden to her (Needham). After her father died she went she went to Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts which was a junior college. This is where she spent her 8 years or more where she was a student but she was also an instructor (“Martha Graham Bio”).
Dinah Washington was one of many African Americans who were racially discriminated in the roaring twenties. She was born on August 29, 1924 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Being an African American in the south before the Civil rights movement, she experienced many disadvantages of having her color skin. Even though there was no slavery at this time, she still saw and had to overcome discrimination in the form of sharecropping, and Jim Crow Laws. Sharecropping was when a landowner makes a deal with a farmer to farm on his land in exchange for a share of the crops produced. However, since many blacks were not educated, they got the short end of the stick and ended up in deep debt. Jim Crow Laws were also in place; Jim Crow Laws made blacks and white be separated, but equal. Blacks and whites would use different bathrooms, schools, libraries, restaurants and even water fountains. Having religious parents, she grew up in a church and found her astounding vocals and love for the piano. Finding her love of music, she performed in churches, talent contests, and later clubs, until she was preforming in front of thousands of fans. Even though she dropped out of school a couple months before her eighteenth birthday to marry her first of seven husbands she found her calling ...
The fine art of modern dance is like many other fields in that it is based on the actions and deeds of those who were pioneers in the field. These pioneers helped to mold modern dance into what it is today. Of the many people who are partially responsible for this accomplishment is Isadora Duncan. Duncan, often referred to as the “mother of modern dance,” inspired many other dancers to the extent that the art of dance would not be the same today without her many contributions.
Misty copeland is such a strong woman and an amazing dancer. She has been through a lot of obstacles, it's just amazing how she got where she is now. It’s incredible how many children and people Misty has inspired throughout her career.
Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: a Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2003. Print.
The start of American Modern dance began in the 20th century as dancers began to pull away from traditional forms of choreographed dance like ballet. One of the founders of this rapidly modernizing dance movement was Isadora Duncan. Isadora Duncan seeked to create dances that were free with out the rigorous or confined movements of ballet. As a result Isadora Duncan formed a dance style that was reflective of her free spirit. She looked for inspiration in classical Greek arts, social dances and nature. In a speech entitled The Dance of the Future she stated that the future of dance would be similar to the dance of the ancient Greek, natural and free. Consequently she developed a dance style based on improvisation and interpretation. Her dance movements consisted of running, rising, falling and skipping all movements that became the foundation of her dance style.