Educational Dance

Dance 270

Kangkang Guo

Summary

10/5/2014

Summary of Modern Dance

Modern dance is a style of western concert dance that began loosely in the late 19th century and early 20th-century. (Modern Dance, Wikipedia) In the passed one-week, we focused on the presentations of modern dance.  During the past week, I learned many modern dance people. I summarized them as below.

Elizabeth Streb- Elizabeth Streb was born in 1950. She was born and raised in Rochester, New York. She is a choreographer and dancer. She interested in experimental work, extreme movement, pop action, laws of physics, and limits of the body. She founded Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM) that is a dance company and also a dance school.

Alwin Nikolais- Alwin Nikolais was born in the United States in 1910. At the beginning, he was a silent films accompanist, and puppeteer. He started dance in 1935. He proposed his theory of “Decentralization” which depersonalized the dancers through the use of costumes in his mid- life.

Alvin Ailey- Alvin Ailey was an African-American choreographer and artivist. He grew up poor in a small town in Texas. He began to study modern dance in 1949, and joined Horton’s dance company in the following year. His choreography was a dynamic and vibrant mix growing out of his previous training in ballet, modern dance, jazz, and African dance techniques.

Anna Sokolow- Anna Sokolow was born in 1910. She began her career as a dancer with Martha Graham. She contributed to the world of modern dance for nearly seven decades. She created a body of work that mixes modern dance and music with theater, poetry, and prose.

Doris Humphrey- Humphrey was born in the United States. She started taking ballet lessons at an early age, and opened a dance school after graduation. She developed the Humphrey-Weidman school and dance company with Charles Weidman in 1928.

Mark Morris- Morris was born in Seattle. He moved to New York in 1976. He founded the Mark Morris Dance group in 1980. He co-founded the White Oak DanceProject with Mikhail Bartshnikov in 1990.

Twyla Tharp- Tharp was born in Portland, Indiana. She joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company n 1963, and formed her own Twyla Tharp Dance Company in 1965. Twyla Tharp’s style of dance was different from others at that time. She often create work with unusual music or movement.

Pina Bausch- Bausch was born in Solingen. She is the most controversial dancer and choreographer of her era.  Her works shows men and women engaged in endless, often violent, power struggles.