Masters of Modern Dance

Danielle Davis

Professor Ada Ayala De Cesar

ENG 1101 (2:15)

25 October 2017

Masters of Modern Dance

        Today, our modern dance world includes some of the most foundational styles created based on an individuals passion to express art that steered away from the norm, allowing the expansion of innovative and passionate work to be developed and cherished for many generations. Many dance pioneers come to mind, but the works and influence of Martha Graham and Lester Horton are most definitely some the most recognizable. Both have been considered to be the most predominant dancers, teachers, and choreographers who have elevated modern dance to the current standards of today, influencing and developing young artists using their own unique style and form. Martha Graham is recognized as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, with her choreography often comparable to the artistic innovations of Picasso and the musical developments of Stravinsky (“About the Dancer”). Similarly, Lester Horton’s work often developed from themes which “ranged from tribal dances of the American Indians to composer Ravels Bolero and Le Sacre du Printemps”(Feliksdal, 1), also from Stravinsky. Both artists created a movement that wasn't  bound by any rules and challenged the normal conventions of their time establishing a new perspective on dance. They both share the rebellion against the classical rigid formality of ballet and reinvented movement, influences from the Denishawn Dance Company and have been able to influence many famous dancers and choreographers past and present.  

        Ballet throughout the 19th century imposed an academic form onto the body that stressed the illusion of effortlessness and an appearance of weightlessness in an upright posture (Freedman 56). Ballets were large spectacles in European courts that often involved ornamented sets and costumes, prescribed positions and were at most, merely just elaborate decorative displays of grace and precision (Freedman 47). Martha Graham’s movement was quite startling in comparison to classical ballet, leaving audiences and critics feeling uncomfortable and distressed (Freedman 53). However, she did not limit her creative developments because of criticism, instead, she turned to the work of modern painters and architects, where she observed the lack of fancy trimmings on current buildings (Sorell 190). Influenced by her father's specialization in human physiology (McDonagh 8), Graham became interested in human kinesthetics and had a psychoanalytical approach to modernism (Franko 6). She believed that movement never lies as “nothing is more revealing that movement” (Sorell 190). Her movement vocabulary was generated by the extent of the human body’s emotional capacity. Similarly, “Lester Horton studied ballet at the Pavley-Oukrainskey school but was dissatisfied with the rigidity of the classical forms”(Perces, 4). This helped him create a technique that was comparable to many jazz styles which exhibited theatrical flair as well as fortify, stretch and strengthen the human body in preparation for its use as an instrument for expressive dance”.  Like Graham, he was also influenced but the work of an individual in body kinesthetics, a Dutch physical culturist who “regarded the body as architecture and [explored] the relationship between posture and good health. Because of this, his technique was formed into a series of corrective exercises, created with the knowledge of human Anatomy, combined with a sense of artistic design.