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Influenced primarily by cultural roots and incredibly opportunity, Dunham had the luxury of studying in the West Indies as well as anthropological study of other cultural style dances. The West Indian experience changed forever the focus of Dunham’s life and caused a profound shift in her career. This initial fieldwork began a lifelong involvement with the people and dance of Haiti. And, importantly for the development of modern dance, her fieldwork began her investigations into a vocabulary of movement that would form the core of the Katherine Dunham Technique. Though many of Dunham’s primary influences lies within her multicultural experiences, Mark Turbyfill also seemed to play a large role in her future dance career, giving her private lessons despite his doubt in the opening of her student company (Kaiso! 187). Katherine Dunham has been list as an influence to “everyone from George Balanchine to Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, Bob Fosse and Twyla Tharp. American dance, including ballet, modern dance, Hollywood and Broadway, would not be the same without her” (Aschenbrenner 226).

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

Martha Washington was the first daughter of John Dandridge and Frances Jones. She was born on June 2, 1731 in New Kent County. Virginia. Frances, her mother, was an orphan and Frances’s father awarded her an inheritance of slaves and land. John, her father, had a background that was humble in England; he then emigrated in 1714. Martha’s parents married in 1730. When they married, John was a successful planter with about 500 acres across the Pamunkey River in New York County. He owned twenty slaves around that time period. John worked as a clerk in the hometown court, a colonel in the militia, and vestryman in the church. The family was not a well known high level of society in Virginia. Martha was the oldest of eight brothers and sisters.

Graham's style of modern dance was never seen in America before. Therefore, the audience had to get accustomed to it (Switzer 108). People often defined modern dance as a contrast to ballet, but Graham's new modern dance style moved away from the strong ballet traditions. Anyone could see that Martha was not afraid of being unique. For example, music was not required in all of her dances. Without the music, the audience would then be able to hear the sounds of the dancer (Microsoft Encarta). In the dances that did have music, Graham expressed herself in metaphors or images (McLanathan and Brown 173). These dances involved posture, role of gravity, and character movements. Graham's style was considered prominent among other performers.

Who: One choreographer that draw my attention is Martha Graham. Particularly, when I watched her dance ‘HERETIC’, I was emotional.

Martha Washington was born on June 13, 1731. She was the eighth child born to Frances Jones and John Dandridge. As Martha grew up she developed a lifelong love for reading. She underwent training, expected for a young woman of her class taking lessons in functional (needlework, household management etc.) and in recreational ( dancing, horseback riding etc.). When Martha was nineteen she got married for the first time. She got married to a Virginia planter named Daniel Parke Custis in 1750. Seven years later in 1757 Daniel died, leaving the plantation for Martha to run. Then two years later Martha being twenty-six and a wealthy widow with two children, met George Washington. When she met him he was just a colonel in the British army, a veteran

Secondly, Martha’s another strength was revolutionary choreographing skills. Martha Graham marked her peak in the 1930s when she was creating a unique American style of dance. She wanted to “explore some of the forces that have shaped American culture, expressing through dance what is was like to be an American and what America meant to her” (75). Her first piece, Frontier, was a huge success, and she lasted choreographing to the death. Afterwards, Martha created nearly fifty new dances during the 1930s. In addition, Erick Hawkins, the introduction of male dancers, joined Martha’s company in 1938, and gave a huge impact on both Martha’s dance style and personal life. Before Erick appeared in Martha’s life, there was a limitation on her work. However, Martha was able to “explore love, jealousy, ad sexual passion in her dances” (85) such as Every Soul Is a Circus, Letter to the World, and Punch and the Judy. Overall, Martha’s choreographing skills had created a revolution in 1930s.

Finally, Erick Hawkins was taught by Martha, along with being an American modern dancer. All the people that I have chosen are modern dancers showing that that style was probably famous then. Ruth St. Denis, born in 1879, was from a small farm in New Jersey. As a child, Ruth learned exercises based from Francois Delsarte, which was the beginning of her dance career. She enjoyed practicing the moves of Francois allowing her to progress her career touring with a producer and director.

America grew up with dance, from the streets to the theatres in Broadway it has formed many different dance such as modern dance. Modern dance was born in the United States in the 20th century. Its recognitions prevailed when several dancers rebelled to two dances that were extensive at the moment, ballet and vaudeville. Its fundamental aim was to reveal about people. “Modern” referred to a new era of dance and much modernize dance techniques that aimed to recoup natural movement. Having outlined its difference between ballet, they always developed new themes incorporating, personal problems, plays, and poems. They wanted to be taken as a serious dancer rather than entertainers. Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis are considered the pillars of modern dance. In addition, an African American name Alvin Ailey was rapidly becoming a leading in 20th-century modern dance. known as an influential dancer in modern dance. Alvin revolutionizes modern dance by, modernizing modern dance, revolutionizing African-American participation in the 20th Century and promoted modern dance around the world.

Graham used teaching methods such as bare feet, floor exercises to strengthen back and legs, standing balances, falls, side extensions, and walks, runs, skips and leaps across floor in diagonal. This was taught as early as 1927. "Contraction and release" principle was in Graham's teachings in late 1920s. Martha "protested" against "feminine" movements in dance.

"American Masters: Martha Graham, About the Dancer." PBS. PBS, 16 Sept. 2005. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. .

The history of modern dance has seen many great dancers and pioneers alike, as well as changes that continues to shape the art of dance form that is seen today. From being an art form of spectacle that focused more on the dancers’ clothing rather than the dance itself, to going through a time where narrative was emphasized, and to incredible athleticism achieved both by men and women, dance has evolved into something that is so much more powerful and diverse than centuries ago. As dance continued to be more prominent, some great choreographers utilized it to achieve greater goals that related to the issues of that current time. The pioneer Martha Graham created dances that contained uncommon

Dance is an ever evolving form of art; in much the same way that one can categorize and differentiate between eras and styles of architecture one can also do so with dance. These eras at times have sharp delineations separating them from their antecedents, other times the distinction is far more subtle. Traditional forms of dance were challenged by choreographers attempting to expand the breadth and increase the depth of performance; preeminent among such visionaries was Seattle born dancer and choreographer Mark Morris. Mark Morris' began as one of the millions of hopeful individuals attempting to simply make a career in dance; he not only succeeded but managed to have a lasting effect on the entire landscape of dance.

And from that could be made a possible assumption of how traning in classical ballet could enhance Cunningham technique. Merce Cunningham started to form his ideas for his technique during the time when Modern dance was welcomed as a dance style in the world and already strongly acknowledged by many artists. Choreographers, dancers and critics found the term Modern dance odd and complexed especially because it was hard to explain what was this new way of dancing all about (Anderson, 1992, 165). It was not particullary a technique or system more it seemed ''as an attitude towards dance, a point of view that encourages artistic individualism and the development of personal choreographic styles'' (Anderson, 1992, 165). That suggests that in Modern dance era there could be as many dance styles as there were choreographers.

Watching the video “A Dancer’s World” made me want to become a professional dancer. Martha Graham’s dancers showed how delicate, defined, sharp, smooth, and astatic a choreography can be. It illustrated how much hard word and dedication it’s needed, but the results will always be beautiful. Also Martha Graham explained how dancing with a partner can be. She also talked about males as dancers, but in her video she demonstrates how men danced with females using physical contact. The techniques and how the piece turns out to be. Both genders jumped a lot through out each piece of performed and that’s something loved. During a piece, there can be both gender dancing separately doing their own thing. The techniques are used differently by males