Loie Fuller's Influence On American Dance

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).

Dance has come a long way since it first began, and that road has been paved by different styles and choreographers. Modern dance is one of the biggest contributions to dance today. It all began with the rebellion against classical ballet. If it wasn’t for Modern, many aspects and styles of dance would not exist today. Also, without choreographers we would have no dance. One of the most influential Modern choreographers is Twyla Tharp.

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

Isadora Duncan was credited with a "new" invention in dance: the manipulation of yards of material with spectacular lighting effects.

As ballets were about telling stories or formulating movements, modern dance broke the rules and started to focus more on individual expressions. Loie Fuller (1862 – 1928), Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), and Ruth St. Denis (1877-1968) were pioneering women who took a stand and used their dance performance to speak up for women’s rights. Using dance, they significantly contributed to the Feminist movement in which they embraced self-expression and creativity so that women could be acknowledged in the dance field and in the society as a whole. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they found for women’s rights by “taking dance to a new form, and creating dances to speak directly and intimately to the viewer” (Au 89). Loie Fuller, Doris Humphrey, and Ruth St. Denis demonstrated the transformation of dance with their innovation of costumes and stage lighting, incorporation of foreign cultures into performance, and creation of natural movements and individual expression that rejected the formal structures of ballet to deform a woman’s body, allowing women to be free from stereotype of a traditional woman.

People can now be a talented dancer just like her by going to her dance studio and learning how to dance. People will give her credibility for teaching them how to dance.This gave her a historical credibility because when she died her dance studio will still be there and people will still going then as well. Also a dancer names Clarence Bradley went to her dance studio to start dancing and had a stage debut.People are going to her dance studio and are becoming icon and getter dancer like herself and Clarence Bradley. So no matter if she is still alive or not she will still be known as a dancing and having a dance studio that everyone goes

Graham is considered one of the major and most influential dancers in America. Graham's craving for dance gave her the strength and determination she needed to become one of the best. Her incredible emotions changed the dancing world, not only in her style as a dancer, but in her innovative style of choreography (182).

“Go within everyday and find the inner strength so that the world will not blow your candle out” (A Quote by Katherine Dunham 1). Once one of the most successful dancers in both American and European theater, Katherine Dunham, a dancer, anthropologist,social activist,and educator, continues to inspire people throughout the world. Named America’s irreplaceable Dance Treasure in 2000. Dunham remains a name heard regularly in dance schools across the world (“Katherine Dunham Biography” 4). She is known for always trying to make a difference and in the process she has become of the world’s greatest humanitarians (Osumare 5). Katherine Dunham’s work in African American rights in the dance world and her creation of new styles of dance makes her an important figure in American dance History.

It is difficult to define what it means to be an American considering the constant reformation of American society due to the wide range of values amongst each other. Many artists, choreographers and musicians contributed to the evolution and dance and musical theater in America. American modern dance was created to produce unique expression to the society of America during the 19th century. A famous figure comes to mind when thinking of the evolution of American dance. Martha Graham was known as the "Mother of Modern Dance" because of her affiliations with the choreography of dance. It is said that she created a dance with a "new level of popularity…she created a new language of movement that expressed powerful emotions"(Ember). Many artists'

Petipa’s production of Swan Lake is a beautiful example of the structure movements that dancers must perform; in the clip titled Odile entrance & Black Swan pas de deux, you see “The Black Swan” perfect posture and balance, dancing on en Pointe all the while managing to gracefully seduce the prince through her seductive movements and entrancing expressions. In contrast Modern dance focus is on the dancer expressing their inner most emotions and feelings through free flowing movements. The modern dancer uses their whole body more naturally and fluidly to convey what their current emotional state is, unlike classical ballet where the ballerina at all times keeps an upright posture, and performs with structured, angular lines. Martha Graham’s “Frontier” is a great example of the free movements of Modern dance; In this performance Martha Graham uses her whole body to move to the rhythmic sounds of the drums and music, you can clearly see that there is no confined structure in this performance, she is completely moving organically to how she is feeling and what she is trying to convey through her movements.

Martha was fourteen when her parents returned from a trip out West saying they bought a house in Santa Barbara, California. Santa Barbara was for Martha A place of light and sun and air completely different from the heavy darkness of the soot filled air of Pennsylvania. It was in California where Martha discovered Modern Dance. In 1911 Martha was walking down the main street in Santa Barbara with her Mother and Father when she saw a poster advertising a dance performance by Miss Ruth St. Denise. A few weeks later Martha was in Los Angeles with her Father at the Mason Opera House and as the curtains opened and Miss Ruth St. Denis entered the stage and began to dance Martha’s fate was sealed she knew she would be a dancer. 5 years later Martha

Isadora Duncan and Mary Wigman both started with the same idea of dancing, and how they should incorporate human movement instead of ballet that was more unnatural to the body. Even though they had a similar thought about modern dance, they had one thing that made them very different, which was their choreography. Duncan pieces were lively and upbeat, and Wigmans were dark and mysterious. They both approached modern dance through a different eye. Even if they lived in two different parts of the world, “The American, as represented by Isadora Duncan, and the German, as represented by Mary Wigman,” (Cass 247), the world would then get two different choreographers that were evolving at the same time in history, which impacted the dance history.

Just when social dancing was at its height, World War 2 put a stop to its popularity. Lack of attendance, plus the intricate rhythmic patterns of modern jazz music, which were too complex for social dancing, led to the closing of dance halls and ballrooms. With the demise of social dance, the growth of jazz dance as a professional dance form began. During the 1940’s, jazz dance was influenced by ballet and modern dance. By blending the classical technique of ballet with the natural bodily expression of modern dance, jazz developed a sophisticated artistic quality. Unlike early jazz dance, which was performed by talented entertainers without formal training, modern jazz dance was performed by professionals trained in ballet and modern dance.

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.

In my opinion, Merce Cunningham is the most influential person in the history of contemporary dance. Cunningham was both a dancer and in the early 1940s began to choreograph. A former dancer of the Martha Graham Dance Company, Cunningham went on to found the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, where many of the dancers went on to become prestigious choreographers as well. In his works, the choreography, music and design all work separately yet together. Through his belief that “anything can follow anything” (Au 155), use of space and music, exploration of chance, is what makes Merce Cunningham the most influential person in the history of dance.