How Did Martha Graham Contribute To 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).

The world of contemporary dance is one that is constantly developing and pushing the boundaries of what makes dance more than just movement. However, it is questionable that it would be in this diverse state if it was not for a few revolutionary choreographers. Along with Martha Grahame is could be argued that Merce Cunningham was a pioneering, revolutionary choreographer who questioned given standards and procedures creating the diverse contemporary style that we know today. Revolutionary can be defined as something radically new or innovative; outside or beyond established procedure and principles (Dictionary.com, 2017). In order for something to be revolutionary it has to be in relation to something else, this is certainly true for Cunningham’s

Graham inspired Ailey to go off and open his own successful dance company where he could inspire others by his type of work he choreographed. They both moved to New York to sought new opportunities. Their work had a sentiment background as to why they choreographed the type of art they did in each and every performance. Graham and Ailey both thought it was important to add their feelings and thought of how they felt about the theme of their work. Graham wanted to use “release” and “contraction” in her works to express the body movements.

After giving a brief introduction to her subject, Desmond quickly begins her analysis on the piece Radha choreographed by Ruth St. Denis. She states that St. Denis was one of the mothers of modern dance in America despite how her works are not as well remembered as others including Martha Graham’s. She depicts Radha by describing the dancing quality, patterns in choreography, lighting, set, and costume in detail. Desmond also recounts the social issues that are reflected in the piece including gender roles and race. The author’s main point in writing “Dancing Out the Difference: Cultural Imperialism and Ruth St. Denis’s Radha of 1906” was to introduce St. Denis and share her detailed analysis of St. Denis’ Radha.

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 P. Cotera’s life started when in Chihuahua, Mexico with her father Juan Piña and her mother Altagracia Castaños (Revolvy). Her parents had a total of four children including Cotera. She and her mother immigrated to El Paso, Texas in 1946 and she was educated in the El Paso Public Schools (Revolvy).

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.

John Martin, the prominent critic, maintained that “No other dancer has yet touched the borders to which [Martha Graham] has extended the compass of movement… she has proved the body capable of a phenomenal range” (67). Hence, Martha’s unremitting effort had made impossible to possible, even though Martha’s limited conditions challenged her.

Jane Desmond introduces her article, “Embodying Difference: Issues in Dance and Cultural Studies,” by describing a dance that readers can picture as the dance of tango in their minds. This helps lead to her connecting dance, or body movement, with cultural studies and social identities. In her article, Desmond focuses on connecting how dance and body movement can be portrayed differently in social identities, such as race, class, gender, nationality, and sexuality.

She studied different types of dance and incorporated them into her own technique. “Called the matriarch of black dance her groundbreaking repertoire combine innovative interpretation of caribbean dances,traditional ballet, African rituals and African American rhythms to create the Dunham technique” (“Katherine Dunham Biography” 2). Dunham technique is continued to be taught at schools and companies all over the world. Her travels to other countries always inspired her choreography. “She is credited for bringing caribbean and African influences to a European-dominated world” (“Katherine Dunham Biography” 2). Dunham’s use of different world influences innovated dance and created more significant choreography. Dunham not only changed how she danced; she created an entirely new

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.

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'

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

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.

Martha Graham is one of the most highly renowned and influential artist and chorographer in Modern dance of all time. Graham has influenced Modern dance, taking styles of her own and being able to express a variety of themes with human emotion. Graham’s work strongly reflected her; she is also well known for her other choreographies such as: Appalachian Spring, Lamentation, and Night Journey, and many more.