Modern Dance Reflection

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.

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

21st of May, California State University of Long Beach held the CSULB Dance In Concert at Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater with the collaboration and choreography by the CSULB dance faculty such as Colleen Dunagan, Rebecca Lemme, Sophie Monat, Andrew Vaca, and featuring guest Laurel Jenkins and Doug Varone. From the show, the dances represented through various genre such as contemporary, contemporary ballet, and modern dance. The element of contemporary defines as a collaborative style that includes modern, jazz, ballet, and hip hop. All these styles of dances were shown by connections after each intermission. In particular, I will concentrate mostly about contemporary dance out of all the dances in the concert and talk about the effects on three out of six performances. The performances reflects mostly on how we describe life and nature and partially define life to every aspect of the emotion were being introduced by the dancers.

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.

important foundation in understanding the broader scope of how dance can be seen as a

As I watched the dance concert I began connecting what I was seeing to what we had already seen and discussed in class. One important connection I noticed heavily in the first half was the resemblance to Doris Humphrey’s technique which focused on the breath while dancing. I noticed this in almost all of the dances in the first half, but especially “Etched Breath” by Kelly Francis. “Separating the Strand” was slightly dissimilar to Martha Graham’s technique because it didn’t seem to utilize the contract and release method and did not include as much of the percussive, sharp movement quality. Because of all I have learned about modern dance this semester, I believe I was better able to appreciate these works of art. I particularly enjoyed “Separating the Strand” because of the beautiful movement quality and energy level as well as the interesting moments of

Dancing is a recreational activity that has been enjoyed by millions of people for centuries. There have been countless styles of dance and thousands of memorized steps that have been performed in front of people or even just simply enjoyed alone without and audience. When a handful those thousands of steps come together, it creates a routine. Even though there are countless dancers that are breathtaking when they perform the routine in front of and audience, most dancers cannot be proficient without someone to assemble those countless steps together to create something awe inspiring, beautiful, and entertaining to watch. Dance is a world of constant change due to the want of awe, the need to produce something unique, and the necessity to catch the audience’s attention. Although many people believe some dance styles have not changed for centuries, innovative choreographers flip dance styles upside down with their unique approaches.

I studied Chinese classic and folk dance in my secondary school. During those five years, I participated in many provincial dance contests in Shandong as well as the performance in 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. I first approached modern dance was in 2010 after completing my secondary school study. Opportunities provided in Beijing led me into a new world where I could dance with fewer set rules despite some of the limitation of my body condition. After getting to know more about it, I admitted to Jilin University of the Arts in 2012 major in dance choreography where I got professionally trained in every aspect to become a qualified dancer and choreographer.

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.

Over the past five centuries, dance has undergone tremendous change and evolved in to various different forms. Throughout the history of dance, styles including ballet or modern have changed in both technique and expression, and their popularity has constantly fluctuated. From the 16th century until present day, ballet specifically has fallen in and out of favor and gone through multiple periods of artistic scarcity to prosperity. One peak of its popularity was during the Romantic era when creativity and innovation were thriving among choreographers and dancers. Modern dance, which emerged from ballet as a way of rejecting classical aesthetics, also experienced times of dormancy and activeness since its origin at the turn of the 20th

Everyone knows ballet has been around for many years, but not everyone knows that people rebelled against ballets structure. Ballet is a very strict type of dance unlike modern which is more free. The strictness of ballet is very different from modern because ballet watches your every move like a hawk. It needs to be straight and precise, but in modern, there is no strictness to it. The moves come naturally to you as well as they can be whatever you want them to be. Most of them are just made up off the top of your head. There are many differences, but there are also similarities. They involve emotion and costumes, but they still relate. Modern is a very free type of dance, so is ballet, but the two have many things that are not the same.

I have always had a love for Ballet so anytime we took a Ballet class I still received corrections but I felt very confident in my quality of dance while taking ballet classes. But I never knew there could be another style of dance that I really seemed to just keep falling in love with but I need to work at it a lot which is Modern/Contemporary these two types of dance didn’t come easily to me at all for a while, I either looked like a competition dancer or I didn't give the piece life. I really couldn’t find the in between and I am still trying to till this day, but I know I will get there

Modern dance has converted into the contemporary movements that teenagers and adults use to dance when they are in a certain event. But who were some of the pioneers that created this gestures? Throughout this essay I am going to talk about two of them, Martha Graham and Jose Limon who are the 20th century’s innovative artists in our dance culture. Her name is Martha Graham and is considered as “the mother of the 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.

On December 1, 2017, in the University Theatre at California State University, Dominguez Hills, I observed the fall dance concert Rise. It was choreographed by Amy Michelle Allen, Marco A, Carreon, Sarah Cashmore, Jeff Hendrix, Erin Landry, Doris Ressl Acosta, and Kenneth Walker, with the long cast of dancers. The production was pleasing, and would not have been believable without the work from production designers, Frederick Depontee and Cheryl Sheldon. Rise is played out in eight different dance routines, which were Xtra Xtra, Scar Tissue, Hart Broken, Things Are A Stirrin’, and the rest are intermissions such as Female Energy, Women, Exotica, Strength In Numbers, and Makina.