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Martha graham a dancers world 4 page essay
How did martha graham change dance
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Martha Graham
Martha Graham is one of the most well-known pioneers of modern dance. Modern dance wouldn't be what it is today without her and her teachings. She had a very different approach to movement and dance. “I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements.... I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge.”
Martha Graham was born in 1894 in Pennsylvania. Her father was a doctor who specialized in nervous disorders; he was also very interested in diagnosing the disorders through watching movement. Graham's desire to dance was sparked by the body being able to express its internal senses. Later in life, Martha repeated her father's words, “Movement never lies.” After watching a ballet in 1911, Martha, inspired by the performance, enrolled in a junior college that was centered around the arts. Afterwards she attended Denishawn school, where she studied under Ted Shawn. Shawn made a dance for her, “Xochital” in which Martha portrayed an attacked Azte...
Katherine Dunham died on May 21, 2006. (Katherine) “As artist, educator, anthropologist, and activist, Katherine Dunham transformed the field of the twentieth-century dance” (Das
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.
Her goal was to move, not dance. She challenged the notions of what a quote on quote “female dancer” was and could do. Dance to her was an exploration, a celebration of life, and religious calling that required an absolute devotion (pg. 11, Freedman). She considered her dancers “acrobats of God”. An example of a dance which symbolized the “essentialized” body was Martha Graham’s Lamentation, choreographed in 1930, which served as an expression of what person’s grief, with Graham as the solo dancer in the piece. The costume, a tube-like stretchy piece of fabric, only allowed her face, hands, and feet to be seen, and, as Graham stated, “The garment that is worn is just a tube of material, but it is as though you were stretching inside your own skin.” In the beginning of the piece, she started out by sitting on a bench with her legs wide spread and arms held tight. Her head was going back and forth as if she was feeling sadness or maybe replaying thoughts in her head. By the way she was holding her hands so tight and close to her body, it symbolized the deep pain within her––the essence of her piece was grief, and she danced it from inside out. Russel Freedman, the author of Martha Graham A Dancers Life, stated, “She did not dance about grief, but sought “the thing itself”- the very embodiment of grief (p. 61).” Graham, dancing with strength and power, was encapsulated with her movement and was completely surrendered
Katherine Dunham led a rich and full life not only as a dancer, but as someone who studied the people she loved, wrote extensively, and stood for causes that meant so much to her. Her legacy lives on not only in the great anthropological studies she did or the important political and social stances she took, but in the modern dance of today. Modern dance, or dance in general for that matter, wouldn’t be what it is today without her studies and influence.
Doris Humphrey was born October 17, 1895, in Oak Park, United States and died on December 29, 1958 in New York, New York. Humphrey is an american modern dancer and an creator of technique, choreography, and theory of dance movement. In 1917, after graduating from high school and teaching dance in Chicago for four years, she joined the Denishawn dance school and company in Los Angeles. As she became a soloist in the company in 1920 she starting practicing choreographing. Her first major work, to Edward MacDowell “Sonata Tragica,” was presented in 1925.
Helen Keller was born on June 27,1880 in Alabama to Arthur and Kate Keller. Helen Keller was an American author, lecturer and a political activist. At the age of nineteenth months Helen was diagnosed with an illness called "brain fever" leaving her to be deaf and blind for the rest of her life. Growing up Helen gave her parents problems. She was always breaking and running into things so her parents sent her to a school for the blind. In the fall of 1890 she enrolled at Radcliffe College and became the first blind and deaf person to attend a higher level learning institution. After graduating college Helen spent many years traveling the world helping people overseas who were blind. After a series of strokes she retired from traveling in 1961 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom award. On June 1,1968 Helen died in her sleep.
In 1930 Martha Graham formed her own dance company dismissing the classical form of modern dance and and replaced it with sharp, angular and sexually charged aesthetics. Her inspiration usually came from greek mythology, history, art or social commentary. (Martha Graham’s Legacy in Modern Dance History, 2011) Graham’s philosophy was to reveal the mans inner core, "I wanted to begin," she said, "not with characters or ideas but with movement…. I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge.” (Martha Graham, n.d.).Martha Graham uses unique and symbolic contemporary to manipulate elements of the contemporary dance. Through her technique it helps to communicate the the mans inner core, one being Jocosta in Night Journey. Night Journey choreographed by Martha Graham in 1894 explores and portrays the strength and struggles of female characters. In Night Journey rather than telling the story of Oedipus, the main male character, as written by Sophocles, Graham focused on the female perspective of Jocasta, mother, Queen and wife of Oedipus.(Dodge, 2007). Graham focuses on Jocasta the main protagonist who finds out that she has married her son, Oedipus. The dance begins at the moment of Jocasta’s suicide as she stand motionless on stage holding a thin rope between her hands. Night Journey becomes even more complex following her memories that haunt her whig inevitably lead her to her death. Martha Graham has skilfully choreographed symbolic representations and motifs to convey Jocasta's emotions of desperation, grief, pain, love and loss while also conveying the impending doom that is to become of Jocasta. She also ...
Helen Keller was born with the ability to hear and see, but at only nineteen months old, she contracted an illness that took that all away. She went on with her life and was a very successful woman; in fact, she became the first ever deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. This strong woman once said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” This statement is very true in so many different ways. If you look around in today’s society you will see many celebrities and role models, all of whom the public look up to, who have gone through a trying experience at least one time in their lives. Both Oprah Winfrey and Robert Downey, Jr. are great examples of individuals who suffered through many trials and tribulations only to come out as stronger individuals.
Martha still danced when she was 60 and she also choreographed. In the Autobiography by Victoria Phillips Martha Graham said about her Autobiography, “I am not out to preach about my life. Some of it has been wonderful and I’ve been very, very fortunate, some of it I regret. The things which are, perhaps, too private to ever reveal—one refuses to reveal.”
Martha Washington lived a life full of love and sacrifice. She was born as a simple little girl Martha Dandridge to her plantation home in New Kent; she was married at 18 to become Martha Dandridge Custis. Still yet she was widowed at the age of twenty-six with two children and a land of over 17,000 acres to run on her own. Then she met a gentleman by the name of George Washington and Martha became the figure we know today as Martha Dandridge Custis Washington or Martha Washington.
Cunningham was born on April 16, 1919, in Centralia, Washington. At the age of twelve, Cunningham became interested in dance and started informal instruction. Upon graduation from high school, Cunningham began his formal dance instruction at the Cornish School of Fine and Applied Arts. After two years at the Cornish School, he studied at Mills College and at Bennington College; this is where he was invited to join Martha Graham?s dance company in 1939. Graham was an incredible dancer who also choreographed during her career. While dancing for Graham, Cunningham began to make a name for himself in the dancing community. It was with Graham?s encouragement that Cunningham started to choreograph on his own. His decision to start choreographing can be looked at as one of the most important decisions in the history of dance.
Hello, my name is Rachel Lousie Carson. I was born on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania on May 27, 1907. My mother, Maria McLean Carson was a dedicated teacher and throughout my childhood she encouraged my interests in nature and in writing. She also encouraged me to publish my first story A Battle in the Clouds in the St. Nicholas magazine while I was in fourth grade.
The fine art of modern dance is like many other fields in that it is based on the actions and deeds of those who were pioneers in the field. These pioneers helped to mold modern dance into what it is today. Of the many people who are partially responsible for this accomplishment is Isadora Duncan. Duncan, often referred to as the “mother of modern dance,” inspired many other dancers to the extent that the art of dance would not be the same today without her many contributions.
Trisha Brown is considered to be one of the most pivotal choreographers of the 1960’s as her work and practice shifted away from historically considered “appropriate” movement for choreography. This ideology references the modern era of choreographers, moving away from the aesthetics of Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham who worked with codified techniques, virtuosity and expressionism, whereas Brown saw dance as being of greater importance to the physical and mental process of the performer. Born in Aberdeen, Washington and studying dance at Mills College in California, Brown took improvisational workshops with Anna Halprin, discovering the concept of task orientated work. This knowledge would become central to her later experiments and work. She then shifted her life to New York to study composition with Robert Dunn to further her knowledge of movement and choreography. Physical research that was undertaken in these classes became publically presented programs, eventually leading to the evolvement of Judson Dance Theatre. In the late 1960’s, Brown constructed experiments to play with the dynamics and stability of gravity, using props such as ropes and harnesses to extend the dancers past their physical limitations. These experiments went on to become a working method for the work she created throughout her career and with her company which she founded in the 1970’s.
Rosalind Franklin was born in 1920 in London, England to an influential Jewish family who prided themselves in their service to the public. She was one of five children to Ellis and Muriel Franklin. Her father had desired to become a scientist, but World War I had prevented him and instead he followed in the family business of merchant banking. His daughter, however, had decided to devote herself to science and scientific study when she was fifteen.