THE LANGUAGE OF MOVEMENT 6

After looking at the contributions to Modern Dance by Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey we turned to other dancers, Helen Tamiris, Valerie Bettis and Sophie Maslow who were also putting their own stamp on Modern Dance style. Tamiris was the most avant-garde and pioneered in experiments with instruments and voice. Maslow, along with William Bales and Jane Dudley created pieces that incorporated folk themes in the music and the dances.
One of the most important influences on Modern Dance was the introduction of the movements of dancers in Africa- the use of the torso, with hips and shoulders moving forward and back and side to side. Chuck Davis and Katherine Dunham brought dances from Africa and the Caribbean that included the movements of the torso to different drum rhythms, the bent knees and the foot pounding movements of these cultures.
Many of the popular dances came from the movements of the Blacks in Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean.
As has happened with many art forms and social movements, the White populations copied the styles of the Black minorities causing the Black people to move a step further in an effort to preserve their own identity. After Katherine Dunham, Black dancers became legitimate Modern Dancers, and some were admitted into Ballet troupes: Talley Beatty and Arthur Mitchell danced with Balanchine, Asadata Dafore came from Africa and became a sensation in the U.S.
The time was ripe for extended experimentation in the Post-Modern Period. Merce Cunningham, working with John Cage, used chance and spontaneity in his dances. Paul Taylor introduced comedy.
In the next generation, Twyla Tharp and Bill T. Jones experimented with new forms of dance and new troupes introduced cross cultural dance themes as well as the use of mixed media and mixed styles.
Each generation's choreographers produce works that reflect the values of the times. Ballet was elegant and formal when it originated in the Courts in France, but became more "Modern" in the present era in which diversity and multiplicity are important values.
Momix and Pilobolus are two groups that perform yearly in Marin and create new images with human bodies. Momix, playing with light and shadows produces illusions, and Pilobolus creates sculptures with human forms.
Alonzo King, of San Francisco based Lines Ballet, choreographs with other ethnic groups: one year with the Pygmies of Africa, another with the Shaolin monks and this year with Pharoah Sanders, a jazz musician. ODC San Franciso is another local group that experiments with movement. They focus on active movement and have presented a movement vocabulary that is now popular in the dance world: acrobatics/gymnastics/rolling bodies/bodily contact.
Two other contemporary groups are Joe Goode and Robert Moses'Kin. Goode presents romantic stories and "feel good" shows while Moses is more balletic.
A film of one of Mark Morris's dances illustrated the influence of ballet and folk dance on his Modern Dance style. There is little subtle, small body movements in his choreography and he usually creates movements on the beat of the music. The late Michael Smuin was another choreographer who created movements on the the beat of the music. However, he used costumes and more elaborate sets and presented dances that were more akin to show pieces than to Modern Dance, and were popular entertainments.

After showing some previews of dance groups that were coming to the Bay Area this year, we next talked about hip-hop music and rap, two contemporary art forms that originated in the Black/Latin areas of the South Bronx and swept the nation and the world.

Next week we will have choreographer Deborah Slater talk to us about the different choreographies in dance groups in the Bay Area. This promises to be a very interesting and informative session. After that we will look at Break Dancing, the choreography of homosexual choreographers, the law and dance, and the popularity of movement in today's society.

Posted by bernice goldmark at 3:16 PM 0