CONTEMPORARY DANCE

What is contemporary dance?

1. Contemporary dance is a style of expressive dance that combines elements of several dance
genres including modern, jazz, lyrical and classical ballet. Contemporary dancers strive to
connect the mind and the body through fluid dance movement.

2. Contemporary dance is a popular form of dance which developed during the middle portion
of the twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominating performance
genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in
the U.S. and Europe”.

3. Contemporary Dance means freedom of expression, a personal way of exploring one’s

physical and mental limits and communicating with others at a deeper level. It mixes emotions
and connects the spirit with the mind and the body.

Brief Structure of Contemporary dance history

Contemporary dance has risen as a natural artistic movement expression inspired by the
concepts and ideas of previous historical dance styles such as: classical ballet, modern and
postmodern dance.

The ideas that shaped contemporary dance were taken from modern dance (occurred in
western culture between the end of the XIX century and the 1950s) and post-modern dance
(lasting from the 1960s to the 1970s). The most iconic figures of modern dance are promoters
of concepts which will be included and rethink by contemporary dance, later on. Post-
modernism in dance dropped everything related with previous academic and historical values
and explored an unconventional path and a tendency of experimentation and radicalism.

Past

Contemporary dance, to some extent, it is a blend of modernism and postmodernism. It

appeared in the mid-20th century, Merce Cunnningham (1919 – 2009, USA) being considered
as the first choreographer that proclaims himself against the established conceptions of
modern dance, and develops an independent attitude towards the artistic work. He reaches
back to classical ballet as an important structure shaping the capabilities of a professional
dancer. He deconstructs classical ballet dance language to create new ways of expression.
Contemporary dance influences

The most iconic figures and their ideas that shaped the path of what we call today
Contemporary dance:

Modern Dance Representatives

• Rudolph Laban (1879 – 1958, Hungary – U.K.) – He also invents “labanotation” (or
kynetography Laban), which is the most complete and effective system for analyzing and
writing movement, created till the time. He believes that educating individuals and groups by
the means of movement can correct society;

• Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865 – 1950, Austria – Switzerland) – He invents a new approach to

movement called “Rhythmics” or “Eurhythmics”. His main contribution is the work over the
relationship between music and movement;

• François Delsarte (1811 – 1871, France) – precursor of modern dance -He invents a theory
about the relationship between human movement and feelings;

• Mary Wigman (1886 – 1973 Germany) – She opposes radically to classical dance values and
methods, in a search for a dance that would accomplish an expressive function of the dancer’s
soul. Concerned about a close relationship between spirituality and movement, she defends the
idea of invisible forces that would give life to dance. From this point of view, she somehow
recreates the cathartic function attributed to dance in ancient societies;

• Loïe Fuller (1862 – 1928, United States of America) – She is acknowledged by modern dance
history because of her great contribution in new possibilities of scenic illusion, thanks to the use
of the development of electricity. She became famous in America through the work named
Serpentine dance (1891);

• Isadora Duncan (1878 – 1927, U.S.A.- France) – An emblematic figure of freedom. She
constructs her thought by studying other artistic languages or ideological fields (like poetry,
sculpture, music and philosophy). Some when she says: “my dance teachers are J.J.Rousseau,
Walt Whitman, and Nietzsche”. For Isadora, dance is the expression of her personal life. She
has an inclination for nature, what makes her create dances around related subjects like the
waves, clouds, the wind and trees;

• Ruth Saint Denis (1877 – 1968, U.S.A.) – She grows within an ideological ambiance of oriental
religions, which will be reflected later in her choreographic productions. She has her own
philosophical and mystical discourse too. The female dancer is for her like a priestess, which
contrasts with the prejudice of the time of the dancer as a woman of little virtue. Dance is for
Saint-Denis a mean for reunification with the divine;
• Ted Shawn (1891- 1972, U.S.A.) – Shawn, inspired in Delsarte, fights the prejudice of the
effeminate performer. He educates boys that look like muscular athletes, creating an image of a
masculine and sportive dancer. He also founds a choreographic center: The Jacob´s Pillow
(Massachusetts), which is still an important place for dance as much for its studying offers as for
its dance festival;

• Doris Humphrey (1895 – 1958, U.S.A.) – Humphrey develops an original dancing technique by
observing the relationship between gravity and human body. She establishes a main physical
principle for dance: Fall and Recovery. This notion is resumed in her famous sentence:
“Movement is situated on a tended arc between two deaths”: which are vertical balance and
horizontal balance;

• Jose Limon (José Arcadio Limón, 1908 – 1972, Mexico – U.S.A.) – He is responsible for
spreading Humphrey’s technique in Europe. Although that knowledge is renowned under his
name (Limon technique), he always insists that she is the innovator and he is a continuator;

• Martha Graham (1894 – 1991, U.S.A.) – She develops her own training technique, which will
reach a world-wide success till the present time. These are some of its principles: focus on the
‘center’ of the body, coordination between breathing and movement, relationship with the
floor, alternation between two movement intentions: “contraction and release”;

• Alvin Ailey (1931 – 1989, U.S.A.) – The choreographer of the ‘black modern dance’. What
distinguishes his work the most is the focus on the expression of black people’s feelings.

• Alwin Nikolaïs (1910 – 1993, U.S.A.) – He has a marked preference for abstraction, which he
expresses from the very beginning of his choreographic career: “I had to redefine dance and I
concluded that the essence of this art is movement, just as color is for the painter and the three
dimensions are for the sculptor”. He creates dance pieces where human body’s movement has
the same relevance as optical effects, collages, paintings, projections and all kind of accessories
for scenic illusions.

Post-modern representatives

• Anna Halprin (born Anna Schuman on 13 July 1920) – She helped pioneer the experimental
art form known as postmodern dance and referred to herself as the breaker of modern dance.
Being able to freely explore the capabilities of her own body, she created a systematic way of
moving using kinesthetic awareness. Halprin was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 1972. In order
to understand her ailment, she documented her own experiences and compiled the
information to make her own healing process called The Five Stages of Healing;
• Simone Forti (born 1935) – Throughout her career she became known for a style of dancing
and choreography that was largely based on basic everyday movements, such as games and
children’s playground activities and improvisation;

• Steve Paxton (born 1939, Phoenix, Arizona) – In 1972 he named and began to develop the
dance form known as Contact Improvisation, a form of dance that utilizes the physical laws of
friction, momentum, gravity, and inertia to explore the relationship between dancers;

• Lillian Elaine Summers (February 20, 1925 – December 27, 2014) – He significantly
contributed to the interaction of film and dance, as well as the expansion of dance into other
related disciplines, such as visual art, film, and theater. She fostered the expansion of
performing dance in new, often outdoor locations. Her movement approach Kinetic Awareness
offers a comprehensive perspective on human movement and dance.

• Other representatives: Judith Dunn, Yvonne Rainer, David Gordon, Trisha Brown, Deborah et
Alex Hay, Lucinda Childs, Meredith Jane Monk.

Butoh influences (1959) – Is the name given to a group of performance practices that could be
considered as a type of Japanese contemporary dance. Though, it has been recorded that it also
appears as a reaction against the contemporary dance scene in Japan, which Tatsumi Hijikata
(considered the founder of Butoh) felt was based on the one hand on imitating the West, and
on the other on imitating the Noh (major form of classical Japanese musical drama).

Contemporary dance representatives:

• Mercier Philip “Merce” Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) – Modern dance icon and
contemporary dance first choreographer – a student of Martha Graham. After being a main
dancer in her company for several years, he starts an independent career as a choreographer in
1942. In 1953, he creates a group in the Black Mountain College (North Carolina) that allows
him to develop a method full of new artistic postulates. He innovates from almost all of the
possible perspectives: choreographic, compositional, technical-interpretative, musical,
philosophical and others. Contemporary dance history considers him as the first choreographer
that proclaims himself against the established conceptions of modern dance, and develops an
independent attitude towards the artistic work. For contemporary dance history there’s a
‘before Cunningham and after Cunningham’. His work marks the time for a completely new era
of dance and gains it the inscription inside the story of contemporary art with the same status
as other arts.

• Philippina “Pina” Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) – The work of Pina Bausch is closely
related to contemporary dance but is most commonly known as a modality of postmodern or
contemporary ballet (from the dance perspective and not the theatrical one). This is possibly
because she uses classical, virtuous dancers, but goes far away from the classical ballet
performing conventions. At the same time, even if her pieces include theatrical gestures and
voice, she refuses the theatrical procedure of constructing characters.

Influences of Classical Ballet in Contemporary dance:

While at the origins of modern and contemporary dance, ballet appears often either as a model
to refuse or as a foreign field, the second half of the XX century sees classical and contemporary
dance into a position of reciprocal interest. From the point of view of some contemporary
dance cases, ballet will be an allied that serves mostly for the technical development of
performers. From the perspective of ballet, contemporary dance ideas will mean the access to
huge creative and experimental issues, as much as the possibility to experience technical
alternatives. The spreading of postmodern ideas triggers a series of ‘recreations’ of classical
ballets (like Swan Lake, Giselle, Coppelia, The Sleeping Beauty or the Nutcracker) by the new
choreographers as well as the fusion of styles.

Some important figures that appear in contemporary dance history as conductors of the
crossings between ballet and contemporary dance values are:

• Rudolph Nureyev (1938 – 1993) – An archetypical classical figure who will not hesitate to
work with modern and contemporary dancers and that becomes a great incentive for the
classical community to start trespassing barriers;

• Jirí Kylián (1947, Czech Republic) and Hans van Manen (1932, Netherlands) – together they
cause the explosion of the Netherlands School in the 80s, incorporating modern ideas to ballet
vocabulary and elaborating an own style. The Netherlands Dance Theater becomes the working
place of some of the most renowned international choreographers like Mats Ek, William
Forsythe and Nacho Duato;

• William Forsythe (1955, U.S.A.) – highly determines the 90s with his style, searching for the
dancers’ technical limits and breaking the conventions of the representation. He would say:
“Classical vocabulary will never be old. It’s the way to use it what makes it get old. So, I use it to
tell current stories.” William Forsythe is related to contemporary dance, because his
choreographic work displays an assorted exploration of modern dance codes. Though, he is
most commonly considered as a ‘neoclassical’ choreographer, mainly because the foundation
of his pieces is constructed with (kind of) vocabulary from classical ballet and ballet trained
dancers. He is considered as a continuator of Balanchine’s work, because of his way of working
with classical ballet from a contemporary aesthetical perspective. It is said that he places
classical ballet richness and possibilities in a XXI century
• Other important figures that shaped Contemporary dance as we know today are: Mats Ek,
Maurice Béjart, Keneth Mac Millan, Robert Joffrey, John Neumeier, Nacho Duato, Mark Morris,
Jean Cristophe Maillot, Maguy Marin, Angelin Preljocaj, Dominique Bagouet, Wim
Vandekeybus, Matthew Bourne and others.

Present:

Nowadays, Contemporary Dance has evolved in such a manner that it comprises multiple styles
that are approaching movement from different perspectives. The modern and post-modern
dance styles architecture was well preserved and in some cases elements of classical ballet.
However the Contemporary dance today has reached new dimensions by adapting to our vast
and dynamic world. Technology and science, social environment, globalization are some of
themes that contemporary dance approached. Usually, an act of contemporary dance it comes
with a concept, expressing an idea, or thoughts about something. The structure may be
narrative by telling a story, or abstract (without a story) relating to space, time, human body
and matter.

Where can you see Contemporary dance? In conventional and also non-conventional space like:
theaters, museums, galleries, on TV shows, music videos, urban and industrial spaces. People
tend to explore movement in very different spaces. Contemporary dance can be a research of a
particular topic of interest that can trigger emotions and unveil unique understandings about
movement expression. It can be a manifest, an experiment, a performance, a flash-mob, a
happening and so on.

Contemporary dance nowadays embrace a variety of influences from world urban dance styles,
pop culture, television, new technologies and emerging philosophies. The growth of internet
usage in the last decade, made the art of dance available to a bigger audience. On
CONTEMPORARY DANCE CLASSES – ISRAEL Blog you will be updated on a weekly basis with the
most recent and interesting contemporary dance works from all over the world.

The Future is continuously shaping before our eyes…

History of Contemporary Dance

Contemporary dance is a popular form of dance which developed during the middle portion of
the twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominating performance
genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in
the U.S. and western Europe. Although originally informed by and borrowing from classical,
modern, and jazz styles, it has since come to incorporate elements from many styles of dance,
but due to its popularity amongst trained dancers and some overlap in movement type, it is
often perceived as being closely related to modern dance, ballet and other classical concert dance styles.
In terms of the focus of its technique, contemporary dance tends to utilize both the strong and
controlled legwork of ballet and modern dance’s stress on the torso, and also employs contact-release,
floor work, fall and recovery, and improvisation characteristic of modern dance. Unpredictable changes
in rhythm, speed, and direction are often used, as well. It sometimes also incorporates elements of non-
western dance cultures such as elements from African dance including bent knees, or movements from
the Japanese contemporary dance Butoh.

Contemporary dance draws on both classical ballet and modern dance, whereas postmodern dance was
a direct and opposite response to modern dance. Merce Cunningham, initially a student of Martha
Graham, accompanied his dance in April 1944, with music that was composed and performed by John
Cage, who said that Cunningham’s dance “no longer relies on linear elements (…) nor does it rely on a
movement towards and away from climax. As in abstract painting, it is assumed that an element (a
movement, a sound, a change of light) is in and of itself expressive; what it communicates is in large part
determined by the observer himself.” Cunningham continued to showcase his work until 1953, when he
formed Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
Cunningham is considered the first choreographer to “develop an independent attitude towards modern
dance” and defy the ideas that were established by it. Cunningham made over one hundred and fifty
works for his dance company and his pieces have been incorporated into ballet and modern dance
companies internationally.

Contemporary dance draws on both classical ballet and modern dance, whereas postmodern dance was
a direct and opposite response to modern dance. Merce Cunningham is considered to be the first
choreographer to "develop an independent attitude towards modern dance" and defy the ideas that
were established by it. In 1944 Cunningham accompanied his dance with music by John Cage, who
observed that Cunningham's dance "no longer relies on linear elements (...) nor does it rely on a
movement towards and away from climax. As in abstract painting, it is assumed that an element (a
movement, a sound, a change of light) is in and of itself expressive; what it communicates is in large part
determined by the observer themselves." Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company
in 1953 and went on to create more than one hundred and fifty works for the company, many of which
have been performed internationally by ballet and modern dance companies.

Cunningham's key ideas include-

• Contemporary dance does refuse the classical ballet's leg technique in favor of modern dance's stress
on the torso

• Contemporary dance is not necessarily narrative form of art

• Choreography that appears disordered, but nevertheless relies on technique

• Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction

• Multiple and simultaneous actions