PAPER 7 MODERN AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN THE WORLD AFTER 1960 (USA, EUROPE, SEA) MODERN EXPERIMENTS IN INDIAN CLASSICAL DANCE, NEW WAVE AFTER 1930, UDAYSHANKAR AND LATER CONTEMPORARY, CREATIVE ARTISTS

MODULE 16 IN AND

According to historians, modern dance has two main birthplaces: Europe (Germany specifically) and the of America. Although it evolves as a form, it has no direct roots in any companies, schools, or artists.

Germany is the birthplace of modern dance, theatre realism, and both dance and theatre production dramaturgy. The country’s history is interwoven with its dance, music, art, literature, architecture, religion, and history. In addition to the direct dance training and rehearsals, students will see performances and visit museums and other cultural sites in one of Europe’s most exciting capitals. in Germany is characterized by a vibrant globalization and combines elements from drama, performance and musical theatre.

It is the story of three passionate choreographers and their colleagues who created European modern dance in the 20th century despite the storms of war and oppression. It begins with Rudolph Laban, innovator and guiding force, and continues with the careers of his two most gifted and influential students, and

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Kurt Jooss. Included are others who made significant contributions: , Sigurd Leeder, Gret Palucca, Berthe Trumpy, Vera Skoronel, Yvonne Georgi and Harold Kreutzberg.

The German strain of contemporary dance as it has manifested itself in the United States is usually overlooked if not unacknowledged. There is general agreement that modern dance, a 20th-century phenomenon, has been dominated by Americans. But it is also true that between the World Wars, Germany was a major center in the growth of the free dance, as the creative form outside the ballet tradition was formerly called. The influence of the German school's disciples who immigrated to the United States has yet to be systematically explored.

Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman, followed by , Sigurd Leeder, and others, were key figures in early German modern dance. Although this group was pluralistic, encompassing dancers and choreographers from the Viennese school and other nationalities, their basic allegiance was to the new German dance aesthetics and idioms, mainly as taught by Laban and Wigman. The body, often distorted, was viewed as an expressive instrument.

The Americans who preceded or overlapped with this Central European school, as it was also labeled, included dancers who performed mainly in Europe, such as and Loie Fuller. Even Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn performed in Germany and had German-trained guest teachers in their school. Duncan herself felt most at home in before World War I and founded her first school there. How much cross-fertilization existed between

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Americans and German dancers in Europe up through 1920 is an interesting question.

The answer has been implied in the concerts given in recent years by Annabelle Gamson and her new company. These include revivals of both Duncan and Wigman solos, and it is clear that the idioms and the themes are distinct in each case. Wigman's relationship to space is paramount; Duncan's motivating impulses are emotional and musical.

Hanya Holm, Wigman's major disciple in the United States, opened a school in City in the wake of Wigman's first American tour in 1930. Among the most obvious of her students are choreographers , , , Lucinda Childs, Phyllis Lamhut and Don Redlich. The German influence, even at several generations removed, should therefore cannot go ignored. There have been other choreographers or teachers of the Central European persuasion in the United States (, Erika Thimey and Jan Veen, among others).

Now a new German influence is being felt in American dance. Eiko and Koma, Japanese dancers who live in , studied in the 1970's in with Manya Schmiel; their gift for distillation is not unrelated to German expressionist devices. It is the Zero Moving Dance Company from Philadelphia, which has just had its first major season in New York, at the Joyce Theater, that most startlingly looks back to German tradition.

Hellmut Gottschild, who founded the company in 1972, was Wigman's last assistant in West Berlin before he came to the United

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States in the late 1960's. His own performances in New York with Group Motion, his first American troupe, were unforgettable.

Here was a demonstration of Wigman technique in pure-dance terms at its most powerful. To see Mr. Gottschild (then known as Fricke- Gottschild) with back curved, using his torso and arms with whiplash force was a revelation.

Zero Moving, directed by Mr. Gottschild and Karen Bamonte, an American, adapts this training technique, in less violent form, to new creative purpose. This is dance that does not look like other American dance, mainly because it proffers imagery heavy with past associations.

''The Green Chair'' (a Totentanz led by Mr. Gottschild as a different drummer, literally armed with a snare drum) and ''Ash and Flowers,'' with a populace in underwear and raincoats trapped in a no-exit room, have movement and dancers worth watching. But in each of these pieces by Mr. Gottschild a metaphor is promised and never developed. ''Others Journey'' is accompanied in the program by a thick-sounding quote from Jorge Luis Borges, but here Miss Bamonte has jumped off a more inspiring springboard. The centrifugal force of the Wigman-derived technique makes the dancers in this ensemble piece seem hurled about by blasts of air. And yet they can also seem to be plowing weightlessly through space - an impressive dynamic contrast. Being different is not as good as being good and different.

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FRANCE

Classes in Marce Cunningham technique. Workshops in new dance forms. An antipathy toward dance critics. A scramble for money and space to perform. It all sounds like an ordinary dance week in New York City. But the setting is France, the cradle of classical ballet and, for the past 10 years or so, of a national modern-dance boom. Modern dance in France may be alive and well, though struggling, as several of the choreographers suggested. It may be dying or, at least, stagnating and a victim of its own brief success. But the talk of the state of the art in France was telling.

In France, of course, the ballet tradition is long, strong and reinforced by official sanction. And, according to these visitors, institutionalized dance training is still available primarily in ballet. Those brave souls interested in another form of dance are forced to seek out workshops and special training given at modern-dance festivals around the country, often by American or American-trained dancers and choreographers.

The split between ballet and modern dance is a strong one in France. ''I don't care about what's going on in ballet, and ballet dancers don't care about modern,'' Myriam Herve-Gil said. The two disciplines are separate worlds; ballet dancers were in short supply, the French choreographers pointed out, when artists demonstrated two summers ago in Paris and Avignon against cuts in Government funding to the arts.

In France, there are also almost no informal theater spaces like New York's Dance Theater Workshop where the new French modern-

5 dance choreographers can present their work. Public attention and new audiences come chiefly with the winning of competitions throughout the country, a system that can result in rapid rises -and descents - for novices.

But some things are international. The fringe or younger groups in France can seldom afford to pay their performers. And, like most American modern dancers today, the visiting French performers have trained, sometimes extensively, in ballet before going into modern dance. Unlike the United States, or at least New York, modern dance is not considered a profession in France.

''There is more between modern dance and theater than modern dance and ballet,'' said Annette Rifaux, another French choreographer. French modern dance was founded on the pure dance styles of Alwin Nikolais and, later, Mr. Cunningham. But the young Turks of French modern dance today have moved toward a theatricality in dance that has been seen here in work by Maguy Marin and Jean Claude Gallotta - dance filled with dream imagery, literary references and theatrical effect. It was the cry of the American experimentalists of the 1960's, who rebelled against what they saw as the theatricality, codification and artificiality of dance. Their influence has been more strongly felt in than in France. A more important voice for the French has been that of , the German neo-Expressionist.

The theatricalized balleto-modern dance of Maurice Bejart has also been an influence on the newer French choreographers. It has become clear since Americans' first exposure to the new French modern dance, which occurred in 1983 when the American Dance

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Festival brought over such groups as Ms. Marin's company and the vibrant and innovative Compagnie de Danse l'Esquisse, that modern dance is thriving in France. Today, there is a growing pride in and dependence on specifically French modern-dance training and performing. Significantly, the influential Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, first under the direction of Mr. Nikolais, then of Viola Farber, a former Cunningham dancer, is now run by a French dance administrator who is neither a performer nor a choreographer. The French Government, once generously supportive of modern-dance study in New York, now steers would-be modern- dance performers and choreographers to French teachers. One can study in France.

FRANCOIS DELSARTE (1811-1871, France)

Francois Delsarte created the theory about the relationship between human movement and feelings, concluding that to each emotion there is a corresponding movement. He created a system for the study, analysis, and teaching of movement and invented the fundamental notion of the gesture's expressiveness. Delsarte introduced the importance of the upper body as the main vehicle of expression of the soul.

His researches lead him to conclude that to each emotion or mental image corresponds a movement, or at least an attempt of it. That idea boosts one of the main ideological components of modern dance at its origins: “feelings and their intensity are the cause of movement and its quality”. In other words, the source of dance lies

7 inside the dancer, and not outside, in codified gestures, like classical dance would propose.

Some of Delsarte’s renowned contributions are the Elaboration of a new code of gestures, completely independent from the classical dance tradition. Study and codification of a logic system about the relationships between the different parts of the body, different types of movement and different human feelings. Creation of a system for the study, analysis and teaching of movement. Invention of the fundamental notion of the gesture’s expressiveness. Introduction of the importance of the upper body (trunk, arms, face) as the main vehicle of expression of the soul. Delsarte’s influence is seen in several figures of modern dance like Ruth Saint Denis, Ted Shawn and Isadora Duncan, among others.

RUDOLPH LABAN (1879-1958), Hungary-U.K.

Laban was one of the most productive figures of Modern Dance history for his contributions to the ideology and conceptual basis of modern dance as well as his invention labanotation- a complete system for analyzing and writing movement. As a choreographer, dancer, teacher and researcher, he achieves to spread his name and ideas widely: first through Europe, then to the United States and nowadays around the whole world. Laban published several articles and renowned books that are still important references for and history.

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Some of his titles are: “Choreutics”, “The Mastery of Movement” and “Educational Modern Dance”. He also invented Labanotation (or kynetography Laban), which is the most complete and effective system for analyzing and writing movement, created till the time. By this, he opens a completely new theoretical frame for movement shape and quality analysis.

His thought included the idea that human movement is the seat of life and that it expresses the social state of being. Therefore, dance would be a need of communitarian experience. He believed that educating individuals and groups by the means of movement can correct society. He influenced Mary Wigman, Kurt Joos, Albert Knust and almost all European modern dancers from the period between the two wars. Anne Hutchinson Guest brought his movement notation system to the United States of America, where it is taught nowadays almost in every institution for high level dance education.

MARY WIGMAN (1886-1973, Germany)

A pioneer of the modern expressive dance who studied under Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf Laban and became a well-known dancer- innovator-choreographer just after WWI In the 1930's, after Wigman's dance company toured the United States, a Wigman School was opened in New York. From a choreographic and aesthetical production perspective, Mary Wigman is, after Laban, the first relevant, European, modern dance figure reported by modern dance history.

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As much as Laban, Dalcroze and Delsarte (who are of an extreme importance mainly because of their ideological contributions), Wigman developed her own understanding of dance and traduced it in a significant amount of choreographic pieces. She opposed 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 defended the idea of invisible forces that would give life to dance.

From this point of view, she somehow recreated the cathartic function attributed to dance in ancient societies. Her choreographic work and thought are considered as part of the artistic trend called German . Her practice itself received the name of dance of expression Wigman’s dance pieces are remembered for their tragic, dark character and are described as introspective that reveal vibrant, vital, excited and passionate inner states of being. She engaged herself into the social and educational mission of the choreographer, by creating several schools and transmitting her artistic legacy. Among her renowned students are Hanya Holm, Harald Kreutzberg, Gret Paluca and Kurt Joos.

According to modern dance history, Wigman influenced the whole German dance trend during the 1920s and 1930s and what followed after the war. Her ideas were brought to the United States of America by Hanya Holm, who passed the heritage to figures like A. Nikolaïs. Still, in other countries like France, for example, Wigman heirs were responsible for the respective modern dance trends at the time. Her most famous piece is called “Hexentanz” (The Witch).

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EMILE JAQUES-DALCROZE (1865-1950, -)

A pianist and conductor known for the invention of "Rhythmics" or "Eurhythmics" movement, which emphasizes - the relationship between movement and music. According to him, body expresses a degree of ‘musicality’ that can be studied and taught. He didn’t plan to apply his discoveries to dancers, but to musicians. Though, his teaching method had such a great success throughout Europe that it reached some of the most important modern dance figures of that time, like V. Nijinsky (through Marie Rambert), Mary Wigman and Rudolph Laban .

Some of Dalcroze’s renowned contributions are Introduction of a notion of relationship between movement and rhythm. Creation of an original educational method through movement; relaxation is indispensable to achieve a right movement; breathing is crucial to obtain relaxation and is the fundamental rhythmic movement. Dalcroze’s method also leaves its influence in the United States of America thanks to Mary Wigman’s student Hanya Holm.

PINA BAUSCH (1940- 2008 Germany)

Pina Bausch turned the dance world on its head and became one of the most internationally influential representatives of contemporary German culture. She died at 68 and left behind a major oeuvre.

Her productions were unforgettable. The figures in Pina Bausch' dance pieces are driven, tortured and determined. They are -- often literally -- slamming up against a hostile world.

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But they're depicted with a droll sense of humor and, sometimes, biting irony. In the end, though, there is a heart-warming tenderness. It's a sensibility in the artist that stems from a deep understanding of mankind's shortcomings and fragility. Bausch's aesthetics and determination to create socially relevant work somehow seemed anachronistic in today’s times.

Born in 1940 in German, Bausch began dancing at a young age. She earned a grant to study at the Julliard School of Music in New York and briefly served as a member of the New American Ballet at the Metropolitan before returning to Germany. In 1973, she was made director and choreographer of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, in North Rhine-Westphalia, which now bears her name.

Her most famous pieces, "Café Müller", "Nelken" and "Kontakthof," tell of the fragile happiness between men and women, the constrictiveness of societal norms and the unfulfilled desire for freedom and self-abandonment. And, to tell of these things, Bausch developed an entirely new language. Her dancers were also actors and singers. They talked to their audiences; they walked through the rows; they sang songs. Nobody had asked that of their troupe until then. The story of her success is also the story of her determination. And faithfulness - to her own convictions and to Wuppertal. Bausch developed a new working style. With her troupe, she would travel abroad, work on a piece with local artists, take it on tour and bring it back to Wuppertal. The most successful encounter was with India.

Pina Bausch changed dance fundamentally by driving out the last remains of its courtly, representative origins. For her, dance could no

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SUSANNE LINKE (b. June 19, 1944)

Susanne Linke is an internationally renowned German dancer and choreographer who is one of the major innovators of German Tanztheater, along with Pina Bausch and Reinhild Hoffmann.[1]

Susanne Linke only began to study dance at the age of twenty, when she went to Berlin to take lessons from Mary Wigman at her studio. Three years later she moved to Essen to pursue dance at the Folkwang Hochschule (Folkwang Academy) founded by Kurt Jooss.

Susanne Linke has choreographed original dance works since 1970, becoming known for a style that is intense, austere, and neoexpressionist.[2][3] Two of her 1975 dances—Danse funèbre (Funeral Dance) and Trop Trad (Too Trad)— were awarded prizes. Other works from the 1970s and 1980s include Puppe? (Doll?, 1975), Die Nächste bitte (Next Please, 1978), Im Bade wannen (Bath Tubbing, 1980), Wowerwiewas (1980), Flut (Flood, 1981), Frauenballett (Women's Ballet, 1981), Es schwant (It Continues, 1982), and Wir können nicht alle nur Schwäne sein (We Can't All Only Be Swans, 1982). Her first full-evening work was based on the Bacchae of Euripides. Schritte verfolgen (Follow the Steps, 1985), Linke's first major solo ballet, dealt with her problematic childhood and the development of a dancer.

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Since the 1980s, Linke has participated in the major international dance festivals, often dancing her own solos. Her international solo career has been significantly supported by the Goethe-Institut. In 1985, she resigned from the management of the Folkwang Dance Studio and began to work primarily as a freelance choreographer, making work for such well-known groups as the José Limón Company in New York, the Paris Opera, and the Nederlands Dans Theater.

In the early 1990s, she founded the Susanne Linke Company at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin. Then, in 1994, she co-founded (with Urs Dietrich) a new dance company at the Bremer Theater in Bremen and continued to direct this company until 2000. In 2000-01, she co- founded a new choreographic center in Essen, the Choreographisches Zentrum Essen, and became its artistic director. Since 2001, she has worked frequently as a freelance choreographer and dancer.

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