Photographic Exhibition "Faces and Stories" by Curt Richter
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
AMERICAN STUDIES jOURNAL Number 43 Summer 1999 Atnerican Arts at the Turn of the Twentieth Century ISSN: 1433-5239 DM 5,00 AMERICAN STUDIES jOURNAL Number 43 Summer 1999 Anlerican Arts at the Turn of the Twentieth Century ISSN: 1433-5239 I, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, July 1999 exhibit and lecture by Curt Richter, an American photographer and teacher. Mr. Richter was kind enough Dear Readers: to submit an article on his photography to the journal. The second section of the journal contains the third The current issue of the Ame1"ican Studies journal is part of our series on Education in the United States, the first published under the editorship of the Center including two articles on technology in education. for U.S. Studies at the Stiftung Leucorea, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Long-time readers of the Tentative themes for future issues include: journal will find that the format of the current issue is - Social and Welfare Policy in the U.S. (no. 44) very much like that of previous ones. However, there - Race Relations in the U.S. (no. 45) will be some changes in upcoming issues. We plan to - Conservatism and the New Right in the U.S. (no. 46) increase the number of original contributions rather - Native Americans (no. 47) than reprinting articles that have already been published - The American West (no. 48) elsewhere. The editorial board is currently soliciting - The University: Anniversary Issue for the University academic articles, as well as teaching-oriented of Wittenberg (no. 49) contributions that the journal has always presented. - Non-Profit Organizations (no. 50) The editorial board also hopes to include reviews of books in the fields of history, literature, political science, Once again, the American Studies journal welcomes American studies and teaching methodology in future submissions from teachers and scholars. Submissions issues. may be academic articles on a range of topics within the broad umbrella of American Studies or related to The current issue focuses on the arts in the United teaching. States in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Article topics include film, dance, music, as well as the visual arts. Additionally, during "American Cultural ]. Kelly Robison Days" at the Center for U.S. Studies in early May of Editor, American Studies journal 1999, we were fortunate to present a photographic Center for U.S. Studies I Stiftung Leucorea Impressurn Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Zentrums fur USA-Studien, Stiftung Leucorea an der Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg von ]. Kelly Robison Redaktion: Birgit Plietzsch Druck: USIA Regional Service Center, Manila ISSN: 1433-5239 Redaktionsadresse ZU!WLS Zentrum fur USA-Studien, Stiftung Leucorea an der Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg, Collegienstra1Se 62, 06886 Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Fax: (03491) 466223, E-Mail: [email protected] The American Studies journal is published semi-annually. The subscription rate is DM 15 (postage and handling included). Subscrib ers from outside the European Union must add DM 10 for extra postage. If you would like to receive more than one copy, add DM 2 for each additional subscription. Prepayment is required. Please transfer your remittance to Zentrum fur USA-Studien, Account Number 26212, Sparkasse Wittenberg, BLZ 805 501 01. Payment by check cannot be accepted. Bildachweise: Allen Mullen: 20; NARA: 35; Curt Richter: 12, 13, 14; USIS: Front Cover, 6. 2 ASJ 43 (SUMMER 1999) AMERICAN Srunms JoURNAL Number 43 Summer 1999 2 Editor's Note American Arts at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 4 Overview 7 The Visual Arts: On the Cusp of the New Millenium by Eleanor Heartney 12 Photographic Exhibition "Faces and Stories" by Curt Richter 15 The Space Between: Fine Art and Technology by Will Tait 21 The U.S. Screen Scene by Scott Eyman 25 U.S. Theater in the Nineties: A Heartland Perspective by Dan Sullivan 30 Dance at the Close of the Century by Suzanne Carbonneau 36 New Music for a New Century by]oshua Kosman 41 Further Reading on Arts at the Turn of the Century Education in the USA (Part ill) 43 Public Responsibility/Private Initiative: Primary and Secondary Education Interview with Michael Usdan 53 A Slew of New Products Caters to a Rising Demand for High-Tech Classroom Tools by Jennifer Johnes and Meg Misenti 58 Technology in Education Interview with Barbara Means and Seymour Papert News I Notes I Views 64 The Center for U.S. Studies: Listserv and Library AS] 43 (SUMMER 1999) 3 Overview Classical Music Kirstein. Kirstein invited Russian choreographer George Balanchine to the United States in 1933, The development of the arts in America has and the two established the School of American been marked by a tension between two strong Ballet, which became the New York City Ballet sources of inspiration-European sophistica in 1948. Ballet manager and publicity agent tion and domestic originality. A distinctively Richard Pleasant founded America's second lead American classical music came to fruition when ing ballet organization, American Ballet Theater, such composers as George Gershwin and Aaron with dancer and patron Lucia Chase in 1940. Copland incorporated homegrown melodies and Paradoxically, native-born directors like Pleas rhythms into forms borrowed from Europe. ant included Russian classics in their repertoires, while Balanchine announced that his new Ameri The arts in America get relatively little public can company was predicated on distinguished support. To survive, symphony orchestras de music and new works in the classical idiom, not pend largely on philanthropy and paid admis the standard repertory of the past. sions. Some orchestra directors have found a way to keep mainstream audiences happy while Later choreographers searched for new meth introducing new music to the public. Rather ods of expression. Merce Cunningham intro than segregate the new pieces, these directors duced improvisation and random movement program them side-by-side with traditional fare. into performances. Alvin Ailey incorporated Af Meanwhile, opera-old and new-has been rican dance elements and black music into his flourishing; because it is so expensive to stage, works. Recently, such choreographers as Mark however, opera depends heavily on the gener Morris and Liz Lerman have defied the conven osity of corporate and private donors. tion that dancers must be thin and young. Their belief, put into action in their hiring practices and performances, is that graceful, exciting Dance movement is not restricted by age or body type. Closely related to the development of American music in the early twentieth century was the Theater emergence of a new, and distinctively Ameri- can.,1 art form-modern dance. Among the early Before the movies and radio, most Americans innovators were Isadora Duncan, who stressed had to entertain themselves or wait for the pure, unstructured movement in lieu of the arrival in town of lecturers, circuses, or the positions of classical ballet. Martha Graham's traveling stage revues known as vaudeville. New York-based company was perhaps the The medium demanded a steady supply of new best known in modern dance. songs. Late in the nineteenth century, music publishing became a big business in the United In the early twentieth century, U.S. audiences States, with many firms clustered in New York were introduced to classical ballet by touring City, on a street that became known as Tin Pan companies of European dancers. The first Ameri Alley. Vaudeville and the European genre of can ballet troupes were founded in the 1930s, operetta spawned the Broadway musical, which when dancers and choreographers teamed up integrates songs and dancing into a continuous with visionary lovers of ballet such as Lincoln story with spoken dialogue. 4 ASJ 43 (SUMMER 1999) Many new plays, usually about fifty productions of the elevator, the first skyscraper went up in a season, are presented first on Broadway, the Chicago in 1884. Designer of the most graceful theater district of New York City. To many Ameri early towers, Louis Sullivan was America' s first cans, seeing a Broadway show is a high point in great modern architect. His most talented stu their visit to the nation's largest city. Over the dent was Frank Lloyd Wright. European archi years, New York theater has developed new tects who emigrated to the United States before avenues known as "off-Broadway" and "off-off World War II launched the International Style. Broadway" where plays are staged in small play Perhaps the most influential of those immigrants houses, but some rank with the best Broadway were Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter performances in professional skill. Regional and Gropius, both former directors of Germany's summer theater is also vibrant. famous design school, the Bauhaus. Buildings in their geometric style have been both praised and criticized. In reaction, a new generation of archi Literature tects now feels free to incorporate both old and new elements in their buildings. The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to nine Americans: Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill, Pearl Buck, William Faulkner, Ernest The Visual Arts Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Toni Morrison. America's first well-known school of painting, the Hudson River School, appeared in 1820. As Regional literature has always been important in with music and literature, this development was the United States, both today and yesterday. It is delayed until artists perceived that the New as old as Native American legends, as evocative World offered subjects unique to itself. The of place as the nineteenth century writings of Hudson River painters' directness and simplicity James Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain and of vision influenced such later artists as Winslow Bret Harte, as vibrant as the worlds created Homer, who depicted rural America-the sea, earlier in this century by novelist William Faulkner the mountains, and the people who lived near and playwright Tennessee Williams, as reflective them.