Abstract
The modern dance of the period 1935–1945 was marked by a burgeoning of a progressive dance from the United States of America. It was a modern dance of the new world, one that Doris Humphrey in particular wrote of. The chapter examines the writings of modern dancers — both American and European — who helped create this new world for the dancer. It also considers how the modern dance of Germany found new expression in the dancing and writing of dancers and teachers in the United Kingdom. Dancers’ writings discussed in this chapter include those of Gertrud Bodenwieser, Leslie Burrowes, Katherine Dunham, Martha Graham, Margaret H’Doubler, Hanya Holm, Doris Humphrey, Diana Jordan, Ted Shawn and Louise Soelberg.
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Notes
Doris Humphrey, ‘My Approach to the Modern Dance’, In Frederick Rand Rogers, ed., Dance: A Basic Educational Technique, 188–192 (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 188.
Shawn cites his earlier book The American Ballet (1926). See Ted Shawn, Dance We Must (London: Dobson, 1946), 93–94.
For the definitive account, see Sali Ann Kriegsman, Modern Dance in America — The Bennington Years (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1981).
Doris Humphrey and Paul Love, ‘The Dance of Doris Humphrey’, In Virginia Stewart and Merle Armitage, eds, The Modern Dance, 59–70 (New York: Privately Published, 1935; repr. Dance Horizons, 1970), 62. John Martin, in the foreword to the Dance Horizons edition of 1970, called Love’s statement for Humphrey ‘quite the best statement anywhere to be found of a specific approach to creative practice that delves all the way down to the roots of universality as no other theory has done in this country since Isadora, and in Europe since Wigman’.
The writing ‘New Dance’ has been republished in two slightly different versions, both dating the original manuscript to 1936: Doris Humphrey, ‘New Dance’, In Selma Jeanne Cohen, ed., Doris Humphrey: An Artist First, 238–241 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1972); ‘New Dance’, In Kriegsman, ed., The Bennington Years, 284–286.
See, for instance, the extensive extracts from 27 sources cited in Merle Armitage, ed., Martha Graham (Los Angeles, CA: Armitage, 1937. Reprint and republished by Dance Horizons, New York, 1966).
The Jerome Robbins Dance Research Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts holds substantial material including notes, book drafts, correspondence relating to Humphrey, H’Doubler and Holm. Recently, Tresa Randall has used material on Holm to draw attention to the development of her written ideas in the period 1931–1934. See Tresa Randall, ‘Hanya Holm and an American Tanzgemeinschaft’, In Susan Manning and Lucia Ruprecht, eds, New German Dance Studies, 79–98 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012).
Katherine Dunham, ‘Thesis Turned Broadway’, In Veve A. Clarke and Sarah E. Johnson, eds, Kaiso: Writings by and about Katherine Dunham, 214–216 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1941, 2005) (first published in California Arts and Architecture, August 1941).
Ted Shawn, ‘The “Modern” Dance”, In Fundamentals of a Dance Education, 25–27 (Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius, 1937), 25–26.
Kurt Jooss, ‘[Untitled Statement]’, In Ballet Jooss Dance Theatre US Tour Programme, 3 (New York: Nicolas Publishing, 1938).
Gertrud Bodenwieser, ‘Aims of the Modern Dance’, The Viennese Ballet Australian Tour 1940 Programme, In Bettina Vernon-Warren and Charles Vernon-Warren, eds, Gertrud Bodenwieser and Vienna’s Contribution to Ausdruckstanz, 51–56 (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1999).
Martha Graham, ‘This Modern Dance; Two Important American View-Points’, The Dancing Times (December 1938), 270–272, 270. See original in Martha Graham, ‘Graham 1937’, In Merle Armitage, ed., Martha Graham, 83–88 (Los Angeles, CA: Armitage, 1937. Reprint and republished by Dance Horizons, New York, 1966). There is no acknowledgement of the original 1937 source in the 1938 article. The 1937 essay was written especially for Armitage’s book.
Martha Graham, ‘Dance Libretto: American Document’, Theatre Arts 26, no. 9 (1942): 565–574.
See, especially, most recently, Mark Franko, Martha Graham in Love and War: The Life in the Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
‘B. U. Program Stresses Dance; Experts in Series Will Lecture and Demonstrate Its Values in Physical Education’, The New York Times, 29 January 1939; Joy Weber, The Evolution of Aesthetic and Expressive Dance in Boston (Amherst: Cambria Press, 2009), 169–178.
Humphrey, ‘My Approach to the Modern Dance’, 188. There is an editorial footnote (192) that mentions the book that Humphrey was working on; her full account of choreography as the art of making dances would have to wait a further two decades for posthumous publication in Doris Humphrey, The Art of Making Dances (New York: Rinehart, 1959).
Graham, ‘A Modern Dancer’s Primer for Action’, In Dance: A Basic Educational Technique, 178–187. It is notable that Graham’s autobiography, published half a century later, begins with ‘I am a dancer’ too: Martha Graham, Blood Memory (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
There is an interesting consonance between some of the writings of 1939/1941 collected by Rogers and the publication of other books on dance and education in the late 1930s: Ted Shawn’s Fundamentals of a Dance Education of 1937, Diana Jordan’s The Dance as Education of 1938 and Margaret H’Doubler’s Dance a Creative Art Experience of 1940 all promulgate the idea of the benefits of an education through modern dance as art: Ted Shawn, Fundamentals of a Dance Education, 25–27 (Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius, 1937);
Diana Jordan, The Dance as Education (London: Oxford University Press, 1938);
Margaret H’Doubler, Dance: A Creative Art Experience (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957) (first published by New York: P.S. Crofts, 1940).
C.H. McCloy, Editor’s Introduction, In Margaret H’Doubler, Dance: A Creative Art Experience (New York: F.S. Crofts, 1940), vii, viii. The second (1957) and later (1998) editions do not include the original Editor’s Introduction nor the extensive 27-page Bibliography/Annotated Reading List.
Janice Ross, Moving Lessons: Margaret H’Doubler and the Beginning of Dance in American Education (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 166.
Diana Jordan, The Dance as Education (London: Oxford University Press, 1938).
Rudolf Laban, Modern Educational Dance (London: Macdonald & Evans, 1948). This was the second of Laban’s English publications. It relied heavily on, and acknowledged, the contributions of Lisa Ullmann and Veronica Tyndale Biscoe. In many respects, it echoes some of Jordan’s concern for the modern dance in education, but also encompasses both Laban’s earlier ideas about the art of movement and his then current interest in movement study in industry.
Louise Soelberg, ‘Modern Dance: What Is It?’ (TRT Publication, 1942). The copy held by the NRCD University of Surrey has a handwritten inscription by Soelberg: ‘To Mr Laban — with deep appreciation for your invaluable assistance. Louise — March 1942’ (NRCD: LB/E/91).
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© 2015 Michael Huxley
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Huxley, M. (2015). A New World for the Dancer. In: The Dancer’s World, 1920–1945: Modern Dancers and Their Practices Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137439215_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137439215_5
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