Dance
Historically, modern dance scholarship has followed the contours of the field as defined by John Martin, the revered dance critic for The New York Times,…
Search Results 1 - 25 of 198
Expressionism
Expressionism was one of the foremost modernist movements to emerge in Europe in the early years of the twentieth-century. It had a profound effect on…
Devi, Ragini (1893–1982)
Ragini Devi (née Esther Luella Sherman) was a white American dancer and ethnographer who devoted her life to studying and preserving Indian classical dance. In…
Eguchi Takaya (1900–1977)
Following in the footsteps of Baku Ishii and Takada Seiko, dancer Eguchi Takaya established an abstract dance form based on Neue Tanz from Germany. He…
Rainer, Yvonne (1934--)
Yvonne Rainer is a key figure of both American postmodern dance and avant-garde feminist cinema. Rainer was a founding member of New York City’s Judson…
Sorel, Ruth Elly Abramovitsch (1907–1974)
Upon immigrating to Montreal in 1944, Ruth Abramovitsch (also known as Abramowitz) Sorel was one of the first dancers to regularly teach and perform modern…
Castle, Vernon (1887–1918) & Castle, Irene Foote (1893–1969)
During the years 1911–1917, Irene Foote Castle (1893–1969) and her husband Vernon Castle (1887–1918) explicitly marketed ragtime dancing as “modern” to their upper-class and, increasingly,…
Zeybek, The
The zeybek is a genre of Turkish folk dance that is closely associated with the Aegean region on the west coast of Anatolian Turkey, although…
Adam, Hoerijah (1936–1971)
Born nine years before Indonesia’s independence, Hoerijah Adam epitomized the transitional figure of the Indonesian postcolonial dancer. Despite her short life, Adam changed the course…
Ishii, Baku (1886–1962)
Baku Ishii is widely regarded as the creator of Japanese modern dance. He was born in Mitane-cho, Akita Prefecture in 1886. Despite his difficulty adapting…
Kumudini Lakhia (1930--)
Kumudini Lakhia’s career as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher spans over sixty years. During this time, she brought Kathak, a traditional art dance indigenous to…
Barrett, Cynthia (1921–2006)
Choreographer, teacher, and dance artist Cynthia Barrett was a modern dance artist who established her own company in Toronto. For a short while she directed…
Page, Ruth (1899–1991)
Ruth Page was a Chicago-based dancer, choreographer, and director of ballet companies whose experimentalism, disregard for genre boundaries, and affinity for collaboration led her in…
Ailian, Dai (1916–2006)
Dai Ailian, a woman of Chinese descent, was born and raised in Trinidad and first visited mainland China in 1941. Together with Wu Xiaobang, Dai…
Halprin, Anna (Schuman) (1920--)
A dancer, choreographer, community leader, and educator, Anna Halprin helped to pioneer what she called “experimental dance” in the 1960s. After training with the modern…
Dent, Nancy Lima (1919–2013)
Nancy Lima Dent helped to establish modern dance in Toronto. She initially studied with Rita Warne and Boris Volkoff, and later was a student of…
Araiz, Oscar (1940--)
Oscar Araiz is a central figure in the dance world in Argentina and internationally. Maintaining equal prominence in the modern and classical dance communities throughout…
Leeder, Sigurd (1902–1981)
In a career that spanned over sixty years, Sigurd Leeder made important contributions to the dance worlds in Germany, Great Britain, Chile, and Switzerland. His…
Jooss, Kurt (1901–1979)
Kurt Jooss is often understood to be a founding figure in dance theater, both for his choreography Der grüne Tisch (The Green Table, 1932), which…
Samba
Modern samba music and dance began in Rio de Janeiro’s Afro-Brazilian communities in the early 1900s and spread rapidly to international audiences through twentieth-century technologies…
Reda, Mahmoud (1930--)
Mahmoud Reda, a pioneer in the modern staging of traditional and folk dance in the Arab world, began his movement career in gymnastics and other…
Flamenco and Modernism
Though practitioners perceive Andalusia as the form’s spiritual and artistic home, flamenco is taught and performed in cities around the world. Modern flamenco evolved from…
Modern Belly Dance
References to dances of the East have appeared in Western sources at least since the beginning of the Christian era, yet what has become known…
Yakobson, Leonid (1904–1975)
A Russian dancer and choreographer, Leonid Veniaminovich Yakobson choreographed for the Kirov and Bolshoi ballets from 1930 to the early 1970s, during which time he…
Liu Feng-Shueh (1925--)
Dr. Liu Feng-Shueh is a modern dance pioneer in Taiwan. She was the first person to conduct systematic experimentation with the formal elements and creative…