Cendrars, Blaise (1887–1961)
Blaise Cendrars was one of the leading experimental writers of the twentieth century. In addition to being a novelist and journalist, he was also a…
Blaise Cendrars was one of the leading experimental writers of the twentieth century. In addition to being a novelist and journalist, he was also a…
A one-act ballet on the theme of a fairground sideshow, Parade was produced by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and premiered on May 18, 1917 at…
The Japanese avant-garde dance, butoh, developed out of experiments and collaborations directed by Hijikata Tatsumi (1928–1986) and often involved Ohno Kazuo (1906–2010) in Tokyo beginning…
Thelonious Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. One of the earliest performers in the bebop movement of modern jazz dating from the mid-twentieth…
A ballet inspired by a creation fable in Blaise Cendrars’s Anthologie nègre (1921), La Création du monde (The Creation of the World) was produced by…
A. Mexican composer and violinist, Enríquez is regarded as one of the leading figures of the experimental music scene in Mexico during the second half…
Aleister Crowley was an occultist, writer, and mystic who founded the spiritual philosophy of Thelema. Crowley’s work combines European, South Asian, and Chinese esoteric teachings.…
Dartington Hall (near Totnes, Devon, England) is a country estate centered on a medieval courtyard and Great Hall. In 1925, the newly married Dorothy and…
Mambo music, which emerged in Cuba in the 1940s but was popularized in Mexico City and New York, blended jazz harmonies and instrumentation with Afro-Cuban…
Earle Birney was a Canadian poet, novelist, dramatist and professor. Born in 1904 in Calgary, Alberta, he spent his childhood in rural Alberta and British…
Henry Green was the pen name of Henry Yorke, a well-regarded novelist working in the mid-twentieth century. Living in London, Yorke worked much of his…
Lincoln Kirstein was an American impresario, writer, and philanthropist, best known as the patron and champion of choreographer George Balanchine, whom he brought to the…
Samuel Barclay Beckett is widely considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Born in Ireland and living in France for half…
Sherwood Anderson was an American short-story writer, novelist, and memoirist. He was a businessman turned author whose writing often rendered the lives of ordinary people…
Samuel Selvon was a Trinidadian writer whose vivid portraits of daily life in both the Caribbean and post-Second World War England garnered international acclaim. Selvon’s…
Valeska Gert was a dancer, actress, and cabaret artist best known for her radical solo performances during the Weimar Republic. She attracted attention for her…
Holger Drachmann was a Danish writer and painter, active in the period of the Modern Breakthrough in Scandinavia (1870s–1890s). He was influenced by Georg Brandes…
Nella Larsen was an American novelist active in the 1920s and one of the central figures of ‘Manhattan modernism.’ She is best known for two…
Though it originates in the work of H. D., hermeticism achieves its most lasting impact and enduring legacy in the work of mid-century Italian poets.…
Free verse is a technique of poetic composition that was employed and discussed by poets and critics during the modernist period. Exemplified by a disregard…
Harriet Monroe was an American woman of letters who — from her position as founder and long-time editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse —…
Gertrude Stein was a modernist writer of the twentieth century, notable for the extremity of her stylistic innovations. During the first half of her career,…
Michio Itō was a modern dancer and choreographer who worked in Europe, the United States, and Japan. After training at the Dalcroze Institute in Hellerau,…
George Oppen was an innovative poet associated with the Objectivist movement in American poetry. Early in his poetic career, he appeared in both the ‘Objectivist’…
Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic. Howe was a central figure in the circles of American democratic socialism as well as a…