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…
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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…
Fokine, Michel (1880–1942)
Michel Fokine’s seventeen works for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (1909–29) revitalized ballet in the early twentieth century. In Fokine’s most successful works, the body became…
Matsui, Sumako (1886–1919)
Matsui Sumako was the first superstar shingeki actress in Japan’s modernist theater movement.
Kawakami, Otojirō (1864–1911)
Kawakami Otojirō was an actor, comedian, and impresario during Japan’s early modern period and was the first to take Japanese performances on tour, albeit in…
Asakusa Opera
Asakusa Opera is a form of modern Japanese popular entertainment which combines elements of musical theater, namely opera, operetta, US musicals, and sketch comedy such…
Nijinsky, Vaslav (1889–1950)
Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian dancer and choreographer of Polish descent. He achieved international renown as the star of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Company between…
Bungei Kyōkai
Launched in February 1906 out of a drama club of Waseda University students, Bungei Kyōkai was one of the two pioneering organizations of the modernist…
Pavlova, Anna (1881-1931)
Considered the most expressively gifted ballerina of her generation, Russian dancer Anna Pavlova introduced ballet to a world audience through 23 years of nearly constant…
Apollon Musagète
Apollon Musagète, premiered by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1928, and most widely known since the 1950s as Apollo, is the oldest work by choreographer…
Diaghilev, Serge (1872–1929)
Impresario, critic, curator, and founder-director of the Ballets Russes (1909–1929), Serge Diaghilev was a towering figure and pioneer of early 20th-century modernism. Through his various…
Balanchine, George (1904–1983)
George Balanchine (Georgii Melitonovich Balanchivadze), arguably the greatest ballet choreographer of the twentieth century, was at once both modernist and traditionalist. Unlike many radical innovators,…
Nijinska, Bronislava (1891–1972)
The premiere female ballet choreographer of the first half of the twentieth century, Bronislava Nijinska experienced the transformative power of the Russian Revolution and discovered…