Savoy Ballroom, The
The Savoy Ballroom, Harlem’s largest and most famous ballroom during the Swing Era, was nicknamed ‘The Home of Happy Feet’. After it opened in 1926,…
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Free Jazz
Free Jazz emerged in the late 1950s out of the ongoing negotiation of the American jazz tradition. By the mid-twentieth century, this African-American musical tradition…
Harlem Nightclubs
In the 1920s and 1930s, Harlem became a major hub of New York City nightlife and a prolific space for African American artistic creation. It…
Mambo
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…
Ernst, Max (1891–1976)
Max Ernst was a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in Germany, but he lived in Paris and then New York; he returned to…
Eurhythmics
Eurhythmics, a coined word meaning ‘good’ or ‘right rhythm’, is the English name for the interactive approach to music education developed in the early 1900s…
Kishida, Kunio (1890–1954)
Kishida Kunio is considered to be one of the founders of Japanese shingeki drama and one of the most important modern Japanese dramatists. Through his…
Ellington, Duke (1899–1974)
Duke Ellington was an American jazz composer, pianist, and big-band leader who authored over 1,000 compositions throughout his career. Having studied piano since the age…
Whitman Sisters
Mabel (1880–1942), Essie (1882–1963), Alberta (1888–1964) and Alice (1900–1969) were the daughters of Albery Allson Whitman, a reverend in the African Methodist Episcopal church (and…
Collins, Janet (1917–2003)
Magical on stage, elusive off stage, Janet Collins was an enigmatic and complex presence in twentieth-century dance. As the first full-time African American ballerina at…
Palladium
New York’s Palladium Ballroom is commonly revered as the birthplace of modern Latin dancing. Known as “the home of the mambo,” the Palladium was New…
The Great Depression
Beginning on New York’s Wall Street on October 29, 1929, which would come to be known as ‘Black Tuesday’, the Great Depression was the most…
Hamilton, Richard (1922–2011)
British painter and printmaker Richard Hamilton is best known as a progenitor of Pop Art. While mass media and consumer culture remained key points of…
Jazz Dancing
Jazz dancing is an important modern art form that developed in tandem with jazz music between the 1910s and 1940s in America. Emanating from African-American…
Modern Ballroom Dancing
Twentieth-century modern ballroom dancing differed from social dancing of the nineteenth century in its shift in focus from group cohesion to individual personal style. This…
Lye, Len (1901–1980)
New Zealand native Len Lye was an experimental innovator in painting, sculpture, documentary film, and animation. After studying indigenous art in Samoa, he emigrated to…
Menken, Marie (1910–1970)
Marie Menken was a New York-based experimental filmmaker who produced her main work during the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Brooklyn to an immigrant Lithuanian…
Dudley, Jane (1912–2001)
Jane Dudley, a key figure in the radical dance movement of the 1930s, was a choreographer who developed her own distinctive voice within the modern…
Tamiris, Helen (1902–1966)
Helen Tamiris was a key figure in the development of American modern dance; along with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Hanya Holm, she helped to…
Guy, Edna (1907–1983)
Edna Guy was a major figure in establishing African-American modern dance in the 1930s. Grounded in the technique of her mentor Ruth St. Denis, Guy…
Miranda, Carmen (1909–1955)
Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer and actress Carmen Miranda defied twentieth-century social and theatrical conventions to become a modern pop icon, an emblem of Hollywood’s Latina…
Wiesenthal, Grete (1885–1970)
The Austrian dancer and choreographer Grete Wiesenthal was a transitional figure at the crossroads of ballet and modern dance. Initially trained and employed as a…
Ashton, Frederick William Mallandaine (1904–1988)
Frederick Ashton was a British choreographer and dancer whose work significantly contributed to the development and identity of The Royal Ballet. Along with its founder,…
Laban, Rudolf (1879–1958)
Rudolf Laban was one of the leaders of Ausdruckstanz (“expressionist dance”) in Germany. He worked as a dancer, choreographer, writer, educator, movement analyst, ballet master,…
Ausdruckstanz (1910–1950)
The term Ausdruckstanz became common usage after World War II to designate a widespread dance practice in the early and middle decades of the 20th…