Modern Folk Dance
Modern folk dance is a turn of the twentieth-century revivalist practice based upon a participatory dance form originating within village-based ethnic communities of northern Europe.…
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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…
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…
Hula
Hula, as the Native Hawaiian scholar Mary Kawena Pukui (1895–1986) noted, is a general name for Hawaii’s folk dances. While it is impossible to point…
Bauhaus
In 1919 a young architect named Walter Gropius initiated one of the most modern art schools of the twentieth century in the city of Weimar…
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…
Raqs-e melli
Iranian-Armenians Madame Cornelli, Madame Yelena Avakian, and Sarkis Djanbazian, all of whom had learned ballet in Russia or Europe, came to Iran where they opened…
Wu Xiaobang (吴晓邦) (1906–95)
Wu Xiaobang, known in China as “the father of Chinese new dance,” was the most important pioneer of modern dance in twentieth-century China. Exposed to…
New Dance Theatre (1949–1955, Toronto, Canada)
Originally called the Neo Dance Theatre, the New Dance Theatre (NDT) was a modern dance performance group that was based in Toronto from 1949 to…
New Dance Group, New York City, 1932–2009
Established in 1932 by six young Jewish women in New York City, New Dance Group (NDG) trained leaders of the American modern dance. Founded with…
Vainonen, Vasily Ivanovich (1901–1964)
Dancer and choreographer Vasily Vainonen created several signature choreographic works of the Soviet ballet repertoire of the 1930s, including composer Boris Afasiev’s The Flames of…
Mercé y Luque, Antonia Rosa (Stage Name: La Argentina; b. 4 September 1888, Buenos Aires, Argentina; d. 18 July 1936, Bayonne, France)
Antonia Rosa Mercé y Luque, known by her stage name La Argentina, was the most celebrated Spanish dancer of the early 20th century. Greatly influenced…
Uthoff, Ernst (1904–1993)
Ernst Uthoff was a German-born dancer, choreographer, and company director who received his dance training from two pioneers of Tanztheater (dance-theater): Kurt Jooss and Sigurd…
Nettleford, Rex (1933–2010)
In a dance career spanning over 40 years, Rex Nettleford was perhaps the most influential choreographer to shape Jamaican dance theatre as it is known…
McBurnie, Beryl (1914–2000)
Known as the Caribbean’s mother of dance, Beryl McBurnie counts amongst the leading figures of Caribbean modern dance, a movement that furthered decolonization and postcolonial…
Gunawan, Hendra (1918–1983)
Known in Indonesia as the peoples’ painter, Hendra Gunawan was born in Bandung. Family circumstances were strained with a father who gambled and his parents…
Sharp, Cecil James (1859--1924)
In the short span of about fifteen years in the early twentieth century, Cecil James Sharp ignited a folk revival in country song and dance…
Nazemi, Abdollah (1937--)
Abdollah Nazemi founded the Pars National Ballet, a semiprivate dance company, in 1966. It was the first known instance of a Western-style modern dance group…
de Mille, Agnes (1905–1993)
Agnes de Mille performed as a self-producing female dance soloist; she choreographed for Ballets Russes and Ballet Theatre (now the AmericanBallet Theatre) and transformed the…
Chinese Revolutionary Ballet
Introduced to China in the 1920s, Western ballet evolved into a significant performance genre in modern and contemporary China. Its popularity grew in the twentieth…
Rite of Spring, The (Le Sacre du Printemps)
The premiere of The Rite of Spring at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris on 29 May 1913 provoked greater storms of controversy than any…
Shinmuyong (ca. 1926)
Shinmuyong means literally “New Dance” in Korean, but today it is categorized as creative Korean dance. In the early 20th century, Ausdruckstanz (Expressionist Dance) from…
Baxter, Ivy (1923–1993)
In the years pre-dating Jamaican independence, Ivy Baxter pioneered a new approach towards dance theatre as a community art form. Along with Beryl McBurnie and…
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…
Workers Dance League, The
In the midst of the economic and social upheaval of America’s Great Depression, a group of young modern dancers came together in 1932 to form…