Birgit Cullburg

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=birgit+cullberg&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1T4ACAW_enGB349GB349&biw=1024&bih=322&tbm=isch&tbnid=DrfHJRKl9pUsoM:&imgrefurl=http://dansportalen.se/111/fler-artiklar/nyhetsarkiv/10-20-2008-tre-kvinnliga-pionjarer-i-svts-danskvall.html&docid=6PONhhObgTv21M&imgurl=http://dansportalen.se/images/18.ecdbb7b11d09798ba180002230/bcullberg_2.gif&w=578&h=600&ei=JTtBT53QNoKT8gOf3eSyCA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=235&sig=110760382643984361386&page=1&tbnh=162&tbnw=173&start=0&ndsp=5&ved=0CE4QrQMwAg&tx=101&ty=94

Birgit Cullberg (3 August 1908 – 8 September 1999) was a Swedish choreographer. The daughter of bank manager Carl Cullberg and Elna Westerström, Cullberg was born in Nyköping and married from 1942 to 1949 to actor Anders Ek. She was the mother of Niklas Ek, Mats Ek, and Malin Ek.
Cullberg studied ballet under Kurt Jooss-Leeder and Lilian Karina and at The Royal Ballet, London (1952–1957). In 1960, Cullberg was appointed director and choreographer at the Stockholm City Theatre. Some of her choreographies were premiered at the Royal Opera in Stockholm.

Cullberg gained international recognition by founding the Cullberg Ballet in the 1960s. On her retiring in 1985, her son Mats Ek took over the ballet company. The Swedish Arts Grants Committee instituted the Cullberg scholarship in her honour, and she was awarded an honorary professorship at Stockholm University, where she had studied when she was young.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgit_Cullberg

Kurt Jooss

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=kurt+jooss&hl=en&sa=X&rlz=1T4ACAW_enGB349GB349&biw=1024&bih=322&tbm=isch&prmd=imvnsbo&tbnid=uUTU0NHelqAr6M:&imgrefurl=http://rachelstraus.com/2011/08/kurt-jooss-the-founding-father-of-tanztheater/&docid=9cGLrfyqk-QQIM&imgurl=http://rachelstraus.com/wp-content/gallery/historical/kurtjooss_guidomangold.jpg&w=500&h=769&ei=lzdBT6mIHdTY8gOV0PGeCA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=297&sig=110760382643984361386&page=1&tbnh=95&tbnw=60&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=0CEcQrQMwAQ&tx=32&ty=33

Kurt Jooss (12 January 1901, Wasseralfingen, Germany – 22 May 1979, Heilbronn, West Germany) was a famous ballet dancer and choreographer mixing classical ballet with theatre; he is also widely regarded as the founder of dance theatre or tanztheater. Jooss is noted for establishing several dance companies, including most notably, the Folkwang Tanztheater, in Essen.

Jooss disliked plotless dances and preferred themes that addressed moral issues. Naturalistic movement, large-scale unison and characterisation were used by Jooss to address political concerns of the time. His most important choreographic work, The Green Table (1932), had won first prize at an international competition for new choreography held by the Archives Internationales de la Danse in Paris in 1932. It was a strong anti-war statement, and was made a year before Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany. "The Green Table" is considered his most popular piece.

In 1933 Jooss was forced to flee Germany when the Nazis asked him to dismiss the Jews from his company and he refused. Jooss and Leeder (and doubtless Fritz Cohen and other members of his original company) took refuge in Holland before resettling in England. After touring in Europe and America, Jooss and Leeder opened a school at Dartington Hall in Devon. A piece he choreographed at this time was a light hearted one in comparison to "The Green Table" named "Ball in Old Vienna (1932)".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Jooss

Modern Dance - History - The Second Generation

The 1930s

The second wave of modern dancers emerged in New York. They included Americans Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, all of who had danced with Denishawn and the German-American dancer Hanva Holm, who came from Mary Wigman’s company. These dancers rejected external movement sources and turned to basic human movement experiences such as breathing and walking. They transformed these natural actions into dance movements.

Martha Graham evolved her technique of contraction and release from natural breathing and explored movement initiated in the torso. In the late 1930s she became interested in narrative structure and literary subject matter. Together with Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, she created narrative locales that were both mythic and psychic. She danced the roles of female protagonists confronting moments of crisis whilst other dancers represented various aspects of the protagonist’s self in crisis.

Doris Humphrey evolved her technique of fall and recovery from the natural dynamic of the human footfall. This technique became a metaphor for the relationship of the individual to a greater force. After Humphrey stopped performing, she continued to choreograph for her protégé, Mexican-American dancer and choreographer, Jose Limon. The choreographic sources for her late works were words and gestures rather than her own movement experiences.

During the 1930s, choreographers defined modern dance and ballet in opposition to one another. Modern dance was established as a technique with its own internal coherence and ballets was defined by reaffirming the essential tenets of its tradition. Both ballet and modern choreographers focused on the purity of their traditions.

Post-war Developments

Twyla Tharp found their movement sources in the proliferation of 20th-century dance styles and their works combined and fused techniques drawn from social dance, ballet and modern dance. She began her career as part of the 1960s avant-garde. During this time of social upheaval, the American dancers Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk, and other created works at the extreme limit of what is considered dance.

Merce Cunningham fused Grahams technique with ballet, locating the source of movement in the spine. He organized the changes of movement through methods based on chance, and considered music and décor independent of the dance. His works revealed individual dancers experiencing their relation to present time and abstract space.