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.