![]() ![]() Eventually, postmodern dance artists would reject the formalism of modern dance, and include elements such as performance art, contact improvisation, release technique, and improvisation. ![]() ![]() Moving into the 1960s, new ideas about dance began to emerge as a response to earlier dance forms and to social changes. Throughout the 20th century, sociopolitical concerns, major historical events, and the development of other art forms contributed to the continued development of modern dance in the United States and Europe. These dancers disregarded ballet's strict movement vocabulary (the particular, limited set of movements that were considered proper to ballet) and stopped wearing corsets and pointe shoes in the search for greater freedom of movement. In the late 19th century, modern dance artists such as Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, and Loie Fuller were pioneering new forms and practices in what is now called aesthetic or free dance. It was considered to have been developed as a rejection of, or rebellion against, classical ballet, and also a way to express social concerns like socioeconomic and cultural factors. ![]() This undertaking, titled “A Dream of Universal Peace,” brought Isadora Duncan’s never-realized dream of staging Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to reality.Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1932, Damrosch sought the help of Irma Duncan to stage a massive pageant-pantomime at Madison Square Garden for the benefit of the Musician’s Emergency Fund. The Damrosch papers contain further evidence of the conductor’s continuing interest in dance and in Duncan’s legacy. Nonetheless, his steadfast support of Duncan’s endeavor offered an important precedent to future choreographers and conductors, and helped to propel dance into the forefront of the 20th-century performing arts. Press releases and correspondence in the Library’s Walter Damrosch papers chronicle his struggle with allegations from American critics that he had “degraded” the New York Symphony Orchestra by putting this elite musical organization in the service of a dancer. Several other more official contracts in the Music Division’s Walter Damrosch papers stipulate the terms for a tour in which Duncan accompanied Damrosch and his orchestra throughout the Midwest in fall 1909.ĭamrosch’s interest in Duncan represents a notable departure from the well-established resistance to dance in elite musical circles, and an equally notable menace to his professional standing. While I found no mention of their work together in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division collections, important ancillary evidence of Duncan’s abiding interest in the archaeological remains of ancient Greece did appear in a collection of postcards she acquired in Greece and reportedly carried with her during her 1903–1904 tours of Germany. To add to the evidence from German sources, I hoped Furtwängler’s name might surface in the handwritten essays Duncan composed for speaking engagements in Munich and Berlin, or in lists of ticket holders for her concerts. As a well-known public figure, Furtwängler brought impressive credentials to bear on Duncan’s choreographic interpretations of ancient Greece and her campaign for less restrictive modern clothing. German sources report that he lectured at one of her concerts and supported her public campaign for clothing reform. The archaeologist, Adolf Furtwängler (1853–1907), came to know Duncan in 1904 after she had journeyed to Greece and then settled in Germany. In July and August 2016, with the support of a New York Public Library Short-Term Fellowship, I traveled to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in search of information on Duncan’s collaborations with two of her lesser-known collaborators: one a German archaeologist, the other a German-American orchestral conductor. These collaborations have a great deal to tell us of her wide-ranging ideas about the importance of dance art in modern culture and her enduring influence on the art of dance. Notorious for her romantic involvements with the likes of British theater critic Gordon Craig, German biologist Ernst Haeckel, and millionaire Paris Singer, Duncan also attracted artists and intellectuals as collaborators in her work as a dancer. The American modern dancer Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) was one of the most acclaimed and influential artists of her time. Guest post by New York Public Library Short-Term Fellow Chantal Frankenbach, California State University, Sacramento ![]()
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