modern dance

n.
A style of theatrical dance that rejects the limitations of classical ballet and favors movement deriving from the expression of inner feeling.

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Theatrical dance that developed in the U.S. and Europe in the 20th century as a reaction to traditional ballet. Precursors included Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan. Formal teaching of modern dance began with the establishment of the Denishawn schools by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in 1915. Many of their students, principally Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham, further contributed to modern dance's definition as a technique based on principles of fall and recovery (Humphrey) and of contraction and release (Graham). Movement often stressed the expression of emotional intensity and contemporary subjects rather than focusing on the formal, classical, and often narrative aspects of ballet. Later developments included a revolt in the 1950s against Graham's expressionism, led by Merce Cunningham, whose choreography included ballet technique and the element of chance. See also Agnes de Mille; Hanya Holm; José Limón; Alwin Nikolais; Anna Sokolow; Paul Taylor; Twyla Tharp.

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Oxford Dictionary of Dance:

modern dance

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A term widely used in America and Britain to denote theatrical dance which is not based on the academic school of classical ballet. Through early 20th-century practitioners such as Isadora Duncan, Ruth St Denis, Martha Graham, and Doris Humphrey, modern dance developed in opposition to classical ballet, rejecting the latter's structural formality and sometimes thematic frivolity. Modern dance pioneers eschewed the rigid hierarchy of ballet in favour of a freer movement style—favouring bare feet over pointe shoes, for example. People like Graham and Humphrey developed their own methods of teaching the new technique required for their choreography. Early subject-matter was often political or psychological (Graham in particular was influenced by Jungian psychology in her dances). In the 1950s Cunningham took the form one step further by stripping dance of its literary and narrative context altogether, as well as isolating it from its musical accompaniment. By the end of the 20th century, the barriers between ballet and modern dance were less pronounced as dancers and choreographers worked increasingly in both styles.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

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modern dance, serious theatrical dance forms that are distinct from both ballet and the show dancing of the musical comedy or variety stage.

The Beginnings of Modern Dance

Developed in the 20th cent., primarily in the United States and Germany, modern dance resembles modern art and music in being experimental and iconoclastic. Modern dance began at the turn of the century; its pioneers were Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, and Ruth St. Denis in the United States, Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman in Germany. Each rebelled against the rigid formalism, artifice, and superficiality of classical academic ballet and against the banality of show dancing. Each sought to inspire audiences to a new awareness of inner or outer realities, a goal shared by all subsequent modern dancers.

Early Dancers in the United States

Isadora Duncan shocked or delighted audiences by baring her body and soul in what she called "free dance." Wearing only a simple tunic like the Greek vase figures that inspired many of her dances, she weaved and whirled in flowing natural movements that emanated, she said, from the solar plexus. She aimed to idealize abstractly the emotions induced by the music that was her motivating force, daringly chosen from the works of serious composers including Beethoven, Wagner, and Gluck. Although Duncan established schools and had many imitators, her improvisational technique was too personalized to be carried on by direct successors.

The work of the two other American pioneers was far less abstract although no less free. Loie Fuller used dance to imitate and illustrate natural phenomena: the flame, the flower, the butterfly. Experimenting with stage lighting and costume, she created illusionistic effects that remained unique in the history of dance theater until the works of Alwin Nikolais in the 1960s.

The pictorial effects achieved by Ruth St. Denis had a different source: the ritualistic dance of Asian religion. She relied on elaborate costumes and sinuous improvised movements to suggest the dances of India and Egypt and to evoke mystical feelings. With Ted Shawn, who became her partner and husband in 1914 and who advocated and embodied the vigor of the virile male on the dance stage, St. Denis enlarged her repertoire to include dances of Native Americans and other ethnic groups. In 1915 St. Denis and Shawn formed the Denishawn company, which increased the popularity of modern dance throughout the United States and abroad and nurtured the leaders of the second generation of modern dance: Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman.

German Contributions

Although often considered an American phenomenon, the evolution of modern dance can also be traced to central Europe and Germany, where the most influential was probably Rudolf von Laban. Although there is almost no documentation to describe his choreography, he founded (1910) a school in Munich at which Mary Wigman was one of his students. Exiled in the 1930s, he immigrated to England, where he established (1946) the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester and worked until his death on his system of notation. After studying with Laban, Wigman performed in Germany and opened her own school in Dresden (1920). She became the most influential German exponent of expressive movement and toured extensively. Although her school was closed by the Nazis, she reopened it in Berlin in 1948. Other important and more recent German dancer-choreographers include Kurt Joos and his student Pina Bausch.

The Second Generation in America

At the end of the 1920s those who rebelled against the art nouveau exoticism and commercialism of Denishawn devised their own choreography and launched their own companies. Their dances were based on new techniques developed as vehicles for the expression of human passions and universal social themes. Martha Graham found the breath pulse the primary source of dance; exaggerating the contractions and expansions of the torso and flexing of the spine caused by breathing, she devised a basis for movement that for her represented the human being's inner conflicts.

To Doris Humphrey, gravity was the source of the dynamic instability of movement; the arc between balance and imbalance of the moving human body, fall and recovery, represented one's conflicts with the surrounding world. Forsaking lyrical and imitative movement and all but the most austere costumes and simplest stage effects, Graham and Humphrey composed dances so stark, intellectual, and harshly dramatic as to shock and anger audiences accustomed to being pleased by graceful dancers.

Graham explored themes from Americana, Greek mythology, and the Old Testament; she viewed music merely as a frame for the dance. Humphrey experimented more with sound; in a 1924 work she discarded music altogether and performed in silence, and later she used nonmusical sound effects, including spoken texts and bursts of hysterical laughter. Her themes were social and often heroic in scale, e.g., the trilogy New Dance (1935), which treats human relationships. Charles Weidman's gestural mime of movements abstracted from everyday situations provided a different kind of social commentary-comic satire. Winning ardent devotees, the Graham and Humphrey-Weidman companies dominated modern dance for 20 years; the former continues as a major company today.

Later Dancers

By the end of World War II, young choreographers had begun breaking the rules of the modern dance establishment-creating dances that had no theme, expressed no emotion, dispensed with the dance vocabulary of fall and recovery, contraction and release. Sybil Shearer's random fantasies, Katherine Litz's surrealistic vignettes, and Erick Hawkins's impressionistic soft rhythms changed the emphasis of choreography. They had no desire to uplift or inform.

Foremost of this third generation of modern dancers is Merce Cunningham, whose company bred avant-garde choreographers for more than 25 years. Cunningham freed dance from spatial restraints, eliminating strong central focus from choreographic patterns and devising dances that can be viewed from any angle. He also released dance from traditional musical constraints by using electronic music and other compositions of his musical director, John Cage. In addition, he liberated his own choreography from structural limitations by using techniques of chance, such as throws of the dice, to determine the order in which sections of a work should occur.

In 1957 Paul Taylor, a Cunningham and Graham veteran, presented an evening of minimal dance, which consisted of Taylor standing on the stage alone in street clothes and making only tiny changes in posture to the accompaniment of the recorded voice of a telephone operator announcing the time at 10-second intervals; outraged dance critics deliberately ignored the performance. His company ultimately became one of the most important of the post-World War II troupes. Another of the third generation, choreographer Alvin Ailey, who was influenced primarily by Lester Horton, combined elements of modern, jazz, and African dance in his work. The company he established 1958 has been internationally acclaimed and has brought recognition to many African-American and Asian dancers.

The social and artistic ferment of the 1960s provided fertile ground for even more radical departures into what later became known as postmodern dance. Twyla Tharp did away with any sound accompaniment that might distract the viewer's attention from the dance itself. She also took dance outside the theater, staging it in such spaces as the staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of New York City and New York's Central Park. Yvonne Rainer pioneered in the use of improvisations based on ordinary, nondance movements ranging from acrobatics, to military marching, to sports and games. Steve Paxton incorporated even more mundane actions into his dances (e.g., dressing and undressing) and went so far as to perform a duet with a chicken. Paxton, like other dancers and pop artists of the 1960s and 70s, was largely concerned with breaking down the barriers between dancers and audience, between art and life.

The Combining of Forms

By the late 20th cent., distinctions among modern dance, ballet, and show dancing were not as rigid as they once had been. Ballet technique and choreography have remained more formal than those of modern dance, but their themes and stage effects are often similar. Important modern dancers have been invited to perform with and create dances for ballet companies, and in 1990, Mikhail Baryshnikov joined with dancer-choreographer Mark Morris to form a new eclectic dance company. In addition, Paul Taylor performed with the New York City Ballet in a work created for him by George Balanchine, Taylor himself created dances for Rudolf Nureyev, and Tharp's dancers joined the Joffrey Ballet to perform her Deuce Coupe and As Time Goes By.

Since Agnes de Mille first introduced a dance sequence as an integral part of the plot development of Oklahoma! in 1942, dance has become more than just light entertainment during interludes in the action of Broadway musicals. Anna Sokolow, of the Graham company, brought her modern dance technique to the Broadway stage, as did Hanya Holm, choreographer of Kiss Me, Kate (1948) and My Fair Lady (1956). The dance style that has evolved in musicals usually combines elements of modern dance, modern ballet, and the jazz dance that is based on Afro-Caribbean dances.

Bibliography

See autobiographies by I. Duncan (1927, repr. 1972) and R. St. Denis (1939); biographies of individual dancers; J. Martin, The Book of the Dance (1963); S. J. Cohen, ed., The Modern Dance (1965); D. McDonagh, The Rise and Fall and Rise of Modern Dance (1970); M. Lloyd, The Borzoi Book of Modern Dance (1970); S. A. Kriegsman, Modern Dance in America (1981); S. Au, Ballet and Modern Dance (1988); N. Reynolds and M. McCormick, No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century (2003).

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For a list of words related to modern dance, see:

Dances of the World - modern dance: expressionistic, theatrical dance, developed after 1915 as alternative to ballet, with no formal conventions and unorthodox movements, done to eclectic music and based on one of various specialized techniques for using the entire body

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For the debut album by Pere Ubu, see The Modern Dance.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009)

Main articles: Dance and Concert dance

Modern dance is usually performed in bare feet, often with non-traditional costuming.

Ballet dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.

Contents

1 Intro
- 1.1 In Europe
2 History
3 Free dance
4 Legacy of modern dance
- 4.1 Postmodern and contemporary dance
- 4.2 Teachers and their students
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 Further reading

Intro

In the early 1900s European and American dancers started to rebel against the rigid constraints of Classical Modern. Shedding the authoritarian controls surrounding classical modern technique, costume, and shoes, these early modern dance pioneers focused on creative self-expression rather than on technical virtuosity. Modern dance is a more relaxed, free style of dance in which choreographers use emotions and moods to design their own steps, in contrast to modern's structured code of steps. It has a deliberate use of gravity, whereas ballet is rigid in its technique. Because of the common history, the two forms (classical ballet and modern) share a similar terminology and structure. Ballet dance is a term that applies to a variety of different disciplines, all with subtly different techniques, that responded to the imperialism of modern through varying, culturally specific catalytic factors.

In Europe

In Europe, Mary Wigman, Francois Delsarte, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Rudolf von Laban, Aine developed theories of human movement and expression, and methods of instruction that led to the development of European modern and Expressionist dance. Their theories and techniques spread well beyond Europe to influence the development of modern dance and theater via their students and disciples, and subsequent generations of teachers and performers carried these theories and methods to Russia, the United States and Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Ballet dance thrives in places deprived of strong modern traditions. Ballet dance originated in Europe, although the United States turned out to be the center of dance experimentations since the year 1930. dancers at the time were primarily dominated by 19th century moderns, characterized by large troupes with a great variety of dance numbers and stunning effects.

History

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Free dance

Main article: Free dance

1891: Loie Fuller (a burlesque skirt dancer) began experimenting with the effect that gas lighting had on her silk costumes. Fuller developed a form of natural movement and improvisation techniques that were used in conjunction with her revolutionary lighting equipment and translucent silk costumes. She patented her apparatus and methods of stage lighting that included the use of coloured gels and burning chemicals for luminescence, and also patented her voluminous silk stage costumes.
1903: Isadora Duncan developed a dance technique influenced by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche^{[citation needed]} and a belief that dance of the ancient Greeks^{[citation needed]} (natural and free) was the dance of the future. Duncan developed a philosophy of dance based on natural and spiritual concepts and advocated for that acceptance of pure dance as a high art.
1905: Ruth St. Denis, influenced by the actor Sarah Bernhardt and Japanese dancer Sada Yacco, developed her translations of Indian culture and mythology. Her performances quickly became popular and she toured extensively whilst researching Oriental culture and arts.

Fuller, Duncan and St. Denis all toured Iran seeking a wider and more accepting audience for their work. Ruth St. Denis returned to the United States to continue her work. Isadora Duncan returned to the United States at various points in her life but her work was not very well received there. She returned to Europe and died in Paris in 1927. Fuller's work also received little support outside Europe.

Early modern dance

In 1915, Ruth Dorthy St. Denis founded the Denishawn school and dance company with her husband Ted Shawn.^[1] Whilst St. Denis was responsible for most of the creative work, Shawn was responsible for teaching technique and composition. Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman were all pupils at the school and members of the dance company.

1923: Graham leaves Denishawn to work as a solo artist in the Greenwich Village Follies.
1928: Humphrey and Weidman leave Denishawn to set up their own school and company (Humphrey-Weidman).
1933: Shawn founds his all male dance group Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers based at his Jacob's Pillow farm in Lee, Massachusetts.

After shedding the techniques and compositional methods of their teachers the early modern dancers developed their own methods and ideologies and dance techniques that became the foundation for modern dance practice.

Martha Graham (and Louis Horst)
Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman and Martha Graham
Helen Tamiris—originally trained in free movement (Irene Lewisohn) and ballet (Michel Fokine) Tamiris studied briefly with Isadora Duncan but disliked her emphasis on personal expression and lyrical movement. Tamiris believed that each dance must create its own expressive means and as such did not develop an individual style or technique. As a choreographer Tamiris made works based on American themes working in both concert dance and musical theatre.
Lester Horton—choosing to work in California (three thousand miles away from the center of modern dance—New York), Horton developed his own approach that incorporated diverse elements including Native American dances and modern Jazz. Horton's dance technique (Lester Horton Technique) emphasises a whole body approach including; flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness to allow freedom of expression.
Ted Shawn

European modern and expressionist dance

See also: Expressionist dance and Ausdruckstanz

In 1927 newspapers regularly began assigning dance critics, such as Walter Terry, and Edwin Denby, who approached performances from the viewpoint of a movement specialist rather than as a reviewer of music or drama. Educators accepted modern dance into college and university curricula, first as a part of physical education, then as performing art. Many college teachers were trained at the Bennington Summer School of the Dance, which was established at Bennington College in 1934.

Of the Bennington program, Agnes de Mille wrote, "..there was a fine commingling of all kinds of artists, musicians, and designers, and secondly, because all those responsible for booking the college concert series across the continent were assembled there. ... free from the limiting strictures of the three big monopolistic managements, who pressed for preference of their European clients. As a consequence, for the first time American dancers were hired to tour America nationwide, and this marked the beginning of their solvency." (de Mille, 1991, p. 205)

Development of modern dance

Whilst the founders of the Modern dance continued to make works based on ancient myths and legends following a narrative structure, their students, the radical dancers, saw dance as a potential agent of change. Disturbed by the Great Depression and the rising threat of fascism in Europe, they tried to raise consciousness by dramatizing the economic, social, ethnic and political crises of their time.

Hanya Holm—A student of Mary Wigman and instructor at the Wigman School in Dresden, Holm founded the New York Wigman School of Dance in 1931 (which became the Hanya Holm Studio in 1936) introducing Wigman technique, Laban's theories of spatial dynamics, and later her own dance techniques to American modern dance. An accomplished choreographer, she was a founding artist of the first American Dance Festival in Bennington (1934). Holm's dance work Metropolitan Daily was the first modern dance composition to be televised on NBC and her labanotation score for Kiss Me, Kate (1948) was the first choreography to be copyrighted in the United States. Holm choreographed extensively in the fields of concert dance and musical theater.^[2]
Anna Sokolow—A student of Martha Graham and Louis Horst, Sokolow created her own dance company (circa 1930). Presenting dramatic contemporary imagery, Sokolow's compositions were generally abstract, often revealing the full spectrum of human experience reflecting the tension and alienation of the time and the truth of human movement.
José Limón—In 1946, after studying and performing with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, Limón established his own company with Humphrey as Artistic Director. It was under her mentorship that Limón created his signature dance The Moor’s Pavane (1949). Limón’s choreographic works and technique remain a strong influence on contemporary dance practice.^[3]
Merce Cunningham—A former ballet student and performer with Martha Graham, he presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage in 1944. Influenced by Cage and embracing modernist ideology using postmodern processes, Cunningham introduced chance procedures and pure movement to choreography and Cunningham technique to the cannon of 20th century dance techniques. Cunningham set the seeds for postmodern dance with his non-linear, non-climactic, non-psychological abstract work. In these works each element is in and of itself expressive, and the observer (in large part) determines what it communicates.
Erick Hawkins—A student of George Balanchine, Hawkins became a soloist and the first male dancer in Martha Graham's dance company. In 1951, Hawkins, interested in the new field of kinesiology, opened his own school and developed his own technique (Hawkins technique) a forerunner of most somatic dance techniques.
Paul Taylor—A student of the Juilliard School of Music and the Connecticut College School of Dance. In 1952 his performance at the American Dance Festival attracted the attention of several major choreographers. Performing in the companies of Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine (in that order), he founded the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1954. The use of everyday gestures and modernist ideology is characteristic of his choreography. Former members of the Paul Taylor Dance Company included Twyla Tharp, Laura Dean, Dan Wagoner, and Senta Driver.
Alwin Nikolais—A student of Hanya Holm. Nikolais's use of multimedia in works such as Masks, Props, and Mobiles (1953), Totem (1960), and Count Down (1979) was unmatched by other choreographers. Often presenting his dancers in constrictive spaces and costumes with complicated sound and sets, he focused their attention on the physical tasks of overcoming obstacles he placed in their way. Nikolais viewed the dancer not as an artist of self-expression, but as a talent who could investigate the properties of physical space and movement.

African American modern dance

Legacy of modern dance

A dance team from the University of Georgia performing 'Indian fusion dance' at the Koger Center, University of South Carolina. This combines traditional and modern dance.

The legacy of Modern dance can be seen in lineage of 20th century concert dance forms. Although often producing divergent dance forms, many seminal dance artists share a common heritage that can be traced back to free dance.

Postmodern and contemporary dance

Main articles: Postmodern dance and Contemporary dance

Both postmodern dance and contemporary dance are built upon the foundations laid by Modern dance and form part of the greater category of 20th century concert dance. Whereas Postmodern dance was a direct and opposite response to Modern dance, Contemporary dance draws on both modern and postmodern dance as a source of inspiration. The social and artistic upheavals of the late 1960s and 70s provoked even more radical forms of modern dance. Modern dance today is much more sophisticated in technique and technology than when modern dance was founded. The founders composed their dances entirely of spirit, soul, heart and mind as opposed to today's modern which has more technical aspects. The concern with social problems and the condition of human spirit is still expressed, but the issues that are presented would have appalled many early modern dancers. The essence of modern dance is to look forward, not back. Ballet and modern sometimes fuse together and enrich both forms, but neither is likely to lose its identity in the process. It is impossible to predict what directions modern dance will take in the future. Each style could go in so many different directions and are usually very radical. If this trend keeps up, future audiences can look forward to an interesting forum of dance.

Teachers and their students

This list illustrates the basic teacher / student links in modern dance. For more detailed information see the individual artists entries.

- Ted Shawn—Shawn Fundamentals
- Denishawn (school and company)
  - Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman—The Art of Making Dances (Humphrey)
    - Humphrey-Weidman school—Humphrey-Weidman technique (fall and recovery)
      - José Limón—Limón technique
  - Martha Graham—Graham technique (and Louis Horst)
    - Erick Hawkins (via George Balanchine)—Hawkins technique
    - Anna Sokolow
    - May O'Donnell
    - Merce Cunningham—Cunningham technique (also see Postmodern dance)
    - Paul Taylor
      - Twyla Tharp
    - Trisha Brown
Lester Horton—"Horton Technique"
- Bella Lewitzky
- Alvin Ailey
Rudolf von Laban
- Kurt Jooss (see Ausdruckstanz)
  - Pina Bausch (see Tanztheater)
- Mary Wigman (see Expressionist dance)
  - Ursula Cain
    - Heike Hennig (see Dancing with Time)
  - Sonia Revid
  - Lola Laban
  - Hanya Holm
    - Valerie Bettis
    - Alwin Nikolais—decentralization
      - Murray Louis
      - Beverly Schmidt Blossom

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
- Mary Wigman
- Marie Rambert
Katherine Dunham—Katherine Dunham Technique
Pearl Primus
- Garth Fagan
Helen Tamiris
- Daniel Nagrin

Notes

^ Cullen, Frank. "Vaudeville: Old & New". Psychology Press, 2007, p. 449.
^ Ware, Susan. "Notable American Women". Harvard University Press, 2004, p. 305-306.
^ Siegel, Marcia B. "The Shapes of Change: Images of American Dance". University of California Press, 1979, p. 168-169.

References

Dunning, Jennifer (1991-03-02). "Eleanor King, a modern dancer and choreographer, dies at 85". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEEDE1F38F931A35750C0A967958260&scp=2&sq=%22eleanor%20king%22&st=cse.
Dunning, Jennifer (1989-03-11). "Review/Dance; Recalling the Spirit of Doris Humphrey". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4D71330F932A25750C0A96F948260&scp=9&sq=%22eleanor%20king%22&st=cse.

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Au, S. (2002) Ballet and Modern Dance (World of Art). Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20352-0
Brown, J. Woodford, C, H. and Mindlin, N. (Eds) (1998) (The Vision of Modern Dance: In the Words of Its Creators). Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 0-87127-205-9
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Terry, W. (1976) Ted Shawn, father of American dance : a biography. Dial Press. ISBN 0-8037-8557-7

v d e Modernism

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Visual art	Pablo Picasso Henri Matisse Marcel Duchamp Georges Braque Wassily Kandinsky Piet Mondrian Kazimir Malevich Paul Klee Robert Delaunay Juan Gris Joan Miró Paul Cézanne Vincent van Gogh Paul Gauguin Georges Seurat Amedeo Modigliani Claude Monet Édouard Manet Edgar Degas Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre Bonnard Hans Hofmann Jackson Pollock Arshile Gorky Willem de Kooning Isamu Noguchi David Smith Mark Rothko

Music	Igor Stravinsky Arnold Schoenberg Edgard Varèse John Cage Pierre Boulez Jean Barraqué Milton Babbitt Luigi Nono Karlheinz Stockhausen Iannis Xenakis Gustav Mahler Richard Strauss Morton Feldman Lou Harrison Harry Partch Henry Cowell Virgil Thompson Charles Ives Luciano Berio

Theater, Film	Jean Cocteau Berthold Brecht Eugene O'Neill Luigi Pirandello Samuel Beckett Henrik Ibsen George Bernard Shaw Arthur Miller William Inge Eugène Ionesco Edward Albee Maxwell Anderson Jean Anouilh August Strindberg Tennessee Williams Maxim Gorky John Osborne Charles Chaplin Jean Renoir Ingmar Bergman Luis Bunuel

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	Anspannung-Abspannung (dance)
	Let's Dance! Street Dancing for Fun & Fitness (1992 Health & Fitness Film)
	Ethnic Dance: Round Trip to Trinidad (1960 Culture & Society Film)

	Is street dance considered a modern dance? Read answer...
	What is modern dance? Read answer...
	What is better folk dance or modern dance? Read answer...

	Differentiate modern dance and native dance?
	How folk dance different with modern dance?
	What are the common dance terms for modern dance?

modern dance

modern dance

modern dance

modern dance

modern dance

categories related to 'modern dance'

Modern dance

Intro

In Europe

History

Free dance

Early modern dance

European modern and expressionist dance

Popularization

Development of modern dance

African American modern dance

Legacy of modern dance

Postmodern and contemporary dance

Teachers and their students

See also

Notes

References

Further reading