DANCE 100 City College of San Francisco Modern Dance Alwin Nikolais Discussion

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1. Of all the Modern dancers' lives and dance styles I've mentioned, who was your favorite dancer? Perhaps their dance style appealed to you or their life story was inspiring . Please describe your favorite modern dancer, and say why they are your favorite.

2. Please reply to one of the following two posts, and be sure to add something new to the conversation besides just agreeing with them or complimenting their post.

post1: My favorite modern dancer is Merce Cunningham because his dance style was based on randomness/chance and I also liked how he was a rule-breaker of dance. What drew me to his dance style is that it has no rules and that you could express how you are feeling in that moment through your body movements. I also liked how his style was very random because some dancers interpret music differently so it was cool to see how others interpreted in their own way. I also can relate to Cunningham because he started off by dancing for Martha Graham's company where he got all his training and I also started dancing at a dance company when I was a little girl. Another way I can relate to Cunningham is that he was most famous for being a rule breaker in dance and I feel like I as well am a rule breaker because when I dance I like to mix up different styles like hip hop and contemporary.

post2: My favorite modern dancer/choreographer is Elizabeth Streb. Elizabeth Streb created her own kind of modern dancing. She used action mechanics, to create extreme action in dance. This kind of dance involved trampolines, tumbling, jumping cords e.t.c. This is my favorite because it gives the definition of modern dancing a little kick. This dance style is more than just dancing, it is fast moving and will keep you at the edge of your seat. This kind of dance is known to take risks. This, in my opinion, makes the performance a lot more entertaining to watch. You do not know what will come next and will constantly keep you on your toes. This is the kind of entertainment that I enjoy watching, making Elizabeth Streb my favorite modern dancer.





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Isadora Duncan was a San Francisco girl, and a rebel form the start. She tried ballet and hated it; she said it was against nature, and resolved to invent her own style of dance, based on Grecian art and sculture, and expressing her own emotions. Her dance style contained pedestrian movements, and was generally very natural, flowy and lightweight. She is famous for being known as "The Mother of Modern Dance.” Ruth St. Denis was born plain Ruthie Dennis in New Jersey, and started out as a showgirl on Broadway. She soon was inspired to make her own way as a solo dancer, recreating her verions of dances of the Middle and Far East. She married another dancer, Ted Shawn, and together they moved to L.A. and opened a school called Denishawn. Her dance style was described as "exotic" and she is famous because of the Denishawn school she and Ted created, and being the first to teach this form of dance commercially. Martha Graham began as a student at Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's school (Denishawn). In 1925 she branched out on her own, as she felt Ruth and Ted's exoticisms were not her style. True! Her style was much more grounded, dramatic, and emotion-filled. Key words to describe her dancing: "contract and release," which refers to what she does with her torso in moments of extreme emotion. Why is she famous? She created, notated, and taught the Graham Technique, a very specific way of dancing that is still taught in Modern Dance programs around the world today. Katherine Dunham was an African American dancer who came from a family that was able to give her ballet lessons when she was young. She went to college at the University of Chicago, where she got a degree in Anthropology in 1936. As part of her thesis, she traveled to Haiti to study their indigenous dances and fell in love with their dance style, which was a blend of African and Caribbean dance. She brought these dances and this style home with her, and created the first all-black Modern dance company in the USA. She and her company performed in Hollywood films, and in the NYC Opera Aida. The fact that she did all of this, and gained acceptance, during segregation is phenomenal. Alvin Ailey was part of the 2nd Generation of Modern dancers, also African American; he saw Katherine Dunham's company perform when he was a young man, and it showed him that there might be a place for him in the dance world. He moved to L.A. to study with a teacher named Lester Horton, and formed his own company in NYC a few years later. His style is the architectural Lester Horton technique, and he is known because his company was not all black, but a mix of all races; his Ailey School was a haven for nurturing black artists and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance. Alwin Nikolais had a rule that said "Motion, not Emotion." Like most Post Moederns, he thought dance could be beautiful without telling a story or showing emotion. Here is a dance he created in 1953, called "Tensile Involvement.” Merce Cunningham was another Post Modern who didn't believe in rules and who had no use for storytelling or dances with emotional meaning. He started as a dancer in Martha Graham's company, but soon left to develop his own drastically different style. He believed dances could be created and performed by flipping a coin to determine which steps would be used, and by allowing a certain level of improvisation is his dances. His choreographic style is based on randomness and chance, and he is famous as a rule breaker. His music had nothing whatsoever to do with the dancing, and the sets and costumes were equally random. When asked in an interview what his dances mean, he answered, "It means that I am dancing.”
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Running Head: MODERN DANCE

1

Modern Dance
Student Name:
Institution Name:

MODERN DANCE

2

Of all the Modern dancers' lives and dance styles I've mentioned, who was your favorite
dancer? Perhaps their dance style appealed to you, or their life story was inspiring.
Please describe your favourite modern dancer and say why they are your favorited.
My Favourite Modern Dancer is Alwin Nikolais. His style of dance is unique, unlike
that of other dancers. Most dancing styles usually incorporate the use of emotions to arouse
the audience and make them enjoy the dance. Nonetheless, Alwin's dance styl...


Anonymous
This is great! Exactly what I wanted.

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