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COMMUNAL DANCE
THEATER DANCE: BALLET
EASTERN DANCE FORMS
WESTERN ETHNIC DANCE
MODERN DANCE
Dance is an expression in rhythmic movement of an intensified sense of life, arising from an inner perception that stimulates both mind and body. By expressing that perception in the form of dance people affirm their delight in existence. Dance is a timeless and universal language.
When dance as simple emotional expression develops into a design, a planned organization of a pattern of movement in rhythm, in space, and on the ground, with its set of steps, gestures, and dynamics, it becomes a specific dance. When this specific dance becomes a group of dances, stylized in a common design, it becomes a dance form. Dance forms, which may take centuries to develop, reflect the customs of the society in which they have evolved.
Dance, then, is not only an individual or group experience, but also a cultural mirror, in which the spirit, character, and artistry of its time is reflected. Depictions in prehistoric cave paintings in Europe suggest that some form of dance already existed during the Paleolithic Period. When placed in this historical perspective, dance can be viewed as both a creative act and a cultural institution, for dance is as old as humankind and therefore reflects many societies, in many stages of history, on every continent of the world.
In the long, ensuing interrelation between dance and society, the dance has served many purposes: expressions of superstition, prayer, ritual, ceremony, social pleasure, entertainment, and art. As the needs of people were progressively expressed in stylizations reflecting human purposes and cultural traditions, and were then transformed and stylized under the impact of historical change, a number of significant dance forms emerged. These dance forms represent two broad lines of development: the first, and earlier, is personal participation in the dance expressions of particular society; the second is the theatricalization of dances as performance for others.
In this overview the major dance forms, in their respective characteristics and cultural settings, will be delineated to provide a broad history of world dance, from its beginnings to the present. This approach is directed toward the two fundamental aspects: dance as participation, where the emphasis is on social expression in dance form, termed communal dance; dance as spectacle, where the emphasis is on professional expression of a dance form, termed theater dance.
COMMUNAL DANCE
In primitive, early tribal cultures dance was a way of life; it was a magic methodology for survival. Confronted by an environment that could be neither rationally controlled nor evaded, members of these tribes unconsciously invented dance as strategy. In their dances they sought to transcend the consciousness of self by achieving an ecstatic state, in which they would arrive at a mastery over evil spirits. They would incorporate the cunning of the snake and the ferocity of the tiger into their own cunning and ferocity; individuals became totally identified with their tribal peers so that each individual's power was thus multiplied.
Primitive Dance
This search for magical mastery over nature through loss of self is the distinctive characteristic of primitive dance. The ecstatic state was reached by the repetition of monotonous movements in powerful rhythm, prolonged beyond endurance. Although the patterns of movement were diverse, taking form from the local tribal practice, the universal aspects of the dance were the rhythmic beat to every movement, usually accompanied by drums; the hard stamping of the feet upon the ground, with bent knees; and the continuous, prolonged repetition of the basic movements.
In the leap dance of Africa, in the whirling dances of primitive Asian tribes, or in the convulsive dancing of the shaman cultures, the purpose was the same: to reach a mystical condition in which the individual could communicate directly with the supernatural and in which the powers of the supernatural could work through that individual. Dancers in more advanced civilizations can re-create the movements but cannot re-create the authentic conviction from which the dynamism of these dances was derived and with which they are still performed, on South Pacific Islands, in Africa, and in Central and South America.
Ritual Dance
The distinction between primitive dance and ritual dance is that the latter is conscious dance, organized volitionally in its design, purpose, and meaning. Therefore, ritual dance represents a much later societal development, a level of civilization where dance celebrates mythology rather than magic. There are a number of examples from diverse ancient civilizations that reflect this stage in the history of dance; two will be discussed, one in ancient Egypt and one in ancient Greece.
By 3000 BC, Egypt had already achieved a highly developed and complex dance culture, culminating in the yearly festivals of Abydos, where the laity and priests gathered to enact in dance the death and resurrection of Osiris. Egyptian dance, which was then characterized by austere angularity and severe linear form, was blended on this occasion with drama and song to produce the first known example of mythological ritual as pageant, as religious mystery play, and as the earliest view of dance as both communal event and spectacle.
The rites of Dionysis in Greece evolved in the early phase of its classic civilization, roughly 1500-1000 BC. These rites, known for their ecstatic character and reminiscent of primitive dance in its abandon of self, constituted a cult festival expressing in wild dance movements the worship of the god of earth and vegetation. While the rites of Dionysis were one aspect of Hellenic society, Greek ritual dance during that period was characterized by the gentler forms of choral dance (round, chain, and processional dance) in which graceful, flowing processions of dancing women, garlanded in flowers, moved in fluctuating circles around the altars honoring their gods. Ritual dance in Greece was a joyous expression, reflecting the Greek aesthetic emphasis on harmony and on idolization of the human body in natural rhythmic movement.
The stylization of the choral dances led, in the later period of Hellenic culture, to the Greek chorus, a formalized dance element in Greek tragic theater. It was in this early theater that Euripedis and Sophocles became unwittingly the first known choreographers in history, when they designed the dances for their plays. Overall, the ritual dance of many ancient civilizations, India, China, the Orient, Egypt, and the Greco-Roman empire, is an evolutionary link between the past of primitive dance and the future forms of their respective folk-dance cultures.
Folk Dance
Reflecting the social and recreational expression of the peasantry in feudal society, Folk dance developed from the racial or regional memories of older motifs in communal dance. Thus the chain dance, the processional, the whirling dance, and the circling dance all became characteristic of European folk dance. Although this period (roughly from the early Middle Ages to the 13th century) was dominated by the Christian church, these folk dances still reflected an underlying, unconscious paganism in the celebration of the harvest and the events of ordinary life, and in dance as charms for rain, fertility, good fortune, and the like. The dances also provided, as in an earlier time, a sense of solidarity with others, particularly in the ethnic dances, which preserved a desired sense of racial or regional identity.
Both folk and ethnic dance share their origins in the peasant cultures of both East and West, but the dances formed two different tributaries to the mainstream of dance history. Ethnic dance, basically a preservation of dance heritage, developed distinctively characteristic styles, a specific and often difficult technique, and a concomitant terminology and schools of training. Moreover, ethnic dance was selective and more artistically conscious than folk dance; it offered a wide range of dance expression and was therefore more appropriate for theatricalization, ultimately evolving into theater dance. Folk dance, basically repetitious and limited in scope, achieved its own line of development in its transformations to social dance in Europe during the Renaissance.
Social Dance
Coupled dance, as a dance form, emerged in the Europe of the 15th century in a variety of vigorous styles in innovative adaptations and refinements of folk dance developed by the dancing masters of the time. These new dances, gay and lively in character, developed first as a social diversion among the aristocracy of France and Italy, then expanded developmentally to every royal court on the continent to become, in the later centuries, part of the social life of the emerging middle class as well.
The forms of social dance in Europe developed in three phases, each characterized by different designs in rhythm, space, and floor patterns. The nature of these dances reflected the related elements of the respective time periods, the elaborate and bulky fashions in clothes, the spacious floor areas of courts and palaces, and the elegance of the successive periods.
Each period can be characterized by its most popular dance: the age of the galliard (1500-1650), when that dance, bold and dashing in expanded movement, consisted entirely of leg thrusts and leaps and demanded the utmost vigor of the dancers; the age of the minuet (1650-1750), when the energetic, expanded, and leaping movements were transformed to close movement in formal, measured, small steps; the age of the waltz (1750-1900), when that dance, with its gliding turns, brought a new joy and intimacy to social dance and enraptured all of Europe.
There were, of course, other, even opposite, dance styles in each period. The courtly pavane and stately saraband were rivals of the galliard; the contredanse and quadrille competed effectively with the minuet; the polka and the mazuka challenged the supremacy of the waltz.
By the end of the 19th century, however, these social dance steps had become repetitious and no longer reflected the quickened pace of the emerging contemporary world. In this vacuum a social dance explosion occurred, the American introduction of the two-step in 1891. Social dance from then on, as a product of the 20th century, belongs to the United States. The two-step was followed by the cakewalk of 1893, in turn followed by ragtime music. Vernon and Irene Castle, in the decade from 1910 to 1920, enchanted both Europe and America with their famous exhibitions of the tango (derived from Argentine folk dance), the Brazilian maxixe, the Castle Walk and the fox-trot. The black influence in jazz dominated in the 1920s with the shimmy and the charleston, a form of the jitterbug, of which another later version was the Lindy hop. The 1930s incorporated Latin American rhythms with the rumba, conga, and samba. World War II interrupted dance evolution in the 1940s, but the 1950s brought the merengue and cha cha. The mid 1950s saw the dramatic emergence of rock 'n' roll, which utterly changed popular music. The 1950s closed with people jitterbugging to rock, but with the 1960s came the bossa nova and discotheque dancing, the latter producing dozens of individualized, free-moving dances, such as the twist. Disco dancing of the 1970s returned to couples together executing often complex, choreographed dance moves. Break dancing, street dancing that combined acrobatic and martial-arts movements, achieved popularity in the 1980s, and the lambada became a craze in 1990.
The role of composers of popular dance music in this development cannot be overestimated, nor can the many other elements that popularized American social dance throughout the world during the first half of the 20th century. Major influences were vaudeville, musical comedy, films, and the popularity of such dancing stars as Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Further reinforcement came from the accompanying technology, such as the mass impact of dance music on radio, records, and tape, and, more recently, the dance images on television.
Social dance today is international and reflects the democratization of dance more clearly than any other contemporary dance form.
THEATER DANCE: BALLET
To understand the development of ballet as dance form over a period from the 15th to the middle of the 19th century, it is necessary to comprehend its basic technical aspects. Ballet is a dance system based on a set of classic, fundamental principles of movement and training that govern every aspect of its form and technique. The principles of this system did not appear simultaneously when ballet emerged in the courts of Italy and France during the 15th and 16th centuries; rather, they were developed, phase by phase, century by century. For example, early ballet was not en pointe (on toe); this characteristic did not appear in ballet until the early 19th century. Early ballet did not have such elevated movements as the grand jete (leaping jump), which developed in the first half of the 18th century. The history of ballet, then, is a history of dance technique, as well as of its evolution as a cultural institution.
French Ballet
Ballet originated in Italy, in the princely courts of the 15th century. In 1581, however, the Ballet Comique de la Reine was produced at the court of King Henry II and Queen Catherine de Medicis of France. This production was in the same genre as that of the earlier Italian dinner and fete ballets, primarily a lavish dance spectacle in which kings and courtiers participated as dancers, and which included many non ballet interludes; these entremets, or diversions, of masked dances and dramatic and operatic motifs, were characteristic of early ballet. Ballet was at this stage rudimentary in technique and lacking in thematic continuity.
The significance of Ballet Comique de la Reine lay in three aspects: it was the first production to combine dancing, music, and acting around a central theme; it was created by the first great choreographer-producer of France, Balthazar de Beaujoyeux; most important, it stimulated the dedication of the French kings to ballet, intensified during the successive reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, when the ballet de cour (court ballet) came into being and quickly dominated all European royal and ducal courts.
Louis XIV became the most potent single influence on the development of ballet when, relinquishing his own role as choreographer, dancer, and patron of ballet, he established the Academie Royale de Danse in 1661 and the Academie Royale de Musique in 1669, which survives today as the Paris Opera.
The trend toward professionalism then began, in training, technique, choreography, and music for ballet. A series of ballet genres developed prior to this event, ballet-masquerade, ballet-melodramatique, and finally ballet a entrees, a polished development that nevertheless suffered from the programmatic inconsistency characteristic of ballet up to this time.
By 1750 the technique included elevation, and during the period from 1750 to 1800, the age of the great choreographer and theorist Jean Georges Noverre, the ballet d'action, which sought narrative coherence, was introduced. The last half of the 18th century found the ballet d'action thriving, with a popularity that helped ballet to separate itself from its then customary incorporation of dramatic and operatic elements and to achieve artistic independence. An important event in this period was the publication by Noverre of his famous Lettres sur la Danse et sur les Ballets (Letters on Dancing and Ballets, 1760; Eng. trans., 1930), which, in its critique of ballet of the time and in its arguments for the reformation of ballet of the future, had a powerful influence upon the ensuing history of ballet and remains a valuable primary source.
By 1830 ballet had entered a new phase, romantic ballet. It was also during this phase that a wealthy new middle class came into prominence in France, and ballet began to appeal to a larger audience. Ballet now became the essence of grace; the ballerinas floated with fully developed technique, now en pointe, and romantic ballet, as a genre, reflected the emotional aspiration of the time and the yearning for life to be more romantic than it possibly can be.
Romantic ballet reached its height in 1841 with the production of Giselle at the Paris Opera, a ballet totally unified in theme, choreography, music, and narrative. The female dancers of the romantic period became legends in their own time, assuming the dominant role that the ballerina was to hold for ballet audiences for years to come.
By the end of the 19th century, however, this period of French classic ballet had become sterile. It waned as a new rival appeared in the east.
Russian Ballet
The Imperial School of Ballet was founded in Saint Petersburg (now Leningrad) in 1738 but did not receive official patronage until 1766, when Catherine II established the directorate of imperial theaters, roughly a century after Louis XIV had established the Paris Opera. In 1866 the directorate was extended to Moscow and the Petrovsky Theater, predecessor of the Bolshoi Theater. Russian ballet, during its ensuing development, became technically the finest ballet of the 19th century, especially under the direction of the choreographer Marius PETIPA. It was the era of the great Russian ballerinas and the music of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, exemplified by such enduring ballets as The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake.
The most brilliant impresario of Russian ballet was Serge Diaghilev, who formed the international Ballet Russe de Serge Diaghilev. Its debut in Paris on May 19, 1909, changed the course of ballet history. During its 20-year existence, Ballets Russes offered new scores by composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Maurice Ravel, and Claude Debussy; decor and costumes by Leon Bakst, Aleksandr Benois, Pablo Picasso, Andre Derain, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, and other major artists; choreography by five major talents, Mikhail Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Bronislava Nijinska, Leonid Massine, and George Balanchine. The ballets included Oiseau de Feu (Firebird, 1910), Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring, 1913), The Prodigal Son (1929), Petrushka (1911), Apollo (1928), and Les Sylphides (1909), among many others. When Diaghilev died in 1929 the Ballets Russes died with him but left an unsurpassed repertoire as legacy. It was resurrected in 1932 as Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which appeared worldwide under various names for 30 years.
United States Ballet
Two ballet companies were formed in the 1930s that still creatively dominate ballet in the United States: New York City Ballet, founded in 1934, and American Ballet Theatre, founded in 1939. Under the guidance of their respective sponsors, Lincoln Kirstein and Lucia Chase, and the work of choreographers Balanchine, Fokine, Antony Tudor, and Jerome Robbins, ballet in the United States developed an impassioned audience in a comparatively short time. The companies stimulated the formation of new ballet companies in many of the major cities of the nation and produced such important innovations in genre as contemporary narrative ballet, reflecting diverse aspects of America and its folklore, abstract ballet, danced to all kinds of music, and experimental ballet in various forms.
World Ballet
The United States, Great Britain, with its Royal Ballet, and the USSR, with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, have the best-known companies and the largest audiences, but there are important ballet companies throughout the world that continue to re-create the classics and enrich the contemporary repertoire. There are, for example, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, Germany's Stuttgart Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet (Het Nationale Ballet), and a number of French ballet companies, each with its own choreographic personality. Ballet is also performed by national companies in Prague, Budapest, Japan, Austria, Canada (National Ballet of Canada, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Le Grande Ballet Canadiens), and Australia, to cite a few examples.
Ballet, in its 500-year history, has survived war, revolution, and social upheaval to bring to its audience, now broadened to mass proportions by performances on television, the undiminished splendors of this form of theater dance.
EASTERN DANCE FORMS
The dance of India is essentially one of symbolic gesture. It is also expressive of the Indian philosophy of inner mastery, not the mastery over time, space, and gravity as in the dance of the West, but mastery over self, through movements of exquisite control and manifold meaning.
One of the major traditional forms brought to theater dance by India is the Bharata Natyam, a dance system of movement and gesture. It is derived from the Natyasastra, written by the ancient sage Bharata in the 5th century BC. It is so comprehensive and precise that it offers not only an entire repertoire of complex movements for the hands, limbs, and torso, but includes a set of 36 instructions for glances, to be used in expressing a range of emotions and thoughts.
The dance, originally performed by ceremonial dancers in the temples, still requires the most rigorous training and dedication on the part of the contemporary dancers who bring the bharata natyam to the stage.
Three other dance forms, along with the bharata natyam, constitute the mainstream of theater dance in India. All originated in either religion or folklore, or in blends of both. These are kathakali, a dance drama of Hindu mythology; kathak, a strongly rhythmic dance, with accelerated foot tapping and dynamic turns; and manipuri, a dance of vigorous movement and acrobatic agility, which plays a significant role in the contemporary renascence of theater dance in India.
Indian influence has been widespread in dance, blending with indigenous religious and folklore traditions. Each area affected expresses in its dance a distinctive ethnic personality in symbolic stylizations. Some representative examples are the fire dances of Sri Lanka; the wayang-wong of Java, an extremely polished dance-drama-theater piece; and the legong of Bali, a pantomime dance in which the body is in simultaneous continuous movement, from eyebrows to feet. Chinese influence is also apparent in Southeast Asia, as in the dances of Cambodia (Kampuchea) and Thailand, which, although in the tradition of mythological dances of the Indian kathakali, are more action oriented.
In China, Peking Opera offers a total art form, synthesized from ceremonial, folkloric, and religious origins that are part of an ancient and extremely rich dance heritage. It is a fusion of drama and song, made demanding by the complex symbolism of the movements, where every dancer is also actor, singer, and acrobat, and each has an independent set of hand gestures and movement patterns designed for the specific character role performed. Props are minimal, and almost no scenery is used, thus requiring that the utmost significance be given to the movement and gesture sequence. This approach characterizes the essence of Chinese dance; that is, the illusion created should be more powerful than reality. It is a power of evocation rather than of representation.
In Japan preservation of the cultural past governs theater dance, as in the highly refined art form of Noh drama and the popular expression of Kabuki. The first of the dances native to Japan, other than the forms of Bugaku, Gigaku and Kagura, which were derived from neighboring cultures, was the Sarugaku, originating in 15th century ritual dance at the Shinto shrines and evolving into the Japanese dance and drama called Noh. This stylized theater begins with dialogue and singing to express the emotional content and scenario, and then uses dance as the climactic expression of emotion and meaning.
The Noh dance is extremely abstract and is considered an esoteric form even among cultivated Japanese. The timing of the movements and the precise expression of gesture and mime are significant; the symbolism is rendered even more complex by the use of wooden masks and elaborate costumes, all of which have distinct meanings.
While Noh is the classic art form of Japanese theater, the popular theater form is Kabuki, a popularized offspring of Noh in four variations: Kyogen, a dance with dramatic content; dances from the Noh drama, in less formal and abstract form; transformation dances, which constitute, in effect, a variety show, characterized by rapid sequences of impersonations; and Zyoruri, a comic dance.
While Noh and Kabuki are Japan's traditional theater dance, considerable Japanese interest exists in ballet and modern dance. New forms, such as Butoh, combining the action of the West with the symbolism of the East, are being developed under the creative influence of young Japanese choreographers who have studied in both worlds.
WESTERN ETHNIC DANCE
There are a great number of notable ethnic dance companies in contemporary theater; they bring their respective folklore traditions to the stage in recreations of folk dance as an art form and in innovative choreography within each stylized form. One of the best known is the Moiseyev Dance Company, which stages Russian folk dance; others, among many, are Inbal Dance Theatre of Israel, National Folk Ballet of Yugoslavia, Danzas Venezuela, Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company, and Ballet Folklorico de Mexico.
The oldest and most illustrative example in the West of a theater dance form that has retained its folkloric base is Spanish dance. Its theatricalization has its origins in the classical period, for the style was known in Greece in the 5th century BC; in the later dance spectacles of Imperial Rome the dancers from Andalusia were already on tour.
The emergence of Spanish ethnic dance as theater was an almost inevitable outcome of its fiery eloquence; the Spanish dance is the most physical expression among all dance forms of the sensuality of love and its attendant passions. Technically, it is the footwork in Spanish dance that is most characteristic, the striking of the toe, the heel, and the full sole in a variety of tonic and rhythmic combinations, accentuated by the click of castanets and the rhythms of an accompanying guitar. The carriage of head and torso, as much as the movements, are basic to emotional projection, unequaled in the expression of pride.
The developmental influences of Spanish ethnic dance are a blend of Moorish, gypsy, and regional folk dance, exemplified in the Fado, the Fandango, the Flamenco, and the Bolero, and in the jota of Aragon, the seguidillas of Castile, and the sevillanas of Andalusia.
The transition to an art form was accomplished almost single-handedly by La Argentina (Antonia Merce) during the early years of the 20th century; she was regarded by many as the greatest exponent of Spanish dance in the world. In 1946 Ballet Espanol was formed, featuring Jose Greco and Carmen Amaya.
MODERN DANCE
Introduced by the unique performances of Isadora Duncan at the turn of the century, Modern dance is an art form of the 20th century. Although Duncan created no definite form, she remains the symbol of modern dance in her departure from all traditional dance forms and in her emphasis on unique and spontaneous expression.
Modern dance is in fact neither a form nor a technical system. It is a point of view that stresses creative individuality in choreography and dance execution. Since modern dance is so personal in its approach, its history is that of the dancer-choreographers and their respective influences in pioneering this art form.
There are three lines of genealogy, starting with the Americans. In 1915, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn founded the Denishawn School in Los Angeles, an event generally considered to be the beginning of the modern dance movement. Three important dancers emerged from this school, each with individual dance concepts: Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Martha Graham. Humphrey and Weidman formed their own school and company in 1928; Graham left Denishawn in 1923, danced and taught for several years, formed her own school in 1926, and in 1929 presented her first concert with herself and members of her school.
During the 1930s a number of European dancers, many of them disciples of Rudolf von Laban, the Hungarian-born dance theorist who developed unique concepts of movement and space relationships, began their own experiments. The most notable, in terms of their later influence, were Kurt Jooss, who remained in Europe, and Mary Wigman, who started her school in Dresden, Germany, in 1920 but, through her pupil Hanya Holm, strongly influenced American theater dance in the field of expressive dance.
Another group of American dancers also emerged in the 1930s, not from dance schools but from the professional musical theater, including Lester Horton and Helen Tameris. The dancer-choreographers in all three groups created individual dance approaches and established major spheres of influence. Their followers include Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, La Meri, Jose Limon, and Twyla Tharp, among many other exponents of modern dance.
Modern dance may be characterized as the most intellectual of all dance forms, despite its emphasis on spontaneity, because the dancer deals with abstract concepts of emotions, space, time, and movement. The dance then becomes not an interpretation, but a statement of the dancer's intellectual as well as emotional perceptions.
Mildred Navaretta
Bibliography: Anderson, J., Ballet and Modern Dance (1986), and The American Dance Festival (1987); Banes, Sally, Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance (1987); Chujoy, Anatole, and Manchester, P. W., The Dance Encyclopedia, rev. ed. (1967); Clarke, Mary, and Vaughan, David, The Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet (1977); Cohen, Selma Jeanne, Dance as a Theatre Art (1974); de Mille, Agnes, The Book of the Dance (1964); Highwater, Jamake, Dance: Rituals of Experience (1978); Horst, Louis, Pre-Classic Dance Forms (1953; repr. 1968); Jowitt, Deborah, Time and the Dancing Image (1988); Kendall, Elizabeth, Where She Danced: The Birth of American Art Dance (1984); Kirstein, Lincoln, Dance (1935; repr. 1970); Langer, Suzanne, Feeling and Form (1953); Sachs, Kurt, World History of the Dance, trans. by Bessie Schonberg (1937; repr. 1963); Siegel, Marcia, Watching the Dance Go By (1977); Sorrell, Walter, The Dance Through the Ages (1967) and Dance in Its Time (1986); Terry, Walter, The Dance in America, rev. ed. (1971); Wigman, Mary, The Language of Dance, trans. by Walter Sorrell (1966).
American choreographer Alvin Ailey's (1931-1989) works include Revelations (1960), to traditional black music; Flowers (1971), to music by Pink Floyd and Janis Joplin; The Lark Ascending (1972, to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams; and For Bird, With Love (1984), a tribute to jazz musician Charlie "Bird" Parker.
Actor and dancer Fred Astaire (1899-1987) and singer, actress and dancer Ginger Rogers (1911- 1996) were America's most famous dance team. Many of their routines--in films such as The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935), told romantic tales with a skill and grace unmatched to this day.
George Balanchine (1904-1983) was the artistic director and one of the founders of New York City Ballet. One of the most prolific and demanding choreographers of the 20th century, he emphasized in his work the primacy of pure dance over plot.
Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948- ), the Latvian-born virtuoso dancer, is famous for his brilliant but highly disciplined technique. Baryshnikov left the Kirov Ballet in 1974 for the chance to extend his repertoire in modern ballets.
Isadora Duncan's (1877-1927) expressive dance style influenced the wave of interpretive movement that came to be known as modern dance. Duncan freed the body from choreographic rigidity and created a lyrical flow of movement that both evoked nature and celebrated human spirit.
Dame Margot Fonteyn (1919-91) wears a striking costume in a scene from the ballet La Peri (1956). Fonteyn's exquisite style and characterization brought her great admiration as a dancer. In 1956, Fonteyn was created a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her contributions.
Martha Graham (1894-1991), pictured here in Letter to the Word (1940), was one of the most innovative and influential American dancers and choreographers of the 20th century. Graham's brusque, emotion-laden style of movement, perpetuated in her dance company, became a major force in the evolution of modern dance.
Gene Kelly (1912-1998) displays his athletic dancing style. A leading Hollywood dancer and actor during the 1940s and '50s, Kelly has since turned to film directing, scoring popular successes with Gigot (1963) and Hello Dolly (1969).
Natalia Makarova (1940- ) is seen in a performance of Swan Lake. Makarova was acclaimed for her lyrical interpretations of roles in both contemporary and classical ballet, most notably for her performance in the title role of Giselle.
Vaslav Nijinsky (1888-1950) was one of the 20th century's greatest dancers. Nijinsky achieved his greatest success as the premier dancer and choreographer of the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev.
Rudolf Nureyev's (1938-1997 ) brilliant technique, powerful stage presence, and energetic style made him one of the most acclaimed dancers of the 20th century.
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), a Russian dancer, was one of the most gifted and highly acclaimed ballerinas of the 20th century. Her lyrical interpretations of classical roles, most notably those of The Dying Swan, created (1907) expressly for her by the choreographer Mikhail Fokine, and Giselle, won her international recognition.
Jerome Robbins (1918- ) is one of the most versatile American choreographers of the 20th century. Robbins integrates distinctly American themes and music into his classical and modern works, created primarily for the New York City Ballet, and uses these elements in musical theater. West Side Story (1957), which Robbins directed and choreographed for both the stage and screen, receiving (1962) an Academy Award for the film, is one of his most popular works. (The Bettmann Archive)
