Tuesday, 13 July 2021

Dance


Sarah studied and performed classical ballet, contemporary dance and jazz. She studied the Graham technique, the Cunningham technique, and the Limon technique, but, of course, she was there to develop her own choreography. This she did, not really liking any of the techniques she was taught. 

Martha Graham became the Batsheva Dance Company's first director in 1965. Graham's technique pioneered a principle known as "Contraction and Release" in modern dance, which was derived from a stylised conception of breathing. As a dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham broke the rules. She created a dance technique that, along with her groundbreaking choreography, helped spark the revolution known as modern dance. With close to 200 dances in her repertory, Graham was among the most prolific and significant choreographers in dance history, and works such as Appalachian Spring have made her an American cultural icon. Her unique dance vocabulary evolved over the years to meet her changing choreographic needs, but was eventually codified into a standard syllabus, and now, Graham-based movement is taught in studios around the world. 

Merce Cunningham has been a driving force in modern dance. Working with the idea that dance and music should be able to exist independently of each other while sharing the same time and space (a concept developed with musical collaborator John Cage), and making use of chance in developing choreographic phrases, Cunningham has challenged the way we create and view dance. He is also an avid student of new technology, and has embraced film, video and computer animation. As a result, a wealth of his work is available on video, as are tapes of his class exercises. Cunningham has created nearly 200 dances for his own company; his works have also been performed by the Paris Opera Ballet, Boston Ballet, White Oak Dance Project and others. 

José Limón is considered (and he considers himself as well) as a continuator of the established codes already elaborated by modern dance. His main contribution is to use them to display his own expressive interests. In later years, Limon will attribute his primary stylistic influences to Isadora Duncan and Harald Kreutzberg as well. Limon’s choreography is shaped by the choice of acting (in a theatrical sense) the choreographic action, using a narrative dramaturgy with concrete subjects and logical development. Therefore it is common to see frequent use of facial expression and hands in his dances. His work also searches for a wide expressive spectrum.


The picture below was taken in the new century. Sarah was born to dance no matter what..


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