Chapter 1 Outline

Aesthetic or Barefoot Dance
--Anti-ballet, anti-music hall dance
--Seriousness of purpose
--Use of concert music as accompaniment
--Loose, uncorseted garments
--Women: Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Maud Allen (strong, independent, physically and socially daring, self-sufficient)
Initially more successful in Europe

Dance in America at the Turn of the Century
--Primarily entertainment
--“Dancing…to titilate, decorate or entertain” (Reynolds 2).
--To dance was considered tawdry and compared to prostitution
--Ballet only in Europe
--Spectacle and theatrics the norm

Cultural Milieu
--Americans associated arts with “decadent aristocratic political systems and with luxury and hedonistic tastes” (Reynolds 3).
--Female reformers—notion of physical exercise = “Aesthetic Dancing”
--Suffragette movement for women

Loie Fuller: “La Loie”
--Truly the first! Elaborate costumes and lighting effects. Play of light on her moving costume WAS her dance.
--Not really a dancer by training—primarily an actress.
--Bare feet, and no corsets.
--Dance vocabulary consisted of “12 characteristic motions” (Reynolds 4).
--Folies-Bergere in Paris, 1892.
--Career flourished between 1890-1915. Performed until her death in 1928.
--Mistress of theatrical lighting and movement: draped stage in black velour and started dances in complete darkness.
--View “Fire Dance” (1895) performed on a glass plate lit from below.
--Bisexual?, devoted to mother…
--Girl dance troupe, by 1908 “a school, where she dressed her children in Greek tunics and sent them dancing in the grass; as Anna Pavlova would later do, she recruited girls from England” ( 9).
--La Mer to Debussy’s tone poem
--No viable school or followers remained after she died.
--Perhaps what most sets Loie apart from the true moderns is that she did not make the body the expressive medium; she may have implied it in her swirling draperies, but the motivation of her art was quite contrary to the ascetic state of mind that the twentieth-century moderns embraced, and indeed, lived (10).

Isadora Duncan: 1877-1927
--Fuller saw Duncan dance in Paris in 1901
--"…Isadora revealed the God-given instrument for dancing in the simplest of costumes, shunning the sort of theatrical production elements on which Fuller’s performances depended" (Reynolds10).
--Fuller was impressed and invited Isadora to travel with her group
--“Illustrious emulator”
--The movement for dress reform, health, and hygiene for women had already begun liberating them from tight corsets, an idea Isadora was prompt to adopt (10).
--Others had danced barefoot and to concert music before her
--Her real contribution lay in discovering a new motivation for dance. Growing up in the late 19th century, she was exposed to the sentimental association between aesthetics and the classical world that eulogized Greek culture as the highest expression of human existence. The Greeks believed that mind and body were equal….Duncan combined these Greek ideals with the philosophy of the American Transcendentalists, particularly Ralph Waldo Emerson, who believed that natural facts are signs of spiritual facts—that God is inherent in both man and nature (11).
--…her first idea of dancing came not from antiquity by from the rhythm of waves and the wind in the grass…in reality her vocabulary owed more to a response to nature and to the American fad for Delsarte (11).
--Delsarte’s theory of gesture for performance, based on his study of the relationship between movement and expression
--Genevieve Stebbins, an American proponent of Delsarte: by bringing attention to long-neglected areas of the body, she had a profound influence on modern dance (11).
--Miss A. Dora Duncan, dance teacher (in the Oakland phone book at age 15!)
--Some ballet with Marie Bonfanti in NYC
--Some success as a “salon soloist”
--In 1899 she sailed with her family on a cattle boat for England and there found society patrons, artists, and intellectuals interested in a way they had not been in the United States (12).
--Note concert review from London (13).
--Paris in 1900, saw Fuller, “haunted” the Louvre, saw Rodin’s sculptures who she later met and became his muse among other artists of the day, including photographers Arnold Genthe and Edward Steichen
--Personal relationships unconventional, i.e. lovers and daughter born out of wedlock
In her early years in Europe, Isadora devoted many hours to disciplined introspection, searching for and identifying the source of her irresistable urge to move. She was determined to find a way of harnessing this impetus without resorting to reiterative, predictable discipline (13-14).
--“I did not invent my dance, it existed before me; but it was asleep, and I awakened it.” Duncan quoted in Reynolds (14) and note other quotes on dance at bottom of page 14 and photo on page 15.
--Return to America in 1908 and a second tour in 1911. Composers included Gluck, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Bach, Wagner, and Schubert.
--Personal tragedy: drowning of two children (1913); stillbirth of a third child; overindulged in food and drink and relationships; husband Sergei Esenin, Russian poet who committed suicide, strangled at 49 by her scarf caught in the wheel of a Bugatti auto.
--Political commentary began to infuse her work: Marche Slav and Marseillaise. Note description at bottom of page 16-17.
--“Isadorables,” ensemble of young women.
--Technique was fluid and originated from the solar plexus, strongly driven by rhythm and breath. Her own performance was the key, rather than steps.
Her mood or energy level could alter anticipated details, but she always had in mind a vocabulary of shapes and thematic movements (18).
--Obsessed with establishing a permanent school: first in Berlin, later in France, and finally in Moscow which continued until 1949.
--Introduced velour draperies as backdrops
--Costume should reveal the body and allow it to move freely
--Daring use of concert music
--Tremendous impact on Michel Fokine and ballet

Ruth St. Denis born 1879
--Review websites
--Show business savvy plus spiritual commitment—artistic vision, but popular approval was also important to her
--Fascination with other cultures, particularly the Far East
--Like Duncan, influenced by Delsarte (Mrs. Stebbins) and the national concern for physical culture
--Unusual upbringing: mother a physician with “nervous” disorders, strong religious obsession, father often absent, difficult finances
--Early fascination with Egypt
--Originally a vaudeville type entertainer at the Worth Museum, then legit theatre
--Also studied ballet briefly with Marie Bonfanti
--Dance begins in consciousness, not in the body (Reynolds 23).
--Dance technique irrelevant to her intentions
--Identity as a dancer sprung for seeing the Egyptian Deity cigarette poster!
--Note description of Radha (23-24).
--Also had to go to Europe to gain recognition
--Created several dances based on East Indian religious themes, plus --Nautch as a risque street dancer
--Also sketched by Rodin, offered her own school in Germany, treated as a artist rather than an entertainer, but returned to American in 1909
--First solo dancer to play on Broadway, followed by extensive touring in America
--Ted Shawn first sees her dance in 1910 in Denver
--First full-length ballet, Egypta, portrayed the entire life of a nation from dawn to dusk!
--Hired Shawn to address the ballroom craze, and he later became lover, husband, manager and partner—and eventually her rival.
--Shawn had background in Delsarte and ballet (unusual for the time!)
--Stormy relationship, bowed to public opinion to marry him; she always got first billing!
--Both fell in love with the same man; separated but never divorced
Jacob’s Pillow
--Shawn’s financial management saved St. Denis from ruin
--Company name became Denishawn
--Extended tours were profitable including Europe and the Far East and the U.S.
--Advent of John Martin as NY Times dance critic for nearly 40 years
--Denishawn school (1915-1931), first in LA included a large variety of dance and dance-like instruction, driven largely by Shawn’s conception of technique training
--Enroll in the school to become a company member…
--Shawn’s interest in American Indian tradition, Spanish dance, vernacular dance, ballroom
--Not authentic ethnic forms but intended to evoke the essence
“dance was the first and finest means of religious expression” Shawn, 1926
--St. Denis’ music visualizations wanted “to give physical substance to sounds” (28).
--Humphrey also choreographed for Denishawn
--1931 was the end of Denishawn, foreclosure in 1934, and Miss Ruth on welfare by 1935 (29).
--Impact of the Depression
--Shawn’s male dance company 1933-1940 broke new ground for male dancers
--View “The Men Who Danced”

Maud Allen (1873-1956)
--Bare feet and Greek draperies
--Some of the same music as Duncan
--No remaining video to actually know how she danced
--A Vision of Salome, her most famous dance (31), was highly controversial
--Never changed with the times