Humanities 690R

American Modern
Dance
A New Frontier for Gendered Performance

Erica Burgin
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In examining questions of gender and social norms, the stage has continually offered a

space for these questions to be displayed, studied, and manipulated. Theatre and opera have often

held the spotlight for these gender questions to be examined, but dance performances hold an

important place in the discourse as well, particularly in the opening of the twentieth century. It

was during this intermediary period between the initial and later waves of feminism that dance

saw a revolution that reflected the changing social tones of America.

Seeking escape from male control, rebellious women in the twentieth century

have rendered asunder old patterns of women as handmaidens or illusionary

embodiments of men as they create new forms of dance (“modern dance”),

manage their own companies, and move barefoot with their own power (Hanna

xv).

The birth of American Modern Dance broke from previous dance traditions, departing from the

deeply-rooted socio-political underpinnings of those forms. Riding the wave of feminism,

American Modern Dance was pioneered by women and epitomized their desire to speak through

their art form.

Before examining how American Modern Dance allowed women the chance to

metaphorically speak through their art, it is first important to recognize that art, at a basic level

does indeed communicate. Aesthetic theorist R.G. Collingwood undertook the communicative

nature of dance when he presented his views on artistic theory. “We can answer the question:

‘What kind of a thing must art be, if it is to have the two characteristics of being expressive and

imaginative?’ The answer is: ‘Art must be language.’” (Collingwood, 273). This statement

requires an understanding of what language truly is, not simply what it is commonly construed

as. Prior to stating his theory of art, Collingwood examines language, particularly its
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intersections with symbols, physical and imaginative expression, as well as formal elements of

grammar and analysis. “In its original or native state, language is imaginative or expressive: to

call it imaginative is to describe what it is, to call it expressive is to describe what it does. It is an

imaginative activity whose function is to express emotion” (Collingwood, 225). By imagination

Collingwood means an idea, drawing on the root of “image.” Thus, language is founded in

image, not necessarily perceived by the eye but formed within the mind; the employment of

these images allows for emotional expression.

It is important to realize that language, for Collingwood, is not limited to verbal

expression. His encompassing view of language addresses the broad swath of activities used to

communicate, from gestures to systematized forms.

Vocal language is thus only one among many possible languages or orders of

languages. Any of these might, by a particular civilization, be developed into a

highly organized form of emotional expression. […] We are now dealing with

language as it is before being adapted to serve the purposes of thought. […] Every

kind of language is in this way a specialized form of bodily gesture, and in this

sense it may be said that the dance is the mother of all languages (Collingwood,

242-244, emphasis added).

At the fundamental level of language and communication lies dance, out of which other

languages have sprung. Collingwood further clarifies, “language is simply bodily expression of

emotion, dominated by thought in its primitive form as consciousness” (235). Bodily expression

of emotion is language at its most primitive, original shape. As women utilized artistic realms to

seek a metaphorical voice, it makes sense that they eventually turned to dance, a primal root of

emotional communication.
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American Modern Dance grew neatly between the first wave of feminist activism in the

late 19th century and the second major push in the mid to late 20th century, reflecting a political

climate that was being called upon to recognize female voices. These literal voices sought power

through the suffrage movement; they were granted the right to vote in 1920 by the passage of a

new amendment to the Constitution. As some women campaigned for, then celebrated this

achievement, female dancers looked to create a metaphorical voice for themselves that could

break through the long-standing tradition of ballet – a field long-dominated and directed by men.

"The […] effort toward female assertion takes place through their development of

a new form of dance antipodal to ballet at the turn of the twentieth century.

Modern dance was in part a demand for freedom from the Victorian era's

constraints on women and also a manifestation of the emerging freedom of

women in the United States" (Hanna, 246).

The pioneers of American Modern Dance literally and metaphorically threw off constraints as

they formed this new dance style, seeking to free their bodies. By doing so, they also opened the

avenue to create a metaphorical voice for themselves, reflecting the move towards women’s

freedom and recognition.

An important feature of presenting gender on stage is the power of the female voice.

Studies in theatre and opera have repeatedly emphasized and illustrated the ability of the literal

female voice to appropriate power. Leslie Dunn and Nancy Jones, in their introduction to

“Embodied Voices” highlight the importance of voice as a place of articulation between an

individual and society (2). Within the discourse on the power of female voices, however, there is

some consideration given for the embodied voice, which is where American Modern Dance

comes in.
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Dance certainly may be an end in itself-- pleasurable to do and needing no excuse

or pretext outside itself. However, dance my also be a means to another end. As a

form of nonverbal communication that scholars have documented as implicated in

interpersonal regulation, dance may convey such messages as what it is to be

sexual, what it is to be a man or woman, what it is to come hither, see me, or

make love with me. Dance may demonstrate interpersonal liaisons, provide an

avenue of social mobility, and offer an option to break out of a mold" (Hanna,

242).

This explanation by Hanna illustrates how the embodied voice – of dance, in this case – can

address and communicate issues of gender, desire, and rebellion. The power of an embodied

voice is just as compelling as a literal voice, and sometimes even more so; in American Modern

Dance, quotidian motions play out on stage, drawing all audience members into the image being

created. Not everyone can sing like a coloratura, but everyone walks. Dance, and especially

American Modern Dance, uses motion to portray questions of gender and power.

While theatre and opera have typically been considered to be the prime forum for

presenting gender questions, American Modern Dance also takes on questions of gender;

additionally, it arose just as the golden age of opera was ending. Given the circumstances, it

seems only logical to consider modern dance as the new art form to take on gender issues. Opera

was a place for women to gain power through the female voice, a tradition that began in

seventeenth century Venice and continued through the golden age of opera.

Opera as a whole continued to prosper on the world stage, finding a seemingly

never-ending supply of new audiences and new practitioners and reaching a peak

of activity in the years just preceding the First World War. Only in the 1920’s did
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this productivity finally decline, when the depressed world economy brought

opera houses under severe financial pressures, the wages of singers were cut

substantially, and the already faltering production of new operatic works

decreased sharply. By 1930, the “golden age” had ended (Rutherford 3-4).

Opera had a long and successful run as an art form, granting a space for women to gain power

both literally – economic success and worldly fame – and figuratively – expressing the beauty

and strength of the female voice. As it waned in popularity, a new art form rose to fill the

function opera had served in promoting feminist discussions. American Modern Dance offered a

breakthrough that theatre and opera had not seen before. Instead of focusing only on literal

female voices, modern dance shifted the emphasis to metaphorical voices as expressed through

women’s bodies. Now that women’s voices were recognized and acknowledged for their

expression and power, it was time to push the frontier and examine the more subtle nuances of

women’s metaphorical voices.

American Modern Dance was able to accomplish something that neither theatre nor opera

could: it broke away from male-controlled forms and successfully created a style uninhibited by

masculine overtones. Rutherford recognized the difficulty of working in a male-oriented art

form, specifically referencing the opera world.

Certainly, opera was as tightly woven into the fabric of social customs as other

cultural manifestations, and as equally subject to the dominant themes that

pervaded artistic reflection. And Clément is right to identify its provenance as

essentially masculine. Only a handful of women composers and librettists found

their way into operatic composition; of those, even fewer successfully achieved

public performance in élite opera houses (10).

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For all its public acclaim, opera functioned in a male-oriented world, upholding that paradigm by

keeping women relatively limited in their roles in perpetuating the art form. American Modern

Dance, by contrast, decidedly broke from masculine traditions, even within its own genre of

dance.

Prior to the advent of modern dance, ballet was the primary form of dance. In many ways

it mirrored the operatic tradition: it was begun by males and largely controlled by them

throughout its long history. Women first appropriated space on the dance floor in a way similar

to the divas. They established themselves as virtuosic performers in their field; however, unlike

the divas, these ballet prima donne were unable to make any headway for social change. By the

1930s, the time for a fundamental shift in dance and its underwriting politics had come; this time

it would start in the capitalist and socially fluid land of America. As a young country built on

revolution and change, it was really the only place that allowed space for a creative break from

centuries of tradition, just as dance offered the ideal space for this revolution to be developed in.

Modern dance's liminal place […] lends it importance in offering an original

perspective on how the arts reflect and contribute to the struggles and composition

of our world. The instructiveness of dance begins with its elusiveness-- the active

embodiment of an idea, practice, or historical era and its fleetingness. The

inability to fix or stop the moment of dance allows for continual transformation of

our finite bodies (Foulkes, 6).

America in the early 20th century was a place of flux, and uncertainty. It needed an art form that

could accompany the social climate while bolstering confidence in the concept of change itself.

American Modern Dance arose from a growing need to depart from old traditions in favor of a

dance style that was relevant to the times.

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Feminist activism began in the mid-19th century as women began campaigning for voting

rights in the United States, and it comes as no surprise that dance began to reflect the changing

political moods. Of course, its response came in the shape of formal differences, not directly

through political commentary. Art acted as a stage for new images to be examined and created.

When moving images created by dancers violate expected male and female roles

and their conventional expressions, the novel signs onstage charge the atmosphere

and stimulate performers and observers to confronting the possibility of altered

life-styles. Dances are social acts that contribute to the continual emergence of

culture (Hanna, xiii).

As American Modern Dance emerged, it grew almost exclusively from the minds and bodies of

women who wished to examine the power structures as they were manifest in movement codes,

who wished to challenge conventional views of dance and women in dance. Despite the fact that

this movement pre-dated Judith Butler, it supports her viewpoint that women needed to

appropriate acts and locations where gender was created in order to effectively contest the

“status-quo” views of gender.

The critical task is […] to locate strategies of subversive repetition enabled by

those constructions, to affirm the local possibilities of intervention through

participating in precisely those practices of repetition that constitute identity and

therefore, present the immanent possibility of contesting them (Butler, 52).

Butler believed that the task of feminism was to confront existing views of constructed identity;

to try and establish a viewpoint outside of that would ultimately bring into play the very position

of power from which feminism sought escape (Butler, 52). American Modern Dance

successfully navigated the existing structures of dance and took over them to present a new
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ideological position. It was not particularly simple to change the face of dance after such a long

and widespread promotion of ballet, but the leading women of American Modern Dance were

strong and capable, using their artistic vision to effect changes.

Isadora Duncan opened one of the double-doors that American Modern Dance would

enter through. Beginning her performance career in the late 19th century, Duncan presented a free

image of a woman, no longer constrained by corsets and tight dresses, no longer bound to the

strict movements of ballet. She drew on the concepts of philosophers Francois Delsarte and

Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, who both emphasized the role of the body in art and advocated a mind-

body connection in performance. Drawing on classical Greek images for its draping costumes

and natural appearance, Duncan’s new style appeared lithe and limber as it moved freely, only

conforming itself to her desires and whims. Though unappreciated on her home soil, where

audiences preferred the ballet tradition and seemed hesitant to break with it, Duncan carried her

liberating image abroad to Europe, where she met with great acclaim.

Isadora was a rebel, and her revolution was not only against the ballet but also

against her era's ideas about men and women. The woman suffrage movement,

begun in the United States in mid-century, was by then sweeping women to the

resolution that standards applied equally for men and women. The century which

produced Susan B. Anthony and Julia Ward Howe was the era of Isadora and her

"new" ideal for dance. With the zeal typical of her time, Isadora set out to change

the world she lived in (Maynard, 33).

A zealous and impassioned performer, Duncan truly served the function of opening a door for

American Modern Dance, primarily through her ability prepare the world for impending change.

Additionally, her philosophical ideas for dance prefaced the growth of a more organic dance
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style. The full surge of American Modern Dance would pass through the cleft Duncan opened in

the dance world.

Opening the second double-door of American Modern Dance were Ted Shawn and Ruth

St. Denis, who married and co-founded the dance school, Denishawn. While focusing on

theatrical performances, particularly of ethnic dance styles, the school also encouraged students

to explore the art form of dance. Far more than any stylistic development, it was this blending of

ethnic movements with stage presentations and encouragement towards creativity that made

Denishawn a significant factor in opening the door for American Modern Dance. Though

contemporaries of Isadora Duncan, their artistic styles did not inform each other; they existed in

different artistic realms. Duncan built her reputation in Europe, largely unappreciated and

criticized in America. The Denishawn school established a strong, positive image in the United

States. Their core values of artistic development and imaginative performers paved the way for

the dynamic rise of American Modern Dance as an identifiable art form. Out of this school came

the mother of modern dance, Martha Graham.

During the years of Duncan and Denishawn, the political climate was continually, if

slowly, progressing towards greater acknowledgement of the feminist arguments. Significant

strides were made, particularly when women were granted voting rights nationwide in the United

States. Fashion styles changed, especially in the roaring twenties, and even the workplace began

to open more to women. It seems almost natural, then, to simultaneously witness the rising star

of Martha Graham, who would forever change the world of dance as she moved American

Modern Dance into the mainstream.

Martha Graham grasped the ideology first experimented upon by Isadora Duncan, that of

the mind-body connection, and developed an identifiable dance method that reflected both this
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philosophical idea as well as the emerging socio-political changes. Marian Horosko said of her:

“Graham was the most famous, most controversial, and most prolific of all the modern dance

pioneers [...] Her revolutionary dance making has been compared to the artistic innovations of

Picasso and the musical genius of Stravinsky" (ix). Graham truly was a revolutionary figure for

modern dance: unlike past luminaries creating new styles of dance, Graham was a woman. She

choreographed from a woman’s perspective, utilizing the woman’s mind and body as it existed

in the relevant world. "[I]n the thirties, when the company was composed entirely of women, her

dances reflected the social climate of protest by using angular, vigorous, percussive, and

purposeful movements as well as cupped hands and angular arms to confront the concept of

"feminine" movements" (Horosko, xi). In addition to conveying specifically female concepts,

Graham focused on the American woman and the struggles she dealt with. “Martha Graham

bequested future generations a history of dance refocused from a woman's point of view. […S]he

has been concerned with issues of dominance" (Hanna, 204). "Graham's dances speak of the

American temperament, especially of 'woman's struggle for dominance without guilt'" (Hanna,

205). The living struggle of a woman’s body and the unique point of view it provided gave her

with ample source material as she developed her new choreographies.

Unafraid of embracing the outside influences that shaped American Modern Dance in

general and her choreography in particular, Martha recognized that dance had a need to illustrate

the questions of its originating culture. Graham believed that bodies and their movements could

reveal the state of the soul, both an individual soul, as well as a collective soul. “If Martha

Graham is right, and bodies daily accumulate social tensions, triumphs, and woes, dance, then, is

a fluid act of revelation whereby newspaper headlines move and get rearranged” (Foulkes, 7).

She did, however, make a clarification about her presentation of these social traces inscribed on
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the soul and body. “I’m interested in human rights, not politics,” she said (Horosko, 157).

Coming in the early 20th century, riding the wave of growing concern for feminist rights,

American Modern Dance captured the revolutionary nature of its time in a way that no previous

dance form had fully realized; it looked squarely at troubling power structures as they related to

women and responded with an art form created by women that broke the rules established by the

long-lasting and wide-reaching masculine form of ballet.

The political concerns of feminism, growing in the fertile fields of America, spurred an

artistic response that both reflected the socio-political climate and furthered social change. "The

most romantic and paradoxical fact about Modern Dance is that it began as a rebellion against

the social and artistic conventions of the times, and became the chief style of creative dance in

America" (Maynard, 9). While it was not uncommon to see politics in the sub-structure of art

and particularly dance, American Modern Dance overturned the long-standing tradition of a

male-dominated dance style, epitomizing the feminist movement in early 20th century America.

Males primarily have been the choreographers who project fantasies and longings

as they conjure women into existence or exorcise them into oblivion. Or they

make strong threatening women manageable for men. Yet dances with imagery

of, for example, Judith or Salome convey the power of women to undo,

contaminate, or overpower men. […] Rebellious women […] challenge

established traditions by choreographing women in many-faceted roles of stature,

independence, and dominance. Unintentionally these new images spawn reactions

toward the persisting conflicting notions of woman as life giver, nurturer, sex

object, and castrator (Hanna, 30).

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Pioneers in American Modern Dance created images of strong women in powerful roles,

reclaiming female bodies to express female interests and desires – no longer subjects to male

domination. Such a change was less of a political move, for it stemmed from artistic interests and

anxieties. "The artists, although sympathetic and indignant about social ills, were not easily

conscripted for political propaganda. Their dedication, in a word, was to dance" (Maynard, 101).

Dance offered women the ability to shake free old gender views and create new ones; it existed

on a stage and not a political arena, allowing it freedom to play with gender notions with

minimal repercussion.

The feminist movement expressed an interest in more than just political and social

change. Truly, no real change can be made until physical perceptions and actions change. Kano

clarifies how this functions in feminism.

[W]e need to remember that feminism is not just about words and ideas, and that

the body for feminism is not merely a transparent medium for the expression of

word and ideas. […] It is about a growing awareness of one’s own mind and body

– and about a kind of training of the mind and body that was perhaps only

available to women who were also commodified sexually (Kano, 230).

Female dancers dealt with sexual commodification from their earliest steps on stage, performing

in roles dictated by men, their every movement proscribed by male desires. As women at the

turn of the century saw changes in the social climate, they continued the trend of thought,

altering the training of their bodies as dancers. Because they were familiar with the rigid

requirements of the ballet tradition, these women were well-equipped and fully qualified to

unfold a new way of training minds and bodies in dance.

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From its earliest roots, American Modern Dance was first and foremost a radical change

in an art form. To draw parallels with social changes requires hindsight, at the very least, and a

time machine, at most. Butler’s commentary on gender came out towards the end of Martha

Graham’s career and well after the artistic revolution. Acknowledging this does not lessen the

power of the argument, that American Modern Dance reflected a changing social climate, for it

did do just that; the significance of that change simply was not emphasized until years after the

revolution of dance. In fact, it is a statement by Martha Graham that reinforces the concept that

art mirrors the political and social climate it springs from. She said, "The demands of our

century require that another dimension to movement, another accepted use of language of the

body, be made. An artist is not ahead of his time; an artist is his time. […] What moves the spirit

in its time makes the outer changes that we see in dance" (Horosko, 155-156).
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Works Cited

Butler, Judith. (Excerpts from) Gender Trouble. In Continental Feminism Reader. Ed. Anne J.

Cahill and Jennifer Hansen. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,

2003.

Collingwood, R.G. The Principles of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938.

Dunn, Leslie C. and Nancy A. Jones. “Introduction” in Embodied Voices: Representing Female

Vocality in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Foulkes, Julia L. Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to

Alvin Ailey. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Hanna, Judith Lynne. Dance, Sex, and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, and Desire.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Horosko, Marian. Martha Graham: The Evolution of her Dance Theory. Gainesville, FL:

University Press of Florida, 2002.

Kano, Ayako. Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism. New

York: Palgrave, 2001.

Maynard, Olga. American Modern Dancers: the Pioneers. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1965.

Rutherford, Susan. The Prima Donna and Opera, 1815-1930. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2006.