George Balanchine was a Russian ballet master based in the United States. He fled Russia in the 20s, initially to Paris where he surrounded himself with Russian artistic community forced on exile during the Revolution. There he met Sergei Diaghilev who invited Balanchine to choreograph for Ballet Russes, which was the outset of his illustrious career. After numerous commissions, Balanchine formed New York City Ballet in 1948. His repertory included story dances - with a simple and well known plot outlined in the programme, as well as more abstract dances which focused on technique, composition and relationship with music.
Balanchine dancers were known for perfect and seemingly effortless execution of movement. He based his works on centuries old classical technique and believed that the training should start at the age of seven with five basic positions, and progress further to the most difficult manoeuvres, which would ultimately take the dancer to the most important place on stage. Balanchine was aware of, and often used, a theory of visual perception: "the eye focuses on only one central point of an image and all events surrounding that point blur", which meant that he would "arrange movement of great intricacy at one focal point, framed by a large number of simpler movements and poses" (Foster 17).
Martha Graham is considered to be the founder of modern dance. She lived and created in the United States for almost a century from 1894 till her death in 1991. Her technique is known and taught across the world, often by dancers who knew her in person. Its main principles are "contraction and release, the spiral, the primacy of the central body in initiating movement, and the sequential growth of movement from the centre of the body to the periphery". It is however the portrayal of human emotions and relationships that is so enchanting about her dance. The main theme was psychologically motivated movement, in synchrony with music depicting some generally known hero-characters, "designed to reveal inner landscape" (Foster 25-28). The music was not used - as in the case of Balanchine - to create a matrix for the work, but to create tension and emotionally charged ambience. While Balanchine dances were happening in the air, Graham was firmly grounded resembling connection with the earth, while the energy through the body connecting with surroundings. And just as her technique was based on duality - strong body and mature psyche, so was her vision of the dance: "spontaneous and crafted, psychological and physical, personal and universal, rational and passionate, unconscious and conscious" (31).
While the United States were known for outstanding experimenters, over the years the Netherlands has become to be know the European cradle of dance - mostly thanks to its two great choreographers: Hans van Manen and Jiri Kylian. They both shared at various times the artistic directorship of two most prominent dance companies in The Netherlands: Het Nationale Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater. Hans van Manen is known for introducing numerous novelties into dance: "gym shoes and pumps as ballet footwear, first pas-de-deux for men, ballet dancers as nude studies, live video recording". The main theme of is dances are various relationships between people, with which he often challenges the status quo. Unlike Graham however, Van Manen refuses the psychological interpretation of his dances. He says: "All my dance is about dance, and about nothing else" (Versteeg 32). During last six decades he has created around 120 ballets [1] and influenced numerous choreographers.
Jiri Kylian, originally from Chech Republic, is also a very prolific choreographer - he created 101 works, 74 for NDT [2], over the 35 years since he arrived in The Hague, after previous Stuttgarter Ballet career and a short encounter with Royal Ballet School in London. Over the years he developed idiosyncratic picturesque style which combines surreal and sensuous, folk and exotic, with a very strong classical technique. He finds his inspiration in painting, music, Japanese tradition and Aboriginal dance - the outcome of the last was Stamping Ground. With time his view on dance and mode of working changed. In the late 80s Kylian assumed more spiritual approach, allowing the dancers "space for their personal input" with more focus on "the individual in the world", as well as started making more fragmented works resembling "collages with the quality of mosaics" (Versteeg 85, 88). The best, very mature and seasoned, example of this shift is his last collaboration with Sabine Kupferberg, Cora Bos-Kroese and video artist Jason Akira Somma - Anonymous [3], created for 2011 CaDance festival, which explores the inner worlds within an individual, and its ruptured relationship with the disintegrating worlds outside.
The American William Forsythe has been the artistic director of Ballet Frankfurt for twenty years, until 2005 when he established his own Forsythe Company. Training at Joffrey Ballet and at American Ballet equipped him with a Balanchine-style perfection. Yet, he is known for breaking almost every rule of classical ballet. His use of dropping and raising curtain, grunting dancers moving in unconventional ways, text, strong lighting and loud noise, confused the critics and outraged the audience. While Jack Anderson says that these plotless works "appear to be commentaries on power struggles between people and the difficulties of bringing order to a disorderly world" (217), Reynolds and McCormick describe them "as an evocation of alienation in an age of sensory overkill" as early as in the 80s (456). The subject matter of his dances is continuously changing. Sandra Genter speaks of "depiction of brutality towards women" and "misogynistic treatment involved in the male/female partnering" in 1979 Love Songs, and summarizes that "performing movement at frantic speeds and blatantly showing strong physicality are elements that dominate Forsythe's work" (112). Another innovation on Forsythe's approach to choreography is sharing the responsibility for movement with his dancers. One of his most famous and exemplary works is Artifact from 1984, presented last year in The Netherlands by Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen. The programme notes aptly recapitulate: "He analysed and dismantled classic ballet to build it up again with a whole spectrum of varied material: brilliant, sharp, incisive movement alongside the American post-modern fluidity mixed with techniques from contact improvisation" [4].
Works Cited
Anderson, Jack. Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise History. 2nd. ed. Hightstown: Princeton Book Company, Publishers, 1992.
Foster, Susan Leigh. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1986.
Genter, Sandra. Fifty Contemporary Choreographers. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Reynolds, Nancy, and Malcolm McCormick. No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2003.
Versteeg, Coos, ed. Dancing Dutch: Contemporary Dance in The Netherlands. Amsterdam: Theater Instituut Nederland, 2000.
Notes
[1] http://www.hansvanmanen.com/
[2] http://www.ndt.nl/artists/show/36
[3] http://www.cadance.nl/nl/producties/de-opening
[4] Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen. Artifact programme. Lucent Danstheater Den Haag. 21 January 2010.
Martha Graham is considered to be the founder of modern dance. She lived and created in the United States for almost a century from 1894 till her death in 1991. Her technique is known and taught across the world, often by dancers who knew her in person. Its main principles are "contraction and release, the spiral, the primacy of the central body in initiating movement, and the sequential growth of movement from the centre of the body to the periphery". It is however the portrayal of human emotions and relationships that is so enchanting about her dance. The main theme was psychologically motivated movement, in synchrony with music depicting some generally known hero-characters, "designed to reveal inner landscape" (Foster 25-28). The music was not used - as in the case of Balanchine - to create a matrix for the work, but to create tension and emotionally charged ambience. While Balanchine dances were happening in the air, Graham was firmly grounded resembling connection with the earth, while the energy through the body connecting with surroundings. And just as her technique was based on duality - strong body and mature psyche, so was her vision of the dance: "spontaneous and crafted, psychological and physical, personal and universal, rational and passionate, unconscious and conscious" (31).
While the United States were known for outstanding experimenters, over the years the Netherlands has become to be know the European cradle of dance - mostly thanks to its two great choreographers: Hans van Manen and Jiri Kylian. They both shared at various times the artistic directorship of two most prominent dance companies in The Netherlands: Het Nationale Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater. Hans van Manen is known for introducing numerous novelties into dance: "gym shoes and pumps as ballet footwear, first pas-de-deux for men, ballet dancers as nude studies, live video recording". The main theme of is dances are various relationships between people, with which he often challenges the status quo. Unlike Graham however, Van Manen refuses the psychological interpretation of his dances. He says: "All my dance is about dance, and about nothing else" (Versteeg 32). During last six decades he has created around 120 ballets [1] and influenced numerous choreographers.
Jiri Kylian, originally from Chech Republic, is also a very prolific choreographer - he created 101 works, 74 for NDT [2], over the 35 years since he arrived in The Hague, after previous Stuttgarter Ballet career and a short encounter with Royal Ballet School in London. Over the years he developed idiosyncratic picturesque style which combines surreal and sensuous, folk and exotic, with a very strong classical technique. He finds his inspiration in painting, music, Japanese tradition and Aboriginal dance - the outcome of the last was Stamping Ground. With time his view on dance and mode of working changed. In the late 80s Kylian assumed more spiritual approach, allowing the dancers "space for their personal input" with more focus on "the individual in the world", as well as started making more fragmented works resembling "collages with the quality of mosaics" (Versteeg 85, 88). The best, very mature and seasoned, example of this shift is his last collaboration with Sabine Kupferberg, Cora Bos-Kroese and video artist Jason Akira Somma - Anonymous [3], created for 2011 CaDance festival, which explores the inner worlds within an individual, and its ruptured relationship with the disintegrating worlds outside.
The American William Forsythe has been the artistic director of Ballet Frankfurt for twenty years, until 2005 when he established his own Forsythe Company. Training at Joffrey Ballet and at American Ballet equipped him with a Balanchine-style perfection. Yet, he is known for breaking almost every rule of classical ballet. His use of dropping and raising curtain, grunting dancers moving in unconventional ways, text, strong lighting and loud noise, confused the critics and outraged the audience. While Jack Anderson says that these plotless works "appear to be commentaries on power struggles between people and the difficulties of bringing order to a disorderly world" (217), Reynolds and McCormick describe them "as an evocation of alienation in an age of sensory overkill" as early as in the 80s (456). The subject matter of his dances is continuously changing. Sandra Genter speaks of "depiction of brutality towards women" and "misogynistic treatment involved in the male/female partnering" in 1979 Love Songs, and summarizes that "performing movement at frantic speeds and blatantly showing strong physicality are elements that dominate Forsythe's work" (112). Another innovation on Forsythe's approach to choreography is sharing the responsibility for movement with his dancers. One of his most famous and exemplary works is Artifact from 1984, presented last year in The Netherlands by Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen. The programme notes aptly recapitulate: "He analysed and dismantled classic ballet to build it up again with a whole spectrum of varied material: brilliant, sharp, incisive movement alongside the American post-modern fluidity mixed with techniques from contact improvisation" [4].
Works Cited
Anderson, Jack. Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise History. 2nd. ed. Hightstown: Princeton Book Company, Publishers, 1992.
Foster, Susan Leigh. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1986.
Genter, Sandra. Fifty Contemporary Choreographers. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Reynolds, Nancy, and Malcolm McCormick. No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2003.
Versteeg, Coos, ed. Dancing Dutch: Contemporary Dance in The Netherlands. Amsterdam: Theater Instituut Nederland, 2000.
Notes
[1] http://www.hansvanmanen.com/
[2] http://www.ndt.nl/artists/show/36
[3] http://www.cadance.nl/nl/producties/de-opening
[4] Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen. Artifact programme. Lucent Danstheater Den Haag. 21 January 2010.