Martha Hill and the Making of American Dance

Contrasts and Conflicts, 1965–1968

Contrasts and Conflicts, 1965–1968 While a monolithic headquarters for the arts was being built at Lincoln Center, a counterculture was rapidly surfacing. Don McDonagh later wrote in his book The Rise and Fall and Rise of Modern Dance, “If anything has characterized the dance revolution of the 1960’s, it has been freedom—the freedom to move in new and unaccustomed ways in places that have been excluded from conventional theater dance.”1 Over time, the word “modern” continued to be exchanged for “contemporary ”—more and more influenced by European trends—to indicate a wider, more encompassing range of dance styles. With a mounting sense that the label “modern” was too limiting, dance writers and historians sought to describe what they perceived as a postmodernist trend (later canonized by Sally Banes’s 1980 book Terpsichore in Sneakers) more in line with developments in the other arts. Although sympathetic to new ideas, Martha Hill worried that the modern dance philosophy of individuality she had championed so ardently in the 1930s was fast dissipating into trendy choreographic look-alikes. The undercurrent of change now catching critical attention seldom found its way into Julliard ’s domain, where enthusiasm for what was happening downtown was confined to discussions in dance composition classes and among faculty members during coffee breaks. In training dancers, Martha saw the distinct advantage of ballet (with its reliance on the repetition of codified steps, pointe work, and traditional partnering ) for developing line, strength, and clarity. At the same time, studying the well-established styles of Graham and Limón in modern dance offered rigorous torso work, the use of gesture, weight, flow, and rhythmic nuance. From her perspective , training in both forms still complemented each other, combining the tenets of discipline with the possibility of individualism. She welcomed the overlapping of techniques of ballet and modern as a natural evolution within both forms. Robbins and Tudor were creating modern ballets, after all. And even Graham now referred to her works as “contemporary ballets.” At the height of its commercial power, the Graham Company filled the Mark Hellinger Theater on Broadway during a three-week season in 1965. With this rise in company status came an increasing number of dance students to Graham’s Center of Contemporary Dance on East Sixty-third Street—even if the artist’s own life was spiraling out of control. One student remembered Miss Graham in a rare appearance when Graham interrupted a class “to hurl philosophical exhortations and wounding comments at us, mocking our lack of passion and our flabby muscles.” Disheartened, this student moved on to study “meandering paths of abstraction, chance, and Zen philosophy at the less oppressive Cunningham studio.”2 Other centers for modern dance making their mark included Alwin Nikolais ’s school on Henry Street, the well-established midtown New Dance Group, and a good number of independent studios in Manhattan that offered study options. Many aspiring dancers from a growing number of colleges offering courses in dance continued to fortify their studies with summer sessions at the American Dance Festival in Connecticut. Ballet studios proliferated. But in a unique twist, the Juilliard Dance Department was the single place where all of its dancers were expected to be proficient in both modern and ballet techniques. Just as the 1930s revolutionaries at Bennington had, increasing numbers of young dancers both inside and outside Juilliard, now wanted to choreograph their own ideas. Giving independent concerts at the once popular 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann auditorium (with its newly instituted audition procedures and increased rental fees) had become passé. Fledgling choreographers now looked for opportunities to showcase their work in more cooperative settings, such as Jeff Duncan’s egalitarian Dance Theater Workshop on West Twentieth Street. And they sought out such locations as gymnasiums and church halls as possible performance spaces. Sponsored series producing group concerts began to crop up in out-of-the-way theaters connected to institutions: the YMCA’s Clark Center, the New School (with its Choreoconcerts), and Barnard College’s Dance Uptown.3 Although most were shoestring operations, these maverick venues were drawing enthusiastic attention by the press. In these less restricted havens, a growing disregard for classical training and “serious” music was evident: the use of a wide range of accompaniment ran the gamut from popular mixes on collage tapes and sound effects, to electronic manipulations. All were the polar opposite of what acoustic repertory stood for at Juilliard. Prompting some—Martha included—to notice the emergence of...