The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief

Introduction: THE CATERPILLAR'S QUESTION

Introduction: THE CATERPILLAR'S QUESTION WHEN I asked these choreographers to write about the modern dance, I anticipated the possibility of their feeling somewhat as Alice did when the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice, saying: "Who are you!" To which Alice replied: "I — I hardly know, Sir, just at present — at least I know who I waswhen I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then." In the lifetimes of these artists, the modern dance has changed. All of them have been instrumental in bringing about the changes, and all of them have changed themselves — some radically — from what they were when their careers began. The modern dance was once a fairly homogeneous entity. Not that all its exponents were alike — in fact, they gloried in their diversity — but they quite obviously shared many principles of belief. Today, the situation is far less clear. The ranks are not only diversified, but divided within themselves. Sothe modern dance has been several thingsin the course of time, and seems to be several more things right now. After a bit of thought, I began to wonder if all these various manifestations should — or even could — be brought together under a single name. However , the term is used, and perhaps I should at least attempt to find a thread of unity among its many, and apparently conflicting, uses. In the course of compiling this book, I deliberately refrained from asking any of the choreographers to define the modern dance. Why make them uncomfortably self-conscious? As I had hoped, however, the definitions cropped up, quite naturally, in the course of their discussions. Also, as I had expected, they were all different. 3 What each did, of course, was define what the modern dance meant to him. At this point, the temptation was to say: "Well, good. The modern dance, then, is whatever it is, and all that it is, to its various exponents. A many-splendored thing. And let's let it go at that." That would have been easy. But basically unsatisfactory. Then there was the choice of any number of previous definitions —• all clear, pat, ready to be quoted. Yet no one of them seemed to cover the present situation. Barefoot dance? No, sometimes they wear shoes. Expressive dance? No, some of these choreographers are vehementlyanti-expression. So then, another possibility: a definition so flexible as to include them all — easily, comfortably. "Freedom from traditional rules" came most quicklyto mind. But freedom from what tradition? Is any non-balletic choreography modern dance? And the ignorant are free. Does that make them modern? Apparently, none of these solutions would be of much practical value. The only chance of finding an answer seemed to be the one implied by Alice, who admitted that she knew what she had been. By recalling what the modern dance had been when it started and by tracing it through its various evolutions,we may get a perspective on what it is today. If not a complete definition, at least a perspective . . . In 1933, John Martin (who was then, and would be for many years to come, the dance critic of The New York Times) stated that the modern dance was a point of view. It was movement devised not for spectacular display, as was the ballet; not for self-expression, as was the interpretive dance current at that time; but it was movement made "to externalize personal, authentic experience." The ballet aesthetic, he contended, was concerned with visual beauty rather than emotion; when the ballet did deal with emotion, it did so in a manner so remote, so abstracted from realisticfeeling that its creators in no way expected, or even desired, the audience to respond to its emotional content. The interpretive dance, while it dealt with experience , was unconcerned with its communication; the expression was an end in itself (therapeutic, we would call it today), which made it 4 essentially untheatrical. The modern dance, on the other hand, externalized — projected, communicated — an emotion that was not only personal but "authentic." The choreographer felt the emotion deeply, but — further — was convinced that, by revealing his experience , he was also revealing a basic truth. For America, the story had started at the turn of the century, when Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis each began groping toward a style of...