Dance

Dance. Dance has always been part of the American scene, but except for Indian ritual dances, early dance was imported. George Washington and others of the Virginia aristocracy ran “dancing assemblies” as venues for upper‐class courtship. Steps, music, and teachers came from England and France. The American “square dances” evolved from English reels. Immigrant groups brought folk dancing. Black slaves preserved ancient dances from Africa. African American dance swept through white America in waves. From 1912 to 1914, the Bunny Hug, Turkey Trot, and other dilutions of vernacular dance invaded fashionable ballrooms. The 1930s jitterbug era saw teenagers Lindy‐Hopping (a dance named for Charles Lindbergh) in movie theaters. The 1930s also brought a craze for Caribbean and South American dances originated by African slaves, including the Rumba and Conga from Cuba and the Brazilian Samba. The 1950s brought Elvis Presley and rock‐and‐roll which in turn launched the Twist, popularized in the early 1960s by Chubby Checker. Tap dance, with its buck and wing, soft shoe, and eccentric improvisations, developed from the syncopated foot‐stamping and hand‐clapping of slaves in religious ecstasy, mixed with Irish clog dancing.

American professional dance falls into three categories: ballet, modern, and jazz. All forms spotlight highly energized, charismatic individuals. John Durang (1768–1822), America's first professional dancer, learned his craft by watching foreigners, mostly French. Like performers on colonial stages, Durang mastered specialty numbers suitable for comic opera, farce, melodrama, or circus programs. Parisian Paul Hazard taught Philadelphian George Washington Smith and ballerinas Augusta Maywood and Mary Ann Lee, who made a joint 1837 debut in a French opera‐ballet. Maywood moved to Europe. Lee also went abroad to study, but returned to America with the ballet Giselle. Smith had a long career as a danseur noble, partnering Lee and the visiting Viennese ballerina Fanny Elssler, who profoundly impressed nineteenth‐century American audiences.

Because dance centers on the body, many preachers denounced it as sinful. The Utah Mormons were exceptions, however. Brigham Young, believing that dance was desirable, built a theater in Salt Lake City to present touring ballet performers and the Mormons' own well‐trained troupe, from 1848 to 1868.

American ballet came into its own in the 1930s, when Russian‐born George Balanchine (1903–1983), creator of a large repertory in “Neoclassicism,” arrived in 1934 and started the New York City Ballet Company. “Classicism” denotes a ballet technique, with the female on point. “Neo” refers to modern styling—the legs perhaps parallel, instead of turned out, or the omission of plots. Choreographing famous musical scores, Balanchine alternated fast, flashy leg‐work with languorous adagio movements.

The American Ballet Theater also arose in the 1930s, featuring classic revivals along with works by great choreographers like Agnes de Mille (1905–1993), Antony Tudor, Jerome Robbins, and Eliot Feld. During the same decade, William Christensen fostered the San Francisco Ballet. In the 1960s, Robert Joffrey (with Gerald Arpino) created the Joffrey Ballet and Arthur Mitchell founded the Dance Theater of Harlem. The main center of dance was New York, but the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Boston Ballet, the Atlanta Ballet, and other regional companies flourished as well.

In the first half of the twentieth century, modern dancers condemned ballet as a decadent European form, demanding significant content instead. Each leading modernist was inspired differently: Isadora Duncan (1878–1927) by ancient Greek art and musical visualizations; Ruth St. Denis by Hinduism and sacred Christian themes; Ted Shawn by masculine pursuits; Martha Graham by Freudian tragedies; Doris Humphrey by humanistic grandeur; Anna Sokolow by grim realty; and José Limón by his Mexican heritage.

Dancers who took African American jazz onto the stage were led by Katherine Dunham (1912–), who came to dance from anthropology in the 1940s. Dunham's technique blended head and neck movements from the Pacific Islands, torso and arm movements from Africa and the West Indies, and toe and foot movements from Haiti. During the 1960s and 1970s, Alvin Ailey popularized jazz dance with an electrifying repertory. After his death in 1989, Judith Jamison continued Ailey's American Dance Theater.

Postmodern choreographers, beginning in the 1950s, turned against the modernists' emphasis on content to concentrate on art materials. Merce Cunningham explored motion in time and space. Alwin Nikolais placed bodies in gorgeous mixed‐media scenes. Paul Taylor took a fresh approach to every aspect of dance. They were succeeded by artists like Trisha Brown, Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp, and Bill T. Jones who combined dance styles; used plain, everyday movement; or investigated concepts like “slow.” By the end of the twentieth century, the balance of dance trade had been reversed. The United States was recognized as the fount of neoclassic ballet, postmodern dance, and above all jazz, and American choreography and performers were exported to companies throughout the world.
See also Modernist Culture; Musical Theater.

Bibliography

Olga Maynard , The American Ballet, 1959.
Marshall and and Jean Stearns , Jazz Dance, 1968.
Lincoln Kirstein , Movement and Metaphor, 1970.
Joseph H. Mazo , Prime Movers: The Makers of Modern Dance in America, 1977.
Sally Banes , Terpsichore in Sneakers, 1980.
Joan Cass , Dancing through History, 1993.

Joan Cass