The Vision of Modern Dance: In the Words of Its Creators

Dance is a non-verbal art form, often subject to the interpretation of the viewer. The Vision of Modern Dance is the moving story of the development of modern dance as told by the visionary artists who created it. They were revolutionaries, with each succeeding generation rebelling against the last. It begins with Isadora Duncan who rejected ballet as unnatural and clothed herself in Greek tunics. It continues with statements by the early moderns, Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey, Ted Shawn, and Charles Weidman. Though modern dance was considered to be American, there was a parallel development in Germany known as expressive dance, represented in this collection by Mary Wigman and Hanya Holm. The Nazi era curtailed German expressionism, but it later reemerged as dance theater, notably in the iconoclastic works of Pina Bausch, who is represented here. True to its liberating heritage, modern dance has spread around the world with its message of freedom of expression. One of the foremost contemporary exponents, the Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, has the last word.