modern dance

20th-century dance idiom that evolved in opposition to traditional ballet by those seeking a freer and more immediate means of dance expression. Leading exponents include Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham in the USA, Isadora Duncan and Mary Wigman in Europe.

Modern dance was pioneered by US women seeking individual freedom but it is from Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn's Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts in Los Angeles (1915) that the first generation of modern dance - Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman - emerged. In the UK, the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and school was set up in 1966-67 and flourished under the artistic direction of Graham's pupil, Robert Cohan. The school is the only European institute authorized to teach Graham Technique. In 1966, the Ballet Rambert became a modern-dance company. In Germany, the originators of a modernist movement known as Ausdruckstanz were Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf von Laban. The leading exponents, Mary Wigman, Harald Kreutzberg, and Kurt Jooss, had some influence on modern dance through their visits to the USA and through Hanya Holm, a former Wigman dancer who settled and taught in New York, and with whom the choreographer/producer, Alwyn Nikolais, was originally associated. Recent experimental work is known as new dance or avant-garde dance.