The history of the development of modern dance

According to the development process of modern dance, it can be basically divided into the founding period in the early 20th century, the development period, the new avant-garde period and the post-modern dance theater period. a basic stage. In different periods, different styles and schools were formed due to differences in their artistic propositions, value orientations, creative styles and performance training techniques.

Founding Period

At the turn of the century, modern dance was founded in opposition to classical ballet. Its ideas mainly emphasized the pursuit of human nature through the liberation and freedom of the human body. Emancipation and freedom, with romantic and idealistic overtones. In artistic creation, he pursues unrestrained emotional expression, and his art has strong subjectivity. The main representatives of this period include Isadora; Duncan and Ruth. Holy. Dennis. Ted. Sean, Mary. Wegmann et al. Whether it is Duncan's "Dance of Freedom" or Saint Denis's use of oriental dance forms and religious philosophical thoughts, although they each have their own aesthetic opinions and artistic practice methods, they are generally centered on the systematic theory established by Laban Expressionist school. Like other expressionist artistic ideas, it promotes feeling first and regards intuition as the only way to understand the world. Wegman is a representative of expressionist dance. One of the most prominent features of her dance is her attempt to cut off the relationship between dance and music, so that dance can exist independently as an art.

Early days

In this period of modern dance art, the point of view was that form follows function, and in terms of values, it focused on revealing human value and dignity, revealing the spirit of the times and real life. In artistic creation, expression in the sense of emotional expression is regarded as the skill of artistic creation. In terms of artistic thought, he advocates a true reflection of the world, which not only reflects the goodness of human nature, but also exposes the evil of human nature. In terms of exploration, we pay attention to personal style and create personalized and systematic action systems and technical schools. Among them, the most representative schools are as follows:

Psychological Expressionism: Martha Graham's "Contraction & Extension" (Contraction & Release) is its principle of action. The main idea is to reveal the dark side of human heart, emphasizing "introspection;" psychology. She emphasized that dancers should express their self-confidence objectively with their body image; she believed that dance should peel off the coats that cover human behavior and reveal an inner person.

Symbolism: Humphrey's technique uses "Fall & Recovery" as its movement principle. She believes that this not only encompasses the entire range of human movement, but is also the source of all dramatic effects. . For example, if a person falls before violence, he must stand up and resist, etc. This kind of conflict exists in these actions.

Humanistic dance: Jose Li Meng’s technical training principle is based on Han Furui’s skills, and is injected with Li Meng’s personal research experience. He regards each part of the body as a single instrument. When the whole body moves, it Like a symphony, a variety of musical instruments play a moving melody at the same time.

Relaxation techniques: Forms derived from contact improvisation due to continuous exploration and experimentation of the potential of the body.

Horton Technique: Most of the inspiration comes from the images of primitive ethnic groups or ancient ruins. For example, the shapes in the two-dimensional murals of ancient Egypt have evolved into one of the basic movement training, advocating? Convey pride in your identity and heritage?.

These genres and techniques have greatly enriched the connotation of modern dance, brought it to a new height and stage, and represented the value orientation and artistic ideas in the world at that time.

New Pioneer

The so-called "New Pioneer" means to create an artistic path that has not been taken by predecessors. In the mid-to-late twentieth century, modern dance art was influenced by postmodernism. His art has obvious postmodernist tendencies.

In terms of artistic concepts, he advocates further liberation of the body and believes that the form of dance art is self-sufficient and closed, capable of self-expression and examination. Enthusiastic about formalism, he believes that form is everything and that movement itself is an end, rather than a means of conveying emotions. In artistic creation, it is reflected in entering with irrationality and intuition, refusing to explain one's own works to the audience? What you see is what you see? It tends to be anti-traditional, anti-aesthetic, anti-culture, anti-rational, anti-art, [1] and anti-dance. He even disintegrated the elements of dance, conducted various experiments in choreographic techniques, introduced concepts from other fields into creative works, and created a series of choreographic methods. Cubism, abstraction, dynamism and other schools emerged, and free form emerged in terms of technique. When postmodern dance emerged in the 1960s, fixed forms of modern dance technique training were gradually criticized by avant-garde dance artists, and free play became the main form of movement training. In addition to highlighting the teacher's personal style, free-form physical training also includes various explorations of time, space and energy.

The representative figure of this period is Moss. Merce Cunninghan and his chance dance school: He opposed the basic requirement that people always believed that dance movements must have meaning. He said: "There is no idea contained in my dance art." Its artistic method is to pursue "accidental movements". Any movement can be part of a dance. He believes that human life is often bound by habits. If accidental elements are used in choreography, it is possible to discover the most instinctive and attractive movement methods of human beings.

Abstraction: Abstract modern dance uses abstract language to express the so-called pure spiritual world, pursuing novelty and weirdness: the representative figure is Alvin Nicholas. He believes that the greatest innate instinct of human beings is their ability to abstract thinking and transcendent existence.

Postmodernity

Mainly originated from European dance theater art, it pursues to return to the dramatic tradition and expressionist tradition of dance. It is not based on technical perfection, but on human nature. How the body dances, but the focus is on why humans dance, dance begins to inject humanistic flavor in another way. Modern ballet was also one of the genres of modern dance during this period.

Dance Theater

Dance Theater: The representative figure is Pina Bausch of Germany. Dance theater originally refers to a kind of dance that combines classical ballet with new dance and can fully express the plot. There are three main characteristics of her art: 1. Broken dance theater 2. Deep expression of gender and violence 3. Preference for repetition Here, the main focus is on why people move and dance, revealing that gender is eternal The interactive subject shows the ultimate humanistic care.

Modern ballet: Modern ballet is also one of the genres of modern dance. It is a form between modern dance and classical ballet. Conceptually it is modern dance, but technically it is still ballet. The earliest representative of modern ballet was K. Joss, who was originally Laban's student and collaborator. He had been a ballerina, so he practiced; there was a basis for combining the two. ;