brief introduction
Modern dance is a dance school that rose in the west in the early 20th century, as opposed to classical ballet. Its main aesthetic point of view is to oppose the formalism tendency of classical ballet, which is conformist and divorced from the phenomenon-single life and pure pursuit of skills. It advocates getting rid of the rigid movement procedure of classical ballet, freely expressing people's true feelings with dance movements that conform to the laws of natural movement, and emphasizes that dance art should reflect modern social life.
Its most striking feature is that it reflects the social contradictions in modern western countries and people's psychological characteristics, so it is called modern dance. Helen Tominis, an American modernist dancer, summed up the difference of modern dance in this way: "There is no universal law, and every artist is creating his own code."
Its founder, isadora, a recognized American dancer? Isadora Dunkang (1877- 1927) thinks that the practice of classical ballet will cause abnormal development of human body. She yearns for the simplicity and natural innocence, and advocates that "dancers must integrate body and soul, and their body movements must develop into the natural language of the soul", expressing their inner feelings sincerely and naturally.
It was Rudolph, a Hungarian who systematically established a relatively complete theory and training system for modern dance schools. Rudolf Flonlaban (1877- 1968), who created a training method called the law of nature, summarized the composition of human movements into eight elements: "chopping, pressing, rushing, twisting, sliding, flashing, knocking and floating", and thought that if the relationship between the elements was handled properly, it would be His Labannot is still one of the most influential dance music in the world.
Ruth, a dancer of Duncan's time? Ruth St. Denis (1877- 1968) is a pioneer of American modern dance. She has widely absorbed the dance cultures of Egypt, Greece, India, Thailand and Arab countries, and formed a modern dance with oriental mystery and religious spirit. Her student Martha? Marthe Graham (1894- 199 1) is an outstanding representative of contemporary modern dance. She believes that since human beings have beauty and ugliness, love and hate, goodness and evil, dance should not only praise beauty and goodness, but also show sin, regret and jealousy. Therefore, she put special emphasis on using dance to peel off the coat that covers people's behavior. She also created a set of dance techniques called "Graham technique". In recent decades, the dancers of this genre have developed independently and formed many factions with different styles and artistic opinions. Some have made great achievements in the innovation and development of dance, while others have completely violated the basic ideas and artistic ideas of the early modern dance school, divorced from the objective social reality, and developed to the point of grotesque and obscure, which cannot be understood and accepted by the broad audience.
General situation of development
/kloc-at the end of 0/9th century, the tendency of European classical ballet to pursue form and technique alone became more and more serious, which not only affected the development of the whole dance art, but also hindered its own development. The content and theme are still within the scope of myths and legends, princes and princesses, and the distance from real life is getting bigger and bigger, which has become a huge obstacle for dance to reflect social life. It is in this crisis that modern dance came into being.
At that time, I Duncan's Free Dance appeared for the first time. Strictly speaking, Duncan's dance is not a modern dance. She advocates nature and inherits the slogan of "return to nature" in late romanticism. She took off her dancing shoes and tights and danced freely at will, which brought a fresh and simple style to the European dance world and prepared the ideological conditions for the emergence of modern dance. Contemporary musician and dancer E Jacques-Dalcroze's "Excellent Rhythm" and R von Laban's "The Law of Spatial Coordination" have prepared theoretical conditions for the emergence of modern dance. Laban, in particular, comprehensively discusses the laws of human physical and mental activities, the relaxation and tension of muscles, the coordination of movements and the space for dancing.
M Wiegmann, a student of Laban, turned his theory into dance works through creative practice, which made modern dance theory concrete. Laban-Wiegmann modern dance school, known as expressionist modern dance, emphasizes the supremacy of feeling. Another notable feature of Wiegman's dance is its attempt to cut off the relationship between dance and music and establish dance without music. She believes that only by resisting the "dictatorship" of music can "free and independent dance" be produced. Before World War II, German modern dance, led by Wiegman, was always the center of modern dance in the world. Later, due to the opposition of the Nazi regime, modern dance was banned in Germany and the center turned to the United States. However, the development of modern dance in America is tortuous. Duncan and R. St. Dennis, pioneers of modern dance, were first recognized and succeeded in Europe, not in the United States. Only after they became famous on the other side of the Atlantic did they attract the attention of Americans. America does not have its own traditional dance culture. Once modern dance was accepted, it was immediately taken seriously and almost became its local dance culture.
St. Denis's contribution to modern dance is not only to create a modern dance with oriental and mysterious colors, but also to bring profound religious and philosophical thoughts to American commercial art; But also trained a group of outstanding representatives of modern dance in the modern dance school she founded.
Among the students in saint-denis, M Graham and D Humphrey have become the representatives of American modern dance, especially Graham, whose name is almost synonymous with modern dance. Although they are all students in saint-denis, they are not successors of teachers, but walk their own artistic path as rebels. Humphrey thinks that saint-denis's exotic dances can't embody the human spirit. She established her own artistic theory and technical principle according to the basic principle of human movements, that is, the law of dance movements is formed between falling and rising, balance and imbalance. If people fall down in the face of violence, they must be supported to resist, and these actions contain the connotation of human conflict. So most of her works are symbolic. Humphrey opposed his teacher from the external form, and Graham opposed Saint-Denis's artistic concept from the deeper psychological form of human beings. So her dance is called "Psychological Dance School". Graham emphasized that dance should objectively express self-belief, "dance should strip off the cloak of hiding human behavior" and "expose an inner person". In Mourning, she shows that the human body is twisted and twitched because of anxiety and pain, which is her "schematic diagram of human mind". Her technical theory centers on breathing. She studied the physical changes between breathing and inhaling, and thought that dancers could use breathing to push their bodies to rotate, jump, fall and lift. Her early works were controversial and considered too dark and sexy, but she eventually became the most prestigious and long-standing dancer in the United States, affecting drama, film, television and other fields.
Style genre
According to the development of modern dance, it can be basically divided into several basic stages, such as foundation stage, development stage, new pioneer stage and post-modern dance theater stage at the beginning of the 20th century. However, in different periods, due to the differences in artistic concepts, value orientations, creative styles and performance training skills, different styles and schools have been formed.
First, the foundation stage, the foundation period and the expressionist school.
At the turn of the century, modern dance was founded on the basis of opposing classical ballet, and its thoughts mainly emphasized the liberation and freedom of human nature with romanticism and idealism. In artistic creation, it is subjective to explore unrestrained emotional expression. The main representatives of this period are isadora duncan and Ruth. Saint. Dennis. Ted. Sean, Mary. Weigmann and others, whether Duncan's Dance of Freedom or saint-denis's application of oriental dance forms and religious philosophy, all have their own aesthetic opinions and artistic practice methods, but they are generally expressionist schools with Laban system theory as the core. Like other expressionist artistic thoughts, it advocates feeling first and regards intuition as the only way to know the world. Wiegman is a representative figure of expressionist dance. Another outstanding feature of her dance is that she cut off the relationship between dance and music, so that dance can exist independently as an art.
The second is the development of modern dance and the formation of various skill schools.
The modern dance art in this period advocates that form obeys function, and pays attention to revealing human value and dignity in values, revealing the spirit of the times and real life. In artistic creation, the expression in the sense of emotional expression is regarded as the skill of artistic creation. In artistic thought, it advocates truly reflecting the world, reflecting the goodness of human nature and exposing the evil of human nature. In the exploration, we should 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 Contract &; Release) is how it works. The main idea is to reveal the dark side of the human heart and emphasize the "introspection" psychology. She emphasized that dancers should "express their self-belief objectively with body images", "dance should strip off the cloak of hiding human behavior" and "expose an inner person".
Symbolism: Han's technique is characterized by "falling &; Recovery) as its action principle, she believes that it not only covers the whole range of human actions, but also is the root of all dramatic effects. When people fall down in the face of violence, they must support, resist, and so on. This conflict exists in these operations.
Humanistic dance: Jose's skill training principle is based on Han's skills, and then injected with personal research experience. He regards all parts of his body as a single musical instrument. When the whole body moves, it is like a symphony, and many musical instruments play a human melody together.
Relaxation technique is a form of contact improvisation due to the continuous exploration and experiment of limb potential.
Horton's techniques are mostly inspired by the images of primitive peoples or ancient relics, such as the body in two-dimensional murals in ancient Egypt, which has evolved into one of its basic action training and advocated "transmitting one's identity and traditional pride to the world".
These schools and techniques greatly enriched the connotation of modern dance and made it develop to a new height and stage, representing the value orientation and artistic thought in the world at that time.
Third, the development of new avant-garde dance.
The so-called "new pioneer" is to create an artistic road that no one has ever walked before. In the middle and late 20th century, modern dance art was influenced by post-modernism, and its art had obvious post-modernism tendency. In terms of artistic concept, he advocates the further liberation of the body, and thinks that the form of dance art is self-sufficient and closed, and can express itself and test itself. Enthusiastic about formalism, he believes that form is everything, and action is an end in itself, not a means to express feelings. In artistic creation, it is irrational and intuitive, and refuses to explain "what you see is what you get" to the audience. Tend to be anti-traditional, anti-aesthetic, anti-culture, anti-rationality, anti-art and anti-dance. Even the elements of dance were disintegrated, various experiments were carried out on choreography skills, and concepts from other fields were introduced into creative works, creating a series of choreography methods. Cubism, abstraction, motivation and other schools have emerged, and skills have formed a free form. When post-modern dance emerged in 1960s, the fixed form of modern dance skill training was gradually criticized by avant-garde dance artists, and turned to free play as the main form of action training. Free-form physical training not only highlights the professor's personal style, but also includes various explorations of time, space and energy.
The representative figure of this period is Moss. Merce Cuninghan and his school of opportunity dance: He opposes the basic requirement that people always think that "dance movements must be meaningful". He said, "There is no idea in my dance art". Its artistic method is to pursue "occasional action". Any movement can be part of the dance. He believes that human life is often bound by habits, and if accidental elements are used in choreography, it is possible to find the most instinctive and attractive way of human action.
Abstract school: Abstract modern dance expresses the so-called pure spiritual world with abstract language and pursues novelty and strangeness: Alvin, the representative figure. Nicholas. He believes that the greatest natural instinct of human beings is abstract thinking ability and transcendental existence ability.
Fourth, post-modernism and dance theater period.
Dance drama art, which mainly originated in Europe, pursues the return of drama tradition and expressionism tradition to dance again, not on the premise of technical perfection, but on how human limbs dance and why human beings dance, and dance begins to inject humanistic atmosphere in another way. Modern ballet is also one of the schools of modern dance in this period.
Dance Theatre: The representative figure is Pi Na. Bosch. Dance drama originally refers to a kind of dance that combines classical ballet with new dance and can fully express the plot. There are three main artistic features: 1, the broken dance theater, which deeply expresses gender and violence and prefers repetition. The main concern here is why people move and dance, which reveals the theme of eternal interaction between the two sexes and shows the ultimate humanistic care.
Modern ballet: Modern ballet is also one of the schools of modern dance. It is a form between modern dance and classical ballet. Conceptually modern dance, technically ballet. The earliest representative of modern ballet is K. Jos, who used to be a student and collaborator of Laban. He used to be a ballet dancer, so his practice of combining the two is well founded.
Introduction to modern dance in Europe and America
/kloc-at the end of 0/9, classical ballet began to decline, and the unchanging action tradition and stereotype made the dance fresh and tasteful. People are also eager to break the shackles of the human body since the Middle Ages. No matter in ideology or code of conduct, a revolution is needed to respond to the call of liberating the body and pursuing freedom. In the hustle and bustle brought by the industrial revolution, artists are keen to return to nature, pastoral and ancient culture, looking for a perceptual truth and the power of human nature. The appearance of isadora duncan set off a magnificent revival of human body culture in the 20th century. She gave up corsets and ballet shoes, put on a Tunik shirt and danced barefoot, inspired by nature and ancient Greece.
The slogan of "anti-ballet" and the declaration of a high degree of integration of spirit and flesh were in line with the internal needs of people at that time and the spirit of the times. Duncan's yearning for nature is the victory of natural emotion over social habits, which reflects the spirit of the times at that time. If Duncan rebelled against ballet tradition unconsciously and instinctively and brought about a dance revolution, then when German Mary Weigmann, American Martha gleim and Doris Humphrey appeared, they were consciously and consciously creating and establishing a new order. Modern dance in the true sense is not only a physical revival movement, but also a brand-new artistic form and viewpoint. It is marked by the emergence of a new action system and action theory. Based on the observation of human spirit, it creates a personalized and contemporary way to recognize the world and express emotions with body movements. The development of modern dance in Europe and America is generally synchronous and interactive. In Europe, modern dance happened earlier. /kloc-at the end of 0/9 century, the bud of modern dance gradually grew from Europe to the United States. Even Duncan, who was born in America, was recognized for the first time in Europe. At that time, art and culture followed a European standard. Franois Delsarte, a French dramatist and singer, founded the theory of expression system, which divided human movements into different expressions and became a dramatic gesture. Dennis, the first pioneer of American modern dance, was deeply influenced by him and incorporated his system into her teaching course. Delsarte's disciple, Swiss musician Emile Jacques Dalroz, invented "dance rhythm" again. Great modern dancers Weigmann, Yus and Holm all studied under him. When Rudolph Laban's Body Dynamics and Mary Weigmann's expressionist dance appeared, Central Europe became the central highland of modern dance. Both Laban's scientific analysis of sports and Weigmann's concern about the theme of life and the universe inside the human body have impacted the oriental sentiment that the United States was obsessed with in the 1920s. At the same time, the second generation of mainstream modern dancers, such as Martha gleim of the United States, began to establish local dance images under the influence of German expressionism and humanistic spirit and the inspiration of ancient culture, seeking a way out for their complicated and slightly chaotic emotional motives. As an emerging country with diverse coexistence, the United States is full of optimism and freedom. In such a living environment, the constant rebellion, rebellion and independence of modern dance has become a new force, which has prompted the rapid division of dance schools. The famous aesthete and historian Selma Jenny Cohen also concluded that "modern dance is an art to overthrow idolatry." With the high industrialization of American society, post-industrial civilization began to deconstruct everything in the alienation of human nature and disillusionment after the war. After the birth of Judson Dance Experimental Base in 1960s, postmodern and postmodern dance movements developed in full swing. Since the 1920s, there have been five training systems of classical modern dance in the field of modern dance, namely, Martha gleim, Moss Cunningham, paul taylor, Hotz Limon and Han Ji Holm. This movement is a rebellion against classical modern dance and a reflection on the living conditions of human beings in post-industrial society. Dancers walk out of the theater in their daily clothes, creating a "strange" visual environment and auditory atmosphere in familiar life scenes such as lakes, roofs, streets and art galleries. Dancers, on the other hand, are more engaged in the practice of pure movements, from the early generation of movements from emotional motives to the germination of meaning in the movements themselves. Anna Halprin used a large number of amateur dancers to restore the social function and group fun of dance. David Gordon deliberately eliminated the distance between life and dance, and used the movements of life and the deformation of satirical ballet to show the broken and deconstructed jokes of postmodernism, and also reflected the relaxed mentality and personality of contemporary dancers. Post-modern dance is cold and chaotic, but it is more and more real life. In such a country without traditional burdens, modern dance is constantly updated, and the rapid metabolism also leads to the exhaustion and some confusion of innovation, and innovation has become its own tradition and law. As one of the important cradles of modern dance, Germany has been developing slowly in the shadow of war and is full of pessimism. Under the tradition of German rationality, German modern dancers first established the action norms and made a theoretical analysis of the noumenon. Although their dance aims are irrational and emphasize the self-experience of personal feelings, the "expressive" way still reveals profound rational thinking and profound humanistic details. Different from the United States, modern dance in Germany is diverse and arbitrary, but it retains the characteristics of introspection and the habit of thinking. This expressionist dance style spread to the United States, and also had a certain impact on modern dance in the United States. In 1960s, the appearance of "Dance Theater" in pina bausch made the introspective tension of German modern dance reach a peak. "Dance Theater" is not a style, but a state of mind. As she said, "What interests me is not human action, but the connotation of action." The unrestrained action vocabulary calmly expresses the true human nature, which makes German modern dance more powerful and keeps the posture of never falling behind. The 20th century is the century when the human body fully awakens. Modern dance, from the free movement against ballet, to the excavation of movements from emotional motives, to the practice of pure movements, and then to a large number of daily movements, has returned to the people, become a dance of life, and played a role in awakening the body. When industrial civilization restrains people's body and mind again, modern dance has become an internal need of people, which has greatly improved individual life and can be used by people. From the perspective of modern dance appreciation, it is appropriate to adopt a tolerant attitude, which may be an appreciation gesture for all modern and contemporary arts. The experimental deviance and the heavy mystery of the serious theme will be as unacceptable as an excessive performance art and a novel without punctuation. Tolerance can contain some false art, but tolerance can make people try to accept and understand a stranger, a new form. In modern dance, the audience can experience the shock and pleasure brought by the fresh and peculiar action forms, and find special consciousness in the relationship between action and audio-visual environment. They can cough loudly and leave early. Modern dance makes you angry, makes you happy, makes you moved and makes you sick, but it can't make you indifferent. Please make your reaction, your action. The modern dance mentioned here is concentrated in the two cradles of Europe and America, and the development of modern dance has always been a worldwide topic. Japan's Butoh, the new dances of Korea and China, and the unique modern dances of Israel, Australia and Africa cannot be covered here, but it is obvious that the survival, development and growth of modern dances of these nations and countries have finally found their own body language and expression in their own lives, times and cultures. At present, the concept of modern dance is gradually replacing modern dance, which is more inclusive and approachable than modern dance in time and dance types. Modern dance has become an inherent style, and a new generation of dancers need to rebel and stick to the rules. Modern dancers have discovered the true meaning of modern dance aesthetics contained in Yi, and "change" means "unchanging". Change is the way to survive and the secret of keeping fresh. Only by constantly abandoning some existing things can we achieve self-transcendence.
China modern dance
Modern dance has a broad definition and a tortuous development process in China. As mentioned above, the pioneers of new dance art such as Dai, Dai, and Wang all learned authentic western modern dance by respecting teachers and attaching importance to Taoism in their own dance enlightenment education. In artistic practice, they have maintained the concept of freedom and innovation associated with modern dance, and at the same time, they have more strongly pursued the nationality and spirit of the times of dance. Among them, Wu Xiaobang's wise words of "Dancing with the Pulse of the Times" and 20th century classics represented by March of the Volunteers, Song of Guerrillas and Desire for Fire should be regarded as the precious spiritual wealth of "China Modern Dance".
In the development of modern dance in China, in a broad sense, it seems that all dances without specific national style or classical formula can be classified as "China Modern Dance". However, the above-mentioned works, which extract dance language from life, reflect social and historical events that people are concerned about and have distinct realistic character, do not belong to the category of "modern dance", because in a strict sense, they are obviously different from the "modern dance" belonging to the western modernist art system in terms of creative ideas and forms of expression.
From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Wu Xiaobang founded Tianma Dance Art Studio, systematically implemented the teaching system originated from modern dance, and carried out various creative practices in order to find a way of "China Modern Dance". The works of this period include: House of Flying Daggers, Three Alleys of Plum Blossoms, Wild Goose in Pingsha, etc. They are inspired by ancient songs and pursue the traditional cultural spirit of China. There are also cowboy culture, football dance and flowers adapted from real life. His artistic belief remains unchanged, but the influence of the above works is not as good as his dance during the Anti-Japanese War. Later, with the interruption of "Tianma Studio", the exploration of modern dance in China gradually declined.
Modern dance in China rose again in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and developed with the deepening of reform and opening up. In the early days, a number of works were called modern dance by the masses, such as Hope, Silent Song, Goodbye, Mom, Wedding on the Execution Ground, String Cutting and so on. The breakthrough from conception to language mode has obvious innovation consciousness and great influence. But with the exception of Hope, most of the works are still not divorced from the specific characters in specific events. Obviously, this is not a modern dance in the strict sense. Since then, Shanghai Hu Jialu has released his own series of works, such as The Call of Ideal, Rope Wave, Blood Sink, Chess Random Thoughts, The Other Side, Monologue ... It seems that the director is approaching the "modern dance" in his mind from the creativity of the works to the expression form-language.
How to appreciate modern dance
Modern dance has been developed in China for many years, especially in recent years. Various types of dance works created by modern dance creation techniques have emerged in an endless stream, and people have gradually recognized and accepted modern dance and its importance from the initial rejection. Because of the special artistic form of modern dance, many people still only know its name but not its connotation. So how to appreciate modern dance, I think we might as well start from the following aspects:
The first is to appreciate modern dance works with a tolerant attitude. We say that the ultimate goal of modern dance is originality and earnest exploration, so we must first accept it with a normal heart and have keen thinking and judgment when appreciating it. In the eyes of ordinary people, since it is a dance, it is necessary to keep dancing, but in modern dance, this concept does not exist at all, because the concept of modern dance is very extensive. In the eyes of modern dancers, everything in nature is impossible to dance, and everyone's every behavior and every movement is dancing.
Secondly, we should master the creative background and motivation of the creator. In fact, a work represents the editor's inner world and creative mentality at this time to a great extent, and these phenomena are often shown in the works. Therefore, mastering the creative background and motivation of the creator is helpful to better appreciate and understand the work.
Third, look at the "dynamic" and "structure" of the work. Modern dance is an art with a strong sense of form. Therefore, no matter what form modern dance takes, the most basic thing is to start with action. The formation, continuation, development and change of an action depend on the borrowing method of the action, followed by the structure of the work. Modern dance breaks the classical aesthetic principle of harmonious ideal, pays attention to people in real society and pursues the true beauty of nature. So pay special attention to comparison, action and action in structure.
Fourth, we should watch more modern dance works as much as possible. In the process of appreciation, we should feel the works wholeheartedly with the six innate senses. In modern dance works, the emphasis is on the dancer's own weight rather than ballet lightness, the process of space rather than the action itself is emphasized in action, the frustration of charm rather than fluency is emphasized in space, the imbalance rather than balance is emphasized in composition, and the process is revealed rather than concealed. After understanding these, we will make rational thinking and comprehensive analysis of the works.