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John Durang, (born Jan. 6, 1768, York, Pa.-died 1822, Philadelphia), the first U.S.-born professional dancer of note, who was best known for his hornpipe dance. In 1784, when Durang was 17 years old, he made his debut as a performer in Lewis Hallam's "lecture" and patriotic extravaganza. Plays and dances were banned by law at that time, and the euphemism lecture was used for such events. Thus began Durang's dance career, and although he did study ballet with visiting European dancers, he was not a trained classical dancer.

The French acrobat and violinist Alexander Placide was influential in Durang's career. Placide's versatility was reflected in the many talents of Durang as acrobat, actor, juggler, writer, director, and stage manager. Another Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Francisqui, who was the director of the Old American Company, also influenced Durang. Durang danced in his company, often with the ballerina Mme Anna Gardie from Santo Domingo. Francisqui's productions were Durang's inspiration for the ballets and pageants that he created in his later years.

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John Durang, (born Jan. 6, 1768, York, Pa.-died 1822, Philadelphia), the first U.S.-born professional dancer of note, who was best known for his hornpipe dance. In 1784, when Durang was 17 years old, he made his debut as a performer in Lewis Hallam's "lecture" and patriotic extravaganza.

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How did Michio Ito--charismatic dancer, choreographer, and theatre director-become the "forgotten pioneer of American modern dance"?
Ito was born in Tokyo in 1893 and died there in 1961. His life was extraordinary in its artistic accomplishments, visionary ideas, and disastrous experiences. From childhood, Ito tended to exaggerate actual adventures and fabricate stories, many of which he repeated in interviews and in his own "autobiographical" essays. This website describes the reality of Ito's experience but also shares with you some of the dreams that were part of his sense of a "truthful" life.

Ito was born in an era when affluent "modern" Japanese families like his were interested in ideas, technology, and artistic styles from the West. His father studied architecture in the United States and, influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, built an earthquake proof home back in Tokyo. Ito was one of ten children, one of seven brothers. All but one of the Ito sons made careers in the arts. The family interests included theatre (Western imports as well as noh and kabuki) and Christianity. Ito, however, never identified himself with any one religion in his adult years. His spirituality would be most consistently expressed in his sense of art and its mission to uplift, to bridge cultural boundaries, and to foster the brotherhood of man. In an early interview he said: "The real artist is like a priest‑‑he comes to proclaim the truth and to uplift...

Ito's family had expected him to enter Tokyo Imperial University, but at the beginning of 1912, Ito received formal permission to study singing at the Tokyo Academy of Music. A high school teacher had encouraged him to think that he had a future as a singer. Later that year he decided to pursue training for an opera career in Europe. Just 18 years old, he sailed for Europe in November, arriving in Marseilles on December 23 and in Berlin on December 28. He stayed in Berlin with a sister and a brother-in-law in the diplomatic service. However, Ito liked to say that he spent considerable time in Paris. He claimed that he went to the opera with great expectations and was disillusioned by how fat the singers were and how poorly they acted. On the other hand, he was overwhelmed by the dancing of Isadora Duncan, Pavlova, and Nijinsky and abandoned his interest in opera for a career in dance.

In 1913 he entered the Dalcroze Institute in Hellerau, near Dresden, and studied eurhythmics, a system that Mary Wigman and some other early European modern dancers pursued as an alternative to ballet training. Eurhythmics focused on making musical rhythm and melodic structure visible in movement. Already acquainted in Japan with the new scenic design ideas of Gordon Craig, he saw Adolph Appia's innovative lighting in productions at the Dalcroze Institute. These production concepts and Dalcroze's training method would influence his own theatrical work and his approach to teaching. When World War I broke out in 1914, Ito fled to London. He was a very young artist with little formal training, yet he established himself as a charismatic and distinctive performer when he danced impromptu at some high society gatherings.

In 1915 he secured a professional engagement at the Colliseum Theatre where he performed choreography described as "harmonized Europe-Japanese dances that have created a furor in society." His performances, both private and public, brought him to the attention of a small group of artists interested in non-Western art, including the poet Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats. At the request of Pound and Yeats, Ito and two Japanese friends created some semblance of a noh performance. Inspired by this, Yeats wrote At the Hawk's Well, a poetic dance play designed for stylized performance and a connoisseur audience. In April 1916, Ito played the Hawk-like Guardian of the Well to great acclaim. Ito's costume, designed by Edmund Dulac and himself, reflected the dancer's interest in Egyptian art as well as influence from classical Japanese theatre.

Once again Ito moved on because of war, this time to the United States. The commercial theatre contract that brought him there proved to be work that did not satisfy his aesthetic ideals. There was no "modern dance" movement in New York when he arrived. Outside of ballet, most dancers who aspired to art rather than revues were music interpreters, aesthetic dancers, barefoot dancers, or exotic dancers, the latter mostly Caucasians in generic Oriental attire. Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Martha Graham were dancing with the Denishawn company as Ito pieced together a career as a director, a choreographer, and a concert performer of more or less Japanese-style dances, responding to the popularity of Oriental things.

In 1917 Ito danced with Adolph Bolm's Ballet Intime, a relatively small group of international performers that toured featuring non-western dances. He presented more authentic productions of Japanese plays, some adapted by himself, for small theatres like the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Greenwich Village Theatre. While Michio continued to present concerts of his own work, he also choreographed or directed large scale theatrical ventures ranging from revues like the Pinwheel Revel to notable productions of The Mikado and Carmen. Having accepted the necessity of commercial theatre work, Ito performed in revues like the Greenwich Village Follies, joined by Martha Graham from 1923-25. He introduced Graham to his friend, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who would later design sets for a number of Graham's dances.

From the time that Ito arrived in New York in 1916, he described the objective of his work as a fusion of Western and Eastern elements, as he perceived them. For Ito, this concept was central to his vision of art and life, for himself and for all mankind. "In my dancing," he said, "it is my desire to bring together the East and the West. My dancing is not Japanese. It is not anything‑‑only myself." In this one statement Ito challenged the commonly accepted phrase from Kipling, "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." But he also asserted a basic modernist stance because he was declaring that the artist could and should express himself in an individual style rather than in one that was traditional or classical. Duncan had asserted that each individual had a unique way of moving. Ito even more radically asserted that his personal style was not necessarily limited by his cultural heritage. However, throughout his career, Ito came up against the fact that most audience members and critics saw him and his work through a lens of stereotypical assumptions about Japanese people and Japanese art. Ironically, many of his employment opportunities were linked to the stereotypical assumptions that contradicted his personal and artistic ideals.

As the modern dance movement emerged in the late 20's with the work of Humphrey and Weidman as well as Graham, Ito was recognized as part of this new development. His concerts were generally very well reviewed, and he was always singled out as a charismatic performer. John Martin, the pioneer dance critic for the New York Times, saw his work as more like Humphrey's than Graham, more abstract rather than mimetic. His Tango, a solo choreographed in 1927, captured the sultry mood and Hispanic flavor of the popular ballroom dance without a clinging partner and with little authentic Spanish movement. Ito saw himself as a music interpreter and thus fulfilled the expectation of many dance audience members of that era. He said, "When I dance, the music does not accompany me‑‑we become as one. Sometimes the instrument has the melody, and sometimes the melodies are intertwined." Ito's choreography tended to follow the structure and accents of the music that he chose, but not as strictly as some of the music visualizations in the Denishawn repertoire. He sometimes changed the tempo and dynamics of the music to suit his idea for the dance.

Ito felt that Japanese dancing had a literary basis, while music was the foundation of Western dance. Much classical Japanese dance is performed to sung poetry or prose, or occurs within the narrative context of noh or kabuki plays. Consequently, Ito believed that Western dance was more abstract because the accompanying music allowed the spectator's imagination to interpret the dance more freely. A specific motivating idea or emotion was important to Ito in defining the movement vocabulary of each dance, but he expected that the music and movement might call up different thoughts and associations in the spectator. Ito often called his works "dance poems," suggesting a theme or mood expressed obliquely and succinctly.

By 1929 Ito had married one of his dancers, Hazel Wright, and they had two sons, Donald and Gerald. Early that year Ito set out on a cross-country tour with his company, including Hazel and a very young Pauline Koner. The tour ended with a late April concert in Los Angeles that deeply impressed the local artistic community, musicians and visual artists as well as dancers. A few weeks later, Ito began teaching at the Edith Jane School of Dancing, offering master class for professionals and community class for anyone. By August, 1929, members of his master class were performing in a series of recitals at the Argus Bowl, a small amphitheater on an estate near LA. One of the things that Ito presented was the Yeats dance play, At the Hawk's Well. Ito cast Lester Horton, a young student in his master class, in the role that he himself had performed in the London premiere and in his 1918 remounting in New York. In September he choreographed for 200 dancers in the Pasadena Rose Bowl, accompanied by live orchestra and chorus.

Some of these dances, unlike his dance poems, were long, to music like Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite and Dvorak's New World Symphony. During the next twelve years, Ito would choreograph several highly successful large scale symphonic dances performed in the Hollywood Bowl accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. None of this ambitious and effective ensemble choreography has survived.
In 1931 he took his wife and two sons and his company to Japan, his first trip home in close to 20 years. He was warmly received and acclaimed as an artist who had achieved international recognition. In 1934 he took a small company to Mexico for a successful tour. Ito also worked in various capacities in six films but continued to survive largely by teaching and concert tours.

Life in California became more difficult for Ito personally and politically. He was divorced and remarried and became increasingly concerned about the growing racism on the West Coast and the political tensions between the US and Japan. In a post World War II memoire, Ito wrote: "Japan is the land of my birth. America gave me my education and reared me. That these two countries should be at war astounded and confused me. As time passed the seriousness of this situation filled me with a trembling fear. As an artist, my hope was to build a bridge between Japan and America...so that a new and higher civilization could be developed. That such a destiny could be fulfilled was my fondest dream."

Ito had high placed friends and relatives in Japan, and he made several trips there that included informal peace-making efforts. His connections, his travels, and some other projects intended to foster peace brought him under surveillance by the FBI. Within 24 hours after Pearl Harbor he was arrested as an alien enemy and unjustly accused of espionage. Ito and his second wife Tsuyako were repatriated to Japan in 1943 as part of a prisoner exchange. Shortly after the war, Ito was hired by the American Occupation administration as dance director of the Ernie Pyle theatre, the primary military entertainment center in Japan. This was clearly an acknowledgement that he had never been an enemy agent.

Ito, however, spent the rest of his life in Japan, opening a studio there, presenting dance concerts, working as a theatrical director, and establishing the first training program for fashion models. In 1960 he was commissioned to choreograph the opening and closing ceremonies for the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. His plans for the Olympics again expressed his idealistic vision of world peace and brotherhood. The torch would travel the ancient Silk Road route, symbolic of peaceful transmission of trade and culture. Ito also wanted to create a new Olympic tradition: the closing ceremony would include a circle dance to Japanese work songs with both winners and losers participating. It wouldn't matter, he said, if the participants were awkward because the spirit of harmony would be wonderful." This Utopian vision failed to come to fruition because Ito died suddenly in November, 1961. "He was," said his obituary, "a man who pursued beautiful dreams all his life."

Associate Professor in Dance

Dance Program Coordinator

Washington University in St. Louis

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How did Michio Ito--charismatic dancer, choreographer, and theatre director-become the "forgotten pioneer of American modern dance"? Ito was born in Tokyo in 1893 and died there in 1961. His life was extraordinary in its artistic accomplishments, visionary ideas, and disastrous experiences.

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Everyone has his own feeling and his own expression; dance as you feel and as you want--that is a better dance for you than any other kind. I will not teach you as others do. I will stand by your side as assistant and advisor and help you to make your own dance. Michio Ito

Born 13 April 1892, Tokyo, Japan. Died 6 November 1961, Tokyo, Japan.
Michio Ito was born to Kimiye Iijima and Tamekicki Ito, an architect educated at the University of Washington. As a child he studied piano, and later voice and Japanese classical drama and dance. In 1911 he moved to Paris where he studied singing and saw both Vaslav Nijinsky and Isadora Duncan perform. Inspired by Duncan's style and disillusioned by European Opera, Ito entered the Jaques-Dalcrose Institute at Hellerau, Germany in 1912.

At the outbreak of World War I, Ito fled to London where he was taken up by an elite circle of artists and began his career as a dancer. In 1916 he moved to New York where he spent the next twelve years continuing to develop his own dance technique. Among his students were Pauline Koner, Ruth St. Denis, Clare Booth Luce and Lester Horton. He also was director, scenic designer and/or choreographer for numerous theater productions.

In 1929 Ito moved to Los Angeles where he choreographed large symphonic works with hundreds of dancers in the Pasadena Rose Bowl and Hollywood Bowl. As a dance or scenic director, he worked on a number of motion pictures including No, No, Nanette and Madame Butterfly. In 1942 Ito was deported as an enemy alien and resided in Tokyo until his death.

Michio Ito's Works

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Choreographer, performer, teacher, scenic designer. Everyone has his own feeling and his own expression; dance as you feel and as you want--that is a better dance for you than any other kind. I will not teach you as others do. I will stand by your side as assistant and advisor and help you to make your own dance.

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Read more about Misty Copeland.

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Support America's National Ballet Company® DONATE NOW

The Company

Kansas City, Missouri

Joined ABT 2001 / Principal since 2015

Biography

Photo: Gregg Delman.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in San Pedro, California, Misty Copeland began her ballet studies at the age of 13 at the San Pedro City Ballet. At the age of 15 she won first place in the Music Center Spotlight Awards. She then began her studies at the Lauridsen Ballet Center. Copeland has studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre's Summer Intensive on full scholarship and was declared ABT's National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000.

Copeland joined ABT Studio Company in September 2000, joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001, and was appointed a Soloist in August 2007. She was promoted to Principal Dancer in August 2015. Her roles with the Company include Terpsichore in Apollo, Gamzatti, a Shade and the Lead D'Jampe in La Bayadère, Milkmaid in The Bright Stream, the Fairy Autumn in Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, Blossom in James Kudelka's Cinderella, Swanilda and the Mazurka Lady in Coppélia, Gulnare and an Odalisque in Le Corsaire, Kitri, Mercedes, Driad Queen, the lead gypsy and a flower girl in Don Quixote, Duo Concertant, the Masks in Christopher Wheeldon's VIII, Lise in Las Fille mal gardée, the Firebird in Alexei Ratmansky's Firebird, Flower Girl in Gaîté Parisienne, Giselle, Zulma and the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, Queen of Shemakahn in The Golden Cockerel, Pierrette in Harlequinade, the title role in Jane Eyre, Manon and Lescaut's Mistress in Manon, Clara, the Princess, Columbine and one of The Nutcracker's Sisters in Ratmansky's The Nutcracker, Bianca in Othello, a Gypsy in Petrouchka, the Lead Polovtsian Girl in the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, the Saracen Dancer in Raymonda, Cowgirl in Rodeo, Juliet and a Harlot in Romeo and Juliet, Sinatra Suite, Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette-Odile, the pas de trois, a cygnet, and the Hungarian Princess in Swan Lake, the Waltz in Les Sylphides, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Princess Praline in Whipped Cream, leading roles in Bach Partita, Birthday Offering, Brahms-Haydn Variations, Monotones I, and Thirteen Diversions, and featured roles in Airs, Amazed in Burning Dreams, Baker's Dozen, Ballo della Regina, Black Tuesday, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Brief Fling, Company B, Désir, Deuce Coupe, Gong, Hereafter, In the Upper Room, Overgrown Path, Pretty Good Year, Private Light, Raymonda Divertissements, Sechs Tänze, Sinfonietta, Symphonic Variations, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison, and workwithinwork.

Copeland created the Spanish Dance in Ratmansky's The Nutcracker, the Fairy Fleur de farine (Wheat flower) in Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty, His Loss in AfterEffect, and roles in AFTERITE, C. to C. ( Close to Chuck), Dumbarton, Garden Blue, Glow - Stop, Her Notes, I Feel The Earth Move, One of Three, and With a Chance of Rain.

Copeland received the 2008 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts and was named National Youth of the Year Ambassador for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 2013. In 2014, President Obama appointed Copeland to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. She is the recipient of a 2014 Dance Magazine Award and was named to the 2015 TIME 100 by TIME Magazine. Copeland is the author of the best-selling memoir Life in Motion, the children's book Firebird, and Ballerina Body.

ABT is grateful to Valentino D. Carlotti for supporting the Dancer Fund in honor of Misty Copeland.

Milestones

Misty Copeland in the 1999 ABT Summer Intensive final performance

Joined Corps de Ballet April 2001

Promoted to Soloist August 2007

Promoted to Principal Dancer August 2015

Misty Copeland in Romeo and Juliet. Photo: Rosalie O'Connor

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Misty Copeland - American Ballet Theatre

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Support America's National Ballet Company® DONATE NOW Kansas City, Missouri Joined ABT 2001 / Principal since 2015 Photo: Gregg Delman. Born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in San Pedro, California, Misty Copeland began her ballet studies at the age of 13 at the San Pedro City Ballet.

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Learn more about Michaela from this article.

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Michaela DePrince, original name Mabinty Bangura, (born January 6, 1995, Kenema district, Sierra Leone), Sierra Leonean-born American ballet dancer known for her technical prowess and tenacious spirit.

She was born Mabinty Bangura during Sierra Leone's prolonged civil war and spent her early years in that country. Rebel forces killed her father, and her mother died soon after of starvation. An uncle deposited her at an orphanage, where she was mistreated because she had vitiligo-a medical disorder of skin pigmentation that caused the appearance of white patches on her neck and chest. She also witnessed the butchering of a pregnant teacher by rebels before her orphanage relocated to a refugee camp in Guinea. Amid the bleak conditions, she found a glossy magazine cover that featured a ballerina. Though she had no knowledge of ballet, she treasured the photo and aspired to become a dancer. In 1999 American couple Elaine and Charles DePrince adopted her along with another girl, her friend Mia. The girls were raised in New Jersey with the DePrinces' nine other natural and adopted children.

DePrince began taking ballet lessons soon after arriving in the United States. At age five she enrolled in the Rock School for Dance Education (RSDE) in Philadelphia. After she studied there for six years, the family moved to Vermont. The next year, at age 13, DePrince resumed her training at RSDE as a boarder. In 2010 she competed in the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) for the fourth time. She won a full scholarship to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School (JKOS) at American Ballet Theatre (ABT), New York City. She was one of six youths profiled in American filmmaker Bess Kargman's First Position (2011). In 2012 she performed on the television program Dancing with the Stars.

While at JKOS, DePrince performed with the ABT Studio Co. and toured with the Albany Berkshire Ballet. In 2012 and 2013 DePrince was a guest artist with Johannesburg's South African Mzansi Ballet. At age 17 she joined New York City's Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH). In 2013 DePrince left DTH for the Dutch National Ballet (DNB), and the following year she was promoted from the junior to the main company, where she was the only dancer of African origin among DNB's 30 nationalities. In 2015 she began to be cast in solo roles. Her public profile also grew following the publication of her memoir, Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina (2014; with her mother, Elaine DePrince), which was sold internationally under the title Hope in a Ballet Shoe. She used the attention to raise awareness about the need for more opportunities for black women in classical ballet.

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Kristan M. Hanson

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

Ballet, theatrical dance in which a formal academic dance technique-the danse d'école -is combined with other artistic elements such as music, costume, and stage scenery. The academic technique itself is also known as ballet. This article surveys the history of ballet....

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Michaela DePrince, Sierra Leonean-born American ballet dancer known for her technical prowess and tenacious spirit. She was born Mabinty Bangura during Sierra Leone's prolonged civil war and spent her early years in that country. Rebel forces killed her father, and her mother died soon after of

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Read this article on Pearl and her life.

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Pearl Eileen Primus (1919-1994) was an ambassador of African dance and the African experience in the Caribbean and United States. Her Trinidadian heritage, combined with extensive studies in the Caribbean, Africa and the American South, became the lens through which she taught and choreographed. Confronting stereotypes and prejudice through movement, she advocated dance as a means of uniting people against discrimination. "When I dance, I am dancing as a human being, but a human being who has African roots," she declared of her work.

Primus was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Albertha Emily Jackson and Onwin Edward Primus. Four years later, her father immigrated to the U.S., with Primus, her mother and younger brother Edward following one year after in 1924. They settled in Manhattan, where Albertha gave birth to a third child, Carl, but later moved to Brooklyn.

Primus attended public schools, including Hunter College High School, before earning a BA in biology and premed from Hunter College in 1940. Aspiring to become a doctor, she applied for jobs as a laboratory technician to earn money for medical school, but was not able to land a job. She made a living through various odd jobs, including vegetable picker, welder, burner, riveter and health teacher, until the National Youth Administration (part of the Works Progress Administration) gave her a job in the wardrobe department in 1941, working backstage for "America Dances." Once a spot opened up for a dancer, Primus filled in, and quickly discovered a natural gift for movement and connecting with the audience.

After the NYA program folded, she auditioned for and received a scholarship at the New Dance Group (becoming their first African-American student), where her "qualities of spontaneity, speed and power were instantly recognized," wrote Margaret Lloyd, author of The Borzoi Book of Modern Dance. The faculty, which included Jane Dudley, Sophie Maslow, Nona Schurman and William Bales, greatly influenced Primus with their commitment to using dance as a tool for social reform. Primus also trained with Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Doris Humphrey and Louis Horst, from whom she gained an eclectic foundation in modern dance. She later studied ballet and was soon dancing with the NDG performance company.

In 1942, the 92nd Street Y initiated a concert series to showcase the work of young dancers, in which Primus made her theatrical debut on February 14, 1943. She performed her own African Ceremonial, Hard-Time Blues, Rock Daniel and Strange Fruit, works inspired by her dance training, ethnic background and cultural research, as well as influential black songwriters and poets like Langston Hughes. This prompted The New York Times dance critic John Martin to rave that "if Miss Primus walked away with the lion's share of the honors, it was partly because her material was more theatrically effective, but also because she is a remarkably gifted artist." He later proclaimed her to be "the most distinguished newcomer of the season."

Such praise, though, caused Primus to doubt her long-term goal of becoming a medical doctor. She turned to Martin for advice, and he encouraged her to look at dancing as a "wonderful healing medium" as well. From then on, Primus focused more exclusively on dance, but continued her studies, taking graduate-level courses.

In April 1943, she began an engagement at the Café Society Downtown, a racially integrated nightclub whose small stage she filled with power, emotion and her famous five-foot-high jumps. During this time, she also performed at Madison Square Garden and Carnegie Hall, and her new dance group, the Primus Company, performed at the Belasco and Roxy Theatres. She danced in the Los Angeles production of Showboat in 1944 and the Broadway revival two years later, followed by the Chicago Civic Opera's production of The Emperor Jones, which she choreographed, and Broadway's 1947 Caribbean Carnival.

Primus also felt the need to devote time to performing sociological fieldwork. During the summer of 1944, she toured the South, posing as a migrant worker, "to know my own people where they are suffering the most." She picked cotton and participated in black church services' spontaneous dance and song, in which she recognized African roots. In April 1948, she was awarded a $4,000 grant by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation to travel to Africa. She spent a year visiting and living with the natives of Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana, Angola, Cameroon, Senegal and Zaire, observing and recording their traditional dances. In Nigeria, she was renamed "Omowale," meaning "child returned home."

Primus married award-winning film and television director Yael Woll in 1950, but the union did not last-they were separated after three years. In 1953 she met dancer/choreographer Percival Borde while traveling through Trinidad, and they married a year later. They welcomed their son, Onwin, in 1955.

In 1959, Primus received an MA in educational sociology from New York University and returned to Liberia, where she was named director of the country's Performing Arts Center. In 1963, she and Borde opened the Primus-Borde School of Primal Dance in NYC, where she developed methods of teaching cross-culturally. Three years later, she initiated an experimental learning project that was funded by the U.S. Department of Education and placed in NYC schools to further test her methods. It was a soaring success.

In 1974, Primus staged Fanga (1949) and The Wedding (1961), theatricalizations of African ritual dances, for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ted Pollen, an Ailey scholarship student at the time, remembers her as a gracious teacher who, unlike many others, did not use harsh criticisms to motivate dancers. "She showed us how to improve ourselves as dancers and artists by tapping into what dance means to people who are not professional dancers; dance as a way of life as opposed to a way of making a living."

Still eager to further her academic knowledge, Primus received her PhD in anthropology from NYU in 1978, becoming the university's first student to fulfill a language requirement with dance. In 1979, she and Borde founded the Pearl Primus Dance Language Institute in New Rochelle, New York, where they offered classes that blended African and Caribbean dance forms with modern and ballet techniques. Their performance group was called Earth Theatre. Borde passed away later that year.

Throughout her career, Primus taught at numerous universities, including NYU, Hunter College, the State University of New York at Buffalo, Howard University and Five College Dance Department. She remained active in the dance community until succumbing to diabetes at her New Rochelle home on October 29, 1994.

In acknowledgement of her immense impact and extraordinary vision, Primus received many honors, including an honorary doctorate from Spelman College, the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of American Anthropologists and the National Medal of Arts.

Primus was a force of unparalleled energy and drive, who challenged societal norms with masterful work that honored her ancestors and enlightened generations to come. "I dance not to entertain, but to help people better understand each other . . . because through dance I have experienced the wordless joy of freedom," she said of her life's work. "I see it more fully now for my people and for all people everywhere."

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Dance History: Pearl Primus - Dance Teacher

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Pearl Eileen Primus (1919-1994) was an ambassador of African dance and the African experience in the Caribbean and United States. Her Trinidadian heritage, combined with extensive studies in the Caribbean, Africa and the American South, became the lens through which she taught and choreographed.

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Learn about Arthur's life growing up and as a performer.

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quietube: Videos without the distractions.

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Learn about Pearl and her journey as she performs, lives in Africa and graduates from NYU.

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quietube: Videos without the distractions.

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Listen and learn about Clayton Bates!

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Learn about Misty Copeland and her life as a dancer.

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This video has several different performances Misty has danced in including Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet.

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quietube: Videos without the distractions.

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From the book BRAVE.BLACK. FIRST. African American Who Changed the World by: Cheryl Willis Hudson

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This is not Judith Performing but it is the same famous dance piece she performed.

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quietube: Videos without the distractions.

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Information from the book Ballerina Dreams: From Orphan to Dancer by Michaela DePrince

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Dance called : Divining

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quietube: Videos without the distractions.

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quietube: Videos without the distractions.

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Information from the book Alvin Ailey by Judy Gitenstein.

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Watch the dance: Revelations

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quietube: Videos without the distractions.

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"It doesn't matter if you dream of being a doctor, a teacher , a writer or a ballerina. Every dream begins with one step."

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"Dance is for everyone."

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"If you look at a dancer in silence, his or her body will be the music..."

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Michio Ito’s Pizzicati by Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Co. at Smithsonian NPG

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La Sylphide

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Video Of "Lamentation" most famous dance

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Video Of "Lamentation" most famous dance

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"I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements . . .I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge."
-Martha Graham

Martha Graham's impact on dance was staggering and often compared to that of Picasso's on painting, Stravinsky's on music, and Frank Lloyd Wright's on architecture. Her contributions transformed the art form, revitalizing and expanding dance around the world. In her search to express herself freely and honestly, she created the Martha Graham Dance Company, one of the oldest dance troupes in America. As a teacher, Graham trained and inspired generations of fine dancers and choreographers. Her pupils included such greats as Alvin Ailey, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, and countless other performers, actors, and dancers. She collaborated with some of the foremost artists of her time including the composer Aaron Copland and the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

Born in 1894 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Graham spent most of her formative years on the West coast. Her father, a doctor specializing in nervous disorders, was very interested in diagnosis through attention to physical movement. This belief in the body's ability to express its inner senses was pivotal in Graham's desire to dance. Athletic as a young girl, Graham did not find her calling until she was in her teens. In 1911, the ballet dancer Ruth St. Denis performed at the Mason Opera House in Los Angeles. Inspired by St. Denis' performance, Graham enrolled in an arts-oriented junior college, and later to the newly opened Denishawn School. Denishawn was founded by Ruth St. Denis and her husband Ted Shawn to teach techniques of American and world dance. Over eight years, as both a student and an instructor, Graham made Denishawn her home.

Working primarily with Ted Shawn, Graham improved her technique and began dancing professionally. In "Xochital", a dance made specifically for her by Shawn, Graham danced the role of an attacked Aztec maiden. It was the wildly emotional performance of this role that garnered her first critical acclaim. By 1923, eight years after entering Denishawn, she was ready to branch out. She found her chance dancing in the vaudeville revue Greenwich Village Follies. At the Greenwich Village Follies, Graham was able to design and choreograph her own dances. Though this work provided her with some economic and artistic independence, she longed for a place to make greater experiments with dance. It was then that she took a position at the Eastman School of Music, where she was free of the constraints of public performance. At Eastman, Graham was given complete control over her classes and the entire dance program. Graham saw this as an opportunity to engage her best pupils in the experiential dance she was beginning to create.

These first experimentations at Eastman proved to be the sparks of a new mode of dance that would revolutionize theories of movement in all of the performing arts. For Graham, ballet's concern with flow and grace left behind more violent traditional passions. Graham believed that through spastic movements, tremblings, and falls she could express emotional and spiritual themes ignored by other dance. She desired to evoke strong emotions, and achieved these visceral responses through the repetition of explicitly sexual and violently disjunctive movements. Beginning with her Eastman students, she formed the now famous Martha Graham School for Contemporary Dance in New York. One of the early pieces of the company was "Frontier" (1935), a solo performance about the pioneer woman. This piece brought together the two men who would be close collaborators throughout her life. Isamu Noguchi, the Japanese-American sculptor, created a sparse and beautiful design that replaced flat backdrops with three-dimensional objects. Together Graham and Noguchi revolutionized set design through this inclusion of sculpture. "Frontier" also included the sound design of Louis Horst, a close friend and strong influence throughout Graham's life.

Soon after "Frontier," Graham brought a young ballet dancer named Erick Hawkins into the company. Together they appeared in one of her major works, "American Document" (1938). For the next ten years he would remain with the company and perform in many of her great pieces. The most famous work from this period was "Appalachian Spring" (1944), for which Aaron Copland wrote the score. In 1948 Graham and Hawkins married, but the marriage was short-lived. They continued to work together for a while and then made a permanent break. After this break, Graham plunged deeper into her work and in 1955 presented the world with one of her greatest pieces, "Seraphic Dialogue". "Seraphic Dialogue" was a powerful and moving version of the story of Joan of Arc. Throughout Graham's career she would return again and again to the struggles and triumphs of both great and ordinary women. Despite her age, she continued to dance throughout the 60s. It was not until 1969 that Graham announced her retirement from the stage.

For Graham, however, life away from dance was impossible. Though no longer able to perform she continued to teach and choreograph until her death in 1991. It is nearly impossible to track the influence of Martha Graham. Everyone from Woody Allen to Bette Davis cites her as a major influence. She is universally understood to be the twentieth century's most important dancer, and the mother of modern dance. She performed at the White House for Franklin Roosevelt, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor. She was the first choreographer to regularly employ both Asian- and African-American Dancers. Her contributions to the art of stage design and dance production are countless. Martha Graham's continued experimentation and her constant attention to human emotion, frailty, and perseverance, is one of the greatest individual achievements in American cultural history.

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Martha Graham ~ Martha Graham Biography | American Masters | PBS

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"I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements . . .I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge." -Martha Graham Martha Graham's impact on dance was staggering and often compared to that [...]

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The function of dance is communication. . . . By communication is not meant to tell a story or to project an idea, but to communicate experience by means of action . . . out of this came a different use of the body as an instrument, as the violin is an instrument. Body is the basic instrument, intuitive, instinctive. As a result an entirely contemporary set of technics was evolved.

Brown, Mindlin, & Woodford, 1998, p. 50

Probably the most iconic image of modern dance in the general public is of a woman clad in a dark leotard and tights seated on the floor reaching upward with her torso curving backward or while standing on one leg with her other limbs outstretched and her focus downward. These are images from the Martha Graham (1894-1991) technique. They are two of her signature movements: the contraction and strike pose, respectively. For many people, modern dance is synonymous with the work of Martha Graham. Known for her theatricality, severity, solemnity, and emotionally charged dances, Graham was a true original. The mythic content of her work was introspective in its involvement with human emotions and the personal exploration of deep-seated motivations. Graham herself described her dances as stylized to represent the times in which she was creating: "Life today is nervous, sharp and zigzag. It often stops in mid-air. That is what I aim for in my dances" (Mazo, 1977, p. 161).

In addition to the power and originality of Graham's choreography, she was known for developing a codified system of exercises that could be used to train dancers in her style. Much of that syllabus comes to us today directly from Graham, and in many places is still taught in precisely the same manner. Graham believed that the first task when working with students "is to teach them to admire strength - the virile gestures that are evocative of the only true beauty. To try to show that ugliness may actually be beautiful if it cries out with the voice of power" (Mazo, 1977, p. 162). It was this admiration of powerful gesture that often gave the work an angular and stylized appearance. But it is not true that lyricism or nuanced movement is not valued in the technique. Graham developed her technique over time and softened some of the exercises to ensure that the movements were not overly rigid.

Purpose of Dance

Graham took a psychoanalytical viewpoint on dance. She believed that the purpose of dance is to illuminate the life and struggles of the human experience, paying particular attention to humans' inner nature. Her dances were dramatic expressions of the conflict between the individual and society in an attempt to look at the internal motivations of humanity. Graham believed that using dance for that purpose would bring psychoemotional enlightenment. In 1938, Graham wrote that "Art is the evocation of man's inner nature. Through art we find man's unconscious - race memory - is the history and psyche of the race brought into focus" (Brown, Mindlin, & Woodford, 1998, p. 50).

Since the purpose of dance is to translate emotional experience in physical form, in the Graham technique, every movement must have a clear and perceivable meaning. This does not mean the movements must be realistic, only that the stylization must be meaningful and recognizable to the viewer as well as to the performer. Graham was clear on this principle: "Everything that a dancer does, even in the most lyrical thing, has a definite and prescribed meaning" (Mazo, 1977, p. 189). Further, she believed that the clear training of the dancer gave a freedom to the dancer's ability to express the emotions and ideas of the choreographer. In Graham's own words, training was the key to articulation: "If you have no form, after a certain length of time you become inarticulate. Your training only gives you freedom" (Mazo, 1977, p. 157). Thus the rigor of your training was all part of the purpose of the art form - and Graham believed in rigorous training! Her demand for total discipline and attention during class, and her anger when this was not accorded her, are well documented. While the movements in the technique itself are not natural gestures, they are artificial ones; the inner commitment to them and the emotional sincerity of the dancers presenting them are entirely real.

Relation to Space and Gravity

The Graham technique has a clear relationship to the floor and to gravity. Like Humphrey-LimÃ³n, Graham dancers are creatures of the earth who respect the power of gravity. However, unlike the previously discussed technique where the power to pull away from gravity gives you energy and a search for equilibrium, the Graham technique believes that the fall is the acknowledgment of the power of gravity. Many of the exercises in the Graham syllabus require the dancer to fall powerfully into the floor, and these movements are seen repeatedly throughout the Graham repertory. To Graham, this was not just a physical act; it was a psychological one. "We teach the falls to the left because, unless you are left-handed, the right side of the body is the motor side; the left hand is the unknown. You fall into the left hand - into the unknown" (Mazo, 1977, p. 157). The exploration of the space of the stage, including the floor itself, is part of the emotional content of the technique.

Because space can reveal emotional content, according to Graham, the set is an integral part of the ability of a dance to communicate. When Graham's choreography took on huge mythic subjects, such as in the dances Clytemnestra (1958) or Night Journey (1947), they used the entire expanse of the stage. When they were particularly introspective, as in Errand into the Maze (1947) or Lamentation (1930), the use of the stage space was minimal. Space itself is part of the emotional landscape of a Graham dance.

Origin of Movement

According to Martha Graham's philosophy, movement is generated from three places: the action of contraction and release, the pelvis, and the emotional inner self. The contraction, or strong pulling back and curving of the torso, and the release of this movement by returning to a straight torso are symbolic of the dichotomies in life. It is the contrast between desire and duty, between fear and courage, between weakness and strength.

The repeated use of the contraction and release gives a rhythmic energy to the movements in this technique, and its execution is central to the seated, lying, and standing exercises of the training method (figure 8.2). The torso and pelvis, in this way, are the central focus of the movement, while the arms and legs move in concert with the spine.

Contraction while seated (a) and standing (b).

The series of exercises known as spirals, done seated in fourth position, is an excellent example of how the pelvis, rooted to the floor and drawing its energy from this proximity, is the first part of the body to move (figure 8.3).

Spiral.

Graham taught students that the hip bone should move as a jewel in a watch movement. This makes the pelvis the point of stability and the motivator of the movement. A clear articulation of the pelvis will definitely result from your study of this style of modern dance. Whether the movement begins with a contraction of the torso or a movement of the hip bone, it must be done with strength. Both lyrical and dramatic movement must be equally strong.

Because of this quality of strength and the importance of intentional meaning behind every movement, you could say that movement in the Graham technique begins in the mind, especially in the dancer's subconscious. In the Graham style, everything is motivated from the inner life. If this is not there, the movements become sterile. As Graham said, "This lack of motivation will lead to meaningless movement, and meaningless movement leads to decadence" (Horosko, 2002, p. 75). Every movement in the technique results from an emotional impulse. Graham told her students that if you must mark a movement, mark the physicality but never the dramatic meaning.

Many of the movements in the Graham technique use terms from ballet, such as the numbered positions of the feet and the terms pliÃ© and relevÃ©. When you take a Graham class, you can expect to hear many of these basic terms from ballet used regularly. Although Graham's technique was in many ways a rebellion against ballet, it did, like all of the early modern styles, overlap in some ways with a classical dance vocabulary. There are turned-out as well as parallel movements in the Graham technique. Like a ballet class, the work in a Graham technique class is always in the same order: floor work, breathing, knees, standing center work, barre work, traveling across the floor. While the syllabus has a set order and structure of the exercises, the number of repetitions and whether everything from the syllabus is included in a particular class is up to the individual instructor.

Relationship to Music

Much of what Martha Graham believed about the relationship between dance and music was a result of her longtime association with Denishawn music director Louis Horst. He served as advisor, mentor, and partner to Graham for the majority of her career. He convinced Graham that she should commission music for her dances rather than use already-existing music, a practice she regularly upheld. Graham gave the composer a set script of action, mood, and timing for the work. She listened to sections of score while it was being composed but waited to choreograph the work until the score was completely finished. Horst, and consequently Graham, preferred modern music as the accompaniment to dance.

Whether the music was written specifically for the dance or not, Graham, under Horst's influence, believed that music should be sublimated to the dance. As Horst himself said, "The question is not how great a dance composer is, but what he does for the dance. The composer-accompanist must expect to sacrifice some of his identity as a musician when he writes or plays for the dance" (Mazo, 1977, p. 194). The function of the music was to support the mood and emotional content of the piece, not to be the guiding stimulus for its creation.

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The function of dance is communication. . . . By communication is not meant to tell a story or to project an idea, but to communicate experience by means of action . . . out of this came a different use of the body as an instrument, as the violin is an instrument.

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A Dance Choreographed by Pearl Primus.

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1 or more of the videos in the PREZI are unavailable. If you would like to search those videos on youtube, you can try!

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Frank, R. E. (1990). Tap! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories, 1900-1955. New York: William Morrow. Retrieved from http://www.scencyclopedia.org/bates.htm on March 02, 2014. Oaks, D. (2010). Swing it: The story of Peg Leg Bates. In Cricket Magazine. Carus Publishing

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This dance is called "Hambone" also known as the "Juba" dance created by plantation enslaved people in the early times.

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Clawhammer Banjo Tune (and Tab) of the Week: "Durang's Hornpipe"

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Duet

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Duet with Ballet Folklorico

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Dance Performance | Ballet Folklórico Mexicano de Yale | TEDxYale

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Ed Sullivan Show performance

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A brief documentary on the history and pedagogy of Michio Ito. 

Film edited by James D'Arcy.

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Britannica.com

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Arthur Mitchell: Arthur Mitchell, American dancer, choreographer, and director who was the first African American to become a principal dancer with a major ballet troupe, New York City Ballet. He later cofounded (1969) Dance Theatre of Harlem. Mitchell attended the High School for the Performing Arts in New York

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Find this in my library.

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Clayton performing on the popular TV Show- The Ed Sullivan Show.

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Impersonation of John Durang

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Wayne Sleep – Impersonating John Durang Performing the Hornpipe Dance

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I’ve always admired Wayne Sleep, having seen him as a kid on stage at the Royal Ballet. He mainly danced character roles, but was occasionally cast in a leading role – I remember seeing his Albrecht in ‘Giselle’.

Here Sleep impersonates the early professional American dancer John Durang (1768–1822) performing the hornpipe dance.

Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Durang was educated at the Christ Lutheran Church school in York in the same state.

He began performing ‘lectures’ (dances being illegal) and had a career as an acrobat, actor, mime, rope dancer, and blackface comic.

Reputedly George Washington's favourite entertainer, Durang travelled throughout the north-eastern United States and Canada in ‘Ricketts's Circus’.

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Amalia Hernandez

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Enter the Access ID and Passcode provided by your school to access Britannica School.

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Video Resource of Anna Pavlova Biography- information from the book "How they Became Famous Dancers."

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Video Resource of Anna Pavlova Biography- information from the book "How they Became Famous Dancers."

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Video Resource of Anna Pavlova "Dying Swan"

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Video Resource of Anna Pavlova "Dying Swan"

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Video resource of William Henry "Juba" Lane bio project

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Video resource of William Henry "Juba" Lane bio project

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Find this book in my library!

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Video Resource of Michio Ito's choreography style

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Video Resource of Michio Ito's choreography style

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Video resource of Michio Ito- information from book "How they Became Famous Dancers."

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Video resource of Michio Ito- information from book "How they Became Famous Dancers."

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Video of Marie's style of ballet dancing and pointe shoes of that time. 

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Video of Marie's style of ballet dancing and pointe shoes of that time. 

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Ballet Evolved - Marie Taglioni 1804-1884

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Marie Taglioni, (born April 23, 1804, Stockholm, Sweden-died April 24, 1884, Marseille, France), Italian ballet dancer whose fragile, delicate dancing typified the early 19th-century Romantic style.

Trained chiefly by her father, Filippo Taglioni, she made her debut in Vienna in 1822. In her father's ballet La Sylphide, introduced at the Paris Opéra, March 12, 1832, she became one of the first women to dance on the extreme tips, or points, of the toes; she created a new style marked by floating leaps, such balanced poses as the arabesque, and a delicate, restrained use of the points.

The diaphanous dress she wore in La Sylphide, with its fitted bodice and airy, bell-like skirt, was the prototype of the tutu, the full, light skirt that, in various lengths, has remained the accepted uniform of the classical dancer for more than a century. Not only did she have Paris at her feet but audiences in London, Milan, Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg hailed her as one of the greatest dancers ballet had ever produced.

Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.

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Marie Taglioni, Italian ballet dancer whose fragile, delicate dancing typified the early 19th-century Romantic style. Trained chiefly by her father, Filippo Taglioni, she made her debut in Vienna in 1822. In her father's ballet La Sylphide, introduced at the Paris Opéra, March 12, 1832, she became