[00:00.00]NARRATOR: Listen to part of a lecture in a dance history class.[00:03.73]MALE PROFESSOR: As we've been studying, ballet, classical ballet, is based on formalized movements: specific positioning of the arms, of the feet, and the body. [00:18.36]So, now let's move on to modern dance, also known as "theatrical dance." [00:23.75]Modern dance evolved in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century, and in most cases, audiences were very receptive to this radical new type of performing art.
[00:36.80]FEMALE STUDENT: Um, what made modern dance so radical?[00:41.81]MALE PROFESSOR: Well, for example, I think the best analogy to modern dance is modern art or modern music. [00:48.29]Compared to their classical predecessors, these newer art forms are freer, more experimental, more improvisational.
[00:57.38]Modern dance seeks to show how deep emotions...and the music itself...how these intangible attributes can affect and inspire physical movement and how movement can convey emotions to the audience. [01:12.38] As-as I said, in classical ballet, emotions are conveyed through a set of strictly formalized movements.[01:20.13]Now, a pioneer of modern dance was Isadora Duncan, who was born in 1878...[01:26.70]Isadora Duncan did study ballet briefly as a child, but she quickly developed her own unique style, which she called "free dance."[01:40.64] And, by age fourteen, she was teaching her free dance to young children and giving recitals.
[01:46.93]Her early dance technique was loosely based on the natural movements of children: running, skipping, acting out stories; also on motions from nature: uh, waves crashing onto shore, trees swaying in the wind.[02:02.06]Her expressive gestures were motivated from within rather than being dictated by strict technique.
[02:09.44]Duncan also wore her hair down; ballerinas typically wear their hair in a tight bun behind the head. [02:16.04]And instead of the short stiff skirts and rigid toe shoes worn by ballerinas, Duncan wore loose, flowing tunics, and she danced barefoot. [02:26.21]Now, that was something her audiences had never seen before!
[02:30.16] Duncan performed in Paris and other European cities, dancing to the music of classical composers but avoiding set movements and steps. No two performances were alike, [02:45.75] and audiences, for the most part, adored her.
[02:48.52]In 1904, she opened a school of modern dance in Berlin. [02:53.96]And the next year, she performed in Russia. [02:56.95]But...the Russian critics were not very kind. [03:01.14]Some said Duncan's art form was closer to pantomime than to dance. [03:05.74]But, her style was a clear rebellion against ballet, and ballet is extremely important in Russia. [03:12.79]A question, Julie?
[03:14.92]FEMALE STUDENT: Yeah, what did Duncan have against ballet? [03:22.09]I mean, she studied it as a child...[03:24.78]MALE PROFESSOR: As a youngster, she may have found it too restrictive, uh, not creative enough. [03:30.24]I think that feeling is exemplified by something that happened...early in her career...in Russia. [03:36.20]Duncan attended a ballet, and the lead dancer was the renowned Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.[03:43.43]The following day, Pavlova invited Duncan to watch her practice.
[03:51.20] Duncan accepted but was appalled by what she saw. [03:55.00]To her, the exercises that Pavlova and the other ballerinas were doing seemed painful, even harmful—standing on tiptoe for hours, moving their bodies in unnatural ways.[04:07.03]After seeing this, Duncan publicly denounced ballet as a form of acrobatics—um, complicated and excruciating mechanism,...she called it. [04:22.89]This critique generated, I think, some undue rivalry between ballet and modern dance. And it would take a long time, many years in fact, for that rivalry to calm down.
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