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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
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Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Expressive dance from German Ausdruckstanz,[2] is a form of artistic dance in which the individual and artistic presentation (and sometimes also processing) of feelings is an essential part. It emerged as a counter-movement to classical ballet at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe. Traditional ballet was perceived as austere, mechanical and tightly held in fixed and conventional forms. Other designations are modern dance and (especially in the historical context) free dance, expressionist dance[2] or new artistic dance, in Anglo-American countries German dance. In 2014, modern dance with the stylistic forms and mediation forms of rhythmic and expressive dance movements was included in the German List of intangible Cultural Heritage as defined by the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. German Expressionist dance is related to Tanztheater.[3]
Expressionist dance was marked by the passage of modernism, vitalism, expressionism, avant-garde and a general protest against artistic stagnation and the old society. Ballet was perceived to have been superficial entertainment. The new dance would be art, both individual and artistic creation. The dance was described as the art of movement.
It was a revolution. It would be more expressive, and show more spirit and emotion and less virtuosity. The dance would be improvisational, uninhibited and provocative. Future spiritual and bodily reform movements expressed themselves in a new "natural" naked dance. The women took centre stage. A key protagonist was Isadora Duncan, who around 1900 had taken from classical dance technique and costume. She had even taken off dancing shoes – "you do not play the piano with gloves on". She wanted to unite the body, mind and spirit in her art, and searched with Olga Desmond for inspiration in ancient Greek and Egyptian art, during the time of Orientalism.
The revolutionary movements in Germany and the USA were most obvious, two countries that had no older rooted ballet tradition. The forerunners in Europe included Clotilde von Derp, Hertha Feist, Hilde Holger, Loie Fuller, Jo Mihaly and especially Mary Wigman.
Schools for expressionist dance had special philosophies and emphases for dance, such as naturalness, breathing, tension / relaxation etc. It was often associated with floor contact, "weight" of dance movements, and experiments with music. Body and physicality were strongly emphasized. Rudolf von Laban was a theoretical prominent figure who was based on metaphysical ideas and one of the pioneers of Ausdruckstanz in Germany.[4] From 1913-1918, Laban operated a school for art on the colony Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland, which became a teaching centre for the new dance.[4] Among his students were Kurt Jooss and Mary Wigman.
Mary Wigman was an important trendsetter as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. In her school in Dresden (opened in 1920) she taught Europe's premier aspiring dancers Gret Palucca, Harald Kreutzberg, Jeanna Falk, Dore Hoyer and Yvonne Georgi. Hanya Holm brought her theories to the United States, while Birgit Åkesson went her own way with her dance research.[5]
The Denishawn School in the United States was founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, with such students as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey. Its independent and pioneering dance came to form the backbone of modern dance, whose many branches stretched forth up until today.
Butoh is inspired by the German expressionist dance of the 1950s.
The British choreographer and live performer Liz Aggiss, who trained with Hanya Holm and Hilde Holger, has been making expressionist dance works since 1986. Her first solo show, Grotesque Dancer, was inspired by Valeska Gert. In 1992, Holger revived four dances for Aggiss from her repertoire: Die Forelle (The Trout) (1923), Le Martyre de San Sebastien (1923), Mechaniches Ballett (1926) and Golem (1937). These were first performed with Billy Cowie, as Vier Tanze, at the Manchester Festival of Expressionism in 1992.[6] Sophie Constanti wrote that 'Together all four pieces danced with great sensitivity and aplomb by Aggiss...provided a fascinating insight into the lost Ausdruckstanz of central Europe.'[7]
Indian dancer Patruni Sastry has been working on choreographic style "Indian expressionism" where the major work is focused on queer rights and other social elements[8][9][10]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Expressive dance from German Ausdruckstanz, is a form of artistic dance in which the individual and artistic presentation (and sometimes also processing) of feelings is an essential part. It emerged as a counter-movement to classical ballet at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe. Traditional ballet was perceived as austere, mechanical and tightly held in fixed and conventional forms. Other designations are modern dance and (especially in the historical context) free dance, expressionist dance or new artistic dance, in Anglo-American countries German dance. In 2014, modern dance with the stylistic forms and mediation forms of rhythmic and expressive dance movements was included in the German List of intangible Cultural Heritage as defined by the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. German Expressionist dance is related to Tanztheater.
German expressionist cinema was a part of several related creative movements in Germany in the early 20th century that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in Northwestern European culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture and cinema.
The term expressionism was probably first applied to music in 1918, especially to Schoenberg", because like the painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) he avoided "traditional forms of beauty" to convey powerful feelings in his music. Theodor Adorno interprets the expressionist movement in music as seeking to "eliminate all of traditional music's conventional elements, everything formulaically rigid". This he sees as analogous "to the literary ideal of the 'scream.' " As well Adorno sees expressionist music as seeking "the truthfulness of subjective feeling without illusions, disguises or euphemisms". Adorno also describes it as concerned with the unconscious, and states that "the depiction of fear lies at the centre" of expressionist music, with dissonance predominating, so that the "harmonious, affirmative element of art is banished". Expressionist music would "thus reject the depictive, sensual qualities that had come to be associated with impressionist music. It would endeavor instead to realize its own purely musical nature—in part by disregarding compositional conventions that placed 'outer' restrictions on the expression of 'inner' visions". Expressionist music often features a high level of dissonance, extreme contrasts of dynamics, constant changing of textures, "distorted" melodies and harmonies, and angular melodies with wide leaps.
Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement in Europe during the first decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts that especially developed and dominated in Germany. Brick Expressionism is a special variant of this movement in western and northern Germany, as well as in the Netherlands (where it is known as the Amsterdam School).
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
