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Elaine Summers
Lillian Elaine Summers (February 20, 1925 – December 27, 2014) was an American choreographer, experimental filmmaker, and intermedia pioneer. She was a founding member of the original workshop-group that would form the Judson Dance Theater and she significantly contributed to the interaction of film and dance, as well as the expansion of dance into other related disciplines, such as visual art, film, and theater. She fostered the expansion of performing dance in new, often outdoor locations. Her movement approach Kinetic Awareness offers a comprehensive perspective on human movement and dance. She died at Bellevue Hospital, New York, on the morning of December 27, 2014, after a fall at her home. Early life Elaine Summers was born in Perth, Western Australia and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts with her mother and her younger brother John. Although she took self-paid dance classes through adolescence, she first studied Art Education and received a Bachelor of Science degree from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of the metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which the city's central business district and port of Fremantle are situated. Perth is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where Aboriginal Australians have lived for at least 45,000 years. Captain James Stirling founded Perth in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony. It was named after the city of Perth in Scotland, due to the influence of Stirling's patron Sir George Murray, who had connections with the area. It gained city statu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Horst
Louis Horst (born January 12, 1884, Kansas City, Missouri – died January 23, 1964, New York City) was a composer, and pianist. He helped to define the principles of modern dance choreographic technique, most notably the matching of choreography to pre-existing musical structure and the use of contemporary music for dance scores. Biography and work Horst was the musical director for the Denishawn company (1916-25) before working as musical director and dance composition teacher for Martha Graham's school and dance company (1926-48). One memorable piece of advice that Horst gave dancers in his lessons in the 1930s, at times delivered in a sarcastic tone: "when in doubt, turn." This is a variant of Ted Shawn's famous line "When in doubt, twirl." The Grateful Dead Almanac adopted it as their motto. lonehombr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Gordon (choreographer)
David Gordon (July 14, 1936 – January 29, 2022) was an American dancer, choreographer, writer, and theatrical director prominent in the world of postmodern dance and performance. Based in New York City, Gordon's work has been seen in major performance venues across the United States, Europe, South America and Japan, and has appeared on television on PBS's '' Great Performances'' and ''Alive TV'', and the BBC and Channel 4 in Great Britain. Twice a Guggenheim Fellow (1981 and 1987), Gordon has been a panelist of the dance program panels of the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, and chairman of the former. He was a member of the Actors Studio, and was a founder of the Center for Creative Research. Gordon was married to Valda Setterfield, a dancer and actress born in England, who was for 10 years a featured soloist with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She appears regularly in Gordon's work, and has been referred to as his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deborah Hay
Deborah Hay (born 1941 in Brooklyn, New York) is a choreographer, dancer, dance theorist, and author working in the field of experimental postmodern dance. She is one of the original founders of the Judson Dance Theater. Hay's signature slow and minimal dance style was informed by a trip to Japan while touring with Merce Cunningham's company in 1964. In Japan she encountered Noh (aka nô) theatre and soon incorporated nô's extreme slowness, minimalism and suspension into her post-Cunningham choreography. Sometimes she also imposed stressful conditions on the dancers, as with her "Solo" group dance that was presentation at '' 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering''. Judson Memorial Church Hay moved to Downtown, Manhattan in the 1960s, where she trained with Merce Cunningham and Mia Slavenska. She became part of the collective of dancers, composers, and visual artists who performed happenings and minimalist dance performances at the Judson Memorial Church and became known as the Juds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Herko
Frederick Charles "Freddie" Herko (February 23, 1936 – October 27, 1964) was an American artist, musician, actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher. Early life Born in New York City, Herko's father was a diner manager and his mother was a homemaker. The family first lived on the Lower East Side before moving to Brooklyn. When Herko was two years old, the family settled in Ossining, New York. As a child, Herko exhibited a talent for music and became a proficient pianist and flautist. Upon graduating from high school, Herko attended the Juilliard School and planned to be a concert pianist. In 1954, Herko attended a staging of ''Giselle'' and became fascinated with the Russian lead, Igor Youskevitch. Herko soon decided to pursue a career as a ballet dancer. When Herko told his parents of his decision, his “macho, working-class” father became enraged and beat him. Career Herko soon earned a four-year scholarship to the American Ballet Theater School (now known as the Jacqu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucinda Childs
Lucinda Childs (born June 26, 1940) is an American postmodern dancer/choreographer and actress. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into intricate choreography. Her use of patterns, repetition, and dialect has caused her to have a unique style of choreography that is often imitated for its ability to experiment. Personal life and early career Lucinda Childs was born in New York City. She began dancing at the age of six at the King-Coit School. At age eleven, Childs was introduced to Tanaquil LeClercq from the New York City Ballet. LeClercq had inspired Childs to pursue dance, but Childs found that she could not execute everything perfectly. When she met the actress Mildred Dunnock, her ambition shifted to becoming an actress. Continuing her dance training, she studied with Harriet Ann Gray and Helen Tamiris at the Perry-Mansfield of Theatre and Dance. Childs also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancers train their bodies, remains pervasively impactful within international postmodern dance. Early life and education Brown was born in Aberdeen, Washington in 1936, and received a B.A. degree in dance from Mills College in 1958. Brown later received a D.F.A. from Bates College in 2000. For several summers she studied with Louis Horst, José Limón, and Merce Cunningham at the American Dance Festival, then held at Connecticut College. Work Dance In 1960 Brown participated in an experimental workshop devoted to improvisation at the studio of Anna Halprin, in Kentfield, California. Subsequently, at the urging of fellow choreographers, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer, Brown moved to New York to study composition with Robert Dunn, who taught a cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Ellis Dunn
Robert Ellis Dunn (1928 – July 5, 1996) was an American musician and choreographer who led classes in dance composition, contributing to the birth of the postmodern dance period in the early 1960s in New York City. Early years Dunn was born in Oklahoma, where he toured the state early on in his career as a tap dancer. However, his first training in the arts was in music, and he studied music composition and theory at the New England Conservatory. From 1955 to 1958 he studied dance at the Boston Conservatory of Music and taught percussion for the dancers of the conservatory. The Boston Conservatory is where Dunn first began working with Merce Cunningham. Career Robert Dunn first collaborated with Merce Cunningham in performances in Boston and New York City in 1958. He soon moved to New York, where he worked as a piano accompanist at the Cunningham Studio. Dunn had attended some of John Cage and Richard Maxfield’s seminars on experimental and electronic composition at the New S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martha Graham School
Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance is located in New York City and is the headquarters to the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Martha Graham Dance Company, which is the oldest continually performing dance company in the world. The School is focused on teaching Graham's technique; some of its faculty were trained by Graham herself. The center was founded in 1926 by Martha Graham. Its first headquarters consisted of a small dance studio on Broadway. The center later moved to a two-story building at 316 East 63rd Street, New York. After Martha Graham's death in 1991, the center's leadership was debated. In her will, Martha Graham left Ron Protas as heir to her estate. Protas claimed ownership of the rights to Graham's name and choreographic oeuvre, and sued the Martha Graham Dance Company for trademark infringement. After years of legal battles, the Martha Graham Dance Company was ruled the owner of the Graham name and almost all of her repertoire. During ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janet Collins
Janet Collins (March 7, 1917 – May 28, 2003) was an African American ballet dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She performed on Broadway, in films, and appeared frequently on television. She was among the pioneers of black ballet dancing, one of the few classically trained Black dancers of her generation. Biography Janet Faye Collins was born in New Orleans, and at the age of four moved with her family to Los Angeles, California,David VaughanJanet Collins obituary ''The Guardian'', June 11, 2003. where Collins received her first dance training at a Catholic community center. She studied primarily with Carmelita Maracci, Lester Horton, and Adolph Bolm, who were among the few ballet teachers who accepted black students.Dunning, Jennifer"Janet Collins, 86: Ballerina Was First Black Artist at Met Opera" ''The New York Times'', May 31, 2003. She also had fond memories of studying with Los Angeles dance teacher Dorothy Lyndall. In 1932, aged 16, Collins auditioned with success for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Erdman
Jean Erdman (February 20, 1916 – May 4, 2020) was an American dancer and choreographer of modern dance as well as an avant-garde theater director. Biography Early years and background Erdman was born in Honolulu. Erdman's father, John Piney Erdman, a doctor of divinity and missionary from New England, settled in Honolulu as a minister at the non-denominational Protestant Church of the Crossroads where he preached, in both English and Japanese, to a multi-ethnic congregation. Her mother, Marion Dillingham Erdman, was a member of one of the founding industrialist families of Hawaii. Erdman's earliest dance experience was the hula. She attended the Punahou School in Honolulu where she learned, as a form of physical education, Isadora Duncan interpretive dance. Reflecting on her early dance training Erdman said these two influences taught her that dancing is an "expression of something meaningful to the dancer, not a mere series of lively steps." From Hawaii, Erdman went to M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elsa Gindler
Elsa Gindler (19 June 1885 – 8 January 1961) was a somatic bodywork pioneer in Germany. Born in Berlin, teacher of gymnastik, student of Hedwig Kallmeyer (who, in turn, had been a student of Genevieve Stebbins). From her personal experience of recovering from tuberculosis (it is said by concentrating on breathing only with her healthy lung and resting the diseased lung), Gindler originated a school of movement education, in close collaboration with Heinrich Jacoby. What Gindler had called ''Arbeit am Menschen'' (work on the human being) emphasised self-observation and growing understanding of one's individual physically related condition. Simple actions such as sitting, standing, and walking were explored, as well as other everyday movements. This became one of the bases of body psychotherapy since many of the most influential body psychotherapists studied with her or "Sensory Awareness" with Charlotte Selver at the Esalen Institute around 1962. During the Nazi-period of Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
