Dancing on the Shoulders of Giants

Foulkes, Julia L.
Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002

I am regularly asked what kind of dance I “do.” Without missing a beat, I always say I am a modern dancer. It sounds good, but doesn’t actually define the genre for the average Joe-the-Plumber. I generally need to add qualifiers: “barefoot dancer” or “I get up and down off the floor a lot” or “maybe you’ve seen Martha Graham on PBS.” From here on out, I will refer people to Modern Bodies, Julia L. Foulkes’s study of Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey, for an enjoyable, if academic, breakdown of the form’s history.

Foulkes concentrates on the defining era of modern dance, from the 1930s-1950s, and places it in social, artistic, and political contexts. According to Foulkes, modern dance, like jazz, is a uniquely American art form.

With origins in the depression, war, and segregation there is a political component inherent to every move these early pioneers created, even the way they used gravity—especially the way they used gravity. Martha Graham fell to the floor and stayed there, weighted by the new Freudian psychology; Doris Humphrey fell and recovered, balancing activism with abstraction; Alvin Ailey emphasized the spirituality in the African American struggle for equality by focusing on the upswing of the movement rather than the force of the falls.

Foulkes provides a bridge between the physical vocabulary of modern dance and the social implications of its themes. She writes, “In its conception and its practice, modern dance illustrated the social tension between the heralding of the individual and the possibilities of mass appeal and participation…Modern dance embodied the conflict and the potential of creating a democratic whole out of distinct individuals” (Page 2-3).

And what individuals they were! At a time when many women were only beginning to think about working outside of the home as a result of the war and the economic necessity of the depression, Graham, Humphrey, and others such as Ruth St. Denis and Helen Tamaris, were creating their own art form. Foulkes talks extensively about the way white women (many of whom were Jewish) emerged—and remain—the primary shakers in the field. Foulkes speaks to the role of other marginalized groups in society, mainly African Americans, such as Alvin Ailey, Pearl Primus, and Katherine Dunham, and gay men, such as Ted Shawn’s WPA Men Dancing Project, and how each choreographer used dance to push boundaries and defy prejudices.

During this period there was an ongoing balance between group works with political or social topics and solo work with intensely personal or emotional themes. Foulkes provides a great example in her discussion of Graham’s Lamentations, “The dance distilled one emotion—grief—into the strained, yearning movements of a confined body. This ability to convey emotion through structured form was what New York Times dance critic John Martin stressed as modern dance’s importance” (Page 18).

I only wish there were more images throughout the book to illustrate Foulkes’s excellent research. Her writing is lively enough to keep you invested, but dance is visual and ephemeral and I would love to see a few more images right there to back up her ideas. Where there are images, such as the lovely side-by-side photos of Graham in her group work, Heretic, and in the solo, Lamentations, the premise becomes crystal clear and that much more evocative.

I love connecting the dots between Foulkes’s study of the origins of modern dance, my life as a modern dancer/choreographer, and my experiences as a teaching artist at LCI. Foulkes profiles Pearl Primus, citing her anthropological field work throughout the African Diaspora and the resulting athletic modern dances as an example of African Americans making the art form resonate with their lives. Jowole Willa Joe Zollar’s choreography for the Urban Bush Women, especially Walking with Pearl, which was based on Primus’s diaries and has been part of an LCI repertory piece during 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, clearly carries on this tradition.

Throughout Modern Bodies there are many other dots to be connected. The isolation and restriction of the body in Graham’s Lamentations puts me in mind of Elizabeth Streb’s 1985 solo Little Ease. I taught to Ailey’s Revelations in a mixed abilities first grade class and was floored by the dance’s ongoing power to wage war against prejudice with positivity and spiritual commitment. The aura of social activism that surrounds each of these artists inspires me in my own artistic pursuits. My collaborator and I made a suite of dances (a 1930s structural favorite) with overtly political themes. I love that I am casually standing on the shoulders of giants, looking forward to post-modernism and backward to all that went before, giving my glib proclamation that “I’m a modern dancer” serious weight and consideration as a form of politically conscious activism.

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