Dance As a Project of the Early Modern Avantgarde: an Analysis of Three Western Expressive Dance Works Created Between 1900 and 1920 and Their Cultural Implications

Three expressive dance works created between 1900 and 1920 are presented as projects of the Early Modern avant-garde in this study. The dances chosen were Incense (1906) by Ruth St. Denis, Gnossienne (1919) by Ted Shawn, and L'Après-Midi d'un Faune by Vaslav Nijinsky. As self-contained modular units, these dances were marketed in context with both popular entertainments and serious concert art works. Five issues characteristic of Modernism are delineated in this analysis; exoticism, spiritualism, distortions of time and space, naturalism, and responses to technological advances. Each of the three dances is discussed in relation to these issues, bringing them into theoretical discussion with other arts. This scope of investigation facilitates discussion of dance as a culturally expressive behavior. Specifically, an understanding of the close relationships between European and American experimental dance illuminates the dynamics of Early Modernism. Comparison of the similarities and differences among a wide range of avant-garde expressions invites an understanding of the exchange between popular and serious Twentieth Century performing art venues.