Contemporary History of Modern Dance In Iceland

The ideas of the pioneers of modern dance concerning movement flourished off and on in Iceland, though they did not take a firm hold. Iceland was, until the beginning of the 20th century, a peaceful peasant and fishing society with the population evenly dispersed on the coasts of the island. Only in the late 19th century did a major population center appear in the capital Reykjavik, due to industrial development in both the fishing industry and farm management. Service and commerce increased quickly. In 1900 the population of the Reykjavik was 6,000 inhabitants (three percent of the whole population) but only 10 years later it had reached 12,000 or 14 percent of the whole population.

Since 1900 the capital has been the major cultural center of the country and today over 150,000 people live in Reykjavik. People who were educated abroad came back to Iceland more aware of the cultural changes in the surrounding world. This caused them to strain toward a higher level of education and arts in Reykjavik and be comparable to neighbouring countries. Theatres, galleries, and educational institutions grew quickly and so did the education of dance. Although the tradition of classical ballet theatre did not reach Iceland until the 1920s, the tradition of modern dance did rather quickly after it emerged.

In 1974 modern dance was incorporated in the gymnastic classes at the Icelandic College of Physical Education and Sport. The initiative came from Sigriour Valgeirsdottir, a young Iceland woman who had recently returned to Iceland after a long period of dance studies with some of the founders of modern dance, in Berkeley, California. Enthusiastic to spread her knowledge, Valgeirsdottir tried to establish a school and company in Reykjavik. Since the Icelanders had only recently become familiar with classical ballet training, for the first class most of the girls showed up thinking they were to dance in tutus and point shoes. After an honest attempt to spread modern dance around the country, Valgeirsdottir began to train a group of dancer-gymnastics at the Icelandic College of Physical Education and Sport. It was a modern gymnastic troupe that traveled in Iceland and its neighboring countries, using Valgeirsdottir 's choreography and music by various Icelandic composers. Although the troupe's style was based in modern dance, they attended festivals with other gymnastic groups in Scandinavia, modern dance wasn't known there either at that time.

In 1952 the National Theatre of Iceland opened a ballet school, the first and possibly only school with public support. Although the school has always been strictly classical it has from time to time included modern training, depending on the range of guest teachers. Other dance schools, such as, Jassballettskoli Baru, Dansstudio Soleyjar, and Kramhusio have also taught modern technique on occasion since the 1960s. The techniques of Graham, Cunningham, Limon and Horton have all been taught for a few years at a time, coming and going with different teachers. A few times modern jazz companies have been established, but none have so far persisted for more than two or three years at a time.

In 1973 the Icelandic Ballet was established, it was the country's first dance company to receive government support. In the late 1990s the company lead was taken by Katrin Hall who decided to change the company to a modern one, quite an attestation to the modern tradition, finally receiving attention and governmental support. Modern dance has been taught for many; years in various places but had never gotten a firm hold in Icelandic culture. Now, with the Icelandic Ballet recognising the tradition, one imagines modern dance has found a permanent home in Iceland, where it has been coming and going for more than 70 years.

Saburo Teshigawara, Japanese Dancer, Choreographer and Company Director

When modern dance germinated in Japan in the 1910s, to many it appeared another Occidental dance form. Over the years, modern dance practitioners have been influenced by the dance pioneers like Wigman, Dalcroz and Graham. Teshigawara, however didn't follow any one's modern dance style, and his works didn't fit easily into any of those associated with conventional modern dance. His choreography is not a restatement of modern dances heritage, but a unique, redefining of dance.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Teshigawara studied plastic arts in the 1970s and began to study classical ballet in 1976. He began choreographing in 1981 and began his company KARAS, in 1985. After winning several awards over seas invitations poured in from theatres and festivals in Europe, the United States, and Japan.

Set design constitutes a significant feature of his works, he assigns the same importance to scenography as to dance. Teshigawara uses specific materials to deliver the dominant theme of each work, for example, sheet glass is used in Blue Meteorite and The Moon Is Quicksilver. The floor is covered with sheet glass and he stands, stomps and kneels down, smashing and cracking the glass, which in turn creates dazzling effects with the stage lighting.

Teshigawara's movement vocabulary resembles Graham, Cunningham and Butoh all thrown together. As a direct result of his unconventional creative style, Teshigawara is one of the most sought after choreographers in Japan and abroad. He says his dance is derived from the present, instead of following the retrospective modern dance model, and he proceeds as a choreographer in his own light.

Nacho Duato

Nacho Duato, Spanish dancer, choreographer, and company director was born in Valencia in 1957. Duato was very young when he left Spain to be trained in several schools as diverse as Rambert School in London, Mudra School in Brussels, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York. He joined the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm in 1980 and the next year was brought to Nederlands Dans Theatre by Jiri Kylian with whom he worked closely as well as the painter and designer Walter Nobbe. Duato became resident choreographer and then director, and in 1988 he was appointed director of Compania Nacional de Danza by the Ministry of Culture of Spain. He has been a free lance choreographer since 1996 and has continued to earn medals and awards for his work.

Nacho Duato is considered to have played a significant role in building up choreographic modernity in Spain. He has frequently broken the limits of musical Eurocentrism with large spectacles using non-European music as in Cor Pedut, Rassemblement or Mediterrania and is thought to be a universal choreographer. He is quoted to have said "I like the audience to recieve energy through the body of the dancer. I try to abstain from using any kind of superficial adorments in the costumes and the sets. I feel the need to express sensations with movements, without the help of ostentatious set designs. When the company comes out on stage, I like the audience to recieve a considerable charge of energy and sensitivity through the dancer's body. Dance must incorporate a bit of joint celebration and participation; it's not something that leaves the audience out, but permits it to take part in what is happening."

Duato frequently incorporates political statements into his dances, and as a member of culture where values require a solid presentation and defense, his commitment to entertainment has been a key to his success. The plunge of Spain into modernity through its transition into democracy after the death of the Dictator Franco, was mirrored in milestones in almost every social field. In dance it was Nacho Duato that played a large role by cooperating firmly and decisively move dance forward.

Dance Timeline of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Some of the dances and events that I feel are important from 1950-2000.

1950- Martha Graham’s The Gospel of Eve and Judith.

1950- composer John Cage was looking for ways to impose as little as possible on musical elements as a way of rebelling against prescribed scenarios of one thing having to lead to another.

1951- Martha Graham’s solo The Triumph of St. Joan where she presents several aspects of woman, the Maid, Warrior, and Martyr. Jungian thought provided Graham with an approach to personae, she was stimulated by the idea of the collective unconscious and the power of the archetypal images that dwelt there.

1953- a new work was being planned for the New York City Ballet with a proposed collaboration between Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine.

1953- Merce Cunningham forms his Cunningham company.

1954- George Balanchine uses Charles Ives’s The Unaswered Question for a section of Ivesiana, a restless, yearning call of a melody never resolved where amazingly the female dancer never touches the ground.

1955- Anna Sokolow’s work Rooms about urban isolation in tenements.

1957- Agon premiered, the final product of the collaboration of Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine. It was perceived as a dazzling contemporary work, dense and lean, no fancy costumes only black and white practice clothes.

1958- Merce Cunningham and his company premiere Summerspace at the American Dance Festival. It was the first time Merce and his dancers had been invited to teach and perform at this bastion of modern dance.

1960- Liebeslider Walzer by George Balanchine and the music of Brahms, this ballet is poignantly romantic.

1960- Martha Graham’s Alcestis where a tipped, massive inverted L was a bed for the heroine’s unquiet slumbers.

1961- Anna Sokolow’s work Dreams about the horrors of the Holocaust.

1962 Judson Church becomes Judson Dance Theatre, it was a very experimental container for post-modern work.

1963- Suzanne Farrell’s status as a new muse is announced in Don Quixote, where Balanchine himself played the impotent and idealist Don to Farrell’s Dulcinea.

1965- Twyla Tharp left the Paul Taylor Company and started doing her own work.

1967- Cunningham Company does Rainforest, with glinting, gently bobbling stacks of helium-filled pillows that where designed by Andy Warhol.

1968- Merce Cunningham does Walkaround Time, which eventually erases the very notion of follow-up from the audience’s slate of possibilities.

1969- The Grand Union Collective is begun with Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, David Gordon and Trisha Brown.

1969- Cunningham Company does Canfield a dance where the order of sections or how many of them are performed may change from one performance to another.

1973- Martha Graham ends her performing career though she still animated and controlled her dancers, some say making them into appurtenances.

1974- a revival of “The Kingdom of the Shades” act from La Bayadere, staged by Natalia Makarova for American Ballet Theatre.

1975- Jiri Kylian joined the Netherlands Dance Theatre as resident choreographer and co-artistic director.

1975- Cunningham Company does Torse, a fast, bright, rather dry virtuosic piece, stressing five basic positions of the torso – straight, twisted, tilted, arched, and bent.

1976- the X6 Collective was formed in England and was similar to what the Judson Dance Theatre was doing ten years prior.

1976- revival of George Balanchine’s 1957 Square Dance where he inserted a new solo for the dancer Bart Cook because of Cook’s ability to blend lyrical plastic with a forthright farm boy persona.

1979- Glacial Decoy was the start of Trisha Brown’s lifelong exploration of the relationship between dance and visual arts. This quiet piece sees five dancers perform before Rauschenberg’s astonishingly beautiful slide projections.

1980- premier of Bell High for the Rambert Company by Richard Alston.

1981- Lar Lubovitch’s inward looking piece called Cavalcade to Reich’s Octet.

1986- Ulysses Dove’s Vespers, this piece has a postmodernist movement style featuring strong gestural phrases, a side-facing focus and a lot of waiting, along with a driving, percussive musical score by Mikel Rouse.

1991- Marie Chouinard first group work, Les Trous du ciel, was acclaimed in Canada, the United States and Europe. Critics and public alike felt the same intensity as in her solos, heightened by the numerous dancers.

1991- Ms. Tharp regrouped her company Twyla Tharp Dance and created a program with Mikhail Baryshnikov called Cutting Up, which went on to become one of contemporary dance's most successful tours, appearing in twenty eight cities over a two month period.

1999- Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake won the Drama Desk Award and two Tony Awards, Best Director for a Musical and Best Choreography. It was reviewed as pure theatre and most likely the most impressive and significant show to open on Broadway in a long time.