Masters of Modern Dance: Trey McIntyre

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ballet

Theatrical dance in which a formal academic technique (the danse d'école) is combined with music, costume, and stage scenery. Developed from court productions of the Renaissance, ballet was renewed under Louis XIV, who in 1661 established France's Académie Royale de Danse, where Pierre Beauchamp developed the five ballet positions. Early ballets were often accompanied by singing and incorporated into opera-ballets by composers such as Jean-Baptiste Lully. In the 18th century Jean-Georges Noverre and Gasparo Angiolini separately developed the dramatic ballet (ballet d'action) to tell a story through dance steps and mime, a reform echoed in Christoph Willibald Gluck's music. Significant developments in the early 19th century included pointe work (balance on the extreme tip of the toe) and the emergence of the prima ballerina, exemplified by Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Russia became the centre of ballet production and performance, through the work of innovators such as Sergey Diaghilev, Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Marius Petipa, and Michel Fokine; great ballets were composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Igor Stravinsky. Since then, ballet schools in Great Britain and the U.S. have elevated ballet in those countries to Russia's level and greatly increased its audience. See also American Ballet Theatre; Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo; Ballets Russes; Bolshoi Ballet; New York City Ballet; Royal Ballet.

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choreography

Art of creating and arranging dances. The word is derived from the Greek for “dance” and “write,” reflecting its early meaning as a written record of dances. By the 19th century the term was used mainly for the creation of dances, and the written record became known as dance notation. In the 16th century dance masters at the French court arranged their social dances into specific patterns. In the 17th century such dances became more complex and were performed as theatrical ballets by trained professionals. In the late 18th century Jean-Georges Noverre and Gasparo Angiolini introduced choreography that combined expressive mime and dance steps to produce the dramatic ballet. This was further developed in 19th-century Romantic ballets by Marius Petipa, Jules Perrot, and August Bournonville. Radical change in the 20th century began with choreographers of the Ballets Russes, including Michel Fokine and Léonide Massine, and continued with George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Frederick Ashton, Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham, and Twyla Tharp. See also Alvin Ailey; Agnes de Mille; Serge Lifar; Bronislava Nijinska; Salvatore Viganò.

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modern dance

Theatrical dance that developed in the U.S. and Europe in the 20th century as a reaction to traditional ballet. Precursors included Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan. Formal teaching of modern dance began with the establishment of the Denishawn schools by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in 1915. Many of their students, principally Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham, further contributed to modern dance's definition as a technique based on principles of fall and recovery (Humphrey) and of contraction and release (Graham). Movement often stressed the expression of emotional intensity and contemporary subjects rather than focusing on the formal, classical, and often narrative aspects of ballet. Later developments included a revolt in the 1950s against Graham's expressionism, led by Merce Cunningham, whose choreography included ballet technique and the element of chance. See also Agnes de Mille; Hanya Holm; José Limón; Alwin Nikolais; Anna Sokolow; Paul Taylor; Twyla Tharp.

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