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America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: the First 100
Born in Tianjin, China, the son of an American diplomat, Edwin Denby (1903-1983) was the most influential American critic of his era. He was educated at Hotchkiss and Harvard, but first became interested in dance while studying in Vienna. He attended the Dalcroze-based Hellerau-Laxenburg school, danced at the State Theater in Darmstadt, and later as Clare Eckstein's partner-collaborator in Berlin. Returning to New York, he wrote his first criticism for Modern Music in 1936. In 1942-1945 he took over the dance column of the New York Herald Tribune, replacing a mobilized Walter Terry. After the war, he contributed essays to magazines and other publications. A poet who was close to the painters and poets of the New York School, he wrote with easy erudition and a friendly, confidential tone, concentrating on specific qualities of movement and the meanings that arise from them. "He was the first writer," Arlene Croce has said, "to give a clear account of the dynamic process of choreography—to capture in precise imagery the means by which dancing . . . exerts its power over the imagination."
The founding mother of American modern dance, Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) was born in San Francisco. Largely self-taught, she presented her first recital programs in 1898; by 1900 she was in Europe, where she would spend most of her remaining life and win greatest acceptance. Duncan carried out her "revolution" on many fronts. She discarded the corset, slippers, and tutu of conventional ballet dress, adopting instead tunics that freed the body and revealed its movement. She used music by Chopin, Beethoven, Gluck, Wagner, and other composers of the first rank. She danced on concert stages and in opera houses. She spoke of her dancing not as entertainment but as art, with a high moral purpose. Most of all, she insisted upon the essence of dance as movement. Her vocabulary was simple but performed with a musicality, dynamic subtlety, and charisma that made it powerfully expressive. Although Duncan's last U.S. tour ended in scandal, her unconventional lifestyle, dramatic death (her scarf caught on the wheel of a moving car and broke her neck), and outspoken memoirs made her an American icon.
The grande dame of African-American dance, Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She studied with Mark Turbyfill, Ruth Page, and Ludmilla Speranzeva in addition to studying anthropology at the University of Chicago. In 1935-1936, with support from the Rosenwald Foundation, she spent eighteen months investigating the dance cultures of the Caribbean. This research became the basis for the African-American style she was then developing. Settling in New York, she appeared at the 92nd Street Y and, with her company, took part in the 1940 Broadway hit Cabin in the Sky, choreographed by George Balanchine. In the 1940s her preferred format was the revue, which introduced audiences around the country to the best of African-American dance talent, trained in part at the school she opened in New York, and to African diaspora folklore. Her technique, which drew on movements from the Pacific as well as Africa and the Caribbean, led toward an experience of total rhythmic immersion. In 1966 she settled in East Saint Louis, where she began a long association with Southern Illinois University. www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/kdunham/
The great muse of Balanchine's last decades and a New York City Ballet star from the 1960s to 1980s, ballerina Suzanne Farrell (1945- ) received her early training in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she was born. She attended the School of American Ballet on a Ford Foundation scholarship, and in 1961 joined the New York City Ballet. Leading roles quickly followed, and beginning in 1963 parts in numerous new ballets including Don Quixote, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, Diamonds, Chaconne, Robert Schumann's "Davidsbündlertänze," and Mozartiana. Her amplitude, speed, and clarity left a deep imprint on NYCB ballerina style, as did her sensitive musicianship, and she was widely regarded as the outstanding interpreter of Balanchine style. Farrell appeared as a guest artist with the National Ballet of Canada and danced with Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the Twentieth Century from 1970 to 1974. Since retiring from the New York City Ballet in 1988, she has staged highly acclaimed versions of Balanchine works for companies around the world. She is the founder and artistic director of Suzanne Farrell Ballet. Federal arts programs in dance encompass two initiatives. The Federal Dance Project (1936-1939) represented New Deal support under the Works Progress Administration. Following formation of the Federal Theater Project, lobbyists from American Dance Association, New Dance League, and Dance Guild—with notable leadership by Helen Tamiris and Doris Humphrey—helped to bring about the program for dance to provide employment during the Great Depression, to spread availability of dance geographically, and to explore American themes. Dancers were hired in four categories: ballet, modern dance, vaudeville, and teaching. The first performance was Senia Gluck Sandor's The Eternal Prodigal (1936) at New York's Ritz Theater. Six cities participated, producing work with indigenous roots. New York efforts centered on the nascent modern dance form. Chicago, where Ruth Page's Frankie and Johnny (1938) and Katherine Dunham's L'Ag'Ya (1937) evolved, combined classical and modern dance. Under Myra Kinch in Los Angeles, Americana was emphasized. Spanish dancing in Tampa and work based on Native American rituals in Portland were presented successfully. Directed by Malvina Fried with Canton Moss, the Philadelphians created Prelude to Swing (1939), with dancers, a black chorus, and swing orchestra. As an expression of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was established in 1965. Like the Endowment, the NEA Dance Program represented the first attempt at regular federal contributions to arts funding and, consequently, embraced merit-based support of all styles of dance in fifty states. For thirty years, until the 104th Congress (1995-1996) significantly slashed funds, the NEA Dance Program fueled growth and development of grass roots dance organizations as well as American companies, choreographers, and dancers that established new international standards. The Dance Touring Program, for example, not only helped to provide the means for audiences in smaller cities to have access to major artists, but also stimulated cross pollination between local groups and national treasures. Tangential benefits were also gained through NEA support of new choreography and such projects as the PBS television Dance in America series, which reached millions of households. Especially under Nancy Hanks as NEA Chairman (1971-1978), the American Dance Boom became a reality that gave broad national access to singular creative achievement. www.arts.endow.gov
Bob Fosse (1927-1987), a prolific director and choreographer for musicals and films, began dancing in nightclubs at thirteen. During World War II, he served as a naval entertainment officer in the Pacific. Following theater and television work in the late 1940s, Fosse traveled to Hollywood in 1953 to perform in Kiss Me Kate, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, and Give A Girl A Break. He choreographed both the original Broadway productions and films of Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, and Sweet Charity. His movie My Sister Eileen (1955) was closely followed by stage productions of New Girl in Town (1957) and Redhead (1959). Among Fosse's subsequent Broadway successes were How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), Little Me (1962), Pippin (1972), Cabaret (1972), Chicago (1975), and Dancin' (1978). He also created the television special, "Liza with a Z," and directed the semi-autobiographical film, All That Jazz (1979). Into a sexy and distinctive style, Fosse incorporated isolations, off-center body positions, tight vertical movement, and high-stepping struts. A collage of his numbers that pays tribute to his inventiveness, Fosse won the 1999 Tony award for Best Musical. Dubbed the "Man Who Saved Tap Dancing," Savion Glover (1973- ) is credited with integrating styles of the grand masters with rhythms of rap music and hip-hop, attracting generations X, Y, and Z as audience members. At twelve, he made his Broadway debut in The Tap Dance Kid (1986) and appeared the following season in Black and Blue, which won him a Tony nomination. A sensation in the movie Tap (1988), with Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis Jr., Glover was back on Broadway for Jelly's Last Jam (1989). He conceived, choreographed, and performed in Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk (1996), for which he won a Tony, six other citations, as well as the Dance Magazine Award. On television, he appeared on Sesame Street for five seasons. He choreographed and was executive producer for the ABC-TV special "Savion Glover's Nu York," starred in Showtime's The Wall, and choreographed The Rat Pack for HBO. Glover performs with his own ensemble, Not Your Ordinary Tappers (NYOT), in concert and in music videos. He dances in and choreographed the Spike Lee movie Bamboozled (2000). The autobiographical Savion! My Life in Tap (2000) was written with Bruce Weber.
One of the foremost American choreographers of the twentieth century, a pioneer of the modern-dance movement, and the creator of an important technique for training dancers, Martha Graham (1894-1991) was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She studied at the Denishawn School in Los Angeles and with Ted Shawn as her mentor, toured with its affiliated company. Settling in New York, she gave her first independent concert in 1926 and within three years formed her all-female "Group," proving to be not only a charismatic soloist but also an inspiring teacher. Her work was stark, spare, and percussive; musically and visually it emphasized the contemporary, and often it dealt with American material, nowhere more notably than in Appalachian Spring (1944). Beginning in the late 1930s her theatrical means grew more complex; speech and poetry appeared in some works, and by the 1940s devices associated with Asian theater. In many postwar works, including Night Journey (1947) and Clytemnestra (1958), Graham identified herself with heroines of history and myth, while also exploring themes of sexuality with unusual frankness. Graham retired from the stage in 1968, although she continued to direct the Martha Graham Dance Company until her death in 1991. www.marthagrahamdance.org
José Greco (1919-2000) brought a mass audience to Spanish dance through his sensitivity to the attractions of spectacle and a virtuosic technique. Italian by birth, he immigrated with his family when he was nine, took dance lessons with Helen Veola, and was educated at New York's Leonardo da Vinci High School of Art. Greco made his debut in 1935 at the New York Hippodrome in Carmen and La Traviata. He partnered La Argentinita in 1942 and subsequently danced with her sister Pilar López. Five years later he founded Ballet y Bailes de España de José Greco and built a company that could pack Lewisohn Stadium with 10,000 viewers. Sponsored by Lee Shubert, Greco's ensemble completed a 1951 U.S. tour with the Flamenco artist La Quica that solidified his reputation. His films between 1948 and 1968 include Manolete, Sombrero, Around the World in Eighty Days, Holiday for Lovers, Ship of Fools, and The Proud and the Damned. Greco maintained two schools: New York's José Greco Foundation for Hispanic Dance and La Campaña-Centro de Arte Español in Marbella, Spain. 
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