WILD GRACE

Opening a door into the rich world of modern dance.

Dance critic Veale calls the women dancers she profiles “unbridled voices” who use “their choices onstage and off to challenge expectations.” Between the 1890s and the 1910s, dancers probed creative new courses of movement. Isadora Duncan explored her “free dance” approach in Europe, performing barefoot in diaphanous costumes before bringing it to the U.S. in 1908—a “startling spark in the night.” Duncan epitomized social change and independence; her “repertoire bloomed like a hothouse rose” as she traveled the continent. A life of drinking and proselytizing damaged her later years. American Loie Fuller’s “Serpentine Dance” involved “vivid light projections and dizzying waves of silk.” Her career “thrived on imagination and metamorphosis.” She was all about movement, choreography, fluidity, saillike skirts and illumination. A huge success at the Folies Bergère, she even dabbled with scientific experiments. Canadian dancer Maud Allan’s provocative, much-maligned Vision of Salome, about sexual awakening, was hugely popular in 1908, inspiring ballet performers to experiment. Music was key to her dancing, which did much to broaden its appeal. The interwar years saw a rise in Black artists and the emergence of American icon Martha Graham, who was known for her introspective expressiveness and productivity. Graham’s role in modern dance was substantial, deeply influencing Veale’s own dancing. Anna Sokolow’s prolific works, searing and sincere, focused on social justice. Graham student Sophie Maslow “addressed a national identity in flux” in the 1940s, fostering inclusivity. In the ’40s and ’50s, Pearl Primus and Katherine Dunham had a “game-changing influence on the racial diversity of modern dance.” Dunham’s extensive portfolio of the beauty of Black heritage is a hefty legacy indeed, while Primus “harnessed her body as a channel for fury, pride and authenticity…dance as a scream.”

Enthusiastic profiles of dancers set within insightful social history.