The Key Pioneers at the Beginning of Modern Dance

Loie Fuller
Born in Chicago in 1862, Loie Fuller began her stage career as a child actress. During her twenties, she performed as a skirt dancer on the burlesque circuit. In 1891 she went on tour with a melodrama called "Quack MD," playing a character who performed a skirt dance while under hypnosis. Fuller began experimenting with the effect the gas lighting had on her silk skirt and received special notice in the press. Her next road tour, in a show called "Uncle Celestine," featured this newversion of the skirt dance. By emphasizing the body was transformed by the artfully moving silk. One reviewer described the effect as "unique, ethereal, delicious...she emerges from darkness, her airy evolutions now tinted blue and purple and crimson, and again the audience...insists upon seeing her pretty piquant face before they can believe that the lovely apparition is really a woman."

http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/loie.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mQu9XHUgbw

Isodora Duncan
Angela Isadora Duncan was born in 1877 in San Francisco, California. As a child she studied ballet, Delsarte technique and burlesque forms like skirt dancing. She began her professional career in Chicago in 1896, where she met the theatrical producer Augustin Daly. Soon after, Duncan joined his his touring company, appearing in roles ranging from one of the fairies in a "Mid-summer Night's Dream" to one of the quartet girls in "The Giesha." Duncan traveled to England with the Daly company in 1897. During this time she also danced as a solo performer at a number of society functions in and around London. 

Accessed-15th January 2012
http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/isadora.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq2GgIMM060

Ruth St.Denis
Ruth Dennis was born in 1879 on a New Jersey farm. The daughter of a strong-willed and highly educated women ( Ruth Emma Dennis was a physician by training), St. Denis was encouraged to study dance from an early age. Her early training included Delsarte technique, ballet lessons with the Italian ballerina Maria Bonfante, social dance forms and skirt dancing. Ruth began her professional career in New York City in 1892, where she worked as a skirt dancer in a dime museum and in vaudeville houses. Dime museums featured "leg dancers" (female dancers whose legs were visible under their short skirts) in brief dance routines. St. Denis was probably required to perform her routine as many as eleven times a day.  

Accessed-15th January 2012
http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/ruth.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8XvHX1FKsY

Martha Graham

Martha Graham was born in 1894 in a small city outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father was an "alienist," the term then used to describe a physician who specialized in human psychology. Dr. Graham was particularly interested in the way people used their bodies, an interest that he passed on to his eldest daughter. In later years, Martha Graham often repeated her father's dictum: "movement never lies."  

Accessed-15th January 2012
http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/martha.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb4-kpClZns

Doris Humphrey
Doris Humphrey was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1895 and grew up in Chicago. Her father operated a residence home for vaudeville performers called the Palace Hotel, and her mother offered piano lessons. As a girl, Humphrey studied piano, ballet, ballroom dance, Americanized Delsarte and Dalcroze's system of Eurythmics. A talented dancer, she began teaching ballet and interpretive dance to children when she was 15. During the next few years, Humphrey traveled the Santa Fe railroad line with a variety troupe, giving performances to railroad employees of her home-made aesthetic dances and Spanish numbers. When she returned home to Oak Park she began her own studio with her mother as accompaniest and business manager.

Accessed-15th January 2012
http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/doris.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZk53gGh6s

Ted Shawn
Ted Shawn (21 October 1891 — 9 January 1972), originally Edwin Myers Shawn, was one of the first notable male pioneers of American modern dance. Along with creating Denishawn with former wife Ruth St.Denis he is also responsible for the creation of the well known all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers. With his innovative ideas of masculine movement he is one of the most influential choreographer and dancer of his day. He is also the founder and creator of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts.

Last updated-2011
Accessed-15th January 2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Shawn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSUo3_ZtwM0