The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief

Like most of the new artistic modes at the beginning of the twentieth century, modern dance took the established norms prevalent at the time and broke them into pieces. Yet over the years, modern dance itself became fragmented and could not be recognized as the unified form of balletic opposition it had once been. Not only did modern dance change, but people's ideas about what modern was also changed. This book consists of seven different third generation modern dance choreographers describing their seven different beliefs of what modern dance really is. From Anna Sokolow's ideas of rebellion to Alwin Nikolais' ideas of abstraction, these written testaments to the lives of the some of the most innovative and important choreographers of the century allow us to see what lies behind dance and to gain insight into what modern dance was, is, and can be.