Special Topics in Dance History, Criticism, and Aesthetics: Moving Modernisms: Modern Dance History from 1900-1950

How did concert dancers and choreographers respond to the aesthetic, social, and political economic shifts we call 'modernism'? How does dance enter the archive? We pursue these questions by examining the ways gender, nationalisms, race, and sexuality shaped ideas of the modern. Key figures include Isadora Duncan, Vaslav Nijinsky, Katherine Dunham, Sada Yakko, Martha Graham, Zora Neale Hurston, and others. We begin with dance modernisms in China, Japan, Mexico, and Europe before turning to US cases, with an emphasis on how dance artists negotiated their authority as state actors and public intellectuals.