Master Class



Then and now: Modern dance pioneers Carmen de Lavallade and Donald McKayle in the early years. photo: Jacoob’s Pillow Dance Festival Archives

Six dance pioneers come to Philadelphia for a rare look at living dance history.

by Robert Ackerman

Modern dance is now 100 years old. And that means a lot of dance history. But because modern dance has had to make its way against great odds, recognition of its history has been slow in coming. Over the last 20 years it has begun to become possible to study the history of dance in universities, and scholarly books and journals have been published. Several notational systems have been devised to permit the accurate preservation of movement; these, augmented by the advent of video, have meant that a great deal of visual documentation of dance is now available, although much of it is not easily accessible. But dance history isn’t just academics; it’s dancers. The earliest pioneers (Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Louis Horst) are gone, but many of those in the next generation are still very much alive and available to describe in their own words what it was like to create a new way of thinking and feeling about the body and a way of moving through space.

Beginning in October Philadelphians will get a rare opportunity to see some of these second generation pioneers when Susan Hess Modern Dance presents "Six Evenings with American Dance Pioneers: A Look Backward, A Leap Forward," as part of the Dance with the Bride lecture series at the Painted Bride Art Center.

"Younger people are very poorly educated about dance even though they are dancers," says dancer/choreographer Susan Hess.

Which is just one of the reasons why Hess created the program.

Over the past 20 years, Hess, a teacher and dance producer in Philadelphia, has presented at her Center City studio, Susan Hess Modern Dance (SHMD), a remarkable number of local dancers and choreographers. More to the dance-historical point, in 1983-84 she brought a number of American dance pioneers to town, to offer oral testimony to the way it was — among them such greats as Anna Sokolow, Pearl Primus and Daniel Nagrin. Now, on the 20th anniversary of SHMD, she has rounded up six illustrious dancer/ choreographers to speak about their lives in dance over the last 50 or more years.



	Current portrait of de Lavallade.

Not everyone who runs a dance studio would immediately think to celebrate the successful completion of 20 years with a series of evenings on the history of the dance in America. But Hess says she has always loved dance, and has been fortunate enough to come into contact, sometimes directly and other times glancingly, with some of these great artists.

That is, this series, although it will provide a look at the very highest level of the development of one of America’s great art forms, will also be the expression of one person’s lifelong attachment to her art.

"I love the artform so much. I am a dancer. These people have contributed," says Hess of why putting on the program is so important to her.

The first artist to appear (Oct. 29) will be dancer/choreographer Carmen de Lavallade. Hess never met de Lavallade, but she says she grew up watching and admiring her. While she may have been a great influence on Hess, de Lavallade had her own mentor — West Coast modern dancer Lester Horton, whom she studied with.



Current portrait of McKayle.

"Horton always taught his classes on a stage rather than in a studio," says de Lavallade.

To this, she said, she owes her feeling of always being "at home" on stage, which has proved to be invaluable. Indeed, when later she came to teach movement to actors, and then to choreograph, at the Yale Repertory Theatre, she insisted on teaching her students on stage as well. En route to Yale she was a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera, American Ballet Theater and New York City Center, and toured the Far East as co-director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater.

When Hess was studying at the Juilliard School with José Limón, she danced in "A Choreographic Offering," a tribute by Limón to Doris Humphrey, and it was through Sarah Stackhouse, Limón’s longtime assistant, that she came to the second presenter, Ernestine Stodelle (Nov. 12). Of all those in the series, Stodelle takes us furthest back, to the heroic first generation of modern dance. Stodelle, now a lively octogenarian, was a member and soloist with the Doris Humphrey Concert Group and the Humphrey-Weidman Company from 1929 to 1935. Over the last 40 years she has devoted her life to reconstructing and staging many of Humphrey’s works throughout the United States and Europe. She has taught one of those works to a young dancer and plans to showcase it as part of her lecture.

Hess’s connection with Donald McKayle (Dec. 17) is fragmentary; she was his student only briefly in the 1960s, but she has long admired his work as dancer, choreographer, teacher, and film and television director. His now-classic works include "Games", "Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder," "District Storyville" and "Songs of the Disinherited," which have been performed by his company and by many other groups around the United States. He is now professor of dance at the University of California Irvine.

Three others will complete the program in the spring. Annabelle Gamson (March 25) — one of the "Isadorables," and the foremost keeper of the flame of Isadora Duncan — who recreates dances by and in the spirit of Isadora. Trisha Brown (May 1), who in the early 1960s became one of the leading spirits in New York’s Judson Theater Company, the "downtown" movement that created postmodern dance. (Hess, a big fan, says that in her next life she plans to be a Trisha Brown dancer.) And Merce Cunningham (May 20), another of Hess’ teachers, about whom Mikhail Baryshnikov said: "Merce Cunningham reinvented dance, and then waited for the audience…"

It wasn’t hard to convince any of them to come, says Hess. "Most of the dancers feel a responsibility to pass the knowledge on." Although she did mention that some had extremely busy schedules and were harder to nab than others.

"Merce and Trisha, they were the nailbiters," says Hess. "But when they said yes, it was jubilation."

For more information about this series contact the Painted Bride at 215-925-9914.