Modern Dance; It’s Rebellious and a Free Spirit

It is hard to imagine that dancing could be seen as anything but beautiful, joyous, and enlightening. Yet at one point, it spread moral panic and outrage amongst the chattering classes. From the turn of the 20th century, when modern dance first took to the floors, all the way to twerking and clowning, dancing has always and will thankfully always be rebellious. Find out more in Modern Dance: It’s Rebellious and a Free Spirit.

Dissonant, brutal, and barbaric were the words used when, in 1923, The Rite of Spring, a ballet by Russian modernist composer Igor Stravinsky, premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.

So shocked was the audience that it was said they became hostile and unruly, and some say there was a riot. Disturbed by the ballet’s complex rhythms, discordant score, and violent movements, it was seen as the first example of Modernism in music, with ballet steps pushed to their max.

Interestingly, dance in all its forms has been treated with suspicion by authority. Church and State have tried to forbid and restrict dancing for centuries.

The 1780 Sunday Observance Act saw legislation making it illegal to provide any paid-for entertainment on a Sunday, and no public dancing that would offend G-d; the law didn’t get stopped until 2003, and even then, its almost unbelievable, but there were still dissenting voices.

It’s fair to say Modern dance has often been seen to have emerged as a rejection of, or rebellion against, classical ballet. As the middle classes grew in Europe and America and social norms shifted, socioeconomic changes in both the United States and Europe helped initiate new interest in health and physical fitness.

The changing attitudes towards physical education helped to prepare the way for modern dance, with gymnastic exercises serving as technical starting points for free young women no longer so tied to the need to earn urgent money for their families.

But it took some very brave souls to introduce the world to the ideas of Modern Dance. Not unlike industrialisation and modernism in Art, this movement was a form of artistic dance in which the individual and artistic presentation of feelings was essential and core to the performance.

A counter-movement as such, to classical ballet at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe. Traditional ballet was perceived as austere, mechanical and tightly held in fixed and conventional forms, and along with other forms of modernism across the arts, architecture and even production, dance aligned, too.

“Modern dancers use dancing to express their innermost emotions, often to get closer to their inner selves. Before attempting to choreograph a routine, the modern dancer decides which emotions to try to convey to the audience”. 

Treva Bedinghaus, writer and dancer

The earliest brave artists included such luminaries as Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, Loie Fuller,  Ted Shawn, and Eleanor King in the late 19th century, who were pioneering new forms in what we may refer to now as improvisational or free dance.

Isadora Duncan at Theatre of Dionysus, Athens 1903

This was a style where the dancer had the freedom to move without strict rules or choreography, and by doing so, emphasized personal expression and creativity. Into the early 20th century, artists like Rudolf Laban, Harald Kreutzberg, Francois Delsarte, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, George Balanchine and Mary Wigman all played parts towards this emancipation of dance.

Dancer at the Laban school, Berlin 1929

These maverick dancers disregarded ballet‘s strict movement vocabulary, including movements and steps considered proper to ballet, as well as stopping the wearing of corsets and pointe shoes in the search for greater freedom of movement.

However, it is fair to say that a distinct modern dance technique had yet to emerge. But it took the next set of rebels to move things forward, including names who still today have works performed. Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Katherine Dunham, and Lester Horton, all based in the USA, helped to build what we understand as modern dance today.

Martha Graham 1948 Image Library and Archives Canada

These were the renegades that sought to develop distinct American movements and styles with clearly defined and recognizable dance training systems. For them, ballet was seen as too European, too imperialistic, and certainly, un-American.

By the 1950s, another set of revolutionary creators brought about contemporary dance that saw the combination of modern dance elements with classical ballet elements. It also stated that any form of movement could be dance.

As well as this, it saw the opening up from Euro or even West-centric influence of dance. Elements from non-Western dance cultures, such as African dancing with bent knees as a characteristic trait, and Butoh, Japanese contemporary dancing that developed fused with modern European influences.

Merce Cunningham, photo Annie Leibovitz

Then, from about 1946 to 1957, came a period known as post-modern. Key names such as  Pearl Primus, Merce Cunningham, Talley Beatty, Erick Hawkins, Anna Sokolow, and Paul Taylor introduced clear abstractionism and avant-garde movements. Choreographers no longer created specific ‘schools’ or ‘styles.’ The influences from different periods of dance became more vague and fragmented yet, at the same time, fused.

Modern dance has evolved with each subsequent generation of participating artists. Artistic content has morphed and shifted from one choreographer to another, as have styles and techniques. Artists such as Graham and Horton developed techniques in the Modern Period that are still taught worldwide, and numerous other types of modern dance are still performed from many of these great names alongside new talent in the 21st century.

Many more dance movements have been created by choreographers and dancers, including some that make political points. It is still a way to push boundaries and challenge our preconceptions. At the same time, it is a wonderful way to communicate without words, a heart-to-heart you like, between creator, performer and audience.

In March, London will host one of the most beautiful dance festivals in the world. Dance reflections hosted by  French luxury jewellery company Van Cleef & Arpels.

This incredible set of shows over around three weeks always for performances of 17 shows both recent works and from the contemporary dance repertoire, as well as artist forums and film screenings offered the public a panorama of dance spanning from the 1970s to the present day.

‘This edition will feature recent as well as repertory works, dance workshops, artist forums and awareness-raising initiatives, all highlighting the links between choreographic heritage and contemporary creation’.

Serge Laurent Van Cleef & Arpels’ Director of Dance and Culture Programs

Starting out in 2022, London saw the inauguration of a new chapter in the Maison’s long-standing ties to the world of choreography by hosting the first edition of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival. Since then, it has travelled to several cities around the world, including Hong Kong, New York and, most recently, Kyoto and Saitama in Japan.

The venues are nearly as iconic as the dances being performed and include Sadler’s Wells, Royal Ballet and Opera, Tate Modern and Southbank Centre.

Several creations, including Working Title (1985) by
Post-modern dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown will be presented alongside In the Fall (2023), a piece from Noé Soulier commissioned by the company of this celebrated artist. Both of these pieces push the boundaries of what movement and dance can be. Are these performances athletics? Ballet? Travel? Questions? Or a powerful emotional mix and fusion, leaving the viewers to answer for themselves whatever feeling they receive from these two deeply expressive works.

Beach Birds and BIPED, major works by Merce Cunningham reinterpreted by the Lyon Opera Ballet, showcase the recent history of dance.

Trisha Brown, photo Johan Elbers

Merce Cunningham Forever brings together some of the choreographer’s most renowned pieces. His 1991 Beach Birds is the result of his long, fruitful partnership with composer John Cage. This contemplative landscape sprinkles extensive groundwork with chances and mixes of calculated and naturalistic motions. To create BIPED in 1999, with music by Gavin Bryars, Merce Cunningham generated movements using a computer software, producing a choreography for artificial shapes: giant, slender forms projected next to the peopledancing on stage, multiplying moving figures and dimensions. The Merce Cunningham Forever programme honours this giant of dance. 

With Giselle…, François Gremaud revisits a fundamental romantic work of the classical repertoire: Giselle (1841). This approach is enriched by contemporary choreographers’ development of new languages with multiple new influences.

Ballet National de Marseille + (LA) HORDE, Age of Content, photo Gaëlle Astier-Perret

New approaches to external influences can be seen with Age of Content by (LA)HORDE – Ballet national de Marseille, who draw on action films, musicals and the video game universe. With Outsider, The Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève joins choreographer Rachid Ouramdane in his fascinating research on the meeting of two disciplines, dance and extreme sports.

Christian Rizzo, sakınan göze çöp batar, photo Marc Domage

As the narrative of Western dance is now broken, the representation of global dance is held high this season. Sakinan göze çöp batar by Christian Rizzo is inspired by a traditional Turkish dance.The piece was initially created for the Turkish French dancer Kerem Gelebek in 2012. At the festival, Kerem Gelebek danced the piece and explained that every time he performs it, new and nuanced movements appear. As though each time over the years, the subtle changes emotionally within himself appear externally in every action.

Here, he twists, turns, and stands, lies; from movement to stillness, every part of his body cries out with emotion. The stage is like an internal cage where he is caught. Who am I? Where do I belong? Where am I safe? Externally and internally.

“When I approached Kerem for a solo performance, my first desire was to concentrate on melancholy and exile. The concept of exile no longer confines to a territory but to the self: exiling oneself from oneself. Melancholy, however, remains obligatory. Kerem manipulates the space on stage and lays down danced fragments such as haikus, sketches, or notes that, together, form a collection of thoughts born from movement”.

Christian Rizzo

Whilst at Tate Modern, Shu Lea Cheang and Dondon Hounwn are staging Hagay Dreaming, a visual and performance piece combining tribal legends from Taiwan’s indigenous Truku culture with science fiction.

Soa Ratsifandrihana, gr oo ve, photo Lara Gasparotto

G r oo v e is a solo performance by Soa Ratsifandrihana that brings together images and intimate dances. Among them, the Afindrafindrao dates from the 19th century. Typically “gasy”, this dance comes from the same red island Soa is also from: Madagascar. She also sketches a few steps of Madison, the first choreography she learned, popularised in the 1960s with Afro-American singer Al Brown.

We Wear Our Wheels with Pride by acclaimed South African choreographer Robyn Orlins at the Southbank Centre is a homage to the rickshaw drivers of South Africa’s past. This creation, in which Robyn Orlin invents a ‘rickshaw dance,’ is a celebration of dance and song imbibed with a joyous thirst for life.

The unyielding strength of resistance that it gives rise to is a tribute to the spirit of the Rainbow Nation. A celebration of dance and song imbibed with a joyous thirst for life.

 “It’s about the rickshaws who to a large extent are unsung heroes of the apartheid regime. They haven’t been acknowledged for their fight against apartheid because they were just seen as workers.”

Robyn Orlin

The dance collective from Johannesburg combines at this performance with the singing of Musician and Composer Anelisa Stuurman in collaboration with the composer Yogin Sullaphen. Sullaphen is a composer, music producer, live-looper and multi-instrumentalist who has developed a unique style influenced by slam, local Khoisan traditions and new forms of modern music.

Robyn Orlin, We Wear Our Wheels With Pride, photo Jérôme Séron

During the 1970s, at the height of apartheid, young dancer and choreographer Robyn Orlin observed the ornate decorations of Zulu men’s vehicles and headdresses, as well as their sprightly, dance-like steps. The period also coincides with the creation of Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM), a company nourished by Zulu traditions and a flagship for contemporary dance in South Africa.

Dance, song and costume combine with explosive effect during this encounter between the MIDM dancers and the breath-taking singing of Anelisa Stuurman, known as Annalyzer. In collaboration with the compositor, Yogin Sullaphen, she has developed a style influenced by slam, local Khoisan tradition and research into new forms of modern music

Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Jules Cunningham offers a tender exploration and disruption of normativity with the new working of CROW and Pigeons. CROW and Pigeons are connected by the composers and performers Julius Eastman and Pauline Oliveros, who worked from the 1960s onwards. Each of their work touched on themes of queerness, and they experienced marginalisation based on race, sexuality and mental illness.

Jules Cunningham, CROW + Pigeons, photo Studio Long

Alongside all of the above are opportunities to see the new names and new rebls of dance, including the first works by Soa Ratsifandrihana and Georges Labbat, two young artists from P.A.R.T.S., a school founded by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

Van Cleef & Arpels has a long history with dance, from the 1920s to today. Louis Arpels, the founder of the company, was a passionate ballet fan, and in the 1940s, the company created ballerina clips that became a signature design. The Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival is an opportunity each year to share our passion for choreographic arts with the widest possible audience. We have an exclusive interview with Serge Laurent, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Director of Dance and Culture Programs.

Serge Laurent, VCA director of dance and culture programmes photo by Marc de Groot.

This season, Dance Reflections Van Cleef & Arpels, seems to have put together its most diverse set of dancers and choreographers yet. How did you manage to get such a diverse set of people on board, and how do you go about finding them?

Indeed, for this second edition of the Dance Reflection by Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Festival, we have chosen with our partners to offer the London public a broad panorama of contemporary dance with, as always, essential historical references.

Our program is based, like all of our activity, on three values ​​dear to the Maison Van Cleef & Arpels: creation, transmission and education, which allows us to present important works from the repertoire, established artists as well as young choreographers present in this edition with their first piece.

Our desire to present the richness and diversity of choreographic creation today is, therefore, a form of eclecticism in the image of creation today. However, the artists identified have one thing in common: their research, which leads them to draw on knowledge of the past to develop their own vocabulary.

We also find this approach through historical choices such as George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham or Trisha Brown, artists who in their time knew how to develop and enrich the movement repertoire. 

There seems to be an underlying theme of self and Community running through much of the performances, as though the dances are questions thrown back at the audience to question themselves.  Is this true? Do you look for an overarching theme? And if so, how do you come up with one? If not, how do you decide what piece each company or artist should present?

The artistic line that we wish to develop is very open, as evidenced by the diversity of choices and the choreographic vocabularies of each choreographer.

We also wish to bring together different generations of choreographers to discuss the history of dance and its evolution, particularly since the post-modern period.

A festival is, of course, about bringing together choreographic works, but it is also an opportunity to talk about dance, its history, its trends and its evolution. I think that we can approach dance in a very broad way and address the question of contemporaneity by linking it to history and, thus, perhaps better understand the issues of dance today.

I think that art is indeed a way of questioning oneself through the questions and the way artists and choreographers look at the world. The work is in fact a window on the outside and everyone can find their own reading there. Artistic choices also have this function without forgetting the essential issue of form.

How can dance be something that everyone can engage with? How do we all encourage people to go and enjoy this beautiful art if they feel they don’t have a dance ‘vocabulary’? Also, what do you feel dance means in the modern world we live in where storytelling is done via social media?

With Dance Reflections, we want to help connect works with the public. This is why education is essential; we support many institutions throughout the year and during our festivals to present and facilitate access to dance works.

We also support our partners in their initiatives to educate and raise awareness of choreographic culture. We do not want to replace existing institutions but to support them in their missions. Today, we have a network of 60 partners in many countries around the world to meet this ambition through workshops, master classes and residencies for artists, for example. This month, we launched the first chair on the history of dance at New York University.

Contemporary art and dance explore new territories and new languages, ​​so we also need to know how to explain how to receive and how to look at a work. I think that social networks can help reach new audiences when they complement what already exists without making it an end. For example, the Marseille Ballet has spread its reputation widely, thanks to social networks and is enjoying extraordinary success in theaters. 

Finally, there are some superb names being presented. How do you go about balancing new and established artists? And what are you looking for from new talents?

It seems important to me to present young artists like George Labbat or Soa Ratsifandrihana in a context where works are presented that are both historical and by recognized contemporary choreographers. This is our way of talking about dance.

The choices are then made through meetings, discussions with our partners and the desire to introduce the public to the diversity of creation and contemporary dance.

Why is this festival so important and why should it be so lauded? And why does the House Van Cleef & Arpels support it? Without artistic creation, where would we, as a world, be? Where is life without art, without creative expression? To support the arts is to support life and the very emotions that drive us as people.

By bringing this festival of dance alive, Van Cleef & Arpels allows each of us to explore. We must all let go of the real need to ‘understand’ art in all its forms; there only needs to be the will to be open to any feeling each of us may experience when expressed through these magical moments. Once we understand that any work of modernist creativity is a work of emotion, we are free to feel our way through and simply enjoy and be in awe of such splendor. And also be thankful for each artist that gives of ‘themselves’ in order to enlighten us.

Dancing is freedom. Dancing is an expression of truth. But most of all, dance is a communication tool, albeit without words. A prose of movement, a dance of the soul. A rebel at heart who exposes emotions with fearless free will, who pushes boundaries. And a rebel will always fight not for the sake of it but to forge new paths, new directions, and new thinking, and if this is not a true part of modern dance, then what is?

Van Cleef & Arpels.com/dancereflections and view the complete agenda here

Van Cleef & Arpels.com

A selection of events at Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival at Sadlers Wells Click here for Christian RizzoSakinan Göze Çöp Batar / Julie Cunningham & Company – Jules CunninghamCROW – Pigeons/ Soa Ratsifandrihana G r oo v e/ Georges LabbatSelf – Unnamed/Trisha Brown Dance Company& Noé SoulierWorking Title & In the Fall/Ioannis Mandafounis -Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company/ (LA)HORDE / Ballet national de MarseilleAge of Content/Rachid Ouramdane &Ballet du Grand Théâtre de GenèveOutsider/Lyon Opera BalletCunningham Forever (BIPED & Beach Birds)

A selection of events at Dance Reflections Festival 2025Workshops at Sadlers Wells

A selection of events at Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival at The Royal Ballet nd Opera House/ Linbury Theatre, Ballet and dance Giselle…/ Insights: Dance Reflections/ Close Up/ Pam Tanowitz: Neither Drums Nor Trumpets/ Balanchine: Three Signature Works. – www.RBO.ORG.UK 

Workshops at Royal Ballet and Opera house NOÉ SOULIER’S MOVEMENT APPROACH- YUMIKO FUNAYA (Cndc Angers)

A selection of events at Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival at The Tate Modern/Hagay Dreaming-
Shu Lea Cheang, Dondon Hounwn

A selection of events at Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival at The Southbank/ Robyn Orlin: We wear our wheels with pride

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