Modern dance has been pretty serious from the start. Isadora liked to frolic, but she was dead serious about the high-mindedness of her art form. Graham still represents the epitome of the "serious artiste". All those Modern dance pioneers of the 30s and 40s were so ideological, motivated by principles over entertainment. They wanted to bring seriousness back to dance because ballet was essentially vaudeville with a snobbish twist, and the rest was considered little more than burlesque. Dance wasn't a reputable art form at the time unless you were a ballerina from Russia. The early modern dancers wanted to create a distinctly American dance form that tackled serious subject matter that was important to society, not just fluff. Jazz and "Contemporary" comes from a different tradition, that of vaudeville, and the showman.

So to answer your question, yes seriousness is what funders and presenters and most audiences have come to associate with modern dance. It was developed to be this way intentionally. I'm glad there are choreographers now who don't feel bound by these stylistic strait jackets. As I've written in my blog, lots of modern dance these days alienates its audience and suffers from not trying to reach them at all. Some communication is necessary, and being entertaining shouldn't be treated like the plague.

This might sound crazy & most probably, uneducated...(sigh)...but here goes....

I am adult student of dance, who began 12 years ago as a folk dancer, at the late age of 31. (yes, I am now a whopping 43!) Now I don't need to tell you that I was (and still am! lol) WAY past the age when a person should be seeking to make dance art; much less, to inspire an audience! Right? Well maybe not.

As a result of my HUGE desire to simply 'dance free and be happy', I have boldly thrown myself 'out there' upon youtube, and other video networks online. And OMG!--the response has been truly unbelievable! It would seem that the digital audience is refreshed by someone who is not 'oh so perfect & polished'; they love the reality aspect of a person (dancer) who does what they do because, as Martha Graham (and others) have so poignantly stated: it's the PASSION FACTOR! How was it put?...

"No body cares if you can't dance well, just get up and dance. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their PASSION".

Kudos again for an insightful, out-of-the-box post.

Shimmies,
shoshana

Thanks for the explanation, Anna! I have a stupid question, though: what exactly do you mean by "contemporary"? I think of it kind of as ballet without toe shoes, or modern with turnout instead of parallel position, but am not sure if everyone else is on the same page or shares the same definition. Because I think of contemporary in that sense as being more serious in intending to appeal to something higher than pure entertainment.

I like that modern and postmodern / experimental are geared toward making me think or challenging my assumptions. I guess I come from a Latin background where it's more about entertainment, which I definitely like, but I start to get hungry for something more sometimes...

graham et al used to show thier work alongside vaudeville and burlesque (e.g. at the greenwich follies). being more 'serious' helped to define them as 'art' rather than 'entertainment'.

also, modern dance dealt with 'personal feelings' and physical 'expression', often through grand narratives and allegories ... serious stuff. contemporary (post jusdon) dance, especially somactics based work, also takes the body and itself very seriously. and just like the early moderns they reject (on the whole) popular 'entertainment' dance.

postmodern dance (judson era) was much more fun the the historical revisionism would imply. 'trio a' always makes me smile for example ... yes it is full of 'in jokes' but it there is still some 'fun'.

the fact is that concert dance has a small audience, who expect a level of seriousness. concert dance wants to be as popular as 'mass media' but fears selling out and loosing 'art' status. just look at how the art work treats jack vettriano.

even dance-tech and screendance suffer from this. they are their own audience, failing to reach beyond the concert dance scene. if all these new avenues are 'accessible', why are audience numbers not increasing?

you make your work to suit who you want to pay for it.

To try and answer Tonya's question. The type of Contemporary dance I was referring to above is basically Jazz, but with a little more modern sensibility, such as flowy movements, or more emotional expressions. I'm thinking contemporary as it is defined on So You Think You Can Dance. However, the term is used so broadly, it could actually mean any dance made after 1950 or so. It's a really shifty term. I use it myself to refer to many different types of dance. Thanks for making me be more specific!

Shoshana, as always, you are a real inspiration. Don't worry about where you fit in the twisted maze of professional dance. It's gone so far astray from the true experience of dancing. You've got it, you know it, and you're sharing it with others. That's so fantastic, just keep going!

Matt, I'm totally with you about concert dance basically performing for itself and not reaching out to broader audiences. There is a small shift happening now with a few companies and artists breaking out of this mold, but overall I think that modern dance has become increasingly self-referential and specialized for a tiny minority. It also became adopted by the academe as the most intellectual form of dance. You can research movement with Modern Dance, but all other dance forms are pretty much living in an unconscious, tradition-bound state of stagnancy (I'm extrapolating what I perceive to be the prevailing view of dance academics in the university).

Obviously I don't agree with this, but there is the perception, and I have held it myself at one time, that the only area where new innovations in dance can come from is in modern dance. The whole point of modern dance is to be original and new, even if that newness is simply recycling and making derivatives of old material. You could kind of compare modern dance to the modern art world in terms of its trends and development. Duchamp's readymades are apparent in Rainer's "Trio A." However modern dance doesn't have a product, or tangible commodity, so there is no marketplace for dance works like there is for modern art. The bitchy modern art scene minus rich collectors is a sad place to be, and that is essentially where modern dance is today.

Much thanks for the great comments to this post!!

Anna, you wrote:

"There is a small shift happening now with a few companies and artists breaking out of this mold, but overall I think that modern dance has become increasingly self-referential and specialized for a tiny minority."

Do you have specific companies in mind that are breaking out of this mold? Or do others?

I'm off to watch "The Hard Nut" tonight...I highly suspect this is a prime example of "unadulerated fun"

Dance has change so much from the modern days.I like that modern and postmodern / experimental are geared toward making me think or challenging my assumptions.
music dance performances are just meant to be watched for the sheer joy of seeing dance.

As a Russian dancer with a background in classical ballet, I have always been attracted by modern dance, starting originally by dancing StepText and other Forsythe works - okay modern classical, if you like. But I find myself bemused by the techno end and videodance. I attanded a rehearsal of a Russian modern dance group in Moscow recently and I was lost as to what they were trying to acheive. Everyone seemed to have their own agenda and their own thoughts and interpretations of their work. No small surprise it was humourless - it was more like civil war. Maybe we are paying too much attention to the bean counters and not that is bound to be serious !!