Like social groups, complex machines are constituted by various inter-related parts, each of which fulfills a specific function, contributing to the whole. In this session, students have the opportunity to consider these inter-related actions, to transfer the actions to bodily movements, to demonstrate movement material for others in the class, …
Contemporary choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar continues the theme of dancemakers who use their art to express their American identities and as a means of communicating about social and political issues. Zollar choreographed her dances titled Walking with Pearl to honor the artistic legacy of Pearl Primus and to show how that …
Pearl Primus was a member of the New Dance Group where she was encouraged by its socially and politically active members to develop her early solo dances dealing with the plight of African Americans in the face of racism. Strange Fruit (1945), a piece in which a woman reflects on …
Subtitled “homelessness – devastation – exile,” Martha Graham’s 1936 dance Steps in the Streets depicts the aftermath of some terrible tragedy. Images seen in the dance can easily be linked to contemporary displacement of people during the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, ongoing fighting in Iraq, or the 2005 …
Like Langston Hughes’s poem, Pearl Primus’s The Negro Speaks of Rivers is a meditation on the African diaspora. Primus’s dance evokes a sense of connection, pride, and strength among peoples of African descent. Students will identify the movements and gestures that help capture the choreographer’s ideas. Classroom Activities Discuss: Ask …
Martha Graham’s Frontier, an early solo piece by the great choreographer, focuses on the frontier woman and the challenges of Westward Expansion. Graham’s innovative work utilized a minimalist set by Isamu Noguchi and music by Louis Horst to highlight the emotions and symbolism within the work. Classroom Activities Discuss: Ask the group what the …
