Notes · DanceUK · A-Levels

Optional: Origins of American Modern Dance 1900-1945 / Appalachian Spring

The origins of American modern dance 1900-1945 is one of the four optional Areas of Study for Section B, focused on the named work Appalachian Spring (Martha Graham, 1944). This topic teaches how American modern dance grew as a deliberate break from ballet in search of a new, expressive, individual form; the pioneers Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St Denis and Doris Humphrey; the technique and choreography of Martha Graham; the named work Appalachian Spring (its subject, Copland's music, Noguchi's set, and Graham's technique); and the style, context and significance of early American modern dance.

5 sections~19 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 1 · Advanced 3

T·121212 / 15

Exam profile

AO3 · Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of American modern dance 1900-1945 and Appalachian Spring, using appropriate terminologyAO4 · Analyse, interpret, evaluate and critically appreciate the works and practitioners of the area of study

Operators:identifydescribeanalyseinterpretevaluate

basic level

AS-Level study of this optional area expects accurate knowledge of the pioneers, Graham technique, Appalachian Spring and the context.

higher level

The full A-level expects analysis, interpretation and evaluation of Appalachian Spring and the practitioners, linked to the origins and context of American modern dance, in essay form.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Optional: Origins of American Modern Dance 1900-1945 / Appalachian Spring

The origins of American modern dance#

FoundationAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (origins of American modern dance)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

American modern dance 1900-1945: milestones

Fig. 1Milestones in the origins of American modern dance, from Duncan's free dance and the Denishawn school to Graham's company and Appalachian Spring (1944).

American modern dance emerged in the first half of the twentieth century (the Area of Study covers 1900-1945) as a deliberate BREAK from classical ballet. Where ballet was European, codified, hierarchical and, to its critics, artificial - built on turnout, pointe and a fixed vocabulary - the pioneers of modern dance sought a new form: freer, more natural, more personal and more expressive, and distinctively American. Modern dance is defined at its root by this rejection of ballet in favour of a new way of moving.

The pioneers shared a search for an authentic, expressive movement drawn from the human body and human experience rather than from an inherited code. They looked to nature, to breath and gravity, to emotion and the inner life, to other cultures, and to the individual artist's own vision. Rather than one technique, early modern dance produced several - each pioneer developing her own approach - united by the conviction that dance should express something real and personal, and that its movement should be discovered rather than inherited.

This search was also bound up with AMERICAN identity and modernity. The pioneers were largely American women who wanted an art form that expressed the new world and the modern age rather than the European past, and who claimed for themselves the freedom to create. Modern dance thus carried ideas of individualism, freedom and the expression of contemporary experience, and it developed alongside the broader modernist movement in the arts. Understanding this context - a new-world, modern, individual break from European tradition - explains the whole period.

The Area of Study traces this development from the early pioneers (Fuller, Duncan, St Denis) through the first codified techniques (Humphrey's fall and recovery, Graham's contraction and release) to the named masterwork, Graham's Appalachian Spring (1944). Each stage takes the break from ballet further - from freeing the body and the subject to building a new technique and a new body of serious, expressive work. The following sections cover the pioneers, Graham and Humphrey's techniques, the named work, and the period's style and significance.

Worked example

Explaining the break from ballet

How and why did the early American modern dancers break from ballet?

What they rejected
They rejected ballet's codified technique (turnout, pointe, a fixed vocabulary), its European tradition and its perceived artificiality and rigidity.
What they sought
They sought a freer, more natural movement drawn from the body, breath, gravity, emotion and the individual artist's vision - a personal, expressive form.
Why - the context
The break expressed a desire for an art of the new world and the modern age, and for the freedom of the individual artist, in step with the wider modernist movement.
Conclude
So modern dance broke from ballet to create an authentic, expressive, American form - a rejection of inherited European code in favour of discovered, personal movement.

Result: The break from ballet is explained as a search for a free, expressive, American form, grounded in its modern context - the foundational understanding for the whole Area of Study.

Typical mistakes

Describing modern dance only as 'not ballet' without explaining what it positively sought (natural, expressive, personal, American movement).
Missing the American and modernist context that shaped the pioneers' break from European tradition.

Active revision

Explain in a short paragraph what American modern dance rejected in ballet and what it sought instead, and note the context (American, modern, individual) that shaped it.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

The pioneers: Fuller, Duncan and St Denis#

StandardAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (Fuller, Duncan, St Denis)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

The pioneers and their innovations

Fig. 2The early pioneers of American modern dance and their innovations - Fuller (light and fabric), Duncan (natural freedom) and St Denis (spirituality and Denishawn).

LOIE FULLER was an early American pioneer who transformed dance into a theatrical spectacle of movement, fabric and light. She is best known for her Serpentine Dance, in which she manipulated vast lengths of flowing silk with extended wands under coloured electric stage lighting, creating swirling, abstract, ever-changing shapes. Fuller was a pioneer of stage lighting and theatrical effect more than of a codified technique, and she showed that dance could be an art of light, movement and image - an early, radical break from ballet's conventions.

ISADORA DUNCAN is often called the 'mother of modern dance' for her radical rejection of ballet in favour of natural, free movement. She danced barefoot in loose, Greek-inspired tunics, rejecting ballet's shoes, corsets and codified steps, and sought a movement that flowed naturally from the body (she spoke of movement originating in the solar plexus) and expressed emotion, nature and music. Duncan's insistence on freedom, naturalness and personal expression, and her rejection of ballet's whole apparatus, set the direction for modern dance.

RUTH ST DENIS brought spirituality and theatrical exoticism to early modern dance, creating works inspired by the dance and religion of the East (such as her Radha and Egypta). With her husband Ted Shawn she founded the DENISHAWN school and company, which was hugely important because it trained the next generation of modern dancers - including Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey. St Denis represents the spiritual and theatrical strand of early modern dance and, through Denishawn, the crucial link to the founders of the codified modern techniques.

Together these three pioneers opened up modern dance in different directions: Fuller through light and theatrical spectacle, Duncan through natural, expressive freedom, and St Denis through spirituality, exoticism and the Denishawn training ground. None built a lasting codified technique, but each broke decisively from ballet and expanded what dance could be, and Denishawn directly produced the next generation. Knowing each pioneer's distinctive contribution is core knowledge for the Area of Study and material for comparison with the technique-builders who followed.

Worked example

Comparing two pioneers' approaches

Compare how Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan each broke from ballet.

Fuller's break
Fuller broke from ballet by making dance a spectacle of swirling fabric and coloured light - an art of image and stage effect rather than of the codified body.
Duncan's break
Duncan broke from ballet by rejecting its shoes, corsets and steps for natural, barefoot, flowing movement expressing emotion and nature - an art of the free, personal body.
Contrast them
So both rejected ballet, but differently: Fuller through theatrical technology and abstraction, Duncan through natural, expressive human movement - spectacle versus authenticity.
Note their shared significance
Both, in their different ways, proved dance need not be ballet, opening the space in which modern dance could develop.

Result: Fuller's and Duncan's contrasting breaks from ballet - spectacle versus natural expression - are compared, showing the comparative analysis the Area of Study rewards.

Typical mistakes

Confusing the pioneers' distinct contributions (Fuller's light and fabric, Duncan's natural freedom, St Denis's exoticism and Denishawn).
Not knowing that Denishawn (St Denis and Shawn) trained Graham and Humphrey, the crucial link in the period.

Active revision

For Fuller, Duncan and St Denis, write one line on each pioneer's distinctive contribution; then explain why Denishawn is important to the whole Area of Study.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

Humphrey and Graham: technique and the new dance#

AdvancedAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (Humphrey; Graham technique)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

Graham's contraction and release

Fig. 3Graham's core principle of contraction and release - a percussive contraction initiated from the centre by the breath, followed by the opening release.

Where the early pioneers freed dance from ballet, the next generation - trained largely at Denishawn - built new, codified TECHNIQUES that gave modern dance a systematic foundation. DORIS HUMPHREY developed the principle of FALL AND RECOVERY: movement arising from the body's relationship to gravity, moving between the security of balance and the risk of falling and recovering. She described the drama of movement as lying in the 'arc between two deaths' - complete stillness (balance) and complete surrender (the fall) - and built choreography and a technique from this dynamic. Humphrey was also a major choreographer and theorist of dance-making.

MARTHA GRAHAM developed the most influential modern technique of all, built on CONTRACTION AND RELEASE. The contraction is a powerful, percussive movement initiated deep in the centre of the body (from the pelvis and breath), curving the spine and torso; the release is the opening out that follows. From this core principle Graham built a whole technique - grounded, angular, weighted, using the floor, the torso and the breath, and charged with emotional and psychological intensity. Graham technique gave modern dance a rigorous, expressive vocabulary as demanding as ballet's but utterly different in aesthetic.

These techniques expressed a new seriousness of PURPOSE. Graham in particular used her technique to explore powerful psychological, emotional and mythological subjects - the inner life, human conflict, American history and Greek myth - in works such as Lamentation (a figure struggling within a tube of cloth) and, later, Appalachian Spring. Modern dance, with these techniques, could now tackle serious themes with a codified language of its own, no longer merely reacting against ballet but building a mature art form.

Humphrey and Graham thus represent the crucial development from the pioneers' freedom to a founded modern dance with its own techniques and serious repertoire. Their principles - fall and recovery, contraction and release - are the technical heart of the period and are directly relevant to analysing Appalachian Spring, which is built on Graham technique. Knowing these techniques, and being able to describe how contraction and release or fall and recovery look and feel and what they express, is essential for the Area of Study and for analysing the named work.

Worked example

Explaining a technique as expression

Explain how Graham's contraction and release can express emotional or dramatic content.

Describe the movement
The contraction is a strong, percussive curving of the torso initiated deep in the centre of the body from the breath; the release opens the body out again.
Connect to feeling
The contraction physically embodies inward, gripping, effortful states - grief, tension, pain, struggle - because it draws the body in on itself with force, while the release can express opening, resolution or relief.
Analyse the effect
So the technique is inherently expressive: the movement itself looks and feels like emotional effort, letting the dancer communicate powerful inner states directly through the body.
Link to Graham's work
Graham used this to explore serious psychological and emotional subjects, giving modern dance a language for the inner life that ballet's aesthetic could not easily reach.

Result: Contraction and release is explained as an expressive technique embodying inward emotional effort - showing how Graham's technical principle carries dramatic and psychological meaning.

Typical mistakes

Confusing the two techniques (Humphrey's fall and recovery with Graham's contraction and release).
Describing the techniques only as physical movements without explaining what they express or that they gave modern dance a serious purpose.

Active revision

Describe Graham's contraction and release and Humphrey's fall and recovery in one sentence each, and explain what emotional or dramatic quality each can express.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

Appalachian Spring (1944)#

AdvancedAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (Appalachian Spring)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

The features of Appalachian Spring

Fig. 4The constituent features and collaborators of Appalachian Spring - Graham's choreography, Copland's music, Noguchi's set - serving its American frontier subject.

Appalachian Spring, choreographed by Martha Graham and first performed in 1944, is the named work for this Area of Study and one of the masterpieces of American modern dance. It has an original musical score by the American composer Aaron Copland (which won the Pulitzer Prize) and an original set by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi. The work brings together Graham's technique, a distinguished collaboration and an American subject, and it is a supreme example of the mature modern dance the period produced.

The SUBJECT is a celebration of the American frontier: a spring wedding of a young pioneer couple in rural Pennsylvania, and the hopes, faith and community of the new settlers. Its characters include the Bride and the Husbandman (the young couple), a Revivalist preacher and his followers, and a Pioneer Woman - figures who together evoke the frontier community. The themes are new beginnings, love, faith, community and the American pioneer spirit, treated with warmth and dignity. The work is an affirmation of American life and optimism, created during the Second World War.

The MOVEMENT is built on Graham technique - contraction and release, grounded weight, use of the floor and the torso, and clear, sculptural shapes - shaped to the characters and the American subject. The choreography characterises the figures (the tender couple, the fervent preacher, the wise Pioneer Woman) and the community through movement, and the whole is bound to Copland's score, which famously incorporates the Shaker melody 'Simple Gifts'. Noguchi's spare, sculptural set suggests the frontier home and landscape without literal scenery, in keeping with modern dance's aesthetic.

Analysing Appalachian Spring means reading its constituent features and their collaboration: the Graham-technique movement, the characters and community (dancers), Copland's American score (aural setting), Noguchi's sculptural set (physical setting) and the structure of the celebration - all serving the intent of affirming frontier hope and community. As a named work it rewards knowing its collaborators (Graham, Copland, Noguchi), its subject and characters, its use of Graham technique, and how these combine. It is the point where the period's techniques and ambitions produce a lasting, integrated masterwork.

Worked example

Analysing the collaboration in Appalachian Spring

How do movement, music and set work together to communicate the intent of Appalachian Spring?

The movement
Graham's grounded, sculptural technique (contraction and release, use of weight and the floor) characterises the pioneers and their community with dignity and rootedness in the land.
The music
Copland's score, with its open, spacious American sound and the Shaker hymn 'Simple Gifts', evokes the frontier landscape, simplicity and faith, matching and supporting the movement.
The set
Noguchi's spare, sculptural set suggests the frontier home and landscape without literal scenery, keeping the focus on the dancers in the modern-dance manner.
Link to intent
Together, the grounded movement, the American score and the spare set create an integrated affirmation of frontier hope, faith and community - the work's intent, communicated by the collaboration.

Result: The collaboration of Graham's movement, Copland's music and Noguchi's set is analysed as together communicating the work's affirming frontier intent - the integrated feature analysis the named work rewards.

Typical mistakes

Not knowing the collaborators (Copland's music, Noguchi's set) or the American frontier subject and its characters.
Describing the work without linking it to Graham technique or analysing how the collaboration of movement, music and set creates its meaning.

Active revision

Write a short profile of Appalachian Spring (choreographer, year, composer, designer, subject, characters); then note one way Graham technique and one way Copland's music serve the work's intent.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

Style, context and significance#

AdvancedAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (style, context, significance)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

The Denishawn lineage

Fig. 5The lineage of early American modern dance - from the pioneers and the Denishawn school to Graham and Humphrey, who built the codified modern techniques.

The STYLE of early American modern dance is defined by its rejection of ballet and its search for expressive, grounded, individual movement, developed into codified techniques by its second generation. Its aesthetic is weighted rather than weightless, grounded rather than aerial, angular and percussive rather than smooth and vertical, and serious and expressive in purpose. Where ballet aspired to lightness and the ideal, modern dance embraced gravity, the earth and human, psychological experience - a fundamental contrast of aesthetic that defines the period.

The CONTEXT of the period explains this style. Early American modern dance grew from a new-world desire to break with European tradition, from the modernist movement across the arts, and from the pioneers' individualism; its second generation matured through the 1930s and into the 1940s, so that a work like Appalachian Spring (1944), affirming American community and hope, arrived during the Second World War. The period reflects a young nation's search for its own art forms and voice, and the individual artist's claim to create.

The SIGNIFICANCE of the period is that it founded modern dance as a major art form. It broke ballet's monopoly and created a new, expressive language; it produced codified techniques (Graham's contraction and release, Humphrey's fall and recovery) that trained generations; and it created lasting masterworks (Appalachian Spring, Lamentation) and, above all, in Martha Graham, one of the most influential figures in the history of dance. The techniques and works of this period underpin much of the contemporary dance that followed, including the fusion styles studied elsewhere in the course.

For the highest-level essays, bring style, context and significance together and support them with Appalachian Spring and the practitioners. You can evaluate the period as the foundation of modern dance, which broke from ballet to create a serious, expressive, American art form, illustrating the claim with the pioneers' break, Graham's and Humphrey's techniques, and Appalachian Spring's integrated masterwork. Linking the features and works to the American, modernist context and reaching a judgement about the period's importance is exactly the analysis, interpretation and evaluation the Area of Study rewards.

Worked example

Evaluating the significance of the period

An essay asks you to evaluate the significance of American modern dance 1900-1945. Outline a strong answer.

State the claim
Argue that the period founded modern dance as a major art form, breaking ballet's monopoly and creating a new expressive language.
Support with techniques
Support this with the codified techniques it produced - Graham's contraction and release and Humphrey's fall and recovery - which trained generations of dancers.
Support with works and figures
Support it with lasting masterworks (Appalachian Spring, Lamentation) and the towering influence of Martha Graham, one of dance history's most important figures.
Reach a judgement
Conclude that the period's creation of a new technique, aesthetic and repertoire, and of figures like Graham, makes it foundational to twentieth-century and contemporary dance.

Result: The evaluation states a claim and supports it with the period's techniques, works and figures before judging - the evidenced, evaluative essay the Area of Study requires.

Typical mistakes

Describing the style without linking it to the American and modernist context that produced it.
Asserting the period's significance without supporting it with Appalachian Spring and named practitioners.

Active revision

Write a paragraph contrasting the aesthetic of American modern dance with that of ballet, then evaluate the period's significance, supporting your judgement with Appalachian Spring and one practitioner.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA) · Ofqual - GCE AS and A level qualifications (Ofqual)

References & sources

Sources

AQA

AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification

Ofqual

Ofqual - GCE AS and A level qualifications

Optional: Origins of American Modern Dance 1900-1945 / Appalachian Spring

5 sections~19 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 1 · Advanced 3

Optional: Origins of American Modern Dance 1900-1945 / Appalachian Spring

Key points

Explaining the break from ballet

Key points

Comparing two pioneers' approaches

Key points

Explaining a technique as expression

Key points

Analysing the collaboration in Appalachian Spring

Key points

Evaluating the significance of the period

Sources

Optional: Origins of American Modern Dance 1900-1945 / Appalachian Spring

Key points

Explaining the break from ballet

Key points

Comparing two pioneers' approaches

Key points

Explaining a technique as expression

Key points

Analysing the collaboration in Appalachian Spring

Key points

Evaluating the significance of the period

Sources