Modernism

1. Modernism
byTasneem Ramadan & Louise Douse
Week
7
Understanding
Performance

2. What was Becoming of the World?
 Industrialisation
 Globalisation
 Capitalism
 Secularisation
 NewTechnology
 WorldWars
Understanding Performance Week 7

3. How did we Emerge into the Modern World?
 Our emergence into the modern world can be
traced in a number of fields; in politics, religion,
art, architecture, technology, science, all of which
have ultimately contributed to an alteration in
consciousness, a change in the way we think and
feel
Understanding Performance Week 7

4. Modernism
 The term modernism generally covers the creative output of artists and thinkers who saw that traditional
approaches to the arts, architecture, literature, religion, social organisation (and even life itself) had
become outdated in light of the new economic, social and political circumstances of a fully industrialised
society
 Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th century to the mid-20th
century, particularly in the years following WWI
 Modernists rebelled against 19th century academics and historicist traditions. They sought a break from
the past and searched for new forms of expression
Week 7
Understanding Performance

5. How did Modernists
Challenge the Conventions?
 Embraced Nihilism (the belief in nothing)
 Rejected every system of beliefs
 Believed in the Self-sufficiency of each individual work of art
 Adopted Primitivism
 Explored perversity
 Focused on the city rather than nature
Understanding Performance Week 7
Weeping Woman (1937) by Pablo Picasso

6. What are the forces that Shaped Modernism?
 Technology and the new science
 The new philosophical paradigms
 F.H. Bradley
 AlfredWhitehead
 Albert Einstein
 The new psychological paradigms
 Sigmund Freud
 Carl Jung
 Henri Bergson
 The new geo-political paradigms
Understanding Performance Week 7
Composition III, Wassily Kandinsky

7. Modernity
Week 7
Understanding Performance
Good Bad
Culture Nature
Mind Body
Rational Emotional
Men Women
White Black
Heterosexual Homosexual
Non-disabled Disabled

8. Philosophy of Art
 Art should be judged purely
on it’s own terms: art for
arts sake
 A reaction against the
moralism of academic
post-Renaissance art.
 Revolution and institution
Understanding Performance Week 3
Marcel Duchamp: Fountain (1917)

9. Characteristic of
the Art
 Rejects the ideals of
previous artistic
movements
 Experimental forms,
focussing on
abstraction
 Emphasis on
processes
 Belief in progress
Understanding Performance Week 3
Piet Mondrian – De Stijl is recognised for the purity
of the abstractions and the methodological practice
by which they arrived at them

10. Visual Arts
 Realism
 Impressionism
 Post-Impressionism
 Fauvism
 Cubism
 Constructivism
 Dada
 Surrealism
 Abstract expressionism
 Minimalism
Week 2
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory

11. Architecture
 asymmetrical compositions
 use of general cubic or cylindrical shapes
 flat roofs
 use of reinforced concrete
 metal and glass frameworks often resulting in
large windows in horizontal bands
 an absence of ornament or mouldings
 a tendency for white or cream render, often
emphasised by black and white photography
Week 2
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory

12. Music
 Igor Stravinsky
 1882-1971
 Russian Composer
 Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913)
 Experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and
dissonance
Week 2
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory
 “[Stravinsky’s music] ceaselessly bursts out in illogical,
theoretically unachievable phrases … It is continually
impelled into the extraordinary and can find ease there
alone … Everything happens as in a super-natural
world where the power of spirit over matter becomes
abruptly infinite. What is more anomalous, more
incomprehensible and more perfect than the end of
the first scene of Le Sacre du Printemps during the
circular dance of the Adolescents when there is no
longer melody, harmony or tone-pattern, but only a
kind of humming rhythm of pure animation and
abstract whirlwind held together by the very
monotony or terror?
(Rivière, J. in Reiss, F. 1960, p. 119)

13. So how do these
ideas inform
performance,
theatre and dance?
Understanding Performance Week 7

14. The Rise of the Modern Theatre
 As theatre paralleled what was going on in the world, there was
a widespread challenge to long-established rules surrounding
theatrical representation, resulting in the development of many
new forms of theatre
 Modern theatre was born out of a widespread reaction against
the subject matters, forms, and methods of staging that had
prevailed in many 18th and early 19th centuries
 The chaos and confusion of the time was directly reflected in the
modern theatre
Understanding Performance Week 7

15. Different Movements in Modern Theatre
 Realism (1860-1900)
 Naturalism (1880-1940)
 Anti-realism
 Impressionism (1860-1886)
 Symbolism & Expressionism (1890-1940)
 Futurism (1909-1914)
 EpicTheatre (1910-1950)
 Constructivism (1915-1930)
 Dadaism (1916-1924)
 Surrealism and theTheatre of Cruelty (1920-1950)
 Theatre of the Absurd (1951-1972)
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Understanding Performance

16. Key Stylistic Features
 Realism: a reaction against Romanticism where practitioners wanted to
create ‘real’ drama dealing with everyday life and real issues
 Realists wanted to create staging techniques that reflected this real
style. This included settings, props, lighting etc, that reflected real places
instead of painted on backdrops and fake props thus mirroring real life
 Lower and Middle classes were the heroes of the play
 Objective performance; character acts and talk like normal people
 Settings are real and normal
Understanding Performance Week 7
An Otterbein University Theatre & Dance production of A Doll's House

17. Key Plays
 A Doll’s House
 1879 Henrik Ibsen
 The Cherry Orchard
 1904 Anton Chekhov
 All My Sons
 1947 Arthur Miller
Week 7
Understanding Performance
 Mrs.Warren's Profession
 1902 George Bernard Shaw
 The Lower Depths
 1902 Maxim Gorky directed by
Konstantin Stanislavski
 The Power of Darkness
 1886 but was published 1902 Leo
Tolstoy

18. Modern Dance in America
 Pioneers of Modern Dance
 ModernTechniques
 Contraction and release – GrahamTechnique
 Fall and recovery – HumphreyTechnique
 Inspiration
 Breathing
 Natural movement
 Emotions
 Ancient Greek Gods
Understanding Performance Week 7

19. European Modern Dance
 Ausdrucktanz – Expressionist Dance
 ModernTechniques
 Movement scales, choirs - Laban
 Theatrical expression – Jooss, Wigman
 Inspiration
 Nazi Germany / World War II
 Expressionism
 Presenting social reality
 Expressing inner turmoil
Understanding Performance Week 7

20. Key Practitioners
 America
 Loie Fuller (1862-1928)
 Isadora Duncan (c.1877-1927)
 Doris Humphrey (1885-1958)
 Martha Graham (1894-1991)
 José Limón (1908-1972)
 Europe (Ausdrucktanz)
 Rudolf Laban (1879-1958)
 Mary Wigman (1886-1973)
 Kurt Jooss (1901-1979)
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Understanding Performance

21. Key stylistic features of modern dance
 Outside of, and against ballet
 Harmony and disharmony
 Used the ground
 No frills, no grace – unglamorous
 Expressive – drew on emotions
 Theatrical abstraction
 Individual / universal
 Revolution and institution
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Understanding Performance

22. References
 Anderson, J. (1980) ‘The modern dance’, in Steinbeck, C. The dance anthology. New York: New American Library, pp. 418-429.
 Buckle, R. (1980) Nijinsky. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
 Borny, G. (2006) Interpreting Chekhov. Australian National University.
 Bradley, K. (2008) Rudolf Laban. London: Routledge.
 Burt, R. (1998) Alien bodies: representations of modernity, race and nation in early modern dance. London: Routledge.
 Gale, M. and Deeney, J. (2010) Routledge drama anthology and sourcebook: from modernism to contemporary performance. London: Routledge.
 Leach, R. (2004) Makers of modern theatre: an introduction. London: Routledge.
 Preston-Dunlop, V. and Sayers, L. (2011) ‘Gained in translation: recreation as creative practice,’ Dance Chronicle, 34 (1), pp. 5-45.
 Reiss, F. (1960) Nijinsky: a biography. London: Adam and Charles Black.
 Siegel, M. (1985) The shapes of change: images of American Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Siegel, M. (1989) ‘The Green Table: sources of a classic’ in Dance Research Journal, 21 (1), pp. 15-21.
Week 7
Understanding Performance