| So! Last week, we talked about Ballet. |
| As you know, ballet, classical ballet, is based on formalized movements that are very strictly measured. |
| Specific positioning of the arms, feet head and body are among them. |
| Today we'll be moving on into theatrical dance, better known as modern dance. |
| It started evolving into being in the late nineteenth century. |
| In general, audiences were excited to see this new style, and approved of it. |
| However, the dance was also seen as fairly radical for its time. |
| Yes? Ron? |
| How would it be radical? |
| Well, think about this. |
| If you compare it to classical music versus modern music. |
| The newer art forms are less standardized, |
| more experimental and full of improvisation. |
| Just like back when Jazz started becoming popular, |
| many community leaders spoke out against the music style, |
| saying that children would be led to a life of sin through listening to it. |
| Oddly enough, those same phrases were repeated when Rock and Roll became a big hit among the youth. |
| Okay! So basically this stereotype happened to modern dance as well. |
| Modern dancers tried to show emotions and movement within the music itself, |
| demonstrating with their bodies and trying to convey those emotions to the viewers. |
| In comparison, classical ballet requires those emotions to be told through strictly formalized movements. |
| So, how was modern dance created? |
| Well, Isadora Duncan was the innovator of modern dance. |
| She was born in 1878, and briefly studied ballet as a child. |
| She found it too restrictive, not creative enough. |
| She quickly grew tired of the rigorous training into forms, and developed her own style called free dance. |
| By age fourteen, she had started a class to teach young children her style, |
| organizing recitals with them. |
| Now, her early technique was based on the natural forms of children as they run, skip and gesture when they tell stories. |
| It also incorporated the movements of nature, |
| like trees swaying in the wind or stones being tumbled as a wave crashes upon them. |
| Her gestures were expressive and emotional. |
| While ballerinas had to wear their hair up in a tight bun, |
| not to distract from their forms, |
| Duncan wore hers loose and long. |
| Instead of fluffy short skirts and painful toe shoes, |
| she'd wear flowing tunics and would dance gracefully barefoot... |
| and this was something audiences had never seen before, |
| and they loved it. |
| Now, a little interesting story about her. |
| When she was younger but still in her career, |
| Duncan attended a ballet concert, led by the famous ballerina, Ana Pavlova. |
| Interested in knowing a dancer so different than herself, |
| Pavlova invited Duncan to a practice as an observer. |
| Duncan accepted, and was horrified at what she saw. |
| The ballerinas practiced on tiptoes for hours, and their feet were deeply bruised by toe shoes. |
| The movements they practiced, she said, seemed painful and possibly harmful. |
| After the practice, Duncan publicly announced she thought ballet was a form of acrobatics, |
| a "complicated and excruciating mechanism". |
| Now, we must know that back then, Russian ballerinas were very well-loved by their people, |
| and to see a woman dancing so unlike them really didn't play to their tastes at all. |
| Not to mention, her announcement must have rubbed them the wrong way. |
| They criticized her harshly, |
| saying her dance was closer to childish pantomiming than actual dance. |
| Still, it didn't bother her very much, |
| and she continued to dance for the majority of her adult life. |
| Still, their harsh critique and her denouncing words |
| left a deep chasm and rivalry between ballerinas and modern dancers for many years. |