Packaging Doris Humphrey or a question of form: Nona Schurman shares her thoughts on Doris Humphrey's choreography

Article Abstract:

Nona Schurman danced in pioneering choreographer Doris Humphrey's company and has become an authority on Humphrey and her modern dance works. She believes the power of Humphrey's art lies in its simplicity and its reliance on universally basic structural forms. It is based upon the principles governing human movement, especially on the concepts of falling and recovering from the fall. Falling and recovery are also part of Humphrey's philosophical message in which she continually asserted that democratic ideals are achievable, and that the human spirit will always recover from whatever setbacks it encounters.

Beliefs, opinions and attitudes, Schurman, Nona

---

Form as the image of human perfectability and natural order

Article Abstract:

The pioneering modern dance choreographer Doris Humphrey used dynamic symmetrical and asymmetrical communal forms interacting with representations of individual will to express the world's tensions in her choreography. Humphrey constructed her dances architecturally in three dimensions. She employed continually changing group structures to create a sense of linear flow in her dances. Her emphasis on form helped her choreography express the relation of the single entity to the group, and the struggle of a variety of individuals to combine and achieve communal unity.

Methods, Usage, Form (Aesthetics)

---

Dancers, workers and bees in the choreography of Doris Humphrey

Article Abstract:

Pioneering modern dance choreographer Doris Humphrey was deeply concerned with both group choreography and social justice, but her art was not politically motivated. Leftist dancers of the 1930s used group dance to express their ideological point-of-view. While Humphrey, in her 'Life of the Bee', did envision individuals subjugating themselves to the greater good, her ultimate communal goal was artistic not political. She was more concerned with abstract pattern and form in her work than with expressing her political opinions.

Similar abstracts:

• Abstracts: The collection of Joshua P. Smith. The collection of Stanley B. Burns, M.D. The collection of Gerard Levy
• Abstracts: Staging Bournonville at home and abroad: Tobi Tobias, with Dinna Bjorn and Frank Anderson. The Bournonville Schools: A new look: A panel with Erik Aschengreen, Dinna Bjorn, Thomas Lund, Anne Marie Vessel Schluter, and Flemming Ryberg
• Abstracts: William Forsythe and the lost Stuttgart Ballets. Inside the knot that two bodies make. William Forsythe, Eidos:Telos, and intertextual criticism
• Abstracts: Selma Jeanne Cohen. Selma Jeanne Cohen and Eugene Loring's 'Kinesiography.'(Aspects of Dance: Essays in Honor of Selma Jeanne Cohen)

This website is not affiliated with document authors or copyright owners. This page is provided for informational purposes only. Unintentional errors are possible.