Modern Dance Before Bennington: Sorting It All Out

Siegel, Marcia B.

doi:10.2307/1477764

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Tamiris was inspired by the sights, sounds and rhythms that denoted the age in which she lived. She was not above incorporating the commonplace or the popular into her work (9). For her, "human significance was the keynote, the vitalizing force, whether or not significant form was always the outcome... Tamiris's dances spoke their own language and molded their own form.…”

Section: Early Concert Yearsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tamiris and the Federal Dance Theatre 1936–1939: Socially Relevant Dance Amidst the Policies and Politics of the New Deal Era

Cooper¹

1997

Dance Res. J.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Credit is due a great many individuals for sustained, serious and heartbreaking efforts to achieve successful dance productions within the organization of the Federal Theatre Project in New York, but there is one person who has practically given all her life to it for the past three years and has repeatedly and consistently identified her own career with it. She has been responsible for four productions and has done more than any other one person to hold the whole project together and keep it going. Without her tremendous creative enthusiasm and energy, her personal and artistic integrity, her sense of social responsibility, I doubt if this project could ever have endured. I doubt it could have been organized in the first place.… I am speaking of Tamiris.The history of the Works Progress Administration's short-lived Federal Dance Theatre embodies many of the aspirations, achievements, ambiguities, handicaps and frustrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Like the other Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief programs, the Federal Dance Theatre (FDT) was created with federal funds to help alleviate the hardships brought on by the Great Depression. The FDT was established in January 1936 as a distinct artistic entity within the WPA relief organization. It employed professional dancers, choreographers, musicians, designers, and technicians, and set before them the task of producing socially relevant dance pieces for the American people, in particular, audiences that had not previously had access to the theatre. That the Federal Dance Theatre came into existence at all and managed to stay afloat and produce a few critically acclaimed productions of social portent and artistic merit was largely due to the perseverance of modern dance maverick, Helen Tamiris (1905–1966).

show abstract

Section: Early Concert Yearsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tamiris and the Federal Dance Theatre 1936–1939: Socially Relevant Dance Amidst the Policies and Politics of the New Deal Era

Cooper¹

1997

Dance Res. J.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Modern Dance and the Modernist Work

Kaye¹

1994

Postmodernism and Performance

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Shakers in Cyberspace: Electronic Resources and the Bibliography of Dance

Edsall¹

1996

Dance Res. J.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research in the performing arts to a greater degree than other disciplines relies upon literature that crosses and resides within many other disciplines. Researching dance in particular can become a rather interwoven process. Not only is the literature of dance laid across the landscape of the Library of Congress subject headings, but its very subject scope often evolves within other disciplines. Research in dance is environmental and ephemeral, with much of the valuable information found in primary sources as well as in secondary and tertiary sources. When looking at the bibliography of dance as a research inquiry, the direction of the search cannot be narrow. Often, the scope of such research will evolve, taking the researcher circui-tously, but intellectually, around the course of the various disciplines in the arts and the humanities, and the social and physical sciences as well. Moreover, such research requires locating different formats of information, found within a variety of bibliographic structures and searching environments.By utilizing the bibliographic search techniques developed in the Dance Heritage Coalition's workshop, “Choreographing Your Search” (1) bibliographic research in dance can be more fully explored and its findings more easily displayed than through more traditional library research methodology. The purpose of the workshop “Choreographing Your Search” is to provide a basic and general introduction to available on-line resources that can lead to information sources and materials relevant to dance and dance history.

show abstract

Modern Dance Before Bennington: Sorting It All Out

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

Tamiris and the Federal Dance Theatre 1936–1939: Socially Relevant Dance Amidst the Policies and Politics of the New Deal Era

Tamiris and the Federal Dance Theatre 1936–1939: Socially Relevant Dance Amidst the Policies and Politics of the New Deal Era

Modern Dance and the Modernist Work

Shakers in Cyberspace: Electronic Resources and the Bibliography of Dance

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About