Martha Graham Influence On American Dance

According to the Collins Dictionary, modern dance is “a form of dance as a performing art, variously developed in the 20th century by Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, etc., and characterized by bodily movements and rhythms less formalized than in classical ballet and less firmly bound to predetermined musical form.” Although this may have still been fairly new to American audiences, worldwide, the art form had developed a long history of accepted tradition by the turn of the 20th century. Martha Graham sets a perfect example of the modern dance growth. Martha Graham is regarded as one of the first pioneers of modern dance. She developed and expanded her own technique, which has inspired the dance world majorly. As a young lady
At this time, people saw American dance as a lower art form. Graham chose to follow her dream of dancing, even though she was considered too old to begin dancing. She was in her early twenties when she began studying dancing in 1916. She attended the school created by Ruth Saint Denis and her husband, Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California. Ruth St. Denis inspired her to dance. ‘“I worshipped everything about Miss Ruth – how she walked, how she danced. Miss Ruth was everything to me,” Graham admits. However, Ruth St. Denis thought of Graham as ‘too old, small and not particularly attractive.’(Milles 51). Nevertheless, Ruth’s concept didn’t affect Martha because at the Denishawn Dance School, Graham worked very hard to improve her ability to dance.
She trained her body to become strong enough to meet the difficult demands of dance. She performed with the Denishawn dance company for several years before moving to New York City. There, Graham performed in shows but she wanted to make greater experiments with dance. “ She absorbed everything, the way a plant takes in light. She was always on time and always attentive, using every faculty she had” (Milles 52). Martha kept her head firm moving towards her only goal, developing her personal