HELP! I need the major turning points in American dance from 1770-1919.?

Question

I need this info for a term paper at school due Tuesday! The librarian couldn't even help me with this one. I'm hoping someone out there knows their dance history. Thanks

Answer 1

try wikipedia

Try typing all the dance styles that you know into wikipedia and see if there was any major turning points.

Social (ballroom) dance sertainly had a lot, and wikipedia has good info on it.

1919 was a lot of immigration from Russia. See if ballet got someone good at that time.

Answer 2

hmmm ... American dance in 1770.... for some reason I just draw a blank.

I won't write your paper for you but I'll give you things to look for. Double check spelling, it's late here!

1776 -- Letres sur le danse et le ballet by jean george novarre (Letters on Dance and Ballet) a book on ballet.

1850 - 1900 -- the White Ballets in Europe

1900(ish) -- American dancer Isadora Duncan kicks off her ballet shoes and corset and dances across Europe to Russia

1900's -- Isadora, Mary Wigman, Ruth St. Denis -- look 'em up, they were the first wave of modern dancers

1902 -- Loie Fuller dances The Serpentine Dance using electric lights

1920? -- The Lindy Hop is defined in Harlem, New York named after Charles Lindburgh flying across the Atlantic

1930's .. The Lindy Hop is renamed the Jitterbug because Lindburgh is a Nazi sympathizer

1939 -- the Wizard of Oz has a scene (eventually cut) with the jitterbug dance because it's so popular in all of America

1940's -- (not sure of the date) Agnes deMille choreographs Billy the Kid and then choreographs the musical Oklahoma!

1958 -- Jerome Robbins directs and choreographs West Side Story on broadway and then for the silver screen

1959 -- Sondheim and Stein's homage to vaudeville, Gypsy opens on b'way ...

1960 -- Alvin Ailey premieres Revelations

1962 -- the movie The Music Man spoofs modern dance

When was Fosse's Cabaret?

1976 -- Fosse's Chicago opens and gets squashed by Marvin Hamlish's A Chorus Line (first computer lighting board on b'way)

1978 -- Twyla Tharp choregraphs the movie Hair

Well ... there is some HELP! for you. I'd double check the dates since they are off the top of m'head. Be sure to include George Balanchine, Martha Graham and the influence of hip-hop