Abstract
This paper looks at the way dance pioneers of the early twentieth century have engaged with the notion of an American “soul” in their quest for indigenous American movement, in a fashion comparable to the literary endeavor of pioneers of the American Renaissance. I first look into the way American choreographers such as Graham, Balanchine or De Mille have drawn inspiration from American myths to choreograph the American soul, and then I turn to the influence Eastern philosophy and spirituality, especially Brahmanism, had on the artists of the American Renaissance’s approach to the body and the soul, from a literary and choreographic perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
John Calvin, sermon 79: “to hoppe and daûnce like stray beasts” is seen in this sermon as the work of the devil, and an “inticement to whoredome” (Sermons of Maister John Calvin upon the Booke of Job, trans. Arthur Golding, London: Thomas Woodcocke, 1584, 373–374). This comparison is also present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” Twice-Told Tales, NY: Th. Y. Cromwell, 1902, 42–53.
- 2.
Wagner mentions Footloose and Dirty Dancing, but the association between dance and moral corruption is present in many TV and film productions, as exemplified by recent American TV series such as Flesh and Bone (2015) and Tiny Pretty Things (2020).
- 3.
The opening chapter “The Prison-Door” alludes to the expansion of the city of Boston, for example.
- 4.
V. K. Chari writes, “In the years during which the Leaves were in the making there was a considerable vogue in America for Hindu religious ideas, particularly through the enthusiasm of the New Englanders. And the English and American periodicals of the time contained much Vedantic material” (Chari, 291).
- 5.
This organic association between indigenous movement and the American landscape can be found several times throughout her autobiography: “All these movements—where have they come from? They have sprung from the great Nature of America, from the Sierra Nevada, from the Pacific Ocean, as it washes the coast of California; from the great spaces of the Rocky Mountains—from the Yosemite Valley—from the Niagara Falls” (Duncan, 223).
- 6.
Graham also incorporated passages from the Declaration of Independence in her ballet American Document.
- 7.
Iser defines the “repertoire” of the text as “all the familiar territory within the text. This may be in the form of references to earlier works, or to social and historical norms, or to the whole culture from which the text has emerged” (Iser 1978, 69).
- 8.
As Sally Banes notes, Balanchine “was fascinated with popular images of the ‘Wild West’, with white square dancing” (Banes 1994, 56).
- 9.
Rodeo was initially choreographed for the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, and Western Symphony is danced on pointe in the neo-classical Balanchine style.
- 10.
“Popular vaudeville, revue-dance, and popular jazz or swing music; that is what we could call American character dancing—our parallel to the national dances of Spain, Italy or Russia” (Kirstein, 90). Both Rodeo and Western Symphony feature classical idioms, like the pas de deux, or dancing on pointe in the case of Balanchine’s ballet, as well as choreographic Americanisms—parallel turns, steps substituting hitting the floor with the toes by the heel of the flexed foot as in country dance, as well as the alignment of the body which is often tilted or off-center.
- 11.
Even in these quieter passages, the music continues to differ from what would normally be expected of pas de deux music in European ballets and maintains its core Americanness, as in the grand pas de deux in the first movement of Western Symphony, which is danced to honky-tonk piano instead of a string orchestra for example.
- 12.
For further discussion of the persistence of ancient models in American culture, see the introduction by Ronan Ludot-Vlasak to the special issue of Transatlantica, “The Poetics and Politics of Antiquity in the Long Nineteenth Century,” n° 2, 2015, https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/7830
- 13.
“Re-vision—the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction—is for us more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for woman, is more than a search for identity” (Rich 1972, 18).
- 14.
When Fuller and Duncan first appeared on French stages, their daring innovations were “excused” and accepted by the public—who would have been unmitigatingly shocked otherwise—because they were American. Journalist Jules Huret recalled in La Patrie and in his 1908 essay “L’École de danse de Grünewald” that Duncan’s unorthodox choice of music was attributed to her “barbaric American ways” (“danser sur du Schumann! C’est bien un goût barbare de Yankee!” quoted by Allard 1997, 18). Fuller was also characterized by her fearlessness, her individuality, and her bold experimental streak; see Cappelle (ed) (2020, 159–171).
- 15.
“Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world” (Thoreau, 125).
- 16.
The final movement of the piece is available in Jacob’s Pillow digital archives: https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/ruth-st-denis/the-delirium-of-senses-from-radha/
- 17.
Saint Denis (1939, 165–167). Graham married her partner Erick Hawkins at his request, after 8 years of living together (Graham, 174).
- 18.
In her autobiography, Graham recalls that Shawn was quite open about his relationships with his various boyfriends (Graham, 70) although Saint Denis and Shawn remained devoted to each other.
- 19.
“What is the religious dance?” The Ruth Saint Denis Papers, UCLA library, Special Collections, box 64, folder 3.
- 20.
The Ruth Saint Denis Papers, UCLA library, Special Collections, box 65, folder 5.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Chari also underlines the fact that Thoreau practiced Yoga and refers to it in Walden (298).
- 23.
Fuller was a queer artist, and her life partner and herself frequented the lesbian salons of Paris, where Gab Sorère routinely appeared dressed as a man.
- 24.
She reiterated this imperative in 1936: “To the American dancer I say ‘Know your country’. When its vitality, its freshness, its exuberance, its overabundance of youth and vigor, its contrasts of plenitude and barrenness are made manifest in movement on the stage, we begin to see the American dance” (Armitage 1968, 105). “We must look to America to bring forth an art as powerful as the country itself. We look to the dance to evoke and offer life” (Armitage 1968, 107).
- 25.
“I am indeed the spiritual daughter of Walt Whitman” (Duncan, 21).
- 26.
Section 21 famously opens with “I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.”
- 27.
Chari however argues that although there are no records in Whitman’s notes of a careful study of these texts, Whitman would still have been familiar with Vedantic principles due to their popularity at the time: “Whitman, who read almost everything that came his way, could not have escaped some contact with these ideas … Whitman’s knowledge of the Vedanta, if he possessed any knowledge of it at all, may have been indirect, derived through the Transcendentalists, and mainly through the writings of Emerson, which surely influenced him during his formative years” (Chari, 292).
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Chevrier-Bosseau, A. (2024). “Dancing the American Soul: Secular and Sacred Motifs in the Choreographic American Renaissance”. In: Louis-Dimitrov, D., Murail, E. (eds) The Persistence of the Soul in Literature, Art and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40934-9_9
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