I'm doing work on a modern dance study guide for high school students. Our timeline is jam packed until we hit the 90's. Then it drops off.

I think it's hard to gain perspective on any major modern dance moments or milestones during this period. Can anyone think of events that I should include?

Many thanks.

(Perhaps this should be moved to the modern dance forum? I'm not quite sure.)

<small>[ 17 November 2004, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: RaHir ]</small>

One trend from the 90's is that of dance artists incorporating a range of traditional styles with modern/contemporary dance. Some examples:

Bharata Natyam/Modern: Shobana Jeyasingh (UK)

Kathak/Modern: Akram Khan (UK)

African/Modern:
Vincent Mantsoe (S. Africa)
Compagnie Salia ni Seydou (Burkina Faso)

We have one or more topics on each of these artists in "Modern".

In Continental Europe, the trend has been towards Conceptual Dance, which can be seen as a post-Judson Church approach and moves away from dance where technique is the most important element. Ramsay Burt recently wrote about a seminar on this theme:

http://forum.criticaldance.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=002745

and there is a link to www.sarma.be which may have more information.

Thanks for those suggestions! In all the hussle and bussle this morning, I forgot to add that these need to be US/American milestones & major events.

That is trickier and I can understand your difficulty in finding US milestones from the 90's. My impression is that the lack of funding, increased costs and the consequent need to attract audiences has not helped the development of innovatory US work in the 1990's.

For instance, while I enjoyed the work, one of the John Jasperse team was aghast that the Estonian contemporary dance audience at the 2003 August Dance Festival found their piece old-fashioned and gimmicky.

It's also interesting to note that, without the support of the Belgian tax payer we wouldn't have the major Mark Morris works from 1988-1991.

Here's hoping our various US correspondents will be able to prove me wrong.

Thinking back over the life of modern/contemporary dance, I guess the main national drivers have been:

1920's - Germany, France, Sweden and USA
1930-1960 - USA
1960-1990 - USA, Europe
1990's on - perhaps: Europe, Africa, Far East

<small>[ 17 November 2004, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>