Dancing Class

Linda J. Tomko

Description

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book of 2000

"Tomko blazes a new trail in dance scholarship by interconnecting U.S. History and dance studies. . . . the first to argue successfully that middle-class U.S. women promoted a new dance practice to manage industrial changes, crowded urban living, massive immigration, and interchange and repositioning among different classes." —Choice

From salons to dance halls to settlement houses, new dance practices at the turn of the century became a vehicle for expressing cultural issues and negotiating matters of gender. By examining master narratives of modern dance history, this provocative and insightful book demonstrates the cultural agency of Progressive-era dance practices.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Philosophy
• General officer
• Gender
• Musicology
• History of the Americas
• Cinema
• Dance
• General
• United States
• Music
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 janvier 2000
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253028174
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Dancing Class

Dancing Class
G ENDER , E THNICITY , AND S OCIAL D IVIDES IN A MERICAN D ANCE , 1890–1920 L INDA J. T OMKO INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS BLOOMINGTON & INDIANAPOLIS
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© 1999 by Linda J. Tomko
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic ormechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage andretrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association ofAmerican University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to thisprohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American NationalStandard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tomko, Linda J.
Dancing class : gender, ethnicity, and social divides in American Dance, 1890–1920 / Linda J. Tomko. p.    cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.  ) and index. ISBN 0-253-33571-X (cl.: alk. paper). — ISBN 0-253-21327-4 (pa.: alk. paper)
    1. Dance—Social aspects—United States—History—20th century. 2. Dance—Anthropological aspects—United States—History—20th century. 3. Dance—Sex differences. I. Title. II. Series. GV1588.6.T66     1999
306.4′84—dc21 99-18556
1   2   3   4   5   04   03   02   01   00   99
The photograph “Fifteen Acres of Dancing Girls” is from Dances of the People: A SecondVolume of Folk Dances and Singing Games , collected by Elizabeth Burchenal. © 1913(Renewed) by G. Schirmer, Inc. (ASCAP). International Copyright Secured. All RightsReserved. Reprinted by Permission.
Material in Chapter 6 appeared in Linda J. Tomko’s “Fete Accompli: Gender, ‘Folk-Dance’and Progressive-era Political Ideals in New York City,” in Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge,Culture and Power , ed. Susan Foster (London: Routledge, 1996).
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction
One Bodies and Dances in Progressive-era America
Two Constituting Culture, Authorizing Dance
Three The Settlement House and the Playhouse: Cultivating Dance on New York’s Lower East Side
Four From Henry Street to Grand Street: Transfer and Transition to the Neighborhood Playhouse
Five Working Women’s Dancing, and Dance as Women’s Work: Hull-House, Chicago Commons, and Boston’s South End House
Six Folk Dance, Park Fetes, and Period Political Values
Conclusion
NOTES
COLLECTIONS CONSULTED
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If graduate study doesn’t change the way you think, I tell students, then youhaven’t gotten what you came for. The conception of this book was profoundlyinfluenced by my doctoral study in History at UCLA. I owe a greatdeal to Alexander Saxton, Kathryn Kish Sklar, and Thomas Hines, butespecially for the rigor of their thinking and their receptivity to dance as asubject for investigation. On another campus, Nancy Ruyter gave the samecommitment to my research.
I’ve come to treasure archives as crucial and fragile sites for leaving toourselves reflections upon ourselves. I am grateful for the assistance renderedme so generously by a number of curators and reference professionalsat the following institutions: David Klaassen, Social Welfare HistoryArchives, Walter Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; AliceOwen, the Neighborhood Playhouse, New York City; Madeleine Nicholsand Monica Moseley, Dance Collection of the New York Public Libraryfor the Performing Arts; Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York PublicLibrary for the Performing Arts; David Ment and Lucinda Manning, SpecialCollections, Milbank Memorial Library, Columbia University; DianaHaskell, the Newberry Library, Chicago; Kitty Keller, Early Archives Coordinatorfor the Country Dance and Song Society; Elizabeth Mock,University of Massachusetts/Boston, Harbor Campus; Archie Motley, theChicago Historical Society; Sue Berger and Bernard Crystal, the EthicalCulture Fieldston School, New York City; Mary Ann Bamberger, SpecialCollections, the University Library, at the University of Illinois, Chicago;Hollee Haswell, the Columbia University Archives and Columbiana Library; Malcolm Taylor, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Cecil SharpHouse, England; University Research Library, UCLA; Janet Moores, RiveraLibrary, University of California, Riverside. I am especially grateful toCharles F. Woodford for facilitating the publication use of Doris Humphreymaterials held by the Dance Collection, New York Public Libraryfor the Performing Arts. Funding from UC Riverside Academic Senatefaculty research grants helped support research and publication preparationfor this book.
Many friends made my research trips possible. I thank Norma Adler,Janelle Travers, Tom Travers, Judith Brin Ingber, Pete and Astrid Stewart,Kitty and Bob Keller, Vicky Risner Wulff, Charles Koster, Rachelle Friedman,and Sandra and Jon Spalter, who made their cities, and their homes,home to me. I am profoundly grateful to Matthew Lee, David Lehman,and Rachelle Friedman for intellectual companionship at several stages.The DOMUS study group, and Erik Monkkonen’s mobilizing, wereimportant to me. I have been lucky in my colleagues at UC Riverside,dialogue with whom has been pivotal: Christena L. Schlundt, SusanFoster, Sally Ness, Marta Savigliano, and Heidi Gilpin. And I thank individualswhose encouragement about writing buoyed me at key points:Judith Chazin-Bennahum, Judy Van Zile, Judith Brin Ingber, MeredithLittle, Wendy Hilton, and Margaret Graham Hills.
Finally, I thank Dorothy Overby and Charles Paul Johnston, whosewords gave me ears for words, and Diane Goins, who helped me continue.And I thank Steve Tomko, for more than I can say.
INTRODUCTION
In the 1890s and the first two decades of the twentieth century, Loie Fuller,Ruth St. Denis, and Isadora Duncan created new kinds of artistic dance inthe United States. Claiming the roles of choreographers as well as performers,these women won national and international recognition and stirrednew consideration of dance as a serious form of artistic expression. In thedecades that followed in America, the dominant figures of Martha Graham,Doris Humphrey, Helen Tamiris, and Hanya Holm led in the constructionof the new genre of modern dance. Colleges and universities bothsupported and changed in response to the stimulus offered by the newlypioneered dance practices, beginning in the late 1910s to add dance coursesto the curriculum for women’s physical education. These courses creatednew academic positions which women teachers filled and a newdisciplinary field that students pursued. In all these areas of innovation,women not only were heavily represented but also forged leadership rolesconstituting new dance practices.
How can we account for the predominance of women in new forms ofartistic dance pioneered in the United States between 1890 and 1920? Thenew dance practices initiated in this period provided women with leadershiproles as choreographers, producers, and trainers of other dancers, rolestraditionally occupied by men in two other contemporary American dancegenres: classical ballet and show or Broadway dancing. Since the 1860s,these genres had typically confined women’s employment opportunities toperformance. Although women could and did make substantive and eveninternational careers for themselves, rising as lead dancers to the top of ballet and showgirl ranks, creative, directorial, and management roles inthese enterprises were occupied primarily by men.
Such sexual division of labor in dance was the product of more than twocenturies of change and development in European and American theatricaldance. And the nature of the division of labor was made manifest bothin the forms of the dance itself and in institutional practices. Even beforethe end of the seventeenth century, “professionals” had begun to dancebeside courtiers in ballets staged by and for the pleasure of Louis XIV’scourt. Professionals became increasingly distinguished from noble andmiddle-class amateurs in eighteenth-century France and England, andwomen, joining the ranks later than men, became equally well representedas professional dancers. The Baroque movement vocabulary and choreographiesrequired almost identical skills from male and female performersalike. To be sure, men performed more complicated aerial beats of the legsand a greater number of turns than women in solo choreographies. Thisvariation in step vocabulary is not a small difference, but choreographiesfor male-female couples demanded the same highly developed skillsof movement articulation and rhythmic phrasing from both parties. Thegreat number of extant choreographies notated between 1700 and 1730—more than 335 in all—are the work of male dancing masters. Dancing mastersin the early eighteenth century both composed dances and trained students,working as private individuals or in royal and commercial theatres.At the Paris Opera or at London’s Drury Lane Theatre and Lincoln’s InnFields Theatre the posts for dance and music composition were filled bymen. A rare exception, popular French dancer Marie Sallé enjoyed ind