There Is A Time By Martha Graham And Jose Limon

When we want to learn something about ourselves one of the things we tend to analyze is our history. When we feel the need to understand how technology and science have become as advanced as they are we look to history for the answer. When we want to predict trends in our society we look to history. Just like these, and many other examples to learn about dance we once again we study history in order to understand the development of this art form. Some of the earliest and most influential modern dancers in America were Martha Graham and Jose Limon. It is interesting to look at their pieces and see how they are both similar and different and how time at which their choreography was taking place influenced their work. In this paper, these
This piece swirled through space rarely having any moments that were truly stagnant. The dances made every movement look natural and seamless. Limon’s use of circles and circular movement in addition to the influence of gravity really enhanced the fluid quality of There Is a Time that made it very pleasing to watch. It was interesting to see how he could use similar movement qualities but change the tempo and emphasis on a movement to alter the expression of the movement. This piece felt like it swung my emotions back and forth over the line between light and dark by using movement that brought carefree feelings to mind before switching to a more ominous mood and back
Two of the similarities I found interesting are the women’s costuming and the use of cannons. The women’s costumes were long dresses fitted through the torso and extending into a long simple skirt. I thought that the dresses really complemented the movements in both of these pieces even though they both had different movement qualities. Somehow, despite the skirts being long, the movements of the dancers were still very visible and the little bit of looseness of the dresses accented any of the turning movements to create a continuation of the dancers’ movements. Another device that Graham and Limon both used in these two pieces was the cannon. It was fascinating to see how they both used cannons to create a continuous flow both in the male trio in There Is a Time and the male quartet in Diversion of Angels. The choreography in these cannons was performed in circular or sinusoidal floor pattern which I though was really