In many ways, the term modern dance, is like a Rorschach test. You know, the ink blots that various people see different things when they look at it. Modern dance can mean different things to different people. The term first became popular a century ago, so that begs the question, can the dancing that was described by that term 100 years ago, still be called modern, today?

Some commentators have suggested that at this point, in the twenty first century, all varieties of dance have been created already, and anything in the future of dance that calls itself new, will be found in the past... Everything comes full circle. That is open for debate, but it reminds one of the sequence in the movie, Can't Buy Me Love, where Patrick Dempsey was a high school nerd who wanted to learn to dance, so he tried watching, American Bandstand.

He didn't realize the channel had been changed to PBS, where a tribal mating dance, presumably passed down for thousands of years, was being performed. He learned the moves, and tried it out at the school dance. It was so unique and new to the students, everyone joined in the dance that they thought was extremely modern.

The concept of modern dance is traced to European ballet dancers in the early 1900s. They wanted freedom to go beyond the rigid protocol and parameters of traditional ballet. They felt that ballet, as it was then, was emotionally stifled. They started breaking the rules, including changing the steps, their posture, going bare foot, and wearing revealing clothing. Mainly, they wanted the dance to represent and convey the emotion they were feeling as artists.

European modern dance pioneers include Francois Delsarte, Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. The work of von Laban helped to spawn a genre, known as Expressionist Dance. Joining him in the Expressionist movement, were, Pina Bausch, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, Gertrud Bodenwieser, Staluse Pera, Hilde Holger and Alwin Nikolais.

As European modern dance pioneers traveled to perform in other countries, their influence was felt around the world, including the United States. As a result of their work, American dancers who followed, (not so much in their steps, but in their flow of energy), included, Loie Fuller, Alvin Ailey, Isadora Duncan, Katherine Dunham, Doris Humphrey, Ruth St Denis, & Martha Graham. Graham is said to have developed her own language of movement that evoked the full range of human emotion, and left audiences almost spellbound.