response to those limitations, she was simply not a classically trained dancer, her creative output did serve to create a powerful alternative to the ballet as the dominant form of artistic dance.
Like all great artists, Graham did not create in a cultural vacuum. Although the ballet had long been dominant, it was not the only genre of artistic dance. There were some important precursors to the modern dance movement Graham started. In the late 1800s Loie Fuller began to lay the basic ground work for a genre that would become modern dance by performing popular dances in a high art setting. She established two of the essential elements of modern dance: freedom of movement and the solo form (Bates, 1980, p. 1). Around the turn of the century Isadora Duncan created and performed dances that evoked cycles of nature such as ocean waves, trees swaying in the wind and the endless turning of the seasons. She built upon the foundations set by Fuller by emphasizing the personal, innermost emotions of the individual as legitimate themes for artistic dance.
While the artistry achieved through these dances may not have been equal to those that Graham would create a generation later, they did much to set the stage by presenting non-balletic dance as something more than mere entertainment. Ruth St. Denis is one of the important figures in the development of dance. She drew her inspiration from the spiritual and aesthetic traditions of the East. She borrowed dances and styles to evoke goddesses and themes from Greek, Egyptian and Indian mythology. She raised exoticism to the level of high art and established a well-defined aesthetic. As a result, she was one of the most famous exotic dancers of the early 20th century. While she was certainly a talented artist in her own right, she is at least as significant for the influence she would have on Graham and the next generation of dancers.
In 1908, GrahamÆs family moved from the dr...