Influences

"The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing." - Doris Humphrey

Doris Humphrey was influenced by a variety of people growing up in Illinois. The two most important of those people were her parents. Her mother, Julia Ellen Wells was a trained concert pianist, who also taught piano for extra income. Her father, Horace Buckingham Humphrey, was a journalist and a one-time hotel manager for vaudeville entertainers. Both of her parents were very passionate about education. Although they were short on money, they still found ways to fund for her education, and therefore sent her to Francis Parker School in Chicago. At this school education was based on John Dewey’s principles of progressive education and experiential/experimental learning. Humphrey carried this into her teaching methodology and maintained this educational philosophy through life. It was also at this school where Mary Wood Hinman taught dance, and truly inspired Humphrey to move. She would stage pageants and programs of folk and interpretive dances in the school, in which Humphrey shone. After graduation, Mary Wood Hinman encouraged Humphrey to go to Los Angeles for a summer course offered at the Denishawn School.

It was here at Denishawn that her talents were well recognized and she soon was given solo roles, assistant positions, and offered to choreograph. Although Ruth St. Denis encouraged Humphrey to dance, Humphrey was very different from her. Ruth St. Denis was driven by religious messages, and Humphrey was not. Therefore, with Charles Weidman, she left for the East in New York to discover new ways to move the body.

As Doris Humphrey created her dance theory about the fall and recovery of movement, she claims that it was highly inspired by a Germain philosophizer, Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, The Birth of Tragedy. It was in this book that Humphrey read about idea of the split in the human psyche between each person's Apollonian side (rational, intellectual) and our Dionysian side (chaotic, emotional). Not only did this German philosophizer inspire Humphrey’s ideas in choreography, but you can also see imprints that Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture left on her life and choreography.

Post 1: Biography/Contribution

Doris Humphrey was a dancer and choreographer who has influenced modern dance today. Humphrey was born on October 17, 1895 and was then raised in Oak Park, Illinois to a family that was struggling financially. Although struggling, her family still found funds in which they were able to send her to school to receive an excellent, progressive education. It was a Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, IL, where Humphrey was first exposed to the styles of folk and interpretive dance.

As a struggling family, her mother taught piano lessons for income while her father ran a residence home for vaudeville performers. As a child, Humphrey took piano, ballet, and ballroom dance and at the young age of 15 began to teach ballet and interpretive dance. After Humphrey graduated high school, and her father lost his job, Humphrey was expected to be the family provider. She established a school in which she taught dance classes while her mother was the business manager and accompanist. This wasn't satisfying for Humphrey, she wanted more. After 4 years, the school was profitable enough for the family, and Humphrey was able to leave Illinois for Los Angeles to pursue her dreams of a professional dancing career.

In 1917, Humphrey enrolled at the Denishawn School, run by dance legends, Ruth St. Denis and her husband, Ted Shawn. It was there that Ruth St. Denis told Humphrey that she was born to be a dancer, not a teacher. She then became one of the schools lead dancers, teaching assistants, and began to choreograph. After 7 years at the school, Humphrey became dissatisfied with the theatricality of the dancing and imagined a new style of dance which was more expressive, and catered to a humans emotion.

In 1928, Humphrey left the Denishawn School and left for New York City where she lived with fellow former Denishawn dancers, Charles Weidman and Pauline Lawrence. They were later joined in their living headquarters by Humphrey's husband, Charles Francis Woodford in 1932, and later by their son as well. Eventually, another Denishawn alumnus joined the group, and they established the Humphrey - Weidman Dance Company. Through this company, Humphrey began developing her own theory of dance. This included her early works of Water Study (1928) and Life of the Bee (1929). Her new theory of dance was inspired by the idea that the emotions dictated movements or as she would say her dances were created "from the inside outside". At times Humphrey would choreograph in silence and then add music later as her emotions would then guide her movement.

Doris Humphrey is best known for her dance theory, "fall and recovery". This was the foundation of her teaching method and her choreography. According to Humphrey, underlying was the German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche's idea about the split in the human psyche between each person's Apollonian side (rational, intellectual) and our Dionysian side (chaotic, emotional). The true essence of the modern dance was the movement that happened in between these extremes, which Humphrey labeled "the arc between two deaths." Her work often required dancers to make motions that put themselves off-balance and then to use the resulting momentum to restore control over their bodies.

Not only is Doris Humphrey known for her theory, but she is also known for her use of music. Because she was musically trained every since she was young, she approached dance and music differently than most other choreographers. As stated before, she would often choreograph and later add the music. Many times she made her own music scores.