Critical review of Doris Humphrey

 

Ernestine Stodelle(1912-2008) wrote Doris Humphrey in "Steel and Velvet: A Centennial Reminiscence".


"The steel of Doris Humphrey’s mind with its insights into reality never interfered with the velvet of her creative spirit. My first encounter as a student with my future teacher’s undying faith in the dance was in the form of a credo posted in the studio:
To be master of one’s body:
to find a perfect union between the inner thought and outer form ~ to draw from this a radiance and power that makes of life a more glorious and vital experience ~ this is to dance

To gain this mastery, to achieve that perfect union, and to present one’s art in the forum of a theater for the benefit of all to seeÉthese were the goals of the newly formed American Modern Dance. The price was high: nothing less than everything. And Doris Humphrey paid it time and time again.
In spite of repeated disappointments, her message was ever positive. Dances appeared, one after the other. Ranging from lyrical abstraction of reality to drama of all dimensions, there was the pictorially conceived and music-less “Water Study,” the pure and perfect Processional from the “Drama of Motion” (also without accompaniment) and the spiritually evocative “Air for the G String” set to Bach’s noble “Air” from his Orchestral Suite in D Minor; the chillingly expressive distillation of a Cretan ritual, “Dionysiaques” and Doris’s brilliant solo, “The Call/Breath of Fire,” an adventure into a purposely limited structure suggesting an emotional stasis, a mini-dance, decades in advance of the sixties!

Water Study by Doris Humphrey

Then, her two visualizations of the role of women: the first, an ensemble work daringly conceived in biological terms, “Dances of Women” and “Two Ecstatic Themes,” a two-part solo delving into the dual nature of a modern woman who obeys her instinctual need for love and countermands it with her equally urgent demands for self-identity, doubtlessly, the first statement of its kind in dance long in advance of the emergence of women’s “rights.”
All these, plus other works of stature, were premiered during the six years I was with the company. And during the next twenty years until her death in 1958, Doris created both large and small scale dances, the most renowned being her Bach-inspired “Passacaglia” and her indictment of possessive motherhood, “With My Red Fires.” Both of these works resounded with the same positive point of view as that she once expressed in the 1941 edition of Frederick Rand Rogers’ Dance: A Basic Educational Technique: “My dance is an art concerned with human values. It upholds only those values which make for harmony and opposes all forces inimical to those values.”
Herein lies the steel and velvet of Doris Humphrey’s genius, which lives on in the many reincarnations of her magnificent contributions to twentieth-century dance. I sincerely hope that this year’s Centennial Celebrations of her birth on October 17, 1895, will alert a destructive world to the life-saving potential of a great artist’s humanitarian philosophy."





From "Steel and Velvet: A Centennial Reminiscence", I saw different Doris's aspect beyond her professional aspect. first and foremost, she is not only a talent dancer, also and most important is, she paid much time and effect on her dance and her chorography. One thing make me very impressive is that when she in Denishwan school, due to her family finance crisis, she open her dance school to support her family, and let her mother be the business manager and accompanist. And the school got success at that time. Thus I want to point to that her success cannot without her effort, independence and talent.

Second, success depend on attitude. Ernestine states that she never said negative. Although she struggled by life, she still stayed in positive that is very estimable. That reminder me that she created the concept of " fall and recovery" that is famous in nature and basic movement. I cannot stop thinking that is her attitude, nature and peace never to complain just do what you want to do and what you need to do. This is what you are and most nature herself.