Ebook: The Art of Making Dances

Doris Humphrey’s The Art of Making Dances is perhaps the most important book of its kind ever published. Written just before her death in 1958, it is Miss Humphrey’s autobiography in art, a gathering together of her experiences in performance and a lucid and practical source book on choreography.
One of the truly great figures in the dance world—a pioneer of American modern dance, a great choreographer and teacher whose influences and innovations are apparent everywhere in the field—Miss Humphrey has given us the first modern book on the “‘art”’ of choreography, an indispensable guide not only for the modern dance but for all stage creations.
The Art of Making Dances presents modern dance as theater. It contains a short history of the dance and various chapters discuss design, dynamics, and rhythm of dance. It includes a check list for composers of dances and an appendix of all the dances composed by Miss Humphrey.
The New York Times has said, ‘‘Doris Humphrey is an enduring part of the dance in America, as the granite under the soil is enduring. We can turn nowhere in the art without finding her.’
Doris Humphrey was one of the first artists to shake off the strictures of choreography based on the cultures of Europe and the Far East, and to help evolve modern dance as we know it today. She left the Denishawn company, with whom she was a leading dancer, to form the famous Humphrey-Weidman company. She taught at the Juilliard School in New York and in master classes throughout the country, was director of the YM-YWHA dance programs in New York, and artistic director of the José Limon company.