In the 1960s there was a break away from Post-Modern dance to a style that used the body itself as the subject of the dance rather than having the body serve as instrument for expressing the deeper meaning of the dance. Thus this dance style focused on the way in which dance was expressed rather than the meaning behind the dance. In order to showcase this new style choreographers and dancers experimented with different and new uses of time, space, and the body. One specific choreographer, Merce Cunningham, decided to disengage the relationship between music and dance and had his dancers learn movement with no music until the day they had to perform the dance.

Moreover, in the 1970s an even greater deviation from post-modern dance emerged to form a style called analytic post-modern dance. This dance form stripped dance of all expressive elements such as music, lighting, costumes, and props. The dances were often performed in silence, and well-lit rooms, and the dancers dressed in ordinary clothes like sweatpants and t-shirts. The goal of analytic post-modern choreographers was to redefine dance in the wake of the controversy of the 60s. Thus movements weren’t overtly expressive and gave no illusionistic references. Rather the moves were simple and usually involved, repetition, reversal, geometric forms, and comparison and contrast. As Banes describes, the dance’s energy was “literally reduced”. With the elimination of musicality and rhythmic organization it is obvious that analytic post-modern dance was a very divergent dance style in comparison to ballet and modern dance.

In 1972 Steve Paxton created Contact Improvisation.  This form of dance involves “physical techniques of falling, duet situations, and physical improvisation, but its forms have social and political connotations” (Banes XX). Meaning that a dancer and their partner(s) must work together to continue the flow of the dance while maintaining physical contact the entire time. The elements of the performance were also symbolic of a world that could be better. For example the improvisation stands for freedom and adaptation, and the support stands for trust and cooperation. Thus Paxton is related to analytic post-modern dance in that he used the ideas of analytic post-modern dance in his contact improvisation style. Not only did Paxton incorporate the social and political issues of the time like other analytic post-modern choreographers but Paxton presented audiences with a new and different idea of dance as well.

Ariella Caminero