American ‘modern dance’, the history of which spans the 20th century with an extraordinary density of talent, boasts a number of inalienable cornerstones: the pioneer Martha Graham, for example, whose body of choreographic dramas represents one of the greatest creative achievements of Western dance theatre, or the Mexican (American by adoption) José Limón (Arcadia, Mexico, 1908 - Flemington, New Jersey, 1972), who belongs, like Graham, to the ‘historic’ generation of founders. The invention of a method, of a school, of a technique, of a new way of structurally conceiving the relationship of movement with space, with music, with the innermost meanings of the story told (given that the authors of this generation all appear to be conditioned by the priority need for a narrative structure, and the reversal operated by the following generation, that of Cunningham and Nikolais, consists precisely in a radical inversion towards abstractionism).
Although that theatrical world of the founders, impregnated with symbolism and often emphatic in its extreme descriptivism, runs the risk of appearing, in the eyes of a modern-day spectator, to have been overtaken by more recent events, closer to our taste and aesthetic culture, the revival of historical masterpieces of modern dance is always and in any case an occasion of interest, not to be considered with the clinical detachment with which one would look at an archaeological repertoire. Some of those masterpieces - those definable as ‘classics’ in the most universalistic sense of the term - may still appear so expressively complete, so strong in their unaltered truth, as to render any usual distinction between ‘classical’ and ‘modern’ meaningless. These considerations fit like a glove with the José Limón Dance Company, the New York-based company that was founded by Limón and is currently directed by dancer Carla Maxwell, who for more than ten years now, with devotion and tenacity, has kept the company's original repertoire intact, continually enriching it, integrating it, with new works composed by choreographers, including European ones (the most recent examples: the French Jean Cébron and the German Susanne Linke).
On the other hand, Limón, the great disappeared, the one who gives his name to the company, was a choreographer intimately linked to the European tradition of modern dance. Suffice it to say that as a young man, having studied painting, he decided to devote himself to dance after attending a New York recital by Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi, the prophets of German choreographic expressionism in the United States. José Limón, however, was above all the artistic creature of Doris Humphrey, one of the high priestesses of American ‘modern dance’. And it was Humphrey herself who encouraged him towards choreography, after having him work in her troupe (always as a performer of leading roles) from 1930 until ‘40. In ‘45, Limón founded his own company, bringing together dancers such as Betty Jones, Ruth Currier, Lucas Hoving, Pauline Koner: a good slice of the Olympus of American “modern dance”. Limón then asked Doris Humphrey to collaborate with his new troupe as a choreographer and, for the Limón company, Humphrey signed a series of works intended above all to highlight José's fascinating qualities as a dancer: solemn and charismatic on stage, his splendid Indian features, his harmonious body, his broad and noble gesture. Some films preserve for us his image of unforgettable solemnity and drama.
Profoundly marked by his Mexican origins, attracted by war and social themes, until his death José Limón tirelessly committed himself to choreographic creation, which together with his teaching activity represented the all-embracing ‘mission’ of his entire life. His main titles are Danzas de muerte (1937), a piece painfully inspired by the events of the Spanish Civil War, Danzas mexicanas (1939), Eden Tree (1945), La Malinche (1949), The Exiles (1950), The Visitation (1952), which is an unusual interpretation of the Annunciation, The Traitor (1954), which tells the story of Judas and his betrayal, as well as There is a Time and The Emperor Jones, both pieces from 1956, Missa Brevis, to the music of Kodály, from 1958, Choreographic Offering (1963, to the music of Bach), which is a homage to Doris Humphrey, My Son, My Enemy (from 1965, with Louis Falco as performer), La Piñata (1969), The Unsung(1970), without music, a solo in honour of the great Indian chiefs), Dances for Isadora (Chopin, 1971), Carlota, Orfeo (Beethoven, 1972).
But José Limón's absolute masterpiece remains The Moor's Pavane of 1949, a danced treatment of the story of Othello. In this celebrated work to Purcell's music, Limón uses the formal models of ‘modern dance’, overlaid with the ancient forms of popular and courtly dance in a strongly dramaturgical gestural translation. In the fiery representation of the passions that are at the centre of the events of the four characters on stage (Othello, Desdemona, Jago and Emilia), the continuity of the basic forms of the Humphrey-Limón technique merges with the severe elegance of court dances (the pavane). The Moor's Pavane still stands out as a solemn period painting, a work staged with imposing drama, ingeniously conceived in the choreographic design of gestures and paths, always concise and essential, with the apocalyptic grandeur of an extreme ritual. The beautiful Renaissance costumes designed by Pauline Lawrence, who was Limón's wife, stand out.
There is a Time, another famous creation by Limón and included (like The Moor's Pavane) in the programme the company is presenting at the Rovereto Festival, is a broad choreographic poem divided into twelve sections. At the centre is ‘time’, understood as a psychological notion (there is a time to laugh, a time to love, and so on): time as an interminable flow of movement, time as the evocation of an inner experience that aspires to eternity (the recurring module of the choreography is the circle, the fulcrum of tensions to infinity). The music of There is a Time was composed by Norman Dello Joio, and was commissioned to him (for Limón) by the ‘Juilliard Music Foundation’ in April ‘56, on the occasion of the Festival of American Music. In ‘57, Dello Joio received the Pulitzer Prize for music for this composition. Born in America, Norman Dello Joio is best known as a composer of music for the creations of important American choreographers. He has often collaborated with Martha Graham.
Among the other choreographers authoring creations presented by the José Limón Dance Company in Rovereto, the name of Anna Sokolow, author of Rooms, stands out. A sensitive artist and a very active teacher, born in 1913 in the United States to a modest family of Polish emigrants, for ten years a dancer in Martha Graham's company, Sokolov represents one of the greatest personalities of American ‘modern dance’.
