The dance world in New York

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2, University of Cologne (Englisches Institut), course: HS 'Words, image, sound', language: English, abstract: Since the founding of New York City people from all around the world have flocked there in search of a better reality and fulfillment of their dreams. Some of them found what they were looking for and others did not. Nevertheless, the constant fluctuation of masses from every corner of the world to New York City only increased in the course of time. At the beginning of a new era filled with hectic and rushing, this city has become a symbol for movement, regardless of its form and purpose. The spatial, financial, cultural movement, the movement of information or myriad of immigrants is of essence in this city. Movement in space and time is in its every shape also the primary subject matter of Terpsihora´s art- the dance. Aside from that, dance as art discipline focuses on the human body using it as clay in its 'moulding' process just like the city 'moulds' in a certain way its inhabitants. The founder of Modern dance for men in America, Ted Shawn, is said to have commented: 'Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made'. When it is taken into consideration that the energy of movement in all its forms in New York City relates to the energy of movement in dance, it is not curious at all that a number of dancing styles have been developed or have experienced an incredible flourishing in New York City. The striving to pursue an artistic career in this city is for a lot of dancers the sheer energy for dancing itself. Their life motto - `If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere'. The sublime relationship between the city and the artist and the overwhelming impression New York City gives on an artist is very perspicuously ilustrated in a comment of the young architectural critic Lewis Mumford: The world, at that moment, opened before me, challenging me, beckoning me, demanding something of me ... Here was my city, immense, overpowering, flooded with energy and light ... transmitting through me the great mysterious will ... and the promise of the new day that was still to come (Lewis Mumford 1982:130).