Introduction

This chapter introduces the central concerns of the book as a whole, these being the relationships between modernism in dance and the lived experience of modernity. The works and events examined, developed, and responded to, or came out of, an ambivalence about, or a reaction against, modernity. The chapter introduces approaches developed in what has come to be known as new modernist studies. This proposes expanding the field of study of modern dance along three axes: the temporal, the spatial and the vertical. This means looking at dance from the early 1900s to the 1950s, taking a broad transnational and global perspective, and recognising modernism within both high and popular culture. The theoretical arguments that underpin the book are outlined here.