ABSTRACT
This chapter takes as its starting point the idea that modern dance during the period was a transnational phenomenon. It traces this within writings of the first half of the twentieth century about the international nature of modern dance. It deliberately engages with a number of quite different examples, including consideration of the spread of modern dance practices outside Europe—in the Middle East and the Pacific Asian region—and by artists from Africa, the Caribbean, and India. On the one hand, it looks at tensions between national and international perspectives in Europe and North America. On the other hand, beyond this transatlantic nexus, it looks at transnational flows and how modernisms were developing in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. In particular, it looks at the work of John Ernest Crawford Flitch, Claire Holt, Rolf de Maré, and Uday Shankar.
