Doris Humphrey

Dancer, choreographer

• Born: October 17, 1895
• Birthplace: Oak Park, Illinois
• Died: December 29, 1958
• Place of death: New York, New York

Education: Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts

Significance: Doris Humphrey was an American dancer and choreographer. She was a pioneer of the modern dance movement of the twentieth century. Humphrey developed a unique dance technique that explored the frontiers of movement and the use of breath in dance expression. Her techniques are still taught and studied by dancers and choreographers.

Background

Doris Humphrey was born on October 17, 1895, in Oak Park, Illinois, but she grew up in Chicago. She was the only child of her middle-class parents. Her father ran a boarding house for vaudeville performers called the Palace Hotel. Her mother was a piano teacher. Humphrey attended Francis Parker School in Chicago from kindergarten through high school. It was there she discovered a passion for dance. Humphrey was encouraged to channel her creativity early on, and she studied piano, music composition, ballet, and ballroom dance throughout her youth. She was an exceptionally good dancer, and at fifteen, she was teaching interpretative dance and ballet to children.

In her late teens, Humphrey took a year off from high school and joined a variety troupe that traveled the Santa Fe railroad line. She toured the western United States and gave performances to railroad employees. She eventually returned to school to graduate. By this point, her father was having financial troubles, so Humphrey decided to take responsibility for the family’s finances. At eighteen, she opened her own dance studio in Oak Park with her mother acting as business manager. The school was a success and offered classes in a range of dance styles as well as gymnastics.

Humphrey quickly grew bored teaching dance in her small town. In 1917, she decided to move to California and enrolled at the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, run by modern dance pioneers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Humphrey’s time at Denishawn had a great influence on her career, and she spent the next decade of her life there. She studied dance, learned choreography, and later taught classes at the school. She starred in many of the company’s dance performances and got to perform in tours overseas. She also created a number of original dance pieces. Some of her most famous dance numbers emerged during her Denishawn days, including Soaring, Valse Caprice (Scarf Dance), and Scherzo Waltz (Hoop Dance).

Humphrey met her longtime dance partner, Charles Weidman, while at Denishawn. In 1928, the pair left the school to found their own school and company. They decided to establish themselves in New York and quickly gained recognition for their pioneering dance style.

Life’s Work

Humphrey and Weidman sought to create a new style of dance that abandoned the sentimental, romantic elements that dominated the performances at Denishawn. With Weidman, Humphrey invented a whole new dance vocabulary as she studied the possibilities of the human body and its capacity for movement and expression. In Humphrey’s vocabulary, the contraction and release of muscles in relation to the breathing cycle was referred to as “fall and recovery.” She stressed the importance of tension and relaxation in bodily movement, and she developed her own unique movement principles. To Humphrey, all movement patterns fell into three categories: opposition, succession, and unison. She also divided movement characteristics into three classes: sharp accent, sustained flow, and rest. She would later systemize her principles in her 1958 book, The Art of Making Dances.

Humphrey and Weidman’s school quickly established itself within the New York dance scene, and critics regarded Humphrey’s work as magnificently innovative. Alongside her studies in form and movement, Humphrey also incorporated the existential philosophies of German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche. She specifically meditated on his theories of the split human psyche, which divided a person’s essence into a rational/intellectual side and a chaotic/emotional side. Humphrey believed modern dance should transcend each side and exist between the two. She referred to this concept as the “arc between two deaths.”

Humphrey choreographed a number of memorable performances throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, including Water Study, Life of the Bee, Two Ecstatic Themes, and The Shakers. Many of these pieces had distinctly American themes, another departure from the primarily European-inspired Denishawn technique. The Humphrey-Weidman Company toured the country during this period, garnering many fans in the process. This period saw the creation of Humphrey’s dramatic New Dance trilogy, which included Theater Piece, With My Red Fires,and New Dance. Theater Piece reflected humanity’s natural drive to compete. With My Red Fires examined the power of love and compassion. New Dance, choreographed as a finale, was created as an illustration of human harmony and a celebration of individualism. The trilogy premiered in sections between 1935 and 1936 in New York and Vermont.

Humphrey continued to choreograph modern dance pieces throughout the late 1930s, but when World War II (1939–1945) broke out, her company began to falter. Many of her members joined the armed services. Without enough dancers, it became difficult to fulfill touring engagements. Humphrey was also struggling with arthritis by the early 1940s, and she retired from dancing in 1944.The Humphrey-Weidman Company closed in the fall of that year.

Although she could not dance herself anymore, Humphrey continued to choreograph and teach dance to young students. She created several more dance pieces in her later years, transitioning her focus from the abstract to the dramatic. Throughout the late 1940s and into the 1950s, she produced Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, Night Spell, Ritmo Jondo, Ruins and Visions, and Day on Earth. She joined the dance faculty of the Juilliard School upon the dance division’s opening in 1951 and directed the school’s dance theater beginning in 1954. Humphrey fell ill in the fall of 1958 and became bedridden shortly after. She died on December 29, 1958.

Impact

Humphrey’s dance theory continues to be used by numerous choreographers and dance instructors. Many of her choreographed pieces are still performed on modern stages. She served as a mentor to many dancers and choreographers throughout her career, leaving a lasting legacy within the world of modern dance.

Personal Life

Humphrey married Charles Woodford in 1932. They had a son, Charles Humphrey Woodford.

Principal Works: Dance Pieces

Water Study, 1928

Life of the Bee, 1929

The Shakers, 1931

Two Ecstatic Themes, 1931

New Dance (trilogy), 1935–1936

Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, 1946

Ruins and Visions, 1953

Principal Works: Books

The Art of Making Dances, 1958

Bibliography

Barzel, Ann. “Biography.” Doris Humphrey Society, www.dorishumphrey.org/the-early-years/. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

“Biography of Doris Humphrey.” Goucher College, www.goucher.edu/doris-humphrey-foundation-for-dance/biography. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

“Doris Humphrey (1895–1958).” University of Pittsburgh, www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/doris.html. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

“Doris Humphrey Papers 1925–1958.” New York Public Library, archives.nypl.org/dan/19678. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Dunning, Jennifer. “Review/Dance; Recalling the Spirit of Doris Humphrey.” New York Times, 1989, www.nytimes.com/1989/03/11/arts/review-dance-recalling-the-spirit-of-doris-humphrey.html?sq=%22eleanor+king%22&scp=9&st=cse. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Mindlin, Naomi, editor. “Doris Humphrey: A Centennial Issue.” Choreography and Dance, vol. 4, no. 4, 1998.

Siegel, Marcia B. Days on Earth: The Dance of Doris Humphrey. Duke UP, 1993.

Siegel, Marcia B. “Doris Humphrey (1895–1958).” Dance Heritage Coalition, danceheritage.org/treasures/humphrey‗essay‗siegel.pdf. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.