By Adrianna Aguilar - Dance

in differing ways. I was disappointed that I had not previously allowed myself to learn and
become affected by the power of Martha Graham’s way of moving.
Modern dance begins with a formal established foundation—as my love for it did at age
eight. In the work Modernism’s Mythic Pose, the roots of the Modernist movement of the
twentieth century and the way it takes from traditional forms are described:
Early twentieth-century artists working in a variety of genres explored
strategies designed to invoke a kinesthetic experience, a fact that
highlights one of the central motifs of modernism: the desire to make
sense of the body, to account for and somehow encompass bodily
experiences in art, and to figure movement in words, sculpture, painting,
and other media. 1
The experience and the emotional effect of a Modernist work on the individual are more
important than the work of art itself. From the quotation, one can infer that Modernist artists seek
to bring their audience, observer, reader or listener closer to the media itself through an
emotional connection whether serious or comedic. I have experienced the goal of Modernism to
incite a bodily experience in its experience of it and Martha Graham is merely one artist who has
created a modernist technique. To understand the quotation more comprehensively a definition
of “kinesthetic” itself is needed. Rudolf Laban states in his book Modern Educational Dance
(1948) as quoted in Modernism’s Mythic Pose: “ ‘kinesthesia’ as the sense by which we perceive
muscular effort, movement, and position in space.” 2 Kinesthetic experiences are ones in which
the whole body is involved in the resulting sensations and emotions of an individual’s reaction.
Modernism also occurs in literature, art, and architecture and is “generally characterized
by a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods of expression and now often
1 Preston, Carrie J.. Modernism’s Mythic Pose, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 21.
2 Preston, 21.
3