Dance is motion. Photography is stasis. And when the two are combined, something new is created: a moment of suspension.
At the University of Kentucky Art Museum, a new exhibition is exploring that dynamic and challenging the historical narrative of American photography and the origins of modern dance. It's easy to think of research as test tubes and microscopes, but a multidisciplinary team in the College of Fine Arts is researching with glass-plate negatives and forgotten archives.
The exhibition, "Daring Collaborations: Doris Ulmann and the Making of Modern Dance," is at the UK Art Museum through Aug. 8. Created in collaboration with Jill Schinberg, associate professor of arts administration, and museum curator Rachel Hooper, Ph.D., the project is the first to gather Ulmann's photographs of modern dancers and investigate them to enrich the story of two disciplines that may seem unrelated at first glance.
Changing lenses
Ulmann is often described as a preserver of the past. She is best known for her ethnographic documentation of rural Appalachian craftsmen and Gullah-Geechee people in the Southeast. But Hooper and Schinberg's research uncovered an overlooked period between 1919 and 1933 when Ulmann became fascinated with experimental dance forms emerging in New York City.
"In this case, research is precisely the production of new knowledge," Hooper said. "No one has ever written about or done an exhibition about Doris Ulmann's photographs of modern dancers, even though she was in the scene at this pivotal moment in the history of dance."
By analyzing portraits of innovators like Michio Ito, Ruth St. Denis and Angna Enters, the team found stories and connections that raised questions about established narratives for the era.
And in the process, they learned how Ulmann's work with dancers informed her later, more famous studies. This research suggests that Ulmann's Appalachian photographs, often praised for their authenticity, may actually reflect a theatrical staging learned from her time in the dance and theater world rather than the candid truth they seem to suggest.
"Doris Ulmann spent a lot of time with people who thought carefully about staging and about theatrics. Her photographs of Appalachia are given this kind of aura of authenticity," Hooper said. "But in fact, there's more that's theatrical that's happening in those photographs than we previously understood. They are capturing a staging of Appalachia."
Schinberg agreed: "That's what this felt like to me, is just looking at the same content from a completely different perspective."
"It fits with Doris Ullman's interest in pictorialism, which was about using a method of photography that looked like painting. Less of a documentation, more of an artwork," Hooper said.
What it means to be modern
The early modern period of dance (1880-1923) was an era when artists rebelled against the rigid strictures of classical ballet. Unlike contemporary dance, which includes influences from around the world and a diversity of movement, premodern dance as an art form in the West fit into a relatively small box of prescribed motions. The innovators of the early modern period fundamentally changed the medium by stripping away formal requirements like corsets and pointe shoes in favor of greater physical expression and a practice centered on the human body's natural capabilities.
Pioneers like Martha Graham developed techniques that emphasized being grounded to the floor, where ballet often seeks to appear weightless. Modern dance often coordinates breathing, which led to movement based on contraction and release. Isadora Duncan, a predecessor of the period, incorporated athleticism, skipping, running, jumping and leaping. This paved the way for modern forms like breakdancing.
Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus integrated African and Caribbean movement with modern dance, introducing polyrhythmic movement, isolation of limbs and a flexible torso, which created the foundation for disco and eventually contemporary hip-hop dance.
Artists like Loie Fuller changed the medium by using lighting equipment and special effects to enhance the visual impact of movement. We can see this influence today in Electronic Dance Music and other visually incorporated concerts.
Modern dance changed more than choreography. It changed how people understood movement as a form of communication.
All roads lead to Kentucky
One of the most unexpected outcomes of this research was the discovery of Kentucky's role as a connection point between these historical figures. Although Ulmann was a New Yorker, and the dancers were often based in metropolitan hubs, their paths converged in the Commonwealth.
During their research, Hooper and Schinberg uncovered that modern dance pioneers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn frequently "waxed poetic" about Paducah, Kentucky.
"That was really a moment where things clicked for them," Hooper said, explaining that despite all the places the duo traveled, "They talked about Paducah throughout the rest of their lives. They would say, 'Remember Paducah,' with longing."
The Ulmann collection itself is a product of Kentucky history. Many of the photographs were donated to the University of Kentucky and Berea College through the bequest of John Jacob Niles, a noted musician and folklorist from Lexington. Niles served as Ulmann's assistant and was a key figure in managing her estate after her death in 1934.
"Just like them, we wouldn't have this information had we not been in Kentucky together," Schinberg said.
Collaborative spaces
The project is an example of the collaboration encouraged across the University of Kentucky campus and featured regularly at the UK Art Museum.
"The museum has a history of engaging other colleges and colleagues for partnership, aligning our exhibitions with UK conferences and syllabi and encouraging interdisciplinary projects," said Stuart Horodner, director of the UK Art Museum.
Schinberg, who holds an M.F.A. in dance and specializes in arts programming, joined forces with Hooper, a visual arts curator, to approach the material from two distinct disciplinary angles.
The collaboration extended into the classroom with Laura Neese, a lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Dance. Students in Neese's dance history courses were asked to build a family tree of modern dance based on the exhibition research.
"What came back was more like a crime connection chart from a detective show than a family tree," Schinberg said. "It wasn't that surprising that it looked that way or included some figures that are not historically covered in dance scholarship."
This multidisciplinary approach also changed how the researchers viewed their own practices.
"In the way that I arrange artworks in a gallery, I am choreographing visitors," Hooper said. "I'm encouraging them to move through certain spaces and in a certain order by laying out a kind of narrative."
Next steps
Although many art exhibitions serve as the summation of research, Schinberg and Hooper view "Daring Collaborations" as a launchpad for future inquiry. Both researchers plan to develop their findings into peer-reviewed articles, widening the lens to include Ulmann's photographs currently held by the New York Historical Society and other national archives.
The project also serves as a pilot for how the University of Kentucky might function within its anticipated arts district, which was made possible by a $150 million gift from The Bill Gatton Foundation. By breaking down the silos of different disciplines, the team hope to foster more cross-pollination between students and faculty in different units.
"You need interdisciplinary collaboration for innovation," Hooper said. "That's where the innovation happens - when you have conversations that identify real gaps of knowledge."
All of these moving pieces have come together for a suspended moment at the UK Art Museum, where cross-disciplinary collaboration is on display until Aug. 8.
The exhibition was made possible through support of the Doris Ulmann Galleries at Berea College, University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center and the University of Washington Chamber Dance Company Documentary Collection.
