Modern Dance and the Limon Technique

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Jose Limon
One of the world’s greatest and well-known male modern dancers and choreographers is Jose Limon. He was born in the year 1908 and passed away in 1972. He had incorporated a huge part of his years as a young child in Mexico into his art form. At first, he pursued visual arts but was eventually inspired by a dance performance by Harald Kreutzberg which eventually led him to pursue dance and choreography. This marked the start of his career in this field. At the start of Jose Limon in dancing, it was said to already be very unique and above the usual dance execution and motion, proving that Jose Limon is truly very talented in this art form from the very start. The ones who influenced and further harnessed this ability of Jose Limon are Charles Weidman and Doris Humphrey, the known pioneers of modern dance. He joined the company of the two and eventually decided to create his own. Aside from studying with Charles Weidman and Doris Humphrey, they also end up as lifelong friends of Jose Limon. His most famous work is The Moor’s Pavane. This is a ballet routine based on the tragic story of Othello by the famous William Shakespeare. The dance lasts for twenty minutes with the music from Henry Purcell. Some of his other works are The Exiles, The Traitor, Emperor Jones, There is a Time, and Carlota. Jose Linon has choreographed around seventy-four dances in his dance career.
When talking about Jose Limon, it is important to discuss the Limon technique. The characteristics of the Limon technique are the following: its focus on the breath and how it moves around the dancer’s body; the fluidity of the dancer’s movements when transitioning from one movement to the rest of the succession; and the use of the weight of each body part in executing a dance step. In the Limon technique, there are core elements and these are from the sensory experience that the body of the dancer experiences durin...