June 2
Born Today:
John Martin
Dance critic John Martin (1893-1985) was the first full-time dance critic for a major publication and he wrote for the New York Times from 1927-1962. Martin embraced and championed modern dance and helped explain the new art form to an uncertain public. He is often quoted as asserting that “The Modern Dance is not a system, it is a point of view” - an important distinction between the two. Whereas ballet technique had been codified hundreds of years earlier, modern dancers created their own movement vocabularies and forged their own path. As a youngster, Martin grew up around the influence of his musical theatre-loving mother and he performed in the theatre and worked in publicity, two activities that would greatly benefit his writing career. He wrote several books about modern dance in the 1930s and taught dance history and criticism in the Bennington College summer dance program and wrote weekly essays for the Sunday Times.
Also Born Today: Ballerina Friderica Derra de Moroda (1897-1978) performed as a freelance artist in Vienna and ran a dance school in Vienna from 1952-1967. She spent her later career building up a dance library that she donated to the University of Salzburg. Contemporary dance choreographer Maguy Marin (1951-) danced with ballet choreographer Maurice Bejart (1927-2007) before founding her own company in 1984. Marin is best known for her dances May B (1981) and Cinderella (1985). Ballet dancer Carlos Acosta (1973-) performed with the Royal Ballet from 1998-2015 and was named Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2020.
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Ballet Premiere: Les Sylphides in 1909