The Influence of François Delsarte’s Ideas on the Modernity of Dance

Abstract

This study discusses the influence François Delsarte’s ideas had on the pioneers of modern dance. Having rejected books on gestural rhetoric of his own time to conduct a rigorous study on human behavior in strong emotional situations, Delsarte established principles and systematized exercises that provided the pioneers of modern dance an alternative method of interpretation and creation, more centered on the subject and on their relationship with the environment, than on the imitation of traditional gestures. Delsarte’s system allowed modern creators to consider the took as a raw material for a research that was no longer defined by traditional techniques, but by the pursuit of a subjective form of corporeality