1.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
2.
Modern dance in the United States
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Closely related to the development of American music in the early 20th century was the emergence of a new, and distinctively American, art form -- modern dance. Among the early innovators was Isadora Duncan, who stressed pure, Duncan said from early childhood I have considered the freedom of my body essential to rhythm of movement. Her emphasis on the world and body in the context of concert dance influenced the ideas of the modern dancers who succeed her in America. St. Denis pupil Doris Humphrey looked outward for inspiration, to society, another pupil of St. Denis, Martha Graham, whose New York-based company became perhaps the best known in modern dance, sought to express an inward-based passion. Many of Grahams most popular works were produced in collaboration with leading American composers -- Appalachian Spring with Aaron Copland, a significant contributing factor to the development and spread of Modern Dance in the United States in the 20th century was the establishment of Bennington Colleges Summer School of Dance. The program was established in 1934 and led by dancer/educator Martha Hill, students attended classes in dance techniques, dance composition, music for dance, teaching methods, production, dance history and critical theory. With clear pioneers, pupils and principles, Modern Dance began to emerge as a distinctly American art form to be taught and developed throughout the country, later choreographers searched for new methods of dance composition. Merce Cunningham introduced chance procedures and composition by field, Alvin Ailey incorporated African dance elements and black music into his works. Recently such choreographers as Mark Morris and Liz Lerman have defied the convention that dancers must be thin and their belief, put into action in their hiring practices and performances, is that graceful, exciting movement is not restricted by age or body type. Dunham opened a school in New York where she taught Katherine Dunham Technique, pearl Primus - a dancer, choreographer and anthropologist Primus drew on African and Caribbean dances to create strong dramatic works characterized by large leaps in the air. Primus often based her dances on the work of writers and on racial. Primus created works based on Langston Hughes The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Alvin Ailey- a student of Lester Horton Ailey spent several years working in both concert and theatre dance. In 1930 Ailey and a group of young African-American dancers perform as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York, Ailey drew upon his blood memories of Texas, the blues, spirituals and gospel as inspiration, his most popular and critically acclaimed work is Revelations. Culture of New York City Dance Country dance Disco Square Dance Swing Jazz Tap Break dancing Modern dance Dance music
3.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
4.
Martha Graham
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Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her influence on dance has been compared with the influence of Picasso on modern visual arts, the influence of Stravinsky on music, and she danced and choreographed for over seventy years. Graham was the first dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as an ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japans Imperial Order of the Precious Crown and she said, in the 1994 documentary The Dancer Revealed, I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. Its permitting life to use you in an intense way. Her style, the Graham technique, fundamentally reshaped American dance and is taught worldwide. Graham was born in Allegheny City – later to become part of Pittsburgh and her father George Graham practiced as what in the Victorian era was known as an alienist, a practitioner of an early form of psychiatry. Dr. Graham was a third-generation American of Irish descent and her mother Jane Beers was a second-generation American of Irish, Scots-Irish, and English descent and was also a sixth-generation descendant of Myles Standish. While her parents provided an environment in her youth, it was not one that encouraged dancing. The Graham family moved to Santa Barbara, California when Martha was fourteen years old, in 1911, she attended the first dance performance of her life, watching Ruth St. Denis perform at the Mason Opera House in Los Angeles. In the mid-1910s, Martha Graham began her studies at the newly created Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, at which she would stay until 1923. In 1925, Graham was employed at the Eastman School of Music where Rouben Mamoulian was head of the School of Drama, among other performances, together Mamoulian and Graham produced a short two-color film called The Flute of Krishna, featuring Eastman students. Mamoulian left Eastman shortly thereafter and Graham chose to leave also, in 1926, the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance was established. On April 18 of the same year Graham debuted her first independent concert and this performance took place at the 48th Street Theatre in Manhattan. She would later say of the concert, Everything I did was influenced by Denishawn, on November 28,1926 Martha Graham and others in her company gave a dance recital at the Klaw Theatre in New York City. One of Grahams students was heiress Bethsabée de Rothschild with whom she became close friends, when Rothschild moved to Israel and established the Batsheva Dance Company in 1965, Graham became the companys first director. Grahams technique pioneered a principle known as Contraction and Release in modern dance, in 1936, Graham created Chronicle which brought serious issues to the stage in a dramatic manner. That same year, she declined Hitlers invitation to perform at the International Arts Festival,1938 became a big year for Graham, the Roosevelts invited Graham to dance at the White House, making her the first dancer to perform there
5.
Anna Sokolow
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Anna Sokolow (February 9,1910, Hartford, Connecticut – March 29,2000 in Manhattan, New York City was an American dancer and choreographer. She was also a co-founder of the Actors Studio, Sokolow began studying dance and performing with instructors at the Emanuel Sisterhood Settlement House, in early adolescence, she left school to train full-time. She began studying in earnest at what became the Neighborhood Playhouse and she started her professional career in 1929 as a member of Martha Grahams company. Beginning in the 1930s, she affiliated herself with the politicized radical dance movement, by 1936, she had organized her first company, Dance Unit. Sokolow was also associated with the socially conscious collective the New Dance Group, several works from this period, including Anti-War Trilogy, were set to music by the composer Alex North. In 1939, Sokolow began an association with the dance in Mexico. Her work for the Secretariat of Public Education facilitated the establishment of the National Academy of Dance, in Israel, she choreographed for major dance companies, including Batsheva, Inbal, and the Lyric Theatre. Sokolow created works full of dramatic contemporary imagery, revealing the full spectrum of human experience, rooms, featuring music composed by Kenyon Hopkins for a jazz ensemble, dealt with urban alienation, while Dreams grew from the horrors of the Holocaust. Other major modern dance works included Lyric Suite, Odes, in addition to her work as a choreographer, Sokolow was also an influential teacher of both dance and movement for actors. At Juilliard, she taught what she called method dancing from 1958 to 1993 and she also taught movement for actors at The Actors Studio, the Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre School, and the HB Studio. Sokolow was inducted into the National Museum of Dances Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in 1998, since the dispersal of Anna Sokolows company—Players Project—in 2004, its former co-artistic directors have formed separate institutions to maintain Sokolows Legacy. The Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble performs Sokolows repertory plus contemporary choreographies under the direction of Jim May, the Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble offers educational programs, professional workshops, coaching, and actively licenses and reconstructs Sokolows works. The archival dance company of the Sokolow Dance Foundation, performs Sokolows repertory exclusively and is under the direction of Lorry May, the foundation also offers unique educational programs and actively licenses and reconstructs Sokolows works. Many of Sokolows works were filmed and are held at the New York Public Library in its Dance Division, celebration in Pictures, Anna Sokolow Centennial at the Dance Library of Israel - reflections of Sokolow’s influence on dance in Israel
6.
Merce Cunningham
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Mercier Philip Merce Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American modern dance for more than 50 years. He is also notable for his frequent collaborations with artists of other disciplines, including musicians John Cage and David Tudor, works that he produced with these artists had a profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance. As a choreographer, teacher and leader of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, many dancers who trained with Cunningham formed their own companies. They include Paul Taylor, Remy Charlip, Viola Farber, Charles Moulton, Karole Armitage, Robert Kovich, Foofwa d’Imobilité, Kimberly Bartosik, Flo Ankah, Jan Van Dyke, and Jonah Bokaer. In 2009, the Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Legacy Plan, a plan for the continuation of Cunningham’s work. Cunningham earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts, including the National Medal of Arts and he also received Japans Praemium Imperiale, a British Laurence Olivier Award, and was named Officier of the Légion dhonneur in France. Merce Cunningham was born in Centralia, Washington in 1919, the second of three sons, both his brothers followed their father, Clifford D. Cunningham, into the legal profession. Cunningham first experienced dance while living in Centralia and he took tap class from a local teacher, Mrs. Maude Barrett, whose energy and spirit taught him to love dance. Her emphasis on precise timing and rhythm provided him a clear understanding of musicality that he implemented in his later dance pieces. He attended the Cornish School in Seattle, headed by Nellie Cornish, from 1937 to 1939 to study acting, Cunningham preferred the ambiguous nature of dance, which gave him an outlet for exploration of movement. During this time, Martha Graham saw Cunningham dance and invited him to join her company, in 1939, Cunningham moved to New York and danced as a soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company for six years. He presented his first solo concert in New York in April 1944 with composer John Cage, in the summer of 1953, as a teacher in residence at Black Mountain College, Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Over the course of his career, Cunningham choreographed more than 200 dances and over 800 “Events, in 1963 he joined with Cage to create the Walker Art Centers first performance, instigating what would be a 25-year collaborative relationship with the Walker. In his performances, he used the I Ching in order to determine the sequence of his dances and, often. In addition to his role as choreographer, Cunningham performed as a dancer in his company into the early 1990s, in 1968 Cunningham and Francis Starr published a book, Changes, Notes on Choreography, containing various sketches of their choreography. He continued to lead his company until his death, and presented a new work, Nearly Ninety, in April 2009, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, Cunningham lived in New York City, and was Artistic Director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He died in his home at the age of 90, Cunningham formed Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Black Mountain College in 1953. The original company included dancers Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber, Paul Taylor, and Remy Charlip, in 1964 the Cunningham Dance Foundation was established to support his work
7.
West Side Story
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West Side Story is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and conception and choreography by Jerome Robbins. It was inspired by William Shakespeares play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the Upper West Side neighborhood in New York City in the mid-1950s, an ethnic, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds, the members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a member of the Jets and best friend of the gang leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended scenes. Bernsteins score for the musical includes Somethings Coming, Maria, America, Somewhere, Tonight, Jet Song, I Feel Pretty, A Boy Like That, One Hand, One Heart, Gee, Officer Krupke, and Cool. The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince and it ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Musical in 1957, Robbins won the Tony Award for his choreography and Oliver Smith won for his scenic designs. The show had an even longer-running London production, a number of revivals, a 1961 musical film of the same name, directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including George Chakiris for Supporting Actor, Rita Moreno for Supporting Actress, in 1947, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel, the conflict was to be centered around anti-Semitism of the Catholic Jets towards the Jewish Emeralds, eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and they described the project as lyric theater, and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abies Irish Rose. When he opted to drop out, the three men went their ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team, Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music, Sondheim did not care for Laurents opinion
8.
Tony Award
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The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at a ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre, several discretionary non-competitive awards are also given, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards are named after Antoinette Tony Perry, co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, the rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the official document Rules and Regulations of The American Theatre Wings Tony Awards, which applies for that season only. It also forms the fourth spoke in the EGOT, that is someone who has won all four awards, the Tony Awards are also considered the equivalent of the Laurence Olivier Award in the United Kingdom and the Molière Award of France. From 1997 to 2010, the Tony Awards ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in June and broadcast live on CBS television, except in 1999, in 2011 and 2012, the ceremony was held at the Beacon Theatre. From 2013 to 2015, the 67th, 68th, and 69th ceremonies returned to Radio City Music Hall, the 70th Tony Awards were held on June 12,2016 at the Beacon Theatre. The 71st Tony Awards will be held on June 11,2017, as of 2014, there are 24 categories of awards, plus several special awards. Starting with 11 awards in 1947, the names and number of categories have changed over the years, some examples, the category Best Book of a Musical was originally called Best Author. The category of Best Costume Design was one of the original awards, for two years, in 1960 and 1961, this category was split into Best Costume Designer and Best Costume Designer. It then went to a category, but in 2005 it was divided again. For the category of Best Director of a Play, a category was for directors of plays. A newly established non-competitive award, The Isabelle Stevenson Award, was given for the first time at the ceremony in 2009. The award is for an individual who has made a contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian. The category of Best Special Theatrical Event was retired as of the 2009–2010 season, the categories of Best Sound Design of a Play and Best Sound Design of a Musical were retired as of the 2014-2015 season. Performance categories Show and technical categories Special awards Retired awards The award was founded in 1947 by a committee of the American Theatre Wing headed by Brock Pemberton. The award is named after Antoinette Perry, nicknamed Tony, an actress, director, producer and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, who died in 1946. As her official biography at the Tony Awards website states, At Jacob Wilks suggestion, proposed an award in her honor for distinguished stage acting, at the initial event in 1947, as he handed out an award, he called it a Tony
9.
Emmy Award
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An Emmy Award, or simply Emmy, recognizes excellence in the television industry, and corresponds to the Academy Award, the Tony Award, and the Grammy Award. Because Emmy Awards are given in various sectors of the American television industry, Regional Emmy Awards are also presented throughout the country at various times through the year, recognizing excellence in local and statewide television. In addition, International Emmys are awarded for excellence in TV programming produced, each is responsible for administering a particular set of Emmy ceremonies. The Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences established the Emmy Award as part of an image-building and public relations opportunity. The first Emmy Awards ceremony took place on January 25,1949, at the Hollywood Athletic Club, shirley Dinsdale has the distinction of receiving the very first Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, during that first awards ceremony. In the 1950s, the ATAS expanded the Emmys into a national event, in 1955, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was formed in New York City as a sister organization to serve members on the East Coast, and help to also supervise the Emmys. The NATAS also established regional chapters throughout the United States, with each one developing their own local Emmy awards show for local programming, the ATAS still however maintained its separate regional ceremony honoring local programming in the Los Angeles Area. Originally there was only one Emmy Awards ceremony held per year to honor shows nationally broadcast in the United States, in 1974, the first Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony was held to specifically honor achievement in national daytime programming. Other area-specific Emmy Awards ceremonies soon followed, also, the International Emmy Awards, honoring television programs produced and initially aired outside the U. S. was established in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, all Emmys awarded prior to the emergence of these separate, in 1977, due to various conflicts, the ATAS and the NATAS agreed to split ties. However, they agreed to share ownership of the Emmy statue and trademark. With the rise of television in the 1980s, cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988. The ATAS also began accepting original online-only web television programs in 2013, the Emmy statuette, depicting a winged woman holding an atom, was designed by television engineer Louis McManus, who used his wife as the model. The TV Academy rejected a total of forty-seven proposals before settling on McManus design in 1948. The statuette has become the symbol of the TV Academys goal of supporting and uplifting the art and science of television, The wings represent the muse of art. When deciding a name for the award, Academy founder Syd Cassyd originally suggested Ike, however, Ike was also the popular nickname of World War II hero and future U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the Academy members wanted something unique. Finally, television engineer and the third president, Harry Lubcke, suggested the name Immy. After Immy was chosen, it was feminized to Emmy to match their female statuette
