Charles Weidman is considered to be one of the leading figures in the development of American modern dance. He was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on July 22, 1901. Weidman’s father was a fireman and civil engineer, and his mother was a former roller-skating champion. Initially Weidman showed a strong interest in architecture at a younger age, but his passion for dance started in 1916 after seeing a performance by the Denishawn Company. Weidman created dances that were influenced by his sense of humor and love for architecture. 

In 1920, after studying dance locally in Lincoln with Eleanor Frampton, Wediman left to study at the Denishawn Company in Los Angeles. Weidman was able to work with other young American dance artists during his time there, which included another Doris Humphrey. They began to explore their own movement and choreography, and in 1927, Weidman and Humphrey left the Denishawn Company to form a school in New York. The Humphrey-Weidman Dance Company included the two very different styles, Wediman’s comic and mimetic talent and Humphrey’s serious dramatic works. The company was unique in the dance world and continued for two decades. 

After a serious illness forced Doris Humphrey to stop performing, Weidman continued to work on his own by forming the Charles Weidman Dance Company in 1945. His humor, wit, and satire in dance were widely recognized in the theatrical arena, bringing jobs choreographing for opera, Broadway musicals, and dance revues. Weidman’s openness to experimentation and his movement inventiveness made his choreography and teaching influential for the next generation of dancers. He also taught at Bennington College and other colleges and universities. 

On top of his dramatic abilities, Weidman’s technique revolves around the idea of gravity: how giving into gravity makes one fall or balancing against it to create other movements as well. He emphasized the movements that occur before and after someone falls. Ideas that came from this were “suspension”, which was the body’s resistance to gravity, and “succession”, the progressive unfolding of the body as an impulse flows from joint to joint. A vocabulary of movements involving floor work, jumping, and falling were created as a result. 

One of Weidman's innovations was the development of a movement form he called "kinetic pantomime." He began using pantomime gestures outside of the conventional use of telling a story or for dramatic effect. Instead, he based the technique on gestures that evolved out of movement itself and relied on movement to connect one gesture to another, a concept that helped clear the way for later developments in the field of performance art. 

Weidman also pioneered mixed-media theater with Mikhail Santaro in the late 1950s. They later formed the Expression of Two Arts Theater, which experimented with performance works that tried to make connections between graphic art and dance.

Throughout his career, Weidman returned to Lincoln periodically; he would teach and give workshops in performance and choreography. Continuing to work as a choreographer, performer, and teacher, he maintained an active interest in new explorations in dance until his death in New York City on July 15, 1975.

Bibliography:

“Encyclopedia of the Great Plains.” Edited by David J Wishart, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains | WEIDMAN, CHARLES (1901-1975), University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2011, plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.art.060.

Rico, Maria del Pilar Naranjo. “Charles Weidman. American Modern Dancer and Choreographer.” Contemporary-Dance, 2010, www.contemporary-dance.org/charles-weidman.html.

“Charles Weidman.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Oct. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Weidman.