Packaging Doris Humphrey or A Question of Form: Nona Schurman Shares Her Thoughts on Doris Humphrey's Choreography

Nona Schurman, one of the foremost authorities on the Humphrey style and technique, studied and danced with the Humphrey-Weidman concert group from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s. Now a tireless octogenarian, Schurman still uses the movement principles developed by modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey as the basis of her teaching and choreographic work. Co-author of Modern Dance Fundamentals (1), a technical manual based on Humphrey-Weidman principles, Schurman is currently writing a book on choreographic devices which will complement Humphrey's seminal work on the subject, The Art of Making Dances (2).“The way to understand Doris,” Nona Schurman has said, “is to see her dances. We can talk all we want, but Doris is revealed through her work” (3). The clues to understanding the dances lie less in their specific performance or production features than in the technique and choreographic structures Humphrey employed. It is in the form of Humphrey's dances, Schurman feels, that the enduring essence of Doris Humphrey, the dance thinker, can be found.Doris Humphrey was declared by Walter Terry to be America's “prima choreographa assoluta” more than four decades ago (4), and she is still recognized today as a master choreographer. This is perhaps due to the many college recontructions of her work and despite the fact that few companies keep her dances in active repertory. Besides being remarkably creative (5), Humphrey was enormously innovative, shaping choreographic change even before her launch into independence with Charles Weidman and Pauline Lawrence, through the development and extension of “music visualizations” with Ruth St. Denis at Denishawn. As an independent artist, she continued to revolutionize the art of choreography, creating a “library of masterworks” (6) which included dances in silence, dances with a vocal chorus and alternative sound accompaniment, and dances with speech, with music and with song.