The History And Background On Martha Graham

The History And Background On Martha Graham Martha Graham, the outstanding 20th century dancer, choreographer and teacher was born on May 11, 1894 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as one among the three daughters of George and Jane Beers Graham (Martha Graham, 2010). During her life time she spent most of her decisive years on the west coast region. Media have often regarded Martha Graham as one of the well recognized dancers and choreographers ever lived in America. Martha Grahams father was a psychiatrist who concentrated much in his study and analysis of physical movement. He was a third generation American of Irish descent and her mother Jane Beers was one of the tenth generations of puritan Miles Standish. Dr. Graham and family had a high standard living because of the negotiable salary they saved from their works. The Graham family had a reputed position in the society on account of their high standard living and good educational background. From the very tender age itself, Martha had the support of her family in matters rela ted to education and career opportunities. Though her family was ever ready to provide her excellent guidance in education, Martha preferred her career as a dancing performer-disapproving her parents wish. After the completion of her educational career from Cumnock School, a junior college, she enrolled in the Denishawn Studio, a dancing school operated by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn (1891-1972) (Martha Graham, 2010). Analysing the biographical note of Martha, it is identfiable that after getting enrolled in Denishawn Studio, she devoted herself entirely for dancing and choreography. She married dancer Erick Hawkins in 1948 but their marriage proved to be failure and divorced in 1954. Later, as we see, she became proficient in dancing and tried her best to attain the highest position in this field. She focused her attention essentially in performing arts and practiced much by contributing her own methods to dancing. She tried her preeminent to open the new way for modern dance. Special attraction/feature of her dancing Martha Graham was a wonderful performer and good choreographer in America. Her choreography is very surprising and amazing to viewers that she created new style of body movements and facial expressions. While observing Marthas performances, it is well evident that she always attempted to expose real passion and human experiences which helped her to stand aloof from other performers of her time. Martha Grahams dance has often been compared to Picassos painting and Stravinskys music, and so on. One may not feel it as an exaggeration to reveal that her choreography and dance performances are incredibly attractive and stunning. Her contributions have transformed to different art forms which exerted notable influence in changing the old method of dancing. Marthas innovative style of dancing has paved the way for expanding the style of word around dancing. She expressed herself very liberally and truthfully in almost all her dance performances. It was the sincere attempt from her part to d evelop dancing profession resulted for the establishment of Martha Graham Dance Company in 1926 (Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, 2006). As her profession was dancing, she could compose many dance programs. Her dance company offers support to the entire American dance students by including other brilliant dance teachers also in her dance troupe. Freedman (1998) rightly enlists Grahams performance when he writes, Graham invented a revolutionary new language of dance, an original way of moving that she use to reveal the joy, passions, and sorrows common to all human experience. She had a genius for connecting movement with emotion. Martha Graham is not only a resourceful dancer but also an excellent choreographer. Graham created new trends and attractive style for dancing by reminding the fact that dancing has significant role in society as a pure method of entertainment. Dance is a one of the important and transitory forms of expression. Martha Graham attempted to convey her ideas so naturally and translated these ideas to expression with facial and body movements. Graham strongly believed that body and facial expressions must be there in an excellent dance. Graham controlled her body movements and facial expressions with music. These movements attracted the attention of many modern observers and as such, they accepted this new style and recognized this performance as a modern dance. A good dance performer should be capable of creating different types expressions on his/her face. The idea produced by the dancing body can include physical identity and physical representations of thoughts. So Martha Grahams new style of dancing can be considered as a representation and result of her thoughts. The performer and choreographer Martha Graham produced different gestures images, stances and poses. She had also included the physical representation of the feelings, moods and impulses. These styles or movements attracted a great deal of audience. Marthas Dance is a real representation of her personality- expression, and it conveyed different messages. Majority of the modern and traditional dancing forms tell a story which clearly coveyed the observer a message. Choreographer Martha Graham expressed her ideas in different ways and in different style. Thus one can infer that most of her performances were self expressive and self explanatory. During her life span, Graham had composed and presented a large number of dance programs. Her 180 dancing performances in America within the period of fifty years acknowledge this fact. She had won many awards and achievements. Some of them include the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the French Legion of Honor in 1984 and presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976. She could maintain her status as a good dancer and choreographer till the end of her life. Her last dance performance, Maple Leaf Rag presented in 1990, a year before her death, was also a grant success. It is such grant performances that earned her the name, 20th century revolutionary artist. She has exerted a significant influence in relieving the dance form from the traditional methods or concepts, presented with comparatively dawdling movements. 20th century dance forms are fast and it also tells the theoretical form of the story instead of merely retelling a story. Contribution to dancing Graham had given remarkable contribution to dancing field by developing distinctive style of training. She founded Martha Graham Dance Company, one of the oldest modern dance groups in America, which provides the best training for new generation dancers and choreographers. Martha Grahams new techniques and modern methods are really helpful to create classical ballet in the world. She avoided traditional and old methods, techniques and steps of classical ballet. Then her dancing form of classical ballet includes natural motion and music. She established different type style of dancing such as mobile scenery, symbolic props, and etc. Vision of the Apocalypse is the first large group piece of Martha Graham and it was performed in 1929. Other remarkable contributions are Dance Repertory Theater in New York in 1930 and Bennington School of Arts in Vermont, and so on. Her students and her co-worker helped to spread her ideas and style in the rest of the world. What was her inspiration? Though there are different things that attracted Graham to dancing, the most important among them were the classical mythologies she read. Other inspirations are the American past, biblical stories, historical figures, contemporary social problems, poems, stories, and so on. These motivations really helped her to develop new ideas and thoughts. These inspirations facilitate to found new music and gradually she won in her attempts to bring out new movements to express her own ideas.

Pearl Harbor :: essays research papers

Pearl Harbor was one of the most vicious attacks on American soil. The surprise attack by Japan took place on Sunday morning December 7, 1941. Japan wanted to immobilize U.S.’s Pacific fleet and destroy any chance of a counter strike in from the Pacific. The United States responded by creating Japanese-American Internment Camps, which uprooted tens of thousands of Japanese-American families. And later America decided to use atomic weapons to end the war with Japan. Tension between Japan and the United States started in 1931. Japan had taken over Manchuria, which was then a part of China. In 1937 Japan had started a campaign to conquer the rest of China that was long lasting and didn’t work. In 1940 Japan signed the Axis Alliance with Germany and occupied all of Indochina the next year. The U.S. was worried by Japan’s movements because of economic interests that the United States had in East Asia. The U.S. strengthened military aid to China and increased financial aid. They also built up the military in the Pacific. The U.S. also cut off shipments of oil and raw materials to Japan. Japanese government saw this move as a threat to Japan’s survival because Japan doesn’t have many natural resources. Japan’s next plan was to take control of the territories of South East Asia that have good amounts of natural resources, even though it would start a war with the United States. (Lord,Walter. Day of Infamy ) (www.histo ry.navy.mil) (http://campus.northpark.edu) The only thing that stood in the way of this plan was the threat posed by the U.S. Pacific fleet stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the leader of the Japanese fleet, was the mastermind behind the plan to cripple the U.S. fleet. Yamamoto wanted to disable the U.S. Pacific fleet by destroying enough ships, airfields, runways, planes, support facilities, and 4.5 billion gallons of fuel so that there was no chance for a counter attack. As Yamamoto put it he wanted to destroy the â€Å"dagger pointed at our throat†. (Beck, Roger. Black, Linda. Krieger, Larry. Naylor, Phillip. Ibo Shabaka, Dahia. â€Å"World History† pg.827 – 830) Yamamoto devised a clever plan that would have the attacking Japanese follow a storm front and keep strict radio silence to avoid being detected by American radar. The Japanese attack was led by Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo and consisted of 6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, and 2 cruisers.

Commission in the European Union

As a staff member of the Directorate-General of the European Commission I have been appointed to describe to you the composition and the powers of the Commission in the European Union. In the following paragraph I will describe the body of the Commission divided in three pillars: First you have the College of the Commissioners, then the Directorate-General (DGs) and lastly the cabinets. In the Third paragraph I will briefly describe the powers of the Commission and in the last paragraph I will conclude with an opinion on the question, as to how far I consider the European Commission to have â€Å"a vocation to further the interests of the community as a whole†. The Commission consists of twenty-seven Commissioners, one for each Member State including the President of the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security. The Commissioners are responsible for the work of the commission stated in Art. 17 of the TEU, and are therefore not allowed to have any other duties during their period of office that could bring about any conflict of interest. If a Commissioner fails to do so, the Court of Justice may retire the member concerned on application of the Commission or the Council acting on a simple majority. The exception to this rule is, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy who is a member of the Commission responsible for the conduct of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy and its security and defense policy but also takes part in the work of the EC, presides over the Foreign affairs Council and carries out mandates of the Council. The High representative is appointed by QMV with agreement of the President of the Commission, and may be dismissed the same way. The president of the Commission is proposed to the European Parliament by the European Council acting by a qualified majority, and is elected in the European Parliament. The president is the most powerful Commissioner and has several important roles: he/she adopts the list of the persons whom it proposes to appoint as members of the Commission, lays the guidelines in which the Commission is to work, decides the internal organization of the commission making sure it works as a body, appoints the Vice-Presidents from among the members of the Commission (other than the High Representative), he can resign Commissioners since they are individually responsible to him. Finally the President has an important role as representative. He represents the Commission at meetings involving the heads of Government and must account to other institutions when there is questioning of the general conduct of the institution or a particular issue raises broader questions. In the current Commission, there are forty Directorates-General (DGs) divided into four groups: policies, external relations, general services and internal services. The majority of the Commission employees work for the DGs. DGs in the Commission are compared to Ministers in a national government. Even though DGs’ work for Commissioners their responsibilities are to the Commission. The work inside the DG focuses on the development of programmes, administration of Community funding and bringing different public and private actors together. You can see the Cabinet as being between the College of Commissioners, representing the political part of the Commission, and the DGs representing the administrative part of the Commission. A Cabinet is composed of seven to eight officials and is appointed by the President. Each Cabinet is the office of a Commissioner and is a line between Commissioners and DGs allowing cooperation between them and helping Commissioner with formulating priorities and policies. They keep Commissioners informed of other happenings in the Commission and help prepare weekly meetings for the College of Commissioners in combination with other Cabinets The powers of the Commission can be broadly explained and interpreted, but the main points can be narrowed down to four specific points: legislative powers, agenda and budget planning, executive powers and supervisory powers. Legislative power as to making sure that the rules in Treaties are being complied with and determining how EU nationals may stay in other States after they have worked there. The Commission is also responsible the budget planning for each year and the making of the agenda. The Commission has executive powers responsible for collecting the revenue for the EU, coordinating the spending of the EU and administering the EU aid to third countries. The Commission has supervisory powers to monitor the compliance of the Member States to the rules of the Union. Does the Commission have â€Å"a vocation to further the interest of the Community as a whole? † I believe it does, by looking at its responsibilities in the Union itself proves this. And if you look at the statement made by the Court of Justice where it says that â€Å"Commissioners are required to ensure that the general interest of the European Union precedes at all times over national and personal interest†. In which I understand that a Commissions’ work should be emphasized on the whole Community (EU) instead of just one State Member.

Quintana Roo essays

Quintana Roo essays Quintana Roo, Mexico has become an internationally acclaimed tourist development area over the past six years. This may be a difficult concept to grasp considering the states economic condition at the end of the 20th, and the first decade of the 21st century. The current status of a tourism haven was not easily accomplished. It took many years of cooperative tourism planning amongst the state, national government officials, and most importantly, the local communities of the areas being developed. In the early 1990s, the country of Mexico was searching for untapped tourism resources. The purpose of this search was because popular tourist destinations, like Cancun, were reaching their saturation points and becoming commonplace destinations to the global tourism market. At this point in time, the countrys tourism industry was lacking direction and focus (Levin 5). Top tourism officials were beginning to realize that the traditional products of sun, sea, and sand were losing inherent value in a continually more competitive market (Levin 3). Essentially, the country was losing the upper-end of the consumer market, which had greater purchasing power. For a few years, Mexicos tourism officials tried to rejuvenate many of their popular tourist destinations through various marketing strategies and additional funding. This was an attempt to prevent decline in tourist arrivals. The rejuvenation process proved to be difficult as many of these areas had no additional land to buil d upon, and were experiencing environmental problems due to overdevelopment. High profile tourists began to seek other international destinations; and as overall tourist numbers began to drop, tourism officials and other multi-national corporations were searching for other areas to develop. The answer lied in the state of Quintana Roo. Quintana Roo is situated on the eastern side of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. &qu...

Touching Spirit Bear Character Essay Essays

Touching Spirit Bear Character Essay Essays Touching Spirit Bear Character Essay Paper Touching Spirit Bear Character Essay Paper Cole is a fifteen-year-old boy who gets into trouble a lot. His father abuses him, which causes a lot of anger. His mother is an alcoholic and did not care about Cole as much as she should. Throughout the novel, Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen, Cole learns more about his conflicts, while healing them at the same time. Cole has many internal conflicts including fear, anger, and loneliness throughout the novel. The first internal conflict is anger. Cole’s father abused him, which created stress and anger inside of him. This anger causes Cole to commit crimes. Cole robbed and trashed a hardware store. Peter, a boy at Cole’s school, found out that Cole did this act of violence. So, Peter told on Cole. Cole found out, in which he got very angry and mad. Instead of confronting Peter, Cole decided to smash Peter’s head against the sidewalk, very hardly. Once Cole was sent to the island of Drake in Alaska, Cole felt depressed and angry at the same time. Cole eventually burnt down his cabin. One last example of anger is dealing with the Spirit Bear. The Spirit Bear was calmly looking at Cole. Cole realized that this bear was not afraid of him. So, Cole let out his anger and tried to kill the bear. Instead of Cole hurting the bear, the bear mauled Cole. Cole was on the ground, almost dying for about three days. Even though Cole seems like a person who is not afraid of anything, there is actually some fear built somewhere in his body. Another internal conflict is fear. Cole was a little frightened by the Spirit Bear. So, he needed control and power and teased the bear. Instead of everything working out his way, the bear attacked Cole, leaving plenty of brutal scars and pain in almost every inch of his body. After the bear mauled Cole, he felt, and looked like he was dying. Cole realized he was afraid to die. So, Cole did everything he could do to stay alive. For instance, he ate grass, killed a mouse for food, and ate almost every moving bug he could see. Lastly, Cole had a dream while he was in the hospital. Cole’s dream was everyone was taking care of him. Including Garvey and Edwin. Suddenly, all of the people helping him turned into monsters and were laughing at him. Cole felt like there was a lack of others caring about him. Not only did Cole have fear and anger, but he also felt lonely. Garvey and Edwin taught Cole how to dance ‘animal dances’. These animal dances are supposed to educate people what animals can teach them. In once case, Cole danced the Whale Dance. After the Whale Dance, Cole learned that whales travel around, but have no home, just like him. During Christmas-time on the island, Cole felt like nobody cared about him. So, he cut down a tree and celebrated Christmas all alone. Cole always needed to have the attention. Since Cole felt lonely and depressed, he committed crimes to have the attention back on him again. These many internal conflicts, including fear, anger, and loneliness, happen throughout most of Cole’s life. Cole may seem like every other juvenile delinquent, but throughout this book, he overcomes these conflicts. Peter actually goes on the island with Cole. After a while, they become friends. The second time Cole goes back on the island, he takes extra precautions and does not burn down the cabin. In fact, Cole had to build a whole new one. Whenever he saw the Spirit Bear, he let go of his anger to the Spirit Bear. His anger, fear, and loneliness are still a problem to Cole, but he is now able to fight his difficulties.

Diversity in Organizations Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Diversity in Organizations - Research Paper Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that workforce is the basis of success of any given organization. Much as there are other factors of production to consider in determining the likelihood of success of any organization or business entity, human capital is the most significant. This is because; no operations can become successful regardless of the capital input, unless they are well managed and implemented. Thus, the need for adopting a flexible human resource program that integrates diverse cultures and personalities within the operations of the organization is paramount. The encompassment a different people, from different backgrounds in religion, socio-cultural activities, education, and exposure ensures that the organization can uphold variant ideas, opinions, and judgments. These are the basis of development. Owing to the fact that teamwork is the basis for success of any given organization, diversity comes in handy. Where diversity is non-existent, the individuals involv ed cannot interact and share ideas and opinions freely. This means that there is low or no chance of devising new ways of doing things. It is through the free interaction of individuals and their teamwork attitude that creates avenues for innovations and inventions. Various methods can be adopted to enhance diversity climate in an organization. Education that entails equipping the management team with relevant and diverse training skills is one such method. This serves to ensure that the management team is better placed to adopt different individuals and incorporate them in their labor force. Such training enhances the management ability of ensuring every member of their team feels appreciated and equally important, not withstanding their differences in personalities, cultures, religious backgrounds e.t.c. The establishment, enforcement, and implementation of a set of code of ethics is yet another method. The basic step in achieving this is through the recruitment of individuals fro m different spheres of life. Exposure, through establishment of equity and accountability, as a core value of the organization is another method that applicable in enhancing the climate of diversity in an organization. This ensures that all the individuals are treated equally, regardless of their gender, origin, race, religion e.t.c. any group, committee or panel formed to undertake different tasks for the organization should be representative of the different personalities in that organization. Each group or individual should feel well represented in that formation. This goes a long way to enhancing respect and cooperation from all the individuals in the organization. There are three procedures followed to establish diversity climate at a work place. The first is the moderate open- minded change, where some basic rules are established in work place to foster teamwork, flexibility, and diversity. At this stage, the workers are promoted solely based on merit and performance. Such rul es as those guiding promotions are established and implemented by the policy makers. However, the problem associated with this is that not all aspects of diversity are implementable through formal rules. The second procedure is the essential change stage, where the organization adapts measures beyond formal rules to guide the achievement of diversity in the organization. At this stage, even though two members of the same affiliation are better placed to be promoted based on their performance, an allowance for equity is created by promoting another individual of a different affiliation. The last procedure is the revolutionary change, where the short-run and the long-run needs of the organization come into play. Under this stage, the organization establishes equity and diversity in the short-run, while buying time to consolidate a system that will afford automatic flexibility and diversity

Lean Manufacturing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Lean Manufacturing - Essay Example A number of companies around the world use this technique. The main purpose for implementing this technique is to bring efficiency in the production process. This technique is often called as the production process of the twenty-first century. Today, almost every size of business makes use of lean manufacturing because of the fact that many large size businesses have achieved success by integrating this technique. In addition to this, many large sized organizations hire lean manufacturing experts in their organizations. Many companies begin the process of lean manufacturing through value stream analysis. It is an analysis in which each step involved in the production process is closely monitored and examined. After that, an analysis is made about the value of each step. Value stream analysis helps the companies in identifying those steps which needs improvement or which has no worth in the production process (Feld, pg 55). According to lean manufacturing, seven different types of wastes results in the inefficient production. These types of wastes include over-production, waiting, over-processing, inventory, defects, transportation, and moving. Among these, over-production, transportation, and inventory are related to the scarcity in the flow of material. All of these types of wastes are a source of increasing cost without creating any value for the final consumer. Some companies start their lean manufacturing process with the facility analysis in which determines opportunity areas in different sections such as service, production, shipping, sales, production, administration, engineering, quality, and maintenance. Besides this, there is sometimes a need of Six Sigma tools in the lean manufacturing process. In order to gain efficiency, lean team should be trained properly so that they can develop an understanding about when to use the lean tools and when to implement improvement (Davis, pg 23-44). It is essential that companies follow the road map