José Limón
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José Arcadio Limón (1908 - 1972) was a pioneering modern dancer and choreographer. He was born the eldest of 12 children in Culiacan Mexico. He moved to New York City in 1928 where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company. His most famous dance is The Moor's Pavane (1949), based on Shakespeare's Othello.
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[edit] Early life
Francisco Limón, a middle-aged widower, courted and wed Francisca Traslaviña in 1907 in Culiacan, Mexico, where he was the director of the Academia de Musica. Limon was born promptly nine months later in the first of his mother’s 12 pregnancies. While living in Culiacan, he learned to love the theater, especially dances and bullfighting; his father, being director of the national music school, had privileged access to these events.
His early life was colored by tragedy and strife. His sister died at three months of age. The Mexican Revolution began and drove his family from Mexico eventually. In one of the early battles of the war, he watched his uncle, a spectator to the battle, die of a stray bullet to the head. His father was drafted into the army band soon after and was mostly absent for several years. Upon his return, he decided to move the family to America. Unfortunately, on the train ride to America, another of his infant siblings fell ill and died.
[edit] Moving to the U.S.
America turned out to be just as turbulent for the young Limon. The family arrived in Tuscon, Arizona in 1915. Soon after, they moved to Los Angeles, where his mother died as a direct result of her 12th pregnancy in 18 years. After his mother died, Limon blamed his father for her death. At grammar school in Arizona, he was teased for his stilted English. As a result, he vowed to master the English language. He did so with gusto. Describing the experience in his memoir, he says “With all the unsparing cruelty on children my classmates gave vent to their delight. I turned crimson with mortification.” [1]
It was in southern California that Limon began to explore his own expression. He became deeply passionate about painting and music in high school and college. In 1928, at age 20, he followed the path of his absent bohemian collegiate contemporaries and hitchhiked rather spontaneously away from Los Angeles and picked his way to New York. He enrolled in the New York School of Design; as much to leave UCLA, which he hated, as to pursue his passion.
[edit] Artistic foundation
In New York, Limon quickly came to believe that he could not make anything of value by painting because the medium had been mined out. Disillusioned with his fantasy, it was by chance that a girlfriend took him to see the dancer Harald Kreutzberg perform. Limon was stunned. “Suddenly, onto the stage, borne on the impetus of the heroic rhapsody, bounded an ineffable creature and his partner. Instantly and irrevocably, I was transformed. I knew with shocking suddenness that until then I had not been alive or, rather, that I had yet been unborn…now I did not want to remain on this earth unless I learned to do what this man was doing.” [2]
In a panic, Limon began studying all the dance he could. He studied with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman in their (the Humphrey-Weidman) school. From Doris Humphrey, he learned his base for technique and from Weidman he learned pantomime and expression. In later years, Limon would attribute his primary stylistic influences to Isadora Duncan and Harald Kreutzberg.
Ten years after he began dancing, Limon premiered his first major choreographic work, Danzas Mexicanas. He was drafted in April of 1943. Between 1943 and when he was discharged in 1945, he choreographed several works for the US Army Special Services. While on leave during this time, he returned to NYC to pursue serious choreography with Doris Humphrey.
[edit] Founding his company
When the war ended, Limon founded the Jose Limon Dance Company in 1946 with Doris Humphrey as the first artistic director. The Limon Company was the first modern dance company to have mutually distinct positions for founder and artistic director. The first members were Pauline Koner, Lucas Hoving, Betty Jones, Ruth Courier, and Limon himself. In the company, he developed his repertory with Doris Humphrey and established the principles of the style that was to become the Limon technique. The Limon Company was also the first company to survive its founder’s death. It survives to this day with the expressed purpose of maintaining the Limon technique and repertory. Limón's influence continues to this day. [3]
[edit] Death and influence
Jose Limon died of cancer on December 2, 1972, at the age of 64.[4] He continued to work and choreograph through his illness until he died.
Jose Limon’s influence is not as Martha Graham’s or Lester Horton’s. No dancers have come from the Limon company to found prominent companies of their own (as with Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor from the Graham school and Alvin Ailey from the Horton school). There is no Jose Limon School of Dance like the Graham School. But his style persists. Limon taught at Juilliard from 1951 on. Many of the dancers that leave his company become teachers. His style influences this entire generation of dancers. The most famous dance company that has an obvious Limon base is the Doug Varone Company.
[edit] Endnotes
- ^ Limón, Jose. Jose Limón: an Unfinished Memoir. Ed. Lynn Garafola. Hanover, NH: University P of New England, (1998?).
- ^ Limón, Jose. Jose Limón: an Unfinished Memoir. Ed. Lynn Garafola. Hanover, NH: University P of New England, (1998?). 16.
- ^ "Heritage." Jose Limón. 28 Apr. 2003. The José Limón Dance Foundation. 4 Oct. 2006 <http://www.limon.org/Heritage/Founder/Limon_i.html>.
- ^ Dunbar, June. New York: Routledge, 2002. 135.
