José Arcadio Limón (January 12, 1908 – December 2, 1972) was a pioneer in the field of modern dance and choreography. In 1928, at age 20, he moved to New York City where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company. His most famous work is called The Moor's Pavane (1949), based on Shakespeare's Othello.
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Jose Arcadio Limón was born January 12, 1908 in Culiacan, Mexico, the eldest of twelve children. In 1915, his family moved to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Lincoln High School, Limón attended UCLA as an art major. He moved to New York city in 1928 to study at the New York School of Design. It wasn't until the following year, however, that he would realize his true calling. In 1929, after attending one of Harold Kreutzberg and Yvonne Gerogi's performances, he became inspired to dance. In his memoir, he would recall the first performance he ever saw:
"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."[1]
Limón enrolled in the Humphrey-Weidman school in 1929 and, just a year later, performed on Broadway. Later in 1930, Limón created his first dance, Etude in D Minor, which was a duet with Letitia Ide. In addition to his the duet partner, Letitia Ide, Limón recruited schoolmates Eleanor King and Ernestine Stodelle to form "The Little Group". From 1932 to 1933, Limón made two more broadway appearances in the musical revue Americana and Irving Berlin's As Thousands Cheer, choreographed by Charles Weidman. Limón also tried his hand at choreography this year, choreographing Roberta, by Jerome Kern, at Broadway's New Amsterdam Theatre. Jose Limón made several more appearances throughout the next few years in shows such as Humphrey's New Dance, Theatre Piece, With my Red Fires, and Weidman's Quest. In 1937, he was selected as one of the first Bennington Fellows. At the Bennington Festival at Mill College in 1939, Limón created his first major choreographic work, titled Danzas Mexicanas. After five years, however, Limón would return to Broadway to star as a featured dancer in Keep Off the Grass under the choreographer George Balanchine.
In 1941, Limón left the Humphrey-Weidman company to work with May O'Donnell. Their first piece together was entitled "War Lyrics". O'Donnell and Limón also co-choreographed Curtain Riser, This Story is Legend and Three Inventories on Casey Jones. During this time, Limón met Pauline Lawrence, who he would later marry on October 3, 1942. The partnership with O'Donnell dissolved the following year and Limón created Chaconne for a program at Humphrey-Weidman.
In 1943, Limón's made his final appearance on Broadway with Balanchine's Rosalinda, a piece he performed with Mary Ellen Moylan. He spent the rest of that year creating dances on American and folk themes at the Studio Theatre before being drafted into the Army in April 1943. During this time, he collaborated with composers Frank Loesser and Alex North, choreographing several works for U.S. Army Special Services. The most well-known among these is Concerto Grosso.
Upon attaining American citizenship in 1946, José Limón formed the Jose Limón Dance Company. When Limón began his company, he asked Humphrey to be the artistic director. This was the first modern dance company to have an artistic director who was not also the founder. The company had its formal debut at Bennington College, playing such pieces as Doris Humphrey's Lament and The Story of Mankind. Among the first members were Pauline Koner, Lucas Hoving, Betty Jones, Ruth Currier, and Limón himself. While working with Humphrey, he developed his repertory with Doris Humphrey and established the principles of the style that was to become the Limón technique. By 1947, the company had reached New York, debuting at the Belasco Theatre with Humphrey's Day on Earth. In 1948, the company first appeared at the Connecticut College American Dance Festival and would remain in residence each summer for many years. After choreographing The Moor's Pavane and La Malinche, Limón's The Moor's Pavane received the Dance Magazine Award for the year's most outstanding choreography. In the spring of 1950, Limón and his group appeared in Paris with Ruth Page, becoming the first American modern dance company to appear in Europe.
In 1951, Limón joined the faculty of The Juilliard School where a new dance division had been developed. He also accepted an invitation to Mexico City's Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, where he created six works, including Tonantzintla, Dialogues and Los Cuatros Soles. Between 1953 and 1956, choreographed a number of shows including The Visitation, The Traitor, Scherzo, Symphony for Strings, There is a Time and The Emperor Jones. During this time, he also created roles in Humphrey's Ruins and Visions and Ritmo Jondo. In 1954, the Limón Company was one of the first to take advantage the U.S. State Department's International Exchange Program with a company tour to South America. The company later embarked on a five month tour of Europe and the Near East and, again, to South America and Central America. It was during this time that Limón received his second Dance Magazine Award.
In 1958, Doris Humphrey, who had been the Artistic Director for the Limón Company, died and Limón took over her position. Between 1958 and 1960, Limón choreographed Missa Brevis and Mazurkas as well as Sarren Sceptre, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, with Pauline Koner. It was also during this time that he received an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University.
In 1962, the company returned to Central Park as the opening performance to New York's Shakespeare Festival. The next year, under sponsorship of the U.S. State Department, he toured the Far East for twelve weeks, choreographing The Deamon to a score by Paul Hindemith, who conducted the première.
In 1964, as a tribute to Doris Humphrey, Limón created A Choreographic Offering. He went on to receive the Capezio award and was appointed the Artistic Director of the American Dance Theatre at the Lincoln Center. The following year, Limón appeared in an NET special titled The Dance Theater of Jose Limón. A few years later, he established the Jose Limón Dance Foundation as a not-for-profit corporation and received an honorary doctorate from University of North Carolina.
In 1966, after creating The Winged and performing with the company at the Washington Cathedral, Limón received a government grant of $23,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. The next year, Limón choreographed Psalm, earning him an honorary doctorate from Colby College. He and his company were also invited to perform The Moor's Pavane at the White House for President Johnson and King Hassan II of Morocco.
Limón's final appearances onstage as a dancer were in 1969, when he performed in The Traitor and The Moor's Pavane at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He created The Unsung which premiered as a work in progress in 1970 and, in 1971, created Dances for Isadora and received an honorary doctorate from Oberlin College.
In 1970, Limón was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In the last years of his life, despite being stricken with cancer, he choreographed Orfeo and Carlota and filmed a solo dance interpretation for CBS. In 1971, Limón lost Pauline, his wife, to cancer and, in December 1972, at the age of 64, Jose Limón also died from cancer.[2]
During the course of his career, Limón created what is now known as the "Limón technique". According to the Limón Institute, the technique "emphasizes the natural rhythms of fall and recovery and the interplay between weight and weightlessness to provide dancers with an organic approach to movement that easily adapts to a range of choreographic styles."[3]
Although there have not been any dancers from the Limón company who have founded prominent companies of their own, his style can still be seen in performances today. Dance companies such as the Doug Varone and Dancers company continue to teach Limón's style of dancing. The company itself is still active, with the express purpose of maintaining the Limón technique and repertory.[4]
In 1973, the Jose Limón Collection was given to the New York Public Library Dance Collection by Charles Tomlinson. Eleven years later, a book, entitled "The Illustrated Dance Technique of Jose Limón" was published, explicitly describing Jose Limón's technique. In 1997, Jose Limón was inducted into the National Museum of Dance Hall of Fame.