Art History: Dance

Watch a brief animated history of dance and download art cards of famous dancers.

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Grades: 6 7 8

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Jerome Robbins was born in New York City on October 11, 1918 and raised in Weehawken, New Jersey. As a child he showed talent, studying piano, violin and dance. Leaving...

Ping Chong | Artopia

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Grades: 6 7 8

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Ping Chong was born in 1946 to a Chinese opera family in Toronto, Canada and spent his youth in New York’s Chinatown neighborhood, which influenced the themes explored...

Savion Glover | Artopia

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Grades: 3 4 5

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Savion Glover was born on November 19, 1973 and was raised by his mother and grandmother in Newark, New Jersey. As a very young child he displayed his unique rhythmic...

Katherine Dunham | Artopia

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Grades: 6 7 8

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Katherine Dunham was born on June 22, 1909 in Chicago and raised in Joliet, Illinois. As a young person she began dance training in a kind of free form modern dance and...

Isadora Duncan | Artopia

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Grades: 6 7 8

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Isadora Duncan was born on May 26, 1877 in San Francisco, California to artistic parents; her father was a poet and her mother a music teacher. Isadora loved poetry...

Bill T. Jones | Artopia

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Grades: 6 7 8

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Bill T. Jones was born on February 15 1952 in Bunnell, Florida and was raised mostly in rural Stuben County in Upstate New York, as the tenth of twelve children to a...

Mikhail Baryshnikov | Artopia

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Grades: 6 7 8

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Mikhail Baryshnikov was born on January 27, 1948 in Riga, Latvia where he began studying ballet. As a teenager, the great teacher Alexander Pushkin recognized “Misha’s”...

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers | Artopia

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Grades: 6 7 8

Illustration by Maria Manhattan Fred Astaire was born Fredrick Austerlitz on May 10, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska and Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16, 1911 in Independence...

Dance: One Minute Art Lesson | Artopia

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Grades: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Watch a brief animation about the types and styles of dance. TRANSCRIPT OK, anybody can dance, right? I mean, when you're out and about groovin' to a beat, you are dancing and everybody else is...