José Limón Early career What was his first job mentioned here? In 1930, Limon first performed on Broadway, and later that same year he choreographed his first dance, "Etude in D Minor",
Was Etude in D Minor used in a broadway show?
Was Etude in D Minor used in a broadway show?
In 1930, Limon first performed on Broadway, and later that same year he choreographed his first dance, "Etude in D Minor", a duet with Letitia Ide. Limon recruited Ide and schoolmates Eleanor King and Ernestine Stodelle to form "The Little Group". From 1932 to 1933, Limon made two more Broadway appearances, in the musical revue Americana and in Irving Berlin's As Thousands Cheer, choreographed by Charles Weidman. Limon also tried his hand at choreography at Broadway's New Amsterdam Theatre. Limon 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, Limon was selected as one of the first Bennington Fellows. At the Bennington Festival at Mills College in 1939, Limon created his first major choreographic work, titled Danzas Mexicanas. After five years, however, Limon would return to Broadway to star as a featured dancer in Keep Off the Grass under the choreographer George Balanchine. In 1941, Limon left the Humphrey-Weidman company to work with May O'Donnell. They co-choreographed several pieces together, such as War Lyrics and Curtain Riser. On October 3, 1942 Limon married Pauline Lawrence, a founding member and the manager of the Humphrey-Weidman company. The partnership with O'Donnell dissolved the following year, and Limon created work for a program at Humphrey-Weidman. In 1943, Limon's made his final appearance on Broadway in 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 the U.S. Army Special Services. The most well-known among these is Concerto Grosso. CANNOTANSWER
Etude in D Minor", a duet with Letitia Ide. Limon recruited Ide and schoolmates Eleanor King and Ernestine Stodelle to form "The Little Group".
José Arcadio Limón (January 12, 1908 – December 2, 1972) was a dancer and choreographer from Mexico and who developed what is now known as 'Limón technique'. In the 1940s he founded the José Limón Dance Company (now the Limón Dance Company), and in 1968 he created the José Limón Foundation to carry on his work.

In his choreography, Limón spoke to the complexities of human life as experienced through the body. His dances feature large, visceral gestures — reaching, bending, pulling, grasping — to communicate emotion. Inspired in part by his teacher Doris Humphrey's and Charles Weidman's theories about the importance of body weight and dynamics, his own Limón technique emphasizes the rhythms of falling and recovering balance and the importance of good breathing to maintaining flow in a dance. He also utilized the dance vocabulary developed by both Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, which aimed at demonstrating emotion through dance in a way that was much less strict and stylized than ballet as well as used movements of the body that felt most natural and went along with gravity.

Limón's most well-known work is The Moor's Pavane (1949), based on Shakespeare's Othello, which won a major award. Other works were inspired by subjects as diverse as the McCarthy hearings (The Traitor) and the life of La Malinche, who served as interpreter for Hernán Cortés. Limón generally sets his dances to music, choosing composers ranging from Ludwig van Beethoven and Frederic Chopin to Arnold Schoenberg and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Education
José Arcadio Limón was born January 12, 1908 in Culiacán, Mexico, the eldest of twelve children. In 1915, his family moved to Los Angeles, California.

After graduating from Lincoln High School (San Diego, California), Limón attended UCLA as an art major. He moved to New York City in 1928 to study at the New York School of Design. In 1929, he was inspired to dance after attending one of Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi's performances and enrolled in the Humphrey-Weidman school.

Early career
In 1930, Limón first performed on Broadway, and later that same year he choreographed his first dance, "Etude in D Minor", a duet with Letitia Ide. Limón recruited Ide and 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 in Irving Berlin's As Thousands Cheer, choreographed by Charles Weidman. Limón also tried his hand at choreography  at Broadway's New Amsterdam Theatre. 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, Limón was selected as one of the first Bennington Fellows. At the Bennington Festival at Mills 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. They co-choreographed several pieces together, such as War Lyrics and Curtain Riser. On October 3, 1942 Limón married Pauline Lawrence, a founding member and the manager of the Humphrey-Weidman company. The partnership with O'Donnell dissolved the following year, and Limón created work for a program at Humphrey-Weidman.

In 1943, Limón's made his final appearance on Broadway in 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 the U.S. Army Special Services. The most well known among these is Concerto Grosso.

José Limón Dance Company
Attaining American citizenship in 1946, Limón formed the Limón Dance Company. When Limón began his company, he asked Humphrey to be the artistic director, making it 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 company members were Pauline Koner, Lucas Hoving, Betty Jones, Ruth Currier, and Limón himself. Dancer and choreographer Louis Falco also danced with the José Limón Dance Company from 1960–70, and Falco starred opposite to Rudolph Nureyev in Limon's Moor's Pavane on Broadway from 1974-75.

While working with Humphrey, Limón developed his repertory  and established the principles of the style that he 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 return each summer for many years. Limón choreographed The Moor's Pavane in 1949, and it 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 , where he created six works. Between 1953 and 1956, he choreographed a number of shows and created roles in Humphrey's Ruins and Visions and Ritmo Jondo. In 1954, the Limón Company was one of the first to take advantage of 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 (1957).

In 1956, Limón choreographed The Emperor Jones, which was loosely based on Eugene O'Neill's play of the same title (see The Emperor Jones) and was set to music by Heitor Villa-Lobos.  Following the premier of the work and subsequent restagings by Limón, there was some controversy surrounding the use of blackface for the role of Brutus Jones (the African American prisoner who eventually takes the title of the tyrant Emperor Jones). In 1958, following a US State Department funded tour of The Emperor Jones in Poland, Limón was asked by a Polish official if he had been permitted to perform The Emperor Jones in blackface in the United States. He responded to this query by writing that "Emperor Jones was first of all a work of art, and I hoped a good one, and that even if it were in defiance of prevalent political and social usages, no one would or could prohibit its performance." In this instance, the US government used Limón's work and its use of blackface as a response to international critics of its race relations by using art as a form of free speech free from sociopolitical constraints and one in which Limón was overtly complicit.

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 with Pauline Koner.

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, he went on to receive the Capezio Award and was appointed the artistic director of the American Dance Theatre at  Lincoln Center. The following year, Limón appeared in an National Education Telecast|NET special titled The Dance Theater of José Limón.

In 1967, after performing with the company at Washington Cathedral, Limón received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He and his company were also invited to perform at the White House for President Lyndon B. 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.

In 1970, Limón was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In the last years of his life, despite this illness, he choreographed and filmed a solo dance interpretation for CBS. In 1971 he founded the little-known Jose Limón Philadelphia Dance Theater, originally intended to become a second company. In December 1972, at the age of 64, he died of cancer.

José Limón Foundation and Limón technique
In 1968, Limón incorporated the José Limón Foundation to continue his legacy as a choreographer, and in 2008 it received the National Medal for the Arts. In 1985, the Limón Institute was formed as an arm of the foundation that oversees licensing of his dances and teaching of what is now known as "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."

José Limón considered Isadora Duncan, Harald Kreutzberg, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman as important influences on his style of dance. It was after seeing Humphrey perform in Inquest (1945) that Limón decided to focus his choreography on showing the beauty and tragedy of human life rather than on entertaining people. His technique was informed by Humphrey's ideas about the dynamics of body weight as the body rose, fell, and remained in suspension during a dance. He encouraged students to see their bodies as complex instruments — using the simile of an orchestra — and to strive for clarity and expressiveness of movement without tension. He paid particular attention to proper breathing because it enabled continuously flowing motion.

Limón technique was disseminated during his life and after his death by teachers such as Aaron Osborne, a former member of the Limón company who taught his technique in the 1980s. Dance companies such as the Doug Varone and Dancers company continue to teach Limón's style of dancing. Limón's own company is still active under the shortened name Limon Dance Company, with the express purpose of maintaining the Limón technique and repertory.

Honors and legacy
Limón received a number honorary doctorates in his lifetime, including from Wesleyan University, the University of North Carolina, Oberlin College, and Colby College.

In 1973, the José Limón Collection was given to the New York Public Library Dance Collection by Charles Tomlinson.

In 1988, the José Limón National Dance Award was created in his honor to recognize outstanding figures of contemporary and modern dance.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts presented a retrospective exhibition on his life and work in 1996, and in 1997 he was inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame.

In 2003, Limón was named one of America's "irreplaceable Dance Treasures" by the Dance Heritage Coalition. In 2012, he was chosen to appear on a U.S. postage stamp in honor of his contribution to the art of dance.

A number of books about Limón and his technique have been published, including The Illustrated Dance Technique of José Limón (1984). His own autobiographical writings appeared in edited form in 1999 under the title An Unfinished Memoir.

Choreography

References

Citations

Further reading

 Reich, Susanna (2005). José! Born to Dance: The Story of José Limón. New York: Simon & Schuster. .

External links
 Jose Limon Dance Foundation website
 Limon: A Life Beyond Words, documentary
 Archival footage of Jose Limon performing Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías in 1946 at Jacob's Pillow

1908 births
1972 deaths
Mexican expatriates in the United States
Mexican emigrants to the United States
American artists of Mexican descent
American choreographers
Modern dancers
Wesleyan University people
Deaths from prostate cancer
People from Culiacán
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
People with acquired American citizenship
The Symphonic Etudes (), Op. 13, is a set of études for solo piano by Robert Schumann.  It began in 1834 as a theme and sixteen variations on a theme by Baron von Fricken, plus a further variation on an entirely different theme by Heinrich Marschner.

Composition
The first edition in 1837 carried an annotation that the tune was "the composition of an amateur": this referred to the origin of the theme, which had been sent to Schumann by Baron von Fricken, guardian of Ernestine von Fricken, the Estrella of his Carnaval Op. 9. The baron, an amateur musician, had used the melody in a Theme with Variations for flute. Schumann had been engaged to Ernestine in 1834, only to break abruptly with her the year after. An autobiographical element is thus interwoven in the genesis of the Études symphoniques (as in that of many other works of Schumann's).

Of the sixteen variations Schumann composed on Fricken's theme, only eleven were published by him. (An early version, completed between 1834 and January 1835, contained twelve movements). The final, twelfth, published étude was a variation on the theme from the Romance Du stolzes England freue dich (Proud England, rejoice!), from Heinrich Marschner's opera Der Templer und die Jüdin, which was based on Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (as a tribute to Schumann's English friend, William Sterndale Bennett).  The earlier Fricken theme occasionally appears briefly during this étude. The work was first published in 1837 as XII Études Symphoniques.  Only nine of the twelve études were specifically designated as variations. The sequence was as follows:

 Theme – Andante [C♯ minor]
 Etude I (Variation 1) – Un poco più vivo [C♯ minor]
 Etude II (Variation 2) – Andante [C♯ minor]
 Etude III – Vivace [E Major]
 Etude IV (Variation 3) – Allegro marcato [C♯ minor]
 Etude V (Variation 4) – Scherzando [C♯ minor]
 Etude VI (Variation 5) – Agitato [C♯ minor]
 Etude VII (Variation 6) – Allegro molto [E Major]
 Etude VIII (Variation 7) – Sempre marcatissimo  [C♯ minor]
 Etude IX – Presto possibile [C♯ minor]
 Etude X (Variation 8) – Allegro con energia  [C♯ minor]
 Etude XI (Variation 9) – Andante espressivo  [G♯ minor]
 Etude XII (Finale) – Allegro brillante (based on Marschner's theme) [D♭ Major]

Other titles had been considered in September 1834: Variations pathétiques and Etuden im Orchestercharakter von Florestan und Eusebius. In this latter case the Études would have been signed by two imaginary figures in whom Schumann personified two essential, opposite and complementary aspects of his own personality and his own poetic world. 'Florestan and Eusebius' then signed the Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6; but only in the 1835 version of the Études symphoniques were the pieces divided so as to emphasize the alternation of more lyrical, melancholy and introvert pages (Eusebius) with those of a more excitable and dynamic nature (Florestan). In the 1837 version Florestan prevails.

Fifteen years later, in a second edition (Leipzig 1852), the 1837 title Études symphoniques became Études en forme de variations, two etudes (Nos. 3 and 9) that did not correspond to the new title (not being exactly variations) were eliminated, and some revisions were made in the piano writing.

The entire work was dedicated to Schumann's English friend, the pianist and composer William Sterndale Bennett.  Bennett played the piece frequently in England to great acclaim, but Schumann thought it was unsuitable for public performance and advised his wife Clara not to play it.

Character
Leaving aside the allusions to Florestan and Eusebius, all of Schumann's proposed titles show some of the essential character of Op. 13's conception. This was of 'studies' in the sense that the term had assumed in Frédéric Chopin's Op. 10, that is to say, concert pieces in which the investigation of possibilities of technique and timbre in writing for the piano is carried out; they are 'symphonic études' through the wealth and complexity of the colours evoked – the keyboard becomes an "orchestra" capable of blending, contrasting or superimposing different timbres.

If etudes Nos. 3 and 9 are excluded, where the connection with the theme is tenuous, the etudes are in variation form. It was not the first time that Schumann had tackled variation form. But here the variation principle is used more as free transformation, no longer of an actual theme, but of a musical 'cell' or cells (as for example in the same composer's Carnaval). The Études symphoniques learn the lesson of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations: the theme that acts as a unifying element is amplified and transformed, and becomes the basis from which blossom inventions of divergent expressive character.  The work also shows the influence of the Goldberg Variations, most obviously in the use of a pseudo-French overture variation, and in the use of various canonic effects.

The highly virtuosic demands of the piano writing are frequently aimed not merely at effect but at clarification of the polyphonic complexity and at delving more deeply into keyboard experimentation. The Etudes are considered to be one of the most difficult works for piano by Schumann (together with his Fantasy in C and Toccata) and in Romantic literature as a whole.

Later publication history

In 1861, five years after Schumann's death, his father-in-law Friedrich Wieck published a third edition under the editorial pseudonym "DAS" (an acronym for Der alte Schulmeister).  This edition attempted to reconcile the differences between the earlier two, and bore both the previous titles XII Études Symphoniques and Études en forme de variations.

On republishing the set in 1890, Johannes Brahms restored the five variations that had been cut by Schumann.  These are now often played, but in positions within the cycle that vary somewhat with each performance; there are now twelve variations and these five so-called "posthumous" variations which exist as a supplement.

The five posthumously published sections (all based on Fricken's theme) are:
 Variation I – Andante, Tempo del tema
 Variation II – Meno mosso
 Variation III – Allegro
 Variation IV – Allegretto
 Variation V – Moderato.

Orchestrations
Two sections, including the Allegro brillante,  were orchestrated by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and have been recorded.

Notes

External links
Robert Schumann's Symphonic Etudes Analysis and description of Robert Schumann's Symphonic Etudes

 performed by Peter Bradley-Fulgoni

Schumann
Piano music by Robert Schumann
1834 compositions
Variations
Compositions in C-sharp minor The Book of Heads (1978), composed by John Zorn, is a set of 35 etudes for solo guitar.  It was recorded and released in 1995, and featured Marc Ribot. The pieces use multiple extended techniques.

Condensed from roughly 80 other compositions, the work was originally composed for Eugene Chadbourne. Zorn learned the extended techniques from Chadbourne, and used them to create a piece that would push Chadbourne's virtuosity to new levels. Zorn incorporated new techniques, such as rubbing balloons on the guitar strings until they pop, holding talking dolls up to the microphone, pulling the guitar strings out of the bridge notch, hitting the strings with pencils, and playing with rice. He also used classical guitar techniques, such as hitting the body of the guitar and multiple harmonics.

A second complete recording of all 35 etudes by German guitarist Christoph Funabashi was released on the Berlin-based label schraum in 2012. Ten of the pieces are also featured on Marco Capelli’s YUN MU from 2002. In 2015 another complete edition was released on Tzadik by New York guitarist James Moore who worked with Zorn on the pieces. This one also contains a DVD with a film by Stephen Taylor. In recent years there has been growing interest in The Book of Heads with performances by adventurous guitarists throughout the world – notably Alessandra Novaga in Italy and Kobe Van Cauwenberghe in France.

Score
The score of The Book of Heads is published by Theatre of Musical Optics (BMI) and is available through Hips Road Edition. It consists of a set of 35 small cards with graphical and standard notation including written instructions – which are in some cases very detailed and precise and in others quite associative which leaves a good deal of the realization up to the performer. A general note prefacing the score says: “These ‘heads’ are meant to be played as written and serve as the basis for improvisation. The improv may occur before, after, both before and after, in between two different heads or the same head twice, or not at all during your performance.”

Reception
The Allmusic review by Satcia Proefrock awarded the Ribot album 3 stars stating "Ribot is obviously having fun on this release, and he has been praised by Zorn for the care he took in its execution. Such erratic work could be tossed off as mere noodling, but Ribot puts his heart into this performance and it shows". Chain D.L.K. described Funabashi’s record as “a wonderfully schizophrenic music box” and stated that “Funabashi lays down a finely crafted and creatively virtuosic interpretation of one of Zorn's most demanding works.”

Track listing
All compositions by John Zorn
 "Etude 1" - 2:44 
 "Etude 2" - 0:32 
 "Etude 3" - 0:39 
 "Etude 4" - 2:04 
 "Etude 5" - 2:46 
 "Etude 6" - 1:02 
 "Etude 7" - 2:36 
 "Etude 8" - 1:25 
 "Etude 9" - 1:10 
 "Etude 10" - 0:31 
 "Etude 11" - 2:04 
 "Etude 12" - 1:51 
 "Etude 13" - 2:18 
 "Etude 14" - 0:38 
 "Etude 15" - 1:58 
 "Etude 16" - 1:27 
 "Etude 17" - 0:46 
 "Etude 18" - 0:27 
 "Etude 19" - 0:42 
 "Etude 20" - 1:20 
 "Etude 21" - 2:20 
 "Etude 22" - 1:51 
 "Etude 23" - 3:08 
 "Etude 24" - 1:52 
 "Etude 25" - 0:58 
 "Etude 26" - 0:37 
 "Etude 27" - 1:29 
 "Etude 28" - 3:08 
 "Etude 29" - 2:11 
 "Etude 30" - 2:50 
 "Etude 31" - 1:09 
 "Etude 32" - 1:30 
 "Etude 33" - 1:22 
 "Etude 34" - 1:18 
 "Etude 35" - 1:24 
Recorded at Shelley Palmer Studio in New York City on March 19, 1995

Personnel 

Jason Baker - engineer
Ikue Mori - cover design
David Newgarden - producer
Allan Tucker - mastering
John Zorn - collage, producer

References 

Compositions for guitar
John Zorn albums
Tzadik Records albums
albums produced by John Zorn