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The story of modern dance is not unlike the tale you are about to unfold for yourselves. It begins as a choice to move away from the rules, structures, and ideas of the past, those belonging to other ages and cultures of people, and to move towards a more individually creative theory of dance. John Martin, dance historian, has described modern dance as a "point of view" being different for every decade, every country, every human who gives birth to it. The new dancers of the turn of the century chose to release the past, tune in to the present, and totally redefine the idea of what dance is. Some of you may be students of ballet and love the security of the positions, steps, and attitude that is clear, definite, and consistent for that form. You may love this form and use it as a strong foundation to support your new experiences, as a home to return to from travels down other paths. Hopefully, you are open and adventurous enough to take these new paths. Others of you may have tried to conform to the particulars of ballet and decided that you wanted a different, freer, more self-defining approach to dance. And still others may always have been in an atmosphere of creative, more individualistic approaches to dance: many people tell me they dance in their own living rooms with shades drawn, that they danced freely in the woods or on the beach as children. This is not to say that modern dance is without rules and forms. Each modern dance artist who has come along has developed a personal style of dancing and therefore a way of preparing people to dance their dances. But there are many different ideas about dancing and ways to prepare for it, so you will see as many different "points of view" about dance as there are people making dances. It all began at the turn of the century, and what a wonderfully exciting time it was in so many ways. The spirit of change and revolution was in the air and contagious among people in many different areas of dance and art. Towards the end of the 19th century, revolutionary changes occurred throughout the world