What exactly is Modern dance? This session offers an accessible overview of the rich history of Modern dance including its origins—both American and European lineages—and its theatrical development. Excerpts of important dance works from significant artists of the past 140 years will enrich your understanding of the art form. We will learn about how and why a decisive break from Ballet reshaped performance across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From early Modern dance pioneers like Isadora Duncan to contemporary artists of today, we will explore how shifts in philosophy, music, visual art, and technology influenced ideas about the body, space, time, and narrative. Using video clips, we will connect choreographers and their significant works to the social contexts that shaped them such as women’s emancipation, the civil rights movement, and anti-war counterculture. Designed for curious dance audiences and newcomers alike, this talk uses video excerpts, guided observation, and plain-language analysis to build a working knowledge of dance history and a vocabulary for watching dance. Attendees will leave able to recognize hallmark techniques, situate major artists on a timeline, and identify through-lines that link early modern dance to today’s concert, community, and cross-disciplinary stages. Recommended for arts enthusiasts, educators, and anyone interested in how dance reflects—and helps to shape—the modern world. Sarah Hixon is a choreographer, dance educator, and artistic director of Hixon Dance. Ms. Hixon studied choreography with Doug Varone, Bebe Miller, David Parsons, Susan Rethorst, Vera Blaine, Susan Shields, and others. She trained at The Washington Ballet, American Repertory Theatre, and The Milwaukee Ballet, among others. She holds a BFA in Dance from George Mason University and an MFA in Choreography from The Ohio State University. She has taught at several universities and pre-professional schools throughout the region.