Jose Arcadia Limón, a modern dance choreographer, was born on January 12, 1908 in Culiacán, Mexico. The eldest of 11, Limón was born to father Florencio Limón, a musician and conductor, and mother Francisca Traslaviña, a devoted Catholic. Living through the Mexican Revolution of 1910 had a traumatic effect on the Limón family. Limón would often watch friends and family members die from sickness or the hostility of the soldiers. His father and mother decided it would be best to raise their family elsewhere, so they moved to other cities in Mexico, such as Hermosillo and Nogales. The family was still surrounded by hostility, as Limón personally witnessed his uncle's death by gunshot. Eventually, the family decided it would be best to leave the…show more content… This piece was to be performed in a solely Bach performance produced by Humphrey. However, in April 1943, Limon was drafted to serve during World War II. Although he originally served as a truck driver in the quartermaster corps, he was transferred to direct pageants and dance concerts in the Special Services Division. Limon served until he was discharged in 1945, then received United States citizenship in 1946. While still serving, he was able to choreograph and perform in shows for the Special Services. On the weekends, Limon choreographed Vivaldi Concerto in D Minor with Dorothy Bird and Beatrice Seckler, premiering in 1945, for a small company directed by Doris Humphrey. After his discharge in 1946, Limon and Humphrey changed Humphrey’s small company into the Limon Dance Company and he asked Humphrey to be the artistic director. Limon offered Pauline Koner and Lucas Hoving the opportunity to work with him. Using his Mexican heritage and assistance from Koner and Hoving, Limon choreographed La Malinche in 1949. Also in 1949 with the assistance of Hoving, Koner, and Betty Jones, Limon choreographed The Moore’s Pavane, named a “magnificent piece of dance theater” and “one of the major works in contemporary dance repertory” by John Martin, a writer for the New York Times. In 1950, Limon and his company performed in Mexico City.…show more content… His technique was deeply influenced by her ideas and goal of expressing a personal relationship between the body and the outside world through movement. He played with Humphrey's use of fall and recovery and suspension. His technique was not extremely structured because he
believed that it would limit the creativity of the dancers as individuals. He wanted to help his students find their own movement and personal uniqueness as dancers. His choreography represented a pure expression of emotion and passion as he considered the body to be an instrument in which we could communicate. His technique was energetic and traveled through space. He used individual parts of the body and isolated them show their individual
