6 Iconic Modern Dance Examples That Shaped the Discipline

In the world of modern dance, certain choreographers blazed the trail for everyone who came after them. Below are some of the most influential modern dance examples in the discipline's history — along with video clips — so you can see firsthand just how groundbreaking these choreographers and their works really were.

What Is Modern Dance?

Modern dance is a form of concert dance that broke away from the strict rules of classical ballet in the early 20th century — no pointe work, no fixed positions, no required narrative. In its place, modern dance choreographers built movement around personal expression, emotional themes, and experimentation with the body's natural weight and breath. The examples below span roughly seven decades of this evolution, from Martha Graham's foundational technique in the 1940s through Pilobolus's genre-bending physical theater in the 1970s.

Modern Dance vs. Contemporary Dance: What's the Difference?

These terms are often used interchangeably, but they aren't quite the same. "Modern dance" specifically refers to the movement and named techniques developed by pioneers like Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham starting in the early-to-mid 20th century. "Contemporary dance" describes the more eclectic style that emerged later, blending modern technique with ballet, jazz, and other influences without sticking to one codified system. The choreographers profiled below are modern dance in the strict historical sense — many of them literally created the techniques that contemporary dance later drew from and departed from.

Six Iconic Modern Dance Examples to Know

Martha Graham: Appalachian Spring

Martha Graham created masterpieces that broke from the traditions of ballet, developing her own training method built around strong core movement origination. Every contraction you do in a modern dance class today traces back to her technique. Her choreography for Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring is as much an American cultural landmark as the Declaration of Independence or the Liberty Bell.

Alvin Ailey: Revelations

Alvin Ailey trained under Martha Graham and carried her movement heritage in new directions. His signature piece, Revelations, expresses the African-American experience through choreography set to spirituals and gospel music, and remains one of the most performed modern dance works in the world.

Paul Taylor: Esplanade

Another product of the Martha Graham School, Paul Taylor formed Paul Taylor Contemporary Dance Company and choreographed works that seamlessly blended ballet and modern dance in athletic, risky, and exhilarating ways. His piece Esplanade was inspired by the sight of a young girl slipping while running for a bus, transforming that everyday moment into a lasting example of choreographic beauty.

Twyla Tharp: Push Comes to Shove

Twyla Tharp became known as the first true cross-over choreographer, pairing her dance vocabulary with popular music — from the Beach Boys to Billy Joel — to capture the cultural zeitgeist through movement (she also choreographed the musical "Hair"). Her work with American Ballet Theatre produced one of the most legendary pairings in dance history: Push Comes to Shove, created for the incomparable Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Merce Cunningham: Suite by Chance

A towering figure in American modern dance, Merce Cunningham trained under Martha Graham before breaking away to form his own company and develop a genuinely revolutionary choreographic approach. Cunningham used chance procedures — flipping a coin or rolling dice — to determine the sequence, location, and casting of dancers in his pieces, most famously in his 1953 work Suite by Chance, where chance dictated everything from dancer count to entrances and exits. His lifelong collaboration with composer John Cage pushed this further: dance and music were created entirely independently, meeting only in performance. This separation of movement from music and narrative opened the door to an abstract, non-representational style of dance focused purely on movement itself.

Pilobolus: Untitled

Formed in 1971 by a group of Dartmouth students, Pilobolus has spent decades bringing gravity-defying, sculptural choreography to audiences far beyond the traditional dance world — performing everywhere from major ballet companies' stages to the Olympic Games and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Their early, pivotal piece Untitled (featuring tall women in bonnets and long dresses) helped pave the way for later genre-crossing performers like Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil.