Kenneth King is an American post-modern dancer

Postmodern dance

Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form. A reaction to the compositional and presentation constraints of modern dance, postmodern dance hailed the use of everyday movement as valid performance art and advocated novel methods of dance composition....

 and choreographer who is best known for his experimentations with dance and multimedia. A second-generation Judson Dance Theatre choreographer, much of King's experimental dance repertoire combines different movements styles with dramatic material and technological advances, emphasizing the importance of the human body through expressionism and symbolism.

Early life

King was born in Freeport, New York

Freeport, New York

Freeport is a village in the town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, USA, on the South Shore of Long Island. The population was 42,860 at the 2010 census. A settlement since the 1640s, it was once an oystering community and later a resort popular with the New York City theater community...

 and became interested in theatre and the performing arts early in life after being cast as the lead in a musical production for his kindergarten class. As a child of the commonly referred to “TV Generation”, a period in American culture in which the television replaced the radio as the new household commodity, King became extremely fascinated with this new form of entertainment and was intrigued by theatrics behind popular television programs. While in high school, King aspired to be an actor, and during college, although a philosophy major at Antioch College

Antioch College

Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...

 in Ohio, he acted in summer stock productions for three consecutive years starting in 1959. King soon became an apprentice actor at Adelphi College, and it wasn’t until after attending a lecture by legendary American dancer and choreographer, Ruth St. Denis

Ruth St. Denis

Ruth St. Denis was an early modern dance pioneer.-Biography:Ruth St. Denis founded Adelphi University's dance program in 1938 which was one of the first dance departments in an American university...

, that he became inspired to dance. King began his transformation from theater into dance by incorporating dance with speaking and props. By the early 1960s he was studying the art full time. King studied with Sylvia Fort, The New Dance Group, Ballet Arts, Paul Sanasardo, and he also attended The Martha Graham School

Martha Graham

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

, while studying ballet with Mia Slavenska. By 1966, he was working with renowned dancers Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham

Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...

 and Carolyn Brown.

Choreography and Multimedia

Much of King's choreographic style is based on the idea of dance being a total theatrical experience. King’s work was both reflective and innovative in his time in that he developed choreography with generally non-technical based movement, unique to the 1960s post-modern era, but with the newfound technological approach - incorporating film, machinery, characters, text, speech, lighting, and costumes. King emphasizes expressionism and symbolism through the use of the body, while experimenting with space and time, but eliminating the post-modern idea of point of view. King believed that a dance could still have content even without point of view, stress and emotion. His works are often considered to be very personal and an overall poetic experience.

King began performing his own choreography as early as 1964. His first work was titled cup/saucer/two dancers/radio, and featured him and Phoebe Neville. Cup/saucer/two dancers/radio incorporated these experimentations with multimedia and was heavily influenced by the subject matter of pop art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

. King went on to present numerous works at a number of theaters including, The Bridge Theatre, Judson Memorial Church (in association with the Judson Dance Theater

Judson Dance Theater

Judson Dance Theater was an informal group of dancers who performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York City between 1962 and 1964. It grew out of a dance composition class taught by Robert Dunn, a musician who had studied with John Cage...

 and the Judson group), the Gate Theatre, Clark Center for the Performing Arts, The New School

The New School

The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...

, and Washington Square Galleries.

Collaborations and Philosophy

King collaborated with a number of artists throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Before his dance career took off, King worked with filmmakers Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, Gregory Markopoulos

Gregory Markopoulos

Gregory J. Markopoulos was a Greek-American experimental filmmaker. Born in Toledo, Ohio to Greek immigrant parents, Markopoulos began making 8 mm films at an early age. He attended USC Film School in the late 1940s, and went on to become a co-founder — with Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Stan...

 and Jonas Mekas

Jonas Mekas

Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.-Biography:...

 in the early 1960s. Some major works include m-o-o-n-b-r-a-i-n with SuperLecture (1966) and PRINT-OUT (1967). Both of these works incorporate film and projections with dance. In addition to his cup/saucer/two dancers/radio partner, Phoebe Neville, some of his colleagues included Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk

Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...

, Gus Solomons Jr., Elizabeth Keen, Cliff Keuter, Steve Paxton

Steve Paxton

Steve Paxton is an experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with José Limón. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, he performed works by Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown...

, Laura Dean, Yvonne Rainer

Yvonne Rainer

Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...

 and Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer, who lives and works in New York City.-Early years:Tharp was born in 1941 on a farm in Portland, Indiana, and was named after Twila Thornburg, the "Pig Princess" of the 89th Annual Muncie Fair in Indiana.she spend hours working on it to help her...

.

King’s experimental dance repertoire is varied, combining a broad range of performance styles, theoretical and dramatic material and technological resources. He believes that dance doesn’t necessarily require the performance of traditional technique. In a 1978 interview conducted by John Howell for the Performing Arts Journal, Howell asked King why his then recent choreographies, RAdeoA.C.tiv(ID)ty, DANCE S(P)ELL, and The Telaxic Synapsulator, performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....

contained more technical dancing in comparison to some of his older pieces. King replied, “ … in the dance field there are all kinds of ways bodies make signals, or signs.” He states that this is one of the reasons why he is so fond of dance.