José Arcadio Limón (January 12, 1908 – December 2, 1972) was a pioneering modern dancer and choreographer. He was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, the eldest of 12 children. He moved to New York City in 1928 where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company. His most famous dance is The Moor’s Pavane (1949), based on Shakespeare’s Othello and set to music by Henry Purcell.
In New York, Limon quickly came to believe that he could not make anything of value by painting because the medium had been mined out. Disillusioned with his fantasy, it was by chance that a girlfriend took him to see the dancer Harald Kreutzberg perform. Limon was stunned. “Suddenly, onto the stage, borne on the impetus of the heroic rhapsody, bounded an ineffable creature and his partner. Instantly and irrevocably, I was transformed. I knew with shocking suddenness that until then I had not been alive or, rather, that I had yet been unborn…now I did not want to remain on this earth unless I learned to do what this man was doing.”
In a panic, Limon began studying all the dance he could. He studied with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman in their Humphrey-Weidman school. From Doris Humphrey, he learned his base for technique and from Weidman he learned pantomime and expression. In later years, Limon would attribute his primary stylistic influences to Isadora Duncan and Harald Kreutzberg.
Ten years after he began dancing, Limon premiered his first major choreographic work, Danzas Mexicanas. He was drafted in April 1943. Between 1943 and when he was discharged in 1945, he choreographed several works for the US Army Special Services. While on leave during this time, he returned to NYC to pursue serious choreography with Doris Humphrey.
Jose Limon was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1967. He continued to work and choreograph through his illness until he died on December 2, 1972, at the age of 64.
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