The young people who began to assemble in the New York dance studios early in the 1930s were seized by reformist zeal. They believed they were building a better world, and their idealism served them well, both as incentive when there were few other rewards, and as a sign to the world that they were to be taken seriously. For indeed, they wished to be taken seriously, and in those very first days, their legitimacy in the world of American art seemed certain.

As Doris Humphrey began to think more formally about the group that was to realize her works, she set forth her aims in a long letter to prospective members. She was enlisting them in a crusade. With the extraordinary mixture of crystalline practicality and inspirational ardor that she kept all her life, she foresaw a journey that would be all the more glorious for the obstacles they would surmount together. “I am first a creative artist, thirsting to see my conceptions made visible; after that I am also interested in developing individual talent in others, in performing for audiences, educating audiences, promoting the cause of Dance, making money, and establishing a Dance Theatre in America.” The order in which she set down these goals was not accidental. She wanted her dancers to understand that Humphrey-Weidman could pay virtually nothing — $10 a performance — and she frowned on the commercial theater as a supplementary source of income. “All group dancing in musical comedy or opera or motion picture houses” she placed in a “different class” — by implication an inferior one.

At the end of the eighteenth century, ballet was split between those supporting tours de force and those who believed that “difficulties,” as they were called, should be avoided in favor of a more expressive, refined, graceful, and artless style of execution. Though the controversy neared its most intense period in 1800, as early as 1760 Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810) was pleading, in his extremely influential Lettres sur la danse, that his fellow artists renounce entrechats and cabrioles, abandon tours de force, which he considere to be meaningless. Ironically, 1769 was the year of birth of the man whose brilliance would make tours de force de rigueur for audiences and performers. Auguste Vestris (1760–1842) would overwhelm the dance world with his spectacularly athletic technique; his approach to dancing would be emulated by his fellow dancers as they tried to perform increasingly elaborate beats, greater numbers of pirouettes and tours en l'air, and higher leg elevations. The opposition of those seeking abstract dancerly qualities and those demanding feats of athletic virtuosity was the major controversy of the first three decades of the nineteenth century.

Mary Wigman wanted to develop a new dance form, one that could express her personal perception of the spirit of her era and communicate her innermost feelings. What she created in her early choreographies, despite variations in specific works, was a dance in which one of the most prevalent constituents was mysticism, found in the purpose, process, and content of her choreography. It is by virtue of the element of mysticism that Wigman's artwork can be linked to a major aspect of the German Expressionist movement, which had come to full flower in art and drama during Wigman's artistically formative years.

German Expressionism was the attempt, by several German artists circa 1907-1925, to express the inner reality of a character, situation, or event rather than the external, scientifically verifiable facts, by portraying the essence, by giving form to experience to convey its universal significance. This expression of the artist's vision, which was intensely individual in style and inspiration yet universal in content, was often marked by distortion or non-realistic symbols used to attain a direct communication from soul to soul, that is, to express the essence of their vision so that it could be apprehended on a sensed level rather than on an intellectual level. The German Expressionist artists, as well as Wigman, developed their own, individual styles according to their particular art medium and individual personalities.

The Claire Holt Collection of Indonesian dance materials is one of those special chronicles of a time and place long since changed. Accumulated mostly during the 1930s, the collection comprises approximately 9,000 photographic prints; 3,500 photographic negatives; several reels of 16mm motion picture film; and a small but significant group of manuscripts. These documents present a rich and sensitive account of the cultural life of five islands of Indonesia. The islands, then part of the Dutch East Indies, include Java, Bali, Sulawesi (known in the 1930s as the Celebes), Nias, and Sumatra. In addition to the pre-World War II material are photographic prints, negatives, and slides of artists working in Java and Bali in the mid-1950s.

Claire Holt's first exposure to Indonesia, in 1930, left her with an overwhelming and enduring impression of a complete integration of art in the spiritual and daily lives of its people. It was this pervasive interplay that held Holt there for ten years, brought her back twice, and kept her researching, advising, teaching, and writing about Indonesia for the remainder of her life. In the 1930s she formally studied Javanese dance at the Krida Beksa Wirama in Surakarta, and she also assisted Rolf de Maré in preserving on film the dance of Java, Bali, Sulawesi, Nias, and Sumatra. She was a devoted friend of Mankunagara VII of Surakarta and welcome at his court. The result was first-hand experience observing and considering Indonesian dance, the production of visual and written records of the dance, and the gathering of additional source materials from colleagues and the Mankunagaran archive.