Isadora Duncan:
As a child, she studied ballet. When she travelled to Germany, she was introduced to Frederick Nietzsche’s philosophy, where she began to formulate her own philosophy of dance. She accused the ballet of deforming the woman’s body. During this period, is when she began her theory of dance, identifying the solar plexus.
When she dances, from the photos we see, she is usually in free flowing clothing and in bare foot. All movements come from the solar plexus, alongside with the focus and the breath movement.
From old footage of her original dance, it looks like she preferred to dance in the outdoors rather than on stage. This could be to help her dance reflect nature, or for her to connect with nature.
Her style was not seen to be developed during her time, but as time passed with little knowledge of her exact choreography, other people have been taking what they knew and making in the style of her.
As of now, her style is not really practised or performing. However, she created this modern dance timeline, and her basic ideas are seen within most contemporary dances, such as the focus and breathe movement.
Rudolf Laban:
He studied theatre life of Bratislava, where then, rejecting the military career planed, he studied architecture while observing the moving body and its spaces. He then went onto revolutionising the movement arts at his arts school in the summer.
In 1919, Laban ran a dance theatre company and opened a main school, while performing and creating works. Later on, he created a form of dance notation. This was called Kinetography Laban, which is now formally known as Labanotation.
He is known for his choreology that he came up with, this is still used at Laban school, and other dancers around the world as a way of writing dances. However the use of Labanotation has decreased due to people now being able to record.
Martha Graham:
When she was young, her dad treated patients with physical movements to help nervous disorders. This influenced her to take dance throughout her teens. Where in 1926, she established her own dance company in New York City where she developed and taught her own technique.
The key components of her dances where based on breaths and contractions. Where she experimented with basic human movements, to increase the emotional activity of the dancers body. Her production were mainly set on a stage that had basic lighting and costume. Where the only thing that stood out were the dancers.
Within the dance company she established, she looked at how the human body moved with contractions and breath. At the beginning of the company, she was working on the simple body movements. But later on she worked on different dances, collaborating with different collaborators, such as Isanu Noguci, who worked on sculpting and director John Houseman.
Her company has been the training ground for many modern contemporary dances, such as Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor.
Merce Cunningham:
He began dancing at a young age at the Cornish School. This is where He saw the work of Martha Graham, who later invited him to join her company. He went on and studied at the Martha Graham Dance Company as a soloist.
It is also at the Cornish school, where he first met John Cage, who would later become a big influence in his work. Later on, his work included separating music and dance and creating them individually, then putting them together with chance.
His dances included technique that emphasizes form, coordination of the torso and legwork, rhythmic accuracy and spatial awareness. A Cunningham technique class is usually 90 minutes where there is a 45 minute warm up.
His costumes and sets looked at different colours on them. His costume choices were often quite unique, such as unitards, with different patterns on representing what dance he was doing a dance about. His lighting, sets and costumes all match up.
Akram Khan:
His early training was in Kathak, Indian classical dance and contemporary dance. When he was in his teens, he wanted to learn and create with different collaborators.
His rules that he set himself were to take risks, to think big and daring, explore the unfamiliar, don’t compromise and to tell stories through dance
His dances usually contain a mix between Kathak and contemporary. Telling a story about the past, either from his own experiences, his families or his collaborators. Where the costume is quite plain and simple, fitting with the story theme, and the set being realistic with the lighting representing different parts of the story.
His style develops with ever collaborator he has worked with, as he works with different dance styled dancers, for example ballet.
Information Gained from:
http://www.dancevisionsny.org/about/duncan-dance/technique/
https://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/isadora.html
https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/about-us/our-history/rudolflaban
http://www.marthagraham.org/history/
https://www.edaclyon.com/merce-cunningham-technique/
Later on in his career, in 1999, he created a piece of work called BIPED where instead of looking at tradition dance, or even separating the music and dance, it was an exploration of the possibilities of animation technology of motion capture. This is where they choreographed 70 phrases to be transformed into digital images, where the images and patterns where projected in the front of the stage while live performers where behind. Cunningham also used computer software to develop choreography.
“It became about the driving spirit of contemporary dance… to reinvent itself as a language for the expression of new ideas. ” [1]
Rudolf Laban, was a teacher, who experimented “with 
Merce Cunningham wanted dance not to be about telling a story or to have any meaning, he wanted to dance for dance sake. In order too do this he took the story out and the meaning, but also separated the dance and music.
Martha Graham had a great impact in american modern dance by creating a new technique. This technique was based on breath and contractions. This technique has been used in most dance classes and at most universities. It became her lasting language.
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