Behind the Red Velvet Curtain
In 2012 Joy Womack made history when she became the first American ballerina to sign a contract with the Bolshoi Ballet Theater in Moscow, Russia.Dancing in Moscow was not the Onion Dome fairy tale she'd hoped for. The Bolshoi and its school were filled with cutthroat competition, acts of violence, and coaches who encouraged obsessive devotion. They sent her on stage with broken bones, helped her forge immigration paperwork, and encouraged her to toe a dangerous political line - all for the privilege of dancing on one of the world's most storied stages. As Joy's career took off and she made a name for herself in the Russian ballet world, she had to face a hard choice. Were the growing dangers of a professional lifestyle descending into corruption worth the realization of her life's dream?
Butoh and Suzuki Performance in Australia
In Butoh and Suzuki Performance in Australia: Bent Legs on Strange Grounds, 1982-2023, Marshall considers how the originally Japanese forms of butoh dance and Suzuki's theatre reconfigure historical lineages to find ancient yet transcultural ancestors within Australia and beyond. Marshall argues that artists working in Australia with butoh and Suzuki techniques develop conflicted yet compelling diasporic, multicultural, spiritually and corporeally compelling interpretations of theatrical practice. Marshall puts at the centre of butoh historiography the work of Tess de Quincey, Yumi Umiumare, Tony Yap, Lynne Bradley, Simon Woods, Frances Barbe, and Australian Suzuki practitioners Jacqui Carroll and John Nobbs. Jonathan W. Marshall's Bent Legs on Strange Grounds is an important contribution to the body of literature on butoh, as well as to studies of dance in Australia that will be valuable to practitioners and scholars alike. Detailed discussions of Australian butoh artists open up consideration of how global and local histories, migrations, and landscapes not only were key to butoh's formation in Japan, but also to its continued development around the world. Attention to butoh's emplacement in Australia, Marshall convincingly argues, reveals insights about national identity, race, power, and more that are relevant well beyond the Australian performance context. -- Rosemary Candelario, Texas Woman's University, co-editor, Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (2018) Marshall's Bent Legs on Strange Grounds explores the remarkable transformative era of Australia's reconsideration of its place in the region. A definitive study of Australian experiments in butoh and the theatrical vision of Suzuki Tadashi, the book shows how new corporeal and spatial dramaturgies of the Japanese avant-garde fundamentally changed Australian performance. Expansively researched and annotated, this impressive study connects Australian performance after the New Wave with globalization, postmodern dance, Indigeneity, and subcultures, and it details the work of leading Australian/Asian artists. Bent Legs on Strange Grounds speaks about the development of embodied knowledge and the consequential refiguration of Australia's sense of being in the world. It is also a study of butoh and Suzuki's legacy in global terms, wherein Australian experimental performance also becomes something larger than itself. -- Peter Eckersall, The Graduate Center, CUNY, author of Performativity and Event in 1960s Japan (2013).
Moving Through Life
A story of resilience, joyful creativity, and the empowering potential of dance Moving through Life traces the journey of influential dancer, teacher, and choreographer Naomi Goldberg Haas. Sharing her lifelong love of movement, her experiences as a dancer with chronic health conditions, and accessible exercises from her work with dancers of all ages and abilities, Goldberg Haas encourages readers to integrate dance into their lives and to move with awareness, creativity, and joy.Goldberg Haas describes her early years as an emerging dancer at the School of American Ballet and how she explored and reveled in many dance forms throughout her career. She takes readers from a focus on fundamentals such as balance, strength, and flexibility to a deeper understanding of dance as a transformational community practice. With a unique perspective informed by navigating a degenerative neuromuscular disease, Goldberg Haas conveys a positive message: dance is an opportunity for renewal and growth at all stages of life. Alongside Goldberg Haas's story, this book provides insights and step-by-step instructions from the MOVEMENT SPEAKS(R) curriculum developed by Goldberg Haas for her nonprofit Dances for a Variable Population, a program that brings dance to older adults in New York City. Readers will learn from Goldberg Haas to exercise both their bodies and minds in ways that work for them. They will discover for themselves what Goldberg Haas's life illustrates--the value of dance in improving physical, mental, and social wellbeing. In a memoir of personal struggle, resilience, and celebration, Goldberg Haas portrays many of the changes that can come with aging and embraces the empowering potential of dance. From childhood memories to moments of epiphany later in life, this account from a leading figure in the dance community shows how movement can enrich and improve the lives of everyone.
Kathakali
Authored by a leading exponent of the form, this book provides a clear guide to Kathakali, exploring its origin, evolution, and characteristics and the ways it has adapted for a 21st-century audience. Kathakali is an introduction to this vibrant mode of dance drama, which comes from Kerala in southwest India and combines poetry, music, rhythm, and dance to represent stories of gods, demons, and humans. Originating in the latter part of the 16th century, today Kathakali commands attention and involves practitioners from around the world. Largely drawing its stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, it integrates music, dance, grand makeup, and costume to evoke the epic universe. This book illuminates how Kathakali combines associated literary texts, performative conventions, and practices from local and pan-Indian contexts. The actors use their whole body-deploying complex dance movements, interpretive gestures, and highly developed facial expressions-as a site to depict, elaborate, and interpret action. Encapsulating the world of Kathakali, its performative grammar, and the aesthetic theories that underpin it, this book examines its history as one of continual change. The book traces the distinctive features of Kathakali, which is sometimes tightly structured with fixed conventions, and sometimes fluid enough to incorporate imaginative flights of fancy. It assesses Kathakali's cultural legacy and charts how the form has changed over the centuries. It also includes translations of extracts from poems, plays, and performance manuals, as well as interviews with actors and cultural historians.
Text as Dance
This book offers a groundbreaking investigation into issues of gender, power and the representation of sovereignty in French Baroque court ballet - and in today's performances that recall them. Mark Franko uses powerful interpretive tools derived from historiography and critical theory, especially the work of German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, to offer the reader both a historical and a theoretical interpretation of this genre of dance in France (c. 1615-1654), as well as its aftermath and legacy today. Through doing so, he reaches conclusions about how sovereignty and power were both perceived by viewers at the time and how they were represented through dance, given that it was the noble class who devised and performed court ballets. He enquires into the role of choreography and theatricality as potentially critical forces operating at the heart of sovereignty. Franko places the work of Louis Marin on power, representation and movement in French Baroque painting and performance in juxtaposition to that of Benjamin on theater. Other historians whose work is prominent in this study are Ernst Kantorowicz, Michel Foucault and Jos矇 Antonio Maravall. With wide breadth in the work of historians, philosophers, political scientists, critical theorists, musicologists and dance historians, this is the culmination of a career's-worth of scholarship and research in the field.
Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts
Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts offers a profound exploration of the rich interplay between classical Indian dance forms and the broader realms of literature and the arts. This book delves into the historical, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions of classical Indian dance traditions, such as Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi, Kuchipudi, and Manipuri, among others. Through an interdisciplinary lens, readers discover how these dance forms are intricately woven into the fabric of Indian literature, mythology, poetry, music, and visual arts. Drawing on ancient texts, scholarly analysis, and contemporary performances, the book illuminates the enduring significance of classical Indian dance as a vibrant expression of spirituality, storytelling, and cultural identity. Whether you're a student of dance, literature, or cultural studies, or simply an enthusiast of Indian arts and traditions, this book offers a captivating journey into the enchanting world of classical Indian dance and its enduring resonance across artistic disciplines.
The Joy of Salsa
Dance into a World of Joy and ConfidenceEmbark on an exhilarating journey with The Joy of Salsa: Unleash Your Confidence, Step by Step, where the thrill of dance meets personal transformation. Enter a vibrant world of rhythm and movement that promises to lift your spirits and boost your confidence.Explore the heart and soul of salsa, as you discover its rich origins and diverse styles in the opening chapters. Whether you're a newbie taking your first step or a seasoned dancer, this book offers a treasure trove of insights and techniques to enhance your journey. Learn the foundational steps and footwork, and feel the rhythm that will guide your every move.Dive deeper into the art of salsa with chapters dedicated to perfecting posture and balance-a critical component for any dancer. Experience the music on a new level, understanding its beats and expressions, and becoming one with its flow. As you advance, unlock the magic of partner work, mastering the subtle art of communication without words.Add your unique flair with styling techniques that will have you spinning and turning with grace and confidence. The book offers practical strategies to overcome common dance fears, empowering you to glide across the dance floor with self-assurance. Structured practice guides and goal-setting advice ensure not just improvement, but true mastery.Experience the joy of salsa in social settings, understanding its culture and etiquette to enrich your interactions and connections. Beyond steps and spins, discover the incredible fitness benefits of salsa, making it a fulfilling workout for body and spirit. Finally, the book invites you to continually expand your skills and embrace salsa as a lifelong journey of joy and growth.
The Dancer's Handbook
The Dancer's Handbook offers a holistic exploration of the dance industry's challenges, authored by dancers intimately familiar with its complexities.
Ethics in Contact Rhetoric
To counterbalance traditional communication ethics grounded in linguistic or symbolic rhetorical theories, Ethics in Contact Rhetoric de-centers discourse and begins with bodies and the art of dance to formulate an immediate bio-relational communication theory-contact rhetoric--that addresses the full physical and moral range of rhetorical force.
Dancing on the Fault Lines of History
Dancing on the Fault Lines of History collects essential essays by Susan Manning, one of the founders of critical dance studies, recounting her career writing and rewriting the history of modern dance. Three sets of keywords--gender and sexuality, whiteness and Blackness, nationality and globalization--illuminate modern dance histories from multiple angles, coming together in varied combinations, shifting positions from foreground to background. Among the many artists discussed are Isadora Duncan, Vaslav Nijinsky, Ted Shawn, Helen Tamiris, Katherine Dunham, Jos矇 Lim籀n, Pina Bausch, Reggie Wilson, and Nelisiwe Xaba. Calling for a comparative and transnational historiography, Manning ends with an extended case study of Mary Wigman's multidimensional exchange with artists from Indonesia, India, China, Korea, and Japan. Like the artists at the center of her research, Manning's writing dances on the fault lines of history. Her introduction and annotations to the essays reflect on how and why these keywords became central to her research, revealing the autobiographical resonances of her scholarship as she confronts the cultural politics of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Dancing on the Fault Lines of History
Dancing on the Fault Lines of History collects essential essays by Susan Manning, one of the founders of critical dance studies, recounting her career writing and rewriting the history of modern dance. Three sets of keywords--gender and sexuality, whiteness and Blackness, nationality and globalization--illuminate modern dance histories from multiple angles, coming together in varied combinations, shifting positions from foreground to background. Among the many artists discussed are Isadora Duncan, Vaslav Nijinsky, Ted Shawn, Helen Tamiris, Katherine Dunham, Jos矇 Lim籀n, Pina Bausch, Reggie Wilson, and Nelisiwe Xaba. Calling for a comparative and transnational historiography, Manning ends with an extended case study of Mary Wigman's multidimensional exchange with artists from Indonesia, India, China, Korea, and Japan. Like the artists at the center of her research, Manning's writing dances on the fault lines of history. Her introduction and annotations to the essays reflect on how and why these keywords became central to her research, revealing the autobiographical resonances of her scholarship as she confronts the cultural politics of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Dance and Science in the Long Nineteenth Century
Revealing the interplay and influence of dance and scienceduring an age of colonial expansion Bringing together danceand science, two paradigms that explore the nature and possibilities of thebody, this volume illuminates the meanings and articulations of dance innineteenth-century societies. This global collection of studies reveals how thetwo fields informed each other's development and engaged with dominant Europeanworldviews in a time of unprecedented colonial expansion. The chapters in Danceand Science in the Long Nineteenth Century examine how trends anddevelopments in the performing arts reflected scientific thinking of this era, including the categorization of "types" of bodies and the ranking of culturaland religious beliefs, as well as how dance served as an active site of inquirywhere the workings and limits of the human body could be studied. Researchersdiscuss topics including the influence of plant biology on the aesthetics ofballet, technological advancements in the staging and recording ofperformances, arguments for the use of Eurhythmics in promoting a stronger"race," and European fascination with Indian dance and yoga. Featuring responseessays that put leading scholars in conversation with one another and offer newperspectives, this volume is unique in its geographic scope and its discussionof diverse bodies, cultures, themes, and scientific disciplines. It sheds lighton a historical interplay that has shaped many of today's political andcultural realities.Contributors: Johanna Pitetti-Heil Chantal Frankenbach Jane Desmond Christian Ducomb Claudia Jeschke K矇lina Gotman Pallabi Chakravorty Andrea Harris Dick McCaw Stephen Ha Emily Coates Tiziana Leucci Elizabeth Claire Susan Cook Carrie Streeter Olivia Sabee Janice Ross Alexander H. Schwan Whitney Laemmli
Butoh, as Heard by a Dancer
This book explores the origins of Butoh in post-war Japan through orality and transmission, in conjunction with an embodied research approach.The book is a gathering of seminal artistic voices - Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima, Yukio Waguri, Moe Yamamoto, Masaki Iwana, Ko Murobushi, Yukio Suzuki, Takao Kawaguchi, Yuko Kaseki, and the philosopher, Kuniichi Uno. These conversations happened during an extended research trip I made to Japan to understand the context and circumstances that engendered Butoh. Alongside these exchanges are my reflections on Butoh's complex history. These are primarily informed by my pedagogical and performance encounters with the artists I met during this time, rather than a theoretical analysis. Through the words of these dancers, I investigate Butoh's tendency to evade categorization. Butoh's artistic legacy of bodily rebellion, plurality of authorship, and fluidity of form seems prescient and feels more relevant in contemporary times than ever before.This book is intended as a practitioner's guide for dancers, artists, students, and scholars with an interest in non-Western dance and dance history, postmodern performance, and Japanese arts and culture.
Karbala in the Taʿziyeh Episode, Shiʿi Devotional Drama in Iran
"I am not Shemr, this is not a dagger, nor is this Karbala," recites the arch-antagonist as a taʿziyeh performance begins. Verisimilitude is not the endeavour; this is a devotional offering that stirs lament for the the Shiʿi martyrs by representing events crucial to sacred history. But what does that retelling entail? Through study of four of its main episodes--from their long inter-female dialogues to the protagonists' encounters with jinn, dervishes, and foreigners--this book explores the taʿziyeh repertoire's compositional features. Combining a wide range of historical scripts, largely unpublished manuscripts, with witness accounts, it tracks the tradition's development from Safavid to Qajar Iran asking, who were its contributors? And, how have they left their mark?
The Routledge Introduction to Ballet, its Culture and Issues
As an introduction to ballet's history, culture, and meanings, this book draws on the latest ballet scholarship to describe the trajectory of a dance form that has risen to global ubiquity and benefited from many diverse influences along the way.
Humanizing Ballet Pedagogies
In Humanizing Ballet Pedagogies, Jessica Zeller offers a new take on the ballet pedagogy manual, examining how and why ballet pedagogies develop, considering their implications for students and teachers, and proposing processes by which readers can enact humanizing, equitable approaches.This book supports pedagogical thinking and development in ballet. Across three parts, it reflects how pedagogies come to be: through rationales, dialogues, and practices. Part 1, Philosophies, offers a contextual reading of ballet pedagogy's historic relationship to ideals, and it describes an alternative approach that takes its meaningful purpose from the embodied knowledge of participants in the ballet class. Part 2, Perspectives, looks at how the teacher's person shapes the ballet class. It draws from a new survey of ballet students that illuminates the direct effects of pedagogies and proposes future directions. Praxis, Part 3, includes three theoretically based approaches that can be applied directly or adjusted to readers' contexts for teaching ballet: yielding to student agency and autonomy, ungrading graded ballet classes in higher education, and practicing reflection for growth. Grounded in the wide range of people who participate in ballet, themes of equity, ethics, and humanity are at the heart of this book.Humanizing Ballet Pedagogies is a valuable resource for those teaching or developing a teaching approach in ballet. It addresses important issues for school owners, administrators, or anyone responsible for supporting ballet teachers or students in the twenty-first century.
The One Direction Fanbook
The One Direction Fanbook: One of the biggest success stories to come from The X Factor, One Direction took over the world thanks to their music, charm and superfan following. Inside this special edition fanbook, explore Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn's electrifying story, from the group's formation in 2010 all the way through to today where we'll catch up on each member's exciting solo career. Along the way, we'll examine each One Direction album from Up All Night to Made In The A.M. in track-by-track detail, relive the highs of 1D mania and take some time to pay tribute to the fans that have stuck with the group over their ten-year journey.
Strictly Blackpool
Magic moments and memories from the world capital of dance Ask a Strictly star at the start of their journey what their goal is and the chances are they'll say 'Getting to Blackpool.' The iconic Tower Ballroom has been a Mecca to the ballroom dancing world since 1894, and Strictly's annual trip to the bright lights is a highlight of the series for contestants and viewers alike. Strictly Blackpool takes fans on a trip down memory lane, celebrating the most memorable routines from specials of the past and the dancers' own Blackpool experiences, as well as a behind the scenes glimpse of how the BBC's flagship show is transported to the seaside town every year for the magical ballroom special. There is a fascinating look at the Tower Ballroom's amazing history and secrets - from the circus in the basement to the elephants that lived in the building and bathed on the beach - as well as special photos from the Tower's archives. Bringing together the exciting history of the Ballroom and the magic of the annual Blackpool special, this beautifully-packaged book is a true celebration of Blackpool's dance heritage, and a must-buy for any Strictly fan!
Resistance and Support
Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50 is a ground-breaking anthology that collects twenty original writings that elucidate critically important somatic and political perspectives on Contact Improvisation (CI). This form of partner dancing that was started in the United States in 1972, has spread into a vibrant global community in the twenty-first century. Resistance and Support is edited and includes an introduction by veteran CI practitioner and dance studies scholar Ann Cooper Albright. For much of its existence in the twentieth century, Contact Improvisation prided itself on its democratic and egalitarian roots. Jams are open to newcomers, women learned to lift men, and dancing roles were not conventionally gendered in the traditional sense of partnered dancing such as tango or ballroom. These conventions meant that questions of social power were often ignored within the jams and festivals where Contact Improvisation thrives. This thoughtful collection engages issues of inclusion and access through insightful essays written by people whose life experiences are shaped by this extraordinary form of kinaesthetic communication. Chapters trace the stories of CI in China and Taiwan, India, Mexico, Brazil, as well as those in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Some discuss the somatic training that provides a movement basis for the improvisational exchanges between dancers. Others foreground the feminist and queer perspectives on the evolving twenty-first century practice of the form. Several elaborate on the healing, spiritual, or therapeutic aspects of CI, while others explore the mixed ability approaches to the form popularized by Alito Alessi's Dance Ability pedagogy. Like Critical Mass: CI @ 50, the international conference and festival honoring CI's 50th anniversary from which these writings emerged, these essays both celebrate the expansive possibilities and critique some of the exclusionary conventions of this ever-evolving form of communal dance.
Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon
More than 40 works across media, including major ensemble performances, emerging in the afterlife of postmodern dancePhiladelphia-based artist, dancer and choreographer Ralph Lemon (born 1952) is one of the most significant figures to arise from New York's downtown scene in the 1990s. This catalog, published on the occasion of the first US museum exhibition of Lemon's work in movement, film and installation, traces the arc of his ongoing collaborations, which extend far beyond the paradigm of dance. Text by exhibition curators Connie Butler and Thomas Jean Lax is accompanied by essays and contributions by Kevin Beasley, Adrienne Edwards, Saidiya Hartman, Darrell Jones, Ralph Lemon, Okwui Okpokwasili and Kevin Quashie. Featuring a dust jacket that unfolds into a poster, the book includes full-color illustrations of Lemon's artworks and reproductions of his sketches and notations.
Afrikinesis
This book provides scholars and non-specialists alike with a roadmap for effectively conducting culturally aware, historically relevant research on African dance and on any dance style that contains African elements.This book explains why Western research paradigms are inadequate for research on Africana dance. It exposes the value of utilizing an appropriate research paradigm that offers researchers a broader perspective and a transparent, unfettered process for analysis in under-researched topics such as African and African diaspora dance styles. Researchers are introduced to the African dance aesthetic, characteristically African body movements, definitions of steps, understandings within African culture, and a host of other jewels that facilitate a deeper grasp on the subject and refine the quality of the scholar's research, its findings, and its proficiency.This book will be of great interest to scholars of African dance studies.
Dance Injuries
Across dance genres, the rigors of training and performing can take a toll on a dancer's mind and body, leading to injuries. Dance Injuries: Reducing Risk and Maximizing Performance With HKPropel Access presents a holistic wellness model and in-depth coverage of how to reduce the risk of injury in dance and how to care for injuries properly when they do occur. Written by an international team of experts in the dance medicine and science field, including physicians, athletic trainers, physical therapists, researchers, and dance educators, Dance Injuries provides an overview of common dance injuries across a wide variety of dance styles. From their extensive work with dancers, the authors provide valuable insight into minimizing dance injuries to maximize dancer longevity. The text offers practical ways to reduce the risk of dance injuries. Conditioning, flexibility training, nutrition, hydration, recovery, and rest are addressed. Additionally, a chapter on holistic wellness helps dancers apply a wellness mindset to their training and performance. Dance Injuries is richly illustrated with nearly 200 full-color illustrations and 150 photos to help dancers connect with the essential information the book offers. Armed with the understanding gained from the book's medical diagrams, dancers will be motivated to adopt habits to reduce the likelihood of an injury. To further augment learning, the text presents strategies for accessing and interpreting scientific research on dance injuries; approaches to working with various health care professionals when an injury occurs; recurring special elements, sidebars, key terms, and discussion questions; and resources offered online through HKPropel, including application activities, supplemental information, and coverage of niche topics connected to chapter content. Six appendixes add to the wealth of content presented in the chapters. These provide information on international mental health resources, psychological safety in dance, screening for dancer health, disability dance and integrated dance, considerations for professional dance, and artistry and athletics. Dance Injuries includes vital information to properly train dancers technically, physically, mentally to reduce dancers' risk of injury and allow them to perform their best in dance classes, rehearsals, and performances. Note: A code for accessing HKPropel is included with all new print books.
Frederick Ashton's Ballets
The second edition of Frederick Ashton's Ballets: Style, Performance, Choreography adds two further ballets to this ground-breaking study of Frederick Ashton's choreography. It not only examines the contribution these ballets made to twentieth century dance art, but also presents a detailed account of Ashton's work and dances, demonstrating his remarkable choreographic and artistic talent. Having danced with the Royal Ballet Company during the years Ashton was Director, author, Geraldine Morris also draws on her years as an academic in the field. As well as highlighting the dances, the book explores the contribution made by Ashton's collaborators, both designers and musicians. Central is the issue of identity and how style can be retained in dance, despite alterations in training. It considers the problem of how the values of ballet training change, thereby affecting contemporary performances of his works. Through eight works Morris examines the various sources that Ashton used, whether they were dances with words, or those influenced by dancers' movement style, jazz dance, abstraction, mysticism, or narrative. With this new material, the second edition makes a significant contribution to dance scholarship.
Dancing Mind, Minding Dance
Dancing Mind, Minding Dance encompasses a collection of pivotal texts published by scholar and researcher Doug Risner, whose work over the past three decades has emphasized the significance of social relevance and personal resonance in dance education. Drawing upon Risner's breakthrough research and visionary scholarship, the book contextualizes critical issues of dance making in the rehearsal process, dance curriculum and pedagogy in 21st-century postsecondary dance education, the role of dance teaching artists in schools and community environments, and dance, gender, and sexual identity, especially the feminization of dance and the marginalization of males who dance.This book concludes with Risner's prophetic vision for employing reflective practice in order to address social justice and inclusion and humanizing pedagogies in dance and dance education throughout all sectors of dance training and preparation. Beginning with his first book, Stigma and Perseverance in the Lives of Boys Who Dance (2009), Risner has distinguished himself as the leading education researcher, scholar, and practitioner to improve young dancers' education and training and in humanistic ways. The book will appeal to dance educators and teachers, dance education scholars and researchers, choreographers, parents and care-givers of dance students, and those who work as teaching artists, arts administrators, private sector dance studio directors and teachers, as well as arts education researchers and scholars broadly. The chapters in this book, except for a few, were originally published in various Taylor & Francis journals.
The Essence of Me
This book is about: Spirituality, the healing of oneself and the community, and understanding culture and the mind.
A Choreographer's Handbook
On choreography: 'Choreography is a negotiation with the patterns your body is thinking.'On rules: 'Try breaking the rules on a need to break the rules basis.'The updated and revised edition of 'A Choreographer's Handbook' invites the reader to investigate how and why to make a dance performance. In an inspiring and unusually empowering sequence of stories, questions, ideas and paradoxes, internationally renowned choreographer Jonathan Burrows explains how it's possible to navigate a course through this complex process.It is a stunning reflection on a personal practice and professional journey, and draws upon many years of workshop discussions, led by Burrows.Burrows' open and honest prose gives the reader access to a range of principles, exercises, meditations and ideas on choreography that allow artists and dance-makers to find their own aesthetic process.It is a book for anyone interested in making performance, at whatever level and in whichever style.
Reflections of Dance Along the Brahmaputra
This volume brings a critical lens to dance and culture within North East India. Through case studies, first-hand accounts, and interviews, it explores unique folk dances of Indigenous communities of North East India that reflect diverse journeys, lifestyles, and connections within their ethnic groups, marking almost every ritual and festival. Dance for people of North East India, as elsewhere, is also a way of declaring, establishing, celebrating, and asserting humans' relationship with nature. The book draws attention to the origins and special circumstances of dances from North East India. It discusses a range of important folk-dance forms alongside classical dance forms in North East India, with a focus on Sattriya dance. The chapters examine how these dance forms play an important role in the region's socio-cultural, economic, and political life, intertwining religion and the arts through music, dance, and drama. Further, they also explore how folk dance cultures in North East India have never been relegated to the background, never considered secondary, aesthetically, or otherwise, but have become expressions of political and cultural identity. An evocative work, this volume will be of interest to students and researchers of pedagogy, choreography, community dance practice, theatre and performance studies, social and cultural studies, aesthetics, interdisciplinary arts, and more. It will be an invaluable resource for artists and practitioners working in dance schools and communities.
Discovering Dance
Discovering Dance, Second Edition, is the premier introductory dance text for high school students. Whether they are new to dance or already have some experience, students will be able to grasp the foundational concepts of dance as they consider where dance movement comes from and why humans are compelled to move, and they will explore movement activities from the perspectives of a dancer, a choreographer, and an observer. The result is a well-rounded educational experience for students to build on, whether they want to further explore performance or choreography or otherwise factor dance into their college or career goals. Specifically designed to meet national and state dance education standards, Discovering Dance offers a ready-to-implement dance curriculum that is foundational and flexible. It fosters students' discovery of dance through creating, performing, analyzing, understanding, responding to, connecting to, and evaluating dance and dance forms. The book is divided into four parts and 17 chapters. Part I focuses on the foundational concepts of dance and art processes, wellness, safety, dance elements, and composition. Part II delves into dance in society, including historical, social, traditional, and cultural dances. In part III, students explore dance on stage--including ballet, modern dance, jazz dance, tap, and hip-hop--and examine aspects of performance and production. Part IV rounds out the content by preparing students for dance in college or as a career and throughout life. The chapter content helps students discover dance genres; explore each genre through its history, artists, vocabulary, and significant works; apply dance concepts through movement and through written, oral, visual, technology, and multimedia assignments, thus deepening their knowledge and abilities; enhance learning by completing a portfolio assignment and review quiz for each chapter; and gain insight into dance artists, companies, and events through the Did You Know? and Spotlight elements. Learning objectives, vocabulary terms, and an essential question open each chapter. Throughout the chapters are four types of activities: Discover, Explore, Journal, and Research. The activities and assignments meet the needs of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and help students explore dance through vocabulary, history, culture, creation, performance, and choreography. A comprehensive glossary further facilitates learning. The personal discovery process is greatly aided by technology--including video clips that demonstrate dance genres, forms, styles, and techniques as well as learning experiences that require taking photos and creating time lines, graphs, drawings, diagrams, or soundscapes.
The Embodiment and Transmission of Ghanaian Kete Royal Dance
This book is an Afrocentric exploration of the royal Indigenous dance known as the Kete dance-music, as an analytical path for reassessing African movement systems in the 21st century. It validates the agency of the Black dancing body as a critical element for the generation and use of Indigenous knowledge systems of the Africans/diaspora and explores critical perspectives on the role dancing plays in the cultural emancipation of African knowledge systems globally.
Beyonc矇 and Beyond
This book examines three years of Beyonc矇's career as a pop mega star using critical race, feminist and performance studies methodologies.The book explores how the careful choreography of Beyonc矇's image, voice and public persona, coupled with her intelligent use of audio and visual mediums, makes her one of the most influential entertainers of the 21st century. Keleta-Mae proposes that 2013 to 2016 was a pivotal period in Beyonc矇's career and looks at three artistic projects that she created during that time: her self-titled debut visual album Beyonc矇, her video and live performance of "Formation," and her second visual album Lemonade. By examining the progression of Beyonc矇's career during this period, and the impact it had culturally and socially, the author demonstrates how Beyonc矇 brought 21st century feminism into the mainstream through layered explorations of female blackness.Ideal for scholars and students of performance in the social and political spheres, and of course fans of Beyonc矇 herself, this book examines the mega superstar's transition into a creator of art that engages with Black culture and Black life with increased thoughtfulness.
Ballroom
A tune-filled, light-footed people's history of ballroom dancing, from Vernon and Irene Castle and Arthur Murray to Dancing with the Stars. In the early twentieth century, American ragtime and the Parisian Tango fueled a dancing craze in Britain. Public ballrooms--which had never been seen before--were built throughout the country, providing a glamorous setting for all classes to dance. The new styles of dance being defined and taught in the 1920s, as well as the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the 1930s, ensured that ballroom dancing continued to be the most popular pastime until the 1960s, rivaled only by the cinema. This book explores the vibrant history of Ballroom and Latin: the dances, the lavish venues, the competitions, and the influential instructors. It also traces the decline of competitive dancing and its resurgence in recent years with the hugely popular TV shows Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars.
Rooted Jazz Dance
National Dance Education Organization Ruth Lovell Murray Book AwardUNCG Susan W. Stinson Book Award for Dance EducationStrategies for recovering the Africanist roots of jazz dance in teaching and practiceAn African American art form, jazz dance has an inaccurate historical narrative that often sets Euro-American aesthetics and values at the inception of the jazz dance genealogy. The roots were systemically erased and remain widely marginalized and untaught, and the devaluation of its Africanist origins and lineage has largely gone unchallenged. Decolonizing contemporary jazz dance practice, this book examines the state of jazz dance theory, pedagogy, and choreography in the twenty-first century, recovering and affirming the lifeblood of jazz in Africanist aesthetics and Black American culture. Rooted Jazz Dance brings together jazz dance scholars, practitioners, choreographers, and educators from across the United States and Canada with the goal of changing the course of practice in future generations. Contributors delve into the Africanist elements within jazz dance and discuss the role of Whiteness, including Eurocentric technique and ideology, in marginalizing African American vernacular dance, which has resulted in the prominence of Eurocentric jazz styles and the systemic erosion of the roots. These chapters offer strategies for teaching rooted jazz dance, examples for changing dance curricula, and artist perspectives on choreographing and performing jazz. Above all, they emphasize the importance of centering Africanist and African American principles, aesthetics, and values. Arguing that the history of jazz dance is closely tied to the history of racism in the United States, these essays challenge a century of misappropriation and lean into difficult conversations of reparations for jazz dance. This volume overcomes a major roadblock to racial justice in the dance field by amplifying the people and culture responsible for the jazz language. Contributors: LaTasha Barnes Lindsay Guarino Natasha Powell Carlos R.A. Jones Rubim de Toledo Kim Fuller Wendy Oliver Joanne Baker Karen Clemente Vicki Adams Willis Julie Kerr-Berry Pat Taylor Cory Bowles Melanie George Paula J Peters Patricia Cohen Brandi Coleman Kimberley Cooper Monique Marie Haley Jamie Freeman Cormack Adrienne Hawkins Karen Hubbard Lynnette Young Overby Jessie Metcalf McCullough E. Moncell DurdenPublication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Essential Jill Johnston Reader
Jill Johnston began the 1960s as an influential dance columnist for the Village Voice and by the start of the next decade she was known as a keen observer of postmodern art and lesbian feminist life who challenged how dance, art, and women can and should be seen. The Essential Jill Johnston Reader collects dozens of pieces of her writing from across her career. These writings--many of which appeared in the Village Voice and the New York Times--survey the breadth of her work, braiding together her thinking, writing, and activism. From personal essays, travel writing, and artist profiles to dance and visual art reviews as well as her infamous series of columns for the Voice in which she came out as a lesbian, these pieces demonstrate the evolution of her philosophies and writing style. Illustrating how Johnston drew on lessons from dance to reconsider what it means to be a woman, this collection brings a fascinating and brilliant voice of American arts criticism, radical feminism, and gay liberation back to contemporary audiences.
The Essential Jill Johnston Reader
Jill Johnston began the 1960s as an influential dance columnist for the Village Voice and by the start of the next decade she was known as a keen observer of postmodern art and lesbian feminist life who challenged how dance, art, and women can and should be seen. The Essential Jill Johnston Reader collects dozens of pieces of her writing from across her career. These writings--many of which appeared in the Village Voice and the New York Times--survey the breadth of her work, braiding together her thinking, writing, and activism. From personal essays, travel writing, and artist profiles to dance and visual art reviews as well as her infamous series of columns for the Voice in which she came out as a lesbian, these pieces demonstrate the evolution of her philosophies and writing style. Illustrating how Johnston drew on lessons from dance to reconsider what it means to be a woman, this collection brings a fascinating and brilliant voice of American arts criticism, radical feminism, and gay liberation back to contemporary audiences.
Singular Plural Ways of Staging Together
Focusing on staging processes in contemporary dance and art performance creates new opportunities to study creative participation and co-authorship. To gain these new insights, Iris Julian analyses experimental projects initiated by two groups and a single choreographer: Collect-if by Collect-if, Deufert + Plischke and Xavier Le Roy. By exploring nuances of staging work, the concept of singular plural became the analytical guideline and resulted into three research perspectives: theatre studies, sociology and ontological reading (Jean-Luc Nancy, Michaela Ott, Gerald Raunig). This approach makes it possible to look beyond the importance that is often credited to single authorship in the arts.With a foreword by Prof. Dr. Gerald Siegmund.
Passionate Work
Corps de ballet literally means the "body" of the ballet company, and it refers to the group of dancers who are not principals. Another large group of dancers puts together portfolios of work, often across several dance companies. These categories of dancers typically don't have name recognition and yet comprise the majority of professional dancers today. The ways that they stitch together careers, through dedication, grit, and no small amount of skill - and the reasons they have for doing so without the promise of fame or fortune - are telling of broader trends that shape the precarious labor of professional dance, and creative careers more generally. In Passionate Work, dance hobbyist and sociologist, Ruth Horowitz captures their stories. When creative labor is studied, it is often thought of in opposition to more conventional work, and the primary metric that distinguishes them is passion. Professional creatives are not working in the traditional sense because they are following their passion. By tracing the careers of such dancers, Horowitz troubles the binary understanding of passion and work. A career in dance requires both, and approaching her subjects through this lens allows her to explore their strategies for sustaining passion through the ups and downs of a career. Horowitz explores how dancers evaluate the rewards and challenges of a notoriously underpaid, and uncertain profession. Horowitz considers major dimensions of a career in a performing art, documenting each stage in a dancer's life. Above all, she shines a light on the strategies used to achieve a sense of biographical continuity in a world often marked by discontinuity and rupture.
Passionate Work
Corps de ballet literally means the "body" of the ballet company, and it refers to the group of dancers who are not principals. Another large group of dancers puts together portfolios of work, often across several dance companies. These categories of dancers typically don't have name recognition and yet comprise the majority of professional dancers today. The ways that they stitch together careers, through dedication, grit, and no small amount of skill - and the reasons they have for doing so without the promise of fame or fortune - are telling of broader trends that shape the precarious labor of professional dance, and creative careers more generally. In Passionate Work, dance hobbyist and sociologist, Ruth Horowitz captures their stories. When creative labor is studied, it is often thought of in opposition to more conventional work, and the primary metric that distinguishes them is passion. Professional creatives are not working in the traditional sense because they are following their passion. By tracing the careers of such dancers, Horowitz troubles the binary understanding of passion and work. A career in dance requires both, and approaching her subjects through this lens allows her to explore their strategies for sustaining passion through the ups and downs of a career. Horowitz explores how dancers evaluate the rewards and challenges of a notoriously underpaid, and uncertain profession. Horowitz considers major dimensions of a career in a performing art, documenting each stage in a dancer's life. Above all, she shines a light on the strategies used to achieve a sense of biographical continuity in a world often marked by discontinuity and rupture.
Shadows in a Phantom Eye, Volume 11 (1934-1936)
Since the late 19th century, film has been the ultimate medium by which to express and illuminate the darker, wilder recesses of man's imagination. An alchemical convergence of magic lantern experiments and new photographic technology led to the production of the very first moving images, including visual captures of magic, mystery, violence, cruelty, crime, sex, nudity, devilry and death.SHADOWS IN A PHANTOM EYE Volume Eleven reveals a flickering carnival of attractions and aberrations from the period 1934-1936, which saw classic horror film releases such as Bride Of Frankenstein, Mad Love and The Black Cat alongside provocative roadshow offerings ranging from Maniac and Marihuana to Gambling With Souls and The Third Sex. Classic cartoons and serials, shocking war documentaries, surgical procedurals, ethno-documentaries and the rise of the home projection market are among the many other strands of cinema unveiled with extensive documentation. This volume references around 1,300 films from all countries and reproduces more than 250 rare photographic images, posters and illustrations, many newly unearthed from international film archives and never before published.SHADOWS IN A PHANTOM EYE is the ultimate multi-volume guide for those wishing to explore an alternative global history of the moving image in its inaugural decades - a history that reveals a wild, often disturbing and provocative world which includes Hollywood but also stretches far, far beyond.
Simplified Balboa for Men
For the price of just one group class, this book is a practical guide for learning the leader's part of the fast and smooth swing dance called Balboa. Includes description of common steps, tips on learning, practising and social dancing. It will greatly add to your understanding of swing dancing and help you along your learning curve. Read it before you go to your first Balboa class.
Tomboy Ballerina
Roni Mahler spent her formative years in a ballet studio under the tutelage of Madame Maria Yurieva Swoboda and at Yankee Stadium, where she cheered for her idol, Mickey Mantle. At age 18, Mahler joined the corps de ballet of the renowned Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and later became Principal Dancer at the National Ballet of Washington, D.C., under the guidance of NYCB founder George Balanchine. In 1969 she returned to New York City as a soloist with American Ballet Theatre in principal roles like the high-flying Queen of the Wilis in Giselle. Known for her singular approach to cross-training while teaching ballet to football players, Mahler has taught around the world and, as the Artistic Associate of Cleveland Ballet/Ballet San Jose, dedicated over three decades to teaching, coaching, and performing. Written in collaboration with her ballet disciple and friend, this intimate account details her journey from the ballet stage and the baseball diamond to the gridiron and beyond.
Crafting the Ballets Russes
A fresh look at the groundbreaking artistic collaborations of the Ballets Russes, illuminated by a rich trove of visual material including music manuscripts, dance notations, stage and costume designs, and photographs of performers.This book celebrates one of the world's finest privategathering of music manuscripts, held on deposit at the Morgan Library. Robert Owen Lehman's superb collection of French and Russian ballet scores, including Firebird, Petrushka, Afternoon of a Faun, Bolero, and many more, are shown here for the first time alongside the vivid stage designs and rarely seen choreographic notations for these ballets. Together they offer a fresh view into Serge Diaghilev's famed Ballets Russes troupe and its revitalization of ballet that roiled Paris in the first decades of the twentieth century. These influential ballets and their creators--composers Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel, choreographers Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Bronislava Nijinska, and artists L矇on Bakst, Alexandre Benois, and Natalia Goncharova--set a new agenda for European art. As the 1930s began, a new international era of modern ballet was underway.
