Early hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin' (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood's fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are also part of the broader history of teen cinema, and films such as Charlie Ahearn's Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions. As suburban teen films banished parents and children to the margins of narrative action, hip hop musicals, by contrast, presented inclusive and unconventional filial groupings that included all members of the neighborhood. These alternative social configurations directly referenced specific urban social problems, which affected the stability of inner city families following diminished governmental assistance in communities of color during the 1980s. Breakdancing, a central element of hip hop musicals, is also reconsidered. It gained widespread acclaim at the same time that these films entered the theaters, but the nation's newly discovered dance form was embattled--caught between a multitude of institutional entities such as the ballet academy, advertising culture, and dance publications that vied to control its meaning, particularly in relation to delineations of gender. As street-trained breakers were enticed to join the world of professional ballet, this newly forged relationship was recast by dance promoters as a way to invigorate and ""remasculinize"" European dance, while young women simultaneously critiqued conventional masculinities through an appropriation of breakdance. These multiple and volatile histories influenced the first wave of hip hop films, and even structured the sleeper hit Flashdance (1983). This forgotten, ignored, and maligned cinema is not only an important aspect of hip hop history, but is also central to the histories of teen film, the postclassical musical, and even institutional dance. Kimberley Monteyne places these films within the wider context of their cultural antecedents and reconsiders the genre's influence.

As stage and screen artists explore new means to enhance their craft, a new wave of interest in expressive movement and physical improvisation has developed. And in order to bring authenticity and believability to a character, it has become increasingly vital for actors to be aware of movement and physical acting. Stage and screen artists must now call upon physical presence, movement on stage, non-verbal interactions, and gestures to fully convey themselves. In Bringing the Body to the Stage and Screen, Annette Lust provides stage and screen artists with a program of physical and related expressive exercises that can empower their art with more creativity. In this book, Lust provides a general introduction to movement, including definitions and differences between movement on the stage and screen, how to conduct a class or learn on one's own, and choosing a movement style. Throughout the book and in the appendixes, Lust incorporates learning programs that cover the use of basic physical and expressive exercises for the entire body. In addition, she provides original solo and group pantomimes; improvisational exercises; examples of plays, fiction, poetry, and songs that may be interpreted with movement; a list of training centers in America and Europe; and an extensive bibliography and videography. With 15 interviews and essays by prominent stage and screen actors, mimes, clowns, dancers, and puppeteers who describe the importance of movement in their art and illustrated with dozens of photos of renowned world companies and artists, Bringing the Body to the Stage and Screen will be a valuable resource for theater teachers and students, as well as anyone engaged in the performing arts.

In the early days of swing dancing, Frankie Manning stood out for his moves and his innovative routines. This is his autobiography, recalling how his first years of dancing as a teenager at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom led to his becoming chief choreographer and a lead dancer for 'Whitey's Lindy Hoppers'.

These vividly written letters document the lives of two remarkable women artists who were at the center of twentieth-century dance modernism. Mary Wigman's groundbreaking choreography and inspired performing in Germany during the 1910s and 1920s brought the emerging art of modern dance into dialogue with modern painting, theater, and film. Her disciple Hanya Holm took Wigman's aesthetic philosophy to the United States in 1931, effectively adapting it to the American temperament, and ultimately became a celebrated choreographer of Broadway musicals such as ""Kiss Me, Kate"" and ""My Fair Lady"". Written between 1920 and 1971, Wigman's letters are a treasury of fascinating detail about artistry, friendships of women, and the stamina of two artists who refused to capitulate to personal, political, and cultural forces that confronted them. They inject immediacy into discussions of Wigman's work within the Third Reich and cast light on Holm's construction of an American identity. With her extensive annotation Gitelman contributes context to the domestic and social spheres within which the women worked on two continents. Never before published in any language, these letters are untapped resources for historians of twentieth-century culture, German-American relations, as well as dance.

Marian Horosko brings together new and previously published interviews of Martha Graham's ""family"" of dancers, teachers, choreographers and actors and interweaves them with provocative biographical material about the life and influence of the creator of classic modern dance. Spanning the past 75 years, the interviews testify to the remarkable legacy that inspired the careers of many in the dance world, among them dancers from the contemporary generation who inherited her technique, but never saw her perform. The interviews of teachers, all former Graham students, reflect their passion for maintaining Graham's few fixed principles and her emotional integrity. Some of the foremost actors of Graham's time (she died in 1991) describe their stormy encounters with her in the process of her attempts to teach them that ""movement doesn't lie"". Although not a textbook - no textbook describing the exercises exists at the time of publication - this book offers a syllabus of Graham's work. Drawn from a private film of a class for her advanced and professional company members in the 1960s, it includes comments from Graham and testifies to her use of imagery in teaching. Photographs that capture the dancers' physical configuration document the development of Graham's choreographic legacy, which expanded and changed as she created each new work, more than 200 in all. These images, along with the interviews and commentary, plot the evolution of Graham's methodology and vocabulary of movement, on which classical modern dance continues to rely.