When political protest is read as epidemic madness, religious ecstasy as nervous disease, and angular dance moves as dark and uncouth, the disorder being described is choreomania. At once a catchall term to denote spontaneous gestures and the unruly movements of crowds, choreomania emerged in the nineteenth century at a time of heightened class conflict, nationalist policy, and colonial rule. In this book, author Kelina Gotman examines these choreographies of unrest, rethinking the modern formation of the choreomania concept as it moved across scientific and social scientific disciplines. Reading archives describing dramatic misformationsof bodies and body politicsshe shows how prejudices against expressivity unravel, in turn revealing widespread anxieties about demonstrative agitation. This history of the fitful body complements stories of nineteenth-century discipline and regimentation. As she notes, constraints on movement imply constraints on political power and agency. In each chapter, Gotman confronts the many ways choreomania works as an extension of discourses shaping colonialist orientalism, which alternately depict riotous bodies as dangerously infected others, and as curious bacchanalian remains. Through her research, Gotman also shows how beneath the radar of this colonial discourse, men and women gathered together to repossess on their terms the gestures of social revolt.

This is an epic tale; a fantasy replete with grand romances and countless avenues leading to divine love. Venture through diverse time perspectives and complex mythologies of the gods in this multidimensional drama, inspired by ancient Asian principles. The Gold Lotus is a dance in written form; a saga with a rhythmic delivery that will transport you through intricate plots, legendary wars, unsettling separations and passionate love, unbound. Manifested in a time of darkness and war, the celestial being Kanu prepares for a journey brought on by Muniji, the minstrel saint, to face a destiny that stands between destruction and salvation. Weaving through the ways of love and power, the almighty Kanu will learn to become the saviour of his heavenly kingdom while discovering the deepest desires of the heart and defeating evil - both within and without. As the heavenly kingdom yearns for its saviour, a formidable and broken God of War comes to battle with an unpredictable foe that has bested the mightiest of warriors before him: finding the lost love capable of fulfilling the void in his heart. What (or who) he finds as the answer proves to be a riddle never before encountered by the revered warrior. Alongside Kanu and a kingdom of mystical beings that oversee the forces of existence, the celestial war for balance is far from won and the stakes grow higher with every heartbeat.

Honest Bodies: Revolutionary Modernism in the Dances of Anna Sokolow illustrates the ways in which Sokolow's choreography circulated American modernism among Jewish and communist channels of the international Left from the 1930s-1960s in the United States, Mexico, and Israel. Drawing upon extensive archival materials, interviews, and theories from dance, Jewish, and gender studies, this book illuminates Sokolow's statements for workers' rights, anti-racism, and the human condition through her choreography for social change alongside her dancing and teaching for Martha Graham. Tracing a catalog of dances with her companies Dance Unit, La Paloma Azul, Lyric Theatre, and Anna Sokolow Dance Company, along with presenters and companies the Negro Cultural Committee, New York State Committee for the Communist Party, Federal Theatre Project, Nuevo Grupo Mexicano de Clasicas y Modernas, and Inbal Dance Theater, this book highlights Sokolow's work in conjunction with developments in ethnic definitions, diaspora, and nationalism in the US, Mexico, and Israel.

Focusing on some of the best-known and most visible stage plays and dance performances of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, Penny Farfan's interdisciplinary study demonstrates that queer performance was integral to and productive of modernism, that queer modernist performance played a key role in the historical emergence of modern sexual identities, and that it anticipated, and was in a sense foundational to, the insights of contemporary queer modernist studies. Chapters on works from Vaslav Nijinsky's Afternoon of a Faun to Noel Coward's Private Lives highlight manifestations of and suggest ways of reading queer modernist performance. Together, these case studies clarify aspects of both the queer and the modernist, and how their co-productive intersection was articulated in and through performance on the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century stage. Performing Queer Modernism thus contributes to an expanded understanding of modernism across a range of performance genres, the central role of performance within modernism more generally, and the integral relation between performance history and the history of sexuality. It also contributes to the ongoing transformation of the field of modernist studies, in which drama and performance remain under-represented, and to revisionist historiographies that approach modernist performance through feminist and queer critical perspectives and interdisciplinary frameworks and that consider how formally innovative as well as more conventional works collectively engaged with modernity, at once reflecting and contributing to historical change in the domains of gender and sexuality.

This second volume of John Froy's memoir, a sequel to his childhood story in 70 Waterloo Road, takes us from Italy to Reading University and Falmouth School of Art with many twists and turns between. The memoir chronicles the life of an art student in the 70s: a time of great experiment and change; the figurative/abstract divide in painting and sculpture; the new photography, film and Happenings. And in the gaps, while extricating himself from the family home, being a volunteer archaeologist in Assisi, an osprey warden in Scotland, a London bedsit and dead-end job, a Wiltshire valley idyll and landscape painting in a caravan through a Cornish winter. 'Things may come and things may go, but the art school dance goes on for ever.' (Pete Brown, 1970)

"Ballet inspires me. Human beings have the capacity to express themselves through many art forms, but when it comes to dance - and especially classical modern ballet - I am always amazed by that unbelievably elevated form of expression. It's so precise and so incredibly skilled; I admire that enormously." - Photographer and filmmaker Erwin Olaf "The fact that the photographer is looking through the camera lens means they have a different perspective from looking directly at the figure. That is voyeuristic. The camera can do something that the audience member can't: zooming in for a close-up." - Choreographer Hans van Manen The grand master of Dutch dance, Hans van Manen, celebrates his 90th birthday this year. That has given rise to international celebrations by leading ballet companies with the Hans van Manen festival from 8 to 29 June 2022, the exclusive publication Dance in Close-Up and the exhibition of the same name in Galerie Ron Mandos in Amsterdam from 19 June to 17 July 2022. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Hans van Manen was not only one of the world's leading choreographers, but also an internationally acclaimed photographer. It was during this period that the then very young photographer Erwin Olaf met the famed artist, who immediately took him under his wing and introduced him to the world of the visual arts and studio photography. This book celebrates their 40 years of friendship, with a photo series in which Van Manen directs moments from his choreographic career, recorded with the utmost precision by Erwin Olaf. With text contributions from the authors Nina Siegal and Michael James Gardner.

Playable Bodies investigates what happens when machines teach humans to dance. Dance video games work as engines of humor, shame, trust, and intimacy, urging players to dance like nobody's watching-while being tracked by motion-sensing interfaces in their living rooms. The chart-topping dance game franchises Just Dance and Dance Central transform players' experiences of popular music, invite experimentation with gendered and racialized movement styles, and present new possibilities for teaching, learning, and archiving choreography. Author Kiri Miller shows how these games teach players to regard their own bodies as both interfaces and avatars, and how a convergence of choreography and programming code is driving a new wave of full-body virtual-reality media experiences. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research with players, game designers, and choreographers, Playable Bodies situates dance games in a media ecology that includes the larger game industry, viral music videos, reality TV competitions, marketing campaigns, consumer reviews, social media discourse, and emerging surveillance technologies. Miller tracks the circulation of dance gameplay and related "body projects" across media platforms to reveal how dance games function as "intimate media," configuring new relationships among humans, interfaces, music and dance repertoires, and social media practices.

Since its 1998 publication, the International Encyclopedia of Dance has been the definitive source on this expressive art form, documenting all types of dance around the world and throughout history. Now available in an affordable, attractive paperback edition, this indispensable reference makes a stunning addition to the small library. It is now also available as an e-reference text from Oxford's Digital Reference Shelf. In six volumes, the Encyclopedia offers authoritative coverage of the full spectrum of dance, including theatrical, ritual dance-drama, folk, traditional, ethnic, and social dance. Extensive historical and cultural overviews of many nations appear along with articles on specific dance forms, music and costumes, performances, biographies of dancers and choreographers, and much more. The set features nearly 2,000 alphabetically arranged articles, an exhaustive index, full cross-references, and more than 2,300 illustrations. Amazing in its scope and dazzling in its diversity, the Encyclopedia is like no other reference work on dance. Accessibly written and arranged for use by a wide audience, it is essential for academic and public libraries, and every arts and humanities aficionado.

While there are books about folk dances from individual countries or regions, there isn't a single comprehensive book on folk dances across the globe. This illustrated compendium offers the student, teacher, choreographer, historian, media critic, ethnographer, and general reader an overview of the evolution and social and religious significance of folk dance. The Encyclopedia of World Folk Dance focuses on the uniqueness of kinetic performance and its contribution to the study and appreciation of rhythmic expression around the globe. Following a chronology of momentous events dating from prehistory to the present day, the entries in this volume include material on technical terms, character roles, and specific dances. The entries also summarize the historical and ethnic milieu of each style and execution, highlighting, among other elements, such features as: *origins *purpose *rituals and traditions *props *dress *holidays *themes

The mystery of the body in motion. The surprise of seeing what seems impossible. And the pure, joyful optimism of it all. "Dancers Among Us" presents one thrilling photograph after another of dancers leaping, spinning, lifting, kicking - but in the midst of daily life: on the beach, at a construction site, in a library, a restaurant, a park. With each image the reader feels buoyed up, eager to see the next bit of magic. Photographer Jordan Matter started his Dancers Among Us Project by asking a member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company to dance for him in a place where dance is unexpected. So, dressed in a commuter's suit and tie, the dancer flew across a Times Square subway platform. And in that image Matter found what he'd been searching for: a way to express the feeling of being fully alive in the moment, unself-conscious, present. Organized around themes of work, play, love, exploration, dreaming, and more, "Dancers Among Us" celebrates life in a way that's fresh, surprising, original, universal. There's no photo-shopping here, no trampolines, no gimmicks, no tricks. Just a photographer, his vision, and the serendipity of what happens when the shutter clicks.

Der judische Tanz- und Theaterkritiker Artur Michel gehoerte zu den kenntnis- und einflussreichsten Tanzberichterstattern der Weimarer Republik. In diesem Band ist sein Hauptwerk - die Tanzkritiken aus der Vossischen Zeitung zwischen 1922 und 1934 - abgedruckt. Es liest sich als eine spannende und ausserst lebendige Tanzgeschichte des modernen kunstlerischen Tanzes in Europa. Artur Michel entwickelte ab 1922 in der Vossischen Zeitung systematisch die Tanzkritik. Er engagierte sich fur den modernen kunstlerischen Buhnentanz und trat damit den Freunden des klassischen Balletts kampferisch entgegen. Sein Idol war Mary Wigman. Ihre Auffassungen eines "absoluten Tanzes" unterstutzte er nach Kraften. Die Vossische Zeitung war eine der wichtigsten uberregionalen Berliner Tageszeitungen. Sie galt als Sprachrohr des liberalen Burgertums. Als das Blatt 1934 aus Protest gegen die von den Nationalsozialisten gleichgeschaltete Presse sein Erscheinen einstellte, verlor Michel sein wichtigstes Publikationsorgan. Erst 1941 erkannte er, dass er in Nazi-Deutschland nicht mehr sicher leben konnte und floh in letzter Minute auf abenteuerlichem Weg nach New York. Bis zu seinem Tod im Jahr 1946 schrieb er nunmehr in der deutsch-judischen Emigrantenzeitschrift Aufbau uber den modernen kunstlerischen Tanz in den USA.

This book is a collection of essays that capture the artistic voices at play during a staging process. Situating familiar practices such as reimagining, reenactment and recreation alongside the related and often intersecting processes of transmission, translation and transformation, it features deep insights into selected dances from directors, performers, and close associates of choreographers. The breadth of practice on offer illustrates the capacity of dance as a medium to adapt successfully to diverse approaches and, further, that there is a growing appetite amongst audiences for seeing dances from the near and far past. This study spans a century, from Rudolf Laban's Dancing Drumstick (1913) to Robert Cohan's Sigh (2015), and examines works by Mary Wigman, Madge Atkinson (Natural Movement), Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham, Yvonne Rainer and Rosemary Butcher, an eclectic mix that crosses time and borders.

This is a book about collaboration in the arts, which explores how working together seems to achieve more than the sum of the parts. It introduces ideas from economics to conceptualize notions of externalities, complementarity, and emergence, and playfully explores collaborative structures such as the swarm, the crowd, the flock, and the network. It uses up-to-date thinking about Wikinomics, Postcapitalism, and Biopolitics, underpinned by ideas from Foucault, Bourriaud, and Hardt and Negri. In a series of thought-provoking case studies, the authors consider creative practices in theatre, music and film. They explore work by artists such as Gob Squad, Eric Whitacre, Dries Verhoeven, Pete Wyer, and Tino Seghal, and encounter both live and online collaborative possibilities in fascinating discussions of Craigslist and crowdfunding at the Edinburgh Festival. What is revealed is that the introduction of Web 2.0 has enabled a new paradigm of artistic practice to emerge, in which participatory encounters, collaboration, and online dialogue become key creative drivers. Written itself as a collaborative project between Karen Savage and Dominic Symonds, this is a strikingly original take on the economics of working together.

Tchaikovsky's Ballets combines analysis of the music of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker with a description based on rare and not easily accessible documents of the first productions of these works in imperial Russia. Essential background concerning the ballet audience, the collaboration of composer and ballet-master, and Moscow in the 1860s leads into an account of the first production of Swan Lake in 1877. A discussion of the theatre reforms initiated by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres and Tchaikovsky's patron, prepares us for a study of the still-famous 1890 production of Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky's first collaboration with the choreographer Marius Petipa. Professor Wiley then explains how Nutcracker, which followed two years after Sleeping Beauty, was seen by its producers and audiences in a much less favourable light in 1882 than it is now. The final chapter discusses the celebrated revival of Swan Lake in 1985 by Petipa and Leve Ivanov.

What is dance, as seen from a philosopher's point of view? Why has dance played little part in traditional philosophies of the arts? And why do these philosophies of the arts take the form they do? The distinguished aesthetician Francis Sparshott subjects these questions to a thorough examination that takes into account all forms and aspects of dance, in art and in life, and brings them within the scope of a single discussion. By showing what is involved in deciding whether something is or is not dance, and by displaying the diversity of ways in which dance can be found meaningful, he provides a new sort of background for dance aesthetics and dance criticism. At the same time he makes a far-reaching contribution to the methodology of the philosophy of art and practice. In a witty and personal style that will be familiar to readers of his earlier books, Professor Sparshott makes a distinction between dance and its neighbors (such as work, sports, and games) and points out that it is more profoundly connected to questions of self-knowledge than the other arts. Dance differs from any of the fine arts in that it can be seen, not as the manipulation of a medium, but as self-transformation. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image examines the choreographic in cinema - the way choreographic elements inform cinematic operations in dancefilm. It traces the history of the form from some of its earliest manifestations in the silent film era, through the historic avant-garde, musicals and music videos to contemporary experimental short dancefilms. In so doing it also examines some of the most significant collaborations between dancers, choreographers, and filmmakers.
The book also sets out to examine and rethink the parameters of dancefilm and thereby re-conceive the relations between dance and cinema. Dancefilm is understood as a modality that challenges familiar models of cinematic motion through its relation to the body, movement and time, instigating new categories of filmic performance and creating spectatorial experiences that are grounded in the somatic. Drawing on debates in both film theory (in particular ideas of gesture, the close up, and affect) and dance theory (concepts such as radical phrasing, the gestural anacrusis and somatic intelligence) and bringing these two fields into dialogue, the book argues that the combination of dance and film produces cine-choreographic practices that are specific to the dancefilm form. The book thus presents new models of cinematic movement that are both historically informed and thoroughly interdisciplinary.

This book is an international anthology about dance seen as a world of dreams, ideals or paradises lost - a place where identity and reality are at stake. Through essays, interviews, and analytical reflections, such diverse subjects are treated as Bournonville's ideal of a critic, Nijinsky's faun versus the romantic dream of elusive women, the broken marriage between music and dance, dancing as an erotic motif in the paintings of the Danish Golden Age, and the beast in dance from Swan Lake to butoh.

Elizabeth Streb has been testing the potential of the human body since childhood. Can she fly? Can she run up walls? Can she break through glass? How fast can she go? With clarity and humor--and with a world-class dance troupe called STREB--she continues to investigate what real movement is and has come to these conclusions: It's off the ground! It creates impact! It hurts trying to stop it! In this pathbreaking book, Streb combines memoir and analysis to convey how she became an extreme action dancer/choreographer, developing a form of movement that's more NASCAR than modern dance; more boxing than ballet.

Once called the Evel Knievel of dance, Elizabeth Streb intertwines the disciplines of dance, athletics, rodeo, the circus, and Hollywood stunt-work. She founded STREB in 1985, which performs internationally in theaters, museums, and town squares. She established S.L.A.M. (STREB Lab for Action Mechanics) in 2003, a factory space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which produces a cottage industry of extreme action performances and invites everyday people to wonder about movement, gravity, and flight.

Actor, playwright, and author Anna Deveare Smith is performing her latest play Let Me Down Easy off-Broadway, and she appears on Showtime's Nurse Jackie.

A celebration of the human body and spirit in more than 100 photographs - all nude, all taken at night. These photographs illustrate the hard work and the dedication it takes to succeed in dancing, acting, photography - or really any creative endeavour that at first may be incredibly frightening or make you feel vulnerable, but once achieved offers an exhilaration previously unimagined. The photos were shot over 200 nights, with 300 different dancers, in more than 400 locations, in all kinds of weather. The photos are grouped by theme - Vulnerability, Ferocity, Stability, Ecstasy - and include shots from sunset to dawn, in spectacular black and white and glorious colour. Many will be accompanied by an inspiring quote. Additional text will include Jordan's introductory essay, describing how he came up with the book idea and how he is inspired by the dancers he photographs, as well as "Behind the Scenes" stories of how the shot was achieved and "In Their Shoes" - words from the dancers on what it was like to be photographed in nude in public.