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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Dance
Beyond Dance: Laban's Legacy of Movement Analysis offers
students of dance and movement a brief introduction to the life and
work of Rudolf Laban, and how this work has been extended into the
fields of movement therapy, communications, early childhood
development, and other fields.
While many dance students know of Laban and his work as it
applies to their field, few know the full story of how this
technique has developed and grown. For many who enter into the
fields of dance movement therapy, performance, and communications,
there are valuable lessons to be learned from Laban and his
follower's works. Beyond Dance offers a concise introduction to
this world. Refreshingly free of jargon and easy to understand, the
work offers dance students and others interested in human movement
a full picture of the many possibilities inherent in Laban's
theories. For many who will pursue careers 'beyond dance', this
work will be a useful guidebook into related areas.
This will be ideally suited to students of Laban movement theory
in dance and movement therapy, and will be used in advanced courses
in these areas as useful, brief introduction to the field.
Maria Fay's third and final book covers the evolution of her
approach to teaching character dance to classical ballet dancers.
First written some years ago, but never published until now, it
includes an entertaining narrative account, together with
descriptions and analysis of exercises for seven different
character dance styles: Hungarian Court, Polish, Hungarian Gypsy,
Russian, Romanian, Georgian, and Hungarian Peasant. Her particular
system has formed the foundation of classes taught in recent times
at the Royal Ballet School by her former students Amanda Maxwell
and Tania Fairbairn. This historical record of an important strand
of work by the renowned Hungarian dancer, teacher, choreographer
and coach will be of interest to the dance community worldwide.
In August 1960, Anna Halprin taught an experimental workshop
attended by Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer (along with Trisha Brown
and other soon-to-be important artists) on her dance deck on the
slopes of Mount Tamalpais, north of San Francisco. Within two
years, Forti's conceptually forceful Dance Constructions had
premiered in Yoko Ono's loft and Rainer had cofounded the
groundbreaking Judson Dance Theater. Radical Bodies reunites
Halprin, Forti, and Rainer for the first time inmore than
fifty-five years. Dance was a fundamental part of the art world in
the 1960s, the most volatile decade in American art, offering a
radical image of bodily presence in a moment of revolutionary
change. Halprin, Forti, and Rainer-all with Jewish roots-found
themselves at the epicenter of this upheaval. Each, in her own
tenacious, humorous, and critical way, created a radicalized vision
for dance, dance making, and, ultimately, for music and the visual
arts. Placing the body and performance at the center of debate,
each developed corporeal languages and methodologies that continue
to influence choreographers and visual artists around the world to
the present day, enabling a critical practice that reinserts social
and political issues into postmodern dance and art. Published in
association with the Art, Design & Architecture Museum,
University of California, Santa Barbara. Exhibition dates: Art,
Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa
Barbara: January 17-April 30, 2017 New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts: May 24-September 16, 2017 Events: Pillowtalks,
Jacob's Pillow, Becket, MA: July 1, 2017
This book is an exploration into the history, aesthetics, social
reality, regulation, and transformation of dance and dance music in
Egypt. It covers Oriental dance, known as belly dance or danse du
ventre, regional or group-specific dances and rituals, sha'bi
(lower-class urban music and dance style), mulid (drawing on Sufi
tradition and saints' day festivals) and mahraganat (youth-created,
primarily electronic music with lively rhythms and biting lyrics).
The chapters discuss genres and sub-genres and their evolution, the
demeanor of dancers, trends old and new, and social and political
criticism that use the imagery of dance or a dancer. Also
considered are the globalization of Egyptian dance, the replication
or fantasies of raqs sharqi outside of Egypt, as well as the dance
as a hobby, competitive dance form, and focus of international
dance festivals.
Drawing on avant garde and classical Japanese dance traditions, the
Alishina Method offers a systematized approach to Butoh dance
training for the first time in its history. With practical
instruction and fully illustrated exercises, this book teaches
readers: * basic body training and expression exercises * exercises
to cultivate Qi (energy) and to aid improvisation * about katas
(forms) and how to develop your own * the importance of voice,
sound and music in Butoh * to collaborate and be in harmony with
others * techniques to manipulate time and space * how to develop
the imagination and refine the senses to enrich performance. This
authentic approach to Japanese dance will be compelling reading for
anyone interested in contemporary dance, performance arts, Japanese
culture or personal development techniques.
This volume provides new, ground-breaking perspectives on the
globally renowned work of the Tanztheater Wuppertal and its iconic
founder and artistic director, Pina Bausch. The company's
performances, how it developed its productions, the global transfer
of its choreographic material and the reactions of audiences and
critics are explained as complex, interdependent and reciprocal
processes of translation. This is the first book to focus on the
artistic research conducted for the Tanztheater's international
coproductions and features extensive interviews with dancers,
collaborators and spectators and provides first-hand ethnographic
insights into the work process. By introducing the praxeology of
translation as a key methodological concept for dance research,
Gabriele Klein argues that Pina Bausch's lasting legacy is defined
by an entanglement of temporalities that challenges the notion of
contemporaneity.
Jamaican dancehall has long been one of the most vital and
influential cultural and artistic forces within contemporary global
music. "Wake the Town and Tell the People" presents, for the first
time, a lively, nuanced, and comprehensive view of this musical and
cultural phenomenon: its growth and historical role within Jamaican
society, its economy of star making, its technology of production,
its performative practices, and its capacity to channel political
beliefs through popular culture in ways that are urgent, tangible,
and lasting.
Norman C. Stolzoff brings a fan's enthusiasm to his broad
perspective on dancehall, providing extensive interviews, original
photographs, and anthropological analysis from eighteen months of
fieldwork in Kingston. Stolzoff argues that this enormously popular
musical genre expresses deep conflicts within Jamaican society, not
only along lines of class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion
but also between different factions struggling to gain control of
the island nation's political culture. Dancehall culture thus
remains a key arena where the future of this volatile nation is
shaped. As his argument unfolds, Stolzoff traces the history of
Jamaican music from its roots in the late eighteenth century to
1945, from the addition of sound systems and technology during the
mid-forties to early sixties, and finally through the
post-independence years from the early sixties to the
present.
"Wake the Town and Tell the People" offers a general introduction
for those interested in dancehall music and culture. For the fan or
musicologist, it will serve as a comprehensive reference book.
This definitive work on the contribution of the Gypsies to the
development of flamenco traces their influences on music from their
long migration from India, through Iran, Turkey, Greece, and
Hungary, to their persecution in Spain. This new updated edition
provides fuller explanations of some of the technical terms and an
invaluable biographical dictionary of 200 of the foremost Gypsy
flamenco artists from its origins to the present day, as well as a
discography and videography.
An innovative examination of the ways in which dance and philosophy
inform each other, Dance and Philosophy brings together authorities
from a variety of disciplines to expand our understanding of dance
and dance scholarship. Featuring an eclectic mix of materials from
exposes to dance therapy sessions to demonstrations, Dance and
Philosophy addresses centuries of scholarship, dance practice, the
impacts of technological and social change, politics, cultural
diversity and performance. Structured thematically to draw out the
connection between different perspectives, this books covers: -
Philosophy practice and how it corresponds to dance - Movement,
embodiment and temporality - Philosophy and dance traditions in
everyday life - The intersection between dance and technology -
Critical reflections on dance Offering important contributions to
our understanding of dance as well as expanding the study of
philosophy, this book is key to sparking new conversations
concerning the philosophy of dance.
Ted Shawn (1891-1972), is the self-proclaimed "Father of American
Dance" who helped to transform dance from a national pastime into
theatrical art. In the process, he made dancing an acceptable
profession for men and taught several generations of dancers, some
of whom went on to become legendary choreographers and performers
in their own right, most notably his protegees Martha Graham,
Louise Brooks, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Shawn tried for
many years and with great frustration to tell the story of his
life's work in terms of its social and artistic value, but
struggled, owing to the fact that he was homosexual, a fact known
only within his inner circle of friends. Unwilling to disturb the
meticulously narrated account of his paternal exceptionalism, he
remained closeted, but scrupulously archived his journals,
correspondence, programs, photographs, and motion pictures of his
dances, anticipating that the full significance of his life,
writing, and dances would reveal itself in time. Ted Shawn: His
Life, Writings, and Dances is the first critical biography of the
dance legend, offering an in-depth look into Shawn's pioneering
role in the formation of the first American modern dance company
and school, the first all-male dance company, and Jacob's Pillow,
the internationally renowned dance festival and school located in
the Berkshires. The book explores Shawn's writings and dances in
relation to emerging discourses of modernism, eugenics and social
evolution, revealing an untold story about the ways that Shawn's
homosexuality informed his choreographic vision. The book also
elucidates the influences of contemporary writers who were leading
a radical movement to depathologize homosexuality, such as the
British eugenicist Havelock Ellis and sexologist Alfred Kinsey, and
conversely, how their revolutionary ideas about sexuality were
shaped by Shawn's modernism.
The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies brings together leading
international dance scholars in this single collection to provide a
vivid picture of the state of contemporary dance research. The book
commences with an introduction that privileges dancing as both a
site of knowledge formation and a methodological approach, followed
by a provocative overview of the methods and problems that dance
studies currently faces as an established disciplinary field. The
volume contains eleven core chapters that each map out a specific
area of inquiry: Dance Pedagogy, Practice-As-Research, Dance and
Politics, Dance and Identity, Dance Science, Screendance, Dance
Ethnography, Popular Dance, Dance History, Dance and Philosophy,
and Digital Dance. Although these sub-disciplinary domains do not
fully capture the dynamic ways in which dance scholars work across
multiple positions and perspectives, they reflect the major
interests and innovations around which dance studies has organized
its teaching and research. Therefore each author speaks to the
labels, methods, issues and histories of each given category, while
also exemplifying this scholarship in action. The dances under
investigation range from experimental conceptual concert dance
through to underground street dance practices, and the geographic
reach encompasses dance-making from Europe, North and South
America, the Caribbean and Asia. The book ends with a chapter that
looks ahead to new directions in dance scholarship, in addition to
an annotated bibliography and list of key concepts. The volume is
an essential guide for students and scholars interested in the
creative and critical approaches that dance studies can offer.
Women with pizzazz. Dances to shock and enchant. With heroines like
Josephine Baker and Isadora Duncan, this was never going to be a
conventional history. Buonaventura's book is rich with fascinating
anecdotes (like the New Jersey girl arrested for dancing the Turkey
Trot on her lunch hour) and astonishing facts (the first geisha
were men), as well as tender portrayals of dancers whose stage
antics have earned them lasting fame. The author takes us to Buenos
Aires and the first immigrants dancing the tango; to Paris and the
bawdy entertainers of the Moulin Rouge; to Chicago and New York,
where struggling black Americans cakewalk, charleston and shimmy
their long road from slavery. She returns to the Middle East, and
the Arabic dance that led to a life-long fascination with the
dancing body. On the way, she takes in Princess Diana, anorexia,
transvestism and cosmetic surgery. This is a book for anyone
intrigued by the sublime, sexy and downright surreal ways we find
to strut our stuff.
A portrait of America's most graceful and elegant male dancer and
how he came to represent the essence of style, suavity, and charm
Joseph Epstein's Fred Astaire investigates the great dancer's
magical talent, taking up the story of his life, his personality,
his work habits, his modest pretensions, and above all his
accomplishments. Written with the wit and grace the subject
deserves, Fred Astaire provides a remarkable portrait of this
extraordinary artist and how he came to embody for Americans a
fantasy of easy elegance and, paradoxically, of democratic
aristocracy. Tracing Astaire's life from his birth in Omaha to his
death in his late eighties in Hollywood, the book discusses his
early days with his talented and outspoken sister Adele, his gifts
as a singer (Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern all
delighted in composing for Astaire), and his many movie dance
partners, among them Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth, Eleanor Powell,
and Betty Hutton. A key chapter of the book is devoted to Astaire's
somewhat unwilling partnership with Ginger Rogers, the woman with
whom he danced most dazzlingly. What emerges from these pages is a
fascinating view of an American era, seen through the
accomplishments of Fred Astaire, an unassuming but uncompromising
performer who transformed entertainment into art and gave America a
new yet enduring standard for style.
NOW A MAJOR FILM BY RALPH FIENNES, THE WHITE CROW 'A gripping
account of an extraordinary life' Daily Telegraph Born on a train
in Stalin's Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet's first pop icon. No
other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement - both
on and off stage. Nureyev's achievements and conquests became
legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the
Kirov's thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor's
wife; defected to the West in 1961; sparked Rudimania across the
globe; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history
with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique;
gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and staged Russia's
unknown ballet masterpieces in the West. He and his life were
simply astonishing. 'Magnificent, a triumph. Captures every facet
of this extraordinary man' Mail on Sunday 'The definitive study of
a man who, in his combination of aesthetic grace and psychological
grime, can truly be called a sacred monster' Observer 'Undoubtedly
the definitive biography' Sunday Telegraph
This volume explores the history of dance on the historically black
college and university (HBCU) campus, casting a first light on the
historical practices and current state of college dance program
practice in HBCUs. The author addresses how HBCU dance programs
developed their institutional visions and missions in a manner that
offers students an experience of American higher education in
dance, while honoring how the African diaspora persists in and
through these experiences. Chapters illustrate how both Western and
African diaspora dances have persisted, integrated through
curriculum and practice, and present a model for culturally
inclusive histories, traditions, and practices that reflect Western
and African diasporas in ongoing dialogue and negotiation on the
HBCU campus today.
'What a multi-sensory pleasure in learning! I will be a better
teacher and better clinician using what I am learning from this
book.' Carol M Davis DPT, EdD, MS, FAPTA The emerging science of
biotensegrity provides a fresh context for re-thinking our
understanding of human movement, but its complexities can be
formidable. Bodywork and movement professionals looking for an
accessible and relevant guide to the concept and application of
biotensegrity need look no further than Everything Moves: How
biotensegrity informs human movement. In order to work with our own
bodies and the bodies of our students, clients and teams most
effectively, we need to understand the nature of our human
structure. Everything Moves offers the enquiring bodyworker or
movement professional, who wants to take their understanding of how
to apply biotensegrity in their work to the next level, a practical
and relatable guide to the biotensegral nature of our bodies, in
which all of the parts are one, yet all are constantly changing.
Throughout Everything Moves, concepts and ideas are presented with
activities and exercises to make them tangible, accessible and
applicable. The material presented is suitable for coaches and
movement teachers new to biotensegrity, as well as those with more
advanced levels of understanding. Whether your focus is
performance, sports, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, yoga,
Pilates, martial arts, or dance, any arena in which bodies move can
be informed by Everything Moves!
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