Dancers as Diplomats chronicles the role of dance and dancers in American cultural diplomacy. In the early decades of the Cold War and the twenty-first century, American dancers toured the globe on tours sponsored by the US State Department. Dancers as Diplomats tells the story of how these tours in shaped and some times re-imagined ideas of America in unexpected, often sensational circumstances-pirouetting in Moscow as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded and dancing in Burma in the days just before the country held its first democratic elections. Based on more than seventy interviews with dancers who traveled on the tours, the book looks at a wide range of American dance companies, among them New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Urban Bush Women, ODC/Dance, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, and the Trey McIntyre Project, among others. These companies traveled the world. During the Cold War, they dance everywhere from the Soviet Union during the Cold War to Vietnam just months before the US abandoned Saigon. In the post 9/11 era, they traveled to Asia and Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In honour of Doris Humphrey's centennial, which was celebrated worldwide in 1995, this issue explores her legacy to the world of dance and her place in history. The varied aspects of her work are covered including choreography, teaching approach, Labanotation scores, reconstruction/recreations, and composition. In order to convey a sense of movement into the next century, the articles are presented in "chronological" order, beginning with that of Ernestine Stodelle, who worked with Humphrey during the 1920's and ending with an examination of Mindlin's 1995 experience learning Humphrey's work from Stodelle.

A videotape showing Kurt Jooss and Isa Partsch-Bergsohn in conversation is available with this book.
The United States took the lead in modern dance innovation during the 1960s when artists such as Martha Graham, Josea Limoan, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey and Alwin Nikolais overwhelmed European audiences. Subsequently, the "New German Tanztheatre" revitalized German theatre traditions with its new content and application of some of the United States modern dance techniques. This book discusses both parallels and distinctions between the history of modern dance in the United States and Germany.
Examining the problems encountered by the artist in a particular social-cultural context, Isa Partsch-Bergsohn follows the closely related and yet distinctive histories of modern dance in Germany and the United States between 1920 and 1968. She analyses the initial movement in Europe with the philosophies of Dalcroze, Laban, Wigman and Jooss, the effects of the "Third Reich" on the artists, the sub

The United States took the lead in modern dance innovation during the 1960s when artists such as Martha Graham, Josse Limbon, Paul Taylor, Alvin Aeiley and Alwin Nikolais overwhelmed European audiences. Subsequently, the New German Tanztheatre revitalized German theatre traditions with its new content and application of some of the United States modern dance techniques. This book discusses both parallels and distinctions between the history of modern dance in the United States and Germany. This work examines the phenomena of the modern dance movement between 1920 and 1968 in an international context, focusing on its beginnings in Europe and its philosophy as formulated by Dalcroze, Laban, Wigman, and Jooss. The book traces the effects of the Third Reich on these artists as well as their influence on the developing American modern dance movement through the postwar years, with a particular focus on Kurt Jooss and the Tanztheatre.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A book on how to teach dance and train dancers, by one of the US's leading dance teachers. Written for dance teachers in both professional settings and academic settings. A unique approach, following Bill's own six decades of dance teaching and not covered by any other book.

Merce Cunningham reached the age of 75 in 1994, an age at which many creative artists are content to rest on their laurels, or at least to leave behind whatever controversies they may have caused during their careers. No so Cunningham. In the first place, his 70s have been a time of intense creativity in which he has choreographed as many as four new works a year. Cunningham is a strongly committed as ever to the discovery of new ways of moving and of making movement, refusing to be hampered by the physical limitations that have come with age. Since 1991 every new work has been made at least in part with the use of the computer program Life Forms, which enables him to devise choreographic phrases that he himself would be unable to perform - and which challenge and develop the virtuosity of the young dancers in his company. The essays collected in this special issue of Choreography and Dance were written over the last few years and discuss various aspects of the work of Cunningham as seen both from the outside and the inside.

How does the moving, dancing body engage with the materials, textures, atmospheres, and affects of the sites through which we move and in which we live, work and play? How might embodied movement practice explore some of these relations and bring us closer to the complexities of sites and lived environments? This book brings together perspectives from site dance, phenomenology, and new materialism to explore and develop how 'site-based body practice' can be employed to explore synergies between material bodies and material sites. Employing practice-as-research strategies, scores, tasks and exercises the book presents a number of suggestions for engaging with sites through the moving body and offers critical reflection on the potential enmeshments and entanglements that emerge as a result. The theoretical discussions and practical explorations presented will appeal to researchers, movement practitioners, artists, academics and individuals interested in exploring their lived environments through the moving body and the entangled human-nonhuman relations that emerge as a result.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Both Buddhism and dance invite the practitioner into present-moment embodiment. The rise of Western Buddhism, sacred dance and dance/movement therapy, along with the mindfulness meditation boom, has created opportunities for Buddhism to inform dance aesthetics and for Buddhist practice to be shaped by dance. This collection of new essays documents the innovative work being done at the intersection of Buddhism and dance. The contributors-scholars, choreographers and Buddhist masters-discuss movement, performance, ritual and theory, among other topics. The final section provides a variety of guided practices.

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.

This book traces the history of engagements between dance and the visual arts in the mid-twentieth century and provides a backdrop for the emerging field of contemporary, intermedial art practice. Exploring the disciplinary identity of dance in dialogue with the visual arts, this book unpacks how compositional methods that were dance-based informed visual art contexts. The book provokes fresh consideration of the entangled relationship between, and historiographic significance of, visual arts and dance by exploring movements in history that dance has been traditionally mapped to (Neo-Avant Garde, Neo-Dada, Conceptual art, Postmodernism, and Performance Art) and the specific practices and innovations from key people in the field (like John Cage, Anna Halprin, and Robert Rauschenberg). This book also employs a series of historical and critical case studies which show how compositional approaches from dance-breath, weight, tone, energy-informed the emergence of the intermedial. Ultimately this book shows how dance and choreography have played an important role in shaping visual arts culture and enables the re-imagination of current art practices through the use of choreographic tools. This unique and timely offering is important reading for those studying and researching in visual and fine arts, performance history and theory, dance practice and dance studies, as well as those working within the fields of dance and visual art. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com

This book traces the history of engagements between dance and the visual arts in the mid-twentieth century and provides a backdrop for the emerging field of contemporary, intermedial art practice. Exploring the disciplinary identity of dance in dialogue with the visual arts, this book unpacks how compositional methods that were dance-based informed visual art contexts. The book provokes fresh consideration of the entangled relationship between, and historiographic significance of, visual arts and dance by exploring movements in history that dance has been traditionally mapped to (Neo-Avant Garde, Neo-Dada, Conceptual art, Postmodernism, and Performance Art) and the specific practices and innovations from key people in the field (like John Cage, Anna Halprin, and Robert Rauschenberg). This book also employs a series of historical and critical case studies which show how compositional approaches from dance-breath, weight, tone, energy-informed the emergence of the intermedial. Ultimately this book shows how dance and choreography have played an important role in shaping visual arts culture and enables the re-imagination of current art practices through the use of choreographic tools. This unique and timely offering is important reading for those studying and researching in visual and fine arts, performance history and theory, dance practice and dance studies, as well as those working within the fields of dance and visual art. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com

This text is intended to provide a concise history of dance for both undergraduate and graduate students in the History of Dance.

An often overlooked segment of Maine (and American) history is the story of women in the working class dance industries. Generally looked upon with a gasp of shock, burlesque and vaudeville dancing, and later taxi dancing and marathon dancing, were often the only way for women to survive (In taxi dancing, men paid women by the dance; while marathon dancing was a contest and women tried to outlast each other on the dance floor.) In turn-of-the-20th-century Maine, this new form of dancing was taking off, as it was elsewhere in the country. Historian Trudy Irene Scee explores the dance industries of Maine, how they were effected by national events, and how events in Maine effected national trends. She explores the difficulties women faced at that time and how they turned to new forms of entertainment to make money and pay for food and shelter. The focus of the book centers on the 1910s through the 1970s, but extends back into the 1800s, largely exploring the dance halls of the nineteenth century (be they saloons with hurdy-gurdy girls and the like, or dance halls with women performing the early forms of taxi- and belly dancing), and includes a chapter on belly dancing and other forms of dance entertainment in Maine in the 1980s to early 2000s. The newest form of dance-striptease dancing-is not be examined specifically, but is discussed as it pertains to the other dance forms. The book forms a unique look at one segment of Maine history and is a terrific addition to the literature on women's issues.

This book traces an engagement between intercultural dance company Marrugeku and unceded lands of the Yawuru, Bunuba, and Nyikina in the north west of Australia. In the face of colonial legacies and extractive capitalism, it examines how Indigenous ontologies bring ecological thought to dance through an entangled web of attachments to people, species, geologies, political histories, and land. Following choreographic interactions across the multiple subject positions of Indigenous, settler, and European artists between 2012-2016 the book closely examines projects such as Yawuru/Bardi dancer and choreographer Dalisa Pigram's solo Gudirr Gudirr (2013) and the multimedia work Cut the Sky (2015). Dance in Contested Land reveals how emergent intercultural dramaturgies can mediate dance and land to revision and reorientate kinetics, emotion, and responsibilities through sites of Indigenous resurgence and experimentation.

This book strives to unmask the racial inequity at the root of the emergence of modern physical culture systems in the US Progressive Era (1890s-1920s). This book focuses on physical culture - systematic, non-competitive exercise performed under the direction of an expert - because tracing how people practiced physical culture in the Progressive Era, especially middle- and upper-class white women, reveals how modes of popular performance, institutional regulation, and ideologies of individualism and motherhood combined to sublimate whiteness beneath the veneer of liberal progressivism and reform. The sites in this book give the fullest picture of the different strata of physical culture for white women during that time and demonstrate the unracialization of whiteness through physical culture practices. By illuminating the ways in which whiteness in the US became a default identity category absorbed into the "universal" ideals of culture, arts, and sciences, the author shows how physical culture circulated as a popular performance form with its own conventions, audience, and promised profitability. Finally, the chapters reveal troubling connections between the daily habits physical culturists promoted and the eugenics movement's drive towards more reproductively efficient white bodies. By examining these written, visual, and embodied texts, the author insists on a closer scrutiny of the implicit whiteness of physical culture and forwards it as a crucial site of analysis for performance scholars interested in how corporeality is marshaled by and able to contest local and global systems of power.

The Dancing God: Staging Hindu Dance in Australia charts the sensational and historic journey of de-provincialising and popularising Hindu dance in Australia. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, colonialism, orientalism and nationalism came together in various combinations to make traditional Hindu temple dance into a global art form. The intricately symbolic Hindu dance in its vital form was virtually unseen and unknown in Australia until an Australian impresario, Louise Lightfoot, brought it onto the stage. Her experimental changes, which modernised Kathakali dance through her pioneering collaboration with Indian dancer Ananda Shivaram, moved the Hindu dance from the sphere of ritualistic practice to formalised stage art. Amit Sarwal argues that this movement enabled both the authentic Hindu dance and dancer to gain recognition worldwide and created in his persona a cultural guru and ambassador on the global stage. Ideal for anyone with an interest in global dance, The Dancing God is an in-depth study of how a unique dance form evolved in the meeting of travellers and cultures.

Anna Halprin traces the life's work of this radical dance-maker, documenting her early career as a modern dancer in the 1940s through to the development of her groundbreaking approach to dance as an accessible and life-enhancing art form. Now revised and reissued, this book: sketches the evolution of the San Francisco Dancers' Workshop, exploring Halprin's connections with the avant-garde theatre, music, visual art and architecture of the 1950s and 60s offers a detailed analysis of Halprin's work from this period provides an important historical guide to a time when dance was first explored beyond the confines of the theatre and considered as a healing art for individuals and communities. As a first step towards critical understanding, and an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's student.

Children love to observe, explore, learn, and create. Elementary Dance Education helps them do all four. And it does so in a unique way, shaping its movement activities around nature themes. In fact, all of the learning experiences are based on different aspects of nature, as the text intertwines children's innate curiosity and observation skills with the processes of scientific inquiry and artistic creation. Elementary Dance Education helps teachers develop the instructional skills they need to incorporate dance into their curricula, providing over 70 movement activities and exercises for students in grades K-6. The activities, which stimulate children's minds and bodies through the process of collaborative dance creation, include variations for younger and older students. Ideas are offered for partner or small-group explorations, making the activities more inclusive and appropriate for each age group. Another unique feature of this book is the original music accompanying it. Teachers have access to 90 minutes of dynamic sounds, rhythmic percussion, captivating electro-acoustic compositions, and gentle atmospheric selections, delivered through HKPropel, to accompany the learning experiences. The compositions support students' movement explorations, conveying a range of images and emotions and inspiring a variety of responses. In addition, Elementary Dance Education offers the following: Discussion questions for each exercise, prompting in-class discussion and student exploration; the questions come with sample answers or ideas to encourage student responses and spur a fruitful discussion 75 photos and several diagrams to illustrate positions and poses and stimulate ideas for the movement exercises Journal prompts, tailored for older and younger children, to give students the opportunity to respond and reflect on the learning experiences Video links (provided in HKPropel) to help illustrate concepts and exercises, offer examples, or encourage students to watch for something specific in an activity The book's first chapter introduces the basic elements of dance; the remaining seven chapters offer movement exercises in various areas of nature: plants, animals, water, earth, sky, people, and other wonders. This book is a rich and easy-to-implement resource not only for elementary dance educators and physical educators but for classroom teachers as well. The exercises in this book use a template for movement discovery in which students will observe, explore, create, and share. This template "can be applied to all areas of the curriculum," says author Janice Pomer. "It's an invaluable tool for student engagement, satisfying children's capacity to watch, wonder, move, interact, discover, and share." Elementary Dance Education will promote children's creativity and curiosity, engage and challenge their minds and bodies, and help them learn to appreciate and support each other as they work together exploring, creating, and sharing their ideas and insights about the natural world through dance. Note: A code for accessing HKPropel is included with all new print books.

DANCER OFF HER FEET is an incredible true story that stands as an irrefutable witness to God's power to heal people both physically and spiritually. It has inspired and encouraged many thousands of people since its first publication in 1991. This edition contains a foreword written twelve years on, which brings Julie's story up to date and details the highs and lows she has since experienced.For three years, former ballet dancer Julie Sheldon was stricken with the neurological disease Dystonia, and her life hung in the balance. Crippled, enduring fierce muscle spasms, she was in intensive care when Canon Jim Glennon prayed for her. 'A corner was turned after that visit in June 1989, and by July I was out of hospital. In August I was out of the wheelchair and off crutches for good, and in September off all drugs. All the time there was this conviction of total healing, not just of the body but of the mind and spirit as well.'The news hit press headlines and amazed doctors: 'Julie has made a miraculous recovery,' said a professor of neurology. Julie herself would say, along with family and friends, that God has done a great deal more even than that.

Originally published as a special issue of Research in Dance Education, now with an added chapter, this text acknowledges and celebrates the increasingly diverse careers and employment networks in which dance professionals and dance educators are engaged. Addressing issues and developments relating to the workplace of dance, the text explores what it means to transcend the boundary between dance as passion, and dance as employment. Chapters explore challenges of professional practice including limitations on access, precarity, bodily risk, gender inequality, and sexual harassment, and challenge the status quo to offer readers new ways of thinking about dance, and how this might translate into professional practice and work. Ultimately celebrating the passion which motivates dancers to embark on a professional career, and highlighting the elation and joy which such employment can bring, this volume encourages dance professionals, students, and educators to imagine things differently and develop teaching approaches, curricula, work places, and communities which capitalise on the diversity and dedication of individuals in the field. This text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, professionals in the field of Dance, Dance Education, Choreography and related art forms, Curriculum studies and Sociology of Education.

The Routledge Dance Studies Reader has been expanded and updated, giving readers access to thirty-seven essential texts that address the social, political, cultural, and economic impact of globalization on embodiment and choreography. These interdisciplinary essays in dance scholarship consider a broad range of dance forms in relation to historical, ethnographic, and interdisciplinary research methods including cultural studies, reconstruction, media studies, and popular culture. This new third edition expands both its geographic and cultural focus to include recent research on dance from Southeast Asia, the People's Republic of China, indigenous dance, and new sections on market forces and mediatization. Sections cover: Methods and approaches Practice and performance Dance as embodied ideology Dance on the market and in the media Formations of the field. The Routledge Dance Studies Reader includes essays on concert dance (ballet, modern and postmodern dance, tap, kathak, and classical khmer dance), popular dance (salsa and hip-hop), site-specific performance, digital choreography, and lecture-performances. It is a vital resource for anyone interested in understanding dance from a global and contemporary perspective.

Many children dream of being a ballerina. Chin raised with purpose, arms high above head, they twirl clumsily around the living room and leap tirelessly in the air. Sooner or later they're bound to say, "I want to dance." Now what do you do? How do you know if the time is right? Where's the best place to start? In Getting Started in Ballet, Anna Paskevska draws from her training at the Paris Opera Ballet School and and the Royal Ballet School in London and her career as a professional dancer and teacher to offer a step-by-step introduction to dance education for parents with children starting ballet.

Paskevska begins with a historical overview of dance and discusses the fundamental virtues and many life-long skills it imparts. Dance teaches children how to cooperate and support each other's efforts; encourages them to work in harmony with others; helps establish a child's spatial relationships; and promotes discipline and responsibility. Paskevska outlines the proper sequence for training in ballet based on a child's physical and mental development. She clearly demonstrates how ballet's early training, focusing on repetition of simple motion such as exercises at the barre and basic jumps, establish pathways for all later movements not only in ballet, but in modern dance, jazz, and tap as well.

Written in a clear and accessible style and full of anecdotes from Paskevska's long professional dance-related career, Getting Started in Ballet offers helpful information on types of dance schools and how to select the right school for your child. Included is valuable information on choosing a dance instructor, the role both parents and teachers should play in a child's learning experience, and the qualities the ideal teacher should possess. Also discussed are more practical matters such as the appropriate clothing to wear while practicing, the importance of shoes that fit properly, how to secure pointe shoes, tips for avoiding injury, and how to balance training and performing experience during the formative years. A special chapter covers proper diet, eating disorders, and ways to recognize symptoms of imbalance. Finally, Paskevska touches upon the professional world of dance, attending college as a dance major, and advice on choosing careers that benefit from a background in dance.

With forewords by Violette Verdy, a preeminent ballerina affiliated with the New York City Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet, and Sybil Shearer, a pioneer of American modern dance, as well as an extensive appendix of performing arts schools and dance programs throughout the United States, Getting Started in Ballet gives parents the advice they need to make their child's dance experiences both enjoyable and constructive.