The Vagus Nerve in Therapeutic Practice is a comprehensive guide that empowers holistic healers and complementary medicine practitioners with practical, science-based techniques to improve vagal performance and restore mind-body health. This excellent resource has been tailored for professionals to give them a solid understanding of vagus nerve regulation and provides accessible strategies to help their clients.

From the vaudeville gyrations of New York Giants star pitchers Rube Marquard and Christy Mathewson, to Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as hoofing infielders in Take Me Out to the Ball Game, to the stage and screen versions of Damn Yankees, the connection between baseball and dance is an intimate, perhaps surprising one. Covering more than a century of dancing ballplayers and baseball-inspired dance, this entertaining study examines the connection in film and television, in theatrical productions and in choreography created for some of the greatest dancers and dance companies in the world.

The topic of sport psychology is hardly new-but Essentials of Dance Psychology applies it to dance in a way that sets it apart from all other sport psychology texts available to dance students, instructors, and professionals. Through Essentials of Dance Psychology, readers will come to understand why dancers think and behave as they do and how to design healthy, creative dance environments that lead to both well-being and optimal performance. The book is built on a foundation of evidence from dance and sport psychology research, with applied experiences used as examples throughout. Where appropriate, evidence from other areas of psychology-for example, cognitive behavioral therapy-is used. A thorough coverage of topics relevant to dancers, teachers, and others working to support dancers is included, making the book suitable for one slightly longer course or two short courses in introductory dance psychology. The book is organized into four parts. Part I delves into dancers' individual differences, examining how personality, perfectionism, self-esteem, self-confidence, and anxiety factor into performance and well-being. Part II explores topics related to dance-specific characteristics such as motivation, attentional focus, and creativity. In part III, readers learn about a range of psychological skills, including mindfulness, goal setting, self-regulation, and imagery. Part IV examines topics related to dance environments and challenges, zeroing in on the social aspects of teaching and learning dance, the challenges of talent identification and development, injuries, body image, and disordered eating. Student-friendly textbook features in each chapter include the following: Relevant definitions A case study that shows how the chapter's topics can be expressed or experienced in practice One or more Get Practical exercises, which prompt readers to apply or reflect on the chapter's concepts (These exercises come with either downloadable worksheets or audio, delivered through HKPropel Access.) A roundup of further research needed in each content area, which can inspire research projects for students and professionals alike Key points to reinforce the learning, with particular emphasis on applications Materials available through HKPropel Access include downloadable worksheets, three audio files with guided exercises, vocabulary study aids, lettering art, and two goal-setting templates. In addition, an instructor pack provides chapter summaries, a course outline, a test bank, and a PowerPoint presentation package. Essentials of Dance Psychology offers readers the opportunity to understand sport psychology from the vantage point of a dancer. The text will help develop dance teachers who are able to inspire and sustain high levels of performance and psychological health among dancers. It will also help other professionals who work with dancers to implement evidence-based practices that enhance and sustain dancers' lives and careers. Note: A code for accessing HKPropel is included with all new print books.

Elizabeth B. Schwall aligns culture and politics by focusing on an art form that became a darling of the Cuban revolution: dance. In this history of staged performance in ballet, modern dance, and folkloric dance, Schwall analyzes how and why dance artists interacted with republican and, later, revolutionary politics. Drawing on written and visual archives, including intriguing exchanges between dancers and bureaucrats, Schwall argues that Cubans dancers used their bodies and ephemeral, nonverbal choreography to support and critique political regimes and cultural biases. As esteemed artists, Cuban dancers exercised considerable power and influence. They often used their art to posit more radical notions of social justice than political leaders were able or willing to implement. After 1959, while generally promoting revolutionary projects like mass education and internationalist solidarity, they also took risks by challenging racial prejudice, gender norms, and censorship, all of which could affect dancers personally. On a broader level, Schwall shows that dance, too often overlooked in histories of Latin America and the Caribbean, provides fresh perspectives on what it means for people, and nations, to move through the world.

Tracing the African American dance from the Diaspora to the dance floor, this book covers a social history germane not only to the African American experience, but also to the global experience of laborers who learn lessons from hip hop dance. Examining hip hop dance as text, as commentary, and as a function of identity construction within the confines of consumerism, the book draws on popular cultural images from films, commercials, and dance studios. A bibliography, discography, and filmography are included.

This book focuses on Romeo Castellucci's theatrical project, exploring the ethical and aesthetic framework determined by his reflection on the nature of the image. But why does a director whose fundamental artistic tool is the image deny this key conceptual notion? Rooted in his conscious distancing from iconoclasm in the 1980s, Castellucci frequently replaces this notion with the words 'symbol', 'form' and 'idea'. As the first publication on the international market which presents Castellucci's work from both historical and theoretical perspectives, this book systematically confronts the director's discourse with other concepts related to his artistic project. Capturing the evolution of his theatre from icon to iconoclasm, word to image and symbol to allegory, the book explores experimental notions of staging alongside an 'emotional wave', which serves as an animating principle of Castellucci's revolutionary theatre.

People all over the world dance traditional and popular dances that have been staged for purposes of representing specific national and ethnic groups. Anthony Shay suggests these staged dance productions be called "ethno identity dances", especially to replace the term "folk dance," which Shay suggests should refer to the traditional dances found in village settings as an organic part of village and tribal life. Shay investigates the many motives that impel people to dance in these staged productions: dancing for sex or dancing sexy dances, dancing for fun and recreation, dancing for profit - such as dancing for tourists - dancing for the nation or to demonstrate ethnic pride. In this study Shay also examines belly dance, Zorba Dancing in Greek nightclubs and restaurants, Tango, Hula, Irish step dancing, and Ukrainian dancing.

An innovative exploration of understanding through dance, "Dancing across the Page "draws on the frameworks of phenomenology, feminism, and postmodernism to offer readers an understanding of performance studies that is grounded in personal narrative and lived experience. Through accounts of contemporary dance making, improvisation, and dance education, Karen Barbour explores a diversity of themes, including power; activism; and cultural, gendered, and personal identity. An intimate yet rigorous investigation of creativity in dance, "Dancing across the Page "emphasizes embodied knowledge and imagination as a basis for creative action in the world.

This book examines the globalization of belly dance and the distinct dancing communities that have evolved from it. The history of belly dance has taken place within the global flow of sojourners, immigrants, entrepreneurs, and tourists from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. In some cases, the dance is transferred to new communities within the gender normative structure of its original location in North Africa and the Middle East. Belly dance also has become part of popular culture's Orientalist infused discourse. The consequence of this discourse has been a global revision of the solo dances of North Africa and the Middle East into new genres that are still part of the larger belly dance community but are distinct in form and meaning from the dance as practiced within communities in North Africa and the Middle East.

In the earliest years of the twentieth century, North American ballroom dancers favored the waltz or the polka. But in the 1910s, a new dance, the tango, broke onto the United States scene when Vernon and Irene Castle performed it in a Broadway musical. Rudolph Valentino, Arthur Murray, and Xavier Cugat popularized it even more in the 1920s and 1930s, and thousands of people were crowding dance floors around the country to hear the music and dance the tango. This work chronicles the history of the tango in the United States, from its antecedents in Argentina, Paris and London to the present day. It covers the dancers, musicians, and composers who were promoting it, and the tango's influence on American music. Chapters are dedicated to Vernon and Irene Castle, Rudolph Valentino, Arthur Murray, Xavier Cugat, the Big Band and jazz singers who incorporated tangos with English lyrics into their repertoires, Juan Carlos Cobian, Osvaldo Fresedo, Francisco Canaro, Carlos Gardel, Astor Piazzolla, the influence of World War II on the tango, portrayals of the tango in the movies and ballet, and the tango recordings of Gerry Mulligan, Gary Burton, Al Di Meola, Yo-Yo Ma, and Julio Iglesias, among many other topics.

From its beginnings as an alternative and dissident form of dance training in the 1960s, Somatics emerged at the end of the twentieth century as one of the most popular and widespread regimens used to educate dancers. It is now found in dance curricula worldwide, helping to shape the look and sensibilities of both dancers and choreographers and thereby influencing much of the dance we see onstage worldwide. One of the first books to examine Somatics in detail and to analyse how and what it teaches in the dance studio, The Natural Body in Somatics Dance Training considers how dancers discover and assimilate new ways of moving and also larger cultural values associated with those movements. The book traces the history of Somatics, and it also details how Somatics developed in different locales, engaging with local politics and dance histories so as to develop a distinctive pedagogy that nonetheless shared fundamental concepts with other national and regional contexts. In so doing it shows how dance training can inculcate an embodied politics by guiding and shaping the experience of bodily sensation, constructing forms of reflexive evaluation of bodily action, and summoning bodies into relationship with one another. Throughout, the author focuses on the concept of the natural body and the importance of a natural way of moving as central to the claims that Somatics makes concerning its efficacy and legitimacy.

David Hallberg, the first American to join the famed Bolshoi Ballet as a principal dancer and the dazzling artist The New Yorker described as "the most exciting male dancer in the western world," presents a look at his artistic life-up to the moment he returns to the stage after a devastating injury that almost cost him his career. Beginning with his real-life Billy Elliot childhood-an all-American story marred by intense bullying-and culminating in his hard-won comeback, Hallberg's "moving and intelligent" (Daniel Mendelsohn) memoir dives deep into life as an artist as he wrestles with ego, pushes the limits of his body, and searches for ecstatic perfection and fulfillment as one of the world's most acclaimed ballet dancers. Rich in detail ballet fans will adore, Hallberg presents an "unsparing...inside look" (The New York Times) and also reflects on universal and relatable themes like inspiration, self-doubt, and perfectionism as he takes you into daily classes, rigorous rehearsals, and triumphant performances, searching for new interpretations of ballet's greatest roles. He reveals the loneliness he felt as a teenager leaving America to join the Paris Opera Ballet School, the ambition he had to tame as a new member of American Ballet Theatre, and the reasons behind his headline-grabbing decision to be the first American to join the top rank of Bolshoi Ballet, tendered by the Artistic Director who would later be the victim of a vicious acid attack. Then, as Hallberg performed throughout the world at the peak of his abilities, he suffered a crippling ankle injury and botched surgery leading to an agonizing retreat from ballet and an honest reexamination of his entire life. Combining his powers of observation and memory with emotional honesty and artistic insight, Hallberg has written a great ballet memoir and an intimate portrait of an artist in all his vulnerability, passion, and wisdom. "Candid and engrossing" (The Washington Post), A Body of Work is a memoir "for everyone with a heart" (DC Metro Theater Arts).

Dance and the Arts in Mexico, 1920-1950 tells the story of the arts explosion that launched at the end of the Mexican revolution, when composers, choreographers, and muralists had produced state-sponsored works in wide public spaces. The book assesses how the "cosmic generation" in Mexico connected the nation-body and the dancer's body in artistic movements between 1920 and 1950. It first discusses the role of dance in particular, the convergences of composers and visual artists in dance productions, and the allegorical relationship between the dancer's body and the nation-body in state-sponsored performances. The arts were of critical import in times of political and social transition, and the dynamic between the dancer's body and the national body shifted as the government stance had also shifted. Second, this book examines more deeply the involvement of US artists and patrons in this Mexican arts movement during the period. Given the power imbalance between north and south, these exchanges were vexed. Still, the results for both parties were invaluable. Ultimately, this book argues in favor of the benefits that artists on both sides of the border received from these exchanges.

This study describes and analyzes the phenomenal popularity of exotic dance forms among mainstream Americans. Throughout the twentieth century and especially since 1950, millions of Americans have begun learning and performing various Balkan dances, the tango, and other Latin American dances, along with the classical dances of India, Japan, and Indonesia.While most previous studies in dance ethnography and anthropology have focused specifically on ""dancing in the field,"" or the dancing that native dancers do in their own environments, this study turns the tables to examine the ways in which ethnic dancing has allowed many Americans to create more exciting and romantic identities through dancing the dances of the ""exotic other,"" if only within the framed moment of a one-time dance lesson or performance. Throughout the work, the author describes the uniquely American enthusiasm for learning exotic dances, describing specific deficiencies in the American cultural identity that have led massive numbers of Americans to seek new or alternative identities through the various exotic dance genres.

Dance has always been an important aspect of all human cultures, and the study of human movement and action has become a topic of increasing relevance over the last decade, bringing dance into the focus of the cognitive sciences. Since the first edition of The Neurocognition of Dance was published, research into the cognitive science of dance has expanded extensively, with the number of scientific studies focusing on dance and dance-related topics in cognitive psychology growing significantly. Featuring three new chapters addressing topics that have become highly relevant to the field in recent years - neuroaesthetics, entrainment, and choreographic cognition - as well as progress in teaching based on novel methods, this comprehensively revised and updated new edition of The Neurocognition of Dance is full of cutting-edge insights from scientists, researchers, and professionals from the world of dance. Also now including online material such as links to video clips, colour images and hands-on material for practical application, this book is an essential companion for students and professionals from fields including dance, cognitive psychology, sport psychology and sport science, movement science, and cognitive robotics.

A handbook, complete with graded exercises, for teachers and students wanting a practical introduction to Laban's famous system of movement. Rudolf Laban is to movement what Stanislavski is to acting. He devised the first wholly successful system for recording human movement, a system which is increasingly influential in the training of actors and dancers. 'required reading for every young student of the theatre - and a lot of the older ones would reap enormous benefit from it' Murray Melvin

The third instalment in Craig Revel Horwood's frank and funny autobiography takes the reader through the highs and lows of the Strictly Come Dancing star's 'fab-u-lous' life. Join Craig and a host of Strictly stars - including Ore Oduba, Judy Murray and the unforgettable Ed Balls - on the show and live tours and get the real stories from behind the scenes. The Aussie-born judge shares his famously forthright views on the changes in the show's line up, from Bruce Forsyth and Len Goodman's departures to the arrival of Claudia Winkleman and Shirley Ballas, as well as the dancers and stars. Away from Strictly, Craig reveals fresh heartache over failed romances, his pain at losing his dad and how his work kept him from flying to Australia for the funeral. He marks the milestones in his life, including turning fifty and moving from London to live in a 'gorgeous' country pile, as well as going under the knife for a second hip operation plus a few nips and tucks. The multi-talented dancer, director and choreographer also discusses his award-winning shows, including Sister Act and Son of a Preacher Man, and spending a year in drag as Miss Hannigan in Annie. Plus, he reveals all about his foray into movies, choreographing Hugh Grant for Paddington 2 and making his big screen debut in Nativity Rocks. With his famous wit and a wealth of backstage gossip, In Strictest Confidence is the perfect read for all his fans as well as those of Strictly Come Dancing.

This collection of new essays explores the many ways in which writing relates to corporeality and how the two work together to create, resist or mark the body of the "Other." Contributors draw on their varied backgrounds to examine different movement practices, with a focus on movement as a meaning-making process-including the choreographic act of writing. The challenges faced by marginalized bodies are discussed, along with ability of a body to question, contest and re-write historical narratives.

From its early inception at the French court to modern-day developments and interpretations, ballet has long had a popular following. Packed full of essential information, this pocket-sized handbook explores the history, performers, composers and music, highlighting the very best ballets and the stand-out tracks that should feature in the collection of any aficionado. Classic FM's Handy Guides are a fun and informative set of introductions to standout subjects within classical music, each of which can be read and digested in one sitting: a perfect collectible series whether you're new to the world of classical music or an aficionado.

This book addresses the need for critical scholarship about contemporary dance practices in Ireland. Bringing together key voices from a new wave of scholarship to examine recent practice and research in the field of contemporary dance, it examines the excitingly diverse range of choreographers and works that are transforming Ireland's performance landscape. The first section provides a chronologically-ordered collection of critical essays to ground the reader in some of the most important issues currently at play in contemporary dance in Ireland. The second section then provides an interrogation of individual choreographers' processes. The book traces new choreographic work and trends through a broad array of topics, including somatics in performance, screendance, cultural trauma, dance archives, affect studies, feminist perspectives, choreographic process, the dancer's voice, interdisciplinarity, and pedagogical paradigms.

Dance's Duet with the Camera: Motion Pictures is a collection of essays written by various authors on the relationship between live dance and film. Chapters cover a range of topics that explore dance film, contemporary dance with film on stage, dance as an ideal medium to be captured by 3D images and videodance as kin to site-specific choreography. This book explores the ways in which early practitioners such as Loie Fuller and Maya Deren began a conversation between media that has continued to evolve and yet still retains certain unanswered questions. Methodology for this conversation includes dance historical approaches as well as mechanical considerations. The camera is a partner, a disembodied portion of self that looks in order to reflect on, to mirror, or to presage movement. This conversation includes issues of sexuality, race, and mixed ability. Bodies and lenses share equal billing.

This book illuminates the relationship between philosophy and experimental choreographic practice today in the works of leading European choreographers. A discussion of key issues in contemporary performance from the viewpoint of Deleuze, Spinoza and Bergson is accompanied by intricate analyses of seven groundbreaking dance performances.

As seasoned dancers and dance educators, Minton and Faber approach brain function from inside the body as embodiment of thought. Their collection of neurological research about the thought processes in learning and performing dance encompasses a vision of dance as creative art, communication, education, and life. The book informs neuroscientists, educators, and dancers about the complex interdependence of brain localities and networking of human neurology through an integration of physiology, cognition, and the art of dance. Chapters address observation, engagement, critical thought, emotion, memory, imagery and imagination, learning, problem solving, and 21st century skills. Finer components are explored through neurological networks, classroom pedagogy, dance, and movement experiences that provide: *Description of the thought processes, their components, and their neurological functional needs. *The neurological physiology that has been discovered in the cognitive process. *How brain function can be applied to the educational classroom. *Applications of the neurological research to dance education, the choreographic process, and dance performance. *Movement explorations for readers to experience the thought processes through dance with neurological knowledge in mind.

In 1933 choreographer George Balanchine and impresario Lincoln Kirstein embarked on an elusive quest to found a ballet company and school in the United States. Though their efforts would eventually result in the creation of the New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet, the first decade of their collaborative efforts was anything but assured. Tracing the tangled histories of two of the most important figures in twentieth-century dance, Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise offers a fresh perspective on a pivotal period in cultural history. Deeply researched using sources only made available in recent years, the book challenges the mythologies surrounding the early years of the Balanchine-Kirstein enterprise. It also reveals the full extent of Kirstein's essential role and offers reconstructive analysis of lost works, as well as new and surprising details regarding some of Balanchine's most iconic ballets, including Serenade, Apollo, and Concerto Barocco. This history involved artists including Richard Rodgers, Martha Graham, George Gershwin, Katherine Dunham, Vera Zorina, and Igor Stravinsky, as well as dozens of lesser known players whose contributions have yet to be fully acknowledged. Capturing the full sweep of Balanchine and Kirstein's collaborative work across multiple genres and institutions, this book reveals their partnership in all of its exciting and ungainly complexity, showing how the 1930s Balanchine was not the artist that he would eventually become, and how the same was true of the institutions that he and Kirstein jointly created.

The language of tap dancing is as rich and varied as that of any art, and different choreographers, teachers and performers often use totally different terms for exactly the same step. The various names of all steps and clear descriptions of them are collected for the first time in this reference work. The emphasis is on all variations of a name, from universally recognized terms to simple ""pet"" names that individual performers and choreographers have created, with extensive cross-references provided. Each of the steps is fully described, with appropriate counts, explanations and history. Many antique and unusual steps such as the Patting Juba, the Quack and the Swanee Shuffle are included.