Dancer/scholars from around the world have contributed essays on belly dance to this book. They all carefully consider the transformation of an improvised folk form from North Africa and the Middle East into a popular global dance practice. The essays explore the differences between the solo improvisational forms of North Africa and the Middle East, often referred to as raqs sharki, which are part of family celebrations, and the numerous globalised versions of this dance form, belly dance, derived from the movement vocabulary of North Africa and the Middle East but with a variety of performance styles distinct from its site of origin. Local versions of belly dance have grown and changed along with the role that dance plays in the community. The global evolution of belly dance is an inspiring example of the interplay of imagination, the internet and the social forces of local communities.

In this delightful and gently humorous book, Diana Melly takes us on an eye-opening tour of dance halls up and down the country, introducing us to everything from tango to swing.

The story of this groundbreaking summer dance programme is told through the voices of staff, faculty, and students. Administrative director Mary Josephine Shelly's previously unpublished writings form a key summary of eight of the nine summer sessions. The Bennington School of the Dance was held from 1934 to 1942 at Bennington College in Vermont with one summer spent at Mills College in California. Its effects were far-reaching in the development and dissemination of modern dance as an original American art form. The school produced unique choreographic works by teachers in residence: Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Leading choreographers of the later 20th century such as Merce Cunningham, Anna Halprin, Jose Limon, Alwin Nikolais and Anna Sokolow participated at the school. The largest portion of students were high school and college level teachers who would spread modern dance across the country and abroad.

Choreography is the highly creative process of interpreting and coordinating movement, music and space in performance. By tracing different facets of development and exploring the essential artistic and practical skills of the choreographer, this book offers unique insights for apprentice dance makers. With key concepts and ideas expressed through an accessible writing style, the creative tasks and frameworks offered will develop new curiosity, understanding, skill and confidence. The chapters cover the key areas of engagement including what is a choreographer?; getting started; improvisation and ideas; context, stage geometry and atmosphere; movement as dance in time and space; solo, duet, trio and group choreography and finally, structure and the 'choreographic eye'. This is an ideal companion for dancers and dance students wanting to express their ideas through choreography and develop their skills to effectively articulate them in performance.

This book has systematic directions for those who are creating a dance company for young audiences how to handle bookings, write effective grants, handle crowds of children in a theater environment, and keep children's interest high--and how to maintain the support and the appreciation of presenters, teachers, and principals for whom they perform. Profiles of ten successful dance companies who perform for children are provided. The book also supplies practical tools or building a career in dance. The book's touring and production information can be applied to almost any performing group that uses the medium of dance to deliver its message--from professional dance companies and organizations to university, high school, studio dance performers.

Digital traces, whether digitized (programs, notebooks, drawings, etc.) or born digital (emails, websites, video recordings, etc.), constitute a major challenge for the memory of the ephemeral performing arts. Digital technology transforms traces into data and, in doing so, opens them up to manipulation. This paradigm shift calls for a renewal of methodologies for writing the history of theater today, analyzing works and their creative process, and preserving performances. At the crossroads of performing arts studies, the history, digital humanities, conservation and archiving, these methodologies allow us to take into account what is generally dismissed, namely, digital traces that are considered too complex, too numerous, too fragile, of dubious authenticity, etc. With the analysis of Merce Cunningham's digital traces as a guideline, and through many other examples, this book is intended for researchers and archivists, as well as artists and cultural institutions.

Driven by facts and hard data, this volume reveals how gender dynamics affect the lives of dancers, choreographers, directors, students, educators, and others who are involved in the world of dance. It unpacks real issues that matter-not just to dance communities but also to broader societal trends in the West. In these studies, dancers and dance scholars take readers into classrooms, rehearsals, performances, festivals, competitions, college dance departments, and company administrations. They ask incisive questions and analyze data to learn about the role of gender in attitudes, stereotypes, pedagogy, funding inequities, representation, casting, and body image. Dance is an important part of our larger cultural fabric, and this volume adds powerful findings to today's discussions about living in a gendered society.

Making Music for Modern Dance traces the collaborative approaches, working procedures, and aesthetic views of the artists who forged a new and distinctly American art form during the first half of the 20th century. The book offers riveting first-hand accounts from innovative artists in the throes of their creative careers and provides a cross-section of the challenges faced by modern choreographers and composers in America. These articles are complemented by excerpts from astute observers of the music and dance scene as well as by retrospective evaluations of past collaborative practices.
Beginning with the careers of pioneers Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn, and continuing through the avant-garde work of John Cage for Merce Cunningham, the book offers insights into the development of modern dance in relation to its music. Editor Katherine Teck's introductions and afterword offer historical context and tie the artists' essays in with collaborative practices in our own time. The substantive notes suggest further materials of interest to students, practicing dance artists and musicians, dance and music history scholars, and to all who appreciate dance.

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.

Mixed methods research techniques, combining both quantitative and qualitative elements, have become well established throughout the social, behavioural and natural sciences. This is the first book to focus on the application of mixed methods research in the movement sciences, specifically in sport, physical education and dance. Researchers and practitioners in each of these fields are concerned with the study of habitual behaviour in naturalistic contexts, and of the concurrent and sequential nature of events and states, precisely the kind of work that multi-method research design can help illuminate. The book is arranged into four sections. The first provides a thorough overview of mixed methods procedures and research design, and summarizes their applicability to the movement sciences. The remaining sections then offer detailed case studies of mixed methods research in team and individual sports (analyzing hidden patterns of play and optimising technique); kinesics and dance (analyzing motor skills behaviour in childhood, and the complexity of motor responses in dance); and physical education (detecting interaction patterns in group situations, and optimizing non-verbal communication by teachers and sports coaches). Mixed Methods Research in the Movement Sciences offers an important new tool for researchers and helps to close the gap between the analysis of expert performance and our understanding of the general principles of movement science. It is important reading for any student, researcher or professional with an interest in motor control, sport and dance pedagogy, coaching, performance analysis or decision-making in sport.

How do teachers create a classroom environment that promotes collaborative and inquiry-based approaches to learning ballet? How do teachers impart the stylistic qualities of ballet while also supporting each dancer's artistic instincts and development of a personal style? How does ballet technique education develop the versatility and creativity needed in the contemporary dance environment? Creative Ballet Teaching draws on the fields of Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis (L/BMA), dance pedagogy, and somatic education to explore these questions. Sample lesson plans, class exercises, movement explorations, and journal writing activities specifically designed for teachers bring these ideas into the studio and classroom. A complementary online manual, Creative Ballet Learning, provides students with tools for technical and artistic development, self-assessment, and reflection. Offering a practical, exciting approach, Creative Ballet Teaching is a must-read for those teaching and learning ballet.

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.

With its dynamic choreographies and booming drumbeats, taiko has gained worldwide popularity since its emergence in 1950s Japan. Harnessed by Japanese Americans in the late 1960s, taiko's sonic largesse and buoyant energy challenged stereotypical images of Asians in America as either model minorities or sinister foreigners. While the majority of North American taiko players are Asian American, over 400 groups now exist across the US and Canada, and players come from a range of backgrounds. Using ethnographic and historical approaches, combined with in-depth performance description and analysis, this book explores the connections between taiko and Asian American cultural politics. Based on original and archival interviews, as well as the author's extensive experience as a taiko player, this book highlights the Midwest as a site for Asian American cultural production and makes embodied experience central to inquiries about identity, including race, gender, and sexuality. The book builds on insights from the fields of dance studies, ethnomusicology, performance studies, queer and feminist theory, and Asian American studies to argue that taiko players from a variety of identity positions perform Asian America on stage, as well as in rehearsals, festivals, schools, and through interactions with audiences. While many taiko players play simply for the love of its dynamism and physicality, this book demonstrates that politics are built into even the most mundane aspects of rehearsing and performing.

Training in somatic techniques-- holistic body-centered movement that promotes psycho-physical awareness and well-being--provides an effective means of improving dance students' efficiency and ease of movement. However, dance educators do not always have the resources to incorporate this knowledge into their classes. This volume explains the importance of somatics, introduces fundamental somatic principles that are central to the dance technique class, and offers tips on incorporating these principles into a dance curriculum. The authors demystify somatic thinking by explaining the processes in terms of current scientific research. By presenting both a philosophical approach to teaching as well as practical instruction tools, this work provides a valuable guide to somatics for dance teachers of any style or level.

This book is a perceptive and critical account of the first 75 years of The Royal Ballet, tracing the company's growth, and its great cultural importance - an indispensable book for all lovers of ballet. In 1931, Ninette de Valois started a ballet company with just six dancers. Within twenty years, The Royal Ballet - as it became - was established as one of the world's great companies. It has produced celebrated dancers, from Margot Fonteyn to Darcey Bussell, and one of the richest repertoires in ballet. The company danced through the Blitz, won an international reputation in a single New York performance and added to the glamour of London's Swinging Sixties. It has established a distinctive English school of ballet, a pure classical style that could do justice to the 19th-century repertory and to new British classics. Leading dance critic, Zoe Anderson, vividly portrays the extraordinary personalities who created the company and the dancers who made such an impact on their audiences. She looks at the bad times as well as the good, examining the controversial directorships of Norman Morrice and Ross Stretton and the criticism fired at the company as the Royal Opera House closed for redevelopment.

The tango is easily the most iconic dance of the twentieth century and now of the twenty-first. This historical text peels back the propaganda that characterizes the dance, revealing both its true nature and that of the culture that created it. Topics covered include the tango's earliest origins, the sexualization of the dance, its place in Argentinian culture, and the mythological prohibition against it. This work explores the tango's unparalleled popularity, finding in it the irreducible universal: our common humanity and our creative solidarity.

Choreographing Shakespeare presents a hitherto unexplored history of the choreographers and performers who have created dance adaptations of Shakespeare. This book investigates forty dance works in genres such as ballet, modern dance, and hip-hop, produced between 1940 and 2016 by choreographers in Britain, America, and Europe, all of which use Shakespeare's plays and Sonnets as their source material. By combining scholarly analysis of these productions with practice-based conversations from six contemporary choreographers, Klett offers both breadth of coverage and in-depth analysis of how Shakespeare's poetic language is translated into the usually wordless medium of dance, and shows exactly how these dance adaptations move beyond the Shakespearean texts to engage with musical and choreographic influences. Ideal for students of Shakespeare and Dance Studies, Choreographing Shakespeare explores how dance adaptations strive to design legible and intelligible stories, while ultimately celebrating the beauty of pure movement.

Rudolf Laban (1879 1958) was a pioneer in dance and movement, who found an extraordinary range of application for his ideas; from industry to drama, education and therapy. Laban believed that you can understand about human beings by observing how they move, and devised two complimentary methods of notating the shape and quality of movements.

The Laban Sourcebook offers a comprehensive account of Laban s writings. It includes extracts from his five books in English and from his four works in German, written in the 1920s and translated here for the first time.

This book draws on archival research in England and Germany to chart the development of Laban s groundbreaking ideas through a variety of documents, including letters, articles, transcripts of interviews, and his unpublished Effort and Recovery. It covers:

• The beginning of his career in Germany and Switzerland in the 1910s.
• His astonishing rise to fame in Germany in the 1920s as a dance teacher, choreographer and creator of public dance events.
• Following his move to England in 1938, the application of his ideas to drama, education, industry, and therapy.

Each extract has a short preface providing contextual background, and highlighting and explaining key terms. Passages have been selected and are introduced by many of the world s leading Laban scholars.

What world has been constructed for dancing through the use of the term 'world dance'? What kinds of worlds do we as scholars create for a given dance when we undertake to describe and analyze it? This book endeavours to make new epistemological space for the analysis of the world's dance by offering a variety of new analytic approaches.

Dance and Light examines the interconnected relationship between movement and design, the fluid partnership that exists between the two disciplines, and the approaches that designers can take to enhance dance performances through lighting design. The book demystifies lighting for the dancer and helps designers understand how the dancer/choreographer thinks about their art form, providing insight into the choreographer's process and exploring how designers can make the most of their resources. The author shares anecdotes and ideas from an almost 50-year career as a lighting designer, along with practical examples and insights from colleagues, and stresses the importance of clear communication between designers, choreographers, and dancers. Attention is also given to the choreographer who wants to learn what light can do to help enhance their work on stage. Written in short, stand-alone chapters that allow readers to quickly navigate to areas of interest, Dance and Light is a valuable resource for lighting design classes wishing to add a section on dance lighting, as well as for choreography classes who want to better equip young artists for a significant collaborative partnership.

While dance has always been as demanding as contact sports, intuitive boundaries distinguish the two forms of performance for men. Dance is often regarded as a feminine activity, and men who dance are frequently stereotyped as suspect, gay, or somehow unnatural. But what really happens when men dance?
When Men Dance offers a progressive vision that boldly articulates double-standards in gender construction within dance and brings hidden histories to light in a globalized debate. A first of its kind, this trenchant look at the stereotypes and realities of male dancing brings together contributions from leading and rising scholars of dance from around the world to explore what happens when men dance. The dancing male body emerges in its many contexts, from the ballet, modern, and popular dance worlds to stages in Georgian and Victorian England, Weimar Germany, India and the Middle East. The men who dance and those who analyze them tell stories that will be both familiar and surprising for insiders and outsiders alike.

B-boying is a form of Afro-diasporic competitive dance that developed in the Bronx, NY in the early 1970s. Widely - though incorrectly - known as "breakdancing," it is often dismissed as a form of urban acrobatics set to music. In reality, however, b-boying is a deeply traditional and profoundly expressive art form that has been passed down from teacher to student for almost four decades. Foundation: B-boys, B-girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York offers the first serious study of b-boying as both unique dance form and a manifestation of the most fundamental principles of hip-hop culture. Drawing on anthropological and historical research, interviews and personal experience as a student of the dance, Joseph Schloss presents a nuanced picture of b-boying and its social context. From the dance's distinctive musical repertoire and traditional educational approaches to its complex stylistic principles and secret battle strategies, Foundation illuminates a previously unexamined thread in the complex tapestry that is contemporary hip-hop.

Dancers experience pain, joy, frustration, rapture, failure, applause, and are above the worldly concerns of food, money, and financial security. They live only to dance.

Or do they?

The reality is dancers of all ages, types, and skill levels often experience incredible physical and psychological stress and have traditionally bore their pain in stoic silence.

In this much needed new book, Dance Magazine's Linda Hamilton offers dancers the same type of advice and understanding they have come to trust from her popular monthly column. Psychologist Hamilton--a former dancer with New York City Ballet under the legAndary George Balanchine--offers a complete resource for coping with the day to day pressures of being a dancer. Page after page is filled with the insight that can only come from a person who has been intimately involved in the world of dance.

Hamilton outlines strategies for dancers for dealing with a variety of common physical and psychological issues and shows how to be true to your passion and bring back the joy in dancing. The book is filled with answers to dancer's most often asked questions and offers practical methods for dealing with such difficult problems as eating disorders, substance abuse, ruthless competition, and performance anxiety. Advice for Dancers will teach you how to:

• Achieve you physical potential and select the dance technique that's right for you
• Find out which teaching practices you can trust and why
• Learn how to reach your optimal weight without compromising your energy, health, and career
• Develop healthy relationships both inside and outside the dance studio
• Use a variety of resources to get work, roles, and promotions
• Perform technical feats in front of an audience even when you are frightened

Advice for Dancers is a result of Hamiltion's extensive research and years clinical work with dancers and includes information for a survey of more that 1,000 dancers from across the country.

This invaluable resource for teachers and therapists continues to explore the link between movement and emotions presented in the first edition of this innovative book. It provides 180 practical activities with a clear rationale for the use of creative dance and movement to enrich therapy or educational programmes. This book features session plans divided into warm-ups, introductions to themes, development of themes and warm-downs and explores many areas, including developmental movement processes, non-verbal communication, and expression communication. In addition to thoroughly updating the content of the original edition, this timely sourcebook includes new material on creative dance and dance movement psychotherapy, added references throughout and updated resources to reflect the most current knowledge. Creative Dance and Movement in Groupwork will be an invaluable asset for group leaders wishing to enhance their practice, as well as a starting point for those wishing to learn more about the field. It provides guidance and practical information that is suitable for working with clients of all ages and for those with a professional or practical interest in the educational, health, recreational or psychotherapeutic use of the arts, this book may act as one of many guiding lights on your journey.

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.