Examining a century of dance criticism in the United States and its influence on aesthetics and inclusion Dance criticism has long been integral to dance as an art form, serving as documentation and validation of dance performances, yet few studies have taken a close look at the impact of key critics and approaches to criticism over time. The first book to examine dance criticism in the United States across 100 years, from the late 1920s to the early twenty-first century, Shaping Dance Canons argues that critics in the popular press have influenced how dance has been defined and valued, as well as which artists and dance forms have been taken most seriously. Kate Mattingly likens the effect of dance writing to that of a flashlight, illuminating certain aesthetics at the expense of others. Mattingly shows how criticism can preserve and reproduce criteria for what qualifies as high art through generations of writers and in dance history courses, textbooks, and curricular design. She examines the gatekeeping role of prominent critics such as John Martin and Yvonne Rainer while highlighting the often-overlooked perspectives of writers from minoritized backgrounds and dance traditions. The book also includes an analysis of digital platforms and current dance projects-On the Boards TV, thINKingDANCE, Black Dance Stories, and amara tabor-smith's House/Full of BlackWomen-that challenge systemic exclusions. In doing so, the book calls for ongoing dialogue and action to make dance criticism more equitable and inclusive.

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

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

In private and in public life, the ancient Greeks danced to express divine adoration and human festivity. They danced at feasts and choral competitions, at weddings and funerals, in observance of the cycles of both nature and human existence. Formal and informal dances marked the rhythms of life and death.

In "Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion," Steven Lonsdale looks at how the Greeks themselves regarded the act of dance, and how dance and related forms of ritual play in Greek religious festivals served a wide variety of functions in Greek society. The act of worship, he explains, often implied engaging in collective rites regulated by playful behavior, the most common forms of which were group hymns and choral dances.

"Tomko blazes a new trail in dance scholarship by interconnecting U.S. History and dance studies.... the first to argue successfully that middle-class U.S. women promoted a new dance practice to manage industrial changes, crowded urban living, massive immigration, and interchange and repositioning among different classes." Choice

From salons to dance halls to settlement houses, new dance practices at the turn of the century became a vehicle for expressing cultural issues and negotiating matters of gender. By examining master narratives of modern dance history, this provocative and insightful book demonstrates the cultural agency of Progressive-era dance practices."

First full-scale thematic analysis of Pina Bausch's 'Tanztheater', critically evaluating the impact of modernist theatre on her choreographic methodThis book presents a new reading of Pina Bausch's dance theatre, orienting it within an international legacy of performance practice. The discussion considers not only the influence of German and American modern dance on Bausch's work but, crucially, interrogates parallels with modernist and postdramatic theatre (including Antonin Artaud, Samuel Beckett, Jerzy Grotowski, and Robert Wilson), the influence of which has been largely neglected in existing studies of her oeuvre.'Pina Bausch's Dance Theatre' provides a wide-ranging study of Bausch's aesthetic and methods of practice, with case studies ranging from the beginning of her career to her final choreographies.Key FeaturesThe first full-scale study interrogating the relationship between Bausch's 'Tanztheater' and modernist theatre practice, structured around a chronological framework of case study choreographiesA new theorisation of the development of Bausch's oeuvre, locating her approach in a broader context of intercultural artistic exchange in the post-WWII periodDraws on literary and theatre theory to form an interdisciplinary methodology for understanding and interrogating Bausch's oeuvreBased on extensive archival research and a specialised knowledge of the evolution of modern dance

An African American art form, jazz dance has an inaccurate historical narrative that often sets Euro-American aesthetics and values at the inception of the jazz dance genealogy. The roots were systemically erased and remain widely marginalized and untaught, and the devaluation of its Africanist origins and lineage has largely gone unchallenged. Decolonizing contemporary jazz dance practice, this book examines the state of jazz dance theory, pedagogy, and choreography in the twenty-first century, recovering and affirming the lifeblood of jazz in Africanist aesthetics and Black American culture.Rooted Jazz Dance brings together jazz dance scholars, practitioners, choreographers, and educators from across the United States and Canada with the goal of changing the course of practice in future generations. Contributors delve into the Africanist elements within jazz dance and discuss the role of Whiteness, including Eurocentric technique and ideology, in marginalizing African American vernacular dance, which has resulted in the prominence of Eurocentric jazz styles and the systemic erosion of the roots. These chapters offer strategies for teaching rooted jazz dance, examples for changing dance curriculums, and artist perspectives on choreographing and performing jazz. Above all, they emphasize the importance of centering Africanist and African American principles, aesthetics, and values. Arguing that the history of jazz dance is closely tied to the history of racism in the United States, these essays challenge a century of misappropriation and lean in to difficult conversations of reparations for jazz dance. This volume overcomes a major roadblock to racial justice in the dance field by amplifying the people and culture responsible for the jazz language.

The intention of my work is to dislodge assumptions about the fixity of the three-dimensional body.--Deborah HayHer movements are uncharacteristic, her words subversive, her dances unlike anything done before--and this is the story of how it all works. A founding member of the famed Judson Dance Theater and a past performer in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Deborah Hay is well known for choreographing works using large groups of trained and untrained dancers whose surprising combinations test the limits of the art. Lamb at the Altar is Hay's account of a four-month seminar on movement and performance held in Austin, Texas, in 1991. There, forty-four trained and untrained dancers became the human laboratory for Hay's creation of the dance Lamb, lamb, lamb . . ., a work that she later distilled into an evening-length solo piece, Lamb at the Altar. In her book, in part a reflection on her life as a dancer and choreographer, Hay tells how this dance came to be. She includes a movement libretto (a prose dance score) and numerous photographs by Phyllis Liedeker documenting the dance's four-month emergence.
In an original style that has marked her teaching and writing, Hay describes her thoughts as the dance progresses, commenting on the process and on the work itself, and ultimately creating a remarkable document on the movements--precise and mysterious, mental and physical--that go into the making of a dance. Having replaced traditional movement technique with a form she calls a performance meditation practice, Hay describes how dance is enlivened, as is each living moment, by the perception of dying and then involves a freeing of this perception from emotional, psychological, clinical, and cultural attitudes into movement. Lamb at the Altar tells the story of this process as specifically practiced in the creation of a single piece.

Dancer, award-winning choreographer, show producer, stand-up comedienne, TV/Film actress and author, Norma Miller shares her touching historical memoir of Harlem's legendary Savoy Ballroom and the phenomenal music and dance craze that \u0022spread the power of swing across the world like Wildfire.\u0022 A dance contest winner by 14, Norma Miller became a member of Herbert White's Lindy Hoppers and a celebrated Savoy Ballroom Lindy Hop champion. Swingin' at the Savoy chronicles a significant period in American cultural history and race relations, as it glorifies the home of the Lindy Hop and he birthplace of memorable dance hall fads. Miller shares fascinating anecdotes about her youthful encounters with many of the greatest jazz legends in music history, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, and even boxer Joe Louis. Readers will experience the legend of the celebrated Harlem ballroom and the phenomenal Swing generation that changed music and dance history forever.

What is the essence of "black" dance in America, and what is the black dancing body? To answer these question, Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts an unorthodox history by mapping the geography of the black dancing body and showing its central place in our culture. From feet to buttocks, hair, skin, face and beyond to soul and spirit, the author explores the endeavors, ordeals and triumphs of this body with some of the major dancers and choreographers of our time--Fernando Bujones, Brenda Bufalino, Trisha Brown, Garth Fagan, Rennie Harris, Bill T. Jones, Ralph Lemon, Susanne Linke, Meredith Monk and a cadre of their esteemed colleagues. Since race and color are usually taboo subjects in the dance world, what the author finds out is sure to cause controversy and turn heads. Written by one of the foremost American dance critics of our day, "The Black Dancing Body" is a key to the ineffable rhythms and movement of dance in America.

With over 2,600 entries, the second edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Dance is a unique single volume reference on all aspects of dance performance written by two leading dance writers, Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell. The work covers all aspects of the diverse dance world from classical ballet to modern, from flamenco to hip-hop, from tap to South Asian dance forms and includes detailed entries on technical terms, steps, styles, works and countries, in addition to many biographies of dancers, choreographers, and companies.
During the last thirty years the boundaries of dance have been radically redrawn. There has been an explosion of new activity within traditional forms like ballet, a stream of new dance languages invented by fresh generations of choreographers, and there is a growing appreciation of cultural dance forms from around the world. Fans today are likely to attend performances as varied as Spanish flamenco, Indian bharata natyam, Japanese butoh, classical ballet, and post-modern dance. With an emphasis on performance - the dance we see in our theatres today - readers will find both fact and analysis on a wide range of subjects, from styles of dance and the history of dance companies and their productions, to dancers, choreographers, and technical terms.
With 150 new entries, this new edition charts developments that have occurred over the last ten years, including the rise of new digital technology in the creation and staging of dance and the move to the mainstream of formerly fringe genres such as hip-hop, as well as the arrival of a new generation of dancers and choreographers to the scene.