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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Dance > General
This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to
TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)-a collaboration of the
Association of American Universities, the Association of University
Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries-and the generous
support of Duke University. A portrait of the game of capoeira and
its practice across borders. Originating in the Black Atlantic
world as a fusion of dance and martial art, capoeira was a
marginalized practice for much of its history. Today it is globally
popular. This ethnographic memoir weaves together the history of
capoeira, recent transformations in the practice, and personal
insights from author Katya Wesolowski's thirty years of experience
as a capoeirista.Capoeira Connections follows Wesolowski's journey
from novice to instructor while drawing on her decades of research
as an anthropologist in Brazil, Angola, Europe, and the United
States. In a story of local practice and global flow, Wesolowski
offers an intimate portrait of the game and what it means in
people's lives. She reveals camaraderie and conviviality in the
capoeira ring as well as tensions and ruptures involving race,
gender, and competing claims over how this artful play should be
practiced. Capoeira brings people together and yet is never free of
histories of struggle, and these too play out in the game's
encounters. In her at once clear-sighted and hopeful analysis,
Wesolowski ultimately argues that capoeira offers opportunities for
connection, dialogue, and collaboration in a world that is
increasingly fractured. In doing so, capoeira can transform lives,
create social spheres, and shape mobile futures. Publication of
this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the
American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly
appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though
advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often
exceeded these categories. Instead, their performances adopted an
aesthetic of intermediality, weaving together techniques and
elements drawn from a wide variety of genres and media, including
ballet, art music, photography, early modern dance, vaudeville
traditions, film, and more. Onstage and onscreen, performers
borrowed from existing musical scores and narratives, referred to
contemporary shows, films, and events, and mimicked fellow
performers, skating neatly across various media, art forms, and
traditions. Behind the scenes, they experimented with
cross-promotion, new advertising techniques, and various
technologies to broadcast images and tales of their performances
and lives well beyond the walls of American theaters, cabarets, and
halls. The performances and conceptions of art that emerged were
innovative, compelling, and deeply meaningful. Body Knowledge:
Performance, Intermediality, and American Entertainment at the Turn
of the Twentieth Century examines these performances and the
performers behind them, highlighting the Ziegfeld Follies and The
Passing Show revues, Salome dancers, Isadora Duncan's Wagner
dances, Adeline Genee and Bessie Clayton's "photographic" danced
histories, Hazel Mackaye and Ruth St. Denis's pageants, and Anna
Pavlova's opera and film projects. By destabilizing the boundaries
between various media, genres, and performance spaces, each of
these women was able to create performances that negotiated
turn-of-the-century American social and cultural issues:
contemporary technological developments and the rise of mass
reproduction, new modes of perception, the commodification of art
and entertainment, the evolution of fan culture and stardom,
changing understandings of the body and the self, and above all,
shifting conceptions of gender, race, and sexual identity. Tracing
the various modes of intermediality at work on- and offstage, Body
Knowledge re-imagines early twentieth-century art and entertainment
as both fluid and convergent.
This book examines the relation between bodies and political
economies at micro and macro levels. It stands in the space between
ends and beginnings - some long-desired, such as the end of
capitalism and racism, and others long-dreaded, such as the climate
catastrophe - and reimagines what the world can be like instead. It
offers an original investigation into the relation between
performance, dance, and political economy, looking at the points
where politics, economics, ethics, and culture intersect. Arising
from live conversations and exchanges among the contributors, this
book is written in an interdisciplinary and dialogical manner by
leading scholars and artists in the fields of Performance Studies,
Dance, Political Theory, Economics, and Social Theory: Marc Arthur,
Melissa Blanco Borelli, Anita Gonzalez, Alexandrina Hemsley, Jamila
Johnson-Small, Elena Loizidou, Tavia Nyong'o, Katerina Paramana,
Nina Power, and Usva Seregina. Their critical and creative
examinations of the relation between bodies and political economy
offer insights for both imagining and materializing a world beyond
the present.
In the last few years, concerns about dancers' health and the
consequences of physical training have increased considerably. The
physical requirements and type of training dancers need to achieve
to reach their highest level of performance while decreasing the
rate of severe injuries has awakened the necessity of more
scientific knowledge concerning the area of dance, in part
considering its several particularities. Scientific Perspectives
and Emerging Developments in Dance and the Performing Arts is a
pivotal reference source that provides vital research designed to
reduce the gap between the scientific theory and the practice of
dance. While highlighting topics such as burnout, mental health,
and sport psychology, this publication explores areas such as
nutrition, psychology, and education, as well as methods of
maintaining the general wellbeing and quality of the health,
training, and performance of dancers. This book is ideally designed
for dance experts, instructors, sports psychologists, researchers,
academicians, and students.
The training of elite dancers has not changed in the last 60 years;
it is often only those that have survived the training that go on
to have a career, not necessarily the most talented. It is time to
challenge and change how we train tomorrow's professional dancers.
This book brings you the reasons why and all tools to implement
change. 10 years ago, Matthew Wyon and Gaby Allard introduced a new
pedagogical approach to training vocational dancers: Periodization.
This ground-breaking new methodology provides an adaptable
framework to optimise training - it's goal-focused, fits to
performance schedules, and is highly sustainable for the dancer. It
is the future. For the first time, Wyon and Allard have put their
discoveries to paper. Periodization provides clear context to why
change is needed, and explores the theoretical underpinnings of
this new approach and how it can be effectively applied to a dance
environment.
This pivot offers an innovative approach to dance education,
bringing a creative and inclusive dance education pedagogy into
Chinese dance classrooms. Associate Professor Ralph Buck's
experiences of teaching dance at the Beijing Dance Academy and the
possible implications for dance education in China lie at the heart
of this text. Through a critical examination of personal teaching
practice, pedagogical issues, trends and rationales for dance
education in the curriculum are highlighted. Informed by
constructivist ideals that recognise dialogue and interaction, this
pivot suggests that dance can be re-positioned and valued within
educational contexts when pedagogical strategies and objectives are
framed in terms of teaching and learning in, about and through
dance education.
Professional dance careers are both highly rewarding and
exceptionally challenging, so success as a dancer requires robust
preparation. Performance Psychology for Dancers is an accessible
and practical guide to talent development, offering dancers and
those around them support to navigate the challenges of training
and the psychological strategies that underlie success. As coaches,
parents and experienced practitioners themselves, the authors share
their passion and expertise in talent development from experience
working with in-training and professional dancers, athletes, and
the military. Additionally, a variety of current industry experts
provide key insights and reflections on talent development, mental
health and psychological skills for performance.
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