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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Dance > General
Beyond Words presents a range of illuminating approaches to examining every day social interactions, to help the reader understand human movement in new ways. Carol-Lynne Moore and Kaoru Yamamoto build on the principles that they expertly explored in the first edition of the book, maintaining a focus on the processes of movement as opposed to discussions of static body language. The authors combine textual discussion with a new set of website-hosted video instructions to ensure that readers develop an in-depth understanding of nonverbal communication, as well as the work of its most influential analyst, Rudolf Laban. This fully-revised, extensively illustrated second edition includes a new introduction by the authors. It presents a fascinating insight into this vital field of study, and will be an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners in many activities, from performing and martial arts, athletics, to therapeutic and spiritual practices, conflict resolution, business interactions, and intercultural relations.
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groundbreaking ideas through a variety of documents, including letters, articles, transcripts of interviews, and his unpublished Effort and Recovery.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:
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.
Performing Antiquity: Ancient Greek Music and Dance from Paris to Delphi, 1890-1930 investigates collaborations between French and American scholars of Greek antiquity (archaeologists, philologists, classicists, and musicologists), and the performing artists (dancers, composers, choreographers and musicians) who brought their research to life at the birth of Modernism. The book tells the story of performances taking place at academic conferences, the Paris Opera, ancient amphitheaters in Delphi, and private homes. These musical and dance collaborations are built on reciprocity: the performers gain new insight into their craft while learning new techniques or repertoire and the scholars gain an opportunity to bring theory into experimental practice, that is, they have a chance see/hear/experience what they have studied and imagined. The performers receive the imprimatur of scholarship, the stamp of authenticity, and validation for their creative activities. Drawing from methods and theory from musicology, dance studies, performance studies, queer studies, archaeology, classics and art history the book shows how new scholarly methods and technologies altered the performance, and, ultimately, the reception of music and dance of the past. Acknowledging and critically examining the complex relationships performers and scholars had with the pasts they studied does not undermine their work. Rather, understanding our own limits, biases, dreams, obsessions, desires, loves, and fears enriches the ways we perform the past.
Dance, Music and Cultures of Decolonisation in the Indian Diaspora provides fascinating examples of dance and music projects across the Indian Diaspora to highlight that decolonisation is a creative process, as well as a historical and political one. The book analyses creative processes in decolonising projects, illustrating how dance and music across the Indian Diaspora articulate socio-political aspirations in the wake of thinkers such as Gandhi and Ambedkar. It presents a wide range of examples: post-apartheid practices and experiences in a South African dance company, contestations over national identity politics in Trinidadian music competitions, essentialist and assimilationist strategies in a British dance competition, the new musical creativity of second-generation British-Tamil performers, Indian classical dance projects of reform and British multiculturalism, feminist intercultural performances in Australia, and performance re-enactments of museum exhibits that critically examine the past. Key topics under discussion include postcolonial contestations, decolonising scholarship, dialogic pedagogies and intellectual responsibility. The book critically reflects on decolonising aims around respect, equality and the colonial past's redress as expressed through performing arts projects. Presenting richly detailed case studies that underline the need to examine creative processes in the cultures of decolonisation, Dance, Music and Cultures of Decolonisation in the Indian Diaspora will be of great interest to scholars of South Asian Studies, Diaspora Studies, Performing Arts Studies and Anthropology. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of South Asian Diaspora.
Dance is often considered an ephemeral art, one that disappears nearly as soon as it materializes, leaving no physical object behind. Yet some dance practice involves people trying to embody something that exists before - and survives beyond - their particular acts of dancing. What exactly is that thing? And (how) do dances continue to exist when not performed? Anna Pakes seeks to answer these and related questions in this book, drawing on analytic philosophy of art to explore the metaphysics of dance making, performance and disappearance. Focusing on Western theater dance,Pakes also traces the different ways dances have been conceptualized across time, and what those historical shifts imply for the ontology of dance works.
This companion volume to The Courtly Consort Suite in German-Speaking Europe surveys an area of music neglected by modern scholars: the consort suites and dance music by musicians working in the seventeenth-century German towns. Conditions of work in the German towns are examined in detail, as are the problems posed by the many untrained travelling players who were often little more than beggars. The central part of the book explores the organisation, content and assembly of town suites into carefully ordered printed collections, which refutes the concept of the so-called 'classical' suite. The differences between court and town suites are dealt with alongside the often-ignored variation suite from the later decades of the seventeenth century and the separate suite-writing traditions of Leipzig and Hamburg. While the seventeenth-century keyboard suite has received a good deal of attention from modern scholars, its often symbiotic relationship with the consort suite has been ignored. This book aims to redress the balance and to deal with one very important but often ignored aspect of seventeenth-century notation: the use of blackened notes, which are rarely notated in a meaningful way in modern editions, with important implications for performance.
Martha Graham's Cold War frames the story of Martha Graham and her particular brand of dance modernism as pro-Western Cold War propaganda used by the United States government to promote American democracy. Representing every seated president from Dwight D. Eisenhower through Ronald Reagan, Graham performed politics in the global field for over thirty years. Why did the State Department consistently choose Martha Graham? As with other art forms such as jazz or avant-garde paintings, modern dance was seen to demonstrate American values of individualism and freedom; the choreographer used the freed body to make a new dance technique that could find the essence of human narratives. Graham targeted elites and its youth with modern dance to propound the 'universalism' of human rights under the banner of American democracy. In her choreography, argues author Victoria Phillips, Graham recast the stories of the Western canon through female protagonists whom she captured as timeless, seemingly beyond current politics, and in so doing implied superior political and cultural values of the Free World. Centering on powerful yet not demonstrably American female characters, the stories Graham danced seduced and captured the imaginations of elite audiences without seeming to force a determinedly American agenda. When her characters grew mythic on stage, they became the stories of all mankind, as Graham termed it. "My dances are ages old in meaning," she declared. But Graham took the pro-American argument one step further than her artistic compatriots. She added the trope of the frontier to her repertory. In the Cold War, Graham's particular modernism and the woman herself ossified, as did political aims of a cultural diplomacy based on an appeal to foreign elites. Phillips lays bare the side-by-side trajectories between the aging of Graham's choreography, her work as an ambassador, and the political dominance of the United States as a global power. With her tours and Cold War modernism, she demonstrated the power of the individual, immigrants, republicanism, and freedom from walls and metaphorical fences through cultural diplomacy with the unfettered language of movement and dance.
Astaire by Numbers looks at every second of dancing Fred Astaire committed to film in the studio era-all six hours, thirty-four minutes, and fifty seconds. Using a quantitative digital humanities approach, as well as previously untapped production records, author Todd Decker takes the reader onto the set and into the rehearsal halls and editing rooms where Astaire created his seemingly perfect film dances. Watching closely in this way reveals how Astaire used the technically sophisticated resources of the Hollywood film making machine to craft a singular career in mass entertainment as a straight white man who danced. Decker dissects Astaire's work at the level of the shot, the cut, and the dance step to reveal the aesthetic and practical choices that yielded Astaire's dancing figure on screen. He offers new insights into how Astaire secured his masculinity and his heterosexuality, along with a new understanding of Astaire's whiteness, which emerges in both the sheer extent of his work and the larger implications of his famous "full figure" framing of his dancing body. Astaire by Numbers rethinks this towering straight white male figure from the ground up by digging deeply into questions of race, gender, and sexuality, ultimately offering a complete re-assessment of a twentieth-century icon of American popular culture.
Lighting Dance pioneers the discussion of the ability of lighting design to foreground shadow in dance performances. Through a series of experiments integrating light, shadow, and improvised dance movement, it highlights and analyses what it advances as an innovative expression of shadow in dance as an alternative to more conventional approaches to lighting design. Different art forms, such as painting, film, and dance pieces from Loie Fuller, the Russell Maliphant Dance Company, Elevenplay, Pilobolus, and the Tao Dance Theater served to inspire and contextualise the study. From lighting to psychology, from reviews to academic books, shadows are examined as a symbolic and manipulative entity. The book also presents the dance solo Sombreiro, which was created to echo the experiments with light, shadow, and movement aligned to an interpretation of cultural shadow (Jung 1954, in Samuels, Shorter, and Plaut 1986; Casement 2006; Ramos 2004; Stein 2004; and others). The historical development of lighting within dance practices is also outlined, providing a valuable resource for lighting designers, dance practitioners, and theatre goers interested in the visuality of dance performances.
Matthew Bourne and His Adventures in Dance is an intimate and in-depth conversation between the prize-winning pioneer of ballet and contemporary dance Matthew Bourne and the New York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay. In 1987, a small, aspirant dance group with a striking name made its debut on the London fringe. In 1996, Adventures in Motion Pictures made history as the first modern dance company to open a production in London's West End. From this achievement, AMP sailed triumphantly to Broadway - winning three Tony Awards - guided by Artistic Director Matthew Bourne. Even before the inception of AMP, Bourne was fascinated by theatre, by characterization, and by the history of dance. In his early works - Spitfire, Town & Country and Deadly Serious - Bourne brought a novel approach to dance. And in his reworkings of the classics of the ballet canon - Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Cinderella - Bourne created witty, vivid, poignant productions that received great acclaim. In the first decade of the new millennium, the company name was changed to New Adventures, and Bourne's 'classics', as well as Bourne's new works - The Car Man, Play Without Words, Edward Scissorhands and Dorian Gray - achieved levels of box-office popularity that have seldom, if ever, been matched in dance. In addition, his choreography for various musicals - My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins and Oliver! - have run for years in the West End and on Broadway. The detail in which Bourne discusses his work with Alastair Macaulay is unprecedented. The two explore Bourne's upbringing, his training and influences, and his distinctive creative methods. Bourne's notebooks, his sources and his collaboration with dancers all form part of the discussion in this book.
Les Ballets C de la B was founded by Alain Platel in 1984. Since then it has become a company that enjoys great success at home and abroad. Over the years, Platel has developed a unique choreographic oeuvre. His motto, 'This dance is for the world and the world is for everyone', reveals a deep social and political commitment. Through the three topics of emotions, gestures and politics, this book unravels the choreopolitics of Platel's Les Ballets C de la B. His choreopolitics go beyond conveying a (political) message because rather than defending one opinion, Platel is more concerned about the exposure of the complexity within the debate itself. Highly respected scholars from different fields contribute to this book to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the intense emotions, the damaged narratives, and the precarious bodies in Platel's choreographic oeuvre.
This newly-updated second edition explores Pina Bausch's work and methods by combining interviews, first-hand accounts, and practical exercises from her developmental process for students of both dance and theatre. This comprehensive overview of her work offers new and exciting insight into the theatrical approach of a singular performance practitioner. This is an essential introduction to the life and work of one of the most significant choreographers/directors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's student.
This volume provides new, ground-breaking perspectives on the globally renowned work of the Tanztheater Wuppertal and its iconic founder and artistic director, Pina Bausch. The company's performances, how it developed its productions, the global transfer of its choreographic material and the reactions of audiences and critics are explained as complex, interdependent and reciprocal processes of translation. This is the first book to focus on the artistic research conducted for the Tanztheater's international coproductions and features extensive interviews with dancers, collaborators and spectators and provides first-hand ethnographic insights into the work process. By introducing the praxeology of translation as a key methodological concept for dance research, Gabriele Klein argues that Pina Bausch's lasting legacy is defined by an entanglement of temporalities that challenges the notion of contemporaneity.
Beyond Dance: Laban's Legacy of Movement Analysis offers students of dance and movement a brief introduction to the life and work of Rudolf Laban, and how this work has been extended into the fields of movement therapy, communications, early childhood development, and other fields. While many dance students know of Laban and his work as it applies to their field, few know the full story of how this technique has developed and grown. For many who enter into the fields of dance movement therapy, performance, and communications, there are valuable lessons to be learned from Laban and his follower's works. Beyond Dance offers a concise introduction to this world. Refreshingly free of jargon and easy to understand, the work offers dance students and others interested in human movement a full picture of the many possibilities inherent in Laban's theories. For many who will pursue careers 'beyond dance', this work will be a useful guidebook into related areas. This will be ideally suited to students of Laban movement theory in dance and movement therapy, and will be used in advanced courses in these areas as useful, brief introduction to the field.
"Finding Balance: Fitness, Health, and Training for a Lifetime in
Dance "gives an overview of issues faced by all performing dancers:
injury and treatment; technique and training; fitness; nutrition
and diet; and career management. The text includes both
easy-to-read overviews of each topic and "profiles" of well known
dancers and how they have coped with these issues.
In May 2012, bestselling author Neil Gaiman stood at a podium at Philadelphia's University of the Arts to deliver the commencement address. For the next nineteen minutes he shared his thoughts about creativity, bravery, and strength: he encouraged the students before him to break rules and think outside the box. Most of all, he encouraged the fledgling painters, musicians, writers, and dreamers to make good art. This book, designed by renowned graphic artist Chip Kidd, contains the full text of Gaiman's inspiring speech. Whether bestowed upon a young artist beginning his or her creative journey, or given as a token of gratitude to an admired mentor, or acquired as a gift to oneself, this volume is a fitting offering for anyone who strives to make good art.
The Costumes of Burlesque: 1866-2018 is the first volume to inclusively document burlesque costume from its birth in the 1860's through the global burlesque movement in 2018. This lushly illustrated book presents the history and development of this American art form by documenting the origins, influencers, and genuine articles that created its aesthetic. Showcases of legendary performers, including Lydia Thompson, Gypsy Rose Lee, Sally Rand, Bettie Page, Kitten Natividad, and Dita Von Teese, demonstrate costume styles through the years. This guide gives readers a clear view of how burlesque costume looked and why. It teaches collectors, burlesque performers, and fans alike to recognize vintage pieces for what they are and to design their own costumes with inspiration from the originals. By including detailed costume documentation, over 400 images, and interviews with prominent costume designers such as Catherine D'Lish and Garo Sparo, The Costumes of Burlesque brings 150 years of burlesque costume history to life.
This newly-updated second edition explores Pina Bausch's work and methods by combining interviews, first-hand accounts, and practical exercises from her developmental process for students of both dance and theatre. This comprehensive overview of her work offers new and exciting insight into the theatrical approach of a singular performance practitioner. This is an essential introduction to the life and work of one of the most significant choreographers/directors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's student.
The writings of six choreographers are assembled in this book and the leap they have taken to go from the medium of choreography into written text constitutes a form of translation. Some of the texts investigate the possibilities of written language as invention, others use it as a means to illustrate specific tenets or describe choreographic projects. All yield insight into the process of coaxing language from the body.
Why did the Greeks of the archaic and early Classical period join in choruses that sang and danced on public and private occasions? This book offers a wide-ranging exploration of representations of chorality in the poetry, art and material remains of early Greece in order to demonstrate the centrality of the activity in the social, religious and technological practices of individuals and communities. Moving from a consideration of choral archetypes, among them cauldrons, columns, Gorgons, ships and halcyons, the discussion then turns to an investigation of how participation in choral song and dance shaped communal experience and interacted with a variety of disparate spheres that include weaving, cataloguing, temple architecture and inscribing. The study ends with a treatment of the role of choral activity in generating epiphanies and allowing viewers and participants access to realms that typically lie beyond their perception.
Body and space refer to vital and interrelated dimensions in the experience of sounds and music. Sounds have an overwhelming impact on feelings of bodily presence and inform us about the space we experience. Even in situations where visual information is artificial or blurred, such as in virtual environments or certain genres of film and computer games, sounds may shape our perceptions and lead to surprising new experiences. This book discusses recent developments in a range of interdisciplinary fields, taking into account the rapidly changing ways of experiencing sounds and music, the consequences for how we engage with sonic events in daily life and the technological advancements that offer insights into state-of-the-art methods and future perspectives. Topics range from the pleasures of being locked into the beat of the music, perception-action coupling and bodily resonance, and affordances of musical instruments, to neural processing and cross-modal experiences of space and pitch. Applications of these findings are discussed for movement sonification, room acoustics, networked performance, and for the spatial coordination of movements in dance, computer gaming and interactive artistic installations.
The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen sets the agenda for the study of dance in popular moving images - films, television shows, commercials, music videos, and YouTube - and offers new ways to understand the multi-layered meanings of the dancing body by engaging with methodologies from critical dance studies, performance studies, and film/media analysis. Through thorough engagement with these approaches, the chapters demonstrate how dance on the popular screen might be read and considered through bodies and choreographies in moving media. Questions the contributors consider include: How do dance and choreography function within the filmic apparatus? What types of bodies are associated with specific dances and how does this affect how dance(s) is/are perceived in the everyday? How do the dancing bodies on screen negotiate power, access, and agency? How are multiple choreographies of identity (e.g., race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation) set in motion through the narrative, dancing bodies, and/or dance style? What types of corporeal labors (dance training, choreographic skill, rehearsal, the constructed notion of "natural talent") are represented or ignored? What role does a specific film have in the genealogy of Hollywood dance film? How does the Hollywood dance film inform how dance operates in making cultural meanings? Whether looking at Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's tap steps in Stormy Weather, or Baby's leap into Johnny Castle's arms in Dirty Dancing, or even Neo's backwards bend in The Matrix, the book's arguments offer powerful new scholarship on dance in the popular screen.
Staging British South Asian Culture: Bollywood and Bhangra in British Theatre looks afresh at the popularity of forms and aesthetics from Bollywood films and bhangra music and dance on the British stage. From Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams to the finals of Britain's Got Talent, Jerri Daboo reconsiders the centrality of Bollywood and bhangra to theatre made for or about British South Asian communities. Addressing rarely discussed theatre companies such as Rifco, and phenomena such as the emergence of large- scale Bollywood revue performances, this volume goes some way towards remedying the lack of critical discourse around British South Asian theatre. A timely contribution to this growing field, Staging British South Asian Culture is essential reading for any scholar or student interested in exploring the highly contested questions of identity and representation for British South Asian communities.
First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company. |
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