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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Dance > General
Jamaican dancehall has long been one of the most vital and
influential cultural and artistic forces within contemporary global
music. "Wake the Town and Tell the People" presents, for the first
time, a lively, nuanced, and comprehensive view of this musical and
cultural phenomenon: its growth and historical role within Jamaican
society, its economy of star making, its technology of production,
its performative practices, and its capacity to channel political
beliefs through popular culture in ways that are urgent, tangible,
and lasting.
Norman C. Stolzoff brings a fan's enthusiasm to his broad
perspective on dancehall, providing extensive interviews, original
photographs, and anthropological analysis from eighteen months of
fieldwork in Kingston. Stolzoff argues that this enormously popular
musical genre expresses deep conflicts within Jamaican society, not
only along lines of class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion
but also between different factions struggling to gain control of
the island nation's political culture. Dancehall culture thus
remains a key arena where the future of this volatile nation is
shaped. As his argument unfolds, Stolzoff traces the history of
Jamaican music from its roots in the late eighteenth century to
1945, from the addition of sound systems and technology during the
mid-forties to early sixties, and finally through the
post-independence years from the early sixties to the
present.
"Wake the Town and Tell the People" offers a general introduction
for those interested in dancehall music and culture. For the fan or
musicologist, it will serve as a comprehensive reference book.
How is the politics of Blackness figured in the flamenco dancing
body? What does flamenco dance tell us about the construction of
race in the Atlantic world? Sonidos Negros traces how, in the span
between 1492 and 1933, the vanquished Moor became Black, and how
this figure, enacted in terms of a minstrelized Gitano,
paradoxically came to represent Spain itself. The imagined Gypsy
about which flamenco imagery turns dances on a knife's edge
delineating Christian and non-Christian, White and Black worlds.
This figure's subversive teetering undermines Spain's symbolic
linkage of religion with race, a prime weapon of conquest.
Flamenco's Sonidos Negros live in this precarious balance, amid the
purposeful confusion and ruckus cloaking embodied resistance, the
lament for what has been lost, and the values and aspirations of
those rendered imperceptible by enslavement and colonization.
The mystery of the body in motion. The surprise of seeing what
seems impossible. And the pure, joyful optimism of it all. "Dancers
Among Us" presents one thrilling photograph after another of
dancers leaping, spinning, lifting, kicking - but in the midst of
daily life: on the beach, at a construction site, in a library, a
restaurant, a park. With each image the reader feels buoyed up,
eager to see the next bit of magic. Photographer Jordan Matter
started his Dancers Among Us Project by asking a member of the Paul
Taylor Dance Company to dance for him in a place where dance is
unexpected. So, dressed in a commuter's suit and tie, the dancer
flew across a Times Square subway platform. And in that image
Matter found what he'd been searching for: a way to express the
feeling of being fully alive in the moment, unself-conscious,
present. Organized around themes of work, play, love, exploration,
dreaming, and more, "Dancers Among Us" celebrates life in a way
that's fresh, surprising, original, universal. There's no
photo-shopping here, no trampolines, no gimmicks, no tricks. Just a
photographer, his vision, and the serendipity of what happens when
the shutter clicks.
How does structural economic change look and feel? How are such
changes normalized? How are these trends represented in movement,
in performance, and in culture? Looking at Detroit's postindustrial
revitalization, The Heidelberg Project, and Michael Jackson's many
performances, Unfinished Business argues that U.S.
deindustrialization cannot be separated from issues of race,
specifically from choreographed movements of African Americans that
represent or resist normative or aberrant relationships to work and
capital in transitional times. Presenting Jackson and Detroit as
material entities with specific histories and as representations
with uncanny persistence, the book divulges invaluable lessons on
three decades of structural economic transition in the U.S.,
particularly on the changing nature of work and capitalism between
the mid-1980s and 2016. Jackson and Detroit offer examples of the
racialization of these economic changes, how they operate as
structures of feeling and representations as well as shifts in the
dominant mode of production, and how industrialization's successor
mode, financialization, uses imagery both very similar to and very
different from its predecessor.
Focusing on some of the best-known and most visible stage plays and
dance performances of the late nineteenth- and early
twentieth-centuries, Penny Farfan's interdisciplinary study
demonstrates that queer performance was integral to and productive
of modernism, that queer modernist performance played a key role in
the historical emergence of modern sexual identities, and that it
anticipated, and was in a sense foundational to, the insights of
contemporary queer modernist studies. Chapters on works from Vaslav
Nijinsky's Afternoon of a Faun to Noel Coward's Private Lives
highlight manifestations of and suggest ways of reading queer
modernist performance. Together, these case studies clarify aspects
of both the queer and the modernist, and how their co-productive
intersection was articulated in and through performance on the
late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century stage. Performing
Queer Modernism thus contributes to an expanded understanding of
modernism across a range of performance genres, the central role of
performance within modernism more generally, and the integral
relation between performance history and the history of sexuality.
It also contributes to the ongoing transformation of the field of
modernist studies, in which drama and performance remain
under-represented, and to revisionist historiographies that
approach modernist performance through feminist and queer critical
perspectives and interdisciplinary frameworks and that consider how
formally innovative as well as more conventional works collectively
engaged with modernity, at once reflecting and contributing to
historical change in the domains of gender and sexuality.
This second volume of John Froy's memoir, a sequel to his childhood
story in 70 Waterloo Road, takes us from Italy to Reading
University and Falmouth School of Art with many twists and turns
between. The memoir chronicles the life of an art student in the
70s: a time of great experiment and change; the figurative/abstract
divide in painting and sculpture; the new photography, film and
Happenings. And in the gaps, while extricating himself from the
family home, being a volunteer archaeologist in Assisi, an osprey
warden in Scotland, a London bedsit and dead-end job, a Wiltshire
valley idyll and landscape painting in a caravan through a Cornish
winter. 'Things may come and things may go, but the art school
dance goes on for ever.' (Pete Brown, 1970)
Playable Bodies investigates what happens when machines teach
humans to dance. Dance video games work as engines of humor, shame,
trust, and intimacy, urging players to dance like nobody's
watching-while being tracked by motion-sensing interfaces in their
living rooms. The chart-topping dance game franchises Just Dance
and Dance Central transform players' experiences of popular music,
invite experimentation with gendered and racialized movement
styles, and present new possibilities for teaching, learning, and
archiving choreography. Author Kiri Miller shows how these games
teach players to regard their own bodies as both interfaces and
avatars, and how a convergence of choreography and programming code
is driving a new wave of full-body virtual-reality media
experiences. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research with
players, game designers, and choreographers, Playable Bodies
situates dance games in a media ecology that includes the larger
game industry, viral music videos, reality TV competitions,
marketing campaigns, consumer reviews, social media discourse, and
emerging surveillance technologies. Miller tracks the circulation
of dance gameplay and related "body projects" across media
platforms to reveal how dance games function as "intimate media,"
configuring new relationships among humans, interfaces, music and
dance repertoires, and social media practices.
Responding to recent evolutions in the fields of dance and
religious and secular studies, The Oxford Handbook of Jewishness
and Dance documents and celebrates the significant impact of Jewish
identity on a variety of communities and the dance world writ
large. Focusing on North America, Europe, and Israel in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this Handbook highlights the
sometimes surprising, often hidden and overlooked Jewish resonances
within a range of styles from modern and postmodern dance to folk
dance and flamenco. Privileging the historically marginalized
voices of scholars, performers, and instructors the Handbook
considers the powerful role of dance in addressing difference, such
as between American and Israeli Jewish communities. In the process,
contributors advocate values of social justice, like Tikkun Olam
(repair of the world), debate, and humor, exploring the fascinating
and potentially uncomfortable contradictions and ambiguities that
characterize this robust area of research.
Never before has a greater variety of careers been available in
dance-and never before has such comprehensive, expert guidance on
those burgeoning careers been accessible in one book. Careers in
Dance is a master guide that will help students navigate the
expanding opportunities in dance and familiarize current
professionals with potential career choices that best align with
their pursuits and strengths. This highly practical text offers a
wealth of information on career options in a variety of settings
and with a variety of focuses, including commercial ventures,
scholarly pursuits, administrative avenues, medical and scientific
settings, and interdisciplinary opportunities. Readers are guided
in discovering their deepest interests and learning how to
translate their unique strengths into rich and fulfilling careers.
In keeping with recent trends in higher education dance programs,
Careers in Dance spotlights entrepreneurship and leadership
opportunities for dancers, delving into an array of options and
offering much-needed advice. The book covers some of the social and
cultural influences that affect success in the field, and it
explores various career opportunities: K-12 and postsecondary dance
education Dance studios Performance, choreography, and production
Dance research, analytical writing, and journalism Dance
administration and advocacy Dance science, therapy, and medical and
somatic practices Private competition companies Technical theater
and related areas The text also helps readers understand the
connections between dance and other disciplines. For example, it
details the interdisciplinary opportunities involving technology,
technical theater, and media. It also notes the possibilities for
continued education in graduate school programs and suggests
approaches to acclimating to life as a working professional.
Careers in Dance offers two recurring elements throughout the book:
Profiles of, and interviews with, esteemed professional dancers,
revealing their real-world experiences and affording insights into
different dance careers Reflection prompts that encourage
self-reflection and prepare readers to seek career development and
career advancement opportunities This text explores the
opportunities dance students and professionals can pursue, helps
them pinpoint their areas of interest and strengths, and equips
them to create their unique paths to a fulfilling career in dance.
In doing so, Careers in Dance provides the advice and strategies
dancers need to actualize their own destinies in dance.
Der judische Tanz- und Theaterkritiker Artur Michel gehoerte zu den
kenntnis- und einflussreichsten Tanzberichterstattern der Weimarer
Republik. In diesem Band ist sein Hauptwerk - die Tanzkritiken aus
der Vossischen Zeitung zwischen 1922 und 1934 - abgedruckt. Es
liest sich als eine spannende und ausserst lebendige Tanzgeschichte
des modernen kunstlerischen Tanzes in Europa. Artur Michel
entwickelte ab 1922 in der Vossischen Zeitung systematisch die
Tanzkritik. Er engagierte sich fur den modernen kunstlerischen
Buhnentanz und trat damit den Freunden des klassischen Balletts
kampferisch entgegen. Sein Idol war Mary Wigman. Ihre Auffassungen
eines "absoluten Tanzes" unterstutzte er nach Kraften. Die
Vossische Zeitung war eine der wichtigsten uberregionalen Berliner
Tageszeitungen. Sie galt als Sprachrohr des liberalen Burgertums.
Als das Blatt 1934 aus Protest gegen die von den
Nationalsozialisten gleichgeschaltete Presse sein Erscheinen
einstellte, verlor Michel sein wichtigstes Publikationsorgan. Erst
1941 erkannte er, dass er in Nazi-Deutschland nicht mehr sicher
leben konnte und floh in letzter Minute auf abenteuerlichem Weg
nach New York. Bis zu seinem Tod im Jahr 1946 schrieb er nunmehr in
der deutsch-judischen Emigrantenzeitschrift Aufbau uber den
modernen kunstlerischen Tanz in den USA.
This book is a collection of essays that capture the artistic
voices at play during a staging process. Situating familiar
practices such as reimagining, reenactment and recreation alongside
the related and often intersecting processes of transmission,
translation and transformation, it features deep insights into
selected dances from directors, performers, and close associates of
choreographers. The breadth of practice on offer illustrates the
capacity of dance as a medium to adapt successfully to diverse
approaches and, further, that there is a growing appetite amongst
audiences for seeing dances from the near and far past. This study
spans a century, from Rudolf Laban's Dancing Drumstick (1913) to
Robert Cohan's Sigh (2015), and examines works by Mary Wigman,
Madge Atkinson (Natural Movement), Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham,
Yvonne Rainer and Rosemary Butcher, an eclectic mix that crosses
time and borders.
This is a book about collaboration in the arts, which explores how
working together seems to achieve more than the sum of the parts.
It introduces ideas from economics to conceptualize notions of
externalities, complementarity, and emergence, and playfully
explores collaborative structures such as the swarm, the crowd, the
flock, and the network. It uses up-to-date thinking about
Wikinomics, Postcapitalism, and Biopolitics, underpinned by ideas
from Foucault, Bourriaud, and Hardt and Negri. In a series of
thought-provoking case studies, the authors consider creative
practices in theatre, music and film. They explore work by artists
such as Gob Squad, Eric Whitacre, Dries Verhoeven, Pete Wyer, and
Tino Seghal, and encounter both live and online collaborative
possibilities in fascinating discussions of Craigslist and
crowdfunding at the Edinburgh Festival. What is revealed is that
the introduction of Web 2.0 has enabled a new paradigm of artistic
practice to emerge, in which participatory encounters,
collaboration, and online dialogue become key creative drivers.
Written itself as a collaborative project between Karen Savage and
Dominic Symonds, this is a strikingly original take on the
economics of working together.
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.
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
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.
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