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This new collection of essays surveys the history of dance in an
innovative and wide-ranging fashion. Editors Dils and Albright
address the current dearth of comprehensive teaching material in
the dance history field through the creation of a multifaceted,
non-linear, yet well-structured and comprehensive survey of select
moments in the development of both American and World dance. This
book is illustrated with over 50 photographs, and would make an
ideal text for undergraduate classes in dance ethnography,
criticism or appreciation, as well as dance history--particularly
those with a cross-cultural, contemporary, or an American focus.
The reader is organized into four thematic sections which allow for
varied and individualized course use: Thinking about Dance History:
Theories and Practices, World Dance Traditions, America Dancing,
and Contemporary Dance: Global Contexts. The editors have
structured the readings with the understanding that contemporary
theory has thoroughly questioned the discursive construction of
history and the resultant canonization of certain dances, texts and
points of view. The historical readings are presented in a way that
encourages thoughtful analysis and allows the opportunity for
critical engagement with the text.
How to Land: Finding Ground in an Unstable World presents a new
look at embodiment that treats gravity as the organizing force for
thinking and moving through our twenty-first century world. Author
Ann Cooper Albright argues that a renewed attention to gravity as
both a metaphoric sensibility and a physical experience can help
transform moments of personal disorientation into an opportunity to
reflect on the important relationship between individual resiliency
and communal responsibility. Long one of the nation's preeminent
thinkers in dance improvisation, Albright asks how dancers are
affected by repeated images of falling bodies, bombed-out
buildings, and displaced peoples, as well as recurring evocations
of global economies and governments in discursive free fall or
dissolution. What kind of fear gets lodged in connective tissue
when there is an underlying anxiety that certain aspects of our
world are in danger of falling apart? To answer this question, she
draws on analyses of perception from cognitive studies, tracing the
discussions of meaning, body and language through the work of Mark
Johnson, Thomas Csordas, and George Lakoff, among others. In
addition, she follows the past decade of debate in contemporary
media concerning the implications of the weightless and
two-dimensional social media exchanges on structures of attention
and learning, as well as their effect on the personal growth and
socialization of a generation of young adults. Each chapter
interweaves discussions of movement actions with their cultural
implications, documenting specific bodily experiences and then
tracing their ideological ripples out through the world.
For twenty-five years, Ann Cooper Albright has been exploring the
intersection of cultural representation and somatic identity in
dance. For Albright, dancing is a physical inquiry, a way of
experiencing and participating in the world, and her writing
reflects an interdisciplinary approach to seeing and thinking about
dance. In her engagement as both a dancer and a scholar, Albright
draws on her kinesthetic sensibilities as well as her intellectual
knowledge to articulate how movement creates meaning. Throughout
Engaging Bodies movement and ideas lean on one another to produce a
critical theory anchored in the material reality of dancing bodies.
This blend of cultural theory and personal circumstance will be
useful and inspiring for emerging scholars and dancers looking for
a model of writing about dance that thrives on the
interconnectedness of watching and doing, gesture and thought.
This small and beautifully illustrated book showcases the work of
two great American modernists, painter Abraham Walkowitz and dancer
Isadora Duncan. Born in the same year (1878), both artists
influenced the development of modern art in the early twentieth
century by blending figurative gesture with abstraction. Duncan
grew up in a free-spirited and artistic household in California and
then moved to Europe. Walkowitz immigrated to the United States
from Russia when he was a child and lived most of his life in New
York City, where he studied at Cooper Union School and the National
Academy of Design.
Walkowitz and Duncan met in 1906 in Paris at the studio of the
sculptor Auguste Rodin. Deeply impressed by Duncan's musicality and
expressivity, Walkowitz drew thousands of images of Duncan dancing
throughout his life. Because Walkowitz's renderings of Duncan were
produced quickly, they carry an element of improvisational vitality
that matches the dynamic energy of her presence onstage. In her
introductory essay, author Ann Cooper Albright weaves literary
theory, art criticism, and dance history into a fluid narrative to
explore how Walkowitz's drawings realize Duncan's dancing on paper.
Modern Gestures reproduces over fifty watercolors of this unique
oeuvre, many of which have never before been published. A perfect
gift, this sumptuous little volume will provide hours of enjoyment
to anyone interested in dance or modern art.
First critical biography of this visionary artist written by a
dance scholar. Simone Forti, groundbreaking improvisor, has spent a
lifetime weaving together the movement of her mind with the
movement of her body to create a unique oeuvre situated at the
intersection of dancing and art practices. Her seminal Dance
Constructions from the 1960s crafted a new approach to dance
composition and helped inspire the investigations of Judson Dance
Theater. In the 1970s, Forti's explorations of animal movements
expanded that legacy to launch improvisation as a valuable artform
in its own right. From her early forays into vocal accompaniment to
her News Animations, Forti has long integrated gesture and text
into compelling performances that consistently stretched the
boundaries of dance to layer abstract movement with story-telling
and political commentary. Her "Land Portraits" series brought an
immersive ecological experience to New York City stages in the
1980s, and she is a beloved teacher and mentor whose Body, Mind,
World workshops have inspired dancers around the world. In this
beautifully written book, author Ann Cooper Albright braids
archival research, extensive interviews, and detailed movement
analyses of Forti's performances to provide the first
kinesthetically-informed and critically-nuanced history of Forti's
multifaceted and extensive career.
For twenty-five years, Ann Cooper Albright has been exploring the
intersection of cultural representation and somatic identity in
dance. For Albright, dancing is a physical inquiry, a way of
experiencing and participating in the world, and her writing
reflects an interdisciplinary approach to seeing and thinking about
dance. In her engagement as both a dancer and a scholar, Albright
draws on her kinesthetic sensibilities as well as her intellectual
knowledge to articulate how movement creates meaning. Throughout
Engaging Bodies movement and ideas lean on one another to produce a
critical theory anchored in the material reality of dancing bodies.
This blend of cultural theory and personal circumstance will be
useful and inspiring for emerging scholars and dancers looking for
a model of writing about dance that thrives on the
interconnectedness of watching and doing, gesture and thought.
One of the most famous dancers of the early 1900s, Loie Fuller
created an extraordinary sensation in Paris with her manipulations
of hundreds of yards of silk, swirling high above her and lit
dramatically from below. Her work inspired artists such as Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, Auguste Rodin, and Stephane Mallarme, and she
embodied many of the decorative themes of Art Nouveau. Because her
work highlights important issues in dance such as the role of
technology in defining a dancing signature, the emergence of a
modern movement sensibility, and the role of popular entertainment
in early modern dance, Fuller is a critical figure through whom to
study the changing representations of women dancers in the early
twentieth century. Author Ann Cooper Albright places Fuller in the
context of fin-de-siecle culture and offers a compelling analysis
of Fuller's innovations in lighting and movement that includes
full-color reproductions of original posters, archival photos, and
magazine and newspaper clippings. Traces of Light adds
significantly to the literature on twentieth-century dance,
illuminating a pioneer who helped to shape modern performance and
stagecraft. There is a digital web companion to this book at http:
//learningobjects.wesleyan.edu/wespress/traces/.
The choreographies of Bill T. Jones, Cleveland Ballet Dancing
Wheels, Zab Maboungou, David Dorfman, Marie Chouinard, Jawole Willa
Jo Zollar, and others, have helped establish dance as a crucial
discourse of the 90s. These dancers, Ann Cooper Albright argues,
are asking the audience to see the body as a source of cultural
identity -- a physical presence that moves with and through its
gendered, racial, and social meanings.
Through her articulate and nuanced analysis of contemporary
choreography, Albright shows how the dancing body shifts
conventions of representation and provides a critical example of
the dialectical relationship between cultures and the bodies that
inhabit them. As a dancer, feminist, and philosopher, Albright
turns to the material experience of bodies, not just the body as a
figure or metaphor, to understand how cultural representation
becomes embedded in the body. In arguing for the intelligence of
bodies, Choreographing Difference is itself a testimonial, giving
voice to some important political, moral, and artistic questions of
our time.
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