Contemporary dance Books

Book SynopsisThis is a handbook for working in the creative arts, with an emphasis on imagination and receptivity: to our bodies, surroundings, materials, and to what we create. It puts particular emphasis upon the sensing, feeling, moving body as a basis for any imaginative activity. It describes sources and strategies for working in and between various forms of expression, including: moving, making things with materials and writing. It stresses the importance of intuitive, instinctive ways of knowing, perceiving and creating. It is a useful resource for anyone studying or teaching in the arts, or working creatively with others: therapeutically, educationally, or in a community context. It is written to inspire rather than to instruct, to be used in small amounts to stimulate a working process, rather than to be read through from cover to cover. The authors' previous book, 'Body Space Image', was about improvised movement, experimental performance and creating performance settings. This book turns to the question of imagination in our lives and how this is awakened and nourished through attention to the present, feeling world of the body and to whatever appears as we make. In this way we enter into the poetics of our experience.Trade Review"Perhaps the way that the world sees itself is changing, and the divide between participant and observer, object and intelligence, is diffusing into field activity. This handbook is part of that process." Antony GormleyTable of ContentsAbout this Book Autobiographical Notes Sources Acknowledgements 1 Arriving Part 1 Creating as Conversation Introduction to part 1 2 Moving and writing 3 Making 4 Getting to know what you have made Notes on timing and getting stuck Part 2 The Unfolding Image Introduction to part 2 5 Skin 6 Materials 7 Stories 8 Bone 9 Places 10 Heart Glossary of Terms Selected Bibliography Permissions

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Book SynopsisThe critically acclaimed definitive biography of Kate Bush, revised and updated for 2024, with a new foreword by Sinead Gleeson.

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Book SynopsisWhether you''re an absolute beginner or a Strictly Come Dancing wannabe, it''s time to get up and dance Craig Revel Horwood''s Ballroom Dancing gives you the confidence you need to take your first steps on the dancefloor. It even includes style tips from the style guru, Len Goodman, to give you that professional look. Discover the history, foot positions, turns, and more, to all your favourite Strictly dances: Waltz Social foxtrot Quickstep Tango Rumba Samba Cha cha cha JiveBallroom dancing is totally cool, funky, and fantastically rewarding. What better way to get fit than tangoing your tension away, and foxtrotting the fat off your thighs? Happy dancing.Trade Review"Excellent ... a really simple way to learn." * Lorraine Kelly *Table of Contents : Introduction : Warm-Up : International Latin American Dances : Mambo : Rumba : Cha Cha Cha : Paso Doble : Samba : Jive : International Standard Partner Dances : Slow Foxtrot : Waltz : Quickstep : Tango : Viennese Waltz

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Book SynopsisThe autobiography of a legendary swing dancerTrade Review"Dance writer and swing dancer Millman conducted extensive interviews with Manning for a vivid account of his career... the first-person accounts of Manning's life capture his vibrancy, humor and charm...this vivid memoir by one of swing dancing's innovators and stars is a must for lovers of dance, jazz and African-American history." —Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments / i Foreword: Mercedes Ellington Frankie Manning: An Appreciation by Cynthia R. Millman / xi Prologue: Too Stiff / 1 PART ONE: EARLY STEPS (1914-circa 1933) Chapter 1. Jazz Baby / 5 Chapter 2. Early Ballroom Forays / 21 PART TWO: SAVOY DANCER (circa 1933-1936) Chapter 3. To the Savoy at Last / 47 Chapter 4. Whitey, Shorty, and Stretch / 72 Chapter 5. Win Win / 85 Chapter 6. Up in the Air She Goes / 102 PART THREE: WHITEY'S LINDY HOPPERS (1936-1943) Chapter 7. Going Pro / 129 Chapter 8. Big Time at the Cotton Club / 149 Chapter 9. A Big Apple for Whitey / 174 Chapter 10. On Broadway and In the Movies / 213 Chapter 11. Stranded in Rio / 246 PART FOUR: WAR AND HOME (1943-1984) Chapter 12. Dancer Interrupted / 259 Chapter 13. The Congaroo Dancers and a Day Job / 275 PART FIVE: SECOND ACT (1984-present) Chapter 14. Revival / APPENDIXES A. Frankie Manning Timeline / 347 B. Biographies of Lindy Hoppers C. List of Works Cited or Consulted / C. Frankie's List of Swing Dance on Film/TV D. Swing Dance Resources E. Swing Dance Organizations and Events Index

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Book Synopsis In most forms of dancing, performers carry out their steps with a distance that keeps them from colliding with each other. Dancer Steve Paxton in the 1970s considered this distance a territory for investigation. His study of intentional contact resulted in a public performance in 1972 in a Soho gallery, and the name contact improvisation was coined for the form of unrehearsed dance he introduced. Rather than copyrighting it, Paxton allowed it to evolve and spread. In this book the author draws upon her own experience and research to explain the art of contact improvisation, in which dance partners propel movement by physical contact. They roll, fall, spiral, leap, and slip along the contours and momentum of moving bodies. The text begins with a history, then describes the elements that define this form of dance. Subsequent chapters explore how contact improvisation relates to self and identity; how class, race, gender, culture and physiology influence dance; how dance pr

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Book SynopsisWhen it was first published in 1990, 'Body Space Image' was acclaimed as the first book of its kind - a remarkable guide to improvisation, using a narrative of discovery that "set the mind loose from the rut of everyday perception". It was groundbreaking in the way it addressed improvised movement, experimental performance and how to create performance settings. Thirty years later, 'Body, Space, Image' still stands out from anything published in the interim - largely because of the way it combines a unique collection of images (from dance, theatre and painting) and statements by working artists. The authors start with the individual's movement itself as the basis of improvisation, then broaden their perspective to include groups working together and the physical setting of performance - space, light, sound and objects. 'Body Space Image' explores ways of working and ways of thinking about performance that have inspired beginners and experienced artists alike. It is a manual intended to stimulate rather than a comprehensive system of working and, in it, word and image combine to celebrate and record one of the most exacting art forms. Previously published by Dance Books, this is a very slightly revised new edition from Triarchy Press

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Book SynopsisGrand Hotel. My One and Only. Nine. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. The Will Rogers Follies. For two decades, Tommy Tune was the maestro presiding over a string of glittering Broadway musicals that took the tradition of complete musical staging by a director-choreographer into a new era defined by spectacle and technology. He was last in a grand lineage led by Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Bob Fosse, and Michael Bennett, but also provided a link to a new generation of choreographers-turned-directors like Susan Stroman, Jerry Mitchell, and Casey Nicholaw. Unlike his fellow director-choreographers, Tune also maintained a successful performing career. His nine Tony Awards (plus a tenth, for Lifetime Achievement) were earned across four categories, not only for choreography and direction, but also as both featured and lead actor in a musical, for Seesaw and My One and Only--a distinction no one else can claim. Tune took the musical forward by looking backward, bringing satiric energy and contemporary style to a trove of show business antecedents--from clog dancing to showgirl formations, from precision kick lines to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers-style ballroom glides. He did the same with his concert and cabaret performances, drawing on classics from the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter and performing them not as nostalgia but as vital, immediate statements of personal philosophy. Everything is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune is the first full scale book about the career of this prodigious artist. It celebrates and examines with a critical eye his major projects, and summons for readers a glorious period of dance, performance, and theatrical imagination.Trade ReviewWe really sense the energy, rhythms, moods, and sounds of the movements, and are able to feel the theatricality of the choreography, and, hence, understand how Tune's staging worked to drive the drama in his productions. * Lisa Jo Sagolla, American Theatre Magazine *Winkler's book is the definition of a page turner. I literally could not put it down, except when I was rushing to YouTube to watch some of the dance numbers he so vividly described ... My appreciation and knowledge of Tune's career grew after reading this book, and I'm sure yours will too. If you love -- and care about -- the Broadway musical, this book is absolutely essential reading. * David Meyers, The Algemeiner *Winkler has written a lively, incisive look at Tommy Tune, Broadway's leading director/choreographer/performer in the latter decades of the Twentieth Century. Free of pretense, Tune served both his shows and audiences with his wit and unique style and Winkler captures it all. * Ken Bloom, author of Show and Tell: The New Book of Broadway Anecdotes *Winkler explains what went right and what went wrong with each production as part of the larger story of Tune's superstar sensibility, triumphing in a period when it felt as if British musicals owned New York. The spectacular research outlines the history of the Broadway musical over a half century. Among studies of how entertainment can be made entertaining, it's a model of reporting. * Mindy Aloff, editor, Dance in America: A Reader's Anthology (Library of America) *Everything is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune is a well-researched, dizzying deep dive into the creative life and theatrical work of Thomas James Tune. * Adrienne M. Wilson, Journal Of Dance Education *Table of ContentsForeword by Geoffrey Block Introduction 1. Broadway Baby 2. Gents and Working Girls 3. Double Feature 4. City of Women 5. A Gershwin Tune 6. A Great Place to Make a Show 7. The Broadway Melody of 1991 8. Song and Dance Man Everything is Still Choreography Index

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Book SynopsisThe dance circle (called the cypher) is a common signifier of breaking culture, known more for its spectacular moves than as a ritual practice with foundations in Africanist aesthetics. Yet those foundationsevident in expressive qualities like call and response, the aural kinesthetic, the imperative to be original, and moreare essential to cyphering''s enduring presence on the global stage. What can cyphers activate beyond the spectacle? What lessons do cyphers offer about moving through and navigating the social world? And what possibilities for the future do they animate? With an interdisciplinary reach and a riff on physics, author Imani Kai Johnson centers the voices of practitioners in a study of breaking events in cities across the US, Canada, and parts of Europe.Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers: the Life of Africanist Aesthetics in Global Hip Hop draws on over a decade of research and provides a detailed look into the vitality of Africanist aesthetics and the epistemological possibilities of the ritual circle.Trade ReviewIn critically celebrating the immeasurable mass of hip-hop dance, Imani Kai Johnson significantly advances the thought and practice of Blackness as global field and global force. Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers is a beautiful necessity. * Fred Moten, New York University *Professor Imani K. Johnson provides a ringside seat and exceedingly informed analysis in Dark Matter. Her writing is a Hip Hop 'show and prove' performance of meaning and pervasiveness, grounded in contemporary reiterations of Africanist aesthetics within global Black lives. * Yvonne Daniel, Smith College *Table of ContentsPreface: "Being There" Introduction: Dark Matter, Breaking Chapter 1. Dark Matter & Diaspora: Cyphers in an Africanist Context Chapter 2: Battling in the Bronx: Social Choreography & Outlaw Culture Chapter 3. Badass B-Girls Dancing the Dissonance of a Breaking Sociality Chapter 4. Dancing Global Hip Hop: Negotiating Difference & Tradition Acknowledgements Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe most familiar format of electronic dance music is the DJ set. Performed live with turntables, headphones, twelve-inch vinyl records, and a mixing board, these performances are largely improvised, evolving in response to the demands of a particular situation through interaction with a dancing audience.Trade ReviewPlaying with Something That Runs is an immaculate piece of popular musicology, with the potential to become one the cornerstone texts in our discipline. Its interdisciplinary approach provides an incredibly compelling insight into the performance and consumption of live EDM, and the companion website offers a great tool in bringing the discussions of recordings and performances to life through carefully curated audio and video examples. * Toby Young, Dancecult.net *These reflections do not fail to pose many difficulties to the musical theory: where does the identity of the work lie? Is there a hierarchy between different "versions" of the same "composition"? Why are some compositions not intended to be listened to publicly but only to provide the raw material of improvisation?...What is the relationship between human and technology? In asking these questions, Mark Butler invites us to go beyond many of the common places of musicology that have been settled since the nineteenth century as the objections between product and process, work and performance, composition and improvisation - and many othersIt shows us that popular electronic music is the current place for an intense widening of the spectrum of possible on the future of musical creation, both in the field of avant-garde and mainstream music. * Emmanuel Parent, L'Université Rennes 2, Volume! *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Remixing One's Self: Ontologies of the Provisional Work ; 2. Performing Performance: Interface, Design, Liveness and Listener Orientation ; 3. Making it Up and Breaking it Down: Improvisation in EDM Performance ; 4. Looking for the Perfect Loop: Musical Technologies of Mediated Improvisation ; Appendix ; Works Cited

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Book SynopsisWhen Words are Inadequate is a transnational history of modern dance written from and beyond the perspective of China. Author Nan Ma extends the horizon of China studies by rewriting the cultural history of modern China from a bodily movement-based perspective through the lens of dance modernism. The book examines the careers and choreographies of four Chinese modern dance pioneers-Yu Rongling, Wu Xiaobang, Dai Ailian, and Guo Mingda-and their connections to canonical Western counterparts, including Isadora Duncan, Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, and Alwin Nikolais. Tracing these Chinese pioneers'' varied experiences in Paris, Tokyo, Trinidad, London, New York, and China''s metropolises and borderlands, the book shows how their contributions adapted and reimagined the legacies of early Euro-American modern dance.In doing so, When Words are Inadequate reinserts China into the multi-centered, transnational network of artistic exchange that fostered the global rise of modern dance, further complicating the binary conceptions of center and periphery and East and West. By exploring the relationships between performance and representation, choreography and politics, and nation-building and global modernism, it situates modern dance within an intermedial circuit of literary and artistic forms, demonstrating how modern dance provided a kinesthetic alternative and complement to other sibling arts in participating in China''s successive revolutions, reforms, wars, and political movements.Trade ReviewThis superb and long-awaited book authoritatively locates the development of early Chinese modern dance in global dance history. The well-selected case studies focus on four of the most important figures in modern dance in twentieth-century China. Nan Ma's insightful analysis and vivid storytelling brings these individuals and their border-crossing artistic worlds to life and theorizes new models for understanding transnational interaction and circulation in modernist cultures. * Emily Wilcox, author of Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy *This fascinating book rewrites the cultural history of modern dance and modern China. It brings to life the captivating transnational and transcultural careers of Chinese modern dance pioneers and their connections to canonical Western counterparts. Ma writes with grace and ease, and deeply engages with a wide range of interdisciplinary scholarship in refreshingly rigorous, theoretically reflexive ways. A must read for anyone interested in modern dance and modern Chinese culture. * Liang Luo, author of The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China *Nan Ma's When Words are Inadequate offers a groundbreaking view of global dance modernism in the 20th century by focusing on key dance artists and ensembles based in China as nodes and routes of international artistic exchanges between China and the West. Ma's study seeks to re-write two histories, one about the global dissemination of modern dance within Chinese and Asian contexts, and another about the cultural history of modern China as seen through dancing bodies. Offering a transnational, transcultural, and intermedial account of dance modernism, When Words are Inadequate is a pivotal and original contribution to dance studies. * Rebekah J. Kowal, author of Dancing the World Smaller: Staging Globalism in Mid-Century America *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Chinese Case of Modern Dance Chapter 1: Traveling Princess and Dancing Diplomat: Yu Rongling, Corporeal Modernity, and Isadora Duncan Chapter 2: Transmediating Kinesthesia: Wu Xiaobang, Mary Wigman via Tokyo, and Modern Dance in Wartime China Chapter 3: Dancing Reclusion in the Great Leap Forward: Conflicting Utopias and Wu Xiaobang's "Classical New Dance" Chapter 4: Writing Dance: Dai Ailian, Labanotation, and the Multi-Diasporic "Root" of Modern Chinese Ethnic Dance Epilogue: Guo Mingda, Alwin Nikolais, and the (Anti-)American Link Index

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Book SynopsisThis book introduces the reader to the reflective practice of Functional Awareness®. It uses foundational information of anatomy and motor learning to guide the reader toward a deeper understanding of their personal body structure. Each chapter provides essentials in functional anatomy with movement explorations and over 60 beautiful illustrations to buoy the reader through the content.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Relationship of Habit to Dance Training 2. Dynamic Alignment and the 4Rs 3. Impact of Thinking on Doing 4. Motions of the Trunk and Use of Spiral 5. Core Support 6. The Pelvis and Hip Joint 7. The Knee 8. The Ankle and Foot 9. Walking and Weight Shift 10. Expressivity of Arms 11. Breath 12. Restore Toward Balance Works Cited Glossary of Terms in Human Anatomy Index

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Book SynopsisThis book analyzes how national and international dancers contributed to developing Mexico''s cultural politics and notions of the nation at different historical moments. It emphasizes how dancers and other moving bodies resisted and reproduced racial and social hierarchies stemming from colonial Mexico (1521-1821). Relying on extensive archival research, choreography as an analytical methodology, and theories of race, dance, and performance studies, author Jose Reynoso examines how dance and other forms of embodiment participated in Mexico''s formation after the Mexican War of Independence (1821-1876), the Porfirian dictatorship (1876-1911), and postrevolutionary Mexico (1919-1940). In so doing, the book analyzes how underlying colonial logics continued to influence relationships amongst dancers, other artists, government officials, critics, and audiences of different backgrounds as they refashioned their racial, social, cultural, and national identities. The book proposes and developTrade ReviewReynoso offers a productive reformulation of danced Mestizaje as an anti-racist and inclusive instance of pluriversality that counters the racialized modernist pretense of universality, by centering Mexican contributions to the history of modern dance. This book is essential reading for scholars of performance and modern dance, but also of post-revolutionary Mexican visual culture at large. * Mary K. Coffey, Professor of Art History and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, Dartmouth College *In this compellingly written and deeply researched text, José Reynoso introduces the concept of embodied mestizo modernisms to theorize how national and international choreographers employed components of Indigenous, folkloric, ballet, and modern dance to both embrace and contest racial formations at key points in Mexican revolutionary and post-revolutionary history. A major intervention within dance and Latin American studies, it will shape future thinking around the relationship between modernist dance practices, the transnational circulation of artists, and race. * Victoria Fortuna, Associate Professor, Dance Department, Reed College *Deeply researched and theoretically astute, Dancing Mestizo Modernisms makes a profound contribution to contemporary dance studies, fulfilling the imperative to create a global dance history that decolonizes the curriculum. * Susan Manning, Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities, Northwestern University *In this meticulously researched book, Dr. Reynoso analyzes dance not only as an art form, but also as a way of circulating ideologies that have taken part in the construction of racial and social notion of what "Mexico" is. The author traces how as a specific cultural field dance participated in political, social, and bodily dynamics from the country's postcolonial formation in the 1820s until mid-twentieth century. The book's theoretical approach makes an important contribution to the formulation of dance as an object of study while expanding our knowledge regarding art, cultural practices, and the construction of Mexico (and Latin American countries) as a nation. * Margarita Tortajada, National Center for Research, Documentation and Information Cenidi Danza "José Limón" *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Dancing Embodied Mestizo Modernisms, Choreographing Transnational Nationalisms 1. Mexico City's Ambivalent Spatial Mestizaje: Bodies in Motion from Independence to Dictatorship 2. Choreographing the Indigenous Body in the Independence Centennial: From Dictatorship to Revolution 3. Embracing the Indigenous while Establishing a Mestizo Nation: Forjando a Revolutionary Patria 4. The Making of a Postrevolutionary Modern Dance Form: Debating National and International Politics and Aesthetics (1930s-1940) Coda: Contemporary Mestizo Modernisms and Transnational Nationalisms in the US Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisHollywood''s conversion to sound in the 1920s created an early peak in the film musical following the immense success of The Jazz Singer. The opportunity to synchronize moving pictures with a soundtrack suited the musical in particular, since the heightened experience of song and dance drew attention to the novelty of the technological development. Until the near-collapse of the genre in the 1960s, the film musical enjoyed around thirty years of development, as landmarks such as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin'' in the Rain, and Gigi showed the exciting possibilities of putting musicals on the silver screen. The first of three volumes, The Politics of the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation: An Oxford Handbook traces how the genre of the stage-to-screen musical has evolved, starting with early screen adaptations such as the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Roberta and working through to Into the Woods (2014). Many chapters examine specific screen adaptations in depth, while others deal with broad issues such as realism or the politics of the adaptation in works such as Li''l Abner and Finian''s Rainbow. Together, the chapters incite lively debates about the process of adapting Broadway for the big screen and provide models for future studies.Volume I: The Politics of the Musical Theatre Screen AdaptationVolume II: Race, Sexuality, and Gender and the Musical Screen AdaptationVolume III: Stars, Studios, and the Musical Theatre Screen AdaptationTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. 'And I'll Sing Once More': A Historical Overview of the Broadway Musical on the Silver Screen 2. Refashioning Roberta: From Novel to Stage to Screen 3. Getting Real: Stage Musical versus Filmic Realism in Film Adaptations from Camelot to Cabaret 4. The Party's Over: On the Town, Bells Are Ringing, and the Problem of Adapting Postwar New York 5. Into the Woods from Stage to Screen 6. Li'l Abner from Comic Strip to Hollywood 7. Fidelity versus Freedom in Milos Forman's Film Version of Hair 8. 'An Elegant Legacy?': The Aborted Cartoon Adaptation of Finian's Rainbow 9. Little Shop of Horrors: Breaking the Rules All the Way to the Big (Enormous, Twelve-inch) Screen 10. The Fascinating Moment of Godspell: Its Cinematic Adaptation in the Shadow of Jesus Christ Superstar and Leonard Bernstein's Mass

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Book SynopsisSalsa Rising provides the first full-length historical account of Latin Music in this city guided by close critical attention to issues of tradition and experimentation, authenticity and dilution, and the often clashing roles of cultural communities and the commercial recording industry in the shaping of musical practices and tastes.Trade ReviewThe book is sure to become an indispensable point of reference in the cultural history of salsa. * Juan Carlos Quintero-Herencia, New West Indian Guide *in this vividly narrated account he [Flores] narrows his focus from a wholesale history of so-called Latin music to a specific cultural moment in a single (albeit uniquely large and diverse) city ... most illuminating. * Brian Morton, Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction. Guaracha to Mambo: Style Shifts of the Earlier Generations (1930-60) Chapter 1. Pachanga Alegre Chapter 2. La PerfectaFit Chapter 3. Boogaloo Soul Chapter 4. Revolt in Típico Chapter 5. Fania's Latin Thing Chapter 6. Salsoul Challenges Coda

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Book SynopsisNOW A MAJOR FILM BY RALPH FIENNES, THE WHITE CROW''A gripping account of an extraordinary life'' Daily Telegraph Born on a train in Stalin''s Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet''s first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement - both on and off stage.Nureyev''s achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov''s thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor''s wife; defected to the West in 1961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and staged Russia''s unknown ballet masterpieces in the West. He and his life were simply astonishing.''Magnificent, a triumph. Captures every facet of this extraordinary man'' Mail on Sunday''The definitive study of a manTrade ReviewMagnificent, compulsively readable * Guardian *A gripping account of an extraordinary life * Daily Telegraph *Magnificent, a triumph. Captures every facet of this extraordinary man * Mail on Sunday *Undoubtedly the definitive biography. Rudolf Nureyev, superstar, emerges in all his terribly flawed glory * Sunday Telegraph *The definitive study of a man who, in his combination of aesthetic grace and psychological grime, can truly be called a sacred monster * Observer *Julie Kavanagh writes with flair and abundance * The Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisTracing Fred Astaire's life from his birth in Omaha to his death in his late eighties in Hollywood, this book discusses his early days with his talented and outspoken sister Adele, his gifts as a singer, and his many movie dance partners, among them Rita Hayworth, Eleanor Powell, Cyd Charisse, and Betty Hutton.

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Book SynopsisAnne Teresa De Keersmaeker (b. 1960) founded her dance company, Rosas, in 1983. Her work is grounded on a rigorous exploration of the relationship between dance and music, and over the years she has engaged the musical structures and scores of different periods and genres, from early music to contemporary expressions of classical and popular music. Her choreographic practice draws from geometric principles, nature, and social structures to offer unique perspectives on the articulation of the body in space and time. The minimalism of De Keersmaeker's earliest pieces gave way over the years to ingenious constructions for large ensembles. Then in 2007, the choreography underwent a fundamental change with the emergence of a new kind of minimalism, a paring down to essential principles of sparseness; the spatial constraints of geometric patterns; an unwavering commitment to elementary gestures, notably walking, breathing, and speaking; and a close adherence to a score, musical or otherwise, for the choreographic writing. Photographers Anne Van Aerschot and Herman Sorgeloos were privileged witnesses to this process, and their images, gathered here for the first time, offer an exceptionally acute look at Rosas's work over the last decade. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

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Book SynopsisTelling a riveting true story of the emergence and development of an American icon, this book traces swing dancing from its origins to its status as a modern-day art form.Table of ContentsSeries Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Swing Dance: Born in the USA Chapter 2: Bred in Minstrelsy, Raised in Rhythm Chapter 3: Ragtime, Jazz, and Swing Dance Gets a Name Chapter 4: It Started at the Savoy Chapter 5: Whitey's Lindy Hoppers Chapter 6: Swingin' in Hollywood Chapter 7: A Dance by Any Other Name …(Various Styles of Partnered Swing) Chapter 8: The Decline Chapter 9: The Road to Resurgence Chapter 10:The Second Era of Swing, and Beyond Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis is a comprehensive overview of contemporary European theatre and performance as it enters the third decade of the twenty-first century. It combines critical discussions of key concepts, practitioners, and trends within theatre-making, both in particular countries and across borders, that are shaping European stage practice. With the geography, geopolitics, and cultural politics of Europe more unsettled than at any point in recent memory, this bookâs combination of national and thematic coverage offers a balanced understanding of the continentâs theatre and performance cultures. Employing a range of methodologies and critical approaches across its three parts and ninety-four chapters, this bookâs first part contains a comprehensive listing of European nations, the second part charts responses to thematic complexes that define current European performance, and the third section gathers a series of case studies that explore the contribution of some of Europeâs foremost theatre makers. Rather than rehearsing rote knowledge, this is a collection of carefully curated, interpretive accounts from an international roster of scholars and practitioners. The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance gives undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers and practitioners an indispensable reference resource that can be used broadly across curricula.

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Book SynopsisA major biography—the first in three decades—of one of the most important artistic forces of the twentieth century, the legendary American dancer and choreographer who upended dance, propelling the art form into the modern age, and whose profound and pioneering influence is still being felt today.Brings together all the elements of Graham’s colorful life...with wit, verve, critical discernment, and a powerful lyricism.”—Mary Dearborn, acclaimed author of Ernest HemingwayTime magazine called her “the Dancer of the Century.” Her technique, used by dance companies throughout the world, became the first long-lasting alternative to the idiom of classical ballet. Her pioneering movements—powerful, dynamic, jagged, edgy, forthright—combined with her distinctive system of training, were the epitome of American modernism, performance as art. Her work continued to astonish and inspire

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Book SynopsisAnna Halprin pioneered what became known as 'postmodern dance', creating work that was key to unlocking the door to experimentation in theater, music, Happenings, and performance art. This biography examines Halprin's life in the context of American culture - in particular popular culture and the West Coast as a center of artistic experimentation.Table of ContentsForeword by Richard Schechner Introduction 1. Why She Danced (1920--1938) 2. The Secret Garden of American Dance (1938--1942) 3. The Bauhaus and the Settlement House (1941--1945) 4. Western Spaces (1945--1955) 5. Instantaneous Experience and Beat Culture (1955--1960) 6. Urban Rituals (1961--1966) 7. Spectatorship and Embodiment (1967--1968) 8. Ceremony of Memory (1968--1971) 9. Illness as Performance (1972--1990) 10. Flesh Made Metaphor: Dances of Aging (1991--2005) Chronology of Works, Videos, and Films by Anna Halprin Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMatthew 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.

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Book SynopsisLighten Up about Lightening UpWith sassy advice and funny motivational quotes, this journal will be your trusty companion whether you’re starting a new diet, looking to lose weight, or simply trying to eat healthier. Whatever your goals, use this handy journal to set a plan of action, track your food and other habits, and hold yourself accountable—all while having fun along the way! So Forking Healthy will help you:   • Record your food and habits. Daily logs give you space to write down what you ate, how you moved your body, and how you engaged in self-care.   • Measure your progress. Use the weekly tracker to gauge weight loss and evaluate what’s worked and what you want to do better moving forward.   • Get motivated and inspired. Tips on how to start eating healthy and how to stick to your plan, as well as quotes from

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Book SynopsisMeet Bruno Tonioli - Strictly Come Dancing judge, wildcat choreographer and stardust magnet. With his irrepressible personality and Italian exuberance, Bruno has become a TV sensation, settling the fate of Britain''s ballroom hopefuls during the nation''s favourite Saturday night show.Bruno''s journey is mind-blowing. He fled from home at eighteen to join the dance company La Grande Eugene and travelled around Europe; he later coached the actress Goldie Hawn as a dance instructor, and orchestrated lavish productions for TV, film and pop videos, where he worked alongside The Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Duran Duran and Tina Turner.Along the way Bruno has Tangoed with high fashion, performed the Cha Cha Cha with untameable pop vixens Bananarama and danced an emotional Waltz with bereavement and breakdown before settling in the perfect location - a seat on the judging panel of Strictly Come Dancing, where he wowed the nation at home and in Hollywood wi

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Book SynopsisA compilation of interviews with Martha Graham's ""family"" of dancers, teachers, choreographers and actors, which also includes biographical material about her life and influence as the creator of classic modern dance. The book features a syllabus of Graham's work.Trade ReviewA much-needed update to Horosko's earlier book on Graham, offering an insightful look into the world of Martha Graham from those who worked very closely with her throughout the years. - Elizabeth Bergmann, dance director, Harvard University

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Book SynopsisWhen World War II was over, a young bomber pilot with an itch for movement and action hung up his cap and learned another way to fly. Onstage with Martha Graham is the story of Stuart Hodes, a versatile and influential dancer who got his start with Martha Graham, an icon of modern dance.Table of Contents Foreword Preface 1. Airborne 2. Moves 3. Dance Lessons 4. The Green Tours 5. TKO'd in Paris and London 6. Drink the Sky 7. With Watchers 8. The Grand Tour 9. Asia 10. A Dancing Fool 11. Post-Martha Syndrome Afterword Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisVernon and Irene Castle popularized ragtime dancing in the years just before World War I and made dancing a respectable pastime in America. The Castles were depicted in the Fred Astaire--Ginger Rogers movie The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), but the film omitted most of the interesting and controversial aspects of their lives.

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Book SynopsisTheorizing the experiences of black and brown bodies in hip hop dance.

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Book SynopsisThis study focuses on dance as an activist practice in and of itself, across geographical locations and over the course of a century, from 1920 to 2020. Through doing so, it considers how dance has been an empowering agent for political action throughout civilisation. Dance and Activism offers a glimpse of different strategies of mobilizing the human body for good and justice for all, and captures the increasing political activism epitomized by bodies moving on the streets in some of the most turbulent political situations. This has, most recently, undoubtedly been partly owing to the rise of the far-right internationally, which has marked an increase in direct action on the streets.Offering a survey of key events across the century, such as the fall of President Zuma in South Africa; pro-reproductive rights action in Poland and Argentina; and the recent women''s marches against Donald Trump''s presidency, you will see how dance has become an urgent field of sTrade ReviewMills artfully weaves together a massive array of case studies, drawing connections across the globe and throughout the century. * Dance International *Mills brings an investigative style and ethnographic approach to dig deep—within contextual layers and personal stories—to discover an interpretation that positions the dialog between the social cultural moment, the dancer, and the dance … A tightly and provocatively argued book that provides a new perspective on dance as activism. * Journal of Dance Education *Dance and Activism: A Century of Radical Dance Across the World, makes an important contribution to ongoing conversations within the field of dance studies about the political nature of dance. The book explores the mobilization of dance as a language and method for activism and radical hope, extending and refining the intimate relationship between dance and politics outlined in Mills’s previous work. * Dance Chronicle *Dance and Activism’s main strength is that it is something of a pioneer ... Dance and Activism is a welcome and necessary addition to the dance history and dance studies canon. Graduate program directors would be wise to point students toward this book not only as a resource, but as a reminder that powerful and transformative dance exists outside the concert stage. * Theatre Topics *A most intriguing, erudite book. * Sydney Arts Guide *Mills’s book provides unique case studies that draw from different forms of dance across the globe. These case studies analyse the actions of the dancers and choreographers, not choreographed works. The majority of books about dance and politics rely on analysis of dance pieces or theorize from generalized notions of dance. Mills also focuses on the actions of the dancers and choreographers whose actions are explicitly political/create direct action in the world. The site of their action is the world at large, not the theatre for a select audience. The majority of books about dance and politics discuss the political effects of events that occur in the closed environment of the theatre or dance studio. * Leah Cox, Dean of the American Dance Festival *Mills shows how dance and dancers from the stage to the streets have responded to forces of alienation and oppression, and how they have moved their bodies—and others—to imagine different worlds. It is a stirring and powerful read, and a prelude to action. * Glory Liu, Harvard University, USA *The past is constantly present as Dana Mills chronicles the extraordinary potential our expressive dancing body/mind. In an age of increasingly sedentary work, her deep analysis of “dance as activism” lays bare a far-reaching radicalism and breadth of diversity in dance forms. Dance and Activism is both timely and necessary. * Blakeley White-McGuire, Dancer, Choreographer, Educator and Activist, USA *In this groundbreaking multi-disciplinary book, Dana Mills leads dance from the wings of political activism to the centre stage of human resistance and the creative struggle for freedom and our most precious, primordial material possession – the bodies in which we live and struggle for self-possession. Mills deftly choreographs a century of global theatre of street protest and popular movements through the individual stories and collective moments and movements that create surprising uprisings and new solidarities. A brilliant political theorist, activist and dancer at the forefront of the pursuit of a new dialectics for our troubled modern age, Mills shares her cogent analysis and innovative thinking in a readable, engaging form that leaps beyond intellectual boundaries and galvanises a new genre of thought in action. Vividly describing how our restless bodies can and will reach out, rise up and protect everything that is human and beautiful in our world, Dana Mills shows, with passion and commitment, why people will never stop dancing in search of freedom. * Rachel Holmes is critically acclaimed author of, most recently, Eleanor Marx: a Life and Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel *This book is essential for anyone who wants dance to be part of their revolution. * New Books Network *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments If we can't dance, we don't want to be part of your revolution Alienation solidarity Method Prelude to action Martha Graham: Embodied Chronicle 2. ‘Go ahead and be a bastard’ Anna Sokolow Through dance I have experienced the wordless joy of freedom: Pearl Primus Dance as intervention, dance as action Ballet beyond borders ‘No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin’ ‘Going around the house like a butterfly’ Ballet, home, Syria The canon must be fired! Ballet and the long arc of history There is only now: radical ballet going forward Erbil/ New York City: Break/ Dance The body in battle Those who leave and those who stay Not just for you, but for the rest of the earth Ballade of belonging At the still point of the turning world Break/ dance: echoing further: Erbil Steps in the street: Revolution DJ Dance on the march The People (dancing) united can never be defeated Dancing onwards! Dance as a home Transitions Home, exile, words, movement Arriving Storytelling Unraveling Homelessness- Devastation- Exile Spectre, haunting Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA reclamation and interpretation of a once-dismissed aspect of American film historyEarly hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin'' (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood''s fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are also part of the broader history of teen cinema, and films such as Charlie Ahearn''s Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions. As suburban teen films banished parents and children to the margins of narrative action, hip hop musicals, by c

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Book SynopsisThe untold story of how breaking one of the most widely practiced dance forms in the world today began as a distinctly African American expression in the Bronx, New York, during the 1970s. Breaking is the first and most widely practiced hip-hop dance in the world, with around one million participants in this dynamic, multifaceted artform and, as of 2024, Olympic sport. Yet, despite its global reach and nearly 50-year history, stories of breaking's origins have largely neglected the African Americans who founded it. Dancer and scholar Serouj Midus Aprahamian offers, for the first time, a detailed look into the African American beginnings of breaking in the Bronx, New York. The Birth of Breaking challenges numerous myths and misconceptions that have permeated studies of hip-hop's evolution, considering the influence breaking has had on hip-hop culture. Including previously unseen archival material, interviews, and detailed depictions of the dance at its outset, this boTrade ReviewThe Birth of Breaking is the most complete and in-depth study of the origins of hip-hop to date. Midus's research is unmatched and he sets the bar high for all future scholarship. Praise True. * Pete Nice, Co-Curator, Universal Hip Hop Museum *The Birth of Breaking offers an insightful and vitally important account of hip-hop history, presenting it in a way that properly acknowledges the crucial contributions of African-Americans and their cultural traditions, highlights the central role of women, and underlines the importance of breaking in hip-hop's development. This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in or involved in hip-hop culture. * Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, 2020 and 2021 Top Ranked b-girl by the Australian Breaking Association, and Lecturer in Media and Creative Industries, Macquarie University, Australia *A tour de force study of the African American wellsprings of breaking, written with academic rigor and empathetic care. With outstanding complexity, Serouj Midus Aprahamian explains how race and class have shaped hip-hop dance histories. Exploring unpublished archives and conducting new interviews with hip-hop legends from the 1970s, The Birth of Breaking demonstrates how dance has been central to understanding hip-hop’s powerful global influence. * Thomas F, DeFrantz, Professor of Performance Studies, Northwestern University, USA *As a b-boy and scholar, Dr. Aprahamian could not be better positioned to author this groundbreaking historical study that sets the record straight on the genesis of breaking culture. A combination of archival research, practitioner interviews, and embodied knowledge, The Birth of Breaking details how innovations in this Black vernacular dance influenced the advent of hip-hop music, dispels myths that link the dance to Black criminality, and recognizes the contribution of women to this vibrant dance culture. * Sherril Dodds, Professor of Dance, Temple University, USA *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Detecting Breaking’s Beginnings 2. Going Off in the Bronx 3. Keeping the Movement Moving 4. Make Way for the B-Boys 5. Mothers of the Movement 6. Breaking’s Latino Adoption Epilogue: Back to the Beginning Notes Index

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Book SynopsisA new exploration of how digital media assert the relevance of dance in a wired world How has the Internet changed dance? Dance performances can now be seen anywhere, can be looped endlessly at user whim, and can integrate crowds in unprecedented ways. Dance practices are evolving to explore these new possibilities. In Perpetual Motion, Harmony Bench argues that dance is a vital part of civil society and a means for building participation and community. She looks at how, after 9/11, it became a crucial way of recuperating the common character of public spaces. She explores how crowdsourcing dance contributes to the project of performing a common world, as well as the social relationships forged when we look at dance as a gift in the era of globalization. Throughout, she asks how dance brings people together in digital spaces and what dance’s digital travels might mean for how we experience and express community. From original research on dance today to political economies of digital media to the philosophy of dance, Perpetual Motion provides an ambitious, invigorating look at a commonly shared practice.Trade Review"In Perpetual Motion, Harmony Bench achieves a stunning tour de force rendering of dance created for internet distribution. Reading the digitized bodies-in-motion as the basis for a twenty-first century common, she constructs essential theoretical models for considering asymmetrical access to dance, travel, the technologies of digital production, and modes of global distribution. A crucial offering for dance studies."—Thomas F. DeFrantz, former president, Society of Dance History Scholars"How does dance move through digital cultures and how do digital cultures move through dance? Perpetual Motion explores acts of transfer among and across on-screen and off-screen bodies that manifest as dance. A highly skilled dance scholar and a precise and accessible writer, Harmony Bench reads embodied, screenal entanglements as a matter of performative commoning and offers both historical perspective and immediate experience of mediatic, danced, choreographic, and spectatorial encounters."—Rebecca Schneider, Brown University"With an unmatched skill at plain-language engagement with dense philosophical problems, Bench lays out a wide-ranging case for the radical possibilities inherent in the online dissemination of even the corniest dances, while avoiding neoliberal language of democratization and universality."—Performance Research "This book is a rewarding way to further study dance in the digital age, with deep considerations of access and distribution, and explorations of what technology means for audience engagement, collaboration and more."—Dance TeacherTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Dance as Common1. Interactivity and Agency: Making-Common and the Limits of Difference2. Dance in Public: Of Common Spaces3. A World from a Crowd: Composing the Common 4. Screen Sharing: Dance as Gift of the CommonNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisA new exploration of how digital media assert the relevance of dance in a wired world How has the Internet changed dance? Dance performances can now be seen anywhere, can be looped endlessly at user whim, and can integrate crowds in unprecedented ways. Dance practices are evolving to explore these new possibilities. In Perpetual Motion, Harmony Bench argues that dance is a vital part of civil society and a means for building participation and community. She looks at how, after 9/11, it became a crucial way of recuperating the common character of public spaces. She explores how crowdsourcing dance contributes to the project of performing a common world, as well as the social relationships forged when we look at dance as a gift in the era of globalization. Throughout, she asks how dance brings people together in digital spaces and what dance’s digital travels might mean for how we experience and express community. From original research on dance today to political economies of digital media to the philosophy of dance, Perpetual Motion provides an ambitious, invigorating look at a commonly shared practice.Trade Review"In Perpetual Motion, Harmony Bench achieves a stunning tour de force rendering of dance created for internet distribution. Reading the digitized bodies-in-motion as the basis for a twenty-first century common, she constructs essential theoretical models for considering asymmetrical access to dance, travel, the technologies of digital production, and modes of global distribution. A crucial offering for dance studies."—Thomas F. DeFrantz, former president, Society of Dance History Scholars"How does dance move through digital cultures and how do digital cultures move through dance? Perpetual Motion explores acts of transfer among and across on-screen and off-screen bodies that manifest as dance. A highly skilled dance scholar and a precise and accessible writer, Harmony Bench reads embodied, screenal entanglements as a matter of performative commoning and offers both historical perspective and immediate experience of mediatic, danced, choreographic, and spectatorial encounters."—Rebecca Schneider, Brown University"With an unmatched skill at plain-language engagement with dense philosophical problems, Bench lays out a wide-ranging case for the radical possibilities inherent in the online dissemination of even the corniest dances, while avoiding neoliberal language of democratization and universality."—Performance Research "This book is a rewarding way to further study dance in the digital age, with deep considerations of access and distribution, and explorations of what technology means for audience engagement, collaboration and more."—Dance TeacherTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Dance as Common1. Interactivity and Agency: Making-Common and the Limits of Difference2. Dance in Public: Of Common Spaces3. A World from a Crowd: Composing the Common 4. Screen Sharing: Dance as Gift of the CommonNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisThe vital role of dance in enacting the embodied experiences of Indigenous peoples In Dancing Indigenous Worlds, Jacqueline Shea Murphy brings contemporary Indigenous dance makers into the spotlight, putting critical dance studies and Indigenous studies in conversation with one another in fresh and exciting new ways. Exploring Indigenous dance from North America and Aotearoa (New Zealand), she shows how dance artists communicate Indigenous ways of being, as well as generate a political force, engaging Indigenous understandings and histories.Following specific dance works over time, Shea Murphy interweaves analysis, personal narrative, and written contributions from multiple dance artists, demonstrating dance’s crucial work in asserting and enacting Indigenous worldviews and the embodied experiences of Indigenous peoples. As Shea Murphy asserts, these dance-making practices can not only disrupt the structures that European colonization feeds upon and strives to maintain, but they can also recalibrate contemporary dance. Based on more than twenty years of relationship building and research, Shea Murphy’s work contributes to growing, and largely underreported, discourses on decolonizing dance studies, and the geopolitical, gendered, racial, and relational meanings that dance theorizes and negotiates. She also includes discussions about the ethics of writing about Indigenous knowledge and peoples as a non-Indigenous scholar, and models approaches for doing so within structures of ongoing reciprocal, respectful, responsible action.Trade Review "This remarkable text effectively establishes Indigenous dance studies as a vibrant time-based field of inquiry. Crafting theoretical models in direct relationship to repeated practices of witnessing and experiencing, Jacqueline Shea Murphy models a rich future for scholarship as a shared encounter among stakeholders to performance. Urgent, important, and written to endure as a document of continued creativity, Dancing Indigenous Worlds confirms the intellectual possibilities of translating gesture to text and of moving with care."—Thomas F. DeFrantz, Northwestern University "In Dancing Indigenous Worlds, Jacqueline Shea Murphy performs a deeply ethical, deliberate ‘witnessing’ of Indigenous dance making. In these stories of how to create radical relationality between bodies, land, history, food—and milk as more than food—the reader should be aware they are being readied; a space has been prepared, the invocations have been made, contemporary movements connected to dance genealogies, past brutalities cast in the surrounding shadows, the spotlight is on bright, and you must step into this world that has been danced for you. There is room for all, and everything, as Shea Murphy reminds us, begins with respect."—Michelle Erai, author of Girl of New Zealand: Colonial Optics in Aotearoa "The widely varied contexts within Dancing Indigenous Worlds demonstrates the vibrancy of current respectful, relational, Indigenous choreographies."—CHOICE Table of Contents Contents Preface Introduction Choreographing Relationality Modern Dance and Modernity/Coloniality Recalibrations of Relational Exchange Intersections of Dance and Indigenous Studies 1. Choreographies of Relational Reciprocity Hosts and Visitors, Aotearoa, 2009 Manaakitanga in Motion: Choreographies of Possibility With Jack Gray Hashtag Mitimiti: Where You At? With Andrew Kendall, Diane Kendall, Tia Reihana-Morunga, Deborah Cocker, and Toni Temehana Pasion 2. Choreographies of Perspectival Relationality Dance Workshop, Riverside, California, 2006 With Rulan Tangen Expansive Relationality/Of Bodies of Elements Identities and Accountabilities, 2019 With Rulan Tangen Interlude/Pause/Provocation Refuge Rock: Otonabee River, Ontario, 2010 With Tanya Lukin Linklater 3. Choreographies of Relational Abun-dance Precarity Abundance and Abun-dance Emily Johnson/Catalyst 4. Choreographies of Relational Refusings Yirramboi, Melbourne, Australia, 2017 Facing Refusal Teachings in Listening Indigenous Dance Works/Indigenous Dance Making/Indigenous Writing With Rosy Simas, Mishuana Goeman, Tanya Lukin Linklater, and Daystar/Rosalie Jones Conclusion: Closing and Opening Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe vital role of dance in enacting the embodied experiences of Indigenous peoples In Dancing Indigenous Worlds, Jacqueline Shea Murphy brings contemporary Indigenous dance makers into the spotlight, putting critical dance studies and Indigenous studies in conversation with one another in fresh and exciting new ways. Exploring Indigenous dance from North America and Aotearoa (New Zealand), she shows how dance artists communicate Indigenous ways of being, as well as generate a political force, engaging Indigenous understandings and histories.Following specific dance works over time, Shea Murphy interweaves analysis, personal narrative, and written contributions from multiple dance artists, demonstrating dance’s crucial work in asserting and enacting Indigenous worldviews and the embodied experiences of Indigenous peoples. As Shea Murphy asserts, these dance-making practices can not only disrupt the structures that European colonization feeds upon and strives to maintain, but they can also recalibrate contemporary dance. Based on more than twenty years of relationship building and research, Shea Murphy’s work contributes to growing, and largely underreported, discourses on decolonizing dance studies, and the geopolitical, gendered, racial, and relational meanings that dance theorizes and negotiates. She also includes discussions about the ethics of writing about Indigenous knowledge and peoples as a non-Indigenous scholar, and models approaches for doing so within structures of ongoing reciprocal, respectful, responsible action.Trade Review "This remarkable text effectively establishes Indigenous dance studies as a vibrant time-based field of inquiry. Crafting theoretical models in direct relationship to repeated practices of witnessing and experiencing, Jacqueline Shea Murphy models a rich future for scholarship as a shared encounter among stakeholders to performance. Urgent, important, and written to endure as a document of continued creativity, Dancing Indigenous Worlds confirms the intellectual possibilities of translating gesture to text and of moving with care."—Thomas F. DeFrantz, Northwestern University "In Dancing Indigenous Worlds, Jacqueline Shea Murphy performs a deeply ethical, deliberate ‘witnessing’ of Indigenous dance making. In these stories of how to create radical relationality between bodies, land, history, food—and milk as more than food—the reader should be aware they are being readied; a space has been prepared, the invocations have been made, contemporary movements connected to dance genealogies, past brutalities cast in the surrounding shadows, the spotlight is on bright, and you must step into this world that has been danced for you. There is room for all, and everything, as Shea Murphy reminds us, begins with respect."—Michelle Erai, author of Girl of New Zealand: Colonial Optics in Aotearoa "The widely varied contexts within Dancing Indigenous Worlds demonstrates the vibrancy of current respectful, relational, Indigenous choreographies."—CHOICE Table of Contents Contents Preface Introduction Choreographing Relationality Modern Dance and Modernity/Coloniality Recalibrations of Relational Exchange Intersections of Dance and Indigenous Studies 1. Choreographies of Relational Reciprocity Hosts and Visitors, Aotearoa, 2009 Manaakitanga in Motion: Choreographies of Possibility With Jack Gray Hashtag Mitimiti: Where You At? With Andrew Kendall, Diane Kendall, Tia Reihana-Morunga, Deborah Cocker, and Toni Temehana Pasion 2. Choreographies of Perspectival Relationality Dance Workshop, Riverside, California, 2006 With Rulan Tangen Expansive Relationality/Of Bodies of Elements Identities and Accountabilities, 2019 With Rulan Tangen Interlude/Pause/Provocation Refuge Rock: Otonabee River, Ontario, 2010 With Tanya Lukin Linklater 3. Choreographies of Relational Abun-dance Precarity Abundance and Abun-dance Emily Johnson/Catalyst 4. Choreographies of Relational Refusings Yirramboi, Melbourne, Australia, 2017 Facing Refusal Teachings in Listening Indigenous Dance Works/Indigenous Dance Making/Indigenous Writing With Rosy Simas, Mishuana Goeman, Tanya Lukin Linklater, and Daystar/Rosalie Jones Conclusion: Closing and Opening Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisEarly hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin' (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood's fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are also part of the broader history of teen cinema, and films such as Charlie Ahearn's Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions. As suburban teen films banished parents and children to the margins of narrative action, hip hop musicals, by contrast, presented inclusive and unconventional filial groupings that included all members of the neighborhood. These alternative social configurations directly referenced specific urban social problems, which affected the stability of inner city families following diminished governmental assistance in communities of color during the 1980s.Breakdancing, a central element of hip hop musicals, is also reconsidered. It gained widespread acclaim at the same time that these films entered the theaters, but the nation's newly discovered dance form was embattled--caught between a multitude of institutional entities such as the ballet academy, advertising culture, and dance publications that vied to control its meaning, particularly in relation to delineations of gender. As street-trained breakers were enticed to join the world of professional ballet, this newly forged relationship was recast by dance promoters as a way to invigorate and ""remasculinize"" European dance, while young women simultaneously critiqued conventional masculinities through an appropriation of breakdance. These multiple and volatile histories influenced the first wave of hip hop films, and even structured the sleeper hit Flashdance (1983). This forgotten, ignored, and maligned cinema is not only an important aspect of hip hop history, but is also central to the histories of teen film, the postclassical musical, and even institutional dance. Kimberley Monteyne places these films within the wider context of their cultural antecedents and reconsiders the genre's influence.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisEurythmy is an art form that makes sounds visible. By incorporating zodiac gestures into their art, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner, eurythmists can draw on a deep connection between the earth and the cosmos.The zodiac, as representative of the whole cosmos, is a vital part of human spirituality, acting as the backdrop to human life. But it can be hard to fathom the zodiac's secrets, even through meditation. Barfod draws a parallel between meditative exercises and eurythmy practice, and shows how zodiac gestures in eurythmy can reveal cosmic insights.This is a book for eurythmy teachers and practitioners who want to deepen their art and spiritual work.Trade Review'An absolute treasure-trove of information on the Zodiac... I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone and consider it an absolute must-have for any eurythmist.'-- Saraphir Qaa-Rishi, EurythmistTable of ContentsForeword by Virginia Sease PrefaceOut of the Creative Chaos 1. The Zodiac in Eurythmy The cosmic human being in the zodiac The gestures of the day and night colours The origin of the archetypal colour gestures The artistic elements and the colour zodiac gestures Archetypal straight line and spiral tendencies in the zodiac Forming the zodiac gestures out of colour, the part of the body and the spiral or linear force The eurythmic characteristics of the zodiac 2. The Consonants in the Zodiac The consonants as an echo of the cosmic formative forces The six single and the six double sounds The essence of the sound as a complete entity Aries and the sound V Taurus and the sound R Gemini and the sound H Cancer and the sound F Leo and the sound T Virgo and sounds B and P Libra and the sounds C (Ts) and Ch Scorpio and the sound S Sagittarius and the sounds G and K Capricorn and the sound L Aquarius and the sound M Pisces and the sound N 3. The Composition of the Totality of the Zodiac The three crosses of the zodiac The six axes and their polarities The trines of the four elements in the zodiac The post-Atlantean sequence of cultural epochs The threefold human being within the zodiac 4. Forces of Order in the Sounds of the Zodiac The sequence of consonants The evolutionary sequence in the zodiac The eurythmy figures The spatial experience of form in the sounds of speech 5. Rudolf Steiner’s Twelve Moods The twelve zodiac verses The three verbal moods Special features of a eurythmy performance The sequence of planets within the zodiac verse 6. The Zodiac as the Source of All Created Things Insights into the zodiac given by Rudolf Steiner The effects of the zodiac on the forming of human beings The twelve senses in the zodiac 7. Work-Based Movement and Sound in the Zodiac Introduction to the next three chapters Traditional work-based movements and sounds Work and movement – music and speech The human being in movement and eurythmy Human work in relation to the course of the year 8. The Zodiac and Technology Twelve styles of technology The one-sidedness of the zodiac animals as formative forces 9. Conversational Gestures and the Zodiac The six speech gestures Conversational gestures as an imitation of the speech gestures The conversational gestures in the zodiac The speech gestures and the colours Dynamic variety in connection with the speech gestures Overview and concluding remarks 10. The Connection of Artistic Practice and Training Introduction Meditation exercises and the zodiac in eurythmy The path of knowledge and the zodiac in eurythmy The shaping of gestures and the path of practice 11. Artistic Elements in Eurythmy and Their Twelve Metamorphoses 12. The Task of the Earthly and the Cosmic Human Being Wonder, empathy and conscience and the meditations IAO and TAO Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisRudolf Steiner initiated a new art of movement, which can be characterised as speech and music made visible. This concise but informative guide to eurythmy includes a brief survey of dance, from its origin in the ancient mysteries to its contemporary forms, placing Steiner's ideas in their historical context.It then goes on to explore the three main strands of eurythmy: as stage performance, in education, and in therapy, giving insightful examples of each.The book has been revised and updated, and includes black and white photographs of performance and educational eurythmy.

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Book SynopsisCelebrated eurythmist Werner Barfod details the seven planetary gestures in eurythmy and outlines how each expresses a different relationship of the human being to the world. Eurythmy is an art form that makes sounds visible through movement. As well as gestures for speech and music, eurythmy also incorporates gestures that relate to the stars and the planets, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner.In this fascinating book, a companion volume to The Zodiac Gestures in Eurythmy, Werner Barfod describes the seven planetary gestures and how each one expresses a different relationship of the human being to the world. He explains how the planetary forces work in different people, and the meditative development and ways of working that eurythmists need to cultivate to bring creativity into their art.This book will appeal to eurythmy teachers and practitioners who want to deepen their art and spiritual work.

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Book SynopsisInclusive Dance is an ethnography of disability arts, and historiographic overview of the 1980s when many new disability arts groups came to fruition. Touchdown Dance was the research 'ambition' of dancer Steve Paxton and theatre maker and psychotherapist Anne Kilcoyne, involving visually impaired and sighted adults in Contact Improvisation - a dyadic movement form requiring physical contact. Katy Dymoke took over Touchdown Dance in 1994 and refers here to archives, accounts and personal experience to share the learning that has been shared over the years to today. Touch and movement are vital for accessibility and inclusion and modality specific approaches were devised to ensure a democratic process towards the inclusion of visually impaired people in a pro-touch activity. The continuum of movement based methods fills the gaps in polarities of visual and nonvisual and a two-way membrane interlinks all the participants in a body focused learning experience. The mutable membrane becomes a heuristic device for the relational realm, a locus for debate, for change. Touch deprivation, exclusion and inequality are the consequence of an inaccessible visually dominant society. Three point of view chapters - from two visually impaired and one sighted company dancer - further describe the performance work, revealing how lives are changed and why sociocultural inclusion is imperative. Trade ReviewWithin the broad sweep of dance histories, we can overlook the complexity of how truly innovative practices emerge. This is a wonderfully in-depth account of Dymoke’s journey and the network of people (Paxton, Kilcoyne et al.) and events that led to the formation of Touchdown Dance and its concomitant breakthrough in inclusive pedagogy and praxis (which reached far beyond work with blind dancers). In a post pandemic era, it is also a timely reminder of the importance of touch and of the responsibility and role of dancer as researcher to question, explore and extend the boundaries of what we are told is possible. -- Adam BenjaminTable of ContentsList of Figures Abbreviations Preface Acknowledgements Introduction - An ethno-historical overview of the origins of Touchdown Dance: A radical initiative in a radical climate - Part 1. Taking a stand for inclusivity in an exclusive society - Part 2. The body as the locus of liberation - Part 3. Bringing CI and Touchdown Dance to Denmark 1. Returning to the Origins: The Journey Taken by the Founders - Part 1. A chance encounter – Where it all started - The first years of Touchdown Dance 1986–88 – Finding a common way of seeing using CI - Bringing visually impaired and sighted people together through CI - The first encounter – A mini revolution - Part 2. Touchdown Dance (1988–94), Breaking new ground, new discourses, new science, new praxis: Re-inhabiting the body brought into question the perception of the visible and invisible - Part 3. Finding my place 2. Methodology: Undertaking Research That Is Practice-Led - Contact Improvisation – Sowing the seeds of self-determination through touch and movement - CI – A practice-led approach to learning - Part 1. CI – The inter-relationship of pedagogy and practice-led research – The advent of an integrated and inclusive approach - Part 2. The foundational principles in practice - Vignette 1: An integrated exchange and inter-corporeal event – The three reciprocal membranes - Vignette 2: Touch – On the gap between physical and verbal language – The motile membrane between states of consciousness - Part 3. The role of discursive, ethnographic methods 3. Touch Communication: The Reciprocal Membrane of Inclusion - Part 1. Touching the skin is touching the membrane of the inner body - Part 2. In search of a natural attitude towards touch 4. The Pedagogic Process in Practice - Part 1. Introduction - Working with movement – A path towards change - CI – A sphere for cultural motility and mutability - The transitional state – New ways of seeing, moving and being - Part 2. The different modality-specific methods - Modality 1: The lower six inches - Modality 2: Rolling - Modality 3: Back-to-back sitting - Modality 4: Stand on ‘all fours’ – The low ‘bridge’ or ‘table’ - Modality 5: Lifts – Pathways into space and back to the floor 5. Workshops: Our Partnerships and Projects Since 1994 - Children - Youth work - How would you rate your movement skills before and after the workshop? - Adults 6. Performance and Creative Process - Sixth Sense – Second Sight: Practice-based research – In performance - Productions post 1994 - I-radiate – 1999–2000 - SENSE-8 2000–01 - TACT 2002–03 - CLOSER. Created 2005–08 reworked as APPARENTLY NORMAL 2010–12 - Follow the frame - 343 m/s – The speed of sound - 343 m/s Lisbon 7. Final Words - The paradigm shift – Towards the individual and collective – Embracing the membrane of inclusion - The research accomplishments and the return of non-touch - Capturing the experience – The multiple membranes 8. Three Touchdown Dance Artists’ Points of View - Introduction - Holly Thomas – Dancer and facilitator - Sharing practice - Performance work - Robert Anderson – Dancer and facilitator - Jamus Wood – Dancer and facilitator Afterword – Steve Paxton Appendix 1. The Small Dance 329 Appendix 2. The ‘Hatching Chick’ – And the ‘birth’ of the Membrane Concept Timeline Notes Bibliography

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