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America dancing : from the cakewalk to the moonwalk
\"The history of American dance reflects the nation's tangled culture. Dancers from wildly different backgrounds watched, imitated, and stole from one another. Audiences everywhere embraced the result as deeply American. Chronicling dance from the minstrel stage to the music video, Megan Pugh shows how freedom--that nebulous, contested American ideal--emerged as a genre-defining aesthetic. Ballerinas mingled with slumming thrill-seekers, and hoedowns showed up on elite opera-house stages. Steps invented by slaves captivated the British royalty and the Parisian avant-garde. Dances were better boundary crossers than their dancers, however, and the racism and class conflicts that haunt everyday life shadow American dance as well. Center stage in America Dancing is a cast of performers who slide, glide, stomp, and swing their way through history. At the nadir of U.S. race relations, cakewalkers embraced the rhythms of black America. On the heels of the Harlem Renaissance, Bill Robinson tap-danced to stardom. At the height of the Great Depression, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers unified highbrow and popular art. In the midst of 1940s patriotism, Agnes de Mille brought jazz and square dance to ballet, then took it all to Broadway. In the decades to come, the choreographer Paul Taylor turned pedestrian movements into modern masterpiecds, and Michael Jackson moonwalked his way to otherworldly stardom. These artists both celebrated and criticized the country, all while inspiring others to get moving. For it is partly by pretending to be other people, Pugh argues, that Americans discover themselves ... America Dancing demonstrates the centrality of dance in American art, life, and identity, taking us to watershed moments when the nation worked out a sense of itself through public movement\"--Publisher's description.
Book
Shaping Dance Canons
Examining a century of dance criticism in the United
States and its influence on aesthetics and inclusion
Dance criticism has long been integral to dance as an art form,
serving as documentation and validation of dance performances, yet
few studies have taken a close look at the impact of key critics
and approaches to criticism over time. The first book to examine
dance criticism in the United States across 100 years, from the
late 1920s to the early twenty-first century, Shaping Dance
Canons argues that critics in the popular press have
influenced how dance has been defined and valued, as well as which
artists and dance forms have been taken most seriously.
Kate Mattingly likens the effect of dance writing to that of a
flashlight, illuminating certain aesthetics at the expense of
others. Mattingly shows how criticism can preserve and reproduce
criteria for what qualifies as high art through generations of
writers and in dance history courses, textbooks, and curricular
design. She examines the gatekeeping role of prominent critics such
as John Martin and Yvonne Rainer while highlighting the
often-overlooked perspectives of writers from minoritized
backgrounds and dance traditions. The book also includes an
analysis of digital platforms and current dance projects-On the
Boards TV, thINKingDANCE , Black Dance Stories, and amara
tabor-smith's House/Full of BlackWomen -that challenge
systemic exclusions. In doing so, the book calls for ongoing
dialogue and action to make dance criticism more equitable and
inclusive.
eBook
City Folk
This is the story of English Country Dance, from its 18th
century roots in the English cities and countryside, to its
transatlantic leap to the U.S. in the 20th century, told by not
only a renowned historian but also a folk dancer, who has both
immersed himself in the rich history of the folk tradition and
rehearsed its steps. In City Folk, Daniel J. Walkowitz argues that
the history of country and folk dancing in America is deeply
intermeshed with that of political liberalism and the 'old left.'
He situates folk dancing within surprisingly diverse contexts, from
progressive era reform, and playground and school movements, to the
changes in consumer culture, and the project of a modernizing,
cosmopolitan middle class society. Tracing the spread of folk
dancing, with particular emphases on English Country Dance,
International Folk Dance, and Contra, Walkowitz connects the
history of folk dance to social and international political
influences in America. Through archival research, oral histories,
and ethnography of dance communities, City Folk allows dancers and
dancing bodies to speak. From the norms of the first half of the
century, marked strongly by Anglo-Saxon traditions, to the Cold War
nationalism of the post-war era, and finally on to the
counterculture movements of the 1970s, City Folk injects the
riveting history of folk dance in the middle of the story of modern
America.
eBook
Dance in America : a reader's anthology
\"From the beginning, American dance has been an exciting fusion of many disparate influences, with European traditions of ballet and social dancing encountering Native American rituals and African American improvisations to create something new and extraordinary. In this landmark collection, dance critic Mindy Aloff brings together an astonishing array of writers--dancers and dance creators, impresarios and critics, and enthusiastic literary observers--to tell the remarkable story of the artistry, innovation, and sheer joy of a great American art form. Here is dance in its many varieties and locales: from tap and swing to ballet and modern dance, from Five Points to Radio City Music Hall, and from the Lindy Hop to Michael Jackson's Moonwalk. With 100 selections spanning three centuries, this is the biggest and best anthology on American dance ever published. Here are the most acclaimed dance critics, including Edwin Denby, Joan Acocella, Lincoln Kirstein, Jill Johnston, and Clive Barnes; the most inventive and influential choreographers and dancers, among them George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Allegra Kent, and Mikhail Baryshnikov; and a dazzling roster of literary figures, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Hart Crane, Edmund Wilson, Langston Hughes, and Susan Sontag. Here too are rare and hard-to-find texts, several previously unpublished, among them Jerome Robbins's reflections on the secret of choreography and an inspiring commencement address from Mark Morris. Brilliant profiles of unforgettable performers--Stuart Hodes on Martha Graham; John Updike on Gene Kelly; Alastair Macaulay on Michael Jackson--join incisive, often deeply personal pieces--Zora Neale Hurston on hoodoo ritual; Arlene Croce on dance in film; Yehuda Hyman on Hasidic dances--to form a one-of-kind reading experience every dance lover will cherish\"-- Dust jacket flap.
Book
The Dance in Theory
Although originally published in 1965, this edition of The Dance in Theory was republished in 1989 as the same text with a new introduction by Jack Anderson. The Dance in Theory reprints the first third of John Martin's seminal 1939 book, Introduction to the Dance. It presents Martin's analysis of the theoretical underpinnings of modern dance, including a discussion of the nature of movement, form and composition, and the basis of style.
In clear and simple terms, Martin helps us to understand how dances are made and gives us knowledge to view the dance with the intelligence and open perspective it deserves. The content of The Dance in Theory is divided into three sections: The Nature of Movement; Form and Composition; The Basis of Style.
eBook
Dancing revolution : bodies, space, and sound in American cultural history
\"Smith's project reconfigures the understanding of public space as a site for symbolic contestation of social and political control by investigating historical moments of participatory vernacular dance. Smith focuses extensively on public venues, such as the street, dance hall, and theater, in order to analyze the ways in which participatory public dance--street dance--functioned as a tool for contesting, constructing, or reinventing social order. Utilizing individual case studies that include, in part, the God-intoxicated public demonstrations of the First Great Awakening; the Creolized antebellum theatrical and festival dance of cities as diverse as New Orleans, Albany, and Bristol; the modernism, primitivism, and racial integration of 20th century African American popular dance; and the social role of dance in contemporary transgressive communities, Smith's project spans centuries, geographies, and cultural identities. Smith contends that highly diverse groups from across a very wide span of political and cultural identities have struck upon street dance as an effective and empowering rhetorical strategy. Smith analyzes the particularly explosive contestation of gender, sexuality, race, class, and community identity that occurs when these participatory public dances occur\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Grand Union : accidental anarchists of downtown dance, 1970-1976
The Grand Union was a leaderless improvisation group in SoHo in the 1970s that included people who became some of the biggest names in postmodern dance: Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, Barbara Dilley, David Gordon, and Douglas Dunn. Together they unleashed a range of improvised forms from peaceful movement explorations to wildly imaginative collective fantasies. This book delves into the collective genius of Grand Union and explores their process of deep play. Drawing on hours of archival videotapes, Wendy Perron seeks to understand the ebb and flow of the performances. Includes 65 photographs.
eBook