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Wherever ballet is taught in the world, and in whatever language, it retains one common denominator: the technical terms used are in French. This dictionary aims to prevent confusion by explaining the precise meanings of over 560 of the French technical terms used in classical ballet.
In her unique collection of the verbal language of dance practitioners and researchers, Valerie Preston-Dunlop presents a comprehensive view of people in dance: what they do, their movement, their sound, and the space in which they work - from the standpoint of the performers, choreographers, audiences, administrators, and teachers. The words and phrases of their technical and vernacular languages, which are used to communicate what is essentially a non-verbal activity, have been collected in rehearsal classes and workshops by interviews, and from published sources. In this first collection of its kind Valerie Preston-Dunlop extends her selection of verbal language to include the various social and theatrical domains of dance.
In this challenging and lively book, Ramsay Burt examines the representation of masculinity in twentieth century dance. Taking issue with formalist and modernist accounts of dance, which dismiss gender and sexuality as irrelevant, he argues that prejudices against male dancers are rooted in our ideas about the male body and male behaviour. Building upon ideas about the gendered gaze developed by film and feminist theorists, Ramsay Burt provides a provocative theory of spectorship in dance. He uses this to examine the work of choreographers like Nijinsky, Graham, Bausch, while relating their dances to the social, political and artistic contexts in which they were produced. Within these re-readings, he identifies a distinction between institutionalised modernist dance which evokes an essentialist, heroic, `hypermasculinity'; one which is valorised with reference to nature, heterosexuality and religion, and radical, avant garde choreography which challenges and disrupts dominant ways of representing masculinity. The Male Dancer will be essential reading for anyone interested in dance and the cultural construction of gender.
A unique and authoritative guide to the lives and work of prominent living contemporary choreographers. Representing a wide range of dance genres, each entry locates the individual in the context of modern dance theatre and explores their impact. Those studied include: Jerome Bel Richard Alston Doug Varone William Forsythe Phillippe Decoufle Jawole Willa Jo Zollar Ohad Naharin Itzik Gallili Twyla Tharp Wim Vandekeybus With a new, updated introduction by Deborah Jowitt and further reading and references throughout, this text is an invaluable resource for all students and critics of dance, and all those interested in the fascinating world of choreography.
The story of the emerging professionalization of classical Indian dance forms in Britain is wrought with contradictions. Though becoming increasingly popular within mainstream culture, the forms lack the clear routes to vocational training so essential for creating a dance career in the traditional sense. Towards a British Natyam uses this lens to analyze the cultural, social, and political frameworks that make a profession possible within the arts. Innovatively drawing on the work of decolonial theorists and the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Gorringe illuminates the transformative potential of a classical Indian dance profession to decenter white supremacist modes of knowledge formation and recenter pluriversality.
The long-awaited memoir from one of the most celebrated modern dancers of the past fifty years: the story of her own remarkable career, of the formative years of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and of the two brilliant, iconoclastic, and forward-thinking artists at its center—Merce Cunningham and John Cage. From its inception in the l950s until her departure in the l970s, Carolyn Brown was a major dancer in the Cunningham company and part of the vibrant artistic community of downtown New York City out of which it grew. She writes about embarking on her career with Cunningham at a time when he was a celebrated performer but a virtually unknown choreographer. She describes the heady exhi...
At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Revolutionary Bodies is the first English-language primary source–based history of concert dance in the People’s Republic of China. Combining over a decade of ethnographic and archival research, Emily Wilcox analyzes major dance works by Chinese choreographers staged over an eighty-year period from 1935 to 2015. Using previously unexamined film footage, photographic documentation, performance programs, and other historical and contemporary sources, Wilcox challenges the commonly accepted view that Soviet-inspired revolutionary ballets are the primary legacy of the socialist era in China’s dance field. The digital edition of this title includes nineteen embedded videos of selected dance works discussed by the author.
Features viewpoints from dance scholars, critics, choreographers, and dances Highlights contributions from choreographers around the globe Includes a significant range of cultural and historical contexts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries Book jacket.
The second edition of Frederick Ashton's Ballets: Style, Performance, Choreography adds two further ballets to this ground-breaking study of Frederick Ashton's choreography. It not only examines the contribution these ballets made to twentieth century dance art, but also presents a detailed account of Ashton's work and dances, demonstrating his remarkable choreographic and artistic talent. Having danced with the Royal Ballet Company during the years Ashton was Director, author, Geraldine Morris also draws on her years as an academic in the field. As well as highlighting the dances, the book explores the contribution made by Ashton's collaborators, both designers and musicians. Central is the...
From healing, fertility, and religious rituals, through theatrical entertainment, to death ceremonies and ancestor worship, the updated and revised second edition of World Dance Cultures introduces an extraordinary variety of dance forms and their cultures, which are practiced around the world. This highly illustrated textbook draws on wide-ranging historical documentation and first-hand accounts taking in India, Bali, Java, Cambodia, China, Japan, Hawai‘i, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Africa, Türkiye, Spain, Native America, South America, and the Caribbean, with this second edition adding new chapters on the Pacific Islands, Southern Africa, France, and Cuba. Each chapter covers a cert...