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Schrifttanz was one of the most interesting and important journals of the Expressionist dance movement in Germany in the 1920s and 30s. With the suppression of the movement during the Nazi period and the destruction of much relevant archive material during the subsequent war, Schrifttanz provides a unique opportunity for insight into the ideas and artists of the time. Here are presented, translated into English, selected articles from the journal by authors including Rudolf von Laban, Mary Wigma...

Vera Volkova was central to the European ballet world for almost four decades as advisor, friend and, above all, teacher to iconic figures from dancers Margot Fonteyn, Erik Bruhn and Rudolf Nureyev to choreographers Sir Frederick Ashton and John Neumeier. Having inspired British ballet in its early years with her profound understanding of classical ballet, she revived and transformed the moribund Royal Danish ballet, working with that company for almost 25 years.Invitations to teach in the U.S.A...

Margot Fonteyn began life on the 18th of May, 1919 in Reigate, Surrey, as plain Peggy Hookham. She ended it on the 21st of February, 1991, as Prima Ballerina Assoluta, Dame of the British Empire and the most legendary dancer since Pavlova. Meredith Daneman, with her own extensive background in ballet, tells Fonteyn’s story in vivid prose with insight and sensitivity. Drawing upon extensive research, countless interviews, and exclusive access to never-before-seen letters and diaries—including t...

This new collection of essays surveys the history of dance in an innovative and wide-ranging fashion. Editors Dils and Albright address the current dearth of comprehensive teaching material in the dance history field through the creation of a multifaceted, non-linear, yet well-structured and comprehensive survey of select moments in the development of both American and World dance. This book is illustrated with over 50 photographs, and would make an ideal text for undergraduate classes in dance...

David Hallberg, the first American to join the famed Bolshoi Ballet as a principal dancer and the dazzling artist The New Yorker described as “the most exciting male dancer in the western world,” presents a look at his artistic life—up to the moment he returns to the stage after a devastating injury that almost cost him his career. Beginning with his real-life Billy Elliot childhood—an all-American story marred by intense bullying—and culminating in his hard-won comeback, Hallberg’s “moving and...

Lighting Dance pioneers the discussion of the ability of lighting design to foreground shadow in dance performances. Through a series of experiments integrating light, shadow, and improvised dance movement, it highlights and analyses what it advances as an innovative expression of shadow in dance as an alternative to more conventional approaches to lighting design. Different art forms, such as painting, film, and dance pieces from Loie Fuller, the Russell Maliphant Dance Company, Elevenplay, Pi...

During the past thirty years, Native American dance has emerged as a visible force on concert stages throughout North America. In this first major study of contemporary Native American dance, Jacqueline Shea Murphy shows how these performances are at once diverse and connected by common influences.   Demonstrating the complex relationship between Native and modern dance choreography, Shea Murphy delves first into U.S. and Canadian federal policies toward Native performance from the late ninet...

The Art of Movement is an exquisitely designed, beautifully produced book that captures the movement, flow, energy, and grace of many of the most accomplished dancers in the world. These are the artists, from all walks of life, who are defining dance today. Here they are frozen in time in the most exquisite poses, and yet there's a feeling of movement in every photograph that makes the appear to be dancing across the pages. Accompanying the photographs are intimate and inspiring words from the d...

Daria Klimentova has been one of Britain's best-loved ballerinas for two decades, having danced at Scottish Ballet and then - since 1996 - as a Principal and Senior Principal at English National Ballet. Her repertory encompasses all of ballet's classic roles including the double role or Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. Her performances as the white and black swan at the Royal Albert Hall were the subject of a behind-the-scenes BBC Documentary in 2011. Daria was born in the former Czechoslovakia and l...

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 autho...

The Legat Legacy brings back into print two classic works that offer rare insights into the golden age of Russian ballet. The first, Ballet Russe: Memoirs of Nicolas Legat, takes readers into the last three decades of the Imperial Ballet before the 1917 Russian Revolution. Written by Nicolas Legat (1869–1937), one of the great creative geniuses of classical ballet, these memoirs recount Legat's experiences as principal dancer before he fled to Europe to escape the Russian Civil War. The book is...

After a career with the New York City Ballet, Mary Helen Bowers created Ballet Beautiful, a fitness and lifestyle program inspired by ballet s artistry and athleticism. Designed to give anyone a ballerina body, Bowers s targeted exercises tone and lengthen muscles, develop good posture, and teach grace in movement. Since launching in 2008, Bowers and her training have been sought after by celebrities and models (Alexa Chung, Liv Tyler, and Miranda Kerr, to name a few), as well as thousands of wo...

In this challenging and lively book, Burt examines the representation of masculinity in twentieth century dance. The Male Dancer has proven to be essential reading for anyone interested in dance and the cultural construction of gender.