Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

GREAT
ALTHOUGH I'M NOT A DANCE MAJOR, I WANTED TO HAVE A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF IT. I TOOK A DANCE CLASS THIS BOOK WAS REQUIRED, AND REALLY ENJOYED ITS HISTORY AND INFORMATION. WORTH TO ACTUALLY READ IT. ALSO ATTENDING SYNAPSES THAT WAS ENCOURAGED BY THIS BOOK.

Great overview of Ballet and Modern Dance
This is a good book offering the background of Ballet and Modern dance. It was nice to have one place to go for both, and it offers a much more extensive history than most technique books that give one page or so to history. The Ballet section focuses on the art form as a theatrical art - not information proceeding this (fine with me). There are some interesting aspects including the development of new ballet steps, costume design changes, and gender roles. Many many famous dancers/dance makers are mentioned in the book, and their contributions. I was surprised to see excerpts of writings of famous dancers/dance makers in the book - something I would be interested in.I would recommend the book, but rather suggest you buy the 2nd edition version, which offers more. I wasn't able to find the 2nd edition in hardback, only paperback.

Concise, thorough & easy to read
This book is especially interesting and easy to follow.It provides a sound overview of the history of dance with special focus on ballet and modern dance.This book introduces the novice to the legendary art of dance and captures the reader's attention with crafty storytelling.Iparticularly enjoyed the portion focusing on the history of ballet. Anderson introduces the reader to many of the individuals who shaped andpopularized this art form while providing a firm background of the originsand development of this art. This book begins with a history of dance inthe Greco-Roman era and brings the reader full circle with discussions ofrecent triumphs in dance.Anderson creates a book that is informative andthorough while presenting the reader with drawings and photographs of manyinfluential artists and great performances. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1930, dancer and choreographer Martha Graham proclaimed the arrival of "dance as an art of and from America." Dancers such as Doris Humphrey, Ted Shawn, Katherine Dunham, and Helen Tamiris joined Graham in creating a new form of dance, and, like other modernists, they experimented with and argued over their aesthetic innovations, to which they assigned great meaning.

Their innovations, however, went beyond aesthetics. While modern dancers devised new ways of moving bodies in accordance with many modernist principles, their artistry was indelibly shaped by their place in society. Modern dance was distinct from other artistic genres in terms of the people it attracted: white women (many of whom were Jewish), gay men, and African American men and women. Women held leading roles in the development of modern dance on stage and off; gay men recast the effeminacy often associated with dance into a hardened, heroic, American athleticism; and African Americans contributed elements of social, African, and Caribbean dance, even as their undervalued role defined the limits of modern dancers' communal visions. Through their art, modern dancers challenged conventional roles and images of gender, sexuality, race, class, and regionalism with a view of American democracy that was confrontational and participatory, authorial and populist.

Modern Bodies exposes the social dynamics that shaped American modernism and moved modern dance to the edges of society, a place both provocative and perilous. ... Read more

Product Description
Designed for beginning and intermediate courses, this accessible, easy-to-read text provides students with concrete, practical information on both the technical and creative aspects of modern dance. It also covers the basics of anatomy, including posture and injury concerns. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Dance
The delivery was received before the estimated ship date. The book was in very good condition.

Great Educational Resource
This is a very good book to use for level 1 Modern Dance technique class ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theaterthis dazzling book includes both original black and white and full-color photographs by Andrew Eccles. This acclaimed photographer has been documenting the company for the past twelve yearsand his breathtakingly beautiful images capture the dancers in performancebehind-the-scenesand in stunning portraits. With a preface by Judith Jamisonartistic director of the company since 1989Ailey Ascending reveals the passion and beauty of this award-winning dance troupe today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Disappointed
When I was in NYC recently, I read a review about this book in the hotel magazine.It showed some amazing color pictures of AA dance performances that led me to order this book as soon as I returned home.None of the pictures exhibited in the hotel magazine were in the book.The book contains some nice pictures, but none like those found in the hotel magazine.I was disappointed.

Dancing a Dream
Incredible book. World class photography. If you dance your passion, buy this book. It's a Revelation

Breathtaking
I recently bought this book at an Ailey performance (and got it signed by Judith Jamison!!) and paid A LOT more for it - so get it on Amazon and save some $$$!

The photos are stunning...I can't imagine any artist who wouldn't appreciate this.If you're an Ailey fan, it's a must own.If you love photography, this is so inspiring.Just get it.Now.Go!

Beautiful Pictures create Movement off the page
I really like this book.It has some magnificant artistic photos that I think are nice, and also some reviews of the works of Ailey that are also nice.

A Masterpiece in Motion
Ailey Ascending: A Portrait In Motion. My Christmas treat to myself!And I couldn't wait to tear open the package. It didn't take me long to greedily consume award winning photographer, Andrew Eccles book, Ailey Ascending A Portrait in Motion, just released by Chronicle Books. And what a treat it was!

Mr. Eccles lavish book, Ailey Ascending: A Portrait in Motion, is painted poetry in motion.A beautiful treasure trove of take your breath photography of the fine art of dance.A must have book and a must have give-gift for the holiday season.

This beautiful coffee table book; perfect for anyone who appreciates art of photography and dance. You can't go wrong!



... Read more

Product Description
Whether as performers or as spectators, more people enjoy dance today than ever before. Its extraordinary range extends from classical ballet and baroque court spectacles to avant-garde modern dance, tap, and ethnic dancing. Anyone with an interest in dance has felt the need for a guide to the art's rich history and complex present state. Susan Au's lucid text covers the entire spectrum of dance, vividly describing the great performers and performances of the past as well as exploring in detail the dance world of today. A generous selection of illustrations completes the picture, taking the reader from the palaces of the Medici to the lofts of Manhattan, from the dancing of Louis XIV to the experimental choreography of Twyla Tharp and Pina Bausch. A completely new final chapter documents the work of the chief dancers and choreographers from the 1980s to the present, covering offshoots of modern dance such as Tanztheater and Butoh, and recent developments such as performance art and site-specific choreography. The author discusses the upsurge in the popularity of dances of the past, among them ballroom dancing and the Argentine tango, and notes the revival of tap dancing as well as the successful adaptation of Irish stepdancing to the theater. In addition, she records the uses dance and dancers have made of recent technological advances, including cinedance and videodance, CD-ROMs, and the Internet. 145 illustrations and photographs, 25 in color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Book
This book is great. It is in good condition and it shipped in the allotted time given. The cost was cheaper than if I had bought it at my school's bookstore, shipping costs inlcuded.

Choose this as a reliable text or source book.
Susan Au's history of ballet & modern dance is intelligent and authoritative.Where other narrative treatments often choose details seemingly randomly, Susan Au builds the narrative from the details she proffers.Nor does she lapse into odd anecdotes often found in other narrative treatments.This book corrects some errors that have been perpetuated in earlier encyclopedic volumes.I wish she had included a short section on antiquity, as I believe that some of the inspiration for and concepts in "classical" ballet and in early modern dance derive from the rediscovery of antiquity -- but this is just quibbling.If you are going to teach 19th and 20th century Western dance history, this is a reliable way to go.

A good overview
I use this book in my ballet history course and it's a very good book for that purpose, that is, for a basic overview on the history of dance. You won't find many details on special subjects, such as specific ballets, but it's great if you want to understand the developement of ballet through the ages and know something about the people who put their marks on the ballet. Lot's of colour photgraphs. Au's use of words is sometimes a bit complicated, at least for someone who doesn't have English for a first language. But a great book. ... Read more

Product Description
At the New School for Social Research in 1931, the dance critic for the New York Times announced the arrival of modern dance, touting the “serious art” of such dancers as Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, and Doris Humphrey. Across town, Hemsley Winfield and Edna Guy were staging what they called “The First Negro Dance Recital in America,” which Dance Magazine proclaimed “the beginnings of great and important choreographic creations.” Yet never have the two parallel traditions converged in the annals of American dance in the twentieth century.Modern Dance, Negro Dance is the first book to bring together these two vibrant strains of American dance in the modern era. Susan Manning traces the paths of modern dance and Negro dance from their beginnings in the Depression to their ultimate transformations in the postwar years, from Helen Tamiris’s and Ted Shawn’s suites of Negro Spirituals to concerts sponsored by the Workers Dance League, from Graham’s American Document to the debuts of Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus, from José Limón’s 1954 work The Traitor to Merce Cunningham’s 1958 dances Summerspace and Antic Meet, to Ailey’s 1960 masterpiece Revelations.Through photographs and reviews, documentary film and oral history, Manning intricately and inextricably links the two historically divided traditions. The result is a unique view of American dance history across the divisions of black and white, radical and liberal, gay and straight, performer and spectator, and into the multiple, interdependent meanings of bodies in motion. Susan Manning is associate professor of English, theater, and performance studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman, winner of the 1994 de la Torre Bueno Prize for the year’s most important contribution to dance studies. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Harnessing the Wind: The Art of Teaching Modern Dance gives you the theoretical knowledge, the practical tips, and the inspiration to prepare the next generation of dancers to meet the demands of contemporary dance.

This book combines information about constructing and presenting a dance class with personal reflections about the art of teaching modern dance and integrating somatic theories, scientific research, and contemporary aesthetic practices. It provides new teachers with a solid theoretical base and incites experienced teachers to reexamine and revitalize their teaching.

The book asks dance instructors to make conscious choices about what, why, and how they teach. Advocating an individualistic approach, it helps teachers understand how their personal dance interests and interpretations influence their teaching styles. Part I, "The Vision," provides a philosophical perspective. It defines the role of technique and explores the delicate job of nurturing the artist during the quest for technical control. Part II, "Class Preparation," is where the planning process takes shape. This section shows how to

• set strategies and realistic goals to lay the groundwork for a carefully built progression of movement skills;
• use rituals to facilitate centering;
• safely incorporate conditioning principles into dance training, thus encouraging the development of powerful and resilient dancers;
• understand the interplay between gravity and rhythm, space and energy to shape phrasing; and
• sequence exercises effectively using helpful graphs and planning guides.

Part III, "Class Presentation," covers essential issues such as pacing, making good corrections, building images to enhance movement learning, and collaborating successfully with musicians. Finally, part IV, "Professional Concerns," embraces important issues that touch the teaching professional, such as how to objectively analyze and critique a very subjective subject—the body—and how to maintain a healthy body, mind, and spirit.

Learning Aids: Investigations and Reflections

Each chapter is followed by a series of investigations and a reflection designed to challenge and inspire students and teachers. The investigations are concise exercises that explore theories both in and out of the classroom. They cover a range of activities including writing, drawing, chart making, observing, and experiential processing. The reflections provide insight to a dancer’s world. Told through the eyes of a dance teacher, these narratives unveil the intangibles that are taught in dance, such as breathing, centering, playfulness, presence, and discipline.

Teacher Resources

The appendixes are full of practical tools, including a sample syllabus, sample grading policies, placement goals for four levels of technique, and assessment and evaluation forms.

Throughout the book, abstract and highly imagistic photographs by dance photographers Erika Dufour and William Frederking provide a powerful visual stimulus that captures mood, motion, and emotion.

This book provides dance students the information and theory necessary to begin the task of teaching. For seasoned teachers, it will inspire new questions and introduce new possibilities. Either way, readers will unleash a world of potential with Harnessing the Wind. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Modern dance
I recommend this book to seasoned as well as aspiring dance teachers. I think it broadens one's perspective on dance. I was looking for specific dance steps to incorporate in dance class. However, this gave me an even broader base in which the creative abilities can be neverending! It provides a great structure and foundation for teaching dance of creative movement or modern dance. ... Read more

Product Description
A videotape showing Kurt Jooss and Isa Partsch-Bergsohn in conversation is available with this book.
The United States took the lead in modern dance innovation during the 1960s when artists such as Martha Graham, Josea Limoan, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey and Alwin Nikolais overwhelmed European audiences. Subsequently, the New German Tanztheatre revitalized German theatre traditions with its new content and application of some of the United States modern dance techniques. This book discusses both parallels and distinctions between the history of modern dance in the United States and Germany.
Examining the problems encountered by the artist in a particular social-cultural context, Isa Partsch-Bergsohn follows the closely related and yet distinctive histories of modern dance in Germany and the United States between 1920 and 1968. She analyses the initial movement in Europe with the philosophies of Dalcroze, Laban, Wigman and Jooss, the effects of the Third Reich on the artists, the sub ... Read more

Product Description
A dance critic's essays on post-modern dance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Tripping the Post-Modern Light Fantastic
The evolution of the roughly twenty-five years of American post-modern dance is expounded upon in Sally Banes' articulate and comprehensive treatment of the period from 1960 to 1985. Pivotal characters in thishistory, of which there are several, are examined in detail, with manydescriptive passages of definitive works and happenings from the era.Post-modern, originally referring only chronologically (and vaguely) to theperiod following what we now call historical modern dance, actually hasseveral specific and revolutionary veins of philosophy and aestheticsattached to it. Well researched, Terpsichore in Sneakers has severalphotographs, choreographers' scores, charts, and notes (including somepreviously unpublished), a selected bibliography, and an alphabetical listof works by and about seminal contributors to the movement. Fascinating andenlightening reading not only for dancers, but for those interested inAmerican cultural history and anthropology. ... Read more

Product Description
A guide to the principles of dance and training developed by Lester Horton. It includes a foreword by Alvin Ailey, reminiscences of early Lester Horton technique by Bella Lewitzky, and a three-dimensional portrait of the life and work of Lester Horton by Jana Frances-Fischer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Will Review Later
I never received the item from the source I ordered so I ordered from another place...I will review it when I get it.I did get a full refund the very next day.Thank you. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (4)

Very Useful
My dance teacher uses this syllabus in class and we all love it. The different levels of exercises are perfect, as we can build upon them each week. THis is a very useful book.

glad i bought it
the principles found in the beginning lend necessary insights into the exercises that follow; great for the creative mind.

Beautiful book -mostly for dancers
This book is a true expirience, but it is definately not for beginners in dance.I am a former dancer, now choreographer.
The book gives you a more than well insight in Jose Limons work and working-methods, and contains wonderful pictures. You get facinated and humble the more you know about Jose Limon.
The examples of exercises in the book is a valuable part of it. They are carefully written down, so you can follow them. If you can read notation there is a unique part with short pieces of choreographies.
I really enjoyed to read the book. Limons work comes even more alive and shows his uniqe technique. So if you are a dancer or have a good basic in dance, the book is highly recommed.
It is one of those books you just want to add to your collection.

Jose Limon's work comes alive
This book really shows the incredible skill of Jose Limon.I am a dancer and I really enjoyed this book because it clearly showed the technique of Jose Limon. I would suggest this book to any dancer because it really gives you new perspective on some types of movement.This book really made Limon's technique and movement come alive. ... Read more

Product Description
American modern dance artist Erick Hawkins was a profound thinker, mover, and educator. In addition to creating powerful dance works, Hawkins developed a comprehensive and universal system of dance training that continues to influence dancers worldwide. The Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Technique offers a detailed explanation of typical Hawkins technique principles through an abundant variety of illustrations, photographs, and labanotations. Author Renata Celichowska provides a broad understanding of the technique including its history; philosophy; basic principles; a complete class; discussion of the integration of body, mind, and soul; works choreographed by Erick Hawkins, glossary of labanotation terms, books recommended by Hawkins, bibliography, videography, and index.

Accompanying and illustrating is a two-volume video set by the same title which includes film and video clips of Hawkins and his dancers in class, rehearsals, performance, and interviews. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The practical guide
This book is a practical guide to a better understanding of Erick Hawkins modern dance technique and your own body. I was positive surprised! ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Mindy Aloff, a leading dance critic who has written for The Nation, The New Republic, and The New Yorker, has brought together here a marvelous book of stories by and about dancers--entertaining and informative anecdotes that capture the boundless variety and richness of dance as an art, a tradition, a profession, a pastime, an obsession, a reality, and, for the dancer, an ideal.
George Balanchine is here, and so are Fred Astaire, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Savion Glover, Martha Graham, and Lola Montez, and also stars from other arts--such as Akira Kurosawa and Bob Dylan--who have spoken about dancing with wit or illumination. There are stories about Irene and Vernon Castle, Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly, Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, Paul Taylor and Mark Morris. We read about the charisma and spontaneity of Anna Pavlova, about the secret to Vaslav Nijinsky's success ("I worked like an ox and I lived like a martyr"), about George Balanchine racing to a union dispute with a bag of dimes. Many of the stories are amusing, but some are rueful, even sad, and a few are dark. Aloff concludes the volume with an essay about how dancing has been able to record its past, sometimes over centuries, and about how the art of the dancer, apparently as ephemeral in performance as cloud patterns, turns out, when conditions are hospitable, to be much more hardy and resilient than many people suppose.
A glorious promenade of stories that stretch as far back as classical times and as far afield as Japan, India, and Java, this superb collection will be treasured by everyone who loves dance, whether young or old. ... Read more