Democracy's Body offers a lively, detailed account of the beginnings of the Judson Dance Theater--a popular center of dance experimentation in New York's Greenwich Village--and its place in the larger history of the avant-garde art scene of the 1960s.
Now available in paperback, Days on Earth--originally published in 1988 (Yale University Press)--traces the dance career and artistic development of one of the founders of American modern dance.
In Always More Than One, the philosopher, visual artist, and dancer Erin Manning explores the concept of the "e;more than human"e; in the context of movement, perception, and experience.
Representations of multiracial Americans, especially those with one black and one white parent, appear everywhere in contemporary culture, from reality shows to presidential politics.
An important center of dancehall reggae performance, sound clashes are contests between rival sound systems: groups of emcees, tune selectors, and sound engineers.
From postwar efforts to end discrimination in the motion-picture industry, recording studios, and musicians' unions, through the development of community-based arts organizations, to the creation of searing films critiquing conditions in the black working class neighborhoods of a city touting its multiculturalism-Black Arts West documents the social and political significance of African American arts activity in Los Angeles between the Second World War and the riots of 1992.
Stretching from the years during the Second World War when young couples jitterbugged across the dance floor at the Zenda Ballroom, through the early 1950s when honking tenor saxophones could be heard at the Angelus Hall, to the Spanish-language cosmopolitanism of the late 1950s and 1960s, Mexican American Mojo is a lively account of Mexican American urban culture in wartime and postwar Los Angeles as seen through the evolution of dance styles, nightlife, and, above all, popular music.
Through the concept of "e;social choreography"e; Andrew Hewitt demonstrates how choreography has served not only as metaphor for modernity but also as a structuring blueprint for thinking about and shaping modern social organization.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Tingler, the Mole People-they stalked and oozed into audiences' minds during the era that followed Boris Karloff's Frankenstein and preceded terrors like Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Chucky (Child's Play).
In The Archive and the Repertoire preeminent performance studies scholar Diana Taylor provides a new understanding of the vital role of performance in the Americas.
Opening with David Mancuso's seminal "e;Love Saves the Day"e; Valentine's party, Tim Lawrence tells the definitive story of American dance music culture in the 1970s-from its subterranean roots in NoHo and Hell's Kitchen to its gaudy blossoming in midtown Manhattan to its wildfire transmission through America's suburbs and urban hotspots such as Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newark, and Miami.
In the Name of National Security exposes the ways in which the films of Alfred Hitchcock, in conjunction with liberal intellectuals and political figures of the 1950s, fostered homophobia so as to politicize issues of gender in the United States.
In Los Angeles, night after night, the city's salsa clubs become social arenas where hierarchies of gender, race, and class, and of nationality, citizenship, and belonging are enacted on and off the dance floor.
From its earliest manifestations on the street corners of nineteenth-century Buenos Aires to its ascendancy as a global cultural form, tango has continually exceeded the confines of the dance floor or the music hall.
In Skin Acts, Michelle Ann Stephens explores the work of four iconic twentieth-century black male performers-Bert Williams, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, and Bob Marley-to reveal how racial and sexual difference is both marked by and experienced in the skin.
Combining black feminist theory, philosophy, and performance studies, Sarah Jane Cervenak ruminates on the significance of physical and mental roaming for black freedom.
Open from 1942 until 1945, the Hollywood Canteen was the most famous of the patriotic home front nightclubs where civilian hostesses jitterbugged with enlisted men of the Allied Nations.
In Dust of the Zulu Louise Meintjes traces the political and aesthetic significance of ngoma, a competitive form of dance and music that emerged out of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa.
In African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics: The Lawrence Gellert Story, scholar and musician Bruce Conforth tells the story of one of the most unusual collections of African American folk music ever amassed-and the remarkable story of the man who produced it: Lawrence Gellert.
A "e;lively biography"e; of the director who choreographed Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds and more: "e;a real backstager"e; on the making of Hollywood musicals (Wall Street Journal).
Characterized by grandiose song-and-dance numbers featuring ornate geometric patterns and mimicked in many modern films, Busby Berkeley's (1895-1976) unique artistry is as recognizable and striking as ever.
A valuable new resource for the growing field of the dance
sciences, this book provides foundational knowledge for anyone who wants to
understand, apply, and conduct research with dancers.
Decolonizing contemporary jazz dance practice, this book examines the state of jazz dance theory, pedagogy, and choreography in the twenty-first century, recovering and affirming the lifeblood of jazz in Africanist aesthetics and Black American culture.
A valuable new resource for the growing field of the dance
sciences, this book provides foundational knowledge for anyone who wants to
understand, apply, and conduct research with dancers.