Customer Reviews (1)

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

Book Description

Book Description

Book 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 (1)

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

Book 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 (2)

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

Book 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

Book 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

Book 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

Customer Reviews (1)

Lots of info for beginning students and teachers
When I first began reading this book, I was astounded at the number of exercises that were given in the opening chapters.While I did know how to execute most of the exercises it was so helpful to have everything written down in plain english.As I continued reading I enjoyed the detail that Aileene Lockhart used in describing things like spatial relationships, planning performances, etc.My copy is pretty old but it is still filled to the brim with information that a seasoned teacher or a first year teacher could use.The one and only reason I didn't give this book five stars was because of the illustrations in the book.Beautiful pictures abound here but the line drawings here are horrible.I got confused every time I looked at them and I ended up just reading the exercise description two or three times to make sure I was doing the right thing.If there is ever another edition of this marvelous book the only thing to improve upon is the line drawings. ... Read more

Download Description
Modern Dance Techniques and Teaching is truly one of a kind: it is the only book to be published documenting Martha Graham's movement philosophy, as recorded by two of Graham's original followers. The purpose of the book, according to its authors, is "to analyze, illustrate and organize for teaching purposes some of the vocabulary (techniques) of modern dance to provide a reference and aguide for teachers and students of modern dance."

The book is divided into three sections: Dance Warm-ups: Floor and Standing; Dance Exercises: Floor and Standing; Dance Techniques: Floor, Standing, Space.Dance Warm-ups presents the bounces, extensions and stretches; Dance Exercises offers arm patterns, knee bends, foot and leg exercises; Dance Techniques contains simple to complex examples of dance vocabulary as mediums for expression. The space techniques are divided into jumps, leaps and falls. The text discusses the principles of modern dance as logical precepts for correct body education and both general and specific interpretations of creative dance.

Modern Dance Techniques and Teaching features thirty-nine pages of step-by-step instructional illustrations, each of which comprises three to fourteen photographs. The techniques described in the text and visual aids are applicable to all sizes and levels of classes. Includes 39 illustrations. ... Read more

Book Description
Readers can learn about such interesting after-school hobbies as dance, cheerleading, and band. Each book includes a history of the activity, along with tips for getting involved and improving on skills. ... Read more

Book Description
CONTRIBUTORS: Jose Limon, Anna Sokolow, Erick Hawkins, Donald McKayle, Alwin Nikolas, Pauline Koner, Paul Taylor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Insight into the Minds Behind Modern Dance
Like most of the new artistic modes at the beginning of the twentieth century, modern dance took the established norms prevalent at the time and broke them into pieces. Yet over the years, modern dance itself becamefragmented and could not be recognized as the unified form of balleticopposition it had once been. Not only did modern dance change, but people'sideas about what modern was also changed. This book consists of sevendifferent third generation modern dance choreographers describing theirseven different beliefs of what modern dance really is. From Anna Sokolow'sideas of rebellion to Alwin Nikolais' ideas of abstraction, these writtentestaments to the lives of the some of the most innovative and importantchoreographers of the century allow us to see what lies behind dance and togain insight into what modern dance was, is, and can be. ... Read more

Book Description
Your Move: A New Approach to the Study of Movement and Dance establishes a fresh and original framework for looking at dance. In examining the basic elements of dance - the Alphabet of Movement - and using illustrations of movement technique and notation symbols it provides a new way to see, to teach and to choreograph dance. This book gives a list of primary actions upon which all physical activity is based, focusing on both the functional and expressive sides of movement.
It draws upon the author's broad experience in ballet, modern and ethnic dance to reinterpret movement and to shed new light on the role of movement in dance. Your Move is an important book not only for dancers but also for instructors in sport and physical therapy. Each copy of Your Move comes complete with exercise sheets, which can also be purchased separately. A teacher's guide has also been designed providing notes on each chapter, approaches to the exploration of movement, interpretation of the reading studies, additional information of motif description and answers to the exercise sheets. An optional audio cassette, with music written and recorded especially for use with the book, is also available. ... Read more

Book 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