Performing Arts : Dance

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 a guide for teachers and students of modern dance." more...

Price: $11.95

Although originally published in 1965, this edition of The Dance in Theory was republished in 1989 as the same text with a new introduction by Jack Anderson. The Dance in Theory reprints the first third of John Martin's seminal 1939 book, Introduction to the Dance. It presents Martin's analysis of the theoretical underpinnings of modern dance, including a discussion of the nature of movement, form and composition, and the basis of style. more...

Price: $9.95

Pre-Classic Dance Forms supplies its readers with complete historical descriptions of 16th and 17th century dances. For the student of music and dance, Horst offers a brief, readable introduction to this important era of dancing and its customs and styles and shows how the early dances influenced the growth of modern dance in this century. The book is illustrated with period artwork and photographs of dancers from the 16th, 17th and early 20th century. more...

Price: $10.95

Anna Halprin pioneered what became known as ''postmodern dance,'' creating work that was key to unlocking the door to experimentation in theater, music, Happenings, and performance art. This first comprehensive biography examines Halprin's fascinating life in the context of American culture--in particular popular culture and the West Coast as a center of artistic experimentation from the Beats through the Hippies. Janice Ross chronicles Halprin's long, remarkable career, beginning with the dancer's grandparents--who escaped Eastern European pogroms and came to the United States at the turn of the last century--and ending with the present day, when Halprin continues to defy boundaries between artistic genres as well as between participants and observers. As she follows Halprin's development from youth into old age, Ross describes in engrossing detail the artist's roles as dancer, choreographer, performance theorist, community leader, cancer survivor, healer, wife, and mother. Halprin's friends and acquaintances include a number of artists who charted the course of postmodern performance. Among her students were Trisha Brown, Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, Meredith Monk, and Robert Morris. Ross brings to life the vital sense of experimentation during this period. She also illuminates the work of Anna Halprin's husband, the important landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, in the context of his wife's environmental dance work. Using Halprin's dance practices and works as her focus, Ross explores the effects of danced stories on the bodies who perform them. The result is an innovative consideration of how experience becomes performance as well as a masterful account of an extraordinary life. more...

Price: $27.96

Anna Paskevska offers new ways to understand the ballet vocabulary in terms of the most recent recent understanding of the body and how it moves. more...

Price: $26.95