Dance Books Research Articles

The principles of feminist dramaturgical thinking in dance and performance

This text is offering an overview of principles of feminist dramaturgical thinking, that have been identified and used in research on feminist dramaturgy through theoretical and practical work on the performance Still to Come, a Feminist Pornscape. Some of the principles are: the principle of bell hooks, the principle of relationality, the principle of significant otherness, the principle of negative capability, the principle of critters, and they can be related to a variety of aspects of politics and ethics in artistic practice. The text is an ending chapter of The Feminist Pornscapes, on Feminist Dramaturgical Thinking in Dance and Performance Practice book and is intentionally only sketching the current reach of the proposed principles with the wish to welcome the reader into a conversation, to pave the way for more thorough elaborations that are still to come.

MCFEE, GRAHAM. Dance and the Philosophy of Action: A Framework for the Aesthetics of Dance. Binstead, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books Ltd., 2018, 342 pp., £25.00 paper.

MCFEE, GRAHAM. Dance and the Philosophy of Action: A Framework for the Aesthetics of Dance. Binstead, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books Ltd., 2018, 342 pp., £25.00 paper.

Mark Morris: Musician-Choreographer

Mark Morris: Musician-Choreographer by Stephanie Jordan is unusual in many ways, and there are hardly any volumes to which it can be compared. That alone sets this study apart from other recent titles on choreographers and their works. Jordan's book was published by Dance Books; yet, it is about music more than anything else—a choreographer's relationship to music, his formation and evolution as a dancer and dancemaker through music, the exploration of music through dance, and eventually Mark Morris's arrival in music as a conductor.

Stacey Prickett, Embodied Politics. Dance, Protest and Identities, Dance Books, 2013, 296 pp., £20.00 (pbk). ISBN: 9781852731663.

Stacey Prickett, <i>Embodied Politics. Dance, Protest and Identities</i>, Dance Books, 2013, 296 pp., £20.00 (pbk). ISBN: 9781852731663.

Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia by Christina Ezrahi. 2012. Pitt Series in Russian and Eastern European Studies. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press &amp; Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books. 322 pp., illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $27.95.

Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia by Christina Ezrahi. 2012. Pitt Series in Russian and Eastern European Studies. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press &amp; Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books. 322 pp., illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $27.95.

Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia. By Christina Ezrahi. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press; Dance Books Ltd., 2012. xiv, 322 pp. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. $27.95, paper.

Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia. By Christina Ezrahi. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press; Dance Books Ltd., 2012. xiv, 322 pp. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. $27.95, paper. - Volume 73 Issue 1

The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding by Graham McFee. 2011. Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books Ltd. xvii + 342 pp., appendix, bibliography, notes, index. $34.95 paper.

The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding by Graham McFee. 2011. Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books Ltd. xvii + 342 pp., appendix, bibliography, notes, index. $34.95 paper.

Poetics of Contemporary Dance by Laurence Louppe. Translated by Sally Gardner. 2010. Alton, UK: Dance Books. 265 pp. including notes, bibliography, index. $39.95 cloth.

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Nordic Folk Dances as Imaginary Geographies

Geography is a feature that typically belongs to the realm of folk dance. Folk dances are often defined as belonging to a certain region, and it is seldom they are considered a result of artistic creativity. In the Nordic countries, folk dancers have co-operated intensively since the early twentieth century, sharing dances with each other. In this presentation, I am arguing that this co-operation has created imaginative geographies of the Nordic region, filled not with landscapes, terrains, or water systems, but with movements, holds, and music. As an example, I will present two Nordic folk dance books from the 1960s. In these books, dances are attached to certain geographical areas, which is not merely contextual information but also entails stylistic features of a specific dance. Most dances are connected to a certain parish, and in some cases the province is mentioned, as well. In practice, for most folk dancers, the names of the areas do not have much significance as material domain, but they are elements of a map of a danced region, and as such the dances are a part of imaginative geographies, performed spaces. Following the British geographer Derek Gregory, I see folk dances as a continuation of performances that necessarily creates novelty, which allows one to experience spaces differently. The books are danced atlases presenting the Nordic region as a series of performed spaces. They address how the Nordic region has been represented in a danced form, emphasizing affiliation and unity, as well as distinction and disjointedness.

Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham by Dee Reynolds Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham Reynolds Dee Dance Books , Alton, Hampshire

Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham by Dee Reynolds Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham Reynolds Dee Dance Books , Alton, Hampshire

Stravinsky Dances: Re-Visions across a Century. by Stephanie Jordan. 2007. Alton, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books Ltd. x, 604 pp., photographs, music and dance notation illustrations. £50.00 cloth.

Stravinsky Dances: Re-Visions across a Century. by Stephanie Jordan. 2007. Alton, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books Ltd. x, 604 pp., photographs, music and dance notation illustrations. £50.00 cloth.

Translating Laurence Louppe

In the light of the increasing corporatisation of academic publishing in English, this paper draws on my experience of translating French critic Laurence Louppe's Poetique de la danse contemporaine (Brussels, 1997) into English (Dance Books, forthcoming 2010) to reflect cross-linguistically upon the need to maintain a diversity of linguistic perspectives and resources in dance commentary. Just as the dancer and the choreographer use each other to learn from the “translation” that their respective bodies and moves represent for each other, so the process of textual translation can provoke a more acute awareness of issues regarding the relationship between language and the complexities of dance experiences. Louppe emphasises that one of the insights of contemporary dance has been that “the body” is not simply a support for verbal language but can have its own, different, communicative modalities. In the light of this, Louppe's own literary poetics seeks in return to mine the etymological layers of her language – and to activate its anthropological roots in sensuous existence. My article discusses the conceptual resources upon which Louppe draws, including those drawn from the modern dance heritage, her own philosophical erudition and literary poetics, and the resources specific to the French language (as these emerge through my perspective from within English) in order to articulate issues of change, corporeality and mobility. This discussion is undertaken in relation to specific terminological and metaphorical examples and makes comparisons with the writings of Isadora Duncan.

Strange Fish - The Struggle with the Angel: A Poetics of Lloyd Newson's Strange Fish by Janet Adshead-Lansdale. 2007. Alton, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, Ltd. 258 pp., bibliography, and index. $44.95 paper.

Strange Fish - The Struggle with the Angel: A Poetics of Lloyd Newson's Strange Fish by Janet Adshead-Lansdale. 2007. Alton, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, Ltd. 258 pp., bibliography, and index. $44.95 paper. - Volume 42 Issue 1

Philosophy and the Bodily Arts

and I wouldn't know what the spirit of a philosopher might more want than to be a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his art, and finally also his only piety […]. Friedrich Nietzsche, Th...

Philosophical aesthetics and the study of dance as an academic discipline

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. For a thoughtful and thought‐provoking paper on the concept of a degree, what counts as academic study, etc,. see Best (1980 Best, D. 1980. A policy for the study of physical education and human movement. The Journal of Human Movement Studies, 6: 336–347. [Google Scholar]). 2. See, for example, Binkley (1976 Binkley, T. 1976. “Deciding about art”. In Culture and art, Edited by: Aagaard‐Mogensen, L. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. [Google Scholar]). 3. This is not to discount the possibility of accompaniment being provided by an individual or individuals other than the choreographer alongside the composing of the movement. Nevertheless, decisions as to its suitability at every stage do require time on her/his part (and if s/he does not take ultimate responsibility, difficult problems must arise here when it comes to evaluation). 4. See, for example, Griffiths (1965 Griffiths, A. P. 1965. “A deduction of universities”. In Philosophical analysis and education, Edited by: Archambault, R. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. [Google Scholar]). 5. See Schaper (1983 Schaper, E. 1983. “The pleasures of taste”. In Pleasure, preference and value, Edited by: Schaper, E. London: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). 6. The valuable work of David Best in recent years, however, should not go unmentioned. 7. This sort of doubt, it might be said, typically assails the ‘man in the street’ confronted by anything new in the arts. My point here is that even for those accustomed to radical departures from what has previously been accepted as art (or dance, music, etc.) perhaps expecting to be surprised, shocked, disturbed, and so on, new dances sometimes seem retrogressive rather than progressive in terms of art; and that this is often confirmed by what choreographers say about their work. See Redfern (1983 Redfern, B. 1983. Dance, art and aesthetics, London: Dance Books Ltd. [Google Scholar]). 8. See, for example, the chapter on Deborah Hay in Banes (1980 Banes, S. 1980. Terpsichore in sneakers: post‐modern dance, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. [Google Scholar]). 9. In a Radio 4 ‘Kaleidoscope’ programme, July, 1981. 10. See, however, Sircello (1975 Sircello, G. 1975. A new theory of beauty, Princeton: University Press. [Google Scholar]). 11. See Stolnitz (1960 Stolnitz, J. 1960. Aesthetics and the philosophy of art criticism, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. [Google Scholar]). 12. See Scruton (1979 Scruton, R. 1979. The aesthetics of architecture, London: Methuen. [Google Scholar]) and Tanner (1977 Tanner, M. 1977. Sentimentality. The Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LXXVII: 127–147. [Google Scholar]).

The Espinosas: A Dancing Dynasty, 1825–1992

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Notes 1. “Léon Espinosa (1825–1903): The Story of a Great Dancer,” told by his son, Edouard Espinosa, The Dancing Times, December 1942, pp. 104–6. 2. Quoted in Lillian Moore, “Léon Espinosa in America,” The Dancing Times, March 1951, pp. 333–5. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. August Bournonville, My Theatre Life, trans. Patricia McAndrew (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1979), p. 622. 6. “Biographical Sketch of Espinosa, dancer at the Theatre Royal Princess's,” The Era, February 3, 1861. Written expressly for The Era. 7. Gayle I. Kassing, “Dance on the St. Louis Stage, 1850–1870,” doctoral dissertation, Texas Woman's University, 1978. 8. Quoted in Moore, “Léon Espinosa in America.” 9. Ibid. 10. British Ballet Organisation (BBO), Espinosa Archives. 11. “Biographical Sketch,” The Era, February 3, 1861. 12. Norwich Mercury, May 31, 1856. 13. Edouard Espinosa, Obituary of [his mother] Madame Léon Espinosa, The Dancer, 1931. 14. Bournonville, My Theatre Life, p. 611. 15. The Era, September 29, 1867. 16. The Era, December 29, 1867. 17. Karl Fyodorovich Valtz, Sixty-five Years in the Theatre, quoted in Vera Krasovskaya, The Russian Ballet. 18. Natalia Roslavleva, Era of the Russian Ballet (London: Gollancz, 1966), p. 94. 19. Ibid., p. 96. 20. Valtz, Sixty-five Years. 21. Vera Krasovskaya, Problems of Literature (in Russian, 1959). 22. Edouard Espinosa, And Then He Danced: The Life of Espinosa by Himself, presented by Rachel Ferguson (London: S. Low, Marston, 1948), p. 213. 23. Jules Rivière, My Musical Life and Recollections (London: S. Low, Marston, 1893). 24. And Then He Danced, pp. 1–2. 25. Jane Pritchard, “Collaborative Creations for the Alhambra and the Empire,” Dance Chronicle, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2001, p. 79. 26. Brian Rees, Camille Saint-Saëns (London: Chatto & Windus, 1999), pp. 225–6. 27. Edward Gordon Craig, Henry Irving (London: J. M. Dent, 1930). 28. A. J. Pischl, “The Madison Square Garden Ballet,” Dance Magazine, April 1968. 29. Ibid. 30. And Then He Danced, p. 35. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., p. 107. 33. The Stage, December 24, 1903. 34. Walter James Macqueen-Pope, Nights of Gladness (London: Hutchinson, 1956), p. 169. 35. Hesketh Pearson, The Last Actor Managers (London: White Lion, 1950). 36. Kathrine Sorley Walker, Ninette de Valois: Idealist without Illusions (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987), p. 4. 37. And Then He Danced, p. 127. 38. Ivor Guest, Ballet in Leicester Square: The Alhambra and the Empire (London: Dance Books, 1992), p. 143. 39. Phyllis Bedells, My Dancing Days (London: Phoenix House, 1954), p. 76. 40. Quoted in Jeremy Dibble, Charles Villiers Stanford: Man and Musician (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 41. Pearson, The Last Actor Managers. 42. Ernest Short, Theatrical Cavalcade (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1942). 43. British Ballet Organisation, Espinosa Archives. 44. Bedells, My Dancing Days, p. 114. 45. And Then He Danced. 46. British Ballet Organisation, Espinosa Archives, unidentified and undated press notices in scrapbook. 47. Ibid. 48. The Dancing Times, September 1924. 49. Ibid., July 1925. 50. Morning Post (London), September 4, 1934. 51. British Ballet Organisation, Espinosa Archives. 52. Ballet, January 1947, p. 17. 53. Sydney Morning Herald, August 24, 1918. 54. Letter in The Dancing Times, August 1921, pp. 356–7. 55. Articles in The Dancing Times, July 1921, pp. 781–2 and 785–87, respectively. 56. Article in The Dancing Times, August 1921, pp. 861–2. 57. The Dancing Times, April 1949. 58. Alicia Markova, quoted by Tony Barlow, “Dame Alicia Markova,” British Ballet Organisation, 70th anniversary, 1930–2000 (souvenir book). 59. Letter from P. J. S. Richardson to Edward Kelland Espinosa, August 29, 1958. British Ballet Organisation, Espinosa Archives. 60. Letter from Arthur Franks to Edward Kelland Espinosa, September 25, 1959. British Ballet Organisation, Espinosa Archives. 61. And Then He Danced, p. 66.

Ashton and MacMillan in Fairyland: Contrasting Styles in Le Baiser de la Fée

choreographer for the Vic-Wells Ballet is surprising. The story is complicated and the initial performance of the work, by the Ida Rubinstein company in 1928 with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska, had mixed reviews.3 Ashton knew this well?he had danced the role of a peasant in it?but he felt that the problem was caused by the ungainly dancing of Rubinstein, who played the Fairy.* He chose the ballet because he loved the score and, in an article written in November 1935, he hinted that the music as op posed to the story would take precedence.4 If Baiserwas an unlikely story for Ashton to tackle, it was even more so for Kenneth MacMillan, whose scorn for fairy stories is well known.5 But he, too, was drawn to the music and mounted his version in 1960, later reworking it for a revival in 1986. According to Lynn Seymour, who danced the Bride, her first major role for MacMillan, "Baiser was Kenneth's homage to Frederick Ashton."6 And she points out that because of the earlier Ashton version in which Margot Fonteyn danced the role of the Bride, many critics drew parallels between the Ashton-Fonteyn partnership and that of MacMillan and herself. But forming celebrated dance partnerships

Book Review: Movement Awareness and Creativity Leah Bartal, Nira Ne?eman Princeton, New Jersey Hampshire:Dance Books 2001 179 pages. $21.95.

Book Review: Movement Awareness and Creativity Leah Bartal, Nira Ne?eman Princeton, New Jersey Hampshire:Dance Books 2001 179 pages. $21.95.

Isadora: A Sensational Life by Peter s&gt; Kurth (review)

REVIEWS 727 collection of clearly written essays, based on recent research, and including some usefulwebsites,will be welcome. If it helps to bolsterthe studyof Tolstoi in UK Russian departmentsit will be doublywelcome. Department ofEuropean Studies andModern Languages MICHAEL PURSGLOVE University ofBath Kurth, Peter. Isadora. A Sensational Life.Little, Brown and Company, London, 2002. xiii + 652 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Index. ?25.00. THE life and art of the American dancer Isadora Duncan (i877-I927) were intimately connected with Russia. Isadora first visited the country in 1904, and eventually established her Moscow Dance School in I921 , before embarking upon a tempestuous marriage with the poet Sergei Esenin. Seventy-five years after her death, Isadora remains a controversial figure, whose pioneering art and flamboyant life continue to fascinate authors in America and in Russia. SubstantialAmerican monographs in recent years include FredrikaBlair's sympathetic biography, Isadora:Portrait of theArtistAs A Woman (New York, I986), Lillian Loewenthal's conscientious study, The Search for Isadora.The Legend andLegacy ofIsadora Duncan(Pennington,NJ, I993), and the splendidly illustrated volume, Life IntoArt: IsadoraDuncanand Her World(ed. Dor~e Duncan, Carol Pratland Cynthia Splatt,New Yorkand London, I993). Isadora has fared less well, however, in Russia, where the commercial marketsince I989 haslargelybeen floodedby translationsof English-language worksof the I920S and 1930s, such as Isadora'sautobiography,MyLife(New York, I927), and the memoirs of Irma Duncan and Allan Ross Macdougall, Mary Desti and Lola Kinel. Some 'original' Russian-language booklets do little more than rehash familiar material about the stormy relationship between Isadora and Esenin. Such, for instance, are the inessential offerings by Nonna Golikova (Istoriia liubvi.Aisedora Dunkan.Sergei Esenin, Moscow, I998) and by N. E. Makarova (Sergei Esenini Aisidora [Aisedora] Dunkan, in the series 'Legendy liubvi', Minsk, I999). A welcome exception is the wide-ranging, informative anthology, Aisedora:Gastroliv Rossii (comp. T. S. Kasatkina, Moscow, I992). Any foreboding aroused by the subtitleof PeterKurth's new biography ('A SensationalLife')is immediatelydispelledby the author'scalm and measured tone. Isadora is an impressivelythorough, scholarlyyet readable presentation of the dancer's life, supportedby copious illustrationsand over sixtypages of meticulous notes. Kurth declares at the outset: 'This is not a "dance book". Isadora needs rescuing from dancers more particularly, from dance scholars,whose ideas on her impact and contributionto the artrisefrequently to a brilliance of their own but who speak in a language she didn't know, about a subjectshe dismissedout of hand' (p. x). By perusingand evaluatinga mass of published and archival material, Kurth has achieved the fullest and most indispensablebiographyof IsadoraDuncan. The narrative proceeds at an unhurried pace, in six parts and thirty chapters, from Isadora'sbirth in San Franciscoto her death, fiftyyears later, 728 SEER, 8I, 4, 2003 in Nice. The inexpressibly horrible death of her two children in I9I3 is movingly related (pp. 293-302), and her lesbian affair with Mercedes de Acosta in I926-27 is briefly chronicled (pp. 523-27, 543-44). Rightly, the author seeks not to obtrude, although he is not afraid to voice judicious criticism where necessary. Thus, the waywardly brilliant Gordon Craig is exposed in all his awful egoism (pp. I35, I8o, 2I3), while Isadora herself is shown as reprehensiblyracist at times (p. 325, see also pp. 352, 385). Isadora has often been idolized as inspired, exalted, intelligent, cultured, instinctive, emotional, radical and undaunted. Kurth fair-mindedly also quotes a withering counter-claim by Max Eastman, who saw Isadora as 'a smatterer and a mental dilettante':'She had made a cult of impulse and impracticality, rapture and abandon. She had dimmed her own native good sense, drugged her cerebrumconsistently,all her life long, with romantic notions of what her classicart, and artin general, demanded and consistedof' (p. 363). Concerning Isadora and Esenin, this biography offers valuable new informationby quoting extractsfrom the diaryof Irma Duncan (pp. 6iI- I3) and the manuscript memoirs of Joseph U. Milward (see, for instance, PP. 442-43, 452-53, 455, 472, 477, 479). There is the occasional error or misprint. Thus, bosonozhka is wrongly rendered as bozonzhka (p. I5i) and boznozhka(p. 152), dingy(p. 424) is Isadora's approximation of the non-slang word den'gi(money), and Roslavleva is persistentlymisspelled as Roslasleva (PP. 58 I-82, 593...

The Student Dancer: Emotional Aspects of the Teaching and Learning of Dance, by Julia Buckroyd. 2000. London: Dance Books. x + 243 pp., appendices, bibliography, index. $24.95 paper.

The Student Dancer: Emotional Aspects of the Teaching and Learning of Dance, by Julia Buckroyd. 2000. London: Dance Books. x + 243 pp., appendices, bibliography, index. $24.95 paper.