Dance

A valuable new resource for the growing field of the dancesciences, this book provides foundational knowledge for anyone who wants tounderstand, apply, and conduct research with dancers.

This succinct and engaging text explores the interdependence between theatre and dance. Making a compelling case for the significance of resisting genre distinctions in the arts, Kate Elswit demonstrates why and how the ampersand between theatre and dance needs to be understood as the rule, rather than the exception. This illuminating guide focuses on the interconnected ecosystems of practice that constitute performance history, the expansion of theatre and dance forms on contemporary North American and European stages, and the disciplinary methods that scholars use today to understand such practices, both past and present. Accessible and affordable, this is an ideal resource for theatre students and lovers everywhere.

Because dance materializes through and for people, because we learn to dance from others and often present dance to others, the moment of its transmission is one of dance's central and defining features. Valuing Dance looks at the occasion when dancing passes from one person to another as anact of exchange, one that is redolent with symbolic meanings, including those associated with its history and all the labor that has gone into its making. It examines two ways that dance can be exchanged, as commodity and as gift, reflecting on how each establishes dance's relative worth and meritdifferently. When and why do we give dance? Where and to whom do we sell it? How are such acts of exchange rationalized and justified? Valuing Dance poses these questions in order to contribute to a conversation around what dance is, what it does, and why it matters.

The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies brings together leading international dance scholars in this single collection to provide a vivid picture of the state of contemporary dance research. The book commences with an introduction that privileges dancing as both a site of knowledge formation and a methodological approach, followed by a provocative overview of the methods and problems that dance studies currently faces as an established disciplinary field. The volume contains eleven core chapters that each map out a specific area of inquiry: Dance Pedagogy, Practice-As-Research, Dance and Politics, Dance and Identity, Dance Science, Screendance, Dance Ethnography, Popular Dance, Dance History, Dance and Philosophy, and Digital Dance.Although these sub-disciplinary domains do not fully capture the dynamic ways in which dance scholars work across multiple positions and perspectives, they reflect the major interests and innovations around which dance studies has organized its teaching and research. Therefore each author speaks to the labels, methods, issues and histories of each given category, while also exemplifying this scholarship in action. The dances under investigation range from experimental conceptual concert dance through to underground street dance practices, and the geographic reach encompasses dance-making from Europe, North and South America, the Caribbean and Asia. The book ends with a chapter that looks ahead to new directions in dance scholarship, in addition to an annotated bibliography and list of key concepts. The volume is an essential guide for students and scholars interested in the creative and critical approaches that dance studies can offer.

Dance productions and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the 20th century