Authors: Trenton Hamilton and Kathy Campbell

Description: From soaring ballet leaps to the simple swaying at a high school prom, dance is the wedding of movement to music. It is a means of recreation, of communication--for the purpose of expressing an idea or emotion, releasing energy, or simply taking delight in the movement itself. This engaging narrative, with biographical profiles, discusses Western dance as an art form, a folk tradition, and an entertainment spectacle. It examines the wide ranging dance types, including some of ancient rituals, Christian dance ecstasies, court and folk dances, ballet, social dances, the waltz, ballroom, tap, modern dance, and break and hip-hop dancing.

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Authors: Jacqueline Shea Murphy

Description: In this first major study of contemporary Native American dance, Jacqueline Shea Murphy shows how these concert performances are at once diverse and connected by common influences.Illustrating how Native dance enacts cultural connections to land, ancestors, and animals, as well as spiritual and political concerns, Shea Murphy challenges stereotypes and offers new ways of recognizing the agency of bodies on stage.

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Authors: Melinda Buckwalter

Description: Composing while Dancing: An Improviser's Companion examines the world of improvisational dance and the varied approaches to this art form. By introducing the improvisational strategies of twenty-six top contemporary artists of movement improvisation, Melinda Buckwalter offers a practical primer to the dance form. Each chapter focuses on an important aspect of improvisation including spatial relations, the eyes, and the dancing image. Included are sample practices from the artists profiled, exercises for further research, and a glossary of terms. Buckwalter gathers history, methods, interviews, and biographies in one book to showcase the many facets of improvisational dance and create an invaluable reference for dancers and dance educators.

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Authors: Erick Hawkins and Alan Kriegsman

Description: The Body is a Clear Place is a collection of ten intelligent, lyrical essays that serve as a testament to Erick Hawkins' long career in dance. The last two essays were written especially for this volume while the first eight essays were collected from speeches, statements and articles Hawkins has written. The essays are framed by a foreword written by Alan Kriegsman. Essay titles are: The Rite in Theatre; Theatre Structure for a New Dance Poetry; Modern Dance as a Voyage of Discovery; Questions and Answers; The Body is a Clear Place; My Love Affair with Music; Inmost Heaven, or The Normative Ideal; Dance as a Metaphor of Existence; The Principle of a Thing; Art in Its Second Function. Accompanying the text is a photo section illuminating Hawkins' work as a dancer and choreographer from his early years on. He has created an aesthetic of movement based on the notions that art can exist both for its own sake and as a means towards deeper enlightenment; that dance is a metaphor for existence; that all body movement contributes to the moment-to-moment wonder of living. Philosopher, experienced performer and pithy observer of the American modern dance scene, this elder spokesman for modern dance-who Anna Kisselgoff calls "the poet of modern dance"-challenges us to revolutionize our responses to movement and dance. Includes 12 illustrations.

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Authors: Drid Williams

Description: In examining ideokinesis and its application to the teaching and practice of dancing, Drid Williams introduces readers to the work of Dr. Lulu Sweigard (1895-1974), a pioneer of ideokinetic principles. Drawing on her experiences during private instructional sessions with Sweigard over a two-year span, Williams discusses methods using imagery for improving body posture and alignment for ease of movement. Central to Williams's own teaching methods is the application of Sweigard's principles and general anatomical instruction, including how she used visual imagery to help prevent bodily injuries and increasing body awareness relative to movement. Williams also emphasizes the differences between kinesthetic (internal) and mirror (external) imagery and shares reactions from professional dancers who were taught using ideokinesis. Williams's account of teaching and practicing ideokinesis is supplemented with essays by Sweigard, William James, and Jean-Georges Noverre on dancing, posture, and habits. Teaching Dancing with Ideokinetic Principles offers an important historical perspective and valuable insights from years of teaching experience into how ideokinesis can shape a larger philosophy of the dance.

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Authors: Audrey DeAngelis and Gina DeAngelis

Description: Since its introduction in the 1970s, hip-hop has become a way of life. This title takes an inside look at hip-hop dance. Hip-Hop Dance examines the origins of many styles of hip-hop dance, such as breaking and locking and popping, and explores how they burst into the mainstream and went global. Features include a timeline, a glossary, essential facts, references, websites, source notes, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

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Authors: Julia L. Foulkes

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.

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Publisher: Dance Media LLC

Full text coverage Aug 2001 (Vol. 5, no. 6) - present

Description: Dance Spirit beats to the pulse of the teen dance world. The hottest up-and-coming dancers, fashion, training and technique advice, plus health & fitness.

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Publisher: Springer Nature B.V.

Peer reviewed.‎

Full text coverage Mar 1997 (Vol. 19, no. 1) - present (delayed 1 year)

Description: This journal of the American Dance Therapy Association reports the latest findings in dance/movement therapy theory, research, and clinical practice. The American Journal of Dance Therapy (AJDT) presents original contributions, case material, reviews, and studies by leading educators and practitioners in the field.

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Publisher: University of California Digital Library - eScholarship

Full text coverage 2016 (Vol. 4) - present

Description: Dance Major Journal was founded in 2010 in the dance department of the University of California, Irvine. It features writing focused on the interests, issues, experiences, and concerns of dance majors, aimed at sharing information, research, advice, and points of view. DMJ welcomes conversational writing style, personal essays, new formats, humor, stories, and “answers for dance majors” (ways to explain to the outside world the value and facts of a dance education), as well as academically sound essays using clear language and lively prose.

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Publisher: Congress on Research in Dance

Peer reviewed.‎

Full text coverage Fall 1998 (Vol. 30, no. 2) - present

Description: Dance Research Journal is the longest running, peer reviewed journal in its field, and has become one of the foremost international outlets for dance research scholarship. The journal carries scholarly articles, book reviews, and a list of books and journals received.

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