Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance / Edition 1

by Susan Leigh Foster

Overview

Winner of the Dance Perspectives Foundation de la Torre Bueno Prize

Recent approaches to dance composition, seen in the works of Merce Cunningham and the Judson Church performances of the early 1960s, suggest the possibility for a new theory of choreographic meaning. Borrowing from contemporary semiotics and post-structuralist criticism, Reading Dancing outlines four distinct models for representation in dance which are illustrated, first, through an analysis of the works of contemporary choreographers Deborah Hay, George Balanchine, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham, and then through reference to historical examples beginning with court ballets of the Renaissance. The comparison of these four approaches to representation affirms the unparalleled diversity of choreographic methods in American dance, and also suggests a critical perspective from which to reflect on dance making and viewing. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520063334
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/22/1988
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

Illustrations 
Preface 
CHAPTER ONE
Reading Dance: Composing the Choreographer, the Dancer, and the Viewer 
Deborah Hay 
George Balanchine 
Martha Graham 
Merce Cunningham 
Four Bodies and Subjects 
CHAPTER TWO
Reading Choreography: Composing Dances 
Frames 
Modes of Representation 
Styles 
Vocabularies 
Syntaxes 
Reading the Performance 
CHAPTER THREE
Readings in Dance's History: Historical Approaches to Dance Composition 
Allegorical Dance in the Late Renaissance 
Neoclassical Dance in the Eighteenth Century 
Expressionist Dance in the Early Twentieth Century 
Objectivist Dance from 1950 to the Present 
CHAPTER FOUR
Writing Dancing: The Viewer as Choreographer in Contemporary Dance 
The Grand Union 
Meredith Monk 
Twyla Tharp 
Writing Bodies and Subjects 
Notes 
Selected Bibliography 
Index 
 

Editorial Reviews

"Foster proposes a context from which the reader might make, see, or write about dance."

CHOICE

"Susan Foster is a new breed of dancer and choreographer."

New York Times

"No other dance book had posited an alternative aesthetic and historical framework beyond its own disciplinary content. In advance of the turn to the body in social theory, dance therefore became a major contributor to the rethinking of history advanced by new historicists, and an art form that could be "read" within the context of history and politics. . . . Although dance studies is a growing field for undergraduate studies, its critical status depends on texts such as Reading Dancing that can be debated more widely."

Times Higher Education

Foster posits the view that dance is a system of meaning that can be interpreted and comprehended if the viewer understands its choreographic conventions. Using the work of four 20th-century choreographersGeorge Balanchine, Martha Graham, Deborah Hay, and Merce Cunninghamby way of example, Foster compares and contrasts aesthetics of ideas, historical antecedents and models, and specifics of composition, such as style, movement vocabulary, and means of representation. The philosophical and semiotic writings of Suzanne Langer, Roland Barthes, and Michel Foucault are the bases for some of Foster's analyses. The opening chapter is excellent but as the book progresses, Foster strays from her four examples and her argument loses its clarity. Still, few books attempt to do what this one does. A specialized work recommended for large collections. Joan Stahl, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore

Library Journal