Download or read book Errand into the Maze written by Deborah Jowitt and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2024-01-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the legendary dance critic Deborah Jowitt, Errand into the Maze is the definitive biography of the visionary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. “Deborah Jowitt chronicles a life passionately, artfully lived. An essential read about a true legend.” —Mikhail Baryshnikov In the pantheon of American modernists, few figures loom larger than Martha Graham. One of the greatest choreographers ever to live, Graham pioneered a revolutionary dance technique—primal, dynamic, and rooted in the emotional life of the body—that upended traditional vocabulary and shaped generations of dancers and choreographers across the globe. Over her sweeping career, she founded what is now the oldest dance company in the country and produced nearly two hundred ballets, many of them masterpieces. And along the way, she engaged with the major debates, events, and ideas of the twentieth century, creating works that cut to the core of the human experience. Time magazine’s “Dancer of the Century,” and the first dancer and choreographer to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Graham was a visionary artistic force and an international cultural figure: hers was the iconic face of what came to be known as modern dance. From the renowned dance writer and former longtime critic for The Village Voice Deborah Jowitt, Errand into the Maze draws on more than a decade of firsthand research to deliver the definitive portrait of this titan. Beginning with Graham’s childhood in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and her early studies at the Denishawn School; weaving in her offstage adventures, including her relationship with her dancer and muse Erick Hawkins; and chronicling her retirement from dancing at age seventy-five and her remarkably productive final years, this elegant, empathetic biography portrays the artist in all her passionate complexity. Most important, Jowitt places Graham’s creations at the heart of her story. Her works, brimming with raw intensity, are intimately linked with their creator, who played the heroine in almost all that she choreographed: Joan of Arc, Jocasta, Clytemnestra, and Judith, among others. In this volume, Graham is centerstage once more, and Jowitt casts a brilliant spotlight on her life and work.
Download or read book The Shapes of Change written by Marcia B. Siegel and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1985-05-17 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is strikingly new about Miss Siegel's achievement is that she goes beyond the usual kind of historical reassessment. . . . She performs on behalf of this most evanescent of the arts an act of significant recovery. By tracking down--often in rare stage revivals, on film or on videotape--as many of the works by major creators of the last half century as survive, and by describing them . . . in a manner that combines accuracy and imagination, she has enriched our knowledge of the past and added immeasurably, to our resent stock of critical resources."--Dale Harris, New York Times Book Review "Siegel has a gut feeling for dance and a razor-sharp intelligence about it. It's an irresistible combination."--Margaret Pierpont, Dance Magazine "After you've seen and felt dance this deeply--even vicariously--your way of looking at dance will never be the same."--William Albright, Houston Post She sees, acutely, with her muscles as well as her eyes. She thinks about dance as much as she experiences it. . . . This is dance choreography reconstituted. Dances leap off the page. . . . The ability to do that is extraordinary."--Jean Bunke, Des Moines Sunday Register "The sections in which she describes the dances themselves make up the bulk of the book and they are profoundly illuminating. . . . These descriptions represent an amazing literary, as well as critical, accomplishment, for they are both accurate and resonant, both objective and enlightening, both formal and personal."--Laura Shapiro, The Real Paper "Siegel draws on her years of experience as a working dance critic, a profession she has helped to shape, and brings to a range of American dance a sense of honesty and a mind that wants to understand the antecedents of what is currently in vogue as the dance explosion."--Iris M. Fanger, The Christian Science Monitor
Download or read book Onstage with Martha Graham written by Stuart Hodes and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-12-14 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When World War II was over, a young bomber pilot with an itch for movement and action hung up his cap and learned another way to fly. Onstage with Martha Graham is the story of Stuart Hodes, a versatile and influential dancer who got his start with Martha Graham, an icon of modern dance. His memoir is a rare firsthand view of the dance world in the 1940s and through the end of the twentieth century. One of the few male dancers in Graham’s company—and in the New York dance scene at the time—Hodes offers a unique perspective and a one-of-a-kind narrative. He describes how he fell into the art by chance, happening to walk into Graham’s studio one day. He was soon hooked. He documents his experiences, travels, passions, and loves while learning from and performing with Graham, during which time he saw most of the United States, much of Europe, and some of Asia. Advancing quickly, he eventually danced as Graham’s partner in Appalachian Spring, Deaths and Entrances, Every Soul Is a Circus, and Errand into the Maze. In his portrait of Martha Graham, who was the center of his dancing world, Hodes recounts conversations, revelations, bouts of temper and creativity, the daily ritual of deeply physical dancing, and the never-ending search for artistic validity. Direct, often humorous, and always authentic, Hodes shares his delight in dance as both hard work and a fantastic adventure.
Download or read book Martha Graham in Love and War written by Mark Franko and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often called the Picasso, Stravinksy, or Frank Lloyd Wright of the dance world, Martha Graham revolutionized ballet stages across the globe. Here, Franko reframes Graham's most famous creations by showing how she wove together strands of love passion, politics, and myth to create an American school of choreography and dance.
Download or read book Minor Histories written by Mike Kelley and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-02-06 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of writings by Los Angeles artist Mike Kelley, focusing on his own work. What John C. Welchman calls the "blazing network of focused conflations" from which Mike Kelley's styles are generated is on display in all its diversity in this second volume of the artist's writings. The first volume, Foul Perfection, contained thematic essays and writings about other artists; this collection concentrates on Kelley's own work, ranging from texts in "voices" that grew out of scripts for performance pieces to expository critical and autobiographical writings.Minor Histories organizes Kelley's writings into five sections. "Statements" consists of twenty pieces produced between 1984 and 2002 (most of which were written to accompany exhibitions), including "Ajax," which draws on Homer, Colgate- Palmolive, and Longinus to present its eponymous hero; "Some Aesthetic High Points," an exercise in autobiography that counters the standard artist bio included in catalogs and press releases; and a sequence of "creative writings" that use mass cultural tropes in concert with high art mannerisms—approximating in prose the visual styles that characterize Kelley's artwork. "Video Statements and Proposals" are introductions to videos made by Kelley and other artists, including Paul McCarthy and Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose. "Image-Texts" offers writings that accompany or are part of artworks and installations. This section includes "A Stopgap Measure," Kelley's zestful millennial essay in social satire, and "Meet John Doe," a collage of appropriated texts. "Architecture" features an discussion of Kelley's Educational Complex (1995) and an interview in which he reflects on the role of architecture in his work. Finally, "Ufology" considers the aesthetics and sexuality of space as manifested by UFO sightings and abduction scenarios.
Download or read book The Dance written by Joan Cass and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2004-12-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In dance, the choreographer creates, the dancer performs and the viewer observes. This work is a handbook for the viewer. By presenting historical and artistic perspectives of dance, dance events are made more approachable and appreciation for the art form is heightened. The choreographic components of body language, content, structure, music, design and interpretation are included. Also discussed is the development of critical reaction over time. Examples are drawn from Western theatrical dance and worldwide cultural variations. Terms are explained throughout the text, and an extensive bibliography gives sources in print and on tape for further study. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Download or read book Martha written by Agnes De Mille and published by Arrow. This book was released on 1992 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Martha Graham in Love and War written by Mark Franko and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often called the Picasso, Stravinksy, or Frank Lloyd Wright of the dance world, Martha Graham revolutionized ballet stages across the globe. Here, Franko reframes Graham's most famous creations by showing how she wove together strands of love, passion, politics, and myth to create an American school of choreography and dance.
Download or read book New York Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1985-04-08 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.
Download or read book The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World written by Fiona Macintosh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the eighteenth-century choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre sought to develop what is now known as modern ballet, he turned to ancient pantomime as his source of inspiration; and when Isadora Duncan and her contemporaries looked for alternatives to the strictures of classical ballet, they looked to ancient Greek vases for models for what they termed 'natural' movement. This is the first book to examine systematically the long history of the impact of ideas about ancient Greek and Roman dance on modern theatrical and choreographic practices. With contributions from eminent classical scholars, dance historians, theatre specialists, modern literary critics, and art historians, as well as from contemporary practitioners, it offers a very wide conspectus on an under-explored but central aspect of classical reception, dance and theatre history, and the history of ideas.
Download or read book Time and the Dancing Image written by Deborah Jowitt and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If dance itself is a way of making ideas both visual and visceral, Deborah Jowitt has discovered a literary voice in Time and the Dancing Image in which nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought, in its relation to theatrical dancing, becomes sensuous."--Sally Banes, Cornell University "The most vivid and immediately accessible serious dance book ever written. Anyone from a neophyte to an aficionado will be challenged, enlightened and delighted by Jowitt's clever juxtapositions."--Allen Robertson, Dance Editor, Time Out, London "In this brilliant book Deborah Jowitt has given us a fresh approach to dance history and criticism. Instead of seeing dance in the usual way--isolated in a windowless room, with mirrored walls--she looks to the society in which dance evolved. Using the ideas of contemporary artists and thinkers, she illuminates changing tastes--from the elegant, ethereal sylphs of the 1830s to the agonized characters in the dances today. For her reader, Ms. Jowitt opens both the eyes and the mind to the wonders of a many-faceted art."--Selma Jeanne Cohen, Editor, International Encyclopedia of Dance
Download or read book Martha Graham written by Alice Helpern and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although much has been written about the dancer and prolific choreographer Martha Graham, no publication has specifically examined her radical period, the body of innovative work from the 1930s and 40s which culminated in the full-length Clytemnestra of 1958. This publication focuses on this highly creative time in of Graham's life, providing further insight into her extraordinary career and her many contributions to the field of modern dance. Scholars for years to come will find helpful and fascinating snippets from Graham's life within these pages.
Download or read book Nietzsche s Dancers written by K. LaMothe and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-02-04 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the role Nietzsche's dance images play in his project of "revaluing all values" alongside the religious rhetoric and subject matter evident in the work of Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, who found justification and guidance in Nietzsche's texts for developing dance as a medium of religious expression.
Download or read book Poetics of Dance written by Gabriele Brandstetter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it was first published in Germany in 1995, Poetics of Dance was already seen as a path-breaking publication, the first to explore the relationships between the birth of modern dance, new developments in the visual arts, and the renewal of literature and drama in the form of avant-garde theatrical and movement productions of the early twentieth-century. Author Gabriele Brandstetter established in this book not only a relation between dance and critical theory, but in fact a full interdisciplinary methodology that quickly found foothold with other areas of research within dance studies. The book looks at dance at the beginnings of the 20th century, the time during which modern dance first began to make its radical departure from the aesthetics of classical ballet. Brandstetter traces modern dance's connection to new innovations and trends in visual and literary arts to argue that modern dance is in fact the preeminent symbol of modernity. As Brandstetter demonstrates, the aesthetic renewal of dance vocabulary which was pursued by modern dancers on both sides of the Atlantic - Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller, Valeska Gert and Oskar Schlemmer, Vaslav Nijinsky and Michel Fokine - unfurled itself in new ideas about gender and subjectivity in the arts more generally, thus reflecting the modern experience of life and the self-understanding of the individual as an individual. As a whole, the book makes an important contribution to the theory of modernity.
Download or read book Performing the Archive written by Wolfgang Schneider and published by Georg Olms Verlag. This book was released on 2018-09-28 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Die Studie «Performing the Archive» dokumentiert die Ergebnisse eines ersten Forschungsprojektes, das sich mit der Archivierung Freien Theaters beschäftigt. Seit mehr als 50 Jahren haben sich in Deutschland die Freien Darstellenden Künste als «zweite Säule» der Theaterlandschaft herausgebildet. Die Überlieferung seiner künstlerischen und kulturpolitischen sowie der organisatorischen und administrativen Praxis ist zwar überwiegend noch vorhanden, befindet sich aber weit verstreut, zumeist an den Orten ihrer Entstehung, ist aber unerschlossen und vom Verfall bedroht. Mit der Studie werden konzeptionelle Grundlagen geschaffen, um einen relevanten Bestandteil des kulturellen Erbes zu sichern und zugänglich zu machen. So wie das Freie Theater aus der kritischen Selbstermächtigung und innovativen Selbstorganisation seiner Künstler*innen entstanden ist, haben sich seine organisierten Akteur*innen aus Kulturpolitik und Wissenschaft zusammengetan und mit Unterstützung des Bundes und einiger Bundesländer einen Forschungsprozess für ein Archiv des Freien Theaters initiiert, dessen umfassende Bestandsaufnahme hier vorgelegt wird. Die Studie mit ihren Erkenntnissen, Expertisen und Handlungsempfehlungen zeichnet aus künstlerischer und wissenschaftlicher sowie technologischer und rechtlicher Sicht die strukturellen Konturen eines Archivs des Freien Theaters, das als dezentrale und digitale Wissensplattform die Voraussetzungen sowohl für ein «Performing the Archive» in der Praxis wie auch für kulturpolitische Diskurse zur Weiterentwicklung der Theaterlandschaft bietet. The study ‘Performing the Archives’ documents the results of one of the first research projects to examine the archiving of the Free Theatre movement. For over 50 years the free performing arts have constituted a ‘second pillar’ of the German theatre world. The records of artistic practice, cultural policy and organisational and administrative practice certainly survive in large part, but are widely dispersed, most being in the place of their origin, have not been properly archived and indexed, and are threatened with deterioration. This study lays the conceptual foundations for securing and making available a relevant part of our cultural heritage. Just as the Free Theatre movement grew out of the critical self-empowerment and innovative self-organisation of its artists, organisers in the fields of cultural policy and academia have come together and, with the support of the German Federal Government and of some German states, initiated a research process to create an Free Theatre archive. Its comprehensive survey is presented here. The study, with its insights, expertise and recommendations for action, describes from artistic and academic as well as technological and legal perspectives the structural contours of an archive which, as a decentralised and digital knowledge platform, provides the basis required both for ‘Performing the archive’ in practice and for cultural-political discourses of the future development of the theatrical landscape.
Download or read book Merce Cunningham written by Roger Copeland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete study of the life and work of this seminal choreographerCunningham and his company remain active, with performances around the worldWill appeal to dance, theater, performance art, and American culture fans.
Download or read book Moving History Dancing Cultures written by Ann Dils and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-01 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new collection of essays surveys the history of dance in an innovative and wide-ranging fashion. Editors Dils and Albright address the current dearth of comprehensive teaching material in the dance history field through the creation of a multifaceted, non-linear, yet well-structured and comprehensive survey of select moments in the development of both American and World dance. This book is illustrated with over 50 photographs, and would make an ideal text for undergraduate classes in dance ethnography, criticism or appreciation, as well as dance history—particularly those with a cross-cultural, contemporary, or an American focus. The reader is organized into four thematic sections which allow for varied and individualized course use: Thinking about Dance History: Theories and Practices, World Dance Traditions, America Dancing, and Contemporary Dance: Global Contexts. The editors have structured the readings with the understanding that contemporary theory has thoroughly questioned the discursive construction of history and the resultant canonization of certain dances, texts and points of view. The historical readings are presented in a way that encourages thoughtful analysis and allows the opportunity for critical engagement with the text. Ebook Edition Note: Ebook edition note: Five essays have been redacted, including “The Belly Dance: Ancient Ritual to Cabaret Performance,” by Shawna Helland; “Epitome of Korean Folk Dance”, by Lee Kyong-Hee; “Juba and American Minstrelsy,” by Marian Hannah Winter; “The Natural Body,” by Ann Daly; and “Butoh: ‘Twenty Years Ago We Were Crazy, Dirty, and Mad’,”by Bonnie Sue Stein. Eleven of the 41 illustrations in the book have also been redacted.
