The American Dance Festival has been a magnet drawing together diverse artists, styles, theories, and dance training methods; from this creative mix the ADF has emerged as the sponsor of performances by some of the greatest choreographers and dance companies of our time. Jack Anderson traces the development of ADF from its beginnings in New England to its seasons at Duke University. He displays the ADF for the multidimensional creature it is—a center for performances, a school for the best young dancers in the country, and a provider of community and professional services.

From Native American dance rituals to dance in the digital age, American Dance " by critic and journalist Margaret Fuhrer " traces the richly complex evolution of dance throughout American history.

“Accessible and well researched, [combines] practical and theoretical perspectives on ways that dance shapes the American experience. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice “Unpredictable. Counterintuitive. Stunningly conceived. So you think you know dance history? These anthologies are full of revelations.”—Mindy Aloff, editor of Leaps in the Dark: Art and the World “This is a picture of American dance—and a picture of America through dance—as we have not conceived of it before, advancing the bold and capacious idea that movement can illuminate who Americans are and who they want to be. A startlingly original compilation that includes stops in the unlikeliest places, it makes the case that following the moving body into every byway of life reveals an America that has been hiding in plain sight. It will be impossible to think of this subject in the same way again.”—Suzanne Carbonneau, George Mason University and scholar-in-residence, Jacob’s Pillow Dancing embodies cultural history and beliefs, and each dance carries with it features of the place where it originated. Influenced by different social, political, and environmental circumstances, dances change and adapt. American dance evolved in large part through combinations of multiple styles and forms that arrived with each new group of immigrants. Perspectives on American Dance is the first anthology in over twenty-five years to focus exclusively on American dance practices across a wide span of American culture. This volume and its companion show how social experience, courtship, sexualities, and other aspects of life in America are translated through dancing into spatial patterns, gestures, and partner relationships. In this volume of Perspectives on American Dance, the contributors explore a variety of subjects: white businessmen in Prescott, Arizona, who created a “Smoki tribe” that performed “authentic” Hopi dances for over seventy years; swing dancing by Japanese American teens in World War II internment camps; African American jazz dancing in the work of ballet choreographer Ruth Page; dancing in early Hollywood movie musicals; how critics identified “American” qualities in the dancing of ballerina Nana Gollner; the politics of dancing with the American flag; English Country Dance as translated into American communities; Bob Fosse’s sociopolitical choreography; and early break dancing as Latino political protest. The accessible essays use a combination of movement analysis, thematic interpretation, and historical context to convey the vitality and variety of American dance. They offer new insights on American dance practices while simultaneously illustrating how dancing functions as an essential template for American culture and identity. Jennifer Atkins is associate professor of dance at Florida State University. Sally R. Sommer is professor of dance and director of the FSU in NYC program at Florida State University. Tricia Henry Young is professor emerita of dance history and former director of the American Dance Studies program at Florida State University. Contributors: Jennifer Atkins | Kathaleen Boche | Cutler Edwards | Karen Eliot | Lizzie Leopold | Julie Malnig | Adrienne L. McLean | Joellen A. Meglin | Dara Milovanovic | Jill Nunes Jensen | Marta Robertson | Lynette Russell | Sally Sommer, Ph.D. | Daniel J. Walkowitz | Sara Wolf, Ph.D. | Tricia Henry Young

A lively and intimate portrait of an unsung heroine in American dance Martha Hill (1900–1995) was one of the most influential figures of twentieth century American dance. Her vision and leadership helped to establish dance as a serious area of study at the university level and solidify its position as a legitimate art form. Setting Hill's story in the context of American postwar culture and women's changing status, this riveting biography shows us how Hill led her colleagues in the development of American contemporary dance from the Kellogg School of Physical Education to Bennington College and the American Dance Festival to the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center. She created pivotal opportunities for Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Hanya Holm, José Limón, Merce Cunningham, and many others. The book provides an intimate look at the struggles and achievements of a woman dedicated to taking dance out of the college gymnasium and into the theatre, drawing on primary sources that were previously unavailable. It is lavishly illustrated with period photographs.

Dance on the American Musical Theatre Stage: A History chronicles the development of dance, with an emphasis on musicals and the Broadway stage, in the United States from its colonial beginnings to performances of the present day. This book explores the fascinating tug-and-pull between the European classical, folk, and social dance imports and America’s indigenous dance forms as they met and collided on the popular musical theatre stage. This historical background influenced a specific musical theatre movement vocabulary and a unique choreographic approach that is recognizable today as Broadway-style dancing. Throughout the book, a cultural context is woven into the history to reveal how the competing values within American culture, and its attempts as a nation to define and redefine itself, played out through developments in dance on the musical theatre stage. This book is central to the conversation on how dance influences and reflects society, and will be of interest to students and scholars of Musical Theatre, Theatre Studies, Dance, and Cultural History.

Original essays and interviews by artists and scholars who are making, defining, questioning, and theorizing Asian American dance in all its variety.

The effort to win federal protection for dance in the United States was a racialized and gendered contest. Picart traces the evolution of choreographic works from being federally non-copyrightable to becoming a category potentially copyrightable under the 1976 Copyright Act, specifically examining Loíe Fuller, George Balanchine, and Martha Graham.