Alien Bodies: Representations of Modernity, 'Race' and Nation in Early Modern Dance

by Burt; Ramsay

• ISBN13: 9780415145954
• ISBN10: 0415145953
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781134758340
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1998-03-26
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

Blurring the conventional distinction between modern dance and ballet, African American dance, gymnastics and dancing as popular entertainment,Alien Bodieslooks at the way the dance of the 1920s and 1930s mediated the experience of modernity. Through an examination of work by key dancers and choreographers including Josephine Baker, Jean Borlin, George Balanchine, Katherine Dunham, Martha Graham, and Doris Humphrey,Alien Bodiesshows that during the jazz age dance became a privileged site for defining the lived experiences of modernity and contributed to the creation of new desires and identities.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Choreographing the Disturbing New Spaces of Modernity

'Savage' Dancer: Tout Paris Goes to See Josephine Baker

The Chorus Line and the Efficiency Engineers

Totalitarianism and the Mass Ornament

Dancing Across the Atlantic

American Moderns

Primitivism, Modernism and the Ritual in the Works of Mary Wigman, Katherine Dunham and Martha Graham Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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