Dancing Class

by Tomko, Linda J.

• ISBN13: 9780253335715
• ISBN10: 025333571X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

"Tomko blazes a new trail in dance scholarship by interconnecting U.S. History and dance studies.... the first to argue successfully that middle-class U.S. women promoted a new dance practice to manage industrial changes, crowded urban living, massive immigration, and interchange and repositioning among different classes." -- ChoiceFrom salons to dance halls to settlement houses, new dance practices at the turn of the century became a vehicle for expressing cultural issues and negotiating matters of gender. By examining master narratives of modern dance history, this provocative and insightful book demonstrates the cultural agency of Progressive-era dance practices.

Author Biography

Linda J. Tomko is Associate Professor of Dance at the University of California, Riverside. She is President of the Society of Dance History Scholars and Co-Director of the annual Stanford University Summer Workshop in Baroque Dance. In 1997 she won the Gertrude Lippincott Prize, awarded by SDHS, for her article "Fete Accompli," published in Corporealities.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	9	(212)
Bodies and Dances in Progressive-era America	1	(35)
Constituting Culture, Authorizing Dance	36	(43)
The Settlement House and the Playhouse; Cultivating Dance on New York's Lower East Side	79	(25)
From Henry Street to Grand Street: Transfer and Transition to the Neighborhood Playhouse	104	(33)
Working Women's Dancing, and Dance as Women's Work: Hull-House, Chicago Commons, and Boston's South End House	137	(43)
Folk Dance, Park Fetes, and Period Political Values	180	(41)
Conclusion	212	(9)
Notes	221	(50)
Collections Consulted	271	(2)
Index	273