A Dancer In The Dust

A story of guilt, murder and politics set in Africa and New York from the acknowledged master of psychological suspense. Twenty years ago, Ray Campbell was an idealistic aid worker in Africa. He fell in love there with Martine, a local farmer, who tried to make Ray see that all actions have consequences. But he couldn't, not until it was too late... When a friend from his time in Africa is found dead in a New York alley, Ray is forced to return to a past he's spent a lifetime trying to forget...

Dance in Palestine has a history as complex and contentious as the land itself. Whether dismissed as bacchantic madness by Bible tourists in the 19th Century, revived and glorified by Zionists, Pan-Arabists and Palestinian Nationalists in the 20th Century, or rejected by Islamic Reformists in the 21st Century, dance in Palestine has a rich and elusive story that remains to be told. 'Raising Dust' traces one dancer's journey into Palestine's past and present. Through historical archives, the memories of dancers of yesteryear and into today's vibrant performing arts scene, Nicholas Rowe shows how dance has acted as a barometer of social change, a forum for debate and a means of expressing forbidden ideas. Far from apolitical, this most physical of art forms has often defined the political mood of the day. Sumptuously illustrated, the author provides a unique, rare and compelling cultural history of dance in Palestine.

Everyone deserves a second chance–and another dance. Tamsin Cooper's career as a Parisian showgirl is coming to an end. Nearly thirty, with no boyfriend and no prospects of a family of her own, she decides to take up her inheritance–her Uncle Ted's cattle farm in Queensland. Farm life seems to be suiting her until Tamsin discovers that Uncle Ted had a secret–and her sexy neighbour Angus Walker helped him keep it. Faced with losing her farm and her heart, Tamsin returns to what she knows best, dancing, and starts teaching the residents of Elliott's Crossing how to get in touch with their inner showgirl. She may have the dance moves, but can she shimmy past a forty–year–old lie and a betrayal of lost love to find her place–and rediscover love–in this country town?

This “beautifully written and elegantly plotted” thriller from the Edgar Award–winning author of The Chatham School Affair is “one of his best ever” (The Globe and Mail, Toronto). Twenty years ago, Ray Campbell was a well-intentioned aid worker dedicated to improving conditions in Lubanda, a newly independent African country. Now a cautious risk-management consultant, he is forced to reconsider that year of living dangerously when an old friend is found murdered in a New York alley. Signs suggest that this recent tragedy is rooted in a more distant one—that of Martine Aubert, the only woman Ray ever loved, whose fate he’d sealed with a grievous mistake: “In Rupala, twenty years before, I had rolled the dice for a woman who was not even present at the table, and how on the outcome of that toss, a braver and more knowing heart than mine had been forfeited.” Martine Aubert was a white, native Lubandan farmer whose dream for her homeland put her in conflict with fearsome men intent on its so-called development. As Ray returns to Lubanda to investigate the cause of his friend’s murder, he also revisits the passion he’d once felt for Martine and vows, in her memory, to rectify his wrongs. A Dancer in the Dust is a gripping story of ill-fated love: one man’s love for an extraordinary woman, and one woman’s love for her troubled country. “Not since John Le Carré’s The Mission Song have I seen such a loving and sorrowful portrait of modern Africa.” —The News & Observer (Raleigh)

This book explores the origins of Butoh in post-war Japan through orality and transmission, in conjunction with an embodied research approach. The book is a gathering of seminal artistic voices – Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima, Yukio Waguri, Moe Yamamoto, Masaki Iwana, Ko Murobushi, Yukio Suzuki, Takao Kawaguchi, Yuko Kaseki, and the philosopher, Kuniichi Uno. These conversations happened during an extended research trip I made to Japan to understand the context and circumstances that engendered Butoh. Alongside these exchanges are my reflections on Butoh’s complex history. These are primarily informed by my pedagogical and performance encounters with the artists I met during this time, rather than a theoretical analysis. Through the words of these dancers, I investigate Butoh’s tendency to evade categorization. Butoh’s artistic legacy of bodily rebellion, plurality of authorship, and fluidity of form seems prescient and feels more relevant in contemporary times than ever before. This book is intended as a practitioner's guide for dancers, artists, students, and scholars with an interest in non-Western dance and dance history, postmodern performance, and Japanese arts and culture.

"When a friend from his time in Africa is found murdered in a New York alley, Ray Campbell returns to the African homeland of the only woman he ever loved in pursuit of answers--still haunted by her murder twenty years ago and believing there is a connection between the two murders"--

In Dust of the Zulu Louise Meintjes traces the political and aesthetic significance of ngoma, a competitive form of dance and music that emerged out of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Contextualizing ngoma within South Africa's history of violence, migrant labor, the HIV epidemic, and the world music market, Meintjes follows a community ngoma team and its professional subgroup during the twenty years after apartheid's end. She intricately ties aesthetics to politics, embodiment to the voice, and masculine anger to eloquence and virtuosity, relating the visceral experience of ngoma performances as they embody the expanse of South African history. Meintjes also shows how ngoma helps build community, cultivate responsible manhood, and provide its participants with a means to reconcile South Africa's past with its postapartheid future. Dust of the Zulu includes over one hundred photographs of ngoma performances, the majority taken by award-winning photojournalist TJ Lemon.