Contemporary Dance

The Essential Guide to Contemporary Dance Techniques explores the multifaceted learning processes and underlying principles behind the technical skills and abilities of a contemporary dancer. The depth and complexity of this challenging sensorial, intellectual, reflective and creative process is presented with clarity, to support every training dancer in achieving the most from their learning experiences. Insights into three major technical forms: Graham technique, Cunningham technique and Release-based technique, reveal the distinct approaches, processes and experiences possible in contemporary dance training. Essential technical and performance considerations are covered, including: breath; alignment; core activation; connectivity; dynamic qualities of motion; use of the body; use of space; action and finally, relationships to the audience. With personal contributions from respected teachers at top dance institutions, this practical guide offers a unique insight into the expectations and processes of professional training classes as well as the success you can achieve with them. With images from real-life technique classes and dynamic performances, this is an essential companion for all contemporary dance students.

This book argues that contemporary dance, imagined to have a global belonging, is vitiated by euro-white constructions of risk and currency that remain at its core. Differently, the book reimagines contemporary dance along a “South-South” axis, as a poly-centric, justice-oriented, aesthetic-temporal category, with intersectional understandings of difference as a central organizing principle. Placing alterity and heat, generated via multiple pathways, at its center, it foregrounds the work of South-South artists, who push against constructions of “tradition” and white-centered aesthetic imperatives, to reinvent their choreographic toolkit and respond to urgent questions of their times. In recasting the grounds for a different “global stage,” the argument widens its scope to indicate how dance-making both indexes current contextual inequities and broader relations of social, economic, political, and cultural power, and inaugurates future dimensions of justice. Winner of the 2022 Oscar G. Brockett Prize for Dance Research

This engaging and unpretentious introduction to contemporary dance explores the discipline in all its facets, from opera to hip-hop and from circus skills to fashion. A chronology of the key dates in the history of dance, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, provides context on how the art form has evolved over time.

Moving Relation explores the notion of touch in the realm of contemporary dance. By closely analyzing performances by well-known European and American choreographers such as Meg Stuart, William Forsythe, Xavier Le Roy, Jared Gradinger and Angela Schubot, this book investigates their usage of touch on the level of movement, experience and affect. Building on the proposition that touch is more than the moment of bodily contact, the author demonstrates the concept of touch as an interplay of movements and multiple relations of proximity. Egert employs both depth, using close descriptions and analyses of dance performances with theoretical investigations of touch, with breadth, working across the fields of performance and dance studies, philosophy and cultural theory. Suitable for scholars and practitioners in the fields of dance and performance studies, Moving Relation uses a process-oriented notion of touch to reevaluate key concepts such as the body, rhythm, emotional expression, subjectivity and audience perception.

The lens of dance can provide a multifaceted view of the present-day Cuban experience. Cuban contemporary dance, or tecnica cubana as it is known throughout Latin America, is a highly evolved hybrid of ballet, North American modern dance, Afro-Cuban tradition, flamenco and Cuban nightclub cabaret. Unlike most dance forms, tecnica was created intentionally with government backing. For Cuba, a dancing country, it was natural--and highly effective--for the Revolutionary regime to link national image with the visceral power of dance. Written by a dancer who traveled and worked in Cuba from the 1970s to the present, this book provides an inside look at daily life in Cuba. From watching the great Alicia Alonso, to describing the economic trials of the 1990s "Special Period," the author uses history, humor, personal experience, rich description and extensive interviews to reveal contemporary life and dance in Cuba.

This transdisciplinary study scientifically reports the way the established contemporary dance sector in Europe operates from a micro-perspective. It provides a dance scholarly and sociological interpretation of its mechanisms by coupling qualitative data (interview material, observations, logbooks, and dance performances) to theoretical insights. The book uncovers the sometimes contradicting mechanisms related to the precarious project-oriented labor and art market that determine the working and living conditions of contemporary dance artists in Europe’s dance capitals Brussels and Berlin. In addition, it examines how these working and living conditions affect the work process and outcome. From a sociological perspective, the book engages with the relevant contemporary social issue of precarity and this within the much-at-risk professional group of contemporary dance artists. In this regard, the research brings novelty within the subject area, particularly by employing a unique methodological approach. Although the research is initially set up in a specific geographical context and within a specific research population, the book offers insights into issues that affect our neoliberal society at large. The research findings show potential to make a relevant contribution with regards to precarity within dance studies and performance studies, but also labor studies and cultural sociology.

The choreographies of Bill T. Jones, Cleveland Ballet Dancing Wheels, Zab Maboungou, David Dorfman, Marie Chouinard, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and others, have helped establish dance as a crucial discourse of the 90s. These dancers, Ann Cooper Albright argues, are asking the audience to see the body as a source of cultural identity — a physical presence that moves with and through its gendered, racial, and social meanings. Through her articulate and nuanced analysis of contemporary choreography, Albright shows how the dancing body shifts conventions of representation and provides a critical example of the dialectical relationship between cultures and the bodies that inhabit them. As a dancer, feminist, and philosopher, Albright turns to the material experience of bodies, not just the body as a figure or metaphor, to understand how cultural representation becomes embedded in the body. In arguing for the intelligence of bodies, Choreographing Difference is itself a testimonial, giving voice to some important political, moral, and artistic questions of our time. Ebook Edition Note: All images have been redacted.

Contemporary Dance Lighting: The Poetry and the Nitty-Gritty dynamically guides students toward aesthetically, creatively, and skillfully becoming lighting designers for dance in the 21st century. The book is organized in three parts, covering everything from the aesthetic considerations of lighting for dance to the tools and technology designers use to create compelling artistry. Part I, "Beginnings" establishes context, explaining the structure of the book and illuminating the history of contemporary dance and lighting. Part II, "The Poetry" elaborates on the key artistic and aesthetic elements of contemporary dance lighting: visual narrative; controllable functions and qualities of light; use of space, color, and time; importance and intricacies of collaboration; and continual effects and evolution of technology. Part III, "The Nitty-Gritty" steers students through the technical knowledge and skills necessary to design lighting, including understanding your tools and positioning instruments; creating layered light plots; organizing extensive paperwork; and archiving. The dance Artifice, choreographed by Jerry Pearson, is sequentially explored throughout the book to convey key concepts. "Further Reflections" conclude each chapter, written by a diverse group of renowned professionals, inviting young designers directly into the world of lighting design. This textbook is for use in Lighting Design and Design for Dance Lighting courses at the university level, along with professional training programs.