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Dance History(s)
Imagination as a Form of Study
Wesleyan Dance
Edited Annie-B Parson , Thomas DeFrantz
Sales Date: 2024-04-09
320 Pages, 5.37 x 7.75 in, 210 b&w halftones
A multivoiced dance history book, authored by twelve diverse choreographers
In an effort to deepen our understanding of what dance is and how it has functioned throughout human history, this prismatic book project is dedicated to an artist-centric perception of dance history. Diverse dance artists from the American dance field contribute personal views of how dance has unfolded over time, answering the question: "Who is in your imaginary dance family tree, FROM the beginning of time to YOU/now?"
Twelve illustrated booklets, each written by a working choreographer, address the subject of dance history from nonacademic, subjective, poetic perspectives. The books model a way of enlarging and complicating how we view dance history by giving the authorial microphone to artists, to learn how their embodied perceptions relate to or diverge from the dominant dance canon.
With contributions by mayfield brooks, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Keith Hennessy, Bebe Miller, Okwui Okpokwasili, Eiko Otake, Annie-B Parson, Javier Stell-Fresquez, Ogemdi Ude, Mariana Valencia, and Andros Zins-Browne.
Published by Big Dance Theater, Dancing Foxes Press, and Wesleyan University Press with support of the Howard Gilman Foundation and Virginia and Timothy Millhiser.
ANNIE-B PARSON is a choreographer and artistic director of Big Dance Theater. Parson has also made choreography for rock shows, marching bands, symphonies, movies, museums, objects, augmented reality, and people: David Byrne, David Bowie, St. Vincent, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendy Whelan, Laurie Anderson, Nico Muhly, Jonathan Demme, and the Martha Graham Dance Co. THOMAS F. DEFRANTZ is professor at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and director of SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture, Technology, a research group that explores emerging technology in live performance applications. DeFrantz received the Outstanding Research in Dance award from the Dance Studies Association in 2017.