For Your Reading Pleasure
Balcony Press (www.balconypress.com) has the breathtaking Dance in Cuba by author and photographer Gil Garcetti. He has photographed dancers on the streets, in the studio, onstage and in repose, unposed and in natural conditions, and as a result has created one the best books on dance and dancers, in addition to a rare one on the art in Cuba. There are occasional, profound comments by dancers and company directors in the book, but each photograph really speaks volumes on its own. You will want one to give, and one to keep.
Human Kinetics (www.HumanKinetics.com) offers Dance Composition Basics - Capturing the Choreographer's Craft by Pamela Anderson Sofras. This book/DVD combination was created for dance students taking beginning choreography and dance composition. Sofras studied choreographers as they created new works. As she wrote in the Preface, "I would go home and translate the process I witnessed into lessons of graduated difficulty. By analyzing the different choreographic concepts I had just seen, I was able to break down and sequence choreographic tasks." This has resulted in a book that will give budding choreographers experience in the tools of this art by giving them problems to solve to help increase the skills needed. The five chapters of Body, Space, Time, Energy and Choreographic Devices, with assessment rubrics and self-evaluations throughout, will lead students surely and securely onto a firm base for their own creative endeavors.
Also from Human Kinetics is the comprehensive Teaching Dance as Art in Education, by Brenda Pugh McCutchen. She has certainly done her homework. The book is well-written, well-planned, and will be invaluable to dancers turned dance educators. There is a vast difference between teaching in a private studio and teaching in the world of education. Part I of her book takes you across what she calls "the bridge" from art to education. You will learn that there are firm standards and assessments that are built into your program and McCutchen will help you handle them. Part II helps you keep the art while dealing successfully with those educational requirements that must be met. Part III will help you organize your classes, environment, documents and more that are an important part of your work. This one is must-have even for those of us who have been in the trenches for a time.
Princeton Book Company (www.dancehorizons.com) sent a lovely trio of fine books that you will want for the sheer pleasure of reading them. Dance in Poetry, an International Anthology of Poems on Dance compiled by Aliks Raftis calls itself "the first book of its kind, an anthology of dance poems by some of the world's most noted poets." It is beautifully that. "Pavlova Dead" is particularly poignant, "The Priest's Curse on Dancing" a bit chilling, and William Butler Yeats, who gave us "O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / How can we know the dance from the dance?" in "Among School Children" has three poems about dancers you may not know. This one would be a superb gift for dancers and danseomaniacs.
History and the Morris Dance, a look at morris dancing from its earliest days until 1850, by John Cutting, (www.dancehorizons.com) is a tidy, interesting book. If you have always wondered about Morris Dancing - its origins, name, costume and more - now you know where to go to find your answers. The history may go back much farther than you think (try roots in 632 A.D./C.E.). He includes "a history of the histories," a grand dictionary in "What's in a Name?," extensive accounts of this dance from English parish records and offers his version for us to enjoy.
Ivor Guest has The Paris Opera Ballet (www.dancehorizons.com) which will be the definitive book on this shrine of ballet. Guest's works are without question in accuracy and elegance of prose. He was commissioned by the Paris Opera to write a history of its ballet. This is its first English edition. It is well-illustrated. There is a photo of the ill-fated Emma Livry in costume for the part that would cost her her career and her life, and a heavenly painting of Carlotta Zambelli that every balletomane will wish a copy of. As always, his appendixes are treasures in themselves - a list of the ballets produced at the Opera, principal dancers, choreographers and guest artists with the Opera, and a list of the ballets performed more than 100 times at the Opera. Add it to your Christmas list now.
In a previous series of reviews, Dancer introduced you to photographer Lorraine Chittock and her cats, animal dancers have a natural affinity towards. Cat lovers and dancers will want the paperback Cairo Cats - Egypt's Enduring Legacy (www.CairoCats.com), photos of her encounters with the elegant, loved, revered, prolific creatures. Poems, sayings and excerpts from Arabic writers such as Naguib Mahfouz enhance this beautiful book.