Dances that Describe Themselves by Susan Leigh Foster

Dances that Describe Themselves by Susan Leigh Foster

During an improvised performance, both dancers and audience members reflect on how the dance is being made. They ask themselves: What will happen next? What choices will each dancer make? And how will these decisions contribute to the overall effect and significance of the performance? Trained as a jazz pianist, Richard Bull did not uphold the opposition often found in dance between improvisation and composition. Instead, he believed that dancers, like jazz musicians, could craft a piece spontaneously in performance. Analyzing performances by Bull and many of his contemporaries, Susan Foster argues that their diverse practices embody distinctive values representative of different artistic communities, yet they all share a capacity to reflect on their own making, in a sense, describing themselves.

Susan Leigh Foster is a UCLA professor of choreography, history, and body ideas. The National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller and Jerome Foundations have all supported her work. M.A., Dance, University of California, Los Angeles; Ph.D., History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz; B.A., History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz; M.A., Dance, University of California, Los Angeles; B.A., History of Consciousness, University of California Swarthmore College, Anthropology. She has toured the United States, Canada, and Europe with multiple solo shows.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780819565518
ISBN 10	0819565512
Title	Dances that Describe Themselves
Author	Susan Leigh Foster
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Wesleyan University Press
Year published	2002-10-04
Number of pages	352
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.