Kara Anne Gardner
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199733682
- eISBN:
- 9780190246082
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733682.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
This book explores the Broadway legacy of choreographer Agnes de Mille, from the 1940s through the 1960s. Six musicals are discussed in depth—Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, Carousel, ...
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This book explores the Broadway legacy of choreographer Agnes de Mille, from the 1940s through the 1960s. Six musicals are discussed in depth—Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, Carousel, Brigadoon, and Allegro. Carousel and Brigadoon were de Mille’s most influential and lucrative Broadway works. The other three shows exemplify aspects of her legacy that have not been fully examined, including the impact of her ideas on some of the composers with whom she worked; her ability to incorporate a previously conceived work into the context of a Broadway show; and her trailblazing foray into the role of choreographer/director. Each chapter emphasizes de Mille’s unique contributions to the original productions. Several themes emerge. First, character development remained at the heart of de Mille’s Broadway work. She often took minor characters, represented with minimal or no dialogue, and fleshed out their stories. Second, de Mille often came into conflict with her collaborators because of her strong views, but her dances added a layer of meaning that resulted in more complex final products. Finally, de Mille saw much of her choreography as an authorship and argued that she should be given the same rights as the librettist and the composer. Her work as an activist contributed to revisions in dance copyright law and the founding of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a theatrical union that protects the rights of directors and choreographers. Agnes de MilleLess
This book explores the Broadway legacy of choreographer Agnes de Mille, from the 1940s through the 1960s. Six musicals are discussed in depth—Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, Carousel, Brigadoon, and Allegro. Carousel and Brigadoon were de Mille’s most influential and lucrative Broadway works. The other three shows exemplify aspects of her legacy that have not been fully examined, including the impact of her ideas on some of the composers with whom she worked; her ability to incorporate a previously conceived work into the context of a Broadway show; and her trailblazing foray into the role of choreographer/director. Each chapter emphasizes de Mille’s unique contributions to the original productions. Several themes emerge. First, character development remained at the heart of de Mille’s Broadway work. She often took minor characters, represented with minimal or no dialogue, and fleshed out their stories. Second, de Mille often came into conflict with her collaborators because of her strong views, but her dances added a layer of meaning that resulted in more complex final products. Finally, de Mille saw much of her choreography as an authorship and argued that she should be given the same rights as the librettist and the composer. Her work as an activist contributed to revisions in dance copyright law and the founding of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a theatrical union that protects the rights of directors and choreographers. Agnes de Mille
Karen Eliot
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199347629
- eISBN:
- 9780199347643
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199347629.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Albion’s Dance was inspired by the author’s memory of her childhood ballet teacher who danced in Britain during World War Two. Dancers’ memoirs and the writings of dance critics are central resources ...
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Albion’s Dance was inspired by the author’s memory of her childhood ballet teacher who danced in Britain during World War Two. Dancers’ memoirs and the writings of dance critics are central resources for this book that asks how ballet in Britain survived during the war and how the end of war resulted in a newly refined national ballet. Exploring the so-called ballet boom during World War Two, the larger story of this book is one of how art and artists thrive during conflict, and how they respond pragmatically and creatively to privation and duress. The way ballet participated in propagandistic discourse and answered to a public mood of pragmatism and idealism are part of this story. Also considered are the distinct roles of dance critics, male and female dancers, producers, audiences, and choreographers. Each population contributed to the creation of a uniquely British ballet identity. After the war, British ballet emerged on the international stage demonstrating superb qualities of dramatic acuity, musicality, and sensitivity to the classic ballets.Less
Albion’s Dance was inspired by the author’s memory of her childhood ballet teacher who danced in Britain during World War Two. Dancers’ memoirs and the writings of dance critics are central resources for this book that asks how ballet in Britain survived during the war and how the end of war resulted in a newly refined national ballet. Exploring the so-called ballet boom during World War Two, the larger story of this book is one of how art and artists thrive during conflict, and how they respond pragmatically and creatively to privation and duress. The way ballet participated in propagandistic discourse and answered to a public mood of pragmatism and idealism are part of this story. Also considered are the distinct roles of dance critics, male and female dancers, producers, audiences, and choreographers. Each population contributed to the creation of a uniquely British ballet identity. After the war, British ballet emerged on the international stage demonstrating superb qualities of dramatic acuity, musicality, and sensitivity to the classic ballets.
Joel Lobenthal
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190253707
- eISBN:
- 9780190253745
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190253707.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Alla Osipenko is one of history’s greatest ballerinas, a courageous rebel who paid the price for speaking truth to the Soviet state. At Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet, Osipenko’s lines, shapes, and ...
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Alla Osipenko is one of history’s greatest ballerinas, a courageous rebel who paid the price for speaking truth to the Soviet state. At Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet, Osipenko’s lines, shapes, and movement both exemplified the venerable traditions of Russian ballet and projected those traditions into uncharted and experimental realms. Her sharp tongue and candid independence, as well as her almost reckless flouting of Soviet rules for personal and political conduct, soon found her all but quarantined in Russia. An internationally acclaimed ballerina at the height of her career, she had to persist against constant attempts by the Soviet state and the Kirov administration to humble her. Throughout the book, Osipenko talks frankly and freely in a way that few Russians of her generation have allowed themselves to do. The book chronicles her life to the age of eighty-two—a great-grandmother, still outspoken, and still a dynamic participant in the international world of ballet. A cast of characters drawn from all sectors of Soviet and post-perestroika society makes this biography as encyclopedic and encompassing as a great Russian novel.Less
Alla Osipenko is one of history’s greatest ballerinas, a courageous rebel who paid the price for speaking truth to the Soviet state. At Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet, Osipenko’s lines, shapes, and movement both exemplified the venerable traditions of Russian ballet and projected those traditions into uncharted and experimental realms. Her sharp tongue and candid independence, as well as her almost reckless flouting of Soviet rules for personal and political conduct, soon found her all but quarantined in Russia. An internationally acclaimed ballerina at the height of her career, she had to persist against constant attempts by the Soviet state and the Kirov administration to humble her. Throughout the book, Osipenko talks frankly and freely in a way that few Russians of her generation have allowed themselves to do. The book chronicles her life to the age of eighty-two—a great-grandmother, still outspoken, and still a dynamic participant in the international world of ballet. A cast of characters drawn from all sectors of Soviet and post-perestroika society makes this biography as encyclopedic and encompassing as a great Russian novel.
Kathleen Riley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199738410
- eISBN:
- 9780199932955
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738410.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Popular
Before ‘Fred and Ginger’, there was ‘Fred and Adele’, a show business partnership and a cultural sensation like no other. It is difficult in our ‘celebrity’-sated era to comprehend what a genuine ...
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Before ‘Fred and Ginger’, there was ‘Fred and Adele’, a show business partnership and a cultural sensation like no other. It is difficult in our ‘celebrity’-sated era to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon the Astaires were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s the siblings were seasoned transatlantic commuters, ambassadors of an art form they had helped to revolutionize, adored by audiences, feted by royalty, and courted socially by the elite in just about every field of endeavour. They seemed to define the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin’s music in motion; a fascinating pair who wove fascinating rhythms in song and dance. The story of Fred and Adele Astaire is an extraordinary one and is told here in depth and within its historical and theatrical context. It is not merely the first part of Fred’s long and illustrious career; it holds a significance and a fascination of its own, as well as having implications for Astaire’s subsequent career, which have not been fully appreciated. The story of the Astaires is also the story of an era. Born at the close of the nineteenth century, they, in effect, grew up together with the new century. Manifestly children of their time, they glamorously embodied the interwar style they had partly originated. At the same time, their appeal as performers was based largely on their apparent defiance of the darker aspects of the interwar psyche. They were an affirmation of life and hope in the midst of a prevalent crisis of faith and identity.Less
Before ‘Fred and Ginger’, there was ‘Fred and Adele’, a show business partnership and a cultural sensation like no other. It is difficult in our ‘celebrity’-sated era to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon the Astaires were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s the siblings were seasoned transatlantic commuters, ambassadors of an art form they had helped to revolutionize, adored by audiences, feted by royalty, and courted socially by the elite in just about every field of endeavour. They seemed to define the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin’s music in motion; a fascinating pair who wove fascinating rhythms in song and dance. The story of Fred and Adele Astaire is an extraordinary one and is told here in depth and within its historical and theatrical context. It is not merely the first part of Fred’s long and illustrious career; it holds a significance and a fascination of its own, as well as having implications for Astaire’s subsequent career, which have not been fully appreciated. The story of the Astaires is also the story of an era. Born at the close of the nineteenth century, they, in effect, grew up together with the new century. Manifestly children of their time, they glamorously embodied the interwar style they had partly originated. At the same time, their appeal as performers was based largely on their apparent defiance of the darker aspects of the interwar psyche. They were an affirmation of life and hope in the midst of a prevalent crisis of faith and identity.
Elizabeth Kendall
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199959341
- eISBN:
- 9780199346028
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199959341.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, Western
This book is a dual biography of the early lives of two key figures in Russian ballet: famed choreographer George Balanchine and his close childhood friend and extraordinary ballerina Liidia ...
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This book is a dual biography of the early lives of two key figures in Russian ballet: famed choreographer George Balanchine and his close childhood friend and extraordinary ballerina Liidia (Lidochka) Ivanova. Tracing the lives and friendship of these two dancers from years just before the 1917 Russian Revolution to Balanchine's escape from Russia in 1924, this book sheds new light on a crucial flash point in the history of ballet. The book weaves a fascinating tale about this decisive period in the life of the man who would become the most influential choreographer in modern ballet. Abandoned by his mother at the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet Academy in 1913 at the age of nine, Balanchine spent his formative years studying dance in Russia's tumultuous capital city. It was there, as he struggled to support himself while studying and performing, that Balanchine met Ivanova. A talented and bold dancer who grew close to the Bolshevik elite in her adolescent years, Ivanova was a source of great inspiration to Balanchine—both during their youth together, and later in his life, after her mysterious death just days before they had planned to leave Russia together in 1924. The book shows that although Balanchine would have a great number of muses, many of them lovers, the dark beauty of his dear friend Lidochka would inspire much of his work for years to come.Less
This book is a dual biography of the early lives of two key figures in Russian ballet: famed choreographer George Balanchine and his close childhood friend and extraordinary ballerina Liidia (Lidochka) Ivanova. Tracing the lives and friendship of these two dancers from years just before the 1917 Russian Revolution to Balanchine's escape from Russia in 1924, this book sheds new light on a crucial flash point in the history of ballet. The book weaves a fascinating tale about this decisive period in the life of the man who would become the most influential choreographer in modern ballet. Abandoned by his mother at the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet Academy in 1913 at the age of nine, Balanchine spent his formative years studying dance in Russia's tumultuous capital city. It was there, as he struggled to support himself while studying and performing, that Balanchine met Ivanova. A talented and bold dancer who grew close to the Bolshevik elite in her adolescent years, Ivanova was a source of great inspiration to Balanchine—both during their youth together, and later in his life, after her mysterious death just days before they had planned to leave Russia together in 1924. The book shows that although Balanchine would have a great number of muses, many of them lovers, the dark beauty of his dear friend Lidochka would inspire much of his work for years to come.
Carol Oja
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199862092
- eISBN:
- 9780199379989
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862092.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Dance
This book constructs a wide-ranging cultural history to explore the earliest stage works of Leonard Bernstein, written during World War II: the Broadway musical On the Town, the ballet Fancy Free, ...
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This book constructs a wide-ranging cultural history to explore the earliest stage works of Leonard Bernstein, written during World War II: the Broadway musical On the Town, the ballet Fancy Free, and a nightclub comedy act called The Revuers. Bernstein and his collaborators—including the choreographer Jerome Robbins and the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green—crossed artistic, political, ethnic, and racial boundaries with abandon. With the zeal of youth, these emerging artists infused their work with progressive political ideals. On the Town focused on sailors enjoying a day of shore leave, and its first production featured a mixed-race cast, contributing an important chapter to the racial desegregation of American performance. It projected an equitable inter-racial urban vision in an era when racial segregation was being enforced contentiously in the U.S. military. The show starred the dancer Sono Osato, even as her father was interned together with so many Japanese Americans. Fancy Free amiably encoded its own dissenting narratives. Based on a controversial painting by Paul Cadmus, it grew out of a complex web of gay relationships. The book explores cross fertilizations across art forms and high-low divides, drawing on intensive archival research, FBI files, interviews with surviving cast members, and previously untapped criticism in African American newspapers.Less
This book constructs a wide-ranging cultural history to explore the earliest stage works of Leonard Bernstein, written during World War II: the Broadway musical On the Town, the ballet Fancy Free, and a nightclub comedy act called The Revuers. Bernstein and his collaborators—including the choreographer Jerome Robbins and the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green—crossed artistic, political, ethnic, and racial boundaries with abandon. With the zeal of youth, these emerging artists infused their work with progressive political ideals. On the Town focused on sailors enjoying a day of shore leave, and its first production featured a mixed-race cast, contributing an important chapter to the racial desegregation of American performance. It projected an equitable inter-racial urban vision in an era when racial segregation was being enforced contentiously in the U.S. military. The show starred the dancer Sono Osato, even as her father was interned together with so many Japanese Americans. Fancy Free amiably encoded its own dissenting narratives. Based on a controversial painting by Paul Cadmus, it grew out of a complex web of gay relationships. The book explores cross fertilizations across art forms and high-low divides, drawing on intensive archival research, FBI files, interviews with surviving cast members, and previously untapped criticism in African American newspapers.
Kevin Winkler
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199336791
- eISBN:
- 9780190841478
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199336791.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Performing Practice/Studies
Bob Fosse’s work continues to be the most recognizable of the great choreographers of Broadway’s post–World War II golden age. This book offers deep analysis of Fosse’s development as a ...
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Bob Fosse’s work continues to be the most recognizable of the great choreographers of Broadway’s post–World War II golden age. This book offers deep analysis of Fosse’s development as a choreographer, including the various dance influences he absorbed as a young performer. It examines key Fosse dances and contextualizes them across his career. It looks at how he influenced changes in the musical theater, particularly as a director, and how early mentors George Abbott and Jerome Robbins shaped his theatrical outlook. It compares his work to that of peers like Robbins, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and others. The book also examines his choreography for film and looks at how his film experiences influenced his stage work. It also considers the impact of his three marriages—all to dancers—on his career. Finally, the book investigates how Fosse’s evolution as both artist and individual mirrored the social and political climate of his era and allowed him to comfortably ride a wave of cultural changes.Less
Bob Fosse’s work continues to be the most recognizable of the great choreographers of Broadway’s post–World War II golden age. This book offers deep analysis of Fosse’s development as a choreographer, including the various dance influences he absorbed as a young performer. It examines key Fosse dances and contextualizes them across his career. It looks at how he influenced changes in the musical theater, particularly as a director, and how early mentors George Abbott and Jerome Robbins shaped his theatrical outlook. It compares his work to that of peers like Robbins, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and others. The book also examines his choreography for film and looks at how his film experiences influenced his stage work. It also considers the impact of his three marriages—all to dancers—on his career. Finally, the book investigates how Fosse’s evolution as both artist and individual mirrored the social and political climate of his era and allowed him to comfortably ride a wave of cultural changes.
Mary Simonson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199898015
- eISBN:
- 9780199369683
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199898015.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often exceeded ...
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In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often exceeded these categories. Instead, their performances adopted an aesthetic of intermediality, weaving together techniques and elements drawn from a wide variety of genres and media, including ballet, art music, photography, early modern dance, vaudeville traditions, silent film, and more. Onstage and on-screen, performers borrowed from existing musical scores and narratives, referred to contemporary shows, films, and events, and mimicked fellow performers, skating neatly across various media, art forms, and traditions. The performances and conceptions of art that emerged were innovative, compelling, and deeply meaningful. This book examines these performances and the performers behind them, focusing particularly on the ways in which they negotiated turn-of-the-century American social and cultural issues, including technological developments and commodification, new modes of perception, evolving understandings of the body and the self, and shifting conceptions of gender, race, and sexual identity. Tracing the various modes of intermediality at work on- and offstage, Body Knowledge re-imagines early twentieth-century art and entertainment as both fluid and convergent.Less
In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often exceeded these categories. Instead, their performances adopted an aesthetic of intermediality, weaving together techniques and elements drawn from a wide variety of genres and media, including ballet, art music, photography, early modern dance, vaudeville traditions, silent film, and more. Onstage and on-screen, performers borrowed from existing musical scores and narratives, referred to contemporary shows, films, and events, and mimicked fellow performers, skating neatly across various media, art forms, and traditions. The performances and conceptions of art that emerged were innovative, compelling, and deeply meaningful. This book examines these performances and the performers behind them, focusing particularly on the ways in which they negotiated turn-of-the-century American social and cultural issues, including technological developments and commodification, new modes of perception, evolving understandings of the body and the self, and shifting conceptions of gender, race, and sexual identity. Tracing the various modes of intermediality at work on- and offstage, Body Knowledge re-imagines early twentieth-century art and entertainment as both fluid and convergent.
Hannah Schwadron
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190624194
- eISBN:
- 9780190624231
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190624194.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This book documents the unorthodox case of the Sexy Jewess, a distinctive figure of twenty-first-century American Jewishness. Versions of her image proliferate in US popular culture among ...
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This book documents the unorthodox case of the Sexy Jewess, a distinctive figure of twenty-first-century American Jewishness. Versions of her image proliferate in US popular culture among neoburlesque, movie musicals, comedic television, ballet parody, and progressive pornography. In embodied plays with sexed-up self-display, the Sexy Jewess revises long-standing stereotypes of the ugly hag, the insatiable Jewish mother, and the self-obsessed Jewish American princess that sustain images of excess even as they have assimilated into the American mainstream. Talking back and dancing back at these stereotypes through gender and humor rebellion, a slew of celebrity and lesser known performers play up their Jewish and female difference as self-conscious comments on their majoritarian sameness. In doing so, performers invoke the Sexy Jewess as a postassimilatory, postfeminist persona with radical and conservative effects. The introduction, five chapters, and the conclusion show how this occurs in a spectrum of spectacle embodiments across a range of performance contexts. Extending across stage and screen legacies of a hundred years, The Case of the Sexy Jewess links humor to classed ideas about sexiness and links ethnicity to gendered constructions of race. Unique to the study of American Jewishness but not limited by its scope, the book situates the body as a site of critical agency in discussions of parody and representational politics, with an emphasis on cultural appropriation and reappropriation that provokes questions applicable to a wide range of other identity acts and impersonations.Less
This book documents the unorthodox case of the Sexy Jewess, a distinctive figure of twenty-first-century American Jewishness. Versions of her image proliferate in US popular culture among neoburlesque, movie musicals, comedic television, ballet parody, and progressive pornography. In embodied plays with sexed-up self-display, the Sexy Jewess revises long-standing stereotypes of the ugly hag, the insatiable Jewish mother, and the self-obsessed Jewish American princess that sustain images of excess even as they have assimilated into the American mainstream. Talking back and dancing back at these stereotypes through gender and humor rebellion, a slew of celebrity and lesser known performers play up their Jewish and female difference as self-conscious comments on their majoritarian sameness. In doing so, performers invoke the Sexy Jewess as a postassimilatory, postfeminist persona with radical and conservative effects. The introduction, five chapters, and the conclusion show how this occurs in a spectrum of spectacle embodiments across a range of performance contexts. Extending across stage and screen legacies of a hundred years, The Case of the Sexy Jewess links humor to classed ideas about sexiness and links ethnicity to gendered constructions of race. Unique to the study of American Jewishness but not limited by its scope, the book situates the body as a site of critical agency in discussions of parody and representational politics, with an emphasis on cultural appropriation and reappropriation that provokes questions applicable to a wide range of other identity acts and impersonations.
Gay Morris and Jens Richard Giersdorf (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190201661
- eISBN:
- 9780190201692
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190201661.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This book addresses the interface between choreography and war in this century. The book challenges concepts of choreography as solely a structuring mechanism and an aesthetics of politics that is ...
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This book addresses the interface between choreography and war in this century. The book challenges concepts of choreography as solely a structuring mechanism and an aesthetics of politics that is exclusively resistant. Instead, in the context of 21st-century war, it calls for a rethinking of choreography that incorporates the disorder and dispersion of power away from nation-states, which is central to this century. The book is composed of an introduction and sixteen chapters which work across a number of disciplines through field notes, case studies, participant observations, and photographs, as well as chapters reflecting on war issues and their relationship to choreographic practices.Less
This book addresses the interface between choreography and war in this century. The book challenges concepts of choreography as solely a structuring mechanism and an aesthetics of politics that is exclusively resistant. Instead, in the context of 21st-century war, it calls for a rethinking of choreography that incorporates the disorder and dispersion of power away from nation-states, which is central to this century. The book is composed of an introduction and sixteen chapters which work across a number of disciplines through field notes, case studies, participant observations, and photographs, as well as chapters reflecting on war issues and their relationship to choreographic practices.
