Milestones in Dance in the USA

Elizabeth McPherson, Elizabeth McPherson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000685329
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Dance

Embracing dramatic similarities, glaring disjunctions, and striking innovations, this book explores the history and context of dance on the land we know today as the United States of America.

Designed for weekly use in dance history courses, it traces dance in the USA as it broke traditional forms, crossed genres, provoked social and political change, and drove cultural exchange and collision. The authors put a particular focus on those whose voices have been silenced, unacknowledged, and/or uncredited – exploring racial prejudice and injustice, intersectional feminism, protest movements, and economic conditions, as well as demonstrating how socio-political issues and movements affect and are affected by dance. In looking at concert dance, vernacular dance, ritual dance, and the convergence of these forms, the chapters acknowledge the richness of dance in today's USA and the strong foundations on which it stands.

Milestones are a range of accessible textbooks, breaking down the need-to-know moments in the social, cultural, political, and artistic development of foundational subject areas. This book is ideal for undergraduate courses that embrace culturally responsive pedagogy and seek to shift the direction of the lens from western theatrical dance towards the wealth of dance forms in the United States.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Native American Dance and Engaged Resistance
• 2 An American Take on Ballet
• 3 Black Women Keep the Tempo: The Impact of Black Women on Jazz and Tap Dance in the USA
• 4 Gendered Politics and the Female Dancing Body
• 5 An Exploration of Inspiration, Imitation, and Cultural Appropriation in Dance in the USA
• 6 Dancing for Social Change in the 20th and 21st Centuries
• 7 Challenging the Distinction between Art and Entertainment: Dance in Musical Theater
• 8 Postmodern Dance: Laboratory of Rupture
• 9 On Black Dance and Postmodern Representation from Black Power to Afro-Futurist Performance
• 10 From The Serpentine to The Renegade: Milestones in Dance and Media Technology
• Appendix: Timeline
• Glossary
• Further Reading List
• Index