The Routledge Dance Studies Reader »

Alexandra Carter is Professor in Dance Studies at Middlesex University. She edited The Routledge Dance Studies Reader (1998) and Rethinking Dance History (2004). A sole-authored book on gender and ballet in the Victorian music halls was published in 2005. She is on the Editorial Board of Dance Theatre Journal and Dancelines (Research in Dance Education).

Janet O'Shea is Associate Professor in World Arts and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles. Her book At Home in the World: Bharata Natyam on the Global Stage (University of Wesleyan Press, 2007) received the Association for Asian Studies First Book Subvention Award.

The Routledge Dance Studies Reader represents the range and diversity of writings from the 1980s and 1990s, providing contemporary perspectives on ballet, modern dance, postmodern 'movement performance' jazz, South Asian dance and Black dance.
In an enlightening introduction, Alexandra Carter traces the development of dance studies internationally and surveys current debates about the methods and methodologies appropriate to the study of dance. The collection is divided into five sections, each with an editorial preface, and featuring contributions by choreographers, performers, critics and scholars of dance and related disciplinary fields. The sections address:

• choreographing

• performing

• writing criticism

• the place of dance in history and society

• analysing dance works Includes selections by: Joan Acocella, Ramsey Burt, Arlene Croce, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Lynn Garafola, Shobana Jeyasingh, Ted Polhemus and Yvonne Rainer.