Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Blurring the conventional distinction between modern dance and ballet, African American dance, gymnastics and dancing as popular entertainment, Alien Bodies looks at the way the dance of the 1920s and 1930s mediated the experience of modernity. Through an examination of work by key dancers and choreographers including Josephine Baker, Jean Borlin, George Balanchine, Katherine Dunham, Martha Graham, and Doris Humphrey, Alien Bodies shows that during the jazz age dance became a privileged site for defining the lived experiences of modernity and contributed to the creation of new desires and identities.
Synopsis
Alien Bodies is a fascinating examination of dance in Germany, France, and the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Ranging across ballet and modern dance, dance in the cinema and Revue, Ramsay Burt looks at the work of European, African American, and white American artists.
Among the artists who feature are:
* Josephine Baker
* Jean Borlin
* George Balanchine
* Jean Cocteau
* Valeska Gert
* Katherine Dunham
* Fernand Leger
* Kurt Jooss
* Doris Humphrey
Concerned with how artists responded to the alienating experiences of modern life, Alien Bodies focuses on issues of:
* national and 'racial' identity
* the new spaces of modernity
* fascists uses of mass spectacles
* ritual and primitivism in modern dance
* the 'New Woman' and the slender modern body