Illustrated with a wealth of photographs and designs for decor and costumes, most never before published, AUSTRALIA DANCES: CREATING AUSTRALIAN DANCE 1945-1965 surveys the major companies, the many smaller groups which flourished, modern dance, the beginnings of Aboriginal theatrical dance and the various teaching codes which became established. Selected works from company repertoires are discussed, making the book a rich and valuable resource for students and scholars as well as an essential addition to every dance lovers library.

Minimalism, savagery, the raw and the cooked, the primal and the pre-verbal, Elvis’s hips, The Rite of Spring . . . Earth Dances is an original investigation of how music and primitivism intersect – a dazzling journey through music and culture. With alternating chapters of criticism and interviews, including with Liza Lim and Brian Eno, composer and broadcaster Andrew Ford explores the relationship between primal forms of music and the most refined examples of the art – between passion and control. He looks at the voice, the drum, the drone and the dance, at ‘music that is in touch with something fundamental in our existence, music that seeks and rediscovers the earthy side of our nature, the primitive, the “simple, rude or rough”, and in doing so restores and resets our humanity’. ‘The perfect, knowledgeable, enthusiastic friend . . . I couldn’t put it down!’ —David Robertson ‘Much has been made of the search for the lost chord. But chords are sophisticated structures. Earth Dances documents Andrew Ford’s intrepid quest for the lost thud, and the lost scream . . . Music can’t survive without primitivism. It is the bushfire clearing overgrown and cluttered musical landscapes, paring them to essentials. This results in fresh structures, materials and practices that lead us to the place we belong.’ —Brian Ritchie, Violent Femmes, MONA FOMA ‘Earth Dances is a vivid and rarely less than astute history of the debt modern music simultaneously owes to the inheritances of tradition, and the texture of dissonance.’ —Kill Your Darlings ‘Filled with insightful musical analysis made accessible for a general audience.’ —Sydney Morning Herald

This book draws on theories of aesthetics, post-colonialism, multiculturalism and transnationalism to explore salient aspects of perpetuating traditional dance customs in diaspora. It is the first book to present a broad-ranging analysis of cultural dance in Australia. Topics include adaptation of dance customs within a post-migration context, multicultural festivals, prominent performers, historiographies and archives, and the relative positionings of cultural and Western theatrical dance genres. The book offers a decolonized appraisal of dance in Australia, critiquing past and present praxes and offering suggestions for the future. Overall, it underscores the highly variegated nature of the Australian dance landscape and advocates for greater recognition of amateur community dance practices. Cultural Dance in Australia makes a substantial contribution to the catalogue of work about immigrants and cultural dance styles that continue to be preserved in Australia. This book will be of interest to scholars of dance, performance studies, migration studies and transnationalism.

This book is an analysis of the textual representation of dance in the Australian novel since the late 1890s. It examines how the act of dance is variously portrayed, how the word 'dance' is used metaphorically to convey actual or imagined movement, and how dance is written in a novelistic form. The author employs a wide range of theoretical approaches including postcolonial studies, theories concerned with class, gender, metaphor and dance and, in particular, Jung's concept of the shadow and theories concerned with vision. Through these variegated approaches, the study critiques the common view that dance is an expression of joie de vivre, liberation, transcendence, order and beauty. This text also probes issues concerned with the enactment of dance in Australia and abroad, and contributes to an understanding of how dance is 'translated' into literature. It makes an important contribution because the study of dance in Australian literature has been minimal, and this despite the reality that dance is prolific in Australian novels.

Dances and music associated with voyages to the Pacific in the 18th century and with life in the early years of the Australian colony.

The Celestial Dancers: Manipuri Dance on Australian Stage charts the momentous journey of the popularization of Manipur’s Hindu dances in Australia. Tradition has it that the people of Manipur, a northeastern state of India, are descended from the celestial gandharvas, dance and music blessed among them as a God’s gift. The intricately symbolic Hindu dances of Manipur in their original religious forms were virtually unseen and unknown outside India until an Australian impresario, Louise Lightfoot, brought them to the stage in the 1950s. Her experimental changes through a pioneering collaboration with dancers Rajkumar Priyagopal Singh and Ibetombi Devi modernized Manipuri dance for presentation on a global stage. This partnership moved Manipur’s Hindu dances from the sphere of ritualistic temple practice to a formalized stage art abroad. Amit Sarwal chronicles how this movement, as in the case of other prominent Indian classical dances and dancers, enabled both Manipuri dance and dancers to gain recognition worldwide. This book is ideal for anyone with an interest in Hindu temple dance, Manipur dance, cross-cultural collaborations and the globalizing of Indian Classical Dance. The Celestial Dancers is a comprehensive study of how an exceptional Hindu dance form developed on the global stage.

Australians have been transported to an imaginary Spain from at least the 1830s, when cachuchas were first danced on the Sydney stage. In Take Me to Spain John Whiteoak explores the rich tapestry of Australians’ fascination with all thing Spanish, from the voluptuous sensuality of Lola Montez to operas featuring señoritas, toreadors and Gypsies, and from evocative silent and later Spain-themed Hollywood movies to the dazzlingly creative artistry of the flamenco dancers and guitarists who toured Australia in the 1960s and ’70s. Examining the diverse ways that Spanish music and dance have been mediated or hybridised to cater for Australian popular taste, this landmark study reveals how Hispanic traditions have become integral to the cultural history of the nation.